If Iran was stupid enough to attack Iraq, it would destroy any international support they enjoy at the moment, and would most likely spook the Saudis no end, resutling in a new massive deployment of western forces in the country.

Also, with the US troops in Iraq, Iran would be virtually declaring war on the US, the UK and the other coalition members.

I don’t believe Iran wants this, as the US would certainly get rough with Tehran. (think bombing raid from Carriers, Iraqi bases or Isreali bases).

This is war posturing, but i imagine it is only designed to keep the US on their toes and show that the Iranians are willing to fight if need be.

i think you have the cause and effect chain backwards. the missiles are there to tell washington that if the US tries to take out iran’s nuclear facilities by force, those missiles will be heading towards the biggest concerntration of US troops iran can find. and that is in iraq. not that the missiles will do that much harm truth be told.

if the US does raid iran, most those launchers will likely be dead before the order to launch was even issued, and US forces within the range of the missiles would have taken necessary precausions to limit the effects of any missiles that manages to launch and get through US air defence.

the real problem for the US would be th ground war in iraq. imagine the current iraqi insurgency, with 100s if not 1000s the numbers of fighter with far greater civilian support; the newest ATGMs, MANPADS at iran’s disposal; virtually unlimited supply of explosives and other munitions; a single united command structure…basically, it would be urban warfare on a nation-wide scale against a well organised, decently equiped and fanatically motavated enemy.

the only likely ways to end that war is to either for the US to pull out of iraq and let iran take over, or to go into iran. the first is not an option for a US president wishing to stay in office, and the second will lead to such a bloodbath that i doubt the american poeple can stomach it for anything short of irrefutable evidence that iran was behind 9/11.

Not sure if the russians are making lith-ion batteries commerically. If not, then they might not have the facilities to make them, or make them cheap enough to be viable for the kilos.

Didnt AFM or fligh publish a report saying that the flight hours for many chinese pilots included hours they had spent on the ground practising for the routines?

havent read that report, mind posting a link or giving a brief summery? seems strang if they do do that since PLA flight hours are primarily for internal consumption and not external publication. anyways, pilots dont spend that long on the ground doing a mental fly through, so the addition should not be too distorting.

800 years? where did you get that figure wolf?

if i was off by a few hundred years, my appologies. i have little interest in indian history so the exact numbers might escape me from time to time.

Why continue talking about the Indian poor whilst ignoring the Chinese poor? Is the Per Capita income of China upto first world standards?

who is ignoring chinese poor? :rolleyes:

if you actually can read, you will find that it is one of your compatriots who is trying to suggest that the indian government cares about its poor while china’s doesnt. need i go into detail to explain it idiocy of this remark? :rolleyes:

Perhaps if you learn English, you can understand him better. After all you have 3 times the books and teachers available to you.

well, you know, the whole population being slaves for 800 years does tend to give one an advantage in mastering the ‘masters’ language compared to a small percentage of the population for a few decades. 😀

I’m pretty sure I read earlier in the thread that you invaded them. Maybe that should give you a lead…

really? didnt know threads had boarders. :rolleyes:

if you meant 1962. well even indian sources clearly state that the ‘invasion’ was far from the ‘unprovocked sneak attack’ many indians like to pretend it is. go read some of the articles regarding the war in rediff.com for examples. it you want to talk about that war more, you can go start another threat on it and PM me. other then that, nothing more need be said about it in this thread.

What bothers me most is that you seem to be completely unaware of the absurdity of your arguments.

oh really? care to point them out instead of huffing and puffing? :rolleyes:

My comments were pretty straight forward and comprehensible. Only one with damaged and/or missing brain cells would make a mistake understanding them. :rolleyes:

only someone with a mental deficiency cant see the possible interpretations of his own words. :rolleyes:

So, in the interest of breaking “decade old stereotypes”, what are the new flying hour numbers for PLAAF/PLAN Aviation? And I mean straightforward numbers, no meandering illogic that is often bandied about as facts and truths regarding the PLAAF/PLAN. Something that’s not confusing… :rolleyes:

ah yes, the time old indian ‘comeback’ of asking for things they know are classified and cant be conclusively proven. guess just because china does not list the likes of the J10, WZ10, yuan ssk, 93 SSN, 94 SSBN they dont exist as well. :rolleyes:

there are plenty of internet sources stating 200~300 hours per year for class A PLAAF pilots and none stating 100 since donkies years ago, but people like you would just claim that they are not reliable. btw, what offical source did your ‘100 hours’ figure come from?

the fact of the matter is that facts about the PLA are scarce and confusing because they are meant to be. dont like it? dont discuss the PLA, no-one is putting a gun to your head.

Although winning medals at the Olympics may not be a national priority, developing and maintaining a credible national defense is, even at the expense of other worthy causes.

To think that just because a country doesn’t really put a priority on sports, it automatically doesn’t do it for its defenses is well… quite stupid.

and what makes you think that this ‘defence before sports’ mindset is uniquely indian? :rolleyes:

everyone (worth mentioning militarily) priorities defence before sports, so trying to suggest that china’s sport funding somehow comes at the expense of defence is plain stupid.

in the late 80s and early 90s, the PLA was still thinking in terms of the old ‘victory through weight of numbers’ mindset. but desert storm woke them up to the power of modern warfare and how wrong they were. ever since the PLA have been sprinting to catch up, starting with the purchase of the Su27 for the PLAAF.

at the start, the steep learning curve and inadequet logistical support meant that progress was slow and costly with a number of crashes. the limited available flying hours the Su27s and older chinese fighters allowed also acted as a bottlenets.

however, with better logistics to improve ac turnover times; more planes, especially UBKs; better quality and more capable domestic ac like the K8, J7E, later block J8s etc becoming available, and even more capable ac like the L15, J10 and FC1 coming online soon. together with the strong performance of the chinese economy, the last bottlenecks that restricted training before have been removed. things have moved on since 10 years ago, but it seems some people refuse to accept it. :rolleyes:

now the problem seem to be the reverse of a decade ago, with pilots having too many flying hours.

india might have had a historic advantage since it has operated 3rd gen fighters before china and adopted western training methods earlier, but that was like 10,20 years ago, and things have moved on a great deal.

using decade old stereotypes when much more up-to-date data is available is a sign of denial and worse. if india and china did come to blows, it would not be the average, US national guard equivilant PLAAF reserve pilots and their old J7s that the IAF would have to face, so whats the point in their inclusion? these planes and pilots would only become relevent in an attritional war, any remotely conflict between china and india would be long over before it reaches that stage.

anyways, as has already been pointed out before. china doesnt care much about the sub-continent. it has close to zero strategic importance to the PLA right now. but since PLA is arming and training to take out US carrier groups, IN carrier groups would be easy in comparison.

another point about the propose scenario that is ridiculous is the assumption that the PLA would just sent MKK against an IN carrier group that is threatening china. expect J8, J11 and soon, J10 and maybe FC1 escorts and also JH7/JH7As as part of the strike package.

if the IN sends its carriers anywhere near china with hostile intent, consider them gone. similarly, the IN would not just send their yet to be built Mig29Ks against a PLAN incursion into indian waters. and since the PLAN is only recently starting to form a long range power projection capacity, the PLAN would not fair too well against the IN and IAF either.

if you are just comparing the planes, leave all the other crap out of it.

i think they have moved on slightly from having to physically test things to see that they fit.

the model was probably put there for the benefit of some high ranker visiting or for the cameras if they were doing some shoots for TV or some other PR related work.