Francs recalls ambassador to the US
- Thread starter lawpoke87
- Start date
Wonder what the backstory to this is. I’m guessing it has something to do with the South China Sea.
Gotta think this is more of a straw that broke the camel’s back thing. France losing a defense contract is not the end of the world. We got caught spying on all our allies a few years back and the reaction was tame compared to this.
The Australian contract for French subs was a big deal for French shipbuilding.
Why buy diesel submarines when you can have nuclear? It is not a question of what France needs but of what Australia is willing to buy.
Apparently the Aussies wanted them built in Australia to boost their employment and the Frogs sent a bunch of shipwrights to Australia... they promptly went on their month long summer vacation and then showed up late for work daily like the fashionably french do..
Massive culture clash.
They should have acted like it.
Apparently they had no sense of urgency, a continental work ethic, and a tendency to over expend.
The French have long wanted to stake a claim to being a global naval power, and in particular they wanted a presence in the Pacific. The Aussie/French deal was huge for them to get a presence in the South Pacific. They are really pissed off, and rightfully so. They now have no viable path to becoming a major naval power again anytime soon.
That said, this is an even bigger blow to China. The French subs were going to be diesel, which is noisy and have to refuel often and thus have limited range. This is the first time we have shared any nuke technology outside of the UK (who were always involved with US nuclear projects, starting with the Manhattan Project). That's HUGE. The Aussies get to patrol the South China Sea in fully stealth nuclear submarines with near unlimited range. You best believe that for as upset as the French are, the Chinese are pissed off x10.
The timing is good on that front, too, since the Chinese are dealing with a massive financial crisis and will likely be focusing inwards in the coming months rather than raising hell about this on the international stage (not that they won't make noise)
It also awards huge contracts to the US shipyards that build the things, and the client is Australian money (IE, not the US government with tax dollars!), so it is an economic win for jobs in the US.
I think it's a good move. Biden made the right call to advance US interests, even if it ruffled some feathers and made us unpopular with an ally. Biden has made mistakes, but this is what leadership looks like to me.
Our relationship with France can and will eventually be mended. They'll be sore, but cooler heads will prevail. But having the US, UK, and now the Aussies work in tandem to keep China in check in the Pacific is worth it, IMO. Chinese aspirations there need some serious pushback.
The French do have nuclear submarines and could have sold them to the Aussies. I am sure that was what they wanted all along. But France was apparently unwilling to export that technology. And for the first time ever, we were. Sucks for the French, and I do understand completely why they didn't want to sell nuclear subs. But it's a win-win for the US and the Aussies.
Diesel boats scare our navy.
In a recent war game a diesel boat sank one of our carriers.
In battle, there wouldn't really be too much difference. But if your goal is to spy and go around unnoticed into enemy ports, well.... Diesel ones might work just fine, which is why the Aussies agreed to buy them at first, but nukes are definitely better. Better range, quieter engines, and half of the volume of the sub isn't dedicated as a fuel tank which is always nice.
There's a reason the French and the US use nuclear submarines.
Thanks. I hadn't understood that the French were not selling nukes. The difference is huge.
Or skill.. if the boats driver is good.
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They are relatively short range weapons, so there is the issue of realistic reaction time. You need a super fast automated system.
The Navy has tried to build such things, but because it has to be super fast and automated, it has trouble discerning between friendly ships and actual threats like hostile submarines and torpedoes.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/torpedoes-are-hard-intercept-just-ask-navy-172384
I will add in general to this conversation that Japan has recently developed an electric submarine that is super quiet and they claim can be recharged quickly and and can stay submerged for weeks with an impressive range. It is intriguing and could even have an advantage over nukes in some ways if it is successful. It can idle with almost zero acoustic signature, and can boast high end acceleration from a dead stop, much like an electric car.
The big question mark is how reliable it will be, and if that battery performance is easy to maintain as the sub ages. Also, considering the penchant for Li Ion batteries to explode, there is a real question of safety. If the Japanese subs prove reliable and safe over the next decade or so, it could be a game changer.
There is no love lost between Japan and China, so these are another threat to China from their point of view.
The difference between radar detection ranges and sonar detections is also big. Sonar operates at the speed of sound, not light, and water conditions (turbulence, temperature layers, ship noises, etc.) can all interfere with detection and limit reaction time. Great article. Thanks for posting.
Not the type of war game I was referring to, that makes sense though. I was referring to the grand strategy “war games” that are put on by the likes of the Rand Corporation with the help of our military leaders, not mock military exercises.
Seems like, given the benefits and drawbacks listed to the “new” Stirling engine Diesel engine classes and the US nuclear subs, that our intent is to provide Australia the ability to have a much larger scope of viable operations. The new diesel subs might be less detectable, but they can’t operate far from home because of fuel limitations, which is where the Nuke’s beat them.
Youre like my son that thinks that his iRacing console makes him qualified to drive at COTA.
Thats what the Japanese said at Midway.. Lee at Gettysburg.. and Bonaparte at Waterloo....
Seemed to work for Eisenhower despite Montgomery trying his best to crap his pants.
Eisenhower was too busy being an ally... if he gave Patton gasoline and ammo the war would have ended in '44... but Ike was too concerned with a potential run for President.
Oh, you're one of those sorts of idiots.
By the way, the Japanese absolutely thought they could win a war in a single engagement. It was called Pearl Harbor. It didn't work out well for them.
Nope just a student of history... Patton would have been in Berlin if not for Marketgarden.
And the japs didnt think they coukd win the war at Pearl... but they did think that destroying our fleet would give them enough time to build a pacific fortress...
Too bad the single engagement of the doolittle raid caused them to deviate from original strategy and into another singular engagement at Midway.
The Midway engagement was chance, just as our carriers being out of Pearl Harbor was chance.
As far as Patton goes, his Army was consuming 350K to 400K gallons on gasoline a day. He ran out near Metz. He wasn't going to break through the Sigfried line in a day, no matter how much he postured that he would. Also, Market Garden didn't happen until 17 days after Patton had already run out of fuel, also the northern forces took Achen in between, so it wasn't like they were just stock piling excess fuel.
Bradley on Patton's cocamamy plan:
"I am not aware that anyone other than Patton has taken this idea seriously. Undeniably Patton had a marvelous talent for gaining ground— and headlines. Without meaning to detract from his extraordinary achievements, Patton’s great and dramatic gains, beginning in Sicily and continuing through Brittany and on across the Seine at Mantes, Melun and Troyes, had been made against little or no opposition. Until now Patton had not really had a serious fight on his hands, and I was certain that sooner or later Patton was going to have one. I was not sure how good a tactician he would be in a tough fight. None of his divisions had ever been put to the real test.
Had we backed Patton all-out, it would have been necessary to throw the full weight—all three corps—of Hodges’ battle-hardened First Army into the chase with him. That, in fact, had been the original Allied plan on a much slower timetable. The addition of Hodges’ army would have imposed a logistical demand so heavy as to preclude pursuit without pause. As I have stated often, Patton gave little or no consideration to logistics. He and Hodges might well have pursued without pause to the German border, but logistical limitations would have halted them there, perhaps for a very long time, with no real gain to us.*
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