New Delhi and Paris close to inking deal on Mirage-2000 upgrade. So the deal includes the price for new weapons as well..no news on the M53-P2 engine upgrade or a new engine, so my question to the French members would be, what is the life time of a M53-P2 ? Even if Snecma doesn’t manufacture any more new M53-P2s do they deep overhaul it to allow it to be used for a longer time?

Wow has France and Dassault finally realised that if they want to sell Rafale to India they need to get the costs down on the Mirage 2000 upgade!

Things have changed, the main enemy (and the only one for the past 140 years) of Argentina was Chile, but now is one of the countries with which Argentina has the best relations, including the military (as an example, a joint peace force, called Cruz del Sur, was created in 2009 by both countries). Chile felt betrayed by England (or UK if you prefer) when Augusto Pinochet was enjailed there in the late nineties after the request of a Spanish judge. This lead to the pressure by Chile to let the Argentineans visit the islands and now Chile is the country that presents the Argentine claim to the UN decolonization committee every year. Yesterday, Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet, stated that now they ceompletely support the Argentine position. She also said that the new president, Sebastian Piñera, will continue support to Argentina on this. This is because we understand that the differences with Chile were between military governments and those are part of the past we will never repeat.
Brazil also support the Argentine position, as always, but a surprise that Argentina didn’t expect, was the total support of the former British colonies of the Caribbean, most of them are part of the Commonwealth. In 1982 only Chile, the Caribbean countries and the Guyanas didn’t support the Argentine position. Argentina doesn’t expect military support from the Caribbean countries, but it’s important that none of the Latin American and Caribbean countries were against the Argentine position and that all of them agree to sign a document to support Argentina. This was never reached in the past and it’s a good precedent for the Argentinean position.
Chavez, despite he can be a big military help, is a problem for Argentina, because he always talks more than he has to. Anyway, sometimes he says what everybody here thinks but it’s not politically correct to say it. For us, Chavez is only something funny to laugh about.

Well Chile didn’t feel betrayed enough to stop them buying British defence equipment like 3 x Type 23 Duke class.

True , nothing has been invested , I would say for even more then 10 years , most likely, closer to 20 years …but expertise is still there (just barley)
Also there is political dimension.Iraq needs new equipment , and if hey buy everything from USA that will be ammunition for many internal Iraqi political elements to accuse government of being just US government political puppet , so it makes sense to buy equipment from 3rd source…who is better then from country that was attacked by USA.Also it is possible that , eventually , there will be “technology transfer” to Iraq so that they can produce many of those items locally. Arms sales is never straight forward business transaction …there is always political dimension behind it.

I also have a sneaky hunch that America tacitly supports procurement from Serbia if it helps normalise Serbian industry by bringing in hard currency.

Or the CN-235, or any one of half a dozen others.

Indeed! Pretty much whatever company provides the best contract.

If the Falklands gov wanted an MPA they wouldn’t go for the MRA4 prototypes, way to expensive to operate with an entirely usless to them ASW fit.

Something like the Bombardier DHC- 8 MPA would be far more logical and affordable, if there was an oil boom requiring helicopters to support the rigs and an MPA to patrol the fields more then likely it would be contracted out to a company like Bristow with a new heliport closer to Stanley to operate the helicopters. Probably plenty of space at Mount Pleasant to operate any MPA like the DHC-8.

http://www.kustbevakningen.se/documents/Flyg/501-presentation%20skrivskyddad.pdf

They can easily repell an Argentine air attack.

The important aspect is the radar on the Falklands in combination with fighters on QRA which have a good range of operation, BVR missiles and supported by a tanker.

The best fighter in Argentine service is arguably the multi roll A4-AR Fightinghawk, it is the only fighter they have which can get out to the Falklands without tanker support but using an economic flight profile. The Fightinghawk is also a WVR only fighter with an early variant AN/APG-66 radar and two AIM-9M Sidewinder. In many ways it is equivalent to an early Block F16.

To overwhelm a QRA detachment usual tactic is to send lots of aircraft until the defending aircraft can’t regenerate quick enough and they get caught on the runway refueling.

Argentina has 34 A4-AR and not all of those are serviceable, to get to the Falklands with a meaningful weapons load they will need to refuel in the air and because of the dire situation with tanking in the Argentine airforces that means some of the strike package would have to provide buddy tanking rather then participate in the strikes.

So Argentina launches it first strike package they will be picked up by MPA radar and the RAF QRA birds will get off with a full load of fuel. They proceed and if its a hot war engage the Argentine strike package at BVR range and then possibly close to WVR and finish them off with their superior ASRAAM. At the same time the reserve birds on MPA are being prepped and the VC-10 is already off the runway ready to tank up the QRA birds. The second Argentine strike package if they have enough left will need to wait until the buddy tankers have topped up before they can go, by that time the RAF QRA flight has returned to MPA to regenerate and the reserves are intercepting the second Argentine strike package including the tankers followed by the QRA birds.

At the end of the day Argentina has no A4-AR left and the RAF SAR bird has had a busy day picking up Argentine pilots.

For Argentina to overwhelm they either need many new single engine fighters like the Mirage 2000 with tanker support or many new twin engine fighters like the Su30 that can operate out over the Falklands without tanker support.

The four fighters operated out of MPA is a carefully measured number which the RAF would calculate as been greater then the regeneration rate of the Argentine airforce…its all fuel and maths in the end.

I wonder if something bigger than 500E could fit in there? Selex have been offering arrays tailored for different noses, e.g. the 850E shown last year.

Certainly, the 500E is intended for the small noses of trainers, legacy Mirage, Mig21/F7 and the F5.

The Grifo S7 has a 60cm centimeter antenna so a similar size AESA module I would think. In the end the modules are the same whatever the radar, Selex can customise by adding and removing as needed.