Now you’ve done it. XXXXXX people will be here foaming at the mouth about how great Russian technology is and how the West is pointless. (Never mind that NZ is considered part of “the west”)

I cannot possibly comment on your suspicions of who I was talking about. 😀 😀 😀

But in VTOL mode it is very inefficient, & what it can do isn’t necessarily what anyone will actually do with it. Nobody’s ever operated Harriers off any ship except a properly equipped STOVL carrier from which they can do a rolling take-off. Other ships (e.g. container ships) have only been used for ferrying them. Bulwark & Albion have no hangar, neither do the Bay-class, Ocean‘s lifts can’t lift a loaded F-35 (max load 19 tons) – and if those ships are operating jets, what do we use for amphibious assault? It’s not as if we have a dozen 40000 ton LHAs.

I’m not sure what you mean by “most major JSF Operators”. Of potential customers, only the USA & Italy are currently planning to operate both CTOL & STOVL types, though Australia’s thinking about it. The UK & Spain plan only F-35B, the USN currently intends to buy only C, & everyone else plans only A – though the USAF has been musing about a mixture of A & B.

The USMC I think you will find wants the B as well, in numbers that well be bigger than all of the rest of the STOVL operators put together (unless the USAF jumps in :diablo: ).

Hello there, I’ve been lurking these forums on and off for a couple of years and it’s by far the best naval forum I’ve come across. I remember skimming one naval forum where a topic by one of the posters here (I believe it was Jack E. Hammond making an SSM topic) received one reply, saying “who cares?” Whereas on this forum it would probably develop to a thread going on for several pages.

Now for a small and somewhat off-topic question. The Norwegian AF recently (well, six months ago) chose to replace their old Sidewinders with the IRIS-T for their F-16MLU, as opposed to a newer model of the AIM-9. Deliveries are to go on until 2009.

Am I reading this right in that it is a very strong indication from the RNoAF that they do not want the goverment to buy the F-35A?

(Personally I think any of the four possible aircraft would be good enough for our patrol needs and small NATO/UN tasks, but I wondered what people thought of this?)

P.S. The RNoAF is still using the fighter wing (132) and squadron numbers (331, 332) they were assigned to by the RAF while operating under British command during WWII. You could say the current RNoAF was born on British soil with Hurricanes and I can see the RNoAF wanting to have a chance at using the Typhoon now.

— A bit of off topic —

132 Wing did most their best work with Spitfires, and they were highly rated by the RAF due to their mixture of aggressiveness , airmanship and discipline, in that when they did the mission, they didn’t go into a total bloodlust whenever they saw a German aircraft. This was unlike some of the other 300 series RAF Squadrons (the Polish units, being the best example) which had a habit of doing just that.

I don’t want to come into detail about the British role in Cyprus,there are several documents circulating in newspapers like the NATO dispatch sent from the British bases that if greek airplanes try to overfly the british bases in their flight towards Cyprus,they will be shot down.Without entering much in detail or using greek sources,this is indicative:

UK’s murky role in Cyprus crisis
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4632080.stm

Anyway,The Turk Cypriots also had their killers,the “TMT”.Things in 1974 were quite calm though untill the coup happened,encouraged by Kissinger to overthrow Makarios ,who was deemed a philo-communist ,since he didn’t want to join NATO and had relations with Russia.Read the UNFICYP report and you ll see that both sides had their extremists:
http://www.unficyp.org/history/hist_ops_until_74.htm

Cyprus was the last UK base in the eastern med after the loss of Suez and couldn’t be lost.So instead of granting complete independence or allow the join to Greece as was called for in a referendum (82% were GreekCypriots ),they made a Conistution that could never work,with vetoes in everything,crisis came,nationalism rose,Turkey wanted “Takism” (division) because a Greek Cyprus would be dangerous for her strategic interests,someone set oil on some extremists of the 2 sides,UN peacekeepers came in the middle,the rest happened in 1974.Turkey intervened as garantor of the Constitution,but in reality to achieve takism ,violated repeatedly UN ceasefires and continued the operation for a month untill caught 40%,although the coupist gov and thus restoration of the Constitution happened a few days after the invasion.

An interesting post, cheers. and yes your right about the extremists on both sides which I would say is the heart of the problem, much like a problem much nearer to the mainland UK.

NATO plays a very great role, though a frequently misunderstood one – it gives something Greece and Turkey something in common, that they cannot dispute. During the Cold war, both Greece and Turkey had major roles to play, and they still do. It also means that if either party loses their mind and starts shooting, they will be condemned. The sad thing was when Turkey invaded Cyprus – the Brit RAF sent up fighters, but were not allowed to fire on the Turkish aircraft, despite the fact that the Turks were taking hostile action. Nuts!

Attacked the British Radar Station at Troodos for starters (was a mistake on the Turkish Hun pilot’s part however, attacked the wrong mountain). Lightning pilots saved his ass however, as they stopped 112 Squadron putting a big ‘Sharksbite’ on the F-100 with what would have been the first and only operational firing of a Bloodhound 2 SAM by getting in the way (The 56 Sqn Lightning pilot is reputed to have done a barrel roll around the F-100 to get his attention). Another thing that has to be remembered about the Cyprus Invasion was the reason for it, 😮 the massacre of Turk Cypriots by EOKA years before and the Greek Coup on the Island 5 days before the Turks hit the beach. (Also note that British SBA became the home of a lot of Greek refugees, post the invasion) 😮

Funny how no-one is mentioning the nasty role chem warefare would play.

Nato repels 1st wave of Warpac attacks, Warpac hits back with chem weapons, Nato hit back with tac nukes, Warpac hits back with IRBMs. London, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam and Madrid, all glowing orange.

Nato launches a swarm of nuke cruise missiles. Warsaw, Budapest, Leningrad all hit badly.

Before long, Washington, New York, LA, San Francisco, Moscow, Vladivostok, Kiev all burning nuclear wreaks.

3 billion lives gone within the space of a mionth????? Welcome to hell. Sorry for oversimplifictions. It’s late and I’ve got a headache….:-(

:diablo: :diablo: :diablo: But who won the Air War? :diablo: :diablo: :diablo: :diablo: Nice to see the GLCM finally get a mention

As I see, all pro-NATO guys are sure that NATO air forces would defeat WarPac AF. Well, it isn’t too odd to me because I think a lot of NATO lovers are always over-optimistic! I want to remember you that in 1980s buddies from Pentagon also thought very seriously three to four US light divisions from “Rapid Deployment Forces” could repel any USSR’s invasion of Iran even if Soviets came with over thirty divisions. One must admit defending Central Europe against WP assault is a piece of cake when compared with such an achievement! 😀 😀 😀

Rokosowsky, just out of interest what were you doing in 1987??? As for NATO being optimistic, we trained our guys to do more than take off, attack a target and land, by adding some important phases of the mission, like fly hundreds of miles to a target at low level (a lot of navigation skill and some very good equipment required), evade the enemy air defences (low level terrain masking and very good ECM systems that actually did work, Europe is not Iraq), hit the target on the first pass and fly back to base, again evading the enemy air defences. (Ingress and Egress, anybody). To add to that as well as training against Western systems on large scale training exercises, our pilots trained against simulated Soviet systems, both airborne (Aggressor Squadrons) and ground based emitters. Did the Soviet airforces train to anything like that level. I don’t think so. All they did was try to use numbers (fine, it still helps if at least one of your aircraft can hit the target however, which for a NATO airfield in Germany was a hardened, very well camouflaged large facility in front of which are located a number of very good light air defence systems (the Rolands, rapiers and light flak) which are waiting for your aircraft to pop up and try to locate their targets because they are off track by a small margin. Also there are teams of engineers just waiting with a lot of kit to fill any holes you make, and again these boys practised a lot. Would have NATO won the air war, in the light of what I know now, I’d give them a bloody good chance.