Such use of these airfields for such an operation would provide a good reason for Iranian “interference” with its neighbours. In fact such direct attacks of aircraft on the ground would likely be far more effective than spending billions on an airforce that will just consume money.
Might create strange bedfellows… Saddam supporters in Iraq getting support from Iran to attack airbases, or maybe they will use a few Shia Mullahs to send Shia backed rebels to do it.

hey that was my arguement. 😀

anyhow, im just assuming for the sake of argument that the US is propared to risk it.

this would be what iran’s leaders and planners would be assuming when deciding what purcument policies to follow, so its relevent in this discussion.

How many carriers can they get in the region close enough to not use all the tanker capacity in the region. Other operations in Afghanistan and Iraq will not just disappear for a few weeks.

they dont need to use carrier ac against all the targets, just the ones closer to the sea, and have the USAF boys attack inland targets from bases in iraq and afganistan.

In kosovo there were plenty of NATO allies nearby, and in Iraq there were plenty of countries wanting Saddam removed and knew he had 10 years of sanctions to weaken him so his capacity to retaliate would not be that big. Iran is a different story though.

again, this is just an attempt to access iran’s policies by trying to get into the mindset of its leaders and planners, who should be proparing for the worst case scenario and not hoping for the best.

Except with a Russian contract to build nuclear power stations and S-300 missiles currently operational and possible Russian intelligence support it might not be a total surprise.

makes little difference. without runways, planes crash after they run out of fuel. iran can scramble all their flankers before the first bombs land and still loose the whole fleet. and for nothing if the US planned for this contingency by not deploying ac into iran on the first night.

Planning an airforce for what they need right now makes no sense. Long term planning taking into account current and projected needs makes much more sense. The F-14 is an end of the road design. The Flanker has future potential. Of course other aircraft could e considered too… how about Rafale? Might have a problem getting AMRAAM but the Chinese will probably have an ARH AAM ready for export soon enough if they don’t already. Indeed I think if the Iranians ever did get a Flanker it is likely that it would be made in China.

well i think one would tend to focus on the here and now if there is such a great threat to their future.

iran currently cant afford to be thinking about things they’d like to be doing 10, 20 years down the line. their primary focus right now should be to raise the probably costs of an US move against them to a level unacceptable for the americans, at least until they can get a functional nuclear detterant.

for now i think iran is more interested in the FC1 or J10 rather then the J11.

the FC1 would likely be a backup option in case their F5 inspired fighter doesnt quite live up to expectations, with the J10 being the prefered choice. as licencing the J10 will not only give iran a decent fighter that meet their needs, but also give them a tech boost that will set them up quite well for their own future developments.

The F-117 might be an impossible shot for radar guided AAMs but using a combination of brains and knowhow… ground based radar searching the skies and the RHAW on the F-14 picking up reflections directed away from the ground radar in combination with its inability to see the object on its own radar would confirm the signal is from a stealth target… Flying toward it and get ready with your gun… with NVGs you might even be able to see it clearly… there is nothing an F-117 pilot can do to escape an F-14 once he is on your tail. Mig-29s with IRSTs and operational IR guided R-27s should be well equipped to engage such targets too.

for that to work you’d need to know when the F117 is coming, from where and where its heading or be extremely lucky.

even with russian intellengence assiatance achieving the former is extremely unlikely, and one cant draw up a military plan based on luck.

as i said before, you dont need to catch a plane on the ground to kill it. wonder what those flankers would be doing after they run low on fuel and come back to find huge holes in their runway.

Having a weapon to destroy coordinates is very nice and all weather, but not much good if the target is an underground centrifuge uranium processing plant.

heard of ‘bunker busters’ before?

What sort of highway does a Flanker need to take off from? How long and strong sturcutrally are the highways in Iran?

have no idea, but i’d bet alot of money that the pentagon does, or could find out without too much trouble. then its just a case of finding potentially suitable stretches and putting holes in them.

The fully fuelled Flanker armed with air to air weapons takes off from an airstrip not much longer than a Mig-29 takes off from. (the latter is about 240m)

and can it land in 240m?

Against the US you are correct. Against every other country in the region then you are totally wrong. Which do you think the Iranian airforce should be developed to defend from? Does it even make sense to try to build an Airforce to oppose the USN and USAF? Why even bother?

who else in the world is like to attack iran?

you dont plan and propare to fight people that are close (unless you want to invade them of course, but thats not relevent here), you plan and propare to fight people who threaten you. and in iran’s case, that happens to be the US.

israel is also a threat, but since they get the US to do all their fighting for them, it doesnt really matter.

The Flanker would be much cheaper to maintain and be simpler to maintain than an F-14.

so are lighter fighters like Mig29s and FC1s.

Don’t the Iranians have S-300s and Panstir SAMs?

Certainly more capable than SA-6s and SA-13s.

capable enough to stop the USAF by themsevles? i dont think so.

a good SAM system based on the likes of the S300 and patriot will only buy you time against the USAF, but nothing more as the weapons will be taken out one by one until the whole system collapses.

With an air to air payload the need for concrete strips is gone. Most Flankers have FOD and can take off from very rough strips, though as they were used by PVO (ie bomber intercept in laymans terms) they only ever used concrete strips in Soviet service. That is not to suggest they can’t take off from any old strip of road.

its all a matter of degree. flankers can land on some rough feilds, but lighter fighters can land on alot more.

the more potential places where your planes might be, the smaller the chance of them being attacked.

Sounds so easy when you say it like that. Of course that is presuming the Iranians are morons… and sleeping morons at that.

well it is pretty easy going when you got the tech and firepower of the US.

So only flankers use runways? Wouldn’t the same also apply to F-14s? …especially the underpowered A models the Iranians have.

iran got their F14s to fighter iraqis around two decades ago. alot has changed since.

anyways, iran has something like 25 F14s let, you really think that is enough to defend a country that sized from the US?

iran has already got its F14s, so they are using them. what they are not doing os getting anything in th same class to replace them.

If that were true why have then not withdrawn their F-14s? Perhaps what they actually want is a large/small fighter mix to balance costs and performance? If they are going to base their development of their armed forces solely on defending against US attack then they had better have a very large amount of oil under the ground or they are in trouble.

the F14 is by far the best fighter iran current has, they cant sell them so why not keep them on?

it makes sence to spend a few million a year keeping the F14s in action, it doesnt make sence to spend a few billion on flankers only to perform the same role.

Against the US again. I repeat trying to fight the US in such a way is stupid and wasteful.

want to try and tell that to the vietnamese?

the only way for nations like iran to win against the US is to aviod fighting on the americans’ terms and attack when and where they least expect it. and you need to keep at it until you wear the americans out. it has been done before, and there is no reason it cant be done again.

but to do that you must first survive that long, and lighter fighters have a far better chance of survival then flankers under such circumstances.

Iran is NOT a flat desert with clear conditions. Check your map lol.

Yes, US will need a while to destroy the Iranian AF. I mean the Iranian AF is much better equipped AND trained than the Yugoslav AF was. They have better SAM support, they have many more airfields, which are HUGE and built like American ones were. The Iraqi AF attempted to destroy Iranian runaways I believe but were unsuccessfull due to their sheer size.

i said ‘mostly’. :rolleyes:

as for ‘massive indestructable iranian runways’, please. did saddam have 1 ton buncker busters or cluster bombs?

you dont have to wipe out every cm of concrete to render a runway useless (until its repared).

plawolf,

Don’t allow yourself to be overly impressed with the US capabilities to cripple an opponent like Iran so quickly. The air campaign against Yugoslavia showed that taking out an air force and an air defense force isn’t all that easy even when your opponent is a small country with seriously ageing equipment. Although it is true that the Yugoslav air force was decimated by the NATO attacks it did manage to operate combat aircraft and helicopters well into the 78 day bombing campaign. Air fields, as shown during Allied Force, can be repaited and be useable only a few hours after a strike. Decoys can soak up a certain amount of enemy firepower. The Yugoslav air defense system functioned, to an extent, throughout the war.

Iran is a whole different ball game. Its a much bigger country, with a better developed (and possibly trained) military. It has more up to date equipment and more of it. Stealth is great but it isn’t invulnerable – you don’t have to even shoot down an F-117 – its often enough to know roughly where its going so you can move things into bunkers or camoflage things better (or, if your airforce is still functioning you can try to intercept it). Crippling Iran’s military would, theoretically take longer than 78 days (if at all acheivable from the air) and they have a much better chance of striking back in all sorts of ways.

there are several critial differences between iran and kosovo to make the comparison unreliable.

first and more importantly, while the former yugoslavia was very small, the climate and geological conditions there provides them with far more numourous and better hiding places then iran, which is mostlt flat desert with clear weather most of the time.

secondly, the US has show huge improvement since kosovo, with GPS-guided bombs now become the normal instead of being rareties.

i never said that the USAF can total destroy iran’s military in minutes, but it can certainly take out all the airfeilds and high ways big enough to accomodate flankers and keep them out of action for as long as they want.

if you look at the kosovo example, the YAF was able to operate fighters, but they were light fighters, not huge flankers. and that was the point i was making – small, short take-off landing ac will always be of more use when you are david facing goliath.

the flanker is designed as an air superemicy fighter, its designed to domonate the feild of battle. but clearly the iranian AF’s cant hope to do that, and to try is just stupid. as such the flanker is the wrong plane for the kinds of mission the iranian AF is likely to fight.

the high cost and complex maintanence wouldbt help either.

They could buy Su-27s from existing stocks. In time they will be able to buy spares from Russia, China, India and probably the former Soviet republics. Considering the deals the Russians have made with China and India they would probably give Iran production rights as well so they could build their own spare parts.

well there isnt that many flankers in storage these days (not ones that are in any condition to fight in a modern war anyways).

then there is also the training, which would take quite a few years for all the personal to become truly efficient in handling and maintaining the flighters. years iran dont have right now.

Having fighters means nothing if you can’t get them to the combat zone. Any attack on Iran will not involve thousands of fighters. Certainly not without a lot of preparation.

well not as much as you migh think.

the US is the law in both iraq and afganistan. meaning they can use both countries as a base for as many USAF fighters as they like.

there are certainly enough ex-iraqi airfeilds, and it wouldnt take long to build feilds for fighters in afganistan.

then there is also the USN’s carriers.

considering the fact that the US and nato deployed thousands of fighters for both kosovo and iraq03, i seriously doubt they’ll send any less against iran.

And how many of those countries would be willing to allow the US to use their bases for such attacks?

the above two is more then enough.

oh, and there is also the US based B2s that will dfinately ‘chip in’ in any potential conflict.

but actually facing the US in the air is going to be the best thing iran’s AF can hope for, as chances are all their best (heaviest) fighters will be grounded or destroyed before they get a chance to get in the air since the US has the trumpcard of the stealth F117 and B2s.

thats why flankers will just be a waste of money and lives for iran. the flankers need a pretty long runway to take off or land. with no reliable means to predict the timing of US attacks (as is the case against stealth ac), there is very little iran can do.

with the timing displayed in iraq recently, the US can kill all major airfeilds (and the flankers based there) in a space of minutes to seconds. not nearly enough time to get any of the planes airborn.

keeping all of them airborn 24/7 is not option either even if you factor out the plane and pilot limitations, as without runways to land on, the planes will just crash after they run out of fuel (or be sitting ducks if they run out of ammo).

the only way to have any decent chance of the AF serviving the first strike is to have short take-off and landing planes that can use highways, giving the US too many targets to hit that they will miss some (the shorter the runway needs and the smaller the shed require to hide the plane, the more potential targets and the more planes will remain – based on probabilities).

ah, here comes the sweeping (and mostly unrelated) comments again. 🙁

This example shows, why our thread is named speculation 7.
Tall claims, when a new picture is shown, but real knowledge still very limited.
Proudly presenting leaflet data with optimistic claims from producers or official anouncements are not always the reality but most time presented as such. Distant capability targets were presented as given and still at hand.

lol, so, name me one example where the full specs of a plane were set in stone before it was finished?

every single report on every single on-going project is based on estimates, and its not just chinese projects that sometimes fall short of the original marks. so whats so special about that? :rolleyes:

We all know too well the problems and delays developing and introducing a new weapon-system. When someone asked for the engine of the Fc1/JF-17, most agree, we do not know this simple fact, but hope for the RD-93.

except the FC1 is not designed to be new or pioneering. its based on J10 tech, meaning all the difficult hurdles have already been crossed, its just a case of applying what was learnt with the J10 onto designing a less capable fighter. as such, there is very little scope for problems to develop, especially at such a late stage.

That has nothing to do with a military secret as some try to convince us. The true data of jet-engines are limited to some general parameters always. None of us knows the real power output/sfc for different thrust-settings. We do not know the real drag-values of a single fighter to figure out the real available thrust for every given fighter. A 0,9 to 1,1 ratio can result to the same available = usefull thrust. The most we can say is, that the higher ratio gives a better chance to have higher usefull thrust, but this is no rule.

and what has this got to do with anything?

Not a single remark about the “finish” question of the J-11 production shows that critical remarks about Chinese avation developments are still missing.

so what ‘finish’ question would that be then?

I give in, that I have no relationship to the eastern attitude of “keeping face”. 🙂

so you think it helps you to save face by setting ludicrous targets you cant hope to achieve? :rolleyes:

go back and have to look at recent chinese military developments and find one example where the government has made offical claims that were not met or exceeded.

the chinese dont like to loose face, thats why they dont tend to boast.

The F-7PG, with its “cranked” wings, is supposed to be more manouverable than the Mig-21BIS (which is what the BISON is based on) – thats because the F-7 was always the “light” version of the Mig-21. The Mig-21BIS is larger and heavier, but in itself it is still a light fighter. Says something about the F-7 even with the cranked wings, on top of that there were reports about the F-7s being delivered without the radars.

please. :rolleyes:

thats either ignorance or just being silly.

the J7II was based on the early Mig21 which was pretty manoverable. the BIS was a later mod to the Mig21 in an attempt to put in more range and a bigger radar. the trade-off was a major reduction in manoverablity.

the J7PG is supposed to be around 30~40% more manoverable compared to the J7II, which means they can easily fly rings around the bisons considering the fact that the bisons are based on less manoverable and more aged airframes.

sorry about that. but it wouldnt hurt if you were a little bit more specific about what you were talking about since the original post was made such a while ago.

anyways, the FC1 has a full chinese radar and avionics suit (again there has been tons of info about those posted before). so the ’empty shell’ comparison is still invalid. espcially since the PAF has dropped its demand that their FC1s be equiped with european radars and avionics.

in the short term, PAF FC1s will be fully functional (once all the testing has been completed of course) examples with full radar and avionics.

in the medium term, the intergration of european radars and avionics onto PAF FC1s (and maybe PLAAF as well) will become far easiler if nothing dramatic happens in the next couple of months of de-rail the almost immonent lifting of the EU arms ban on china.

hell, if the arms ban if lifted and china gets more access and co-operation with europe, in the long term the PAF might not see the need to change to european radars and avionics.

the only potential problem with the PAF FC1s is the russian engine. there has been unsubstantiated reports of the engine being licenced in china, as well as other reports of chinese engines in a similar class being develop. but regardless of whether those reports are true or not, there doesnt seem to be a problem with the engine being re-exported to pakistan.

so what questions are there remaining?

well it could just be that iran is being practical.

considering that their main threats come from israel and the US (who’s AFs iran couldnt hope to match), they might have thought the flanker as a waste of money!

even if iran went all out and got 200~300 flankers, they would still not be enough against the thousands of F16, F15 and F18s that the US and israel have combined.

as such, i think iran is going for a similar tactic as adopted by sweden during the cold war – concentrate on smaller, short take-off and landing fighters/interceptors which can be fairly easily dispursed and hidden, and which can deploy from roads or feilds (deserts) and threaten the enemy.

this would seem to match their current purcument and development patterns. the Mig29 was designed to operate from forward airfeilds and can land on feilds, and is famous for being ruggid and tough. similarly, the new iranian F5 inspired fighter is also small and probably could operate in the way described before.

while the flanker is also designed to operate from unmade airstrips, its huge size will make it far more difficult to hide and operate in such conditions. also, when fighting such a war, most of the flanker’s best charateristics (range, combat endurance, multi-role etc) will be negated, making it inferior to smaller fighters in this role.