Why would anyone want a ASW aircraft that can take off and land on water? Maybe in WWII when they needed some flying boats based on distant islands with no runways. It’s a totally obsolete concept today.

well, the Chinese, Japanese, and Russians are getting still wet from the idea
get it? 🙂 😉

by the time the Indians finish negotiating for Rafale, Russia would have 2 squadrons of Pak-fa 😉

so Pak-fa.
but with Dassault to make AMCA

um no.. Iran hated the Soviets. Americans #1 satan, but Soviets #2. Soviets preferred Iraq because it was led by Super Mario.

basically,

Iraq wuold continue to build up with Russian weapons, moving to Su-30 then Pak-fa
Iran would align m ore with China and get J-20

they will finally have war in 2020 and then we can finally see Pak-fa vs J-20

you happy?

From what I understand the South African F-1s were inferior to the MiG-23 in radar and missiles due to the arms embargo against South Africa. F-1 also had inferior acceleration which reflected the lack of success the Iraqis had using it against Iranian F-14 compared to the MiG-23. The F-1 should be a better air superiority fighter with the right avionics and weapons, but with half the thrust it could not be the rough field capable pure interceptor the MiG was designed to be.

looking at the iran-iraq war kills on ACIG..
the Mirage F-1 was able to shoot down the F-14.
no Mig-23 ever shot down an F-14. But dozens of Mig-23s shot down by F-14s instead

Mig-23 saw more losses than Mirage F-1

Something wrong with FGFA cost?
100% price escalation on Rafale fighter aircraft
“A top defence ministry official said the price of a fighter jet made by Dassault could now cost $120 million.”
“The price hike would mean that the deal would cost India nothing less than $28-30 billion (Rs1.75 lakh crore-Rs1.86 lakh crore),” said an Indian Air Force (IAF) official, who is privy to discussions of the cost negotiation committee.”

http://defence.pk/threads/100-price-escalation-on-rafale-fighter-aircraft-to-rs-1-75-lakh-crore-likely-to-dent-iafs-strike-c.297077/
http://www.aereo.jor.br/2014/01/27/rafale-mais-caro-que-o-planejado/

French stuff, from Dassault to Lacoste, are sure nice and purdy, but also damn expensive too.

At least the Chinese are dealing with the cruption problem rather than legalizing it.
Last I heard Chinese officials are getting sacked for cruption instead of getting re-elected. :dev2:

a pot kettle black argument.

Historically speaking, not that straight forward. Did you know that China’s first foray into industrialization (before the collapse of the Qing) actually had a LOT of Japanese assistance? Most of China’s technical terms at the time were identical to the Japanese Kanji for those terms because many Chinese scholars went to study in Japan to try to figure out how to industrialize and modernize China in that time period. After that China (at the time the ROC) received a lot of technical assistance from both the Soviet Union AND America. It wasn’t until the end of the Chinese Civil War that Mainland China went full blown with Soviet assistance. That only lasted until the Sino Soviet split however. For a period of time after that China went at it by itself, and then from 1972 onward Mainland China once again began receiving most of its assistance from the US and Europe. It wasn’t until the 1989 embargo after Tiananmen and then the collapse of the Soviet Union that China began increasing its share of Russian assistance. Western assistance never really left though, as we know from China’s acquisition of dual use technologies, the continued help it gets from Europe, and its espionage activities. By the 90s China was essentially getting help from everyone, requested, offered, or taken.

As for Ukrainian assistance, I should caution not to take it too far. I noted some important contributions Ukraine had to China’s military development, but TR1 is right about not ignoring the volume of Russian assistance. My original comment was mostly to note how the assistance China has been getting from the Ukraine as of late tend to be less stingy than the assistance they’ve been getting from Russia (though I do feel that there has been less and less collaboration between China and Russia in military development in the last half decade or so).

you’re basically saying the same thing JSR and I are saying.
By the time China opened up, it was already way too late. Japan was already modern and everyone and their mom were carving up a piece of succulent china meat. The Soviets set you guys forward.. then Mao tried to send you guys backwards at the same time.. tsk tsk.

and naturally TR1 is right, who wouldn’t be stingy after seeing some one blatantly copy their designs. Ukraine doesn’t give a flying poop about it since what they gave was designed in the cold war anyways.

you guys are both right. nothing to argue here.

China went from one of the world’s technological centers to being a backyard boonies after being isolated for so long. The Japanese were the first to see such a policy didn’t work and westernized first. It took the Soviets to send hordes of scientists and engineers to teach China modern engineering which is why many of the weapons, infrastructure, political philosophy, etc are all borrowed from the Soviets. Its even more so since Mao demonized his own chinese culture and destroyed lots of it during the cultural revolution (its also why you can argue taiwan, hong kong and even Japan might be more chinese than china mainland).

that said, Soviet-China connection got cut, restarted, but now with Ukraine, lots of designs being influenced with Ukrainian engineering help. I don’t think China’s armored vehicle industry, ships, and some aviation would’ve gotten modernized with out Ukrainian assistance.
question is if this would bite Ukraine in the butt in the mid-term when China kicks them out of the market, selling type 99s against Ukraines Oplot.

also, Ukraine is becoming increasingly anti-Russia (except for Crimea).. good chance Yanukovych will be murdered on the street by armed protestors and a shift against Russian alignment. This means no more cooperation with Ukraine and Russian arms industry which would really hurt Ukraine. Would this be a good opportunity for china to fill that void? could we see Ukraine switch to Chinese weapons?