Die Niederlande wollen eine Alternative zur US-amerikanischen Tomahawk-Marschflugkörper entwickeln

good, current dealer is going through mental issues and is unreliable

Isn’t propulsion a constraint? What is the solution?

Making cruise missiles isn’t rocket science… but American vendors like Williams dominate the small jet engine market.

voting for this to happen, US has shown signs to behave like an unreliable partner.

Dew it

Firing at drones and taking the lead in developing their own missles, maybe the Dutch should be ones to take the helm at leading NATO? Either way love to see it.

Do it. 5 years ago. What’s holding you back???

What’s stopping us from developing an „open-source“* European missile system every European country can, build and modify? Doesn’t sound very efficient, if every country started to develop their own system.

*Well, as open as possible considering actors like the US, Russia or China.

>If industry succeeds in presenting a design within six months, (State Secretary for Defense Gijs)Tuinman said he is prepared to commit the Ministry of Defense to purchasing the new weapon for several years to give manufacturers stable production demand. 
He explained that this Dutch system will not attempt to copy the American Tomahawk because the U.S. missile is extremely specialized and very expensive, making direct imitation unrealistic. Instead, he wants a budget version that is significantly cheaper, produced quickly, and available in large quantities to meet operational needs. 

France, which already has the naval MdCN as equivalent to (the lower end range) of the Tomahawk, is developing a land-based launcher, with test firings scheduled for 2027 or 2028. The Netherlands can just buy that from their European ally but it seems the Dutch want to develop their own alternative to both the US and French missiles.

Maybe there were some (if any at all) experimental ones in the past but not really anything mass-produced, so this could be the first Dutch-produced missile ever — *if* the idea does turn into reality.

March of the warpigs

Are there any Dutch missiles available or in development at the moment? Not sure who is going to be making this tbh.

Good idea.
Europe need to develop the types of weapons where we have the competences, and money to ensure we get a competitive weapon.

But then we need to pool our resources together, one of the main reasons we fall behind in technology development is that we are slow, develop to many competing products, and then we buy American instead.

I.e. if we do this, then all EU countries needing a cruse missile must by the European one, and we need to incremental build, test, and upgrade until we have a good weapon system. (Don’t give up and buy American)

The current Tomahawk missile is designed to sit on a ship for years, and still have a high reliability.
In a war situation this ‚gift warp‘ is not needed.

Maybe we need to develop a low cost, and a high performance variant.
In an conflict it not just a matter of having the weapons, it is also important to be able to produce a ‚good enough‘ weapon cheap in large quantities.

Investing 5 times more in R&D and manufacturing, might result in a weapon that cost 5 times less in production cost. It is too late to invest in this when you are in an conflict.

The EU, by all means, should seek independence from other countries. It is a strategic issue if the EU wants to be respected.

The limit on the Tomahawk is that it must fit in a torpedo tube (they also now have vertical tubes for efficient packaging).

Since the US has a tiny Nuke-warhead as an option, the small size of the Tomahawk conventional warhead is not a huge issue. It can very accurately penetrate deep into enemy territory and strike a high-value target.

Using conventional explosives, the T has a 1,000-lb (2200 kg) warhead and 2000-km range (approx), and the Ukrainian Flamingo has a 2,500-lb (1150-kg) warhead, and a range of 3,000 km.

In spite of the Flamingo’s explosive being 2-1/2 times bigger and the range being 50% farther, the Flamingo is cheaper. The T would be used for high-value targets such as the radar-truck that guides S400 mobile missile launchers.

With S400 defenders being blinded, waves of Flamingos could penetrate deep into Russia with no opposition.

Each expensive radar truck typically guides three or four S400 mobile launchers, which carry four missiles each. Ukraine has recently also used small cheap dummy missiles to incite the expensive S400’s to launch.

„Some“ of the Flamingo’s need better guidance, and I can see it following railroad tracks to calibrate its inertial navigation.

This whole military build-up with a shaky economic future, might be the Achilles heel that tears the EU apart. Large military build up without the financial security needed is what brought down the USSR. The EU should learn from history and gradually increase military spending and try to secure its future economy first, before leaping into the fire.

They are acting too rash, without thinking and this could cost them.

Europe should develop all the alternatives, as the US is not reliable.