Though I’m sure someone thought MiG-17 v F-105/F-4 was also an apples and oranges comparison as well. :very_drunk:

I think the key is that Iran has to reemphasis it’s conventional defence forces again, as opposed to whatever it spends money on (nuclear, missiles etc).

To be honest I can see rebuilding Iranian conventional capability to balance things in the Gulf – the Persian Gulf states are awash with cash and starting to look further afield (e.g. Libya and Syria). In both instances their interventions have been as destructive and disruptive as any US ones (e.g. funnelling foreign Al Qaeda based militants into the mix).

Resurgent conventional Iran would help temper this by refocusing Gulf States back to homeland defence.

I don’t see the Russians coming to the rearmament party though due to potential problems it could cause the Russians in the Caspian.

The Chinese and European losers of Gulf procurements on the other hand probably would chip in if the dollars were there.

Operation Nickel Grass was an US response of a Soviet resupply of the Arabs. That airlift was forced by the distance at first. A sea-lift from the USA was a matter of weeks and one from France a matter of days. In the hindsight it did not change the political outcome of that war. As Sadat claimed the results from the first week of fighting was enough for the Arabs to restore the military pride lost in 1967. In 1973 Israel had no nuclear option, because it was not under a realistic military threat, whatever was claimed to rise the fighting spirit of the own forces.

My point was that I don’t think the French could’ve sustained it to the level the Americans did – far less materiel and far less logistical capability.

The French could not have plundered whole units worth of French materiel without damaging French military capability.

On the other hand the Americans coud do it and they had the logistical capability to do it quickly (e.g. C-5s and C-141s).

The US Department of Defense’s decision to relax the sustained turn performance of all three variants of the F-35
was revealed earlier this month in the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation 2012 report.
Turn performance for the US Air Force’s F-35A was reduced from 5.3 sustained g’s to 4.6 sustained g’s.
The F-35B had its sustained g’s cut from five to 4.5 g’s, while the US Navy variant had its turn performance truncated
from 5.1 to five sustained g’s.

I get the feeling that the DoD knows that A2A is as rare as hens teeth and probably will continue to do so in the future.

It’s also why they gutted F-22 numbers.

A2A capability means little when your opponent’s pathetic mainly 1970s vintage fighter fleet with dubious airworthiness is blasted on the tarmac.

And stealth jets are a great way of blasting them without opfor even knowing it’s happening until their museum pieces have been turned to pikes of charred metal.

Well one think tank is advocating sending all F-16s to ANG/Res and reducing active tactical fleet by half to only about 500 aircraft (basically F-15E, F-22 and A-10).

Ths would seem to imply following fleet structure:

184 F-22A
221 F-15E
100 A-10C

Only problem here is it’s counter to the Asian pivot strategy as it would slash PACAF fleet by two-thirds (down to a mere 3 squadrons F-22, 1 A-10).

And if you shifted active F-15E/more A-10s to PACAF to maintain squadron numbers you’d only have 240 active aircraft for ACC/USAFE.

There’s also a recent RAND study whose underlying message slash F-16 units in USAFE (biggest savings).

Personally I’d slash all USAFE fighter squadrons and make assignments rotational.

That would mean:

Lose 2 F-15E units in UK – use aircraft to replace F-15C/F-16/A-10 units in USA/PACAF.
Lose 1 F-15C/D unit in UK – retire aircraft
Lose 2 F-16C/D unit in Italy – use aircraft to replace A-10/F-15C units in USA/PACAF
Lose 1 F-16C/D unit in Germany – use aircraft to replace A-10/F-15C units in USA/PACAF

In fact I think the German F-16 unit will be next to go anyway as USAF doesn’t usually operate single squadron wings overseas and the German wing lost it’s A-10 squadron this year.