eh? Then by extension Russia won’t sell Su-35 either. If Russia does not want PRC to have any access to 117S then the whole sale is a DOA.

Exactly!

The ‘Vedomosti’ report implies that Russian fears of the international market being flooded by cheap Chinese ‘FLANKER’ counterfeits hasn’t materialised, and appears to be an acknowledgement that counterfeiting Su-27Ks is more difficult and less economically viable than AVIC envisaged.

I would also add that contrary to many peoples beliefs the J-11B production was pretty much to service China Air Force and China Naval Air Force needs rather then be a major export product. Much the same for the J-10 as well, there hasn’t exactly been a major sales push of either types and all production has been swallowed up by their armed forces. Considering they have a huge legacy fleet to replace including the SU-27SK which is reaching service life end. So J-11B and J-10 production appears to be just for China at the moment. As for the hiatus in J-11B production I wonder if that is down to a reconfiguration of the line for J-15 and J-16 production.

If the article is talking about four planes then it is very much a rumour! There is no way the Russians would even countenance the idea so I find it surprising that the Chinese would even bother trying.

I am with Deino on this one, if we see pictures of smiling Russian officials shaking hands with smiling Chinese officials then all fine but until then they are rumours. That isn’t to look down on the possibility, the SU-35 would be very useful to the China Airforce but there is no point getting upset over it all.

My general observation of Chinese vs Russian members of this forum is:

a) The Russian members struggle to believe that China has a high tech aerospace industry now.

b) The Chinese members struggle to acknowledge there are still gaps that can be filled with Russian procurement.

My personal opinion is that gap is being rapidly closed and certain areas even overtaken. Actually go buy Deino’s book! I am sure a thumb through it will show the leaps and bounds Chinese aerospace has made as well as the gaps that still exist!

As to your second point, it is relevant because I fear we are sleep walking into the future. We only got SLBMs in the first place because the US cancelled our preferred weapon, Skybolt, now 50 years on it seems the SLBM force is beyond discussion

Of course Skybolt was the first choice! Our deterrent up to that point had been air based, the RAF was hardly going to advocate giving up the keys! The RAF was the primary advisor to the politicians so they were up in arms understandably when the Americans dropped development of the system! Skybolt being our first choice doesn’t make it a good system, it was dropped because there were better systems and once we got over the shock we pretty quickly realised that the Americans were giving us an amazing deal for a far more survivable system. The real clincher is what happened in the late 70’s and the 80’s when they started to decide about a Polaris replacement. They could easily pushed for the B1A (later B) and the AGM86 nuclear cruise missile over Trident but they didn’t. The reason is simple Trident is a better solution for a minimum second strike capability. Every MOD study about this since Polaris was adopted has come to the same conclusion, I can’t help it if you don’t understand why second strike is important. Second strike gives us a non threatening minimum capability.

There is certainly a debate about SLBM but the MOD regards it as the best solution. What you are advocating is a sleep walk into total nuclear disarmament by the back door. Even if that did happen that doesn’t mean a return to the fleet or army numbers of old.

Of course the Saudi’s are a fantastic example of failed ToT when it comes to the Typhoon contract! Saudi’s wanted to set up a local line to put together CKD Typhoon’s. One small problem there just isn’t the local educated base of engineers to actually recruit for such a facility! The average Saudi just doesn’t seem to be interested in a career in engineering when they have money rolling in from the oil and foreigners who can maintain their facilities and equipment! All the major oil companies and defence contractors who work in Saudi have a massive expat workforce! To be honest I sometimes scratch my head how they even man their armed forces in the first place…I presume a significant proportion of their officer corps and pilots are made up of various princes and hanger ons. The day the oil runs out rather scares me!

Whilst this excerpt is from the Wiki I feel it is still a valid observation:

The sharing of family wealth has been a critical component in maintaining the semblance of a united front within the royal family. An essential part of family wealth is the Kingdom in its physical entirety, which the Al Saud view as a totally owned family asset. Whether through the co-mingling of personal and state funds from lucrative government positions, huge land allocations, direct allotments of crude oil to sell in the open market, segmental controls in the economy, special preferences for the award of major contracts, outright cash handouts, and astronomical monthly allowances—all billed to the national exchequer—all told, the financial impact may have exceeded 40% of the Kingdom’s annual budget during the reign of King Fahd. Over decades of oil revenue-generated expansion, estimates of royal net worth is at well over $1.4 trillion. This method of wealth distribution has allowed many of the senior princes and princesses to accumulate largely unauditable wealth and, in turn, pay out, in cash or kind, to lesser royals and commoners, and thereby gaining political influence through their own largesse.

The accounting is not exactly transparent and the fact they feel the country is the property of the house of Saud rather then the people exposes any Saudi defence contracts to massive possibilities of fraud!

Kornet can certainly mobility kill a Merkava IV and even kill a Merkava II or III. Merkava IV has “Trophy” but that is kind of a one hit wonder, also I bet it doesn’t react well to IED.

Of course the irony is Hezbollah used time proven WW2 vintage infantry anti tank tactics, draw the tanks into choke points and then knock out the lead vehicles. Hezbollah also learnt that a mobility kill is enough to completely stop an armoured thrust in that kind of environment. Actually it kind of reminds me of the battles in Italy during WW2, hills/mountains and narrow valleys with tunnels to hide in. I drove from Rome to Sicily last year in a hire car via Montecasino, the further south I got I remember thinking to myself “Man! I wouldn’t want to fight a tank through here!”.

Gaza I suppose is different basically one large FIBUA or as a member of my rifle club who was in the Army during the 60’s said yesterday “FISH and CHIPS (fighting in someone’s house and causing havoc in people’s streets)” … well it made me chuckle 😉

P.S. great day shooting yesterday, 300 and 600 yards at kingsbury MOD range with a Remington 700 in .223. Lovely weather if a bit cold!

The ignore feature removes the clutter.

And it is such a large amount of clutter! 😉

I can’t believe how much one troll can take over a forum!