unfortunately I feel that the market for both the Rafale and Typhoon will be quite limited.. unless lots of delays, dramatic cost rises, etc happen with the JSF. Furthermore its hard for Dassault to compete with it’s own Mirage 2k being one of the Rafales adversaries marketing wise.. while the Gripen seems to appeal more to those outside of Europe.. while the Russians and Chinese offer their wares for much cheaper unit prices.. I think Singapore may be the last “battle spot” for the Rafale.

I’m guessing as far as cockpit goes..it’ll end up looking similar to the MKI with the same 7 French MFDs but using an French HUD instead yes?

Originally posted by aditya
These flankers were born in which factory? both single and double seaters?

at KnAAPO, Komsomolsk in Khabarovsk Krai (in the far east) I do believe. Don’t know for the single seater

Originally posted by F-18 Hamburger
helicopters will be more important here..
Mi-24 is a must with night time abilities..however light ulitility transports is important too..and Russia doesn’t have too many of that..

Don’t look just at Mil..

if I was to build their airforce..it’d be similar..but i’d look to Kamov, they have several light multirole helicopters.. Kazan too!

Instead of the the Sokol you’re using, I’ll use the Ka-226 series and variants, very useful little things. The back part can be detached too

and for something a little bigger,

Kamov states it can be used as armed troop carrier as well.. but I may just prefer the Mi-24 since there’s much more upgrade options available for it

As for the rest of the procurement.. I think the following (forgot whom it was from) make allies from far away and watch out for neighbors could be applied.. Russia no longer borders Kyrgyzstan..and despite some bad history here and there..they’re better off as strategic partners since they have the same interest.. however I still would prefer the M2K-5 as the main air defence fighter (two or three squadrons of it).. it’s performance in Kagril is just simply too similar to the operations Kyrgyzstan might face since the Pamirs where those militants hide out can be comparable to Kagril.

the SU-25SK is a good choice.. the extra goodies on the other Frogfoot such as maritime missle capability and Kopyo radar system isn’t really needed.. these can be more focused on supporting border troops..

apart from this, I would invest heavily in artillery, such as the 2S19.. I think Kyrgyzstan has alot of T-72s they can use for the chasis.

Originally posted by Bonemachine
I would like to make this case a little more difficult and maybe more interesting.

Although I like the idea of a hi/lo mix of Typhoon/gripen but would not a newly proclaimed independent sakhalin need this capability a lot sooner? They could probably not afford to wait for years for these exelent ac to come they need them yesterday!! I dont think Russia would wait untill the brand new high tech AF was ready before they started to turn up the heath.

In addittion would europe support a breakaway republic from Russia? That has long been a nightmare for western european politicians that Russia should become even more fragmented. Would they dare supporting shuch a move?

What kind of a fill-in would be possible that could be delivered at once and be combat ready in the shortest possible timeframe? In this way used ac of russian nationality could be a solution since the members of the new “sakhalin AF” shold have some experience of it, but what to get and how to get them?

I dont need comments on my political part, but if you need an airforce today what would you do?

The unfortunate thing is Sakhalin has almost no combat aircraft stationed there.. so any attempts to nationalize Rusian aircraft will mostly be some amphibians and helicopters.. Russia removed their MiG-31s, etc a while ago. Also an independant Sakhalin probably also has to protect the Kuril Island chain, which is under it’s jurisdiction. But i suppose in a conflict, protecting hte larger 600 mile island is much more important than protecting a bunch of disputed islands that are barely inhabited