As Elp said, the surprise factor was the point. And imho it would have been very suprising to achieve surprise for the WarPac.

The East Germans and the Russians were ready to move out in a very short time, but that also meant that they did not practice much and espcially not as large formations.

So if NATO would detect a change in their training, then Reforger would have started. That was confirmed by many sources.

How effective would a 60+ planes raid be, if the pilots are only used to fly in pairs ?

The outcome could be anything from a huge success to a big turkey shot for NATO.

Luckily we will never know.

Honestly, in the 1980ies it would have depended on the achievement of tactical surprise by the WarPac. If NATO would have not been reinforced by units from CONUS, then the war would have been over quickly, no matter who would have won the airwar.

Imho, there would have been not much of an airwar going on. Soviet ballistic missiles would have taken care of most airbases NATO had in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and eastern France. Follwoing massive airstrikes would have taken care of any remaining airbases.

Only if NATO would have had enough warning time to disperse and withdraw airplanes as far south as Portugal to surive the initial onslaught, only then they would have even been able to join the fight.

Strategic targets like airbases would have always been open to attacks be regiment sized WarpAc strikes and nothing would have stopped those strikes. (Well apart from 3 squadrons of AIM-54 equipped F-14s taken from carriers). Or if the russians would have tried to strike more then 200kms behind enemy lines, then NATO AWACS would have vectored the NATO fighters into a better postion and they would have started to kill those huge formations.

If NATO could disperse all fighter and surivive the initial ballistic missile strike, and would have been ablt to meet the first WarPac strikes with all BVR fighters they had (F-15, F-104S, F-4, Mirage) then thy might would have had a chance.

And seahawk, complain as you will about how impolite I am, you still haven’t countered my arguements. In fact, you persist in proving me right. Is it not true that by your criteria not only do Jews not deserve Palestine, but they don’t actually deserve any land at all? Or do you have some piece of land hidden away for us? Is this not a de facto denial of the Jewish right of self determination?

Honestly speaking I think Jews do not deserve an own country. Why ??

Because Judaism is a religion and no religion has a “own country”. Only some of those islamic fundamentalists are fighting for an islamic country. A country is defined by the common ethnic heritage of the people living there.

As I already said. Most french do speak french as their first language, most of them were born in France or have parents born in France. And that rule applies to every country in the world except Israel.

If we look at the time the jewish religion was formed and the Jewish people came into existens based on the 12 tribes we see, that the main difference between the Egyptians and the Jews were the following :

– all Jews spoke the same language, but not the same as the Egyptians
– all Jews wrote in that language
– all Jews believed in only one God

Is that the case today ?? Apart from the common religion do the Jews still fullfill the points 1 and 2. I do not mean the people living in Israel today. I mean the people when they went there. To you think that a Jew from East Africa did have anything in common with a Jew from Russia, apart from the fact that they believe in the same religion ??

And that is what makes Israel so unique. You can be American, Syrian or Australian, no matter what your religion is. But you are an Israeli, if you are a Jew.

We must also see that the early tribes left their homeland for the first time with out being forced by anyone. They decided to live in Egypt to escape a period of economic (lack of food) problems. After spending some time in Egypt the 12 tribes wanted to return to theri homeland and they did so wuth their leader Moses. We must also see that even during this journey the Jews were under constant attacks from other tribes living in the area. So even then the land was not empty. After a trip of 40 years the Jewish tribes defeatet the old inhabitants of the land and only then they divided the land between the 12 tribes. Yet even then their was no state Israel.
Only when being attacked by a tribe coming from the area of todays Jordain the 12 tribes united and formed the state of historic Israel.
After forming the state of Israel the tribes defeated the people living in the historic city of Jebus, today known as Jerusalem and that city became the center of the new kingdom of Israel.

That kingdom was conquered by various powers after that. Asyrians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Rome.

Rome finally destroyed Jewish people in that area, after an uprising against Rome failed.

So we see that the Jews were neither the first nor the only people to live in that region. And where would the world come to if all people would claim to have a right to live in that piece of land that an historic kingdom once controlled ??

So in fact any state in the region should treat all people living in the region as equals, no matter what their religion is. Or there would have to be 2 states, but honestly speaking I doubt that turning refugee camps into states will work.

It is a 3/4 scale development prototype – no flying plane.

If you think it looks pathetic then remember the time it was development. A supersonic stealth interceptor with an in service dat in the early 90ies. Would that have been pathetic ??

Arthur plz sent me the line drawing.

Yet in your own reasoning you use precisely four nationalities which do have nation states of their own: Turkey, Italy, Greece and more than 20 Arab countries. This goes beyond affiliation to a specific piece of land, because the nationalities you mentioned are not lacking in that regard. What in effect you are saying is that Jews have no right of self determination, denying them the rights under which numerous nation states on this planet have come into being, and condeming them to perpetual depedence on the fleeting will of the likes of Europe and the Muslim World. We both know our history, you’ll forgive me if I decline.

No, there is a very huge difference between Israel and the states I mentioned.

The difference is that, todays Italians, Turks (or whatever) are members of that nation, because they were born there, or have parrents that were born there. They have few things in common with the historic people that once made up the empires of those historic countries.

So compared to Israel, I would say that every person born in Palestina or having parrents that were born there, is logicaly a person who is part of the nation that controls that piece of land.

Jews on the other hand, were born all over the world, were citizens of many different countries and had no direct and personal connection to the land of Palestina.

So how can we justify that every Jew has a right to live in Israel, regardless of the fact if he was born there or not.

(and thanks for the nice interpretation of my posts 😀 )