wohlstad123Merjayoun is not the “border”. Israelis went their to capture that area. Are you saying that Lebanese should hand over thier land to Israel without fighting? but tea? Maybe you guys should do it ? and maybe that would inspire the others to think about it :diablo:
Comparing Alexendar’s Campaigns to this is not appropriate in my opinion, while one side with tight budget is defending its land from a much superior army with unlimited funding. That was not the case with Alexander or Persia. And I dont see Arabs and Jews interbreeding anytime soon either.
You should read J.F.C.Fuller; Alexander’s campaigns are just as relevant today as at any time in the past, and his tactics against the Bactrian and Sogdian opponents also took time to mature as was the training of the infantry and cavalry. In the end he did the job, but it took more than two full years of campaigning.
I’ll quote from Fuller’s brilliant book:
“In this theatre the whole mode of fighting was to differ from what it had been. No great battles awaited Alexander; he was to be faced by people’s war, a war of mounted guerrillas who, when he advanced would suddenly appear in his rear, who entrenched themselves on inaccessible crags, and when pursued vanished into Turcoman steppes. To overrun such a theater of war and subdue such an enemy demanded generalship of the highest order, much higher than needed against an organized army on the plains. It is in his campaigns in Bactria and Sogdiana that Alexander’s generalship reaches its zenith, and that he was able to subdue these two satrapies in a little over two years is a feat of arms seldom rivalled.”
As I said, one month fighting against Hizbollah is just a prelude to what is likely to follow.
wohlstad123About the thrust to weight ration and wing loading I don’t see the Raptor being far superior to the Typhoon in that respect.
Take the empty weight+max internal fuel+1000 kg on weapons (8 AAMs).
The Raptors normal takeoff weight in such a configuration is about 28550 kg that of the Typhoon is 16950 kg.
Now lets calculate TWR:
Raptor 28550 kg TOW against 31760 kg thrust = 1,11:1
Typhoon 16950 kg TOW against 18360 kg thrust = 1,083:1Superior? Yes!
Significant? No!Now the wing loading:
Raptor 28550 kg TOW against 78,04 m² = ~365 kg/m²
Typhoon 16950 kg TOW against 50 m² = 339 kg/m²Even if you only take the empty weights Typhoons wingloading is lower, however the TWR would be better for the Raptor. But an aircraft can’t fly unloaded.
Well, how far will Typhoon fly on just internal fuel? Usually it’s shown with 2 external tanks, while Raptor is designed for internal carriage all along. The Raptor will kill the Typhoon long before the latter has a chance to drop its tanks.
wohlstad123Campaigns against guerrillas take time.
Lets remember that it took Alexander the Great 3 years to smash the Persian Empire, and at least 2 years to finish the Afghan campaign during which he himself suffered a number of losses and disappointments. And he had to marry local chieftain’s daughter in the end to seal the final bargain.
Round II, anyone?
wohlstad123I for one don’t buy the version that the Hezbollah “won” as the war is not yet over, and no army in the world can point to easy success in fighting tough guerrilla war. Lets see:
the mighty Red Army in the 80s lost over a hundred thousand dead and wounded in Afghanistan and “lost” (the system collapsed), but not before killing ~ 1 million Afghan civilians
US suffered ~ same and “lost” in Vietnam
Russian Federation lost against a bunch of Chechens in Grozny in 1st war – anyone remembers the ease with which the RPG-clad Chechens took out the scores of T-72s? Only after totally leveling Grozny and pretty much devastating Chechnia did the Russians partially subdued the land in Chechen War II (still not totally)
Iraq – such a mess
Comparably, the IDF did not do badly – remember that the Israelis could not do, or would not do the wholesale scorched earth strategy which the Russians or others did to bring the wars to conclusion.
Remember what it took for the Allies to win the WW2? Pretty much erase German cities off the map and nuke Japan (twice).
Hiding in tunnels and among civilians and firing ATGMs from a distance may keep Hizbollah alive but it does not win wars.
wohlstad123Face it, bob, all I see when looking at Israel is a bunch of ignorant greedy dumbasses illegally possessing nuclear weapons and whining about another bunch of ignorant greedy dumbasses wanting to illegally possess the same.. With no disrespect towards your race, ethnic group or nationality, this is the most honest answer I can give you..
Hmm, ignorant dumbasses they are not.
Flex, in the past 4 years Israeli scientists won 4 Nobel prizes: 2 in chemistry and 2 in economics.
Israeli universities are generally well-respected and the Technion is routinely regarded as one of the top engineering schools in the world, particlularly strong in communications, information theory and computer science.
There are many Israeli high-tech companies on Nasdaq and many more start-ups with neat technology ranging from laser optics to chip design, communications, coding, muti-media, wireless, bio-tech, etc., etc.
This is aside from the defense technology.
I just wonder, what is your intellectual background? Do you have a science or engineering degree?
I generaly find your posts of low intellectual quality with little insight into defense/airpace issues which is after al what this forum is all about.
wohlstad123I think it was a very logical step from the side of Soviets..
Well, the Soviets in the 60s planned nuclear strikes against most of Western Europe, particularly Germany.
Suppose it was a “very logical step” too 😉
wohlstad123There is nothing really technically wrong with this project other then the fact that the People Incharge really FFFFed up with work. .
It looks like the problems are serious enough and involve more than the simple radome placement.
Here’s from the Flight International :
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Boweing Integrated Defense Systems president and chief executive Jim Albaugh says the delay was forced after recent flight tests of the radar-equipped 737 revealed the planned schedule for development and testing of the AEW&C platform was “flawed”. The issues involve hardware and software integration, particulary with the radar and communications suite.
“This is an advanced and complex programme – a new radar, a new platform and a commercial venture. There are technical challenges at the subsystem level and integration level,” Albaugh says. “Hardware and software and integration has not progressed as quickly as we expected.” Boeing took a $100 million charge in 2002 to cover development cost overruns on the AEW&C radar, mainly associated with the Northrop Grumman Mesa electronically scanned radar.
—————————————————————–
It sure is a complex project, one where the Boeing salesmen made a boatload of promises to get the contract and left to the engineers to deliver on the technical side whether ready or not.
The problem is – unlike the SoKAF’s F15K -the “Wedgetail” is new and will never be in service with USAF, thus the big hammer and the $$$ to make the project work to complete specs will never be applied.
It may well be that AuAF will not see the to-spec Wedgetail for many years to come if at all.
wohlstad123Great post. The reality is that by 2050 the chinese economy will be larger than that of the US, im not saying that the US is going to dissapear as a great power just that it wont be the only one anymore. It is therefore entirely plausable that by that time its military-industrial complex will have reached the same tech level as the US. There is no real need for the US and china to go to war, the Taiwan issue is just stupid, just let the chinese have it, they dont have any serious territorial claims beyond that and most countrys have a one china policy anyway. Hell theres only about 13 million people on the Island anyway.
Yeh, betray your allies, appease your rivals- where did we hear that before ): Sounds like France in late 1930s, 60s – 90s.
Don’t think it worked out so well for the frogs, though):
It’s interesting that for all the anti-US attitude, France has not won a single substantial Saudi defense deal – that went to the Brits.
wohlstad123Israel. Really, why do we bother with them? Clearly, this is a relationship that is far more trouble than it’s worth.
Interesting. I believe same question had been asked of JFK by Nikita Kruschev – and look what happened to Nikita Kruschev ):
wohlstad123Carry on.
You are probably not in the technology business – if you think the US jobs are mostly going to the dumb “Chicoms” you’d better take a look at who is doing engineering designs at the leading US tech companies.
Ans while at it, examine the graduate engineering/science population at the likes of MIT, Stanford, Berkeley and Cal Tech.
The truth is, without those smart “Chicoms” the US tech industry would grind to a halt since the above average white US boy would much rather go to Harvard B-school – engineering and science are way down on his list of priorities ):
wohlstad123Cool. That means the Chicoms will have a knockoff of the JSF soon after that.
Elp, the “Chicoms” as you call the Chinese so derisively, do not need Israel to access America’s latest technology.
They have IBM, Motorola, TI, Qualcomm, GE, GM, BA, Microsoft, etc. etc. moving entire production lines, semiconductor fabricators and R&D centers over there.
And their space program? Thank Boeing, LocMart and Loral for solving their launcher and satellite problems.
So before you try to blame some small country – take a look at what’s happening in your own backyard. After all, while you are busy writing these comments, some smart “Chicome” is about to take your job – courtesy of your very own American mega-corporation 😀
wohlstad123<1. Hmm, how do you recognize a Jew living in Slovakia, for instance?>
I heard from a Jewish student whose grandparents came from Carsbad that during WW2 the Germans used to make the Czech men drop their pants to catch the Jews – the ones circumcised were machine-gunned or shipped to KZs.
Flex probably knows more about it.
Incidentally, this tactic wouldn’t so easily work for the Arabs if they were to take over Israel at some point 😀
wohlstad123It looks like Boeing – a bit by luck – has ripped the belly from Airbus with its 787/777 combo. Really, the only solid line A. still has is the little 320, now that the 380 is in trouble
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