Side bays on Pak-Fa..
You mean the comformal pylon under its wings?
Its only space for one small short range A2A missile each.

Ya.

On the F-35..
I wasn’t aware F-35 could carry Penguins inside..
Is this a later block feature or a current block feature?

Isn’t Norway desingning the NSM for its future F-35A?

http://www.kongsberg.com/en/KDS/News/2010/December/0712_NSM_Contract_Poland.aspx

NSM/JSM is what I meant by “glorified Penguin”. 😀

Are you saying there shouldn’t have been any defence cuts at all? I don’t agree with that. The United Kingdom presently faces minimal threats to its fundamental defence interests and can safely hack away at both the Army and to a lesser extent the Air Force as necessary to serve the broader national interest. After all, that’s what the services are there for, The problem is that the service that could least afford cuts without compromising those basic defence interests (the Navy) was hit harder than ever and the service which by all rights should’ve borne the brunt of the cuts (the Army) got off lightly on account of the same short-sighted politicking that was partly responsible for getting the nation into its current predicament in the first place!

BUT with the budget climate and the uncertainty of future procurement, KC-X might be all we get. And if we only get one, I would much rather have the KC-30

Frankly, I think it’s irresponsible of the Pentagon in the current and likely future fiscal environment to plan on maintaining a hi-lo mix of tankers. And yeah, this is something that could very well come back and bite them in the ass. Wouldn’t be the first time either.

If it weren’t for the political landscape Typhoon would be the clear favourite to fulfil Japan’s requirement here. As things stand, if the DPJ can manage to cling to power … well, it’s in with a chance.

Imagine if Typhoon manages to clinch both the Indian and Japanese contracts. Any notion of the aircraft being a European welfare project would suddenly be well and truly out the window.

there will be follow-ons (KC-Y and KC-Z)

Someone should tell the Pentagon that they aren’t going to have 3000 JSFs to refuel in future.

How anticlimactic.

As the current F/A-18F are said to be “fitted for but not with” everything they need to be turned into EA-18G

Is this in fact the case? The Super Hornets delivered to Australia are of two variants: the basic ‘F’ and an ‘F+’, the latter wired for later conversion to EA-18G. Why would this distinction be necessary if all Fs are readily convertible to EA-18Gs?

I think Korea-Indonesia relation is incomparable to Russia-India relation, India faces challenges from Pakistan and China, where is Indonesia’s potential enemy?

I was thinking in terms of the military-industrial relationship. As in Russia/Korea are the more advanced nations whose ability to realise their capacities are limited by how much money they have (Korea largely on account of its size, Russia by the fact that it’s still recovering from the collapse of the Soviet Union) and India/Indonesia are the larger, less developed nations that can trade cash for hardware and expertise as they ascend in the global order. Russia/India and Korea/Indonesia are pairs of nations which are in a position to help each other grow.

But in terms of Indonesia’s potential security threats… well of course there’s the large and growing shadow that China casts across the region, and the two nations don’t have the best of relations historically. Then there are a multitude of potential and actual border issues with Indonesia’s various neighbours such as Malaysia, although in the long run I think most of those nations are more worried about Indonesia than the other way around. I wouldn’t describe Indonesia’s strategic position as in the least bit precarious – certainly their issues with other states pale in comparison to their issues with organised crime, corruption, terrorism, etc. – but it’s not entirely benign either and Indonesia will certainly seek to develop its military capabilities to meet the challenges posed by its strategic environment and insofar as its own economic development allows.

And the different geographical conditions between the two counties, Korea is small, orients to land, Indonesia is huge with a great number of islands, what they made is not always what you need.

Not always, no. But Korea and Indonesia are cooperating on KF-X, they’re talking about T-50/FA-50 together, and Indonesia recently built LPD’s with Korea’s assistance. Clearly there are a number of areas where the interests of the two nations align and I can see that relationship continuing and strengthening in the future.