Lets just get back to our topic. I wish serbia rather bought f-16As or Bs if there was ever possiable for serbia to trade in there mig29s for 4 f-16 and 1 f-16b that would be good and maybe add some money to accurie them beacuse you would have a modern plane with everything and a fuel cost of 3900 dollars then 10000 dollars per flight hour.

As nice as that would be, I don’t think it would be productive or efficient to get any US fighter aircraft. You’d have to train all of your logistical personell on a completely different aircraft, operating procedure, ammunition, missiles, rockets, ground control/radars, and even the wrenches would need to be changed. Besides, the f-16 is older than the MiG’s we operated. (Are the B’s night vision capable?) (And which F-16 model was the first with night vision display?) (Was it the C, and if so which block?)

When a country makes a purchase like this, it’s looking 20-30 years in the future. 15-20 years as the primary fighter aircraft and another 10-15 as a gap-fill measure for the next generation. We’d be purchasing a gap-filler. In that case, upgrading current and purchasing new ground radars and SAMs would be the better route to go. I just feel that purchasing anything than the best we can buy, is not worth it. Why buy planes that would just be shot down anyway?

I know we’re not from the best neigborhood in the world, but everybody’s got a couple hundred sa-7/16/18 just sitting around. EVERYBODY! Albania, the Federation, Srpska Republika, KLA, Macedonia, Croatia…and then the countries in our weight class…bulgaria, greece, romania, hungary; they’re a lot more serious. Our airforce of 200 planes couldn’t even be utilized properly during the civil war b/c every side had manpads. Lets not even talk about the 30 or so operable planes we’ve got now.

I’m not criticising the air force b/c i understand why they couldn’t jeapordize their aircraft, i just wish the whole situation had been different and that they could have shown themselves in the proper light.

Yeah, but I mentioned the C-27J Spartans. I dunno, I’d send one of the Il-76’s to Iraq and have the Americans pay for the maintenance. That, or send one of them on a UN mission where the fuel, salaries, and maintenance is covered under the UN budget. Actually, I don’t know if spares would be covered, but salaries and fuel costs are. That leaves you one in country to maintain. How much could it cost to run a year? $1million? $2millions? 3million? Somebody do me a favor and throw out numbers.

So back on the Su-30’s; how much would fuel costs be per hour? I’ll say $7500. Not as cheap as the F-16, but not as expensive as the fuel guzzling RD-33’s on the MiG-29A’s. At 60 pilots (30 planes x 2 sets of crews for each) and 150 hours a year for each pilot = $67,500,000 for fuel costs a year! Ok, sorry guys…we’re gonna have to cut back on crews to make this realistic. 30 pilots; 1 crew per plane @ 150 hours a year = $33,750,000! It’s still a lot, but no longer 11% of their military budget just for gas. Doable. Air Force budget should be about 30% in our case anyways. No navy lets it be higher.

The Serbian MOD site has a great report called Bela Kniga (white Book) in both english and serbian. Go to http://www.mod.gov.yu and download it. It’s an adobe file and like 100 pages long. Lots of charts, pictures, and stuff to make it interesting.

Are you refering to Serbian Air Force pilots getting 150 flight hours per year?I think that is extremely overrated. The fuel is a big problem my friend,the military does not have sufficient money to pay.You should know that for example Mig-29s costed $10 000 per flight hour. I am surprised so many pilots graduate the academy,knowing that the future of the air force is uncertain.

My mistake…I wasn’t talking about our airforce. I meant real airforces with real airplanes. :diablo: US, UK, Russia, France, Germany, Nato,…..thanks for pointing that out. I didn’t know that it cost $10,000 per flight hour! I thought it’d be down in the $3-4000 mark. Yeah, like i said…the pilots complete the academy, but only a small handful (2-3) are kept in the airforce. The rest use their diploma as a BS/BA to find a job with a civil/commercial airliner. Free education…can’t beat that.

Lets first hope that the money Russia owns to Serbia doesnt go to private accounts,as the corruption is still present. Hinds are very usefull helicopters and when equiped with good electronics and precise missiles,they can be deadly.However,they are rather unmanouverable but i guess the tactics to use them to best effect can be devised.

My contacts here in the US tell me that when they’re training against “hinds” (real or mock ups), they are always flying in pairs. Their turn radius is slower than an apaches/cobras, b/c it has the troop compartment. So it’s really more of a blackhawk; armed to the *ucking teeth.

What Su-30s are you talking about? No money no honey. There is no way they will acquire Su-30s,especially newly built. A squadron of 30 Su-30s would cost over $2 billion with all the equipment and weapons. And we have no money for that.You need to go for a visit and see the situation for yourself…

Su-30M (MK-export version) is a standard Su-30 with the air-to-ground missiles which can carry twice the armament (8 tons) compared to the baseline Su-27. The Su-30 ‘export variant’ of the formidable Su-27 ‘Flanker’, can carry the latest Russian air-to-air missiles, including the medium-range R-27 family, the short-range R-73 and the new medium-range R-77 ‘AMRAAM-ski’. The Sukhoi-30K has a range in excess of 3,000km, which means it can easily patrol offshore installations without requiring aerial refuelling. In June 1999 Russia agreed to sell 72 of these front-line Sukhoi-30 jet fighter-bombers to China. The aircraft building enterprise in Komsomolsk-on-Amur (KnAAPO) is likely to become the main supplier of a large lot of Su-30MKK fighter jets to China. The cost of one Su-30MKK fighter jet is estimated at $35 million – $37 million. At the same time, negotiations began for Moscow to grant a licence for the production of another 250 Sukhoi-30 fighters. The Su-30MKK for China is different in details from the Su-30MKI version designed for India. Sukhoi has a $1.5-$1.8 billion deal to supply 40 Su-30MK to India. In 1997, a total of eight aircraft were supplied under this contract, which should be completed at the end of 1999. Negotiations to license the production of the Su-30MKI to the Hindustan AeronauticsLimited (HAL) works of India continued in 1997. The Indians received feasibility plans, and it is thought that a final decision would be reached this year. Production in India would begin after 2001. In all, India might produce 100 warplanes in a contract worth more than $1 billion. However, as of mid-1999 negotiations on the contract for the licensed production of Su-30MKI fighter by HAL remained delayed due to the government crisis in India, which could not be resolved until after the Fall 1999 elections. The two sides had agreed on all the basic issues, including the value of the licensing contract. As of mid-2000 India had received only eight SU-30K air defence aircraft and none of the upgraded SU-30MK multi-role aircraft in the Rs 6310-crore deal signed with Russia in 1996. There had been no deliveries after May 1997. India’s Defence Research Development Organisation had failed to develop and supply key avionics sub-systems and failed to procure Western avionics to equip the SU-30MK aircraft for its designated multi-role. Under the contract, the Irkutsk aircraft production association will deliver 40 Su-30s to the Indian air force. Within the framework of a contract worth $1.8bn Russia will deliver to India 40 military planes Su-30 in different versions. At the end of 1999 Irkutsk aviation industrial association ‘Irkut’ was finishing the assembly of ten Su-30MK multifunctional long-range for India’s Air Forces, equipped with aerial refuelling capabilities. After the deliveries are complete, HAL plans to launch production of new modifications of Su-30s under a Russian license in cooperation with Sukhoi. The Sukhoi-30 can be modified into a naval version, if the Indian Government decides to acquire an aircraft carrier. The Su-30s cost approximately $34 million each – considerably more than the F-16. India, for example, has agreed to buy 40 Su-30MK two-seat fighters for $1.2 billion. Indonesia’s planned purchase of Russian fighters and helicopters has been postponed indefinitely owing to the country’s economic crisis and the savage devaluation of the Rupiah. The Indonesia Department of Defence announced in 1997 that it would buy 12 Sukhoi Su-30K fighters in place of the F-16 Fighting Falcon fighters it originally planned to buy from the US. Indonesia already operates a squadron of 12 F-16s. (FAS, June 17, 2000)

I think a buyer could acquire 2 squadrons of 24 planes each for 2 billion dollars. The only problem is, no new interceptor aircraft will be purchased until 2010-2012. They’re just focusing on AD units right now.

The Mi24v and the AN72 would be realistic especially as an24 operated by the Serbian airforce are heavily used. Mi24 would be usefull for border and police duties.
Serbia has not got the money to support a jet like the Su30, personel would need to be trained and fuel would need to be bought to feed those thirsty Saturn AL31’s. The Serbian air force can barely afford to keep the jets it has in service in the air. Leasing in many ways would be even more expensive then an out right purchase. Russia can’t afford to just give away 30 brand new fighter jets itself.
The best that Serbia can hope for at the moment is to maintain a corp of proficient pilots to allow them the basis to build up a new force if the economy recovers. The best kind of things for that would be a small amount of cheap trainer types like the PC7 and the L39.

I still think that 1 or 2 Il-76 transports are needed. They can be used for UN missions in africa, haiti, wherever. The C-27a spartan is the plane I would be pushing for though. Maybe up to six initially; they’re small/medium sized and need very low qualitiy airfields and strips to land and take off. They would have been very useful in ferrying material and people during the floods this past week or so. Not very expensive either. Greece began operating a squadron of 12 about 2 years ago for not to much cash at all. I’d have to dig up one of my old articles to give you guys a figure.

Well you really have to ask yourself does it pay off to licence make mig AT? How many would the Serbian Air Force need,20-30? That is a number hardly worth to open the licence production of an airplane for. Also ,all the production facilities of Orao’s and Galeb’s were in Mostar,Bosnia. Utva in Serbia could hardly be rebuilt to be used for a production of anything.

No, it doesn’t pay off to open a production line for 50 trainers, much less 30. The Soko production facilities were packed up and shipped to UTVA and Momcilo …. repair facilities at the beginning of 92′. This operation was conducted by General Zivomir Ninkovic. Basically, everything was stripped down and shipped out. They couldn’t leave that machinery in the hands of the enemy.

There is no war without errors. When Milosevics knew it, it was about his person, why did not he retreat to prevent harm from his people?!
Ruling a country is not a life-time issue. Before blaming someone outside, the Serbs had to look about their own behavior at first. The others started something is foolish behavior from school-boys. Politics is the compromise about the possible always.

Sorry sens, but i don’t understand your post? Why would he retreat from a just cause? Also, politics is a farse used to disguise interests. Interests run the world. This post is about shooting down a b-2, when in reality, it should be about how to survive a b-2 attack. All they have to do is survive and they’ve won.

The only thing any country in the entire world can do, is try to widdle the readiness of the US airforce down enough that when they do hit you, the effect won’t be AS BAD. Placing spotters near AFB to moniter take off, landing, and reaction times isn’t too difficult. And since that was the case with Operation Allied Force, it’s a proven method of AD. Putting mortars, shoulder launched SAMs, or even AT missiles in the hands of these spotters would be fairly simple as well. They can only expand their perimeter so far before it interferes with the local gov’t that they’ve “acquisitioned” the base from. Another thing, you don’t have to be on the base itself. Knocking out the control tower, a few mortar rounds in the middle of the runway, or a conventional or chemical attack on the pilots barracks would be extremely deadly. I can’t believe that some maniac hasn’t tried to knock out west point, annapolis, or the air force academy. It costs $1million to train a pilot and four years. Think about that, you can’t just roll the pilot off of a production line. When someone starts to think outside of the box, you truly realize how vulnerable we are even with all of airplanes, tanks, bombs, nukes, etc. Quite frightening really. Back to the Iran problem more specifically though. Wait out the first few waves of attacks. Moniter enemy flying patterns and tactics. And inflict as much damage possible by unconventional means. Special forces operations and the such. Knocking out or damaging factories here in the US would also prove to be a setback for us. There are so many variables that we haven’t thought about. For them to actually hit back, they’ll need a lot more than the 40 or so F.14s that they have. Even if they had 100 operational and another 100 MiG.31s, the US would just strike, strike, strike, until there was nothing left. Then, they’d bring in the conventional planes to do as they’d like. So, if you hide your planes, the threat is always there and the US wouldnt be able to operat at full capacity b/c of threat levels.