thobbesA really hard call, especially when regarding US procurement.
The Marines seem quite willing to chop every other program to the bone to get their gold plated F-35 and V-22s. I suspect the Marines will fight hard for their full allocation.
The USN is the smallest participant and seems quite unwilling to fully dive into the project. I suspect much lower recruitment with UCAVs replacing cancelled F-35C procurement.
With the USAF, I suspect numbers will be much lower than projected. The F-35’s range makes it unsuitable for the Pacific where the US is orientating itself too. The USAF will probably extend procurement out into
The foreign customers are easier to assess:
UK – 48 initial assured for CVs. After that it’s debatable
Italy – probably acquire only a handful, if that. Probably just fly old aircraft until they no longer fly.
Netherlands – probably acquire only a handful, if that. Probably go with something else.
Canada – probably go with something else.
Norway – 48 to be acquired. The Norwegians are the only foreign buyer who seems 100% committed to this jet.
Denmark – probably nil.
Japan – 42 ordered in multiyear buy. If current procurement is anything to go by (F-15 upgrade, AH-64 procurement), I doubt the Japanese will buy more 15-20.
Australia – will probably acquire up to 72 a/c, but not 100. At worst 40 if more F/A-18E/Fs are acquired.
Turkey – probably will acquire considerable amounts especially with Middle East slowly brewing up (not only Syria but deteriorating relationship with Israel and a wish to be seen as a major power).
Israel – as many as US is willing to subsidise.
thobbeshttp://bmpd.livejournal.com/407154.html
The Belorussian AF has stopped operating the Su-27 !!!! 🙁
Big drop in capability in Belarussian Air Force here. I thought the MiG-29s would be retired before the Flanker.
They also retired the Su-24 earlier this year.
That leaves about 30-40 MiG-29 and 20 Su-25.
Are any of the Su-25’s operational?
thobbesI think it’s an attempt to do defence on the cheap. It frees more money for more mindless bureaucracy.
I work in government (health) and have seen the impact of “effecient non-government operations”:
e.g. Delivering services only for 9 months a year and then running out of money and then forcing the government to run the service.
e.g. Lack of economies of scale and duplication where multiple organisations are contracted to perform same role.
So a program where you might be funded for 20 packages of care each delivering 10 hours of service for a week becomes only 6 hours of service per week because the 20 packages are distributed to several different organisations who all have their own administrative and management structures to fund as well as duplication of assets/expenses ala cars, offices, etc.
e.g. Difficulties monitoring of non-government organisations involved in government contracting leading to poor service performance. It’s because private sector is less regulated than government.
e.g. Degradations of responsibility and accountability. If it’s farmed out to the private sector, then the minister has a scape goat when something goes wrong. Also private sector has less open reporting requirements.
e.g. Contradictory goals – health/education/defence/infrastructure are for public good but profit goals (even for NGOs who are concerned with their own growth) are contradictory to that. Even Adam Smith argued some common goods needed a non-profit emphasis to enable society to function.
I really think government services should be run and provided by the government and not farmed out to various other organisations.
At the same time I’m all for capitalism and free trade but it should be in non-government sectors.
All this privatisation has at least in Australia not resulted in any great improvements (remembering our productivity is low). The worst ones are the monopoly Government Business Enterprises which are meant to run for profit but no competition is available.
I think Western governments should look to those efficient people in Singapore on how to run things well.
This post is on topic as the same issues affecting health or education are affecting military services.
thobbesThe air defence versions assigned to Frontal Aviation would be used for establishing tactical air superiority over the battlefield to allow ground support aviation to operate unharassed by enemy fighters.
IA-PVO was as far I am aware more concerned with protecting USSR from strategic bombers.
I think most Soviet A2A operations would involve a Ground Controller to guide fighters to a point where they could intercept enemy fighters. The fighters would then launch independent action using long range radar homing missiles and then cannon/short range missiles in close range combat
MiG-23BN/BK and MiG-27 are ground attack/strike fighters.
I could be wrong so feel free to tear my points apart.
thobbesAre the following users still operating F-5:
Indonesia
Malayisia
Jordan
thobbesLook at the NATO countries that require replacement or creation of a new air policing capability and there’s potential for real economies of scale if a joint approach is undertaken (and where there is not yet commitment to F-35):
Albania (new)
Denmark (F-16)
Belgium (F-16)
Czech Republic (JAS-39 Gripen – lease expiring).
Latvia/Estonia/Lithuania – new
Croatia (MiG-21)
Slovenia (new)
Romania – MiG-21
Slovakia – MiG-29
Bulgaria – MiG-21/-29/Su-25
That’s up to a couple of hundred aircraft.
And later on there’s Spain (F/A-18A/B) and Portugal (F-16A/B) – another 100 odd aircraft.
The J-35/Eurofighter/Rafale are over kill for many of these operators and too costly to operate.
The JAS-39 is perfect in terms of capability and cost effectiveness.
Pool the force together with strategically located squadrons and joint training/maintenance/logistics.
thobbesVery cool indeed!
I’m impressed the government allowed towers to be built for plane spotters.
Lovely set of pictures. Is that an RF-4C ?
Japanese RF-4’s are ‘E’ models.
thobbesGood start. Europe needs to cooperate to get economies of scale.
thobbesI thought Serbs had MiG-21s for QRA?
Though from what I’ve heard they’re being retired in 2013.
I disagree that Serbia would automatically go for Russian option., after all the country has recently bought some western equipment (Landrovers , HUMVEEs etc) and has swtiched to NATO standard ammunition. Reality is that West will not sell Serbia anything advanced, and Serbia CAN not afford it anyway. So China / Russia are only option.. with Russia more willing to be flexible when it comes to payment.
Buying some trucks is not really the same as buying high tech pointy end of the stick weapons.
Even if US was giving away free F-35s, the Serbs would go for Russian due to historical ties and also no strings attached on usage.
ets can not compare in their cost effectivenes if one has to defend airspace against vastly superior forces.
If you perform a threat analysis including looking at potential threats over the next 20 years what threats are there to Serbia? Most of Serbia’s neighbours don’t operate more than a dozen combat aircraft or are equipped with obsolescent junk:
Albania – no combat air force. No plan to field one.
Bosnia i Hercegovina – no combat air force. No plan to field one.
Bulgaria – Up to maybe 60-70 jets (MiG-21/-29/Su-25) with dubious operational levels. Plan to acquire even a small number of modern jets has not eventuated and probably won’t.
Croatia – 10 x MiG-21 – probably to replace with similar number of modern fighters for air policing
Hungary – 14 x JAS-39 combat jets for airpolicing
Macedonia – no combat air force. No plan to field one.
Monte Negro – no combat air force. No plan to field one.
Romania – 48 x MiG-21 with plans to acquire 12 F-16A/B from Portugal. Plans to acquire F-35 seem dubious.
Oh and they’re nearly all part of NATO security structure.
If the US ever decides to bomb Serbia, those Pantsir’s are useless and will achieve nothing (just like Serbian air defence acheived nothing against NATO in 1999).
Given the political and economic environment, 12-16 jets ala MiG-29, F-16 or Gripen are more than sufficient for Serbia’s air space sovereignty mission.
Of course unless the Serbs are planning another bout of expansionism when Uncle Sam and the Europeans aren’t looking. 😛
thobbesPretty much everything wrote above is inaccurate and in the most shameful and unabashed way, but your claim that Kosovo was not part of Serbia 1389-1850s because it was “Ottoman” is the most idiotic thing I have ever read. By your warped logic from 1939-1945 France was not rightfully French it was German. Silly Silly Silly. But this is not the place for your re education on historical matters and this will be the last I say on the topic.
The ethnic composition of Kosovo changed in those 500 years to mainly Albanian.
And by your definition, Australia should be returned to the Aborigines, NZ back to the Maoris and the US to the Native Americans.
Oh and Serbia should be returned to whatever groups lived there before the great Slavic Migrations in the 7th century. 😛
Now back to aviation, yes you are repeating what i said that only low end F16 are on the table from the western side, which answers your question why Russian offer looks more appealing… Since unlike Iraq people there may have some say about it.
Even if US offered free F-35s, the Serbs would still go for Russian equipment.
This is not the 1950s where Yugoslavia was chummier with the US than Russia and got tons of F-84, F-86 and T-33s from the US at discounted rates.
Second your comment that joining NATO eliminates need for advanced AD… so why do ALL members of NATO such as Greece, Italy, Spain , Netherlands ,UK , Ireland etc etc ALL invest in advanced AD?? Why does Royal Dutch Army have needs for NASAMS ??. Its in NATO and surrounded by friends by your logic it has no need for advanced AD what so ever.
Firstly, most of those NATO powers provide considerable expertise and resources for NATO operations. E.g. Dutch Patriots will most likely be deployed to Turkey.
Greece maintains a massive military that it cannot afford as a counter to Turkey (the only real potential hotspot in NATO). Spain also maintains a military it cannot afford as it tries to grip onto an allusion of being some of power.
Serbian AD is severlly outdated, and in dire needs of upgrade , more so than Airforce, and Panstyr with BukM2 is ideal and cost effective option. Also the current crop of radars are insuficient to the point that even Civilan aircraft and not always tracked.
Totally agree with updating radars.
The air policing jets are more valuable than SAMs though. After all intercepting a civilian aircraft or even other countries’ military jets doing unauthorised overflgihts is something you should do with piloted jets and not surface to air missiles! :p
All that said… Serbia is as my brother puts it “Land outside reality” … high enough bribe and anything is possible there. 🙂
That’s most of the Balkans I’m afraid.
thobbesWhat historical fairy tales?
thobbesSerbia’s current democratically elected government is pro-Russian and not pro-European (despite some public statements). Progress to joining EU has stalled (apparently now only considered from 2014). Nikolic’s government was elected over pro-EU, pro-NATO government of Tadic.
As for giving up land – well Croatia, Slovenia, BiH, Macedonia and Monte Negro were never Serbian, despite Serbian claims. None of those people wanted to live under the Serbian yoke.
As for Kosovo it was an automous province during Yugoslavia (along with Vojvodina) due to the fact that vast majority of the population was technically not Yugoslav (i.e 90% Albanian in Kosovo in 1991 before war and while Vojovodina is mainly Serbian, there are many other ethnicities there). Idea of autonomous provinces was to provide some protection to those minorities from being persecuted by Serbia/Croatia (though Croatia did get a chunk of Vojvodina).
Serbia’s entire claim to Kosovo is dubious too – sure it was important to the Serbs in the 13th and 14th Century, but it has long since ceased to be that. Even in 1940’s it was predominantly Albanian (in fact it ceased being mainly Serbian in the 1600s).
From 1400s Kosovo was part of Ottoman Empire, then from 1912-1922 it part of Serbia. After then it was Yugoslavia in whatever shape Yugoslavia was at the time (Kingdom of Slovenes, Serbs and Croats, Yugoslav monarchy, SFRJ etc).
If Serbia’s claim to Kosovo is legitimate, then so would be an Italian claim to Zadar and Istra or a Greman claim to Gdansk or more equivalently a Venetian claim on the Dalmatian coast.
There’s an old saying: “Get over it.”
As for Air Defense , small mobile and capable systems like Pantsyr and BukM2 is what is needed to maintain decently capable force. S300 is too big, too exposed and too expensive for a small nation.
So if Serbia does procure squadron of Migs and few AA systems, it would hardly mean its “Anti Western” or turning into Cuba or N.K. It just means its looking after its own interest and thinking what is best for it, not Boeing or Lockeed.
Funny thing is if you’re part of NATO, then you don’t have to worry about having complicated AD systems. The fighters are still necessary for air policing (or you can subcontract e.g. Albania or Baltic States or Slovenia).
And if the US ever decides to bomb Serbia, then those Pantsirs won’t stop them. As for Romania and Bulgaria, they’re a.) part of NATO and b.) too poor to wage any wars.
And finally sure the US is going to block high tech exports to Serbia after Serbia spent 11 years (1989-1999) being a very bad international citizen with 4 wars of aggression and many warcrimes under its belt.
Iraq too is only getting downgraded F-16s. If you want Western tech you have to prove you’re responsible.
thobbesWhen you’re in NATO, you can afford to have an impotent military.
And if you’re smart you use the money saved on pointless military formations and equipment on inftrastructure and developing your economy so one day you can afford a decent military if that floats your boat.
After all 12-16 MiG-29s will not stop someone with actual intent and power to take you over or give you a thrashing. 12-16 MiG-29s (or Eurofighter/Rafale/F/A-18E/F) and some modern SAMs are a token force only.
thobbesInteresting how clean and well maintained the Congolese and Sudanese Hinds and Su-25s look.
Compare to very beat up looking Syrian gear!
thobbesIf Serbia buys new aircraft, it will be MiGs and nothing else. The Serbian politicians are too Russian orientated and against defence cooperation with the rest of Europe (even though even neutral countries ala Austria and Sweden are happy to cooperate with rest of Europe in this day and age).
They’re also apparently not enthusiastic of greater economic cooperation with Europe either.
It’s kind of reminiscent of Cuba or North Korea in some regards.
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