Running a war economy doesn’t just require oil for military purposes.

You still have to feed 1 billion people and you still need to run the industries critical to both basic human life as well as military production.

After all without key resources your factories stop working and then attrition means you start running out of things.

Taiwan’s best bet is to use assymetric warfare because they’ll lose at conventional one for obvious reasons.
china has more muslims than syria so Taiwan’s best bet is to indoctrinate them somehow and the chinese government will be at war forever, especially as other muslim countries and organizations pick up their cause.

Other way round – ‘offering to sell’.

http://www.janes.com/article/24248/russia-may-offer-ka-52k-to-france-as-part-of-mistral-negotiations

oh in that case France should do it. Hokums wreck havock on tigers..

Both heavylifters and freeloaders appear to have their defence needs catered to. But again, who’s this defence against? Carry on east from Ireland all the way to Belarus and you encounter nothing but allies.

Countries in Europe that are NOT members of the NATO –

1. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia (NATO applicants)
2. Ireland, Austria, Sweden, Finland (EU members)
3. Albania, Serbia (EU applicants)
4. Moldova, Kosovo (EU aspirants)
5. Switzerland (St. Switzerland)
6. Russia, Ukraine, Belarus

(Not included states like Andorra, Malta, Monaco etc)

Effectively only Russia, Ukraine and Belarus exist as potential ‘threats’. The majority of people in the both the latter countries support accession to the EU and Russia is apparently comfortable with buying warships from France and offering to sell attack helicopters back.

I wish my neighborhood was so cozy.

I’d imagine operational availability for the fleet would be over 75%. (?) The aircraft deployed to the Baltics remain do four months stints while the RAF flight at the Falklands has aircraft permanently stationed there with aircrews rotating. QRA is provided without any additional aircraft deployment/rotation.

In any case, I’m not suggesting that the Dutch cut their air force to four aircraft. As long as policing of civilian traffic isn’t a overriding priority, the KLu should have the bulk of its strength available for short expeditionary operations and at least a squadron strength available for longer deployments.

France offered Tiger helicopters to Russia?
don’t think Russia would gain much..
if Russia had to buy something from France it should be:
CTOL carriers
Rafales for carriers
light helicopters
LeClerc
Lacoste

It was the only multi-role, affordable high-performance aircraft. Starting with the C, you even got MR-AAM capability. If you have F-16, there isn’t anything else you need.

yes I agree.. that or Gripen 😉

The F-15 I can maybe understand, but the other two? Makes very little sense to me, but I’m still fairly low on the totem pole so I doubt they will ask me. 🙂

damn this obammy, cutting all the military stuff and putting it all into big gov’t.. so socialistic that i hear he’s planning to re-paint the white stars on some US aircraft into red-stars!

Thanks Y-20, you’re very kind to have revived the topic for me. Busy in my last year on a PhD, so tend to drop off now and then.

I’ve given up on both a prop-based CAS after much reflection instigated by this thread. I’m settling on a simplified low-cost version of the Harrier, without VTOL but optimized for STOL. This is because the threat environment against a large and sophisticated enemy would mean a prop would not be very survivable.

Given that the prop is a dead give away with a big radar return, it becomes counter productive in focusing on staying out of the air battle on top.

Obligatory has already noted how a conventional aircraft can be so much superior in terms of cost and other basic engineering parameters. For me, after much soul searching, I think the correct employment of CAS aircraft are the key to a truly integrated maneuver warfare, and its a shame that politics has taken a front seat and plain operational rationality a back seat in this case. And the Third World has, without second thought adopted what it did not understand…

Hi lukos, its a pleasure to make your aquintance. Welcome to Key Publishing Forums! Those are some interesting systems, I must say.

Let me see if I can explain the dilemma quickly and simply. CAS plays a critical role in the modern battlefield and can be considered one of the key ingredients behind victory or defeat. In the Indian subcontinent they can potentially play an even greater role because of the operational topography.

Along with the typical mission set of recon, fire support, tank busting, etc two additional roles can be highlighted:

1. Anti-artillery. In the subcontinent, artillery is king, as maneuver warfare plays a backseat role. Artillery radars play a role here in spotting enemy fire, which is critical to the artillery duel. However, artillery radars tend to be very vulnerable themselves. Additionally, artillery radars have a range of 50kms around at best, and in operational terms, probably closer to 35. This means that it cannot play the anti-artillery role in its full spectrum.

2. Artillery or tanks, cannot provide any additional dimensions in this kind of frontal battles. They don’t have the fire range to reach the enemy’s rear or soft spots as easily. A CAS aircraft would have the ability to have a far longer reach, and provide precision strike in real time.

In short, there is no replacing the CAS aircraft’s role without fundamentally compromising operational capability.

Neither do the theater opponents have the capability to look at using significant stocks of precision (and high cost) munitions. A simple CAS aircraft, even firing Hydra rockets can do huge damage at minimal cost.

To fulfill this role, I’ve conjured up the image of a simple single engined aircraft, framed approximately on the lines of the Harrier without the VTOL complexities. An aircraft with no internal cannon but an internal 70mm rocket launcher that can shoot either cheap unguided rockets or laser guided rockets. Additional hard points can provide for a wide range of other typical CAS munitions.

Right now, there seems to be an increasing consensus that such an aircraft is needed for Army Aviation of said hypothetical country. They seem to think a K-8 appropriately modified would do the trick. I’m ambivalent about that and think a brand new design, perhaps using an off the shelf parts bin, may just be the better option…

sounds like you want an Su-25T

i dont think they should stretch it to match the a310 or 757..
targeting the 737 or a320 market is good enough, I believe these are like 75% of the aircraft commercial airliners use in terms of aircraft numbers?