I doubt Thailand would choose the Sukhoi – I certainly would not trust reports from the factory (they seem to have a habit of announcing wins before the deals are done). The Sukhoi is a much bigger aircraft than Thailand needs, and would cost a lot to run (all weapons stockpiles are of western weapons, and pilots are trained on western types). The most likely choice would be the Gripen, which is cheap and rugged, and seemed to be offered with a Saab AEW platform, which would be useful. The other option would be more F-16s, to supplement the existing fleet, which would be easy to integrate into the force structure, the downside being that it does not come with a sweetener like an AEW platform.

As already mentioned though, Iran would be nuts to actually try to sink a carrier, since the response would almost certainly involve either widespread use of cruise missiles to cripple Iran (and its economy), or indeed may be nuclear. Even if Iran managed to produce a single nuclear device, and managed to hit Israel, the response would be at least 100 times as serious (they might manage a single 10 kiloton warhead, but would be on the receiving end of dozens of 100+ kiloton warheads). Any Iranian ‘success’ (hitting a carrier or hitting Israel) would give pyrhhic victories look like overwhelming successes!

As for the need for Iranian oil, the trick to beating Iran is to invest in genuinely sustainable energy sources (TDP, Bio-fuels, synthetic fuels, shale and tar pit oil etc), and drop the nonsense about hydrogen. (One of the most accurate descriptions of hydrogen being that it will always be the fuel of the future, i.e. it will never actually arrive)

I would avoid hitting anything overly religious – you really want to make it clear that the government/military are your targets, so limiting damage is very important. If you just go and blow up every religious target, you will simply have a much bigger problem.

As for said high speed missile, that is sort of the point – if they can buy 50 Flankers, I doubt getting 100 Kh-31s would be much problem!

On the other hand, if Iran managed to hit a carrier, the US would retaliate, and then Iran would not be able to do much else, ever again…

Despite some the odd Tornado flying overhead, it appears it has been cancelled, though they seem to be indicating there will still be some form of show. They may still be able to put on a show of some sort, consisting of flypasts, though it will not be quite the same.

The theory is that by giving them a reason to speed up, they are forced to be more efficient – it does not always work, but it has in some areas. The alternative is to simply tell Lockheed that you will only buy if they meet targets (and you set very strict targets), again, it does not always work, but it does sometimes.

Personally, I feel the important thing is to increase funding for C4ISTAR assets – one of the negative aspects of weapons like the JDAM (and in future the SDB) is that you go through the target list so fast that you can run out of targets! Also, a good AWACS force, tied through Link-16 or similar, would help in dealing with the Flanker threat – if configured properly, even a Predator B with AMRAAMs could stop a force of Flankers!

The sad thing is that some minor changes to the F-15, and it would be a reasonable match for the Flankers (okay, not have a great safety margin, but hold its own). It would probably work out cheaper for the USAF to increase the Raptor order to ~500, buy ~1000 new F-15s (using F-22 derived avionics) and ~1000 new F-16E/Fs, than buy the ~180 Raptors and ~1400 JSFs!

The lesson from recent operations seem to be that there is a need for ‘first day’ capability, which requires a mix of stealthy aircraft and cruise missiles, and a need for larger numbers of JDAM-trucks. It might have been better to simply buy F-22s and UCAVs (no, I am not anti-JSF, just not convinced that a smaller fleet of them makes as much sense as a larger fleet of Vipers and Eagles, with UCAVs for stealthy strike on the first day of war). The Raptor finally seems to be getting some positive press of late, which is a welcome change!

I think it was more that the gun was live, i.e. had not been put beyond use – museum aircraft normally have the real thing, but deactivated. The ATF got involved because it was still live, thus would, presumably, need an end-user certificate, which was not obtained. Since the gun was part of the aircraft, the whole thing was confiscated, and probably then offered to the USAF (either that, or the ATF wanted something to deal with very heavily armed groups…).