In the 1930’s he was a America First’er and attended Bund events.

This is news to me? Weren’t those fascist, pro-Nazi organizations? Yikes!

Ford then succeeds Nixon and gives him a pardon without any review of Nixon’s transgressions.

Oh no, not another reference to “Watergate.” Elderly reporters love to talk about Nixon, Watergate and bunch of other boring stuff that only matters to the media.

The whole Watergate scandal just seems silly today. Would anyone really care if that sort of thing happened 30 years later?

It all comes down to the fact that Nixon was an ugly, unlikeable, paranoid, foul mouthed guy. So what? It is not as if he took bribes or murdered someone.

So, by todays standards, Richard Nixon wasn’t all that much of a bad guy – and he probably was a far better president that either Ford or Carter – the two failed presidents who followed him.

While President, Ford and war criminal Henry Kissinger gave Indonesia the go ahead to invade East Timor. 200,000 were slaughtered.

The situation in East Timor was very odd. There were three factions: Pro-Portuguese, Pro-Indonesia and Communist.

When the socialist junta in Portugal decided to walk away from the colonies, there was still strong pro-Portuguese sentiment in East Timor. Oddly, Portugal favored the communists for ideological and practical reasons – they just wanted to get out as quickly as possible.

The Indonesian invasion forestalled another communist takeover, and in the wake of Vietnam, it is easy to see why that seemed like a good thing at the time.

There is plenty of blame to go around for East Timor.

Let’s not forget the botched attempt to rescue the freighter seized by Cambodia that cost 20 Marines their lives needlessly.

Actually, Ford’s popularity soared after the rescue attempt. Go figure?

Compared to the “Desert 1” disaster that Jimmy Carter personally planned, this is only a footnote in history.

No, do not name a CV after him.

I would agree, as most posters do.

It is isn’t an issue of Republican vs. Democrat.

Few people would disagree that there are more deserving former presidents.

Success will vary. An example of a COTS failure is C-130J. It initially arrived at units with a whole bunch of stuff screwed up, depending on the mission it was supposed to do. It was never properly R&D’d before a contract was written up. The weather version of it being a prime example. It also was never initially tested properly to see if it FIRST could do all the core dirt bike like ops of a legacy C-130. FOD issues were discovered with the engines. Of course all the necessary equipment a legacy C-130 crew would expect had to be added on and figured out after the fact of the, in this case a flawed contract. Now it is finally worked back into being a milspec program. All of this required a lot of extra money. There was NO money saved in going COTS with this airframe. In fact, a lot was wasted. So if anything, the C-130J program shows that you have to be really careful when drawing up a contract for an airframe that will be COTS. It many be the worst example of COTS but I am sure you can be successful doing this purchase method too.

I don’t think that the C-130J can be properly described as a “COTS failure” but as a “self-funded project.”

In retrospect, the C-130J was conceived a couple of years too early, with too much emphasis on decreased lifecycle costs.

Strictly speaking, the C-130J wasn’t a simple COTS avionics upgrade and re-engining program.

The C-130J also didn’t amount to a complete aerodynamic redesign – and some might argue that it should have.

Not sure if I understand you correctly.
2-M’s will stay
The 6 sold M’s will be replaced by 4 OPV

I understand fully that the OPV order is meant to keep the Dutch shipbuilding industry alive, and that sale of M-class units is meant to raise fund for the newbuilding.

I was under the impression that the 4 unit OPV order had gone in favor of Schlede and the Sigma class design?

It stood to reason that only left the two remaining M-class frigates to be replaced?

Remember that a number of Indian Jaguars were fitted with the Agave radar in the nose which is supposedly now being replaced with EL-2032. So it should not have been that difficult to fit the Jaguar with an A2A radar such as the Cyrano of the Mirage F-1. Just look at the capabilitys that Iraqs F-1’s achieved in the late 80’s with this radar-it would have been possible to creat a multi-role jaguar. But the F-8 would likely have still been a better Interceptor.

The odd thing about the original Jaguar M is that it was basically just a navalized Jaguar A – with the same very basic avionics fit.

It would seem that the development of the Exocet missile must have already been under way, so why did Jaguar M lack any apparent radar capability?

I should also mention that the Jaguar had a low level optimized wing that would have made it an astoundingly poor fighter.

The BS5 catapults on Foch & Clemenceau would be able to launch the Corsair at or near full load (the F/A-18A that they found would need a reduced MTOW had a MTOW of 56,000 lb at a higher launch speed than the A-7E did [MTOW 42,000 lb]).

As new A-7s were being built until 1984, there would have been no problem equipping the AeroNavale with them.

The big problem, of course, would be that it loses French Industry the historic 74 SuEs that Dassault builds… not that big a deal, but it would be proclaimed as “a major blow to our Aircraft Industry”… especially since it would make the entire carrier-based combat air fleet “Damm-Yankee-built” (ok, Alize is French-built, but… ).

The A-4M seems to have received more consideration from the French than the A-7E. The final version of the Skyhawk was a far cheaper aircraft, and less demanding in terms of maintenance. Keep in mind the U.S. Marines operated even the relatively complex A-6 Intruder, but kept well clear of the Corsair II.

The A-7 also had limited space for avionics. It might have been easier to integrate the Agave radar with the A-4M rather than the A-7E. It would seem that the development of Agave/Exocet AM39 would have preceeded the choice of the Super Etendard.

Some people might say that Super Etendard was first and foremost a platform for the Exocet missile

Herakles is fully compatible with Aster 15/30 missiles as it is written in Thales documentation given by radar.

It was in the requirements :.

Yes, I’ve read all the public promotional material. The claimed range of Herakles is greater than the claimed range of EMPAR, and far greater than the claimed range of ARABEL – but it is impossible to judge the capabilites of a system solely on the basis of the manufacturers public claims.

If you take the Thales brochure at face value, Herakles sounds like a direct equivilent to EMPAR – perhaps even superior?

Additionally, Formidable class fregate from Singapore are equipped with Herakles and Aster 15. It is a clear Aster/Herakles can work together.

I still don’t know if the firing trials are complete, or whether they have even commenced?

It is obvious that there is a contractual obligation to fully integrate Aster 15 with Herakles, and it is certain that this will happen…if it hasn’t already been accomplished?

Now why did they remove the enclosure and as such, prohibited the stack of antenna’s ?

1. The enclosure would add substantial topweight, although that wouldn’t seem to be a tremendous issue for a ship with nearly a 20 meter beam?

2. The integrated enclosure is probably more expensive to engineer. Stacking antennas atop the radar might create issues with electromagnetic interference. Adding a horizontal separation between the antennas and radar might reduce potential complications, but that is only a guess.

3. The existing, exposed Herakles antenna was already developed, and paid for, as part of the Singapore export order.

4. FREMM has grown siginificantly in length. Perhaps the additional deck area allowed a reversion to a conventional arrangement?

Khat was prohibited by the ICU

This was a very peculiar and unpopular move. Khat is apparently a mildly stimulant leaf which is chewed – probably not a good thing when it comes to dental hygene, but hardly equivilent to a hard drug addiction. Khat chewing is something of a universal obsession in Somalia, as well as Yemen.

The policy seems even more peculiar when you consider that there was no historical, cultural or religious justification for the khat ban?