Few years ago Germany chose to get F35 over the Rafale, with the main argument the F35 can deliver American nuclear bombs. I found it regrettable back then they chose the American system over a European one that seems to have fairly comparable capabilities.
this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2025
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The exact same happened in Belgium. They ordered F35 to replace F16 because American nukes are stored on Belgian territory. On paper there was some free market stuff about looking for the best deal, but in reality the choice was never there, it had to be American jets.
Now, I'm not overly enthusiastic about replacing USA nukes with French nukes in other EU countries. The time has probably come to properly unify an EU army as a whole, and nukes becoming a French division in a EU-defense structure, rather than a French division in a French structure 'visiting' other countries.
Makes sense. Time has come for Libre nukes !
I'm sure they did that because the ~10-15 nukes stored somewhere in German are of USA origin. The USA might still stored some more in their airbase in Ramstein.
Are the Rafale's weapon mounts and system compatible with American nukes? I wouldn't expect that.
Whether or not the Rafale can carry American nukes normally, I'm fairly confident that they could be modified to do so. Over in Ukraine, old Soviet Su-24s got modified to carry Anglo-French storm shadow missiles, and those were originally built by two groups that had way less reason to be compatible