List of planes of the Federal Republic of Germany (possible additions)

Canberra B.2 (Three acquired in 1964, modified to be target-tugs / research-planes)
F-104G CCV (Testbed for fly by wire technology)
F-20A (Evaluated in 1983 by WTD 61)
MBB Lampyridae (Stealth-fighter project, cancelled in 1987 because of unknown reasons)
RF-104G-1 (Prototype for an improved recon variant of the RF-104G)
Su-20 (Two bought from Egypt between 1985-1986 for evaluation, one was air worthy and flew)
VAK 191 B (VTOL prototype)
VJ 101 (VTOL prototyope)
F-15B (Evaluated in 1982 by WTD 61)
F/A-18B (Evaluated in 1982 by WTD 61)
F11F-1F Super Tiger (Tested by German pilots in the United States, participated in a tender to replace German fighters in the 1960s but lost to the F-104G Starfighter)

Godvana · June 29, 2023, 2:29pm

A very slim list sadly

Stuhlfleisch · June 29, 2023, 2:32pm

Unfortunately this is the reality of post-war Germany, which was a completely disarmed nation until 1951, and even then was only concerned with immediate defence of the country by buying mostly foreign designs with a very small domestic industry for military aircraft.

The one saving grace are prototypes and evaluated vehicles, similar to how Sweden got the T-80U and Mi-28.

dotSHINI · June 29, 2023, 2:55pm

I realy hope we get the F15 and F18 as possible additions since evaluated just like japan got the f16 else, it looks bleak for germany until tyhpoon

Godvana · June 29, 2023, 4:36pm

This is the truth. The other option of course is the addition of vehicles from other nations, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Argentina come to mind. Or vehicles which had German designers like the Pulqui II, HA-300 and Marut.

Still, one vehicle you might want to add is the Typhoon DA1, the prototype with the RB199 engines:

Thodin · June 29, 2023, 4:46pm

Eurofighter Typhoon Tranche 4

The Tranche 4will get the nickname Quadriga, quite handsome name.

Acroute · June 29, 2023, 4:51pm

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I think Swiss F/A-18Cs could be an option.

Since Germany already has a Hunter F.58, the Swiss Hornets could be an adequate stop-gap fighter between MiG-29 and Typhoon.

Godvana · June 29, 2023, 5:32pm

Netherlands F-16 is also an option

Thodin · June 29, 2023, 5:38pm

Another trainer would be the T-38C Talon, but I guess its unarmed. Over the years LW maintained like 40 of these. Quite a number.
An experimental LW craft would be also the X-31. But I guess it was also totally unarmed, unfortnately. Its was mainly used to research thrust vectoring

Luftwaffe also did alot with Su-20 and Su-22 Strikers, but I guess these are all ingame by now, even the Su-22 with F&F TV guided KH-29T (AS-14B Kedge).

Can’t find more. The longer you research, the more you figure out, that Luftwaffe seems to be a total failure up to the Eurofighter Typhoon. Only very few models and usually downgraded to the original US ones. Often their BRs are too high in WT (like F-104G at 10.7 and US F-104A/C 9.3^^) Some domestic projects like the Tornado don’t work very well in War Thunder. Total lack of F&F Standoff ordnance and …welll -1.5G max overload seals the deal.

East German Luftstreitkräfte somehow had more stuff. All we can do is to wait until the Typhoon gets introduced. Until then Mig-29 is the fighter option and the Su-22 with KH-29T the CAS one. F-4F and the Tornado are a failure (at least in WT, lack of any good & useful ordnance).

Faster_Boiiiii · June 29, 2023, 10:05pm

no
I explained this on the old forum:
The DA1 was unarmed, had no combat avionics(radar, RWR, ECM, IRST) and no countermeasures either. it was purely a flight control testbed(might have flown with live IRIS-Ts but then again, only for flight testing, not firing). it will not add anything of value to the german tech tree. Same goes for the British DA2(although this one was allegedly used for ECM testing).
the first Eurofighter with a radar(the ECR-90) was the DA5 and at that point you might as well give us a production variant.

the 98+XX line is all for development, with the 05 and 07 being instrumented production aircraft and used for post-development weapon integration or upgrade testing. the 07 reall is worth adding because it is arguably the most capable one, being fitted with the CAPTOR-E, PIRATE, the AMK, etc. the 05 is just a regular tranche 1 but at some point it had some wing root extensions similar to the 07 but information on that is almost non existent.

TLDR:
there is no “watered down” Eurofighter. its either the full flight performance(with weapon upgrades n stuff: Tranche 1 cannot carry Meteor) or nothing.

btw, the picture you used has the EJ200 ;)

and before anyone says “Well the Tranche 1s dont have the rear MWS”
i also explained that on the old forum: Most of the Tranche 1s have the MWS.

CodyBlues · June 30, 2023, 3:17am

Man, people will throw a fit if Germany gets those.

oom1992 · June 30, 2023, 3:39am

Personal I think F/A-18C from Swiss is a all-weather tactical fighter aircraft & without Air-to-Ground ordiance which’s unlike multirole fighter aircraft F/A-18 from USN & USMC, RAAF, RCAF, KAF, RMAF, FAF and SASF

Godvana · June 30, 2023, 4:09am

I am aware of this, but considering what Gaijin did with the Yak-141… Well, I don’t see it outside the realms of possibility to make DA1 functional.

AspandaIV · June 30, 2023, 5:04am

Here is a possible addition, the F-4E “Peace Icarus”, essentially it is a upgraded F-4E which was a joint venture between DASA and HAI/EAB giving it the ability to use AIM-9M’s, AIM-120’s, Paveway Bombs and the AN/APQ-65YG radar (it can use AIM-7’s as well)

Germany also used regular F-4E’s and the F-4F ICE’s upgrades did not happen simultaneously so there could be more than one F-4F ICE variant (Regular and KWS variant)

Finally Germany can get the Sea Hawk Mk.101 (which is at Sea Hawk Mk.100 but with a search radar in a wing pod)

Godvana · June 30, 2023, 5:37am

KWS and ICE are the same, it’s just that KWS is German (Kampfwertsteigerung) and ICE is English (Improved Combat Efficiency)

oom1992 · June 30, 2023, 5:39am

F-4E “Peace Icarus” from Hellenic Air Force top 2 best of F-4 Phantom II

I’m not sure that Greece maybe sub tree for Germany tree ?

Real_K_Soze · June 30, 2023, 12:56pm

I like your input in general, but i think this quote is a little bit misleading as your description is after 1965 valid for almost all countries.

Imho for West Germany you have to distinguish between certain areas after WW2, especially regarding combat aircraft and combat aircraft industry.

So from 1945 to 1955 there was nothing. Op. Paperclip and USSR/GB/FR equivalents “acquired” German brain power and all existing patents. That is one reason why the first 2 nations dominate irl and in the game - besides the obvious scale effects on costs of high production numbers.
From 1955 to 1965 recreating a significant domestic combat aircraft industry (including development) would have been possible, but extremely expensive.
After 1965 the cost pressure forced almost all nations outside the US/USSR to bi- or multinational projects as an alternative to license building of aircraft.

Actually almost nations outside their ideological leading countries (US/USSR) shared the same fate - either to buy finished products or to license built them in oder to keep their local industry alive.

So just by definition the major advantage of wt - the vehicle diversity - is actually extremely limited at a certain point of time. Sooner or later some players might realize that fighting the same or similar aircraft with another skin and/or different avionics/AAMs/ECMs is not really an “exiting game play experience”.

Imho the only 2 nations outside the US/USSR able to produce and to put high end fighters into service (after 1965) solely on their own were France (driven by national pride) and Sweden (driven by neutrality - and they actually could afford it).

Even the once independent British combat aircraft industry was finally killed by the cost explosion in development, missing scale effects and budget reasons.

China looks impressive regarding production numbers, but older designs were simply modified USSR fighters and newer designs are just results of their cultural habits to "“acquire” innovations.

The Japanese industry produced domestically developed combat aircraft/advanced trainers, but not high end fighters.

The newer 4.5, 5th and 6th gen projects in various countries (uni- or binational) look promising, but imho implementing them into wt will take ages…

Stuhlfleisch · June 30, 2023, 1:30pm

Well, it depends. Germany is a special case in my opinion, as it was split into two ideologically opposed nations, which received military equipment from one side of the iron curtain each.

If it weren’t for East Germany, we would essentially have half the options for Germany, meaning until the 90s there was only the F-4 Phantom as the most modern fighter, so thankfully the USSR was willing to export a lot of equipment to their part of the German state.

What I meant specifically with my original comment, was that there is a black hole from 1945 to 1955 for German military aircraft, which is something only Japan really shares with Germany ingame, as Italy received P-51s and early jets from the allies post-war, same with France, which, post-war, also had a much larger domestic military aircraft industry than Germany, Italy and Japan, same with Britain, until the 80s and onwards, when they also started to rely more heavily on foreign imports.

This essentially leads me to believe, that in terms of early post-war design at least, Germany and Japan have to rely much more on prototype and evaluated aircrafts from the WW2 and early post-war era, as most nations, including Germany, were pretty well covered in the 1965 and onwards timeframe you mentioned.

To be fair, even now, with the planes we have ingame, Germany is pretty much set to be competitive well into the future. The MiG-29A is a big advantage to have, which is also fortunate as they received them only a few years before the collapse of the USSR, furthermore, West Germany evaluated the F/A-18B and F-15E in the mid 1980s with German pilots, allowing them to receive two very capable 4th generation aircraft in the future, until we get the Tranche 1 Eurofighter.

In general I think that even though the list of operated types is “small”, all of them are very effective designs, with none being obsolete for their intended role. Germany will be a very “one tool for the job” kind of tech-tree for modern aircraft, with the only capability that they will completely lack being a modern strategic bomber, which, all things considered, is not that bad of a toolset in my opinion, even if variety might suffer in the longer run, which in itself can be mitigated with trialed planes, referring to the F-20A, F/A-18B and F-15E from the 1980s.

Real_K_Soze · June 30, 2023, 4:07pm

Fully agree with your overall statement and especially with this quote.

So implementing new planes to close gaps might help the player base to deal with the game play and is highly appreciated. With every new prototype, nation, subtree etc the gap reality vs wt gets bigger.

If you see the way of how gaijin tries to artificially flatten technological advantages (in order to make the game somehow balanced) it makes actually no real sense to fly Germany in this time period (late war/early post-war).

If you look at the 109 - u have 5 nations flying basically the same plane (109 F flew first 1940, G-2 similar performance) at BR 4.0/4.3 fighting each other or unarmed prototypes (XP-50s) or 1953 planes (Wyverns) . If you add the 1940-42 used E-7 at 3.0 we have 6 nations…

I fully understand that nobody wants to fight in a P-51 D-30 against the 262 A-1a, but for me as designated prop player the BR setting policy of the whole game combined with MM mechanics kills any realism above BR 4.0 - 4.7 anyway.

At prop BRs the jet superiority is managed by a lowering BRs for props, actually the only realistic positioned allied prop is the Spit Mk 24 at 7.0, but this is another topic for another day.

Have a good one!

_Fleks · July 12, 2023, 3:54pm

You forgot to add the F-16B Block 10, which was also evaluated in 1982, unfortunately I have no photos on this occasion :(