I would imagine this pic was created before the ski-jump became the accepted way of operating Harrier’s off small ships. If I remember correctly the flightdeck of this concept had a turntable to make it easier to turn the Harrier’s around on the narrow deck.

As a side note doesn’t the Admiral Kuznetsov have a turntable on its hanger deck.

Well, It think the most sensible solution would be to buy no additional fighters at all. Followed by that I would like the cheapest solution: the Gripen.
But I think the Typhoon will win. It offers the best growth potential as fighter, has the best commonality with already purchased weapons.

Rafale could have a chance in the light of a possible Turkish Typhoon deal. On the other hand, Greek leaders always wanted the same toys as Turkey…

Yes its quite interesting that Greece and Turkey don’t mind fielding the same types.

Of course whilst the Greek deal would be very welcome for the Eurofighter partners I get a feeling that the Turkish deal would be a bigger prize as they seem to be talking about a Turkish final production line which would make it more attractive to various Arab states plus a significant change from Turkeys buy US policy.

Indeed,the C-701 as built in China comes in 3 distinct and delicious flavours, TV/electro-optical, IR imaging and millimetric band radar. I’d imagine that the Kowsar also comes in the same variety of seekers, with the TV or IR version being the natural choice for a guerilla force like Hezbollah that might not have access to surface search maritime radar.

I’d also find the use of a C-802 hard to swallow as well, I’d have thought that barring any kind of malfunction,that the Hanit would have been blown to pieces if hit with the C-802’s 165 kg HE warhead.

I was thinking much the same mate, even if the warhead of C-802 hadn’t gone off it would still of wrecked the Hanit with all the unburnt fuel it would of been carrying. As I have said before for it to of caused less damage it would need to of passed through one side and out the other without going off – not as strange as it would seem it does happen :diablo: I have seen at least one video of a Harpoon doing just that.

yes it needs radar also most radar guided missiles have minimum range, typically the time it take to turn on the seeker and onboard electronics and detect a target. That range is typically 10km+ for ashm, so if the vessel was a km from the shore the missile platform would have to be relatively well inside lebanon. Which is another reason why i don’t think it was radar guided missile.

Now if I remember correctly doesn’t the C-701 have an optional optical seeker. That would make a lot more sense in this case, I don’t think activating a surface search and tracking radar for an ashm in that part of the world with all the IAF electronic warfare and SEAD assets in the area.

An ashm in the C-802 class usually requires target information to be programed into it usually gained by a quick sweep of a radar. I do remember that the Argentines managed to spoof this information for the Exocet they launched from land during the Falklands campaign but really this type of weapon is highly unsuitable for the needs of Hizbollah as I would be surprised that they would have the know how to pull that off without help from Iran or China, the C-701 could be hidden alot easier and it probably doesn’t need to be cued by a targeting radar. C-701 is still quite a surprising system to be operated by Hizbollah when something like the new generation of anti tank missiles that Iran is putting together would be more suitable.

I’m not saying that its not impossible that the C-802 or C-701 has been used in this case but it is surprising. Really need to get a good picture of the Israeli ship and its damage to draw a better conclusion.

I have the details in a book somewhere, I will dig it out to find out which airframes and pilots were involved.