Originally posted by Distiller
It’s about a small country being dominated by a Chinese leading class complying with Chinese interests.

Singapore is Chinese ethnic majority. Not a leading “Chinese” class. What’s “Chinese interests”? Chinese Singaporean as opposed to the other ethnics in Singapore?

That contest itself is an admonishment directed towards the U.S. – it says “if you do not continue to cooperate with us (= China, of course), we will look somewhere else!”.

Well, that answered my question.

Nuts.

You’re equating ethicity with nationality. The Singaporeans might be Chinese ethnically but they’re the majority group in the Singapore and if they were loyal to China, the US wouldn’t be selling them F-16s much less F-15s.

Heck, they would buy a F-15 and then transfer it to China which would love to have the Eagle if they were controlled by “Chinese interests.”

Say is Wolfowitz working for Israel because he is a Jew? How about Bush, is he working for Europe because he is white?

Oh the Phoenix missile is an expensive missile alright. They were a million dollars a piece in 1990 dollars.

I’ve no idea how much they would cost to make today.

The problem with very long range missiles is that it is almost impossible to know you actually hit something. So you approach the target anyways for confirmation.

USAF/USN doctrine during the Sparrow era called for “rippling” of missiles or multiple firing of weapons from a plane or a flight of planes to ensure kills.

The F-14’s radar was capable of handling all six AIM-54s in the air (assuming a full long-range loadout) but the load was so expensive that it because a white elephant. There was a Wings program where a pilot said the AIM-54 became so much “luggage” (and it was heavy!) that was lugged back and forth and which no one thought they would ever use unless WWIII started (needed clearance to launch) and with which they can’t even practice with because they were so incredibly expensive.

There were some mindblowing long ranged and multiple bogied tests carried off by the Phoenix, AWG-9 and F-14 combo, though. It had test kills over 100 miles away and 5 out of 6 kills from one F-14 with radar juggling 6 Aim-54s in the air on bogies going away, coming towards and going sideways relative to plane.