There were limitations in place for Argentinia and Britain about how far this post-colonial non-sense conflict could go. Nuclear options were definitely not included, similarly out was the escalation of war beyond the area of the Falklands.

Worst case scenario would have seen the USN providing air cover for the British, in which case the fleet would have been safe. The air cover provided by a single CVBG equipped with F-14A and E-3B is sufficient to seal of the islands. I don’t think Us involvement would have come with lots of enthusiasm, on the other hand a smoking conflict destabilizing the entire region (which still was considered the US backyard) was not acceptable.

As soon as British forces were landed on the Falklands there isn’t much the Argentinians could do about it.

The problem with the US siding with the UK and actively attacking South America is that it could push them into the hands of the Soviets = disaster. Also, had the Argentine’s put decent troops on the island and fought it they could have done reasonably well with 10,000 of them vs 4000 British.

Oh come on flex – calling VLO/LO a useful feature as opposed to a major technical breakthrough is just ignorance.

@ppp – The F-22/B-2 have been tested against more than just X-band radars mate, many SAMs don’t operate in X-band.

Long wave radars are nothing more than early warning systems – they don’t have the ability to track a target like the F-22/B-2 for a firing solution. They are generally imobile and massive. Quite easy targets on the first day of war.

Short wave radars simply don’t have the power by quite a margin. Even if employed in enough numbers to make a full umbrella against F-22/B-2 – they are vulnerable to DEAD/SEAD where they will be attacked at the edges and eroded.

Optical systems have major issues such as range finding – volume/area search just to mention two – a cloudy day? Against a supercruising F-22 at 65 000 ft launching 8 SDBs from 113 km away?

The JSF will have bigger problems.

I guess you missed the sensor fusion part eh 😉

Overlapping against what size of RCS and from what direction? :diablo: That matters. All your bubbles that use to overlap don’t anymore unless you deploy a LOT more of them.

Which makes the assumption that the radars arent long wavelength or passive or that optical systems aren’t being used. That’s a lot of assumptions there buddy! 😎

You dont seriously think your enemies are going to tailor their forces to make themselves as easy a target as possible do you? If the US is using x-band steath aircraft, it’s enemies are likely to go for a combination of long range low frequency radars with optical systems and passive radars at the other ranges. Obviously for those 3 to be effective the system needs good target data fusion capabilities as none alone is very efficient.

Has it been established yet whether countries such as Norway, Australia etc.in the F-35 program will receive fully stealth aircraft such as the Americans will receive?

The Americans have developed an “export” version of the F35, though I’m not sure who will be getting what version. In terms of stealth, it could have a higher RCS either due to different materials, shaping or both, however shaping seems unlikely as it would add complications in construction of the varients. There would be no real advantage for the US in restricting the aircraft in this way for most of the countries either. They could easily however to modify software depending on each country, and restrictions could be placed here that would be almost impossible to find and could make the aircraft far less useful if used against the Americans ect. If a country really wants to ensure the aircraft is fully capable, they should get the source code for the aircraft as the UK has done.

They say that if an aircraft looks right it flies right and this aircraft looks absolutely perfect!

It looks like it would fly, it doesn’t look perfect though. Typhoon/Rafale however, do look fairly perfect, as does the F22 and the SU27 series.

So, how do the Norwegians handle a Kirov or Slava parked off their coast when the Gen 4 airplanes keep getting shot down while they are still 75 miles out?

Oh wait! I know the answer! They’ll call the US and let the American F-35s handle the job.:p

A simpler solution here would be to replace the moronic Noreigen pilots that are being shot down with pilots that dont fly their combat aircraft at such a high altitude that they can be shot down from a distance of 75 miles? Might be better to just go in low and pop over the Horizon if they MUST go in for some reason, or just use long range ASuW missiles.

Personally, I don’t see Norway backing out of the F-35 Program. The Air Force wants nothing else and its likely a ploy to just get better terms on the F-35. Also, there is something said for keeping up with the Jones. Does Norway really want a much less capable Air Force than many of its neighbors operating F-35A’s. Also, it makes you wonder how the other JSF Partners would react if Norway left the program? As they would likely have to pay more for there F-35’s and in times of conflict would be forced to share more of the burden……….I doubt they would be happy!

In times of conflict? LMFAO! If they get into a serious conflict, I doubt the US will be very high on their list of key allies assisting their defence. The more likely scenario would be them assisting the Americans in their wars on terror, but if the Americans don’t want the assistance because F35 wasn’t chosen I doubt the Norweigens will be too bothered.

True, but it was still inservice and a suitable direct (ie; easy) replacement never appeared, the plans to use the Sea Cat launcher for the Sea Wolf seemingly coming to nought as far as deployment/procurement goes.

Assuming you mean Eagle, I doubt it would have received Sea Wolf as it wouldn’t have as great a need for long range SAM’s as the Invincibles due to it carrying far more fighters than the Invincibles which would at times have as few as 3!

What would have been mounted? Not sure! Unlikely to be a long range SAM though.

Harrier – VTOL. The latter varients also fairly capable fighter/strikers too.

X-45A – UCAV demonstrator.

B2 – So big, yet so hard to see. However after the failure of the Scud hunt, it can be presumed that in a role of hunting out mobile Soviet missiles the B2 would be failed miserably.

Why does everbody here seem to think that only modern fighters can be called ground breaking?
Sure, they might have some additional technological development that has not been seen on a fighter before but in aviation terms can it really be called groung breaking?
To me the fighters that truley broke new ground were the aircraft that flew in the years before and during World War I when people being able to soar through the skies like a bird was the stuff of the great fiction novels of the time!

That would be because not everybody either feels they were that groundbreaking, or they weren’t interested enough in aircraft of that period to research them to any great extent, both fairly valid reasons. If you have any particular aircraft that you feel were groundbreaking from that era, why not highlight them? 🙂

If, as seems likely, trench3 gets cancelled that means it’s no-longer an MMRCA contender- leaving the Super-Hornet the clear favourite. Now which aircraft have Sukhoi officials gone to pains to compare the BM to recently? the SH!

An Indian order for the BM would be pretty smart: not as many as 126 would be required, ToT/off-sets would be no issue (as per MKI) and sub-systems/weapons commonality & upgrades for ’35BM, ’30MKI & PAK-FA-MKI would save significant $ in the long-term.

Tranche 3 has not been cancelled, if you use that as a “fact” to draw conclusions we may as well just use a theoretical nuclear war between Russia and China through China trying to invade Siberia and the resulting destruction of the Sukhoi factories with Chinese nuclear weapons as reason for no Sukhoi’s being contenders in the competition.

I’d point out the reasons why Tranche 3 will not be cancelled, but I have a feeling you’ve probably been told a million times before and are just ignoring the facts through shire ignorance.

Have a nice day 😎