Oranjeboom? Now that is foul…

And now you guys are going to get him a call-girl, or take him on a trip to Amsterdam right?

Welcome aboard Rahul! You should make another post this year though, less than one post a year and you’ll be sure to get told off for not wasting enough bandwith.

There is a regiment of Flankers at the Kaliningrad enclave, but on the proper Russian side of the border there hardly are fighter bases, and those there are have got Fencers stationed there (Smuravyevo, Syverskii). I think the fighters closest to Estonia are the MiG-31s from Gromovo, which is North of St. Petersburg.

Perhaps we could see a forward deployment of Flankers in the region (quite likely from Petrozavodsk, which is further to the NE of St. Petersburg), or perhaps even a whole unit rotation.

I do think Estonia’s behaviour is worrisome though. Whining about the Russians from day one they’re member of NATO doesn’t make a good impression, it’s more like that annoying little schoolkid who only dares to take a stand after getting some powerful friends. It seems that the Estonians seem to think they can now go on a diplomatic ramming course versus Russia now they’ve got NATO and the EU on their side, and i don’t think that is really stabilising for the region. It’s bad enough they treat Russian inhabitants of their country as second-rate people (they are even prohibited to become citizens by a number of ruthlessly discriminating laws), but now it appears they want to spread their antisocial behaviour outside of their borders too.

Can we please sell the Baltic states back to Russia, starting with Estonia? Tallin can be kept for the Finnish drinking hole it is, which is the only thing the country is good for anyway.

There was the whoa-cool AGM-78 StARM (Standard ARM) in between too, this being basically a RIM-66 Standard (the Naval SAM) with an AGM-45 seeker. I think it was only used on the A-6 and the Phantom though.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that the EF-111/F-4G SEAD/DEAD package was planned to be actually replaced. For the EF-111A, an new large stand-off SEAD jammer was originally planned to be the replacement, the EA-6B only being an interim solution. Large stuff was proposed like EB-52 or EB-1 for stand-off jamming, nothing of which came to fruition.
Likewise, the F-16CJ was never really planned to be the full replacement for the F-4G. Interim, yes, but even as late as 1992 the plan was to eventually have a DEAD-dedicated variant of the F-15E to take over the Wild Weasel role. Even though the F-16CJ is a reasonable HARM-shooter, it hasn’t got the ESM assets (which in this role simply means target finding gear) which the F-4G had. It’s ESM isn’t self-calibrating either which means that any HARM shot is by definition against a “slightly guessed” target rather than an accurate fix as is the case with decently calibrated antenna.
The only aircraft remaining in US inventory with the ESM gear needed for SEAD/DEAD missions is the EA-6B, which is perfect for stand-off SEAD but definately lacks the speed for DEAD missions. It just isn’t fast enough to operate inside a multilayered air defence environment like the fighter Weasels can.

Germany and Italy’s Tornado ECRs have very decent ESM gear aboard and are certainly up to the task, but stupidly enough their sensors don’t cover the airframe for the full 360deg. The tail of the ECR only has a small ‘tactical’ RWR which can’t provide targeting info to the guy-in-back or the missile.

I think you’ve got the one, Oren… Note the similar ventral fins, lacking fin intake and nose bumps (which are very visible on Russian A50s), the triangular layout suggesting a three-set phased array system…

I think someone here had more info on where the A-50I (the Ben Gurion one) went after the deal with China had been cancelled.

Here’s a vanilla Mainstay.

It’s not an A-50. The large cooling air intake at the base of the fin is missing, the basic A-50 doesn’t have the ventral fins under the tail, nor the triangular layout of the radome.

Great find HT.