Create an EAR using Maven - maven

Question

I want to create an EAR using Maven, but since I'm in a pure Tycho world, I can't use the maven-ear-plugin, just the maven-assembly-plugin (which is fine).
There are multiple questions even on this very site that indicate that the maven-assembly-plugin can build EARs, even though the documentation says no.
However, when I use define the EAR format like this:
<formats>
<format>ear</format>
</formats>
I get the following exception:
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-assembly-plugin:3.0:single (make-assembly) on project org.acme.application: Failed to create assembly: Error creating assembly archive default: appxml attribute is required -> [Help 1]
(I tried a couple of versions for the maven-assembly-plugin, so it's not that.)
Since a EAR is just a renamed JAR, I'm now using the JAR format and this other Maven plug-in:
<plugin>
<groupId>com.coderplus.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>copy-rename-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>rename-ear</id>
<phase>verify</phase>
<goals>
<goal>rename</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<sourceFile>${basedir}/target/${earName}.jar</sourceFile>
<destinationFile>${basedir}/target/${earName}.ear</destinationFile>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
Which works nicely in creating an EAR, however with mvn install it brings the following exception:
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-install-plugin:2.5.2:install (default-install) on project org.acme.application: Failed to install artifact group:org.acme.application:jar:1.9.126-SNAPSHOT: C:\workspace\Application\target\Application.jar (Das System kann die angegebene Datei nicht finden) -> [Help 1]
(It's German for "Cannot find file", one day I'll get him to print out readable error messages.)
Of course, now I could copy the JAR to an EAR instead of just renaming it, but I thought I get a 2nd oppinion first: Is it possible to create an EAR with the maven-assembly-plugin? If so, how?