It will happen only when the big players (USA, China, Russia and Israel) agree on disabling Iran’s nuclear program. That’s my opinion. Underneath are just random toughts on the subject.

IAF has no need to fly over Saudi Arabia. Jordan is a better choice. It’s questionable what is the real range of Israeli F16L ? Nevertheless it’s impossible to reach all parts of Iran from Israel with F15/16 carrying weapons like Gbu-28. But IAF had enough time to practice long range missions, they know their limits. Certainly they have chosen priority and range possible targets.
Again in real mission they would have US help…

About the attack.
Take a look at a real time model of a attack on a very small country 280×100 miles, landlocked in position where all surrounding land and airspace was hostile, NATO attack force was 100x larger than defending one, with attack force AWACSs and land based radars surrounding and covering all territory.

Sounds like few hours job. Yet so many problems for attacking force… Situations when AWACS did not detect hostile planes, Electronic Warfare Suite problems, possible SAM fire…

Israel has much more serious opponent. Iran has early warning radars and they will detect hostile planes before they enter Iran’s airspace. F15/16 is not LO airplane even for vintage radars. Deep territory, mountain terrain…

There’s no such thing as ‘only one strike’ fo IAF in this situation.
Something close to one strike would be possible for USAF using high tech STEALTH bombers, and rain of cruse missiles which would disable Iran’s air force bases, radars, comm sites, etc. before aerial bombing missions. But you can do a lot of damage using long range cruise missiles. Factories, heavy industry, power plants, they are all on the ground.

GBU-28 is not a cruise missile, F15 has to fly over the bombing site. Returning to that real time example, GBU-28 and smaller bombs proved not to be perfect as bunker busters. As a matter a fact that 280x100mi country’s underground military objects stayed untouched, despite being bombed more then once…

So logical option is to use USAF, Army and Navy as allies. Yet difference between USAF and IAF is that the second one is prepared to take losses in the fight, and it they hit Iran solo, there’s going to be some… But that’s probably the last option for Israel…

p.s. S300 SAM system is not a AK47 assault rifle, it’s not press and shoot system. You have to have educated and well trained crew to successfully operate S300. It takes time to train and to learn how to use it… Receiving S300 during he conflict would not help a lot.

14 May 2009
Telegraph

It is thought that the RAF pilot ejected after the Harrier’s undercarriage failed to lower as it came in to land.

The aircraft was very badly damaged in the crash.

An MoD spokesman said: “Emergency services have been called to the scene and are assessing the damage.

“The exact cause of the incident is not yet known.

“However, there is currently no suggestion that the incident was caused by enemy action.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/5322750/Pilot-ejects-from-RAF-Harrier-crash.html

NHF to Moldovians, but unfortunately in Europe brand of that country is very connected to women trafficking and prostitution.
I do not understand the part “Bulgarians would be opposed to unification of Moldova and Romania” are there Bulgarians living in Moldova ?
Moldova is independent, and certainly state with a lots of problems (been googling). Nevertheless gambling with territories is a very risky business. If I’m not mistaken Hungary did claim parts of todays Romania where ethnic Hungarians live in majority…

One of the interesting facts when we are talking about Moldova is that USA purchased about 20 Moldova’s MiG-29s with complete set of weapons and spares, some of those were capable of carring nuclear weapons…

Are there any data about number of AMRAAMs Romania will buy ?

No need to get emotional about EU issue, but speaking about general economical growth and putting NATO-military alliance membership ahead EU-laws and business and legislation synchronization is something inherently very wrong, and in realm of religion.

It’s funny, Romania struggled to enter EU, most of EU members were against it, pressure was made and entering EU was controversial (…), and now EU is to blame :D.

My impressions about Romania are first hand impressions of my ex coworkers Romanians, believe much older than people here form Romania, those are people who lived and worked with their families under SU.
Do not get insulted by comparison with Africa, Ro is very European country, European people, and tradition. But economy and infrastructure were closer to African then to western European countries, sorry, but that’s period.

Fear form Russian invasion is, I would say, paranoid, and US is exploiting it. But I understand why Romaninas see USA as “liberators”.

F-16 is a good airplane. Will Romaina ground all Lancers, or they will fly with F16s for some time ?

This is how they did it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk_ZcnWsKcI

This unusual method of attack with SA-6 is contrary to it’s book, manufacturer manual (not tested or documented) and contrary to military training.

One thing I found interesting; SA-3 and SA-6 trigger using radio proximity fuse and they are guided by ground command beam. Knowing the fact that these old systems are perfectly known to US army, you can jamm them on many levels and there are effective electronic countermeasures; could it be that these systems had been modified, and how?

Or in was the SAM’s crew tactics that made some SAM attacks successful ? In sense that on plane ECM could not react fast enough because of very short exposure to S-A radar and missile…

@Kramer
It’s politics, give and take. Again it’s time for Romania to give US. But it’s not a bad deal.

If you wish to talk about cheapest but efficient weapon, that would surely be MiG 35, they already have infrastructure and know-how for MiG29. But again buying a plane is a political issue, especially for globaly non powerful country.

StAndrea, there is no internal security problems that would require airpower or armed intervention from the military, and no prospects of any. The only likely external enemy is Ukraine and the puppet regime in Transnistria

If that’s so, you are crunching your heads without reason. Romania has no enemy, and need for war time airforce, except need for airpolicing.

You should go with the cheapest option, that will maintain your fighter pilot resource.
You have to have people in training. It’s much easier and faster to upgrade fighter pilot knowledge to launch a-a missile from old 40km missile/radar to new 120km missile/radar.

But it’s much harder to learn one pilot to fly and fight like figher pilot, it requires years of training and long tradition !

In that sense, you should have maintained those MiG 29s because they would keep your pilots in high skill fighter training, regarding flying elements. In that sense MiG 21 is quite inferior.

So, buy the cheapest modern fighter, free F-16 is OK. Keep your pilots in training, and if someday your country faces serious threat, you can buy more powerful planes, and make fast transition.