Blimey Pilot are you feeling okay? Your not going to drop any bombshells on us are you? You are actually contributing fully to debate unfortunately I am speechless.:)

Its still no more advanced than a Rafale though you can tell which perspective these reports are coming from. In fact the air to ground testing of the Rafale is ahead of the Typhoon but it still proves a point about the Typhoon’s multi role intentions.:)

Thanks Pilot thats a very interesting read. Nice one chap.:)

Yepyepyep – that’s the point “makes them less dependent on the US”. It is every thinking man’s duty to fight off those evil Bush-ites! Those blackmailing enemys of freedom and democracy! Those warmongering hypocrites and capitalistic exploiters!

My comments are not aimed at America or Americans Distiller they are aimed at you and Lockheed Martin.

1. If Poland looks for a NATO umbrella, that is allright, I got nothin against it. Yet, does it automatically mean a must for US made fighters?

No it doesn’t. At least not necesarily. What it means is that you let them decide wether or not it is US fighters they buy or European. You might not like it or agree with it but Poland must be able to defend themselves and you must not interfere even if you are subsidising it. Sounds unfair? Perhaps but if you want other countries to trust you you must allow them to make their own decisions. Directly or indirectly British money has gone into this as well and we attached no strings except “spend it well” and there is ought wrong with an F16.

2. I can respect their decision to buy the F-16, but at their own costs. Give em money to support the vultures from LM? Never! I simply cannot see, how Poland buys Olivier Perry fregates equipped with SH-2G Super Seasprites, F-16C-52, and this all from European funds. I must be dreaming!

I’ll just be repeating myself. I’d love them to buy the Typhoon or the Rafale or the Gripen. They don’t tell Germany how to spend their defence budget why should Germany order them around I’m sorry but even after this subsidy Germany and Europe still owes Poland for either failing them or attacking them. Don’t begrudge it.

You mean like the supposition that the Archer might be better than contemporary versions of the sidewinder, or the supposition that because the AMRAAM is better than the R-27 models that are exported that it is also superior to any Russian missile ever including those that have a similar mode of operation that is what makes the AMRAAM so good, and that a future missile in design that does similar things but with longer range might be better. Yes, I guess that is supposition, but certainly much more sensible than the supposition that… the russians have no money and their weapons are crap anyway.

Yes Garry but I never made any suppositions and I never said Russian weapons were crap those are your words. I know you were being ironic but you have pulled me up before with this kind of self belittlement so I am returning the favour. Its not necesary especially not with me because I never said it. Also if you read what I said I haven’t said anything for or against either the F18 or the Mig29 because I am not looking for an argument. Sorry. I was playing devils advocate and you are right it is fun to do.

It is the little things… when your tanks have TI sights and you enemy does not you fight at night. When you outrange an opponent you use that advantage too. Assuming equal pilots, which is a big assumption with the third world pilots the US likes to fight with is a big assumption but I am talking about competant Russian pilots who are professional even if they don’t get the hours in the air they need. The HMS makes a huge difference in WVR and in BVR missile range and kinetics means that the Hornet pilot would have to launch and the missile impact before the Mig pilot knew what was coming and his ESM system would have to completely fail. Otherwise all the fulcrum pilot has to do is launch and odds are it will be at least 1:1.

1:1? Your calculations are not very scientific, thats where my reservations lie. As it happens I sort of agree with your assumtion but that doesn’t make it any less of an assumption. True Russian pilots are consumate professionals but you also admit that they don’t get the training hours as yet. I beleive they one day will get the required allocation then, and only then will you see the average going in the favour of the Mig. There is no point having a “secret weapon” or “wonder sight” if a) you don’t know how to use it or b) you have so little time to get to grips with it that you are fumbling for the switches and accidentally breaking lock instead of firing the weapon.

This is not a critisism and I have an analogy if you will indulge me. Play a computer game for the first time lets say LOMAC (this is dying for a patch by the way I’m sure I bought a beta version). You are going to spend an awful lot of time trying to set up the controls for the radar, weapons modes, nav modes and the plethora of other stuff that you need to fly the sim effectively. Afterwards you only get to spend an hour a week flying for whatever reason. Your mate next door spends an hour every night with his so naturally he is better at the game because he now knows where the required keystrokes are and what sequence they need to pressed in. He can do it faster and he can do it almost instinctively while you are fumbling because you don’t spend as much time with it and you are slower with the systems. We can both run the risk of putting too much faith in the equipment and too little faith in the bloke in the cockpit or in this case, give him too little time in the cockpit. With anywhere between 280hrs flying time (NATO minimum) and perhaps 400 or 500 hrs flying time the F18 pilot will also likely get more time to develop tactics against known systems like an HMS for example. I don’t know how many hours Russian aircrew get for training but I’m reasonably sure they don’t get as much time as NATO pilots do.

It acheived at least 21 kills in air to air combat in 1982 for no losses in air to air combat.

Yes sorry I was taking this ‘as-read’ I will try to be more narrative in future.

The SHAR pilots are very professional. I think if the enemy had a weapon range advantage then things might have been different. Replace those mirages with Mig-23s. A Mig-23 is not a super plane by any means and has many serious deficiencies but it does have good range and a BVR missile. High speed knife attacks that don’t involve dogfights would have made life rather hard for those SHAR pilots.

Too right they are professional and who said the Argentines did not have a weapon range advantage? I’m not going to argue the old Lima type Sidewinder chestnut it doesn’t wash and never did but heat seeking weapons, short range heat seeking weapons, is all the Royal Navy had. The Argentines had medium range radar guided weapons on their Mirage 3s as well as heat seekers. If they didn’t use them tough, their mistake their problem and I mean no offence to them either, the British did not have this option or this advantage in the first place. So lets leave that example now, I think I know exactly where you want to take it and its disrespectful to all involved, not just the British.

So there is not really any point addressing this but hey its you an me so it’d be rude not to. It didn’t happen did it? So how do you expect to argue a non existent point? They were’nt Mig23s and they wern’t all Daggers and Skyhawks either, they also included a number of Radar equipped Mirage IIIs with radar guided weapons and the Argentines were not ameteurs. Your tendency Gaz is to focus on things that did not happen and things that you think would happen if such and such worked in such and such a way. I cannot address a point that doesn’t exist anymore than I can trust raw data and I am a data analyst so I know.

Just because somebody or something is Russian, American, British, French et al’ doesn’t make it invincible or unbeatable. Why don’t you try a little more balance?

The airframe importance get down each year.

What’s important is avionics and radar.

the mirage 4000 was a mirage 2000 with a better range, nothing more.

Sorry its the last quote that interests me. You reckon the M4000 was M2000 with more range. Well if it used the same engines its also got twice the power and only perhaps 1.5 times the weight. It would be able to carry more over a longer distance please don’t tell me this would be a bad thing. Two M2000s in one, oh baby its like a wet dream. Its awsome. Its even got a better conopy: why oh why didn’t Dassault build it? Why didn’t the AdlA want it? Its a tragedy. That thing would have p***ed all over an F15 if properly developed.

A bloody tragedy.:eek: 🙁 :rolleyes: 😎

on the Arc de Triomphe, there is just a list of French feat of arms, so man, u got it wrong there

Are we then to assume that the Battle of Trafalgar is up there then? The Battle of Waterloo? Salamanca? Badajoz? Cuidad Rodrigo? The Battle of the Nile? Copenhagen? If what you say is true then they will all be up there won’t they?