Yes thats the thing, I’ll bet anyone any money that our Generals and Leaders are not that stupid to retire Mig-29s and get F-16s or M2Ks of any sort.

BTW Has the government really specified they will soon get rid of Mig-29 or are you just speculating GrM?

Originally posted by GrM
Exactly my point, no bucks no Buck Rogers, so if Serbia has to spend money than Serbia will buy best possible equipment, either from domestic source, helping domestic economy or, from manufacturer that can offer proven, reliable equipment. Now you are saying that current generation of equipment is of equal quality as “western” equipment. Care to provide some evidence? When was last time that any air force equipped with Russian equipment scored victory over an air force equipped with “western “ equipment? Answer is probably never. As far as PAK-FA is concerned, F-22 is already semi operational, and soon will be fully operational. PAK-FA is still paper project and at best will not enter service before 2015, and by then F-22 will be some 10 years in service complemented with F-35.

Thats the thing, Russia cantjust give us the stuff for free! We refused the 36 Mig-29s cuz we had no money, and Milosevic refused to upgrade the Mig-29s due to no funds.

Dude are you dumb or something, look at example Pakistan and India back in what the 1960s and 1970s? Pakistan had all the Western Equipment and India had all the Russian equipment! Who won? you tell me. Russian equipment is just as good as Western is, if not better in some ways. Look at the Mig-29, put the Mig-29A against a F-16A and the Mig-29 will win, or put a Mig-29SMT against a F-16blk50 and you’ll see that they’vre very even. War is never fair, everytime US has faced an opponent it had better AWACS, better pilots, better equipment(mostly upgraded) in our case, in Iraqi case and others.

Mig 1.44 could’ve been semi operational or operational by now if Russia wanted it to, but instead they went on to develop the PAK-FA, the PAK-FA will probably be around at the same time as JSF, not the F-22 obviously, and that was not the point to compete with F-22, rather with JSF.

You saw how the Vietnamese did vs US with Soviet help, they did a lot better than they should, although the Mig-21s were shortlegged they still did very well vs F-4s, dont forget that the Americans had wayyy better pilots, thats the reason they did better. Don’t also forget that the Israelis always had better pilots than others and yet if not better or equal equipment, also the Arabs used really bad tactics.

I’d expect something better of u to say GrM, not something stupid you’re babbling about.

You know theres a good saying by one of past US Presidents, “any country that sacrifices it’s independance for economical purposes shall loose both”

Exactly my point, no bucks no Buck Rogers, so if Serbia has to spend money than Serbia will buy best possible equipment, either from domestic source, helping domestic economy or, from manufacturer that can offer proven, reliable equipment.

Best possible also means, best possible based on politics, technology and reliability as well as best for your money. I don’t see why F-16blk50 fills those above I listed better than Mig-29SMT? The Mig-29SMT is a better political solution, twice as cheaper and can do just as much. If maintained properly it can be reliable, hell maintenance is the biggest key to reliability and life.

There is no point in going from Mig-29 to M2K or worn out F-16s or whatever, not much of a difference. Theres a reason why Bulgarians and Romanians decided to keep and upgrade their Mig-29s.

Can UTVA open up a new G-4 production line?

It is shameful that “Knights” where unable to lock on single target, and fire single weapon, and the best thing is that pilots where not responsible for that failure. They did everything they could, but they where let down by technology (and tactics up to some extent) Lets not forget that some of the “ Knights” took RV I PVO commander to the court because of negligence.

You’re right in one way but its not their problems, you know better that what planes we bought inb the late 1980s, be it the Mig-29, Mirage 2000, F-16 or WHATEVER it would’ve been useless by 1999, due to lack of spares remember the embargo, we’d have been unable to upgrade it due to no funds and above all regardless even if we did it would’ve been massively outnumbered, something like 10:1. So please dont blame it on the Russian equipment.

t’s telling that you still think of the Western world as an “enemy”.

Face it: If S&M doesn’t want to become a country like Albania used to be – namely isolated, poor, and paranoid – they’d better open up to Europe and the West and stop thinking of them as enemies.

Yes I see the West still as a enemy, our relations are geting better, that is AFTER they screwed us over, NOT once but TWICE.

Well arming the serbs is strange. Didn’t they mass murdered Muslims? Didn’t they hide criminals that executed others, raped or hungered others? I can remember that their ex rulers that committed the crimes are still walking on earth. And that their dead elected leader was murdered. Well, I suppose mistakes keep repeating in the Balkan region.

you’re just another ignorant one who has no clue whatsoever.

And murder mulsims. I wouldn’t be proud on that part.

I am sorry but all the things they did to us, I wouldnt be proud but why not?

A little less isolated at least. But S&B is getting there fast, especially if you take refugees into consideration. Strange thing: In 2003 there were more asylum seekers from S&M coming into our country than from any other nation.

No we dont want to be isolated(never were) but we DONT want others to stick their noses in our business.

We’ve been screwed over by everyone more times than we can count, Muslim rule for 400 years, by Germans twice, Croats 3 times, Muslims even more and then Albanians, NATO(mostly US) I dont think you can blame us for the way we are.

As they say one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.

Even Mr Bin Ladin & Co. are freedom fighters in some people’s eyes. Same thing with KLA. Also the guys that fought against Serb occupation forces in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia are also terrorists according to your definition. As was Mr Tito and his partisans when he was fighting against the Nazis in WWII.

As for the countries that pose a threat to Serbia I wouldn’t exactly call Slovenia, Croatia or Bosnia a threat. Serbia would still kick their respectives butts in any war.

As for Kosovo, give it to the Albanians. Serbs were only 10% of the population. Historical reasons are a load of BS. Because then Italy could claim everything from Libya to the U.K. becuase they ruled there 2000 years ago.

Theres a difference between Terrorists and Freedom Fighters. I am sorry but Kosovo was never Albanian, it shows your ignorance, you’re too uninformed, do some research on history and see to who should Kosovo belong to.

Well I have learned few things since 1999. “Enemy” helped us more than our “friends”, and since than, especially since 2001 our “enemy” become enemy of our enemies so by default they become our friends. Also I have learned the “financial power” is true defence against all enemies .Our “friends” could never provide that sort of power and that is why we ended up as we ended up.
Also Serbia is small country and to defend successfully against any potential enemies, Serbia must have small but extremely efficient high tech defence and to get that one need money, a lot of it, and without Serbia being part of EU and NATO that will not come.
Politics is “ art of possible” and one must be realistic and accept things as they are .In light of that Serbia, and correctly so, has orientated it self towards west .As far as performance is concerned on numerous occasions “eastern” equipment, under real conditions, proved to be inferior (1 on 1), and philosophy of mass over quality no longer functions, especially in regional conflicts.
It is shameful that “Knights” where unable to lock on single target, and fire single weapon, and the best thing is that pilots where not responsible for that failure. They did everything they could, but they where let down by technology (and tactics up to some extent) Lets not forget that some of the “ Knights” took RV I PVO commander to the court because of negligence.
Do we want to put future generations trough same pain because of our “pride” that is blinding us and hiding true, real problems?

The Russia really couldnt help you, just because your Ally cannot help you does not necessarily mean you should be the ally of your enemy. You know Russia wasnt in a position to help us, they are in a better position now but still not in a good one. If anything in teh Soviet days Russia would’ve definitely helped us. I am not ready to forgive NATO on how they screwed us numerous times.

Thanks for this post, GrM. With a few people thinking like you there’s still hope that this self- destructive nationalism will come to an end in S&M eventually, even though you might still be part of a minority, considering the last election.

I know this also asks for “westerners” like me to reconsider our attitude towards S&M and maybe to get rid of some of our stereotypes. Yet this is sometimes hard if these stereotypes get reinforced time and again by for example some posts above. It will probably take a lot of time for mutual trust to be re-established, but we will get there, eventually.
And there’s not just either- or: S&M can re-establish good ties with the EU/ Europe without losing Russia as a partner. Russia is in the same process of slowly becoming part of Europe again, too.

With his type of thinking we will just become puppets of enemies.

Originally posted by GrM
Buying from the same people that where killing your people .So according to that logic Jewish people should not buy Mercedes because of concentration camps? So every Jew that buys MB or BMW is traitor? Or Americans should not buy Toyota because of Pearl Harbour? Come on guys, you should move to real world where Serbia is USA ally in the war against terrorism and where Serbia wants to join NATO and EU.

Maybe we can buy things from EU or US in maybe 20 years when our relations are better and when we have forgotten what they did to us, but it seems to me that you already have! I just hate your types, who dont care about the country, it’s pride or independance and just want to jump into the EU and be their puppets after they just bombed.

Man do you change your mind very quickly.

I know this is out of the question given Serbia’s current economy, but just for fun, how much would it cost to equip a country the size of Serbia with a complete modern integrated air defense system? Assuming that you would have to start from scratch because the current air defense are too obsolete. I assume you would need at least 30 S-300’s, a hundred Tunguskas, etc. Or maybe an American or French solution would be better? I would think the price would be in the $5-10 billion range

I am not sure but Serbia is small, so a few S-400s can cover the whole Country. I am not sure but I think we will probably modernize and buy new Air defences before buying new fighter aircraft.

This sounds a little sad.
Your country has been to war for a decade, tremendously bleeding economically (among other), and your first priority is rebuilding your defence industry and exporting “B-52s” to countries like Burma?
It might be true that you have a good know-how now when it comes to arms and that there’s countries and organizations craving for them wherever they can get them from, yet do you think this will help you become part of the civilized world again? Don’t you think you should reconsider your priorities?

This has nothing to do with the arms exports and development. They are all of our priorities

Serbia should retire the MiG-29A/UBs and J-22s and give the MiG-21bis a life extension to maybe the 2005-2007 period

No they should upgrade the current Mig-29s to SMT and buy 10-15 more Mig-29SMTs from Russia, retire all Mig-21s and keep the J-22s. Like I said if upgraded correctly the J-22 would be a VERY valuable strike aircraft, just like the Jaguar. With new engines, avionics and weapons it would be very good. It is alreayd combat proven.

after that buy surplus F-16A/B ADFs which could very easily come with BVR weapons (AIM-7M or AIM-120). Serbia is no longer an enemy of the USA or NATO and it is doubtful there would be any Balkan war in the near future. F-16s would allow Serbia to deploy with NATO nations on “peace keeping” and of course become a full off NATO military. And before people comment on the USA not liking to give the AIM-120 away realize that Thailand, which faces almost no aerial threat, has gotten the AIM-120. The G-4s could be upgraded to keep serving as lead in trainers for the F-16s.

That will never probably happen. Going from Mig-29A to F-16A is a rather downgrade to our Airforce.

Well, as usual the matter of buying fighters is both political and financial. If Serbia gets its economy in a decent shape, then everything is possible. From leased F-16 coming from AMARC/Belgium/Israel to, bought with loans from French or British Banks, M2K’s or Grippens…

It remains to be seen if the Russians will make an affordable offer, probably of used and/or upgraded airframes…

Did someone say IMF…?

Exactly its always political, 90% of time its political. The privatization is hurting our economy a bit but in the longer run it will help us. I am sure our economy will be decet by at most 2010 and beyond that it is bound to get better. If we do enter EU by 2007(probably not) our economy should be in a great shape by 2010.

Well, howitzer exports to Burma don’t have anything to do with modern military aviation, so there’s no context to the forum in your postings to start with.

By stating that rebuilding the defense by selling arms to anybody willing to buy them -no matter how their human rights record looks like- should be first priority, I assume that you have your priorities pretty messed up. This just doesn’t fit into a civilized world.
But it’s probably asked too much for you to understand this under given circumstances.

I am sorry but no one ever stated that rebuilding our arms industry was our first priority? human rights records? are you saying we’re not in the civilized world?:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:.

I think the modernization is a good thing with our limited budget(what was it exactly in 2004???) but I just dont like the way they are going with the airforce modernization plans.