thanks for the links PLA-MKII!
Iran is a HUGE country. Getting in deep enough, and out is a major project specially for Israel as they don’t border with Iran. I believe Iran would get plenty of warnings before actual intrusion by enemy aircraft. This is considering USAF are not carrying an attack, and Israel decides to try surprise attack.

I also see Iran having a lot more Tor systems by now. Not that i have any info to support this.

Iranian AF is numerous as well, and considering how much is known about their F-14s keeping in shape, I would guess that Their Mig-29s are well maintained. A large number of ACTUALLY BATTLE READY Mig-29s can be a good reason not to attack.

peace!

I think the paper figures paint a much rosier image of the Iranian air force than is the reality. Their F14s were kept in shape it seems by illegal imports through 3rd parties of spares, sources which will be gone now. I’ve read they have a couple squadrons of J10, in which case these would be pretty much their best defence. The rest of the fleet of F4s/F14/F5 are just target practice. The Mig-29 may be of some use, but probably not much considering the quality of the F15/F16 from Israel. In the event of an an air attack, I doubt they could get many aircraft in the air, and as you say Iran is a big country so they will need a lot of aircraft in the air to achieve even a little. The main defence for Irans nuclear facilities is passive (they are buried, and buried well), and to a lesser extent the TOR systems. If the TOR could down the bunker busters in flight that could cause the Israeli’s some issues with numbers, but the aircraft themselves will likely be out of the engagement envelope. Iran has a very difficult task, to defend quite a few targets spread over a huge area against a very concerntrated and very powerful attack force coming at almost any time. There is really no way they can hope to defeat such an attack with the forces they have.

I offered real data demonstrating steady and considerable price reduction occurring, even in LRIP quantities. You’ve offered your opinion, and nothing else. There simply isn’t supporting evidence of doom and gloom postulations.

But your data is worthless because its from a source with a vested interest. And once again I remind you, you’re the one making claims, so you need to provide evidence, not me.

Those figures aren’t my opinion, those are hard facts. As for ignoring things that don’t support one’s view, I wonder if you’d be so kind as to explain your view that full rate production prices are going to be anywhere near LRIP prices, when even the LRIP prices have dropped by ~50% in small production batches. To get to the $60-70M is less of a price drop, than has already occurred.

Its not my job to prove you are wrong, its your job to prove you are right. You are the one that made the claim. Nice try though 😉

yes despite the end of the financial world and the widely held view (well in the US anyway) that the UK is retreating into its military shell, the UK is funding integration of AESA (as well as development of EA versions) and weapons like Brimstone, Stormshadow and Meteor on Typhoon.

+1

I would hardly consider that to be conclusive evidence. The only advantages a Typhoon has are the max speed that it can maintain for a portion of its mission profile, and supersonic agility. It’s inferior in range, survivability, avionics, flexibility in weapons options. It’s not just LM making the claims by the way, so unless the DOD/USAF/USMC/USN are all dubious sources, then your point doesn’t really hold water.

Says You. As MSphere says, we either take the word of the parties with vested interests, or we don’t. Anyone wanting to take the word of only one side (i.e You), is clearly not interested in the reality and is more interested in manipulating reality, and therefore connot be considered to be posting facts.

I’d take your comments more seriously if you didn’t make such large claims based on the thinnest evidence. Sure LRIP costs might have reduced, but to make a claim that production costs will hit a level is way beyond your level of knowledge or competence.
They may they may not. It’s your belief that they will. Time will tell.
If the costs are 1million per unit (in which currency is this btw, are you taking fx rates into account…etc.) less than the Typhoon and Rafale will you be claiming this as a victory? :rolleyes:
Secondly by the time serial production has come around can you personally guareentee that the F35 will have a significant edge over the Typhoon / Rafale / anything else that may happen along in the meantime and their developments?

As for the removing the smiles and quoting me; knock yourself out, shows the level you sink to to try and prove your rightiousness…:rolleyes:

+1

The costs in the present round of procurement suggest that the C is the most expensive, due to so few of them having been ordered, no idea what the long run cost of the C would be with only the USN and RN/RAF buying them.
Re the A&C what is it, discounting the cost argument for a moment, that the USAF finds so much better about the A than the C? Besides the fact that the C was primarily designed as a carrier variant?

For the UK the cost difference between the versions isn’t so important given the small numbers being ordered. They are better off having the most capable aircraft.

The UK needs something, and I suspect it will have to be fairly cheap in order for it to occur in this budget cycle. To be honest while a cutting edge platform would be preferable, all we actually need is a platform which has good loiter time, reasonable transit speed, has a reasonable radar able to detect life rafts, good IR/Vis camera system, and good comms, as it seems to me the priority is SAR, as I would be very surprised if the lack of long range SAR asset is not driving up the insurance of the North Sea oil rigs, commercial shipping and aircraft flying across the Atlantic. I would also not be surprised if this was the reason why the SAR PFI has ground to a halt.

It would therefore be a bonus if it carried a MAD, and could drop sonar buoys, and an even bigger bonus if it could carry harpoon and LGB’s.

Currently the suggestion from France is that the UK will undertake “exchanges” with French maritime patrol and fill slots on the crew of the Atlantiques, it therefore is a simple extrapolation to suggest that if there are any spare Atlantique II’s that UK use them. As far as I can tell France has 6 spare, but they may simply be reserve airframes or ones that are time expired and available for spares. I expect life extending the Italian Atlantics or any of the German ones not scrapped is a repeat of the Nimrod programme.

Would be better to just mothball the Nimrods, its reasonably cheap and gives up the option to have a quite capable aircraft available to build on if we decide to use it, whilst still saving in the near term. Buying another aircraft is just a waste of money, it would be better to just make the Nimrods as close to operational as can be done, without spending any huge extra sums. So, if system X or Y on it is defective, just work without it, until such time as funds are available to rectify.

Also, there are no Harpoons and haven’t been any since 2004.

Obviously they have no idea about Lossie’s previous life as an FAA base for aircraft operating off carriers based in Plymouth. Fact checking and historical research mustn’t be a strong point of theirs! 😀

Or you may just be forgetting RN operations in Scapa Flow around that time, about 50 nmi north of Lossiemouth. Today, I see no real reason to base them in Scotland, with the exception of Scottish nationalist political ones. I’d base them as far South as possible.

True of course but I have a strong feeling lower tech aircraft are cheaper to operate as well. Spares are cheaper, fuel is hard to tell but probably less, a simpler plane likely requires less maintenance and training.
Besides, airforces with 1-3 squads of fighters usually only have one main fighterbase. Thus the cost of basing and groundsecurity is not that much more.
You can embloy quite a lot of people for the cost of one single Typhoon.

Simpler planes are simpler, sure, but they also need more human intervention to diagnose faults, whereas newer planes are more self-diagnosing. Newer aircraft also tend to have a higher level of reliability.

Spares probably won’t be cheaper, older aircraft spares just seem cheaper. All you are really saving on is development costs, the costs for materials and manufacture (wages, taxes ect) all remain regardless of what aircraft the spares are for. This goes for manufacture of the aircraft too. You’re looking at brochures for prices, but they tell a false tale.

When I talk about basing, the land is only one part. As the number of aircraft there increases, so the support structures in place there will grow, and costs with them.