It is a myth that will not die. Russia has categorically stated that it has not delivered S-300’s to Iran

Belarus perhaps has, and Ukraine was/is a possibility..

Be that as it may, the general point that I have made is that the passive rather than active defense measures Iran has taken (i.e. dispersal, underground facilities, maskirovska, etc…) make an Israeli first strike next to impossible.

We all need to get used to the fact that Iran will most likely be a nuclear power in the next 5 years. Only a full on direct American military intervention has the technical ability to succeed and that’s not in the cards unless there is a significant Iranian provocation. If the Iranian goal is to become a nuclear power they need to keep their noses clean (Iraq, sponsorship of terrorism, etc.) and not give America an excuse to attack them directly.

A sad day for the world when any additional nation becomes a nuclear power, especially in that region of the world.

I do not think that this is within the scope of Israel alone. Iran has hardened and dispersed it’s sites to the point that I do not think Israel has the ability to knock the alleged “program” out with one strike. I am not even taking into consideration the fact that Iran has been diligently working on improving it’s air defense abilities (Tugunska and S-300 purchases for example).

Osirak and the Syrian “reactor” were single choke points in these countries respective atomic programs that if taken out would cause grevious harm to bomb development, and in the case of Iraq it did. Iran is well past this point. They potentially have enough dispersed capacity to lose some of their atomic infastructure and still have a functioning program.

Unless the USA gets involved in a first strike I think at this point stopping Iran through military means by the Israelis is beyond the point where it could be guaranteed success. MAD is now the only answer. Israel needs to declare itself publicly a nuclear power and try and dissuade Iran from attacking by showing the world that they have a surviveable second strike capability. Not the preferred option for Israel i am sure but I think iran is too far along to stop.

Nothing better than a bunch of forum enthusiasts taking over the expertise positions of Sukhoi in designing stealthy airframes. :rolleyes:

Well, in the absense of anything verifiable we are ALL clutching at straws here.

And I for one enjoy doing so.:dev2:

Wow. This thread is kind of getting out of control. I think it is fair to say that we all (myself included) need to take a collective chill pill and calm down when discussing this issue. And with the ongoing economic meltdown taking place as we speak, I think the collective back and forths about this specific issue will soon become academic anyway.

President-Elect Obama will have to swing a pretty big axe on defense procurement and DOD budget requests upon taking office considering that the budget defecits he will have to deal with are going to be perhaps the largest ever recorded. I think the advice he will receive will steer him towards procurement decisions that are more like “sure things” or meet specific urgent operational requirements or needs. I think it would be fair to say that individuals here that either agree or disagree with this system being deployed will concede that even if it was deployed it is not a sure thing as it stands today.

America needs to renew it’s fighter force, replace tankers and bombers built during the Eisenhower administration, successfully prosecute two ongoing shooting wars and meet it’s stated committment to increase the size of its land forces. I think all of these priorities will be well ahead of a missile defense system against a “limited” threat that has not been shown to be a sure thing technologically. I concede that there may be a breakout from Iran that sees them deploy ICBMs with WMD in a few years…who knows. The technology could indeed be shown to be a slam dunk and provide a level of protection previously unseen. Again who knows. But in these uncertain economic times you have to look at the smartest way to stretch your shrinking resources to cover as many urgent needs as possible.

There are bigger fish to fry.

Looks like the Japanese were kind of kooky as well…..This is the Honda jet VLJ.

Dear Members,

I know some you will howl, but the British RN should have bought either F-18s or Rafaels and had the French yard build versions of the de Gaulle only with a UK reactor. If they had, they would now have two aircraft carriers. As one British general once stated “A battalion in a week can be far more important than a division in two months.”

Jack E. Hammond

.

With due respect Jack, you are way off. De Gaulle is a flawed design that uses two SSBN reactors for power as a way to leverage that design already done to lower costs. Unfortunately for the Aeronavale they are underpowered and limit the speed of the ship. The UK could have used the reactor design for the Vanguard SSBN’s I suppose but they would have led to the same kind of problems the French experienced. Designing an appropriately large reactor complex for a two ship class would have been prohibitively expensive.

CVA-01 would have been a fine addition to the RN but based on what the Admiralty wanted the RN to be it was too much carrier for the time. Sealordlawrence is absolutely correct in his assessment of the fact that the primary reason for having such a carrier would be to carry out ops east of Suez. With no east of Suez ops on the cards there was no need to build such a carrier.

The Admiralty had no plans to operate outside the NATO area of operations without American support. Furthermore it could be argued that the escorts that would be needed (Type 82, Type 19, etc.) would have not been up to protecting the ship(s) from, for example, a multiple Regiment Badger/Backfire/Bear attack with ASM’s. American Carrier doctrine and equipment was optimized for this kind of threat. No CVA-01 air group (Phantom’s/Buccaneers/Gannets) or escort package in my mind would have been up to that task in the GIUK gap during the 70’s/80’s.

Some here have talked about the Falklands. But no one in Whitehall was ever thinking that out of area ops like Operation Corporate were ever going to happen again around the time the decision was made to scrap plans for these two ships.

Clemenceau size ships or larger Invinvicles optimized for more Sea Harrier/harrier GR3 ops would have been much more cost effective.