I agree, and as glitter said, you depend on a country that does not depend on you. US does not have much interest in Greece nor does Greece have any valuable resources like oil for US to grab around. Same with Turkey, in a matter of days can US slap an embargo on both. Turkey would have a harder time, considering pretty much ALL of it’s equipment is US made.

I still do NOT think Greece needs any new fighters, Mirages and F-16s for now will be enough. In around 2010 timeframe, yes there will be a lot of fighter to be replaced, Mirage F1s, F-4s, A-7s and WHATEVER. I would right now focus on SAMs and such. I am a big fan of longer range SAMs like S-300 and S-400. We’ve seen how hard it was for NATO to neutralize Serbian Air Defenses, which were 60s vintage. Now imagine something modern like S-300PMU2 or S-400 whose missiles actually are modern and sophisiticated enough to combat NATO. In fact, ANY decent high altitude SAM will do fine, no matter what range.

A S-400, which can protect a radius of some 350-400kms with the “big” missile, will give Turkey some hell. Now imagine Greece sticking a S-400 battery, on Samothraki, Khios and Rhodes Islands, and there you have virtually a SAM shield to protect whole of Greece. A S-400 battery placed somewhere like on Samothraki, might be able to target aircraft flying as far as Istanbul area. If there is a gap in the shield, this could be covered by putting some BUKs or SLAMRAAM/CLAWS somewhere around the islands. Then Greece would be able to concentrate all of it’s fighters and AWACS protecting Cyprus and such and supporting it’s Navy. I also feel that Greece needs some tankers and such, it may not be able to protect Cyprus well enough with it’s shorter ranged M2Ks and F-16s well enough. So, to sum it up, 3-4 S-400 batteries, few BUKs or SLAMRAAM/CLAWS, Tankers could be used.

Help from EU, there would be no financial help from NATO. Thats the thing, we just don’t have money to buy anything now, but hopefully by 2010-2015 timeframe we’d be able to afford something. Getting into NATO would just mean more money to spend somewhere else other than economy and social programs. We don’t need to spend any money on military right now to join NATO.

I no longer see what we need Mig-29s for? There are just very few to make any sort of difference, Mig-21s could take care of the job of air policing and interception of civilian aircraft and such. In the future a layered high tech air defence system seems the best Air Defense than lots of expensive fighters. When you buy SAMs which are not only cheaper and much more effective, they don’t take away a lot of money for maintenance and such, while expensive fighters do. I am talking 2010 and later, not now.

I think in the future for simple air policing and other roles like Anti-Shipping, Interdiction and such, we could very well settle for something really light, a squadron/2 of like supersonic trainers like FTC-2000, L-15 or A-50, or even light fighters like FC-1, LCA or whatever. I would not dare send these into NATO fighter packs.

We don’t need a fighter at all now. Against NATO 100 Mig-29s would be useless, even SMTs would barely be a big speed bump for them. What we need is a high tech air defense system

I don’t see the really big difference with Rafale and Typhoon, similar weights, loads, weapons nonetheless, performance, and costs.

In the future competitions, while countries like Singapore and Greece ALREADY operate F-16s, taking the block60 would be much cheaper than taking the Rafale or Typhoon. When you compare the block60 to Rafale or Typhoon, it already comes with all it’s weapons integrated and such, much like the Super Hornet.

I am really interested in a lot of these ships.

What do you guys think about the smaller ships armed with larger weapons, you have the Skjold Patrol Boat which is stealthy, very fast(over 100km/h, 50 some knots) and carries like 8 NSMs. Then you have a few other smaller Russian corvettes which are armed with Moskits, Yakhonts, Urans or Klubs, just about whatever you want. There is a new Russian missile boat which is armed with something like 4 Moskits or like 16 Urans. I think it’s the Molnya or something.

Also, whats the difference between a Frigate, Destroyer, Cruiser, Corvette, and whatever, what are their definitions?

IMO integrating all kinds of Western avionics will be expensive on aircraft like Su-30, not only there are very few Western radars in the size or performance of Zhuk-MSF or N011M, it would just be too expensive. I would much rather stick to N011M and Russian weapons, with possibility of integrating other Western weapons.

Remember, Greece already has a set of French/European and American weapons. All the French/European weapons are on M2Ks and the American ones on the F-16s. Adding one more set of Russian weapons would be a big maintenance burden. It’s nice to rely on different weapons, but they already do.

Yes, the Su-30MK would spank the whole Turkish AF, and it’s long range would mean no need for tankers, which would allow it to fly around and provide Air Defense of Cyprus pretty easily. Armed also with weapons like Yakhont or Alfa, it would also give the Turkish Navy a run for their money too as they’d be powerless to counter these weapons.

Does Greece havy any tankers? To my understanding they dont. I’d still go shopping for things like SAMs, Tankers or Subs than more fighter aircraft.

I highly doubt, but it’s not the engines, its teh way the Russian aircraft are maintained, the maintenance schedules are totally different and such. I am not really sure, maybe we can get some insight from other countries who operate types from both sides. What about Malaysia? It operates both Mig-29N and F-18, what about India?