thobbeswhat is so decisive about Libya war? . Even the bombing dont seem that effecitve.
NATO air power was key in tipping odds in favour of rebels.
Country like libya should be finish in days not months.
Sure if the Americans went in at 100%
As it stands it was a limited operation with limited assets. Even a lot of aircraft contributed by various parties were not cleared to conduct ground attack missions and were limited to Combat Air Patrol.
I’m sure the Russians would’ve taken just as long if they had one arm tied behind their back.
Lack of money and manpower from Nato in securing peace contributed to collapse of Libya society.
The Europeans and Americans didn’t really care. Libya seemed to be an Anglo-French ego building exercise and designed to make their leaders more popular by fighting a successful role.
Also NATO manpower in Libya wouldn’t have stopped collapse of Libyan society because Libya never had a society in the first place – it’s a mismatch of clans and regions with the odd Islamist fundamentalist.
Gaddafhi was the glue in Libya, just like Saddam was the glue in Iraq, the Assads are the glue in Syria and the Saud family is the glue in Saudi Arabia. Take these away and you have anarchy.
The true problem is borders written by Europeans in the 19th century that even then had no basis in ethnic, religious, or cultural realities.
It will take some time for EU to realize the folly.
EU already has. Hence NATO’s only discussions are on containment of the war. Hence UK’s Parliament voting against participation in a war.
my own prediction about Syria is that if Asad system survive untill summer of 2014. than Russia is going to take much more active role in supporting him to finish the job. Sochi olympics will be done. Ruaf will be in more stronger position along with large airdefence/ cruise missile inventory.
By “active role”, do you mean deploying Russian troops?!? Why would Russia want to step into another crap war?!? Putin certainly isn’t a stupid man and I doubt he’ll risk any more intensive Russian involvement.
That’s about the only way the Russians can be “more active” in Syria. They’re already 100% behind Assad diplomatically and are continuing to supply him with weapons.
My prediction is that the status quo will remain, but with Americans ramping up supplies to rebels.
thobbesEven with the availability of Su-27s and MiG-29s USAF still opted to use F-15C/D and F-16C/D for DACT role.
I don’t see the USAF buying another non-standard type for DACT role anytime soon. It’s too much of a hassle setting up a separate logistics and maintenance train.
Hence I think F-35 for DACT. Remember it’s more about using different tactics than pure kinematic performance anyhow.
USN does like different jets for DACT (F-5E/F/N, F-16A/B and in past F-21 Kfir) so they might go for something different if the budget is there.
Otherwise standardisation on F-35 and F/A-18 are most likely once current F-5F/N and F-16A/Bs expire.
thobbesthe problem is the Egyptian F-16 are armed only with the antediluvian Sparrow missiles, while the Israeli F-16 are armed with the latest AMRAAM, giving the Israelis a huge advantage. Originally the U.S. were to provide the AMRAAM to the Egyptian, but the Israeli lobby block the sale. This is the reason why the Egyptian is looking at the JF-17. It is not the aircraft itself that interest them(it’s comparable to the F-16A). It’s the BVRAAM (SD-10 missile) that comes with it that interest them. The SD-10 spec lies somewhere between the AIM-120B and AIM-120C AMRAAM. It just level the playing field a bit.
AMRAAM wouldn’t help EAF either.
Israel would have complete electronic dominance. The Israelis are one of the leaders in electronic warfare and have access to all the same American gear the Egyptians operate.
Also I’m not sure if Egypt’s US supplied gear is downgraded. The tanks certainly are – Egypt’s M1s have steel armour as opposed to Chobham.
thobbes, F35 was designed for the kind of conflicts that are common today.
So it turns out F-35 is actually a Counter Insurgency bird ala A-10 or Su-25 or Mi-24/-25/35 or EMB314 Super Tucano.
Can hardly wait to see it in Colombian colours and bombing narco terrorists or in Yemeni colours being used against Al Qaeda.
The Russians should buy them and call them F-35 Shturmovik III for use in Chechnya.
thobbesSo, you have some secret information on the reliability Abrams Tanks in the Australian Army that we don’t have??? Personally, I doubt that……
It was reported in some Australian Defence magazines. There were lots of problems encountered but none were insurmountable.
The even bigger issue is that a big chunk of the hulls are in mothballs and the number not in service has increased courtesy of Defence White Paper 2013.
26 operational tanks is not a tank force. 59 is not really great either – they only had 39 in service with the rest out for maintenance. 39 tanks is less than a single battalion.
If anyone manages to land an invasion force in Australia, 39 tanks will do nothing.
Personally I think get rid of them and buy more useful things!
thobbesSeems the retired generals don’t want to understand their own procurement processes.
Shoveling more money into a project in order to favour one project or another is extremely bad management and prone to allegations of corruption and bias i.e. lack of transparency.
thobbesAll fine until radio silence is broken and you here those magic words: “Cap’n I cannae hold it any longer!”
thobbesThe Mirage IV was a two-seat, two-engine strategic bomber, with even a urinal for each crewmember (!)
What happens if you needed to a dump? I assume curry is completely banned during times of war, lest there be some explosive action in the cockpit? :p
thobbesThere was also the submarine that infiltrated South Korean waters in 1996 and inserted a rather unsuccessful recce unit. Sub was only discovered cause it ran aground.
Clearly South Korea needs to spend more money on ASW rather than developing a blue water navy. If North Korean subs can operate in South Korean waters with impunity and sink South Korean warships and deposit spec ops teams, then what’s the point of AEGIS destroyers and LPHs?!?
If the Hermit Kingdom does decide to go totally loony and attack South Korea, you can bet all those ancient small subs will be predeployed.
And if you can’t track them, then you’re stuck on the defensive.
South Korea might want to read about WWI and WWII ASW ops.
thobbesI was talking about theatre level recce – i.e. photographing naval bases as well as bridges and other key infrastructure etc.
And there’s a lot more sensors out there than simple optical photography – infrared, signals, radar (moving target) etc.
For what it’s worth, you certainly didn’t have U-2s or SR-71s mud moving.
Whatever the case USAF is using UAVs/satelites in most recce roles, be they tactical or strategic. Other than endurance, the other advantage of UAVs is no human risk (unless a shot down UAV crashes on some civilians).
thobbesWasn’t the corvette operating in a fleet excercise?
In any case it’s also a dismal intelligence failure.
And it’s not like it was an “out of the blue” incident. There have been numerous naval skirmishes over the decades including recently.
thobbesreally … Arab pilots are Impotent
:stupid:
PLAAF has access to all that tiger penis extract, hence greater potency. :dev2:
Anyhow…
The Arabs are an interesting force and not necessarily all lumped into the same category either.
I think right now Israel has absolute dominance over it’s immediate neighbours.
However the threats have expanded from Israeli neighbours to include further countries. I suspect this is why Israel wants more tankers.
Turkey is actually probably the bigger threat than Iran. The Turks are slowly drifting from NATO and Europe and Erdogan is trying to redefine them as Muslims and increase involvement in Middle East.
He has already gone to head with Israelis on a number of issues, either symbolic like Gaza blockade or due to strategic issues such as Israeli-Cypriot oil exploration in contested waters.
Definitely a “watch this space” issue.
thobbesThey are to create a new squadron,
Wow. That’ll bring them up to 180 combat aircraft. Amazing for a force that only got it’s first fighters in 1970s (Mirage V) and that was only about 36 aircraft strong up to 1990s!
i had very recently the same news as Msphere. But i was also told UAE arent in a hurry, they ll take time to pressure as much as possible… (very close source)
Stands to reason. In some ways there’s no real need to replace the 1990s vintage Mirages. What sort of condition are the upgraded 1980s versions in, especially in terms of air frame life?
thobbes@Thobbes:
Actually external projection was the historical trend. If I do remind well, in the 80’s ard two third of the USAF was based ABROAD.
It wasn’t used extensively though in actual combat operations.
Today the vast majority of USAF assets are based in US, but their combat deployments have skyrocketed due to continuous expeditionary warfare.
By the way a LIFT with Supercruise, Mach1.5+ dash speed and high agility is a home defense assets by itself given that it can carry AIM9x.
You don’t even need Super cruise, high agility or AIM-9X for air policing. Remember USA is far away from anyone so most homeland defence is basic intercepts of civilian aircraft.
For that any old supersonic interceptor is more than sufficient and indeed ANG used to be a repository for old jets – from memory there was even some F-86H units still flying in early 1970s.
However JAS-39 is modern, cheap to run and does have good capabilities.
It’s not an F-35 or F-22 but it doesn’t need to be for homeland defence.
EDIT: I don’t think this will happen. USAF will go for an near all F-35 fleet even if it means gutting yet more fighter squadrons (and that’s happening regardless – remember 81st just disbanded and 5 more are planned to go).
Personally I think 34 F-22/F-35 + 20 JAS-39 squadrons is far better than just 40 F-22/-35 squadrons.
thobbesIt’s smart thinking.
There’s a whole heap of F-5s, Mirage F1s as well as allied MiG-21, MiG-29s, Su-25s all expiring in period 2015-2025 that will need replacing.
There’s also Alpha Jets and other advanced trainers expiring in this period.
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