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The
French air force held a formal ceremony last January to mark the receipt of its
first C-130J. (Photo: German Air Force)
The German air force is buying six C-130J Super Hercules that will
become part of a joint Franco-German squadron at Evreux airbase, France. Both
air forces have now said that the Airbus A400M airlifter that was previously
supposed to replace all of their C160 Transalls cannot perform all of the
required missions. France received the first of four Super Hercules last
December, two years after agreeing to a
deal with Lockheed Martin worth $650 million.
According to the formal notification on May 4 by the Pentagon’s Defense
Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), the sale to Germany will be worth $1.4
billion. It comprises three long-fuselage C-130J-30s and three KC-130J
refuelers. France bought two each of these types and may buy two more.
Germany’s aircraft will be equipped with electronic warning and warfare
systems, L3 Wescam MX-20 EO/IR imaging sensors, secure communications,
precision navigation and cryptographic equipment, and night-vision devices for
the aircrew. Europe’s two largest countries formally agreed to create the joint
squadron last October, one year after they began planning for it. They will
each contribute €110 million ($130 million) for infrastructure improvements at
the French airbase. The squadron is scheduled to achieve initial operational
capability in 2021, and be fully operational in 2024.
"The C-130J will fill a gap which will emerge with the retirement
of the aging Transall," said German air force commander Karl Muellner when
he attended a commissioning ceremony for the first French C-130J-30 last
January. A total of 29 Transalls remain in German service, but they are all
slated for retirement by 2021. Last year, the German air force website
explained that the C-130Js “will be used where the A400M is too
large. This could be, for example, evacuation missions in Africa, where
small and unpaved airfields make the use of the A400M impossible.”
Airbus has contested this
assertion, but a long list of admitted
temporary deficiencies has caused a renegotiation of the
pan-European A400M contract that is not yet fully concluded, although a slowdown in
deliveries to the six air forces has been agreed. The original
impetus for the French C-130J order was the failure of Airbus to provide
air-to-air refueling of helicopters from the A400M. But, like the UK Royal Air
Force (RAF) before them, the French and German air forces have evidently
concluded that the A400M is not agile enough to perform special-forces
missions. The RAF decided to retain its C-130Js—the first ones ever delivered
back in the late 1990s—despite agreeing to buy 25 A400Ms (since reduced to 22).
Germany has received 17 of the 60 A400Ms that it originally envisioned
(since reduced to 53). But a recent public report by the German defense
ministry revealed that of the 15 A400Ms received by the end of 2017, only three
were “operational” and only eight were “available.” In another report leaked to
the Reuters news agency last March, the ministry said that “it is not clear
whether, when and how many mature deployable A400Ms will be available with the
contractually required suite of tactical capabilities.”
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