ELPHow much of the IDF inventory is home made PGM’s as opposed to US made PGM’s ?? Anyways do they even manufacter GPS guided munition ? It just might be a case of getting free munitions from US taxpayer!!
Israel has had a batch or two of JDAM kits for the Mk84/BLU-109 series and we also sold them a batch or two of the BLU-109. ( forged steel pointy tip 2000lb ‘er). They have had these for some time. If I am not mistaken a few years ago in the press it was stated we were selling “bunker busters” to Israel when all this Iran nuke stuff came up. Where the BLU-109 gets the mistaken label of Bunker Buster in the dumb-press. It isn’t, it just manages cement nicely with mild penetration before going off. Almost always a better choice to mate with a JDAM kit rather than a MK-84 iron bomb when dealing with cement locales.
Be interesting to find out what PGM kits are being sent over there ( Paveway? JDAM?) As the news at this time doesn’t know.
ELPSome really nice flying for sure. Nice demos.
Have this thing on a LEAN based production line in China and purchase price would be really great. :p
ELPAfter watching a video of a Super Hornet aroutine, I think I know what the original poster means by the SH’s Cobra-like manuever.
There is a point in some of the routines where the SH comes out of a loop and on its way down from the loop the pilot pitches the SH up. When this happens, the SH manages to do a “tail-stand”, not gaining altitude at a 70 degree angle and then pitches down and continues flight. Not a Cobra which is a complete separation from flight but it’s nice to watch.
That’s probably it’s next best move next to the vertical pirouette. The only other plane in the US inventory that could do that would be the Raptor. The SH is pretty impressive in a WVR fight as Raptor crews have noticed.
The Super Hornet is in severe risk in most air to air combat against a lead player. All the big real fighters: F-14, F-15, SU-27/3x, Rafale, Eurofighter can display contempt of engagement. If they don’t want to engage a SH, they don’t have too. They can drive around it. SH can engage things that it BarCaps or space it occupies. It can’t chase down and dominate against an equal force of other high end fighters. It is very very short in the speed department. As for WVR, big deal. As it will be fielded with the X and the helmet it is dangerous. However lots of others do HOBS_helmet_heaters also. SH is a nice strike platform with AESA and it’s diverse wep loadout. However, it’s raw airframe performance…. in total….sux. Claiming RCS methods as being useful on that drag queen is like putting lipstick and a nighty on a pig.
ELPRafale would have won both..
And as we speak would not have the depth of air to ground weps available that the F-15K has. Including a no peer group combat crew simulator. What won was the total package. A Rafale that has the nth degree of airframe performance and not much else does not a combat system make.
ELPLook at the number of dead militants compared to dead Israeli soldiers in conflicts among them and I think you’ll see that the militants don’t stand a chance. Of course it never hurts that those idiots also blow themselves up…..makes it that much easier to exterminate them like the cockroaches they are. The best part is when a suicide bomber blows himself up but doesn’t kill anyone. I wonder if he gets his 40 virgins….lol.
SOC, you say the raid was overseen by the head of Hamas and yet I have people questioning why I wouldn’t take the Palestinian “government” seriously…..they are terrorists. I hope for their sake that the Palestinian civilians can learn this and kick out those militaristic idiots that are representing them.
Until then, nobody, especially Israel, will take them seriously. They are a joke.
Hopefully Syria doesn’t get too involved in all of this either or they will lose yet another conflict to the Israelis.
IDF certainly is showing Hezbolah a thing or two. A small number of Hez KIA and scores and scores of dead Lebonese civilans now into the hundreds…and punishing a whole country. Wow. Real heros there. IDF has done some smart ops in the past. However I am not on board with the endless killing of hundreds of Lebonese civilians that had little or nothing to do with this. Dumb op.
ELPLook at the number of dead militants compared to dead Israeli soldiers in conflicts among them and I think you’ll see that the militants don’t stand a chance. Of course it never hurts that those idiots also blow themselves up…..makes it that much easier to exterminate them like the cockroaches they are. The best part is when a suicide bomber blows himself up but doesn’t kill anyone. I wonder if he gets his 40 virgins….lol.
SOC, you say the raid was overseen by the head of Hamas and yet I have people questioning why I wouldn’t take the Palestinian “government” seriously…..they are terrorists. I hope for their sake that the Palestinian civilians can learn this and kick out those militaristic idiots that are representing them.
Until then, nobody, especially Israel, will take them seriously. They are a joke.
Hopefully Syria doesn’t get too involved in all of this either or they will lose yet another conflict to the Israelis.
IDF certainly is showing Hezbolah a thing or two. A small number of Hez KIA and scores and scores of dead Lebonese civilans now into the hundreds…and punishing a whole country. Wow. Real heros there. IDF has done some smart ops in the past. However I am not on board with the endless killing of hundreds of Lebonese civilians that had little or nothing to do with this. Dumb op.
ELPC-17 is a good jet. NVG / HUD / auto-throttle landings isn’t just for SpecOps, it is for a lot of the garbage/no-good-nav aid tricky night approach airfields it might have to go into on relief missions too. It’s ability to kick out the cargo quickly and get back into the air and spend less time on a small airfield taking up space is also good so you can have a nice flow of other C-17s come in, do their thing and get out ASAP. No replenishment at the garbage field, just get out and catch another tanker on the way back. Now whether other countries need it, I don’t know, but it fits for what we do just fine. However, we have enough of them now and it’s time to shut off the congressional pork. C-17s minor weak point on long term sustainment are occassional problems with the main landing gear and the need for a decent software lab to test out avionics software upgrades so the flight test crew has a reasonably safe jet and not a software nightmare to test. Also of interest is the engine cowlings. Engine cowlings on all our transports tend to need refirbing every two years or so ( vibration, heat, delamination from hydralic fluid leaks) Where the fancy material of a C-17s engine cowling means less rivet work, the fancy material is a bit more needy for fixing delamination at refirb time because of the usual hydralic leaks that collect on the cowling. No big deal, just a bit of a different amount of the kind of refirb that you would do for engine cowlings.
Money should be spent to SPEED UP the modernization program for the C-5B. That foot dragging should have been done already. We have certain tasks that only a C-5 can do and when we need that capability, we need something that doesn’t have the old garbage avionics/electrical system/engines. The modernization program will put the mission up times back where they need to be.
ELPsad
ELPThat Mig isnt the only aircraft which was spirited out of Iraq, there are a lot of pictures showing aircraft being loading into transport aircraft…. and have a look at the amount of photos available showing how well surviving aircraft were treated by invading forces. Those that werent damaged by bombs etc were vandalised by visiting troops.
So much for the brass telling their troops not damage expensive military equipment. Obviously they can do what they want… so much for being professionals…
A large portion is also locals pulling lots of things off them to sell for scrap.
ELP‘the system was off’ means the airdefense system was not fine hair triggered to respond without human attention. It is very naive to believe the air-defense system of an israelis warship was turned off when cruising in hostile water. IMO, it means the detection system was definitely on, just firing the missiles and guns require al least button pushing.
Wouldn’t be the first time something got hit when its defenses were off. I’ll wait for more info if we ever find out.
ELPFor the Ru AF…. what does a SU-34 really give you that can’t be done and be more practical with multi-role SU-30 ???
It seems like a better cost of ownership model would have been done having a mix of SU-27/35 single seat aircraft with limited A2G ability and 2 seat SU-30 multi-roles with full A2G ability. Solve any longer range strike need with tanking. Here logistics support would be easier and each jet can do A2A very well. Just my opinion. Short leg fighters like the MiG-29 family wouldn’t really interest me for a place like Russia where range is king. If I am going to have a smaller, limited amount of AF personnel, better they be supporting something that is a better force multiplier overall: SU27/30. Get rid of MiG-29 and SU-24 ability over time and farm those resouces into SU27/30 units. Strike only aircraft (SU-24 ) and short legged fighters ( MiG-29 ) are a waste of limited resources. Also money saved from this kind of consolodation can be farmed into nice, long term upgrade paths for the SU-27/30: Avionics, weapons, airframe refirb, virtual combat crew simulators etc.
I would also recommend a new very small PGM on the size order of our SDB. Where guidance would be INS ( short fly time anyway so not using updates is OK as terminal will take it in at the end ) and terminal would be tri-sensor ( optical/IR, Laser or radar imaging. Simple, cheap, not perfect, but you could load up lots and lots of these on to a SU-30. Great for anti-terorrist bug hunts working with ground specfors, or CAS in general. Mostly high altitude drops where most ground fire and medium/small SAMs, AAA and trashfire couldn’t touch it.
ELPMaking any combat jet nuke capable isn’t especially hard once you have a reasonable weapons shape and radar or even baro altimeter fusing figured out.
The simple delivery method doesn’t require weaponeering tech of any great order. Right out of the F-100 / A-4 tac nuke delivery playbook.
Low level penetration: Fly low over the target, pull up vertical, release the weapon. Pull more into a half loop back from where you came. Not all that hard, and reliable.
No fancy electronics on the jet or worrying about the bomb computer being able to figure things out. Arming of the weapon can be done not unlike dumb iron weapons with pull wires. It arms when it is released. Not difficult. Certainly you can do the more high tech thing, but this method draws the least amount of attention to the jet.
ELPThey are. Look at the photos of the destroyed Hizbollah hq in Beirut ! When killing a Hamas terrorist driving in a car with a Hellfire missile, Israel has used a much more expensive weapon, that is also much less effective, than using a cluster bomb from an F16. Israel is using precision ordanance in Lebanon today, while Hezbollah is exclusively targeting Israeli civilian towns and cities with unguided Kaytusha missiles.
At the same time, Hezbollah is fully aware of Israeli military targets, and has decided to target purposely instead, the Israeli civilian population, in lieu of attacking Israeli fixed military bunkers, troops (Israeli infantry, armor, and artillery; is not in the towns and cities of Sefat, Kiryat Shimona, Haifa, and Nahariya etc…), and arty etc…
Big deal on the comparison. PGMs or no, There are still in the area of 50 or more dead civilians in Lebanon that did nothing more than go about their daily life. Dropping over-passes and cratering roads in a dense population area ( one community there ) still will mean there is no way you are going to avoid killing innocents as opposed to the old saw of “trying your best….” or whatever is said in the current I_am_wearing_a_white_hat_and_doing_good mode claimed by the P.R. people of the op. Knowningly trying to destroy a whole economy… ( cratering runways,… destroying fuel at an airport…. dropping bridges.. cutting roads all with PGMs of some sort, destroying a tourism based economy is just way over the top. It’s a given that the weak Lebanon government doesn’t have control over everything in Lebanon concerning terrorists running around and showing the flag. So the logic here is that the “good guys” are just going to flat out punish a whole population as opposed to more sensible things. Where more sensible things envolve techiques they already have in place that work: example the stiff amount of recon assets, UAVs, and C2ISR of all flavors, that can bring down a good airstrike or artillery quickly on bad actors firing unguided artillery rockets, and numerous other good methods the IDF uses. I don’t have a problem with that. Punishing a whole population in Lebanon however is ruining the “good guy” image real real fast. Our ( U.S. ) blanket support every_day_all_the_time doesn’t make us look good either using the old tired “Israel has a right to defend themselves” words. They have a right to defend themselves. In all humanity, they don’t have a right to over-react and kill 50 or more civilians or destroy a whole countries economy given the kind of force that was used against the IDF by the bad guys.
ELPThey are. Look at the photos of the destroyed Hizbollah hq in Beirut ! When killing a Hamas terrorist driving in a car with a Hellfire missile, Israel has used a much more expensive weapon, that is also much less effective, than using a cluster bomb from an F16. Israel is using precision ordanance in Lebanon today, while Hezbollah is exclusively targeting Israeli civilian towns and cities with unguided Kaytusha missiles.
At the same time, Hezbollah is fully aware of Israeli military targets, and has decided to target purposely instead, the Israeli civilian population, in lieu of attacking Israeli fixed military bunkers, troops (Israeli infantry, armor, and artillery; is not in the towns and cities of Sefat, Kiryat Shimona, Haifa, and Nahariya etc…), and arty etc…
Big deal on the comparison. PGMs or no, There are still in the area of 50 or more dead civilians in Lebanon that did nothing more than go about their daily life. Dropping over-passes and cratering roads in a dense population area ( one community there ) still will mean there is no way you are going to avoid killing innocents as opposed to the old saw of “trying your best….” or whatever is said in the current I_am_wearing_a_white_hat_and_doing_good mode claimed by the P.R. people of the op. Knowningly trying to destroy a whole economy… ( cratering runways,… destroying fuel at an airport…. dropping bridges.. cutting roads all with PGMs of some sort, destroying a tourism based economy is just way over the top. It’s a given that the weak Lebanon government doesn’t have control over everything in Lebanon concerning terrorists running around and showing the flag. So the logic here is that the “good guys” are just going to flat out punish a whole population as opposed to more sensible things. Where more sensible things envolve techiques they already have in place that work: example the stiff amount of recon assets, UAVs, and C2ISR of all flavors, that can bring down a good airstrike or artillery quickly on bad actors firing unguided artillery rockets, and numerous other good methods the IDF uses. I don’t have a problem with that. Punishing a whole population in Lebanon however is ruining the “good guy” image real real fast. Our ( U.S. ) blanket support every_day_all_the_time doesn’t make us look good either using the old tired “Israel has a right to defend themselves” words. They have a right to defend themselves. In all humanity, they don’t have a right to over-react and kill 50 or more civilians or destroy a whole countries economy given the kind of force that was used against the IDF by the bad guys.
ELPCorrect me if I am wrong but when I think J-10 I think extreme value for the money. However I would be real suprised if the software/sensor suite will come any where near EF2000, Rafale, etc. Where F-18E/F with AESA is the gold standard in legacy fighter avionics. I would label the J-10 as being very dangerous. That by itself is respect enough.
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