Sealord is absolutely right, the Zhuk-AE only exists as a prototype, like it or not.

Sealord, I have seen two antennas until now, one was yellow and one black, wonder if it is the same one or whether the black one was only a mockup?

I have been wondering that too. The conclusion I have come to thus far is that one is the mock-up that was displayed a few years back and the other is the actual thing although I am open to other suggestions. What fascinates me is the way that the Mig-35 is rapidly moving away from the basic Mig-29. It is now clear that the OVT and re-branded M2 are only tech demonstrators and that the actual Mig-35 (should it be built) will be as far from a basic Fulcrum as one can get without starting from scratch. A very impressive prospect indeed.

:confused: I find pretty hard to believe that. Is the 35 at such advanced stage that we can speak about deliveries?

Well I see no reason why they cant have a schedule of some sort?:confused:

im open to the possibility, but im stickin’ with missile… nothing has proved anything so far.

It has a cockpit, two engines, airliner wings, a tail and an aircraft with a matching paint scheme and configuration has been shown. The evidence is pretty overwhelming.

well, your definition of the word “clearly,” must differ from mine. we’ll have to leave it to a vote, no MD or CRJ series aircraft have the wings and the engines positioned like that, and certainly don’t have 4 missile like stabalizers as tail fins. im not 110% convinced those shadowy lines are wings either…

It does not have 4 missile like stabilisers. Everything seems to be in place.

An interesting piece on the Su-35 although I should say that this is not the most reliable website in the world.

http://www.defense-update.com/newscast/0208/news/news_260208_su35.htm

Summary: A further two prototypes are under construction and the first aircraft should be delivered to the Russian Air Force in 2010 with operational service in 2011.

Back to the original argument. I was basing what I proposed, about sub-launched cruise missiles attacking the targets I mentioned. I was defending Jon James because I assumed he meant attacking Buenos Aires in a tactical sense and not in a carpet bombing/targeting civilian sense. Where the casualties of that could be laid at the feet of the Argentinian government and not the UK. If by ‘trashing’, ‘pounding’ or ‘having your city trashed’ he meant targeting civilians intentionally then of course I dont stand by my comments. But if he meant attacking/trashing/pounding the city in a tactical sense then I dont see how that is a bad deterrent.

@Lawernce- If you make it clear to the Argentinians that if they attempt to take the Falklands that XXX is going to happen to them during the invasion; then how is that not a deterent.

@Swerve- How edgy would the Americans get if we asked to purchase more Tomahawks? Its business afterall, and especially when the issue is a foreign power invading british sovereign territory.

@Costs- Maintaining a garrison would surely be a much more expensive option in comparison to maintaing a sea based deterent that once deployed wouldn’t need half the money to maintain its presense.

Oh it is a deterrent but as swerve has already pointed out it is not a credible one. Furthermore what if Argentina decides to accept the cost? Congratualtions you have destroyed Argentina’s power generation capacity (causing huge civilian suffering in the process) but you have no military means of recovering the Islands.

The best deterrent is an existing garrison as a display of intent standing in the shadow of the 1982 events and backed up by what is now the worlds second most capable amphibious force with a very powerful array of surface ships and submarines.

Mate, fair enough on all points; I’d even agree with your argument if there was something called consistency. Sadly there seems to be no consistency in any of this and therefore no proportionality. I can’t defend my countries actions in Iraq because they stand by and do nothing in Zimbabwe, a country that at least used to be full of expats. I can’t morally defend the West over whats happened in Iraq when I look at what happened in Rwanda. Then I look again and I see definite potential, potential for western political and economic gain in a country like Iraq. I look at Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa, I hardly see as much potential. That makes me wonder if your 2nd point holds any water.

It therefore comes down again to a question of motivation. Why did we go into Iraq? If we went into Iraq for WMDs and regime change was the only way to achieve it.. fair enough. However thats a massive political blunder and a clear case of disproportionality. We have destroyed a countries infrastructure, killed thousands and thousands of people, disrupted the region and there are no WMDs, no proportionality. We destroyed a lot for our initial objectives, and it turned out we were wrong and we failed. Hardly a case of proportionality if you ask me. It’s a bit like if I were to paralyse a guy for the rest of his life, because my drunk mate thought he saw him sleeping with my wife and it turned out my mate had got the wrong girl.

If we went in because of what Saddam has done in the past… the supposed moral argument, well as I have written above, why have we not applied this rule to all the evil dictators around the world? I know the answer to that as Im sure you do. I also look to the casualty list; it seems to me this war has killed a lot more people in total than Saddam ever did. But the death toll is still rising. Perhaps we should have realised, before we engaged in a war that has had disproportionate consequences, that we could not impose our form of government in a country like Iraq, that to be blunt needs a tough hand to keep all in check.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQQkjkUOwhA&feature=related

To the majority of the people in Iraq, id say its been rather disporportionate.

Your attempt to use emotion to make a logocal argument is fundementally flawed. Iraq should not have turned out the way it has. The reason it did was gross incompetance on the part of the coalotion. However that incompetance does not take away from the moral justification of the exercise. All the excrement about Iraqi’s not being capable of western government is just that excrement. The Iraqi people were failed by the west but the objective was moral. There is a plethora of reasons why this has not happened in the past, the cold war, states that are too strong (China/NK for instance), the fact is that Saddam was especially bad and his state was and he fitted in with a grand strategic approach to the war on terror.