Thanks everyone for their answers. It is just what I needed. I shall be leaving my idea of South Georgia AFB and using the accelerated QE build. Still, is it realistic that QE, even if in 2012 argentina magically successfully invaded the islands, would be fully ready for service and packed with f35c by 2016?
of course i checked the island geography. to me it seems there is plenty of space for a 3 km airstrip with various other infrastructure. now, no one said it would be cheap – amount of digging, flattening the ground, concrete etc would be enormous, and everything would have to be done in brutal mostly sub zero conditions. but it does seem possible. question is if it is feasible. is it better for UK govt to wait 5 years till carrier is done and then retake the falklands or wait a year until such a base is done and then retake them.
please read the whole thread though, the point of the thread assumes argentinial control of the islands.
So you believe in a hypothetical situation where UK is left without hms illustrious and hms ocean lph, and somehow, magically, argentina took the falklands, the UK decision would be that is is more cost effective to wait 5 years and finish hms QE and some extra landing ships than to invest in such a base, even if it meant a base for just one war?
Lets please not go thinking outside the box and call for other countries help. what would UK, if it had to go at it alone, do?
I am not sure i understand the sale – are seaharriers fs2 being sold or the gr7 and gr9 harriers?
Or, a question i’d like answered even more: Will britain in 2012 have ANY sort of mothballed harriers ready for getting back into service, if a sudden war breaks out? Or will all harriers be sold or scrapped by then? I read something about some training harriers being kept, could those be used for combat, in most dire of circumstances?
How do we know if AAF uses anything if there is no proof whatsoever of them using it? What model of designation pod do they use? Domestically produced? Imported?
as far as i can tell, dardo 1 was/is simply a rocket assisted cluster bomb. dardo 2 is some sort of winged glide bomb that allegedly uses gps signal and perhaps INS. Plus dardo 2 is in development, it doesn’t seem to have reached operational usage.
Yet on the whole zonamilitar forum i cant find any good mention of LGB usage. I really wish i could, but it seems as if LGBs are simply not used. Let alone mavericks…
The only thing that’s weird to me there is the fact they’re developing a container body type stand off weapon like jsow when they don’t have a simple precise guided bomb. I would think it should go the other way around. That’s the only thing that makes me think they MAY perhaps have some LGBs… But wishing for one without proof is pointless. Even the chinese, who are quite secretive about their projects, have plenty of proof of LGB usage.
i keep searching the web for evidence of lgb and/or maverick usage on fightinghawks but i cant find any. i stumbled upon the linked forum where argentinians themselves linked various newsbits and from everything thats said in there it would seem a4ar DO NOT use any kind of guided weapons. they are wired for it but air force doesnt have them in the inventory, be it because US declined to sell guided weapons or because there is no money for them.
is the above true?
alternatively, there seems to be some talk about a domestically designed and made guided missile/bomb. spanish to english translation refers to it as Dart I and Dart II. can anyone give me a link with more detail on those? are they even employed on argentinian planes?
What i’m also interested is this: Could RAF typhoons use 10 missiles two days for now? Lets say a commander says: I want this one parked here with 10 missiles the day after tomorrow. is that doable?
pentagon’s report on china’s military mentioned that plaaf’s training hours are comparable to US.
On the other hand, we have sources like IISS military balance 2010 which says plaaf training hours are “100-150” for fighters, attackers and bomber pilots and over 200 for transport plane pilots.
It is also peculiar that sources 10 years old mention 120-150 hours a year figures.
I guess the truth is somewhere in between.
As for J7, it is still by far the most widely used plane in plaaf. There are some 300+ models of older J7s in service, alongside 200+ more modern models (E and G, with a newly designed wing, somewhat modern avionics, etc)
Thank you! So, even though on some early drawings typhoon was portrayed carrying up to 10 missiles, realistically it won’t ever carry more than 8? Are enough hardpoints even wired for a 10 missile configuration?
SK weighs some 16 tons. su35, according to sukhoi.org weighs some 18 tons. That is only natural considering the new version has twice the lifespan and reinforced airframe for greater payloads (due to multirole missions)
what sort of maximum a2a loadout would a raf typhoon have for a short range interception mission where a large number of incoming enemy planes would be detected and where typhoons would be numerically outmatched? does anyone have a precise weapons mix?
thank you! And another things: does argentinian air force uses maverick missile? if the answer is yes, are both fightinghawks and pampas cleared for using it? which version of maverick do they use?
Thank you, Buitreaux! That was quite informative! May I just make sure i understood some things – pampas CAN use targeting pods (same ones as on fightinghawks) and LGBs? Which pylon do they use for the targeting pod? Also, which pylon does the fightinghawk use for the targeting pod?
Perhaps we have different definitions of weapons bay then. But from this image i’d say it is impossible f22 has bomb bays much over a meter across, two meters for both bays in total.
f22’s bay is perhaps 3,9 meters long, but certainly not as wide. width is around 1,9 to 2 meters. Around 95 cm per bay. That much is evident from the images.
pl12 in its current form has a wingspan of 67 cm, as said, but just like amraam in f22 it isnt stacked inside the bay like that. what matters is fin box cross section width. That width is some 48 centimetres.
We dont know if j20 has a single continuous bay or two bays like the f22.
It could fit 2 per small bay or 5 in a large bay.
BUT. All that is quite unimportant as j20 is likely to carry a different version of pl12.
first aim120a was delivered to usaf in 1988 (didnt reach ioc till later) and first c model was delivered in 1996. That is eight years. pl12 was seen in service with plaaf in 2005 and j20 is likely to enter service no earlier than 2018. If amrram managed to shorten the finspan from 63 cm to 44 cm, pl12 will in double the time period, certainly manage to do something similar. So we wont be looking at 67 cm wingspan but something like 46 cm wingspan. And then the fin box width wont be 48 cm but 33 cm. And then we’re certain to see 3 such missiles per bay, if there are two bays, or perhaps as much as 8 such missiles if it is a single bay.