DubyaHmmm a difficult question.
I would actually not even invest a penny in to defence. Instead I would buy Fox and every other major TV company and then flood the world with even more stupider reality TV shows. In turn the global masses would be fully zombified and open to subliminal messages.
Hence Serbia would not only recreate Yugoslavia, but would also take over the world.
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
(YEs I’m evil).
DubyaI thought the number of F-35’s was meant to be 100? Also I don’t really see the purpose of the F-111 in RAAF service. It’s not really a deterent as anyone that can threaten Australia is most likely a nuclear power, and a few ageing F-111’s are not going to stop Sydney being turned into a slag heap (I’m sure most Australians would not object to that :D).
In fact about 10-15 years ago, an Australian analyst (I’m not sure whether it was Paul Dibbs) stated that the only country able to threaten Oz is the USA.
Australia does need a long range fighter with anti-ship capabilities, or as will most likely occur a fleet of A2A refuellers. Also given the government’s current policy of kissing my butt (I am George Dubya after all), then an aircraft that is fully interoperable with US forces is a greater necessity than a long range strike bomber. The F-111 is not the type of aircraft to deploy in Coalition type actions.
Firstly, it is strictly a bomber and hence offensive in nature – this could offend the voting public. Secondly, the F-111 requires its own separate logisitics chain as no-one else uses it, whereas the F/A-18 (or F-35) can always utilise USN/USMC (or USAF in the cae of F-35) logistics support if necessary.
DubyaAs long as it has a cup holder I am happy with it even if it is a Sopwith Camel.
DubyaLOL – the Iranians are flying aircraft produced by the Great Satan and have made a propaganda flick about it.
(Sorry – twisted sense of humour kicking in)
And flex – what is wrong with VHS? It’s much better than DVD – at least one can record on VHS and rental VHS tapes are usually in a better condition than rental DVD (they don’t skip).
DubyaBut in regards to the aerodynamic design – is it possible to sling some Harpoons or Mavericks from the wing or under the fuselage of a 737. The aircraft is designed to carry passangers after all.
(I have no idea about aerodynamics – my specialities are ‘Eavy Metal of the particularly ‘Eavy kind and Shannon Elizabeth).
DubyaJust cause I haven’t got a clue, but can the 737 be equipped with missiles and torpdoes or even sonabuoy dispensers?
DubyaAFAIK it lost to a hiccup in the price of crude oil.
(hence to a hiccup in the solvency of the petromonarchies who were the target market)
So I guess that explains why the ol’ Rafale hasn’t done very well on the export scene. Even with petrol going up, I doubt these basket case economies can afford too many high tech weapons. I think the Rafale will be the last fighter to bare the Dassault name…
DubyaNewspapers are not a very good source for defence related news. They often get the designations wrong, let alone the capabilities or numbers involved. Here in Australia the F-111 gets reported as the F1-11 while the P-3C is P3-C. Meanwhile the Blackhawk fleet is considered to be unrealiable despite most losses occuring due to human factors. Meanwhile the F-111 (or F1-11 :D) is of paramount importance to our defence as a counterweight to Indonesia’s Su-27’s, which are also known as MiGs.
DubyaI’d say the F-16 is more like Shannon Elizabeth – yeah she’s a tart but she can rock my world anyday.
DubyaSpeakin’ of Romanian Lancers – AFM in one of their surveys said Romania was not flying a proportion of their 110 Lancers. Are they going to place these aircraft in storage, use them as spares, or sell them? Also any idea on the numbers not being used?
DubyaWhy do you guys hate the F-16?
The F-16 is like a Bond girl – sleek, fast, and elegant, and can kick butt and take names when required.
Arthur, if the MiG-25 was a woman, it would be an East German lesbian swimmer whose name is Brunhilda and who is built like a brick s%@thouse and crushes bowling balls between her breasts. So the Bulgarians are upgrading in my opinion.
(I think I need to go out more. :D).
DubyaWow, this is highly amusing!
I just wish I hadn’t drunk all my beer yet…
DubyaTo be honest I have no direct line of information to what happens in Yemen, but here in New Zealand I didn’t learn anything about overhauling a modern jet engine when I went to public school. AF personel that were taught that gained a future in the local and international workforce with commercial airlines that hired pilots and maintainence crews that had gotten most of their training in the local airforce. I would assume that it could work the same in Yemen. Hiring local personel would reduce costs and solve communication problems with the locals for the airline and for Yemen the more locals earning money doing high tech jobs keeps more of the money that is in Yemen in Yemen. It also offers an overseas transferable skill for the Yemeni people in that potentially they might be able to assist other operators of the Migs in training and maintainence where appropriate. Since when does 200 or even 50 jets become a handful?
Yes, because their existing aircraft industry is so strong they are ready to build a modern fighterbomber… what are you smoking? First they are so poor and dumb they can’t maintain them and then you say the deal would only be any good if they made them themselves… get a grip. Restricting poor countries to old technology handme downs is not doing them any favours. Exposing them to modern technologies and helping where possible to meet their security needs is a much better solution.
And BTW I doubt the products the Russians are doing this for is oil as they have enough of their own to not need it like the US or the west or even china does right now. Would Saudi Arabia accept payment for a product they were selling in oil? I guess they would but I’d rather think they’d prefer cash or something they don’t already have plenty of…
This is exactly my point – Yemen is a developing country and its mainstream economy is based on the export of natural resources and not industrial production.
As for the training of personnel, this assumes that they will train their own personnel and not rely on Russians. Many poorer countries rely on overseas maintennance and support (see the stuff on Saudi Arabia).
Secondly given that Yemen has a low industrial base – so even if skills in jet fighter operations are acquired they have little or no value in the overall economy. Yemen is also relatively small – its airline industry is most likely very small (an assumption I admit). Widescale poverty further reduces the need for air travel.
Thirdly, the skills may be transferrable, but given the size of the Yemeni AF and its generally poor ability to keep aircraft servicable, it is highly unlikely that anyone will want to hire the services of the Yemeni AF to service their MiG-29’s. Besides the market is saturated with companies offering jet overhaul facilities/services and/or upgrades, especially in regards to MiG’s.
I still think that this deal is a load of crap – it does nothing for the average Yemeni. At best the jets and helos will serve to amuse high ranking government officials at airshows, before being relegated to the scrap heap. At worst they will be used against Yemenis that disapprove of the current regime.
And as to what I’m smoking – well I do live in Tasmania, which is Australia’s Jamaica in terms of the quality of the pot we grow :D.
DubyaInteresting statement,
if things would turn into lunacy the first thing to worry about is not an eventual Saudi agression on Yemen.
The house of Al-Saud would first and foremost be ousted from power.Then once the Al-Saud regime has been ousted how many of the Royal Saudi Airforce´s Hight Tech equpment would remain operational and for how long?
I ask this question with regard to the high Saudi Airforce reliance on qualified personel for their Air force.
(Qualified western para-military contract workers in the Air Force)
There was ab job advert for E-3 sentry radar operators lately and that does not seem to fit into the equation indgenous personel operating their E-3´s.Saudi Arabia is not Iran (before the revolution) that have bought big stocks of spares, missiles and training for their own Saudi engineers, mechanics etc.
No need to worry for Yemen in this case, the House of Al-Saud shoul worry instead.
Despite Saudi Arabia’s reliance on Western advisors, I’m sure they have enough pilots and maintennance crew to maintain at least some of those high tech jets. Remember that the Yanks thought that the Iranians were incapable of maintaining any of their F-4’s or F-14’s, even though this was totally untrue. Saudi Arabia is for all intents and purposes a closed state – I would not put much credence into western analysis of the Saudi air arm. Besides they would probably be able to maintain their aircraft for long enough to cause some havoc.
GarryB:
I mentioned Eastern European airforces, but I could’ve mentioned the likes of most African airforces who have scrapped their fighter fleets because they are too expensive and in the end serve no real purpose. And the political situation in Africa is still unstable. Even airforces in Latin America are in a state on decline (at least in regards to numbers).
“How can training your people to use modern aircraft/avionics system be a bad thing? Upskilling their population is the only way for them to get out of their poverty trap.”
How the hell does a handful of expensive Russian made jets upskill the Yemeni people? The jets would not contribute to the economy and the only people who would be upskilled are existing AF personnel. That money is better spent on schools or improving infrastructure.
If they set up a MiG-29 production line in Yemen or got some offsets, then there would be a benefit. Instead the Russians will recieve Yemeni oil in exchange for the hardware. This deal (like most other arms sales) only benefits the producer of the hardware – in this case Russia. (Though I suspect that that is your point anyway – Long live the Motherland! 😀 ).
DubyaPerhaps the problem lies not with the the F-22 but with the way the USA is thinking about future conflicts.
Many policy analysts and political theorists seem to be believe that conventional high intensity warfare is dead and buried. Instead wars will be fought against poorly equipped “rogue states” or shadowy “terrorist” groups. This seems to be very similar to predictions that WWI was the war to end all wars.
However we appear to be in a state of tranistion from the Cold War to a new order in which states such as India and China are superpowers in the making, while Europe is declining militarily and is slowly distancing itself from the United States. Old allies such as Saudi Arabia are also becoming increasingly isolated from the US.
The F-22 will probably be in USAF service for fifty or so years given the increasinlgy slow time it takes to develop and field new weapons. The world in 2050 could be radically different and high intensity proxy warfare could become popular again as the various powers try to gain influence over strategic resources. This may seem like a Tom Clancy plot but there is merit in it.
Hence the USA needs the F-22 not because of current needs, but because the future is becoming unstable and unpredictable.
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