You have a great point there Golden Dragon! A Country without a viable, modern fighter force will eventualy become an “express corridor” for one nation’s fighters and bombers to use against third parties…

That way you may unwillingly be dragged into a conflict that has nothing to do with you and as absurd as that would be it could turn out to be a really dangerous situation…

Regards,

Hammer

Xanadu, you’re one of the few who’ve been mostly clear-headed about these things.

But why does being surrounded on three sides mean Bangladesh must sit down and accept IAF aircraft or anyone else flying over its borders? Bangladesh has no right to safeguard its sovereignty?

Peace-time air space violation happens all the time. The old Drakens of the Austrian air force was tasked almost exclusively with chasing US jets that were always crossing their borders into Turkey and the Middle East. If they couldn’t catch up, the USAF simply denies it ever happened and it’s chalked up as an “UFO.”

But what about th Saudi Typhoons are they suposed to be deducted from the original 232? I heard they would come off the Tranche 2 orders…

Regards,

Hammer

Hi Janissarie, welcome to the Forum, it’s nice to see so many Brazilians disscussing defense over here. 🙂

Hello, I’m also new here, and also from Brazil.

Ok, what is being said by “inside sources” around this parts is that around 4 years from now, the new Brazilian fighter will be announced, this time with no selection: The Rafale. And Embraer IS going to take part, even producing some components here. This is pretty much mandatory… There are a lot of congressman ready to hamper any “non-national” solution (aka, direct buy).
How many? I don’t think even FAB’s “powers that be” know that yet. If they want to replace the Mirage 2k AND F-5 with them, at least some 46 frames. I really don’t think that we are going to have enough money to buy the 80+ frames needed to replace the entire M2k/F-5M/AMX fleet.

That has been said, but:

a) Any acquisition plan whose time frame encompasses more than one administration is in my sincere opinion no much more than a great big hope specially in such a charged political environment as we see it playing out in these elections.

b) the last Administration didn’t have the balls to close the F-X one year before the last elections, why would this one be different? It’s just too politically risky.

c) The Defense side of Embraer has positioned itself a great many times against the declared interests of the Brazilian Air Force and this has earned them some definetellythe distrust and ill will of the senior Brigadeiros. I woudn’t discard a direct purchase of a new fighter, direct Embraer participacion ballooned the Mirage 2000Br cost to US$70Mil as we say around here “this was a stabbing”. 😉

d) how can anyone plan to close a deal to substitute the M2000C if not a single one has arrived yet and that it will tale over four years for the last of 12 to arrive in Brazil?

That is why they bought the obsolete 2000C. It certainly wasn’t the best proposal, they got a NICE F-16A MLU offer from Netherlands, really cheap (some say cheaper than one F-5M…), and there were also the Gripen A/B and Flanker offers you guys already discussed here. But the whole thing isn’t technical, but political. Any new fighter, as I said, must come from Embraer. And with their partnership with Dassault, there has to be 2000-5 or Rafales. And FAB made pretty clear that they did NOT want the M2k-5. Especially for $70m a pop. Now I think Dassault and Embraer learnt their lesson, and the Rafales will cost $60m each. See the huge discrepancy? 70 for the M2k, and 60 for the Rafale…. No-brainer, really. So, this whole Mirage 2000C thing is just preparation for the Rafale ground. And I really want this thing to be accurate too, I think the Rafale is one fine aircraft.

I don’t see the “C”s as a “preparation”, to me it’s much more a “political fallback option”, the “better than nothing” purchase for the Air Force.

Also, they could use them on our aircraft carrier too. But that is a whole another story… Personally, I don’t think we should operate aircraft carriers, and invest more in submarines.

I’m a staunch believer in naval air power. But first of all we as a country have to learn to be confortable with naval air to ground ops… Can anyone limit it’s use of CVs and naval air power to a purely “defense of the fleet” application? I don’t!

Best Regards

Hammer

Hi Puffadder

I’ll try to answer one question at a time:

The closure of the production line as announced by the Dassault executives in India is a major blow against the current and future selection of the M2000 by any airforce. A long term commitment to the M2000 airframe while it is in production makes sense, after it ceases it doesn’t.

The model’s major user the Adl’A is in the process of replacing the Mirage with the Rafale thus effectively limiting the number of potential upgrades to the older plane.

Offered at over US$ 70Mi the Mirage2000Br beside being limited, was outrageously expensive!

The FAB may have philosophical and doctrinal limitations (one of the reasons is that there is no enemy at our borders) but they tend do be competent when operating the fighters against regional level air or land threats.

The main goal of the F-X competition was to create a small core, a high tech unit capable of digesting these new technologies and weapons so that this knowledge is later passed on to the other fighter units of the FAB. Looking at it through this prism the M2000C proves to be a pointless purchase, there is less benefit in it than would be in buying additional modernized F-5Es at a much lower cost.

You’re correct the Su-35 and the JAS39 are way too different the only issue is that the FAB never believed it could dream of buying a fighter of the Flanker class, the Russians knocked at the door and offered the fighters at a very low purchase cost, no wonder the fighter pilots got VERY excited.

Comparing the next fighter to the ones is service is a poor choice. Brasil before buying the Mirage III wanted the F-4 Phantom from the US but the State Dept. believed that this would destabilise the region and vetoed the sale. Naturaly the FAB bought the Mirage after a fly-off against the British Lightning and the Swedish SAAB Drakken.

Had we bought the Phantom them we would never have bought the F-5s later on. Now we would be replacing the Phantoms and seeking a even more capable fighter. In the 1980s we tried to buy the F-16 but again it was denied to us (but not to Venezuela, though). Brazil is a Big Country and needs a large fighter to make the FAB an effective fighting force. There simply is no money to purchase some 300 light fighters to do the adequate (same) job…

Of course we know the M2000C can be upgraded but we don’t own enough planes to justify such a rework, 12 aircraft is too little to make any economic sense out of this proposal. We have a standard upgrade package with Embraer and Elbit, soon all our AMX and F-5s will share the same cockpit and avionics, as well as weapons fit with the A-29 Super Tucano. This should generate wonders in terms of logistics support and aircraft availlability. Should we integrate this upgrade package with the 12 M2000C airframes? I don’t think so! 🙁

MICA is a great missile but should we pay for its compatibility with the M2000C AND with other FAB fighters? Don’t think so either…

We are not part os NATO and our datalink sistem is proprietary, should we pay for the integration to the M2000C? As you can see, suddenly a quick opportunity fighter purchase proves itself to be a move backwards, a move against every standardization initiative the FAB has fought hard for in the last 10 years or so…

I’m no F-16 fan but I must tell you that up to 6 used KC-135 tankers were offered with the Lockheed F-16 F-X proposal, free of charge. So that would theoreticaly solve the boom vs. drogue issue.

The Russian offered to fit the Elbit cockpit on the Su-35 they were offering to us… Talk about client service… 😉

About the Rafale there is one issue I like about it and that is naval compatibility. Someday in the future the Brazilian Navy will have to purchase new Fighters and the Rafale is sure one of the more viable options, operating the same fighter in the Navy and in the Air Force would make a lot of sense in the long run… This logic would help to bolster the MiG-29, the F-18 and the Su-33/35 besides the Rafale but would immediately discard the F-16, Eurofighter and Gripen, is the FAB ready for such a move? I don’t know.

I do hope that the British ditch the JSF and replace it with the Rafale on their carriers, this would garantee the Rafale a long service life and many many upgrades in the future, making it a much more viable program. The Indian deal is another possibility, but I think the MiG-29 should have a better chance here, due to lower costs and the recent IN purchase of the new K model…

I have also severe restrictions about the future viability of the Gripen program, they desperately need new large orders, and new 12 unit mini orders will not be enough to keep the line open… Nice little plane peddled by the wrong country. Sweden doesn’t have the financial muscle to give them away to poor nations like F-5s and MiG-21s before it and lacks the geopolitical mass to “shove them through” large international bids against the Russian, the French and particularly the Americans..

Comments?

Regards

Hi guys!

First of all I’d like to welcome Braganças to the Forum and thank him for putting tha situatintion in a clear and objective manner.

I too am Brazilian and have followed closely the F-X bid while it ran. Here are the facts:

a) Brazilian AF intended to replace it’s fighters with one single model. This would add up to some 82-110 new fighter aircraft to replace Mirage III, F-5s and AMXs

b) First in line due to being obsolete was the M III, 24 aircraft were intended to be operated from Anapolis Airbase. The replacement of the others would follow later begining in some 10-15 year’s time

c) Several delays in this initial purchase allowed for other events to take place earlier.

c1) Embraer sold 20% of it’s shares to a French aerospace companie’s group Thales, Dassault, SNECMA and Matra (now EADS) this move was created in order to show to foreign investors and stock exchanges that Embraer was part of a larger group of Aerospace cos and would not be let out in the rain after the end of the wide consolidation process that dominated the last 10 yers or so.

c2) F-5 Modernization at Embraer got started

c3) Immediately Embraer anounced that the Mirage 2000 was it’s product for the F-X and that they would not talk to any other “competitor” since they had determined that Dassault was “the only viable option for an industrial partnership”.

d) What was supposed to be a simple technical evaluation quickly transformed itself into a open tender. This was done to block the Mirage 2000Brs chances because the FAB believed it would not last much longer in the market.

e) There were many technical offsets expected from the F-X deal but the Embraer HAD ABSOLUTELY NO OFF-SET at all in it’s offer. Embraer did whateever it could to close the tender and have the Mirage be declared the winner. The FAB did whatever it could to stop them getting their wish.

f) Sukhoi invited brazilian munitions expert Avibras to be a part of their bid, this simple move made the Su-35 and the Mirage both “national products” neutralizing Embraers main selling point

g) the firstannalisis conclude the Gripen was the best offer but the Fernando Henrique administration decided to postpone such a controversial decision at only 4 months away from a presidential election. The oposition candidate Lula won with a many millions os US$ of Embraer campaign contributions.

h) Despite this his first act was to pospone the decision for another year. Once again over the reluctance of the Brazilian Air Force’s to accept the Mirage 2000BR

i) the second evaluation focused on the technical offsets and the Su-35 won it this time.

j) the third evaluation included the opinion of several other ministries this time the Su-35 came on top once again their 3Billion US$ brazilian goods purchase pledge ewas 50% larger than the Swedish offer.

k) having found no way to push the Mirage 2000 the governement opted to quit the bid and settled on the used Mirage 2000C offered government-to government against the wishes of the French Air Force

l) The FAB accepted the “C” because they had nothing to operate in the Mirage III’s squadron, and that the older Mirage 2000C were absolutely an old and obsolete fighter that they couldn’t be forced to operate for a longer period. Forcing the reopening of the F-X bider sooner than initialy intended this tome to replace the complete fighter lineup

m) Second hand F-16 from the Nederlands, Russian Su-27 and Gripens A/B were offered but the government bought the Mirage 2000C without any realistic evaluation of the other options.

So in broad strokes this is the whole Brasil fighter inbroglio.

The sooner the “C”s arrive the sooner they be sold off! Thank god!

The Rafale is a formidable airplane but I have doubts that it will sell as well as its older brothers did. The Gripen needs orders desperately and is risking production line closure at any moment now, the prodution rates are almost comatose and no significan order appear to be on the horizon.

I miself was rooting for the Su-35 but maybe the FAB isn’t as boild as I would like it to be. Also there is absolutely NO MONEY what so ever to purchase new carrier fighters for the Brazilian Navy so NBaval compatibility plays no part in this selection. I think that the F-X will be re-opened aonly around 2012 or so, till there revamped AMX and F-5s and a hand full of obsolete Mirage 2000C, and that it!

Regards

Hammer

The most effective way of countering cruise missiles is to shoot down or sink the mother-ships… This calls for numerous AWACS platforms and long range heavily armed fighters that could go into international waters or neigbouring airspace to achieve this…

The traditional strategy of hiding inside bunkers and trying to strike back after the first enemy attack wave dies down was proven pointless by Saddam’s military machine. There’s no weathering the US’ opening salvo.

For example, the simple fact that the Iranian Navy and aviation can’t keep US warships out of the Persian Gulf is a great strategic shortcoming to them.

Regards, Hammer