Dubya

Maybe the bribes are figments of your imagination?

Sauron

Probably.

But they do not have to be bribes in the traditional manner. There are contracts that are awarded to company’s affiliated with the defence official involved. Or the official is part of a certain faction that promotes certain policy issues, that may be against the national interest but are in that particular groups interests be they ideological, strategic or economic ones.

Such behaviour, along with down right corruption, are common in major defence projects as they often involve billions of dollars and are not that transparent due to “national security needs”.

Any money spent on a nations skills is not a waste of money.

For the amount of money it costs to acquire and maintain jet fighters, you could build a whole lot of schools or subsidise a lot of high tech maunfuacturers if you so desire.

There is no logical reason on the planet that would justify RNZAF keeping their old Skyhawks or buying a dozen F-16’s.

Plus politicians are always full of $h!t. The guy probably got a nice little kick back from Lockheed and now he can’t stop praising them.

And it’s funny how every country that has some sort of interest in the jSF believes Lockheed’s promises about performance, delivery dates etc. Given Lockheed’s very prompt and economically efficient handling of the F-22 program, I’m sure everyone will get a plump little Aardpiglet by 2030 with a price that only costs the equivalent of the current F-22 price.

There is considerable movement of F-16, F-16, C-130 and KC-135 to achieve larger squadrons and fewer bases, the ANG is consolidating on fewer larger squadrons and quite a few older model F-16s, C-130s and KC-135s are being retired.

By larger squadrons, do you mean that fighter squadrons will now all have 24 aircraft as opposed to the current 18 aircraft standard (other tha the F-15, which I think always had the 24 aircraft standard).

While i don’t really want any competition to the Aardpiglet, the Lockheed-thing got me thinking… and i did find an alternative.

The F-35 Starlet. In honour of that other other cheap, small hideous and slow Starlet, made by Toyota.

Shouldn’t the F/A-18 be called the Starlet then. It’s hideous and slow. (Maybe not cheap though, but it could be compared to whatever final price the F-35 is going to be.)

Kapedani and fantasma_337:

What an interesting conversation about a little known part of European history.

Here in Australia, military history consists of Gallipoli (where we got torn a new a$$hole by the Turks who we were trying to invade), the Japanese treatment of POWs (neglecting the fact that many of the guards were Koreans) and Normandy (even though we didn’t really fight there).

Strange little conflicts such as the one between Greece and Albania are unheard of, even at University level study.

So thanks guys for enlightening us, even thoguh you both disagree.

We showed ’em pretty damn good in WWII. The thing is, if we want it bad enough we’ll win. Period. And everybody knows it. Stings doesn’t it?

Ah the old “WWII was won at Normandy” theory. The Yanks did well against the Japanese., I’ll give them that

But as far as Europe goes it was the Soviets. The Eastern Front chewed up the bulk of the Wehrmacht fighting units, not Normandy or Africa. (Though the Soviets did utilise large quanitities of US war materiel).

The US is better at being a logisitics centre than it is as a warfighter.

The U.S. record following WWII wais pretty average, as they lost Vietnam (and in the process Laos and Cambodia) and drew in Korea. The US did really well against small countries such as Grenada and Panama, which had virtually no military capabilities or against countries devastated already by war and sanctions such as Afghanistan, Serbia and the Saddam regime in 2003. And now the US invasion of Iraq is also turning into a clusterf@#k.

As mentioned previously would the US take on countries such as North Korea or Iran, because they still maintain semi-decent military capabilities?

Most Latin American air arms still seem to be COIN forces. Even Brazil’s latest acquisitions (Super Tucano, R-99 etc) are designed to combat drug trafficking.

And it amazes me that people always look at what’s on paper to determine the capabilities of a military force.

For example Peru may have M2000, MiG-29 etc but how many of these planes are operational and furthermore what sort of pilot quality are we looking at? Are these aircraft operating within an integrated C3/air defence system?