The AD has to do right that to be of some use at all. For that purpose you are forced to have the facilities, persons and items at given place in times of attack to do the job. The attacker decides about that and not the defender. A further advantage of every attacker is he can choose the place, time, number he will fight and ignore all other places in NK. In short NK has just a limited number in a given area available. The attacker decides if that are worth the effort of an attack or can be ignored for some time. An AD going mobile will delay its destruction only when it is still in an area of intrest or can not do its job by going silent during an air-attack. It is very questionable that NK will achieve something like an exchange ratio the Vietnamese achieved temporary and were forced to Paris despite that.

There are many differences between North Vietnam and North Korea, among them that North Korea has ballistic missiles of short and medium range, and worse, there are nuclear warheads, which still can not be installed in those ballistic missiles, it has been assumed as certain degree of inaccuracy.

Thus any attack against underground facilities from North Korea should be done on a large scale, in order to eliminate any possible retaliation by North Korea, and perhaps best way to achieve this would be using the B 2A Spirits however there will always some risk.

Besides I do not think if it is delightful the comparison between North Vietnam with North Korea, as though the North Vietnam had been forced to Paris in 1972, still the same after that won the war and occupied South Vietnam in 1975.

Agreed, there’s no market. Everyone who’s going to upgrade F-5Es has done so, & even most of the upgraded F-5Es are now scheduled for replacement. Singapore & Switzerland have selected successors, Thailand is buying Gripens, etc. Non-upgraded F-5Es have already been retired, or soon will be.

Note that Turkey has no F-5E. It still has some F-5A, extensively rebuilt & used as LIFTs. Morocco, Switzerland, Chile & Thailand also upgraded their F-5Es, with AN/APG-69, EL/M-2032 or Grifo radars, & other new equipment.

1) Gripen NG has a much bigger nose. F-5E radar antenna is 56 x 37 cm: Gripen radar antenna is at least 60 cm radius, i.e. 60% larger area.

2) And Selex offers the Vixen 500E (half the area of the Gripen NG array) radar for armed trainers, light attack aircraft & the like. So what? This is about F-5E, not other types.

If a customer are willing to pay today for an AESA radar for a fighter like the F 5E / F would already be possible to get some options on the market.

if it could be a good option, I really do not know since so many fighters from 4th Generation has been deactivated and sent to museums, it may not be a cost / benefit investment as such aircraft from 3th Generation as F 5E / F, in the moment as several countries will be introducing aircraft from 5th Generation .

However it might be better with an F 5EM/FM with AESA radars as i.e., just the idea mentioned before, since in the future than in other way any fighter, once this way the cost / benefit ratio would be highly favorable to Brazil, at least the Brazil Air Force.

What? How is Brazil comparable with New Zealand? One is the 5th largest country in the world, with the 5th largest population & the 7th largest GDP at purchasing power parity. The other’s between the 60s & more than 120th in lists.

What have you been smoking, to think that Brazil might give up fighters?

In fact my major problem is that I do not: smoke, take alcoholic beverages, use illegal drugs or take prescription medicines and even any other type of continuous use. However I do not need those things, perhaps because I could be naturally crazy, and so crazy that no one has told me this until now, so because this I do not actually know if I’m crazy or not. And this is why I put posts here, maybe to get a diagnosis.

The numbers that you have been mentioned are indeed impressive, but I would put Brazil’s defense budget, which I think would be around US$ 12 billion per year, which would be a considerable amount, however around 80% of this value has been allocated to the payment of active duty military personnel and retirees. The remaining 20% should must be used for: Material Acquisitions, Maintenance, Training and Research/ Development.

The main problem should be that the budget were never fully used, since the Government cuts always the same throughout the year, and how can only cut 20%, and exactly the Material Acquisitions always the hardest hit.

The improvement work from F 5EM/FM would indeed be a remarkable accomplishment for the Brazil Air Force because of lack of resources, and the situation of the Army and Navy from Brazil are as bad or worse than the Air Force.

The defense budget of Brazil has been released to the World does not reflect the reality of the Armed Forces from Brazil, and this has been happening for decades, however if this will continues as appears, in my opinion very soon there will not even the legacy F 5EM/FM to display in ceremonies.

This is getting better and better every each post!

In these ‘clashes’ between Egypt and Saudi Arabia in 1978, at least someone has the knowledge that aircraft’s would be involved in this?

if indeed those hostilities had occurred in international airspace as previously mentioned, I assume that they should have occurred over the Red Sea, or would not it?

Anyone know anyway what the ‘specific’ reason for those hostilities in 1978 between Egypt and Saudi Arabia?

As I recall the MiG 23MS or MiG 23 Flogger E of Egypt or at least some of those were delivered to China by Egypt in the late 70s, which angered the Soviet Union at this time.

From what little I know about it, the MiG 23MS from Egypt had served to China to improve their new fighter, the J 8 Finback A. Which now after this had received new side air intakes in order to accommodate a more advanced radar, which would been based on the MiG 23MS, and after it were designated as J 8II Finback B.

At least for China the MiG 23MS were more interesting than some version of the MiG 21 in operation in Egypt, at least I do not know if China ordered the MiG 21 from Egypt.

About that Egypt and Saudi Arabia were on opposite sides during the war in Yemen until 1970, however if those confrontations between Lightning and MiG 23 had occurred in 1978 maybe there is some other motivation for this…

After all in 1978 Saudi Arabia had already or not received permission from the U.S. to purchase the F 15C / D Eagle?

Beyond that it was not until 1978 that they had signed the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, and these hostilities between Egypt and Saudi Arabia could have some connection with the treaty between Israel and Egypt, perhaps?

As I recall Israel in 1978 had already been beginning the operations with F 15A / B and ordering the F 15 C / D. And perhaps for this reason among these shocks between the Lightning and MiG 23 could help reduce any impediment on the future purchase to Saudi Arabia since these confrontations demonstrate the need for Saudi Arabia received new advanced fighters.Once Israel was not happy when it had been announced that the U.S. would provide the F 15C / D to Saudi Arabia, but actually I don’t remember when that happened.

Perhaps the most important aspect were that in 1978 the Iran Air Force was getting the F 14A Tomcat, and after these the Royal Saudi Arabia Air Force would be totally outdated in the Persian Gulf.

If in fact no one was injured in those ‘clashes’ between Lightnings and MiG 23, maybe those confrontations have been much more as ‘training’ than hostilities, with the purpose to allow the future sale of F 15C / D Eagle to Saudi Arabia.

The F5EM/FM were upgraded with new radar (Grifo-F), all-new avionics, a new cockpit with MFDs, and so on from 2001 to 2009.

They can now utilize Derby BVR missiles, Pirahna & Python WVR missiles, Litening 3 FLIR/laser pod, etc.

It would make no sense to conduct yet another modernization when the Brazilian Air Force is fighting to get a new fighter to replace first the Mirage 2000s and eventually the F-5s.

Although my opinion is worthless, yet I fully agree with your analysis that would not be justifiable an AESA radar for F 5EM/FM after the modernization program and the age of the F 5EM/FM.

But the idea of the AESA radar into F 5EM/FM makes sense when you consider the absurdity of constant cancellations on the purchase of new fighter to the Brazilian Air Force, once this has been dragging perhaps more than ten years.

Almost certainly the purchase of the F/A 18 E/F will be announced during the visit of the President of Brazil to the President of the United States in October, though this has been done two years ago, when the President of France in visit at the Brazil had received the President’s Brazil the news that the fighter Rafale would be bought by Brazil.But the Rafale were not bought and even the whole program was suspended.

Thus now could be interesting to analyze a new modernization for F 5EM/ FM in the coming years as well as the extension of the useful life of them, after all own modernization program ever undertaken by F 5EM/FM was too long, as the purchase program for his successor might not quit so soon.

IMHO, that alone doesn’t mean squat.

Dear MSphere,

Facilities as military Air Bases are not like civilian airports where it is allowed to use photographic equipment without authorization, or even these may be areas where it is forbidden to take pictures.

You may not have noticed that during the 80’s had not so many image capture devices like today, where even simple cell phones are able to get high definition images.

However the most important point of this lesson is that in situations of war, or even if it is banned, the fact someone get pictures without authorization from a military installation can lead to being accused of spying, since this information can be used by likely enemies, and thus to be characterized as treason. As far as I know most of the countries even respectable democracies considered the crime of treason in time of war as punishable by death.

If you had a chance back in the 80’s to get into a Iraq Air Base
with a photographic camera without permission, would you?

Before answering this hypothetical question would be important to remember that Iraq was ruled by Saddam Hussein during the 80’s, a true lover of freedom of information.

By the way, pictures can not be mounted as fraud, even during the 80’s?

Since nowadays find images that have not been edited may not be as easy as it sounds.