SAAB doesn’t need to develop two fighter jets simultaneously. They’d be preety much sequential.

Gripen E/F’s IOC is 2020.
TF-X’s target IOC is 2023.

Yes, these would have to be essentially parallel projects, or it is highly likely that the TF-X is essentially a Gripen-T.

As for this subcontracting thing, TAI has never developed even a jet trainer and simply doesn’t have the knowledge and experience of developing a fighter jet.

What replacements are available?

Russia, Chinese, etc.

I suggest that an international consortium be formed to look into developing a cheap, light fighter – something like a JLF program.

The problem is that there is no lead country willing to buy several hundred units to kick the production rolling.

Fighters like Mig-21, F-5 and to a lessor degree F-4 were produced in thousands and were often given away during the Cold War; the Cold War is over and no one’s interested in giving away fighter jets; even China charges for the jets it sells, on a long-term credit at least.

Which countries might be interested? Brazil

Brazil faces no real enemy.

Turkey

Building its own jet.

Indonesia

Buying the KFX.

… perhaps EADS, BAE Systems, SAAB would like to be involved?

European companies, excluding Saab, are generally cost-uncompetitive and are not suited for this kind of jet.

Given that most countries cannot afford Typhoon or even Gripen E, this could turn out to be a lucrative project for those involved.

The market for low cost fighter jet isn’t large, because even the 3rd world operators of Mig-21 and F-5 are downsizing their air forces. These countries may do well with drones instead.

The only place where the size of military is expanding is in East and Southeast Asia where their is a new arms race being fueled by China-triggered territorial disputes, and even this market is not large enough to support a low-cost fighter jet because potential customers could afford only a couple dozen jets even if the jet cost $30 million each.

dont worry, Russia is not attacking South Korea

North Korea is the territory of the ROK.

if it came to that, yes. South Koreans discriminate against other Koreans like Chinese-Koreans, Japanese-Koreans, defected North Koreans.

Just ethnic Koreans from China as these people are mentally Chinese, and treated as Chinese accordingly.

If they were under Russia.. Russia would most likely make some kind of Korean autonomous oblast and they would be left alone.

But they don’t want to be left alone, they need some $300 billion in reconstruction investment.

Also Koreans generally like Russia, thats why so many emigrated north.

The ROK passport is worth $10,000 in Chinese black market, how much is the Russian passport worth? Enough said.

During my visit to DPRK, the radio and TV sets we encountered, all seemed to be ‘pre tuned’ to domestic stations only. But my visit was in 1987, by what you’re saying, things have obviously changed since then.

Yes, due to the flood of smuggled Chinese TV sets.

I respectfully defer to you, ref which level of the military is being fed what.

Their diet consists primarily corn and a variety of grains whenever available. And kimchi(Different from the Southern one in that it is just salted cabbage) and vegetable soup(vegetable boiled with salt).

hmm, you sound too confident on all matters. How do you know their only means of communication?

Defected North Korean officers and soldiers said so. There are hundreds of former North Korean officers who have defected.

What makes you, or anyone be sure that China’s radar, and satellite surveillance is not being fed to NK military constantly, or per need.

Defected North Korean officers said so.

This is hard to prove, and blame China for, while really easy to integrate in my opinion.

China doesn’t trust North Korea.

China supplying weapons to North Korea is like the US supplying weapons to Taiwan; there is always the risk that North Korea would turn around and become US ally leading the China-containment effort, so supplying arms to North Korea is both politically risky and is against the UN arms embargo.

Do you think China was not scanning for those B-52s and even B-2s ?

Obviously the PLA is not telling if they picked up B-2 or not.

I see no reason China and North Korea would not have similar setup.

Because NK and China are not military allies, only political allies that could sour at any moment, such as Kim Jong Il’s secret 2009 offer to the US to become a US ally against China if the US signed a non-aggression treaty, normalized diplomatic relations, and lifted economic sanctions.

This said if NK could pull off the first part and the US sent five carriers it might be in Chinas interest to knock them out shifting power in the Pacific

That would constitute a second Pearl Harbor and the end of communist regime in China.

You also don’t seem to understand the structure of logical arguments – you don’t accept a proposition as true until it is disproved, it’s the other way around. You only accept a proposition once you have a good reason to.

Is there any evidence or motivation for China passing such information to NK?

Well, it’s obvious that Wanderlei is a Chinese poster and his view represents the typical Chinese views, which is obviously very different from everybody else’s. Chinese actually believe they are a significant factor in the current situation, when China is being ignored by both North and South Korea in this context, and the only thing China can bring onto the table is a possible military intervention in the event of the ROK invasion of North Korea as per the previously described automatic triggers.

russia would not support ROKs take over but would do the take over themselves

And where do you get such ideas?

Linking gas/oil pipe, railways, and electric grid to the ROK is critical in the economic development of Siberia and Russian Far East needed to fend off Chinese encroachment, so much so that Russia offered to write off $11 billion in Soviet-era debt in exchange for the Russian rights to connect gas pipes and railway over North Korea to the ROK. Why would Russia choose to destroy the good relationship that is in its own best interest?

Raison will return to Russia very quickly and the inhabitants would probably get a better chance at life.

You mean these people would have a better life as Russian minority citizen over ROK SAR citizen?

Somehow, I think China might have something to say about that. :diablo:

Well, it is China with imperialistic ambitions, and this is why Kim Jong Il warned his son to keep his distance from the Chinese.

In peace time yes in war-time no. To be of some use, the Chinese radar-data have to be fed into the related NK command center close to real-time. NK will come under heavy jamming in areas of action.

You just saw what the North Korean command center is like, a bunch of maps and paper charts.

@ Slowman,

I think you completely misunderstood me. I might have not been clear.

I meant for NK to use Chinese long range radars and “COMPASS” satelite systems as “eyes over entire peninsula and wider” in order to track

1. There is no connection between Chinese and North Korean air defense systems.
2. Beidu is a GPS system, not a surveillance system. Its signal will be jammed during the war time.

North Korean military and PLA operate separately with only phone calls and faxes as means of communication.

IMO, the big unknown in this matter, is the state of relationships between the Workers Party of Korea, and the senior commanders of the DPRK armed forces.

There were supposed to be a big fight between Kim’s Uncle and the army chiefs during the 3rd nuclear test, and the army chiefs prevailed, and the balance of power shifted to the army generals.

The difference between Kim Jong Il and his son Kim Jong Un is that Kim Jong Un doesn’t appear to be in control of the military, unlike his father.

The people of the DPRK have been hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world for over 60 years. Whole generations know nothing of the outside world, or of a life without a Kim Jong of one kind or another ‘looking out’ for them. By contrast, the communist states of old, were ‘porous’ by comparison to the DPRK. Even in Socialist Albania, it was possible to watch Italian or Greek TV, but God help you if you got caught.

To the contrary the North Koreans do watch the Southern TV shows just fine, thanks to the influx of Chinese TV sets that are able to tune into NTSC signals. This caused a massive headache for the regime, as the ROK happens to have the most powerful entertainment content industry in Asia and this is why the ROK government is continuing to broadcast NTSC signals up north as a propaganda warfare, while having discontinued its broadcast in the ROK. The NK regime tried to jam the signal, but the power shortage has made jamming spotty and a large portion of southern residents of North Korea are able to watch the ROK TV broadcast, while the ones near the Chinese border rely on bootleged DVDs and USB keys from China to watch the ROK content.

Might it not be, that so long as the military are well fed

You mean generals. Lower-ranking officers and draftees are not.

should the senior military sense the threat of destabilisation of the regime, for whatever reason, and that could be caused by the total withdrawal of Chinese support and cooperation

China will never cut off the aids because they fear the collapse of North Korea and the US bases near Yalu River.

Effectiveness is not determined by how many people died.

The NK artillery suppressed and then neutralized the SK emplacements.

If that was the case, why does North Korea have 10 “fallen heroes” and 30 injured, while the ROK had two fallen(One didn’t really have to die because he was bored during the battle and went out of bunker for a smoke before he got hit while smoking. The other one was hit while running back to base from the port and is called a hero) and 7 injured?

Whether or not the gun crews were injured or killed is irrelevant when their artillery pieces are smouldering, twisted wrecks.

Actually the howitzers were structurally fine but the computers were knocked out from the impacts. One of hit howitzers managed to reboot the computer and returned fire. This is why no one inside the howitzers died or seriously injured.

Compartively few Iraqi air force pilots died during Desert Storm. Would you therefore say that the Iraqi air force was victorious?

In case of the YeonPyong battle, North Korean commanders decided that the mission was a failure and ruled out another battle afterward according to the defector who took a part in that battle. The commander who executed the battle was heavily criticized afterward because the islands were now fortified with laser guided missiles able to destroy the cave guns, and it became nearly impossible to take the islands when needed.

This is not the case with Iraqi air force, which failed to deter the US in the next invasion.

M-46 130mm gun: 6 to 8 rounds per minute ( an advantage of fixed rounds )
D-20 152mm howitzer: 3 to 4 rounds per minute manual; double if auto-rammer installed
D-30 122mm howitzer: 4 to 5 rounds per minute

North Korean army defectors say the guns are rusting away and many are out of commission. So they do not get the spec firing rate.

Su 25 and mil 24 to strafe the fuk out of enemy k2 and k 9 while mig 29 air cover

And how do they dodge the Patriot and KM-SAM missiles?

Lets assume that the SON actually is a dumb A$$ and wishes to escalate this into a full fledged conflict, what would be the division in terms of mission between US and SK military’s..

From now until December 2015, the US DoD has the wartime command so they decide what to do.

From December 2015 and onward the ROK MoD has the wartime command and controls the USFK. The US will continue to maintain an independent mission on the seizure of North Korean nuclear depots using Futenma Marines.

North Korea accidentally leaked its surface strength in the “Strike US Plan”.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/29/17513218-north-korea-is-no-paper-tiger-warns-us-official-as-regime-puts-rockets-on-standby?lite

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/awx_03_28_2013_p0-563859.xml

Why Su-30 and not Su-35!?

Su-35 costs too much.

And who will win?

Su-30MKK again.

Or Su-30 because they already got some of them?

Bingo.