An F-35 does not enter the fight alone. The F-35 who paints the targets with its APG-81 is not the one who will be launching AIM-120s. That will be his three mates who are unseen and launch silently using targeting data passed to them from the first via MADL. This is the method F-22s have used to achieve lopsided scores in exercises against F-15s, F-16s and F-18s.

Ah, so it’s not 1 fighting at least 8, but 4 fighting at least 8. That’s more like it.

Even with external AAMs, the F-35 is still stealthier than the Typhoon/Rafale/Gripen/Super Hornet/Su-35.

Yes, assuming that, this is relative. This isn’t a competition of stealthiness. It’s whether at ID range , one can react to the other. If the 8 Typhoons (with EADS tactic), manage to ID the F35 as hostile and pick it on their sensors, little difference will make if it was stealthier. The important thing is whether it will avoid reply fire or not. If it manages to kill the 8 Typhoons before they know what hit them, then that’s the point.

But, as i have said other times, i don’t believe in Amraam shots at max range. This may happen in excercizes, it has been proven that doesn’t happen in real combat, when fratricide has to be avoided and pilots seek good shots trying not to waste missiles in marginal shots. This works against stealth. One thing is to pick someone first on your radar. Another thing is to be sure who you are shooting at. And yet another, is to be sure, that while you guide your missile on your enemy, the enemy won’t pick you on his turn and fire back. These are the crucual points that are still unanswered in the stealth vs legacy fighter.

The F-35 can carry 10 external AAMs in addition to those internally carried.
So in theory, it could fire 2 missiles at 7 to 8 targets. Or depending on the number of JDRADM carried internally(perhaps 8 or more), 1ea at 8 targets, with internal only.

Yes, i have thought about that, but i prefered to overlook that as quite futile scenario. With 10 external AAMs, it is “goodbye stealth” and at this point, it’s everybody’s game. Even the F4 may actually shoot at BVR an F35 with 10 external AAMs.

The important isn’t to just say “my aircrafts can carry 10 missiles, so i can fight with 10 enemies”. It’s important to see if you will get alive out of it. Otherwise it’s pure theory. In theory, a Su-34 can carry 12 A-A missiles, thus fighting against 12 F35s at 35 mln $ per unit…

How do you provide targeting data for Storm Shadows if the EF cannot get close enough to use its sensors without becoming a SAM magnet?

The solution would be to send stealthy F-35s ahead to identify targets and data link target coordinates to EFs who stay safely out of the SAM’s reach.

I can help in this. Actually the Storm Shadow is programmed on ground before flight, with input from satellite imagery. The computer simply then follows the programmed flight path and a bit before arrival tries to ID the target automatically with the targey image and coordinates fed from the satelite imagery. Speaking from memory, but i had read an article about this for the SCALP. We ‘ve done the targeting last summer. Basically once you ‘ve done targeting they ‘re ready to launch. UAV imagery can also be used, as long as is it compatible with the program used in the missile.

The only problem i see, is that the Storm Shadow is different category weapon than the SDB. The Storm Shadow is much heavier, bigger. The targets hit by Storm Shadow are heavily fortified, fixed targets. They are unlikely to “move” in case of conflict, so you don’t need to do updated reconnaissance mission.

The SDB II on the other hand, that will be used against mobile targets too, could make use of reconaissance, but this is simply a job not cut for the Storm Shadow. The Storm Shadow is useful as bunker buster and taking out highly defended fixed facilities. Anything else, you ‘re throwing away your money or … you ‘re rich enough to afford them.

I think blowing the whistle in cases of illegal activities and attempts of cover-up etc. is one thing which is more easily justifiable. Many people seem to support the idea. Hasn’t the U.S. government tried to provide a service for this purpose?

In my opinion, handing out classified information pertaining to e.g. national security (such as lists of critical sites) is different. I fail to see what this has to do with freedom of speech.

As others have pointed out before me, a great deal of the information recently provided by WikiLeaks seems more or less trivial, old news etc. Much of it seems to be of more interest to parts of the media rather than the respective governments. Again, what do they hope to achieve with information which has nothing to do with whistleblowing?

Maybe the term whistleblowing isn’t the exact (i admit my lack in english), but i don’t come into the detail of single pieces. From the US point of view, it is of course a bad thing. From my view, it is a) good for average people to read how politics are done beyond the journalistic speculation, b) the risk of leaking may serve to mitigate some completely ruthless political decisions, since the only thing that politicians are afraid of, is political cost. A politician who is afraid that his not so moral directives may one day leak to the public, will think it twice before doing it, c) it is something that enhances transparency and judgment of the politicians by the people. For example if pubblically a politician claims one position and in leaked documents appears doing the opposite, this is something good for the voters to know.

I wish there had been a “euroleak” 1 year ago, since now it appears, that in EU summits Trichet and the Commission had warned our goverment about the deficit and also our current PM had been informed. The only one that hadn’t been informed, was… the population, that went to vote thinking that the deficit was 6% (as the gov was saying) and that “there was a lot money” as the opposition (and current PM) was saying.

Yes, apparently they pubblish pretty much everything, important or not, but i don’t really care. I think it’s good for transparency and for mitigating ruthless policies. Even the meaning of trivial may vary from person to person. In the Wikileaks for example, there were things about greek relations, which i considered trivial in the sense that i knew about them. But when i was saying these things to friends (or strangers), they were calling me “crazy”, “biased”, “paranoid”, etc. Now i simply show them the wikileak and say “see? I told you”. This is priceless. 😀

As for the motives of Mr. Assange, i don’t know. They could be honourable or they could be more selfish, like getting famous. I simply don’t care as long as the content he releases is not fake. And if we judge from the reactions, it’s not.

The US does declassify documents after many years (about 30 i think more or less), but only some and in those there are censored parts, which usually are also the most interesting. It would be great to have them uncensored.

Wikileaks has the advantage of releasing contemporary documents. I am sure the US gov will take measures to increase safety for at least the confidential files, but in meantime, i enjoy wikileaks for as long as it lasts.

Those cuts are not drastic in any way. I would have expected a far bigger axing. Like the one RAF is going through these days.
Seems HAF got away rather cheap here. Which is good news ofcourse!

Each country has different realities, different priorities and as such, different ways of replying to a problem. In Greece, there is “fat to burn” in the armed forces, which probably doesn’t exist in the british one. Also, the expenses in Britain must be different than in Greece. For example, the british army is 100% professional and wages are much higher than greek ones. In Greece big party are conscripts, which are practically free, qualified workforce, since most go to the army after finishing university and the army gets free graduates to do its job for them instead of paying dedicated professionals… Also the wages for the professionist soldiers is much lower. The officers are those who are more well paid.

But,

1) The article isn’t an official anouncement. The journalist also writes for military magazines and as such is more trustworthy than your average journalist of political newspapers, but still, this isn’t an official anouncement. I do hope it’s accurate.

In Greece the importance of Airforce and Navy is obvious. Just look at the potential battleground. An archipelago. They are also better trainned than the Army, so i sure hope they are the last to be axed. The land border is narrow, especially in the part that is more important to the politicians, that is, the southern part, which leads to the rest of Greece and is stacked with the best hardware, so theoretically, the Army is the least important. HAF and the Navy have much more job to do running around in a wide area.

2) The main “axing” as leaked and expected, will be on the Army. There is talk about reduction of personnel to 73.000 and reserves to 220.000. One Army corpse in continental Greece, remnant of the cold war is said to be cancelled and partially merged with units near the borders. Then in Greece there are about 800 military camps/warehouses (again, remnants of cold war), which will be reduced by merging units. The goverments were keeping them, because the conscripts were leaving money to the local communities… There is talk about reform on the unit structure with less divisions and Brigades in favour of smaller more mobile units, this will also lead to reduction of the number of higher ranking officers who get the higher wages. And then of course there will be retirement of older material, such as towed howitzers (who are considered not viable in today’s battlefield anyway), older tanks to reduce the number of tanks, etc.

The main idea is to move the troops and better material more towards the eastern border, retire and close the rest.

All this is a matter of negotiations between officers and the MoD, because they aren’t very happy about all of this. From rumours the situation for the Navy will be a bit worse than for HAF, but better than in the Army. There will be reduction of the ceiling in ships’ numbers.

With a PM that even before the crisis, as i had written also here, was saying that “we are over-armed, we must not buy anything new, but have a small army for… assimetrical warfare”, if things stay as they are rumoured, i think we ‘re really lucky.

As for the future development of HAF’s main opponent…….

If HAF intends to be anybody’s opponent in the future, we must do debt restructuring and restructuring of the political system. Unfortunately, the fate of Greece is now to be decided politically. Economically, the numbers don’t add up. For sure, the original plan of “Greece reduces the deficit from 15% to 3% in 3 years and then with debt at 160% goes out in the markets and sells happily her bonds again”, is a fairytale that nobody in Greece believes. Now there is talk about… prolongation of the payments with higher interest. This postpones but doesn’t solve the problem, the markets won’t bite so easily and will be scared to buy bonds with the new “privates must pay in case of default” clause that Mrs. Merkel brings. Probably they will put us in yet another “bail out plan” , during which more of the greek debt from unwarranted will be transformed into state loans with warrancies. As a foreign analyst said, it’s like borrowing money from the Mafia to pay a loan you took from your grandmother (because the greek bonds have no state warrancy and eventual juridical dispute must be judged in greek courts – the grandmother-, unlike foreign state loans, which are to be judged in british courts – the Mafia-). At the end, a “bail out”, is supposed to save you, not dig your grave deeper…

If we don’t do some debt restructuring, i fear that this is only the beginning of the end for all the greek armed forces, which will find “death by multiple wounds”. Cutting a bit year after year, until there’s nothing left to cut.

Maybe the greek politicians want to pass into history as the next “Marie Antoinnette” during the greek revolution , but, unless they convince the population that their plan leads to an exit and doesn’t simply delay the inevitable, while worsening the terms of the inevitable to save foreign banks, i fear that the main opponent of HAF won’t be TuAF, but the learjets of the politicians trying to flee to Brussels. After all, the PM has vetoed HAF to go close to TuAF aircrafts and instead stay in BVR. So HAF has more free time than before. :diablo:

Besides, if we don’t do debt restructing, i won’t ever see Gripen NG in HAF! 😀 Even if we pass to primary surplus in the budget after a successful program, with a debt at 160%, even with a 3% growth, all the surplus will be going to pay interests of the debt for the next 15 years or so, after which we will be with debt at 120%. So no Gripen NG… The absurd is that our PM, the IMF and EU representatives in Greece as well as Mrs Merkel, insist that Greece won’t do debt restructuring. And the population doesn’t believe them (rightfully). It is obvious that a) nobody wants Greece to default, because the banks are weak and because there are other countries wavering, but b) they haven’t figured out yet how they will manage this politically, but at the same time they expect the greek population to believe something that clearly at least the markets (who are supposed to start buying greek bonds again) don’t believe, because the numbers are very high.

Anyway, Greece has lost the train, Turkey deserves congratulations. Unlike our morons, who allowed the unconditional entrance of Turkey in the EU accession talks, which gave a 300% boost in Istanbul stockmarket helping her come out of her 2001 crisis, Turkey plays it by the book. When you see your opponent weak, step on the acccelerator in the arms race, widen the gap before he recovers. Hats off to Turkey. Textbook strategy. “How to win a war without firing a shot”.

I am sure that even if the sex charges don’t stick on Assange, they will find something else. He must be punished to make an example out of him.

Otherwise, whistleblowers from all countries will start doing the same.

By the way, a new aspiring site has come up. Maybe soon we will have our “euroleaks”. 😀

http://brusselsleaks.com/

God bless the whistleblowers.