ABSTRACT
In February 1991 the first prototype of the Franco-German Tiger antitank helicopter was unveiled at the German aerospace firm Messerschmitt Bölkow-Blohm near Munich and transferred to southern France for flight testing. The initial impetus for Franco-German arms collaboration came from the economics of defense procurement, in particular the rapidly increasing cost of research and development for advanced weapon systems. In the aftermath of World War II, the victorious Allies dismantled Germany's military-industrial infrastructure. By the late 1980s Franco-German defense collaboration appeared to have reached an impasse. France has used arms collaboration with Germany as a means of maintaining an independent defense posture in the face of limited financial resources by sharing the development costs of specific weapons programs and military technologies. Changes of government in both Paris and Bonn soon created strong political incentives for a new collaborative arms project.
