That cypriot SAM purchase

Strange. Two different quotes on expenditure – $61 mil Cyprus Mail and $111 mil Kibris (Turkish mail). Wonder whose more accurate…..

As expected, the National Guard is going to get another block of Mistrals, probably to replace the SA-7B (If still in use), and likely also to equip some naval boats.

More interestingly, the KSA is upgrading its Aspide-330 fleet to SPADA Aspide-2000, increasing its effective range to supposedly 27km. Not sure how this is achieved, but seems that there is an emphasis on medium-ranging some of the air-defences …strange since the T/C’s already claim there are BUK-M1-2’s already on the island.

I thought Italy had blocked the last Aspide effort – hence the Tor’s, or am I missing something here?

Something suggests to me that all this work planned for the Aspides might be to improve interception ARM’s and PGM’s rather than aircraft themselves. Is this wrong?

Twi