Hannibal was from North Africa too and he did pretty well crossing the Alps with ELEPHANTS! 😉

[]s Hammer

But anyone that can attempt to invade New Zealand will not be deterred by a handful of F-16’s.

I struggle to comprehend how anyone can believe that some one who is capable of sustaining an invasion fleet thousands of kilometers from the nearest sizeable piece of land would be deterred by a squadron of 2nd rate fighters.

Or maybe the Kiwis should turn their entire country into one big airbase and acquire several hundred F-22’s thereby saving Lockheed Martin’s butt. While you’re at it, get some carriers too, cause the Subpar Hornet needs an export customer so it can claim to be a success. :p

The RAF buy of 232 Eurofighters (although tranche 3 hasn’t actually been signed for yet) includes attrition reserves. The plan was for 7 Typhoon squadrons, each of 16 aircraft, plus the OEU (17 Sqn) and the OCU (29 Sqn). There will doubtless be a few test/evaluation aircraft too. The suspicion at the moment, though, is that there will be 5 rather than 7 Squadons.

That would seem to indicate that Tranche 3 is not going ahead.

The RAF is currently looking at the idea of turning what are currently flights into squadrons.

Thus, by way of example and using the Tornado GR 4, you currently have 2, 9, 13 and 31 Squadrons (off the top of my head) at RAF Marham. The ‘A’ Flight of each of these units would stay as that squadron – but the ‘B’ Flights would be given a number plate of their own.

Does this mean that Tornado squadrons are going to have smaller numbers of aircraft?

But he also said two countries that have F-16s have never fought a war.

This is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. First political scientists claimed that no democracy has fought a war against another democracy. Now it’s one F-16 user will not wage war against another F-16 user.

Perhaps if we want world peace, the US should supply F-16’s to everyone including North Korea and Russia.

Me thinks that this is the nail in the coffin for the JF-17. Now that the Pakistanis can get any number of cheap F-16’s, they don’t need some unproven Chinese jet that even the Chinese don’t seem to want.

I think that the U.S. would struggle to attack Iran successfully without large casualties. There is also the issue of where could the US attack Iran from.

Firstly, the situation in Iraq is still volaitle and the U.S. needs thousands of troops to maintain any semblance of peace there. The Shia community in Iraq would not approve of any attack on Iran, even if the central Iraqi puppet government approves of such an attack. This could lead to an intensification of the insurgency and leave US supply lines to Iran unprotected.

Secondly, Iran has its own military industrial complex that is relatively self-sufficient. This means that Iranians forces are in a lot better position after 26 years of sanctions than the Iraqis were after 10. Couple this with the disciplined nature of Iranian troops (see 1980-88) and the potential fanaticism of the Iranian religious troops (forget what they’re called) means that the US could struggle to push through without serious casualties.

Afghanistan is a bad region to attack from because it’s mainly mountainous terrain and does not suit the preferred U.S. style of mechanised blitzkreig type warfare.

And where would US aircraft be stationed at? It is doubtful whether Turkey or even Saudi Arabia would allow the use of thier bases for such an attack.

And I read somewhere (it may have been AFM’s F-4 special) that Egypt never took good care of their F-4’s.

People are always talking about Saudi Arabia’s ability to maintain and fly their aircraft. I would like to know what sort of servicability levels the Egyptians are getting on their fighter fleet.

Could it be that they continue to fly obsolete MiG-21’s and F-7’s because they are struggling to keep their F-16’s/Mirage 2000’s and other Western fighters (Mirage V/ F-4) airworthy?

I’m not a big F-16 fan, but buying F-16’s is a much better idea than getting FC-1’s.

I think Egypt should reitre their J-7/MiG-21 and Mirage 5 fleets. They seem kinda redundant when they already have the F-16 and Mirage 2000.

The F-4’s could perhaps be updated to perform solely stand-off strike or something like that even though they are quite old, their airframes still offer many capabilities that the Mirage 5 and MiG-21 designs can’t do.

I have never understood why the Egyptians keep their junk F-6’s and F-7/MiG-21’s. These are truly obsolete aircraft that have proven to be totally outclassed by Israeli fighters in the past (at least the MiG’s). I think that the Egyptian airforce is still in some sort of Soviet-era midnset despite its US alliance and despite the acquisition of F-16’s/Mirage 2000’s, i.e. quantity not quality (a lot of good that did them in 1956, 1967 and 1973).

The Aussies would never buy a Russian plane. The government have their noses too much up the Yanks’ rectums. Australia is some sort of moronic deputy sherriff that goes around and gets involved in America’s dirty little wars. Both sides of politics are big on this. It’s something to do with the inherent racism in Australia’s psyche (one of the main reasons the country was federated out of several colonies was to keep the Asian “hordes” out).

Australia sucks up to America (and in the past Great Britain) and in return gets some sort of vague assurance that the Yanks will come rushing in to save our butts in case the Asian hordes come charging through the East Timor sea. In return Aussies get the opportunity to die for the USA (other than WWII, Australia has never fought to defend itself, only to placate major allies).

So we buy American stuff cause it creates interoperability with US stuff. This is despite the fact that a Su-30/-32 would suit Australia’s needs better than the J-35 especially in terms of range and anti-shipping capabilities.

I for one could care less about the US-Australian relationship and would prefer a neutral stance as we have huge trade with Asia. This would mean acquiring Flankers that would only be used for the defence of Australia and no little side trips to Afghanistan or Iraq or whatever.