GCAP fighter jet designers push to keep weapons, drone options open

ROME — The new sixth-generation GCAP fighter should be able to carry a wide variety of armaments and work with any number of different “Loyal Wingman” drones, a leading official on the UK-Japanese-Italy program has said.

British defense ministry official Group Captain Bill Sanders said the under-development platform needed to have a weapons bay ready to accept any armament used by the partners, by NATO and by the United States.

“Think about the lessons learned in Ukraine. As you go into a conflict you rapidly exhaust your stocks and you start to put pressure on the supply chain. What you want in that situation is the maximum ability to be able to dig into the other stockpiles and supply chains that are available,” he told Defense News on the sidelines of the International Fighter conference in Rome.

“Having a platform that can carry any NATO weapon, any U.S. weapon, any of the three nations’ weapons immediately gives the commanders in the theater flexibility,” added Sanders, who leads the UK’s Future Combat Air System (FCAS) Requirements and Concepting team which includes the GCAP program.

Sanders said another reason for weapons bay flexibility was the need to start carrying high-cost armaments at the start of a conflict to overcome enemy defenses - before needing to scale down to “dumb,” unguided bombs as those defenses became weaker.

“If we keep on using the most expensive weapons (throughout the conflict) the cost per kill, the cost per engagement is not sustainable. What we want to be able to do is start to pull apart the threads of the defensive system we are going against. We want to be in a situation where we can start to drop down the cost point of the weapons we are using,” he said.

With a flexible weapons bay, Sanders said “I can get the right weapon for the cost-per-kill ratio.”

Just as the GCAP needs to be able to use all weapons, it must be able to work with all drones known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), Sanders said.

“You have to be in a situation where, just like the weapons, the GCAP can work with what it finds. It’s no mean feat,” he said.

Analyst Douglas Barrie said building a fighter able to work with different CCAs was logical.

“I would expect the UK, Japan and Italy all have CCAs they ‘own’ which are sovereign capabilities they will use with GCAP. Whether they eventually coalesce around a shared platform is an interesting question but at the moment they seem to be going independently because it gives you more choice, more flexibility,” said Barrie, a senior fellow for military aerospace at the IISS think tank.

The dawn of the era of Collaborative Combat Aircraft was a recurring theme at this year’s International Fighter Conference.

Turkish officials discussed how they might match a CCA with the 20 Eurofighters Turkey agreed to purchase last month.

Jorge Tamarit-Degenhardt, CEO of the Eurofighter, said he was concerned that adapting the fighter to work with numerous CCAs picked by different customers could prove costly.

“Can we develop CCA integration in different configurations in different countries? We cannot do everything at the same time. We don’t have infinite resources,” he said.

Tom Kington is the Italy correspondent for Defense News.

罗马——英国、日本和意大利联合研制的第六代GCAP战斗机的一位高级官员表示，新型GCAP战斗机应该能够携带多种武器，并能与多种不同的“忠诚僚机”无人机协同作战。

英国国防部官员比尔·桑德斯上校表示，正在研发中的平台需要配备一个武器舱，以便接收合作伙伴、北约和美国使用的任何武器。

“想想我们在乌克兰吸取的教训。一旦卷入冲突，你的库存就会迅速耗尽，供应链也会开始承受压力。在这种情况下，你最需要的是最大限度地调动其他可用的库存和供应链，”他在罗马举行的国际战斗机会议间隙接受《防务新闻》采访时表示。

“拥有一个可以携带任何北约武器、任何美国武器、三国任何武器的平台，可以立即赋予战区指挥官灵活性，”桑德斯补充道。他领导着英国未来作战空中系统 (FCAS) 需求和概念团队，其中包括 GCAP 项目。

桑德斯表示，武器舱灵活性的另一个原因是，需要在冲突开始时携带高成本武器来突破敌人的防御——随着敌人防御的减弱，再逐步减少到“无制导”炸弹。

他说：“如果我们（在整个冲突过程中）继续使用最昂贵的武器，那么每次击杀的成本、每次交战的成本都是不可持续的。我们希望能够开始瓦解我们所对抗的防御体系。我们希望能够降低我们所用武器的成本。”

桑德斯说，有了灵活的武器舱，“我可以根据每次击杀的成本比选择合适的武器。”

桑德斯说，正如 GCAP 需要能够使用所有武器一样，它也必须能够与所有被称为协同作战飞机 (CCA) 的无人机协同工作。

“你必须身处这样的环境：就像武器一样，GCAP 能够利用它所发现的一切。这绝非易事，”他说。

分析师道格拉斯·巴里表示，打造一款能够与不同 CCA 配合使用的战斗机是合乎逻辑的。

“我预计英国、日本和意大利都拥有各自‘自主’的作战能力，这些能力将与全球作战能力（GCAP）结合使用。它们最终是否会围绕一个共享平台整合起来是一个有趣的问题，但目前看来，它们似乎都在独立发展，因为这样能带来更多选择和更大灵活性，”国际战略研究所（IISS）军事航空航天高级研究员巴里说道。

协同作战飞机时代的到来是今年国际战斗机大会的一个反复出现的主题。

土耳其官员讨论了如何将CCA与土耳其上个月同意购买的20架欧洲战斗机进行匹配。

欧洲战斗机公司首席执行官 Jorge Tamarit-Degenhardt 表示，他担心调整战斗机以适应不同客户选择的众多 CCA 可能会代价高昂。

“我们能否在不同国家以不同的配置开发气候变化适应（CCA）集成方案？我们不可能同时做所有事情。我们的资源是有限的，”他说道。

汤姆·金顿是《防务新闻》驻意大利记者。