could be higher too, see above..

also, since its got a role as the all important 2nd tier abm knockdown, its optimized for carrying a lot of stuff and growth volume that might be unnecessary versus an aircraft target but is necessary for an abm system.

That is certainly true as is the range issue and in no way was I belittling Indias achievement here. Clearly with the resources available and the limited experience in this area the Indian military-complex has excelled itself and is laying th foundations for a very bright future. If you compare this system to THAAD, it is far more compact (8 missiles per launcher) and has a longer range, however given the budget and experience difference this is to be expected for now.

What are you trying to say???
Are you trying to say that Turkish govt was somehow involved in this whole thing…and hence ‘barely upset’?

How did this whole news come out? Was it from syrian sources or Israeli or elsewhere?

I find that rather strange. Iraq had absolutely nothing and Israeli establishment turned them into a massive threat. Iran is years away from becoming a nuclear power (according to recent intelligence reports), and israelis are not having any of that. And there is syria with a nuclear facility established with the help of NK, destroyed by Israelis and Israelis are saying nothing??? :confused:

Why do you keep asking the same questions over and over again. The fact is that you are completely unable to provide any alternative to the scenario put forward and you have revealed yourself to be highly uninformed much to your own embarrassment.

If you had actually read any of the information posted here you would already know the answers to all the questions you have just asked (again).

I never said that the Turkish government was involved, simply that what happened was probably in their interest so they have only made a token protest, nothing serious.

Syria was the first side to talk about this, again Israel has said nothing. They had to change their initial story after the release of satellite images by independent sources showing that something had been bombed.

Why would Israel not attack a Syrian Nuclear facility, they have attacked an Iraqi one. You actually name a reason in your post why they have not attacked Iran, that country is years from a Nuclear weapon and is currently being actively pursued by the largest part of the international community to not go down that route.

It all makes sense, Israel saw a potential threat and attacked it……….come up with a more plausible alternative or live with it, and please stop asking the same questions over and over again, especially when all the answers are easily available either in this thread or via a very quick google search.

thats the aad! its meant for intercepting both abm as the 2nd tier, as well as a long range interceptor of aircraft and cruise missiles.

there are currently 4 air defense projects underway:

1.akash
2.project air defence (abm + cruise missile)
3.barak ng (for navy and air force)
4.maitri (replacement for trishul for all 3 services)

what really sucks is that trishul had cleared its trials too for the af and demonstrated consistent flight performance, but the great minister of defence had already opened his mouth in parliament and said project would be wound up. so it was.

but on the other side, its replacement will be far more sophisticated, with its own seeker in all possibility, and more modern radars. but they will surely reuse the trishul launchers and c3i eqpt or make derivatives of it.

Ok well that makes sense, so what is the range of the AAD against aircraft? I assume that there are plans for a more effective TEL than the one we have seen during the test carrying just a single missile?

Now that Akash seems to have finally come good it would make sense to push on as fast as possible with the next generation of indigenous projects.

I can not answer you that question simply because i do not know the answer to this however i think it was planed as part of the operational equipment of the Su-34

Just becouse it is planned it does not mean that it is there.

You forget that the agility of the f22 is a result of thrust vectoring, rather than aerodynamics.

As a fighter the f35 has to rely on stealth as its primary defence, as it has no chance at outmaneuvreing or outperform a 4,5 gen like the Eurofighter.

The big question is then on how long it will take to develop sensors that detect stealth a/c at useful range.

The day they do, the f35 will be obsolete as a fighter.

It is hilarious how far the America-haters will bury themselves under their own BS to avoid being exposed to the real world.:rolleyes:

PLA wrote

Why not? Use any means possible to minimize your risks. No aircraft is totally invulnerable to being brought down by an air defence system. Would it have made you any happier if the Israeli strike package had buzzed Damascus on their egress route?

Why go back over an alerted air defence system and risk giving the Syrians even the remotest chance of bringing down an Israeli aircraft in their territory? Imagine the propaganda coup of Israeli aircrew having to eject and being captured inside Syria? The destruction of the facility and no chance of retaliaton at the strike package must have annoyed the hell out of the Syrians?

A win, win situation for the Israelis and a bit of a headache for Syrian defences. Have the Syrians now had to go to great expense to bolster air defences along the Turkish border due to one single raid? A route that the Israelis might never use again? It possibly only resulted in a short ban on the use of Turkish bombing ranges by Israeli aircraft, if that. I’m sure that Turkey is very privately content that the facility has been destroyed.

Add to that the article posted on the first page of this thread suggesting the involvement of Turkish intelligence in the raid and it further suggests the absurdity of the idea that Turkey was massively upset by this.

On the issue of the F-16. If I was Lockheed I would be offering the F-16I with the radar replaced with RANGR (effectively the F-18E/F radar). This would offer proven solutions at the very high end of available technology and capability that would also be as far from the Pakistani F-16’s as possible. A further advantage would be the involvement of the Israelis with whom the Indians have an existing close relationship. The current F-16 is so modular that the only thing it has to have in common with the Pakistani birds is the basic airframe. An F-16 so equipped would likely be the best available aircraft after the Rafale and the Typhoon and would probably work out cheaper.

On the politics front, Pakistan aside India and the US both have a lot in common, they are both liberal capitalist democracies threatened muslim’s and are concerned about China as a peer rival. My own opinion is that there has been a substantial shift in US attitudes toward India and I find it highly unlikely that sanctions would be put in place again, especially now that India is effectively an accepted nuclear power.

Obviously I can still recognise Indian concerns, the F-16 is still operated by Pakistan and India has been bitten by US sanctions once before but as I say I no longer think that these issues are as substntial as some here make out. As for the F-16 being an old airframe design, well so is the F-18 and the Mig-29, not to mention the now out of production Mirage-2000 that was the original desire of the IAF for this requirement. The only ‘new’ airframes on offer here that are likely to win are the Typhoon and the Rafale.

I think UAZ and vikasrehman have ably poked enough holes into this theory to make it suspect. I do not claim to know anything more than anyone here but just a few points that bother me with this “planned turkish egress route” theory:

on the one hand proponents claim that the IDF has no problems with Syrian AD. Then why need to anger Turkey, Israel’s closest Muslim Ally?

What’s so important that it was built on the only part not properly covered by the Syrian AD?

Why would anyone think that a nuclear program can be built in one building complex?

Why would one need to make a media campaign out of this as a “great achievement” and one which somehow acts as a “come back” from the Lebanon affair?

lol, you have not read any of the posted article and you have little idea what you are talking about. Turkey was barely upset at all, other than the pathetic ‘official protest’ they have done nothing about the Israeli flight so they obviously were not that upset.:rolleyes:

Read the articles, nuclear facility, not full nuclear program, why not put it outside AD coverage, if an attack is not expected then why bother? Furthermore it is likely that the intention was to keep it away from the Syrian public and if a large water source was required then near a river is also sensible.:rolleyes:

In fact I seriously suggest that you read the first posts in this thread, even the Syrians say the Israelis entered their northern border, looks like no holes have been poked in anything.:p:D Oh yeah and the Israeli establishment is not making anything out of this, they have said nothing.:rolleyes: