That’s why we french can charge an arm for weapons.

You not only buy great stuff, but you also get free pass to buy US weapons you couldn’t get before. It has a price you know 😀

Nic

😀 That’s something i hadn’t thought of. Maybe the french weapons companies should advertize this as “collateral benefits”. 😀

It does make sense. You have a revolver. You go to a seller and ask for an UZI, he says “no”. Then you go to another seller and he sells you a machine gun. Then you go back to the previous seller, and logically, he thinks “he now has a machine gun, why not sell him UZI too?”. 😀

Seriously, if money wasn’t an issue, i ‘d be in favour of buying more french. And in cooperating more militarily with France. I ‘d even buy Rafale. Because chances are that the same weapons won’t be sold to Turkey. And also the french have offered more political support to Greece in matters of foreign policy, especially under Sarko, so Greece should start rewarding more this kind of “political offsets”, rather than just give the contract to the best briber. Also the french press was the one with the less bull **** in the recent economic crisis, where the amount of hypocrisy, generalization and populism of other countries’ press hit the ceiling.

Of course french-turkish relations may also change, but it’s less likely than with other sellers. Unfortunately the greek politicians have no strategy or clear plans to pursue a more “stable” political ally. They just throw contracts left and right without knowing why (or to be more precise, in some cases we now know that they were bribed).

For example, when Turkey had approached Israel, Greece should have approached more France. But i am asking for too much, don’t i? This is too tough mind excercize.

– We ‘re the only country in the world without continental shelf. Who needs filthy oil and gas anyway?!
– We ‘re the only country in the world which signed the UNCLOS treaty but still hasn’t used its provvisions about territorial waters.
– We ‘re the only country in the world which hasn’t an exclusive economic zone, which would actually make futile even the delimitation of continental shelf, since it covers more than that.
– We ‘re the only country in the world negotiating the entrance of another country in the EU under threat of war and actually supporting it unconditionally till now.

But not to worry! It’s all a brilliant plan of the greek politicians! It’s a masterful trap. The younger man here is the devious greek minister of foreign affairs, with his turkish colleague. The poor Turk won’t know what hit him. Don’t let the looks fool you. Ours is a fox! He looks young and innocent but he is not! And he has a plan! :diablo:

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/6151/80631826.jpg
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/3535/13646816.jpg

Even tiny Cyprus is confronting Turkey with more political determination than us, because unlike the greek politicians, who just want to postpone everything to the hands of some other, future, goverment, these actually want to sometime put an end to their issues. While ours, go and laugh, drink and come back the same way the left.

But this time, we have a plan. (At the end, there will be bilateral “compromise”, as Turkey wanted. Turkey always prefered than than court. And at the end Greece will agree. The question is how much more Greece will give).

Here’s another one who had a plan:
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/2181/76628413.jpg

(the previous minister of economics). 🙂

Thanks for the info. It would be great to see some recent photos of Hellenic Corsair II’s in action. I know Combat Aircraft did an article on the squadron last year…..I wish AFM would follow up and do the same….would be a nice change of pace I think. How about an A-7 cover picture too!

I’m tired of seeing F-22’s, Typhoons, and F-16’s…

Ahaha! You know how aircrafts are. The newer and shinier sell better! You don’t see easily the A-7 on cover in Greece either. Youngsters want to see the “brand new”, latest and greatest, not the old workhorse which is at the dusk of its career.

the French jump in with the SCALP but I am guessing they are asking for prices two or three times as much as what the Turks pay for popeye I assume? :diablo:

Of course, the SCALP is much more expensive. Of course is also more capable. But nothing french is cheap… I wouldn’t be surprised if the Storm Shadow is sold a bit cheaper than the SCALP, despite being practically the same missile.

The purchase of the SCALP however, did have a collateral beneficial effect. Now the US has cleared the sale of JSOW to HAF. So, at the end, HAF did find something cheaper too. The SCALP worked as catalyst.

it seems to be. US= good weapons, cheap for western standards, but strict political strings. Russian = even cheaper weapons, less strings, bad support and spares. French = good weapons, extraordinary pricing, less political strings.

About the russian support i reserve my opinion. It’s a very long story, having to do with bureaucracy, that made Greece not having for years a proper framework with Russia on the stable supply of support to all Russian material. So, personally i have not arrived to a conclusion about them yet. From what’s being read, the ZUBRs require too much care (the Ukrainian built one is out of service), while the SAMs have showed extreme endurance.

The French, yes, especially about the string parts… They see it as business, not politics. Think, that the greek navy hadn’t even imagined of the possibility to get SCALP Naval. It was hoping for AAW frigates. And then the French jumped in saying “Hey, you want SCALP Naval by any chance”? If we asked Tomahawk from the US , they ‘d reply “Keep dreaming”. 😀

– I can imagine that being a fighter pilot is among the highest ranking dreams of Greek boys,

I don’t have the appropriate age to answer, but, probably getting a new playstation game is the most common dream. 😀 Seriously, Greece is a leftist country. I don’t have anything against left, but, just like a car needs to be able to turn both left and right to stay on road, the same goes for a country in order to remain “sane”. Greece on the contrary is very unbalanced. Even the “conservatives” are more like the equivalent of center-left in other countries. And the communists in other EU countries, look like moderate, reasonable anges compared to our die-hard ones.

To you as an outsider, the situation might appear similar to Israel’s. So, since Israel is seriously about the defence, in similar way the greek educational system or politics cultivate a spirit of defence, etc. Wrong. Even the greek bankruptcy is only a symptom of the more general political bankruptcy, of a political system based on leftist populism and “looseness”. The worker unions became so powerful that drove away investments and indebted all state companies. Protectionism was given to many professions. At some point in middle 80s, women could even get premature pension after only 15 years of work. As someone said recently, Greece is today the last “soviet-type” economy and the problems that the country pays now, originated in 1980. The socialists back then gave so many priviledges and money to everyone, that the “conservatives”, in order to win some day, had to adjust to the same policy and even to abbandon being a “right wing party”. The ex PM Karamanlis had in deed redefined his “conservative” party, as of being “the party of the middle”.

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/9223/greekdebt.jpg

(green socialist goverments, blue “conservatives”).

The same mentality that practically skyrocketed the debt from 25% of GDP to 80% in 10 years, had also other repercussions. The army was seen with suspicion and demonized. Especially the army SF, since they were used by the junta, were somewhat castrated for 10 years at least. Also, while the opposition to the junta and the “crimes of the right” were advertized all the time, the ones of the left were cancelled. With time, saying that “i am a right winger” became almost a shame, while “i am a leftist” became a sort of an honour.

For example, if you ask a greek student about the military junta, he knows about it. If you ask him about the greek civil war, he knows nothing, because it’s a subject that doesn’t fit the “if you are leftist, you are always right” rhetoric. For the same reason, of this unbalanced leftist rhetorhic, looseness and saying “yes” to everyone in order to gain votes (and in deed, the socialists dominated the elections in Greece), some other phenomena appeared:

– Universities are full of leftist professors.
– Universities have been transformed into asylums for illegal acts. You want to burn Athens and the police is chasing you? All you have to do is run into the university and the police can’t follow you. The police may enter only if there is crime against life occuring inside the university, after judge’s permission or if the university’s board of professors asks for it. With the professors being leftists, nobody ever asks it. (“Junta syndrome”). In fact, when a few years ago there were the episodes in Athens, these occured in a small area of the center, near the university, which was used as “launching base” and “base for re-arming”, since it’s there where the anarchists were preparing the molotof cocktails.
– Occupying your school has become a fashion. If you graduated without having occupied your school at least once, you ‘re not “cool”. Occupations are done even for ridiculous reasons, like the unwillingness of professors to escort the class to a visit to another city.
– The extreme leftist terrorist organizations in Greece grow always like fungus. As soon as one is caught, another takes its place, simply because, “if you are leftist, you can’t be doing anything wrong. You ‘re right”.
– The greek indymedia site, which is the cove of the anarchists, that were using it as coordinating center when they burnt the Athens center, is hosted by servers of the Athens university. Basically, the state pays for the bandwidth, so that they can give better instructions to their members on how you make molotov bombs and what’s the best tactic to sustain tear gas.
– When some leftist anarchist or terrorist is arrested, immediately you get leftist “intellectuals” on tv, saying that “we must though examine what pushed these kids to act violently. We must try to understand them”. Or, as soon as some anarchist is arrested, leftist parlament members run to the court to bail them out. If on the other hand, you are a extremist right winger and get arrested, nobody will try to “understand” you nor to bail you out.
– If you ‘re not leftist, you ‘re not an intellectual and you won’t find your way on the TV. Latest example, a documentary a few days ago in greek tv about an “intellectual” of the left (whose daugher is a parlament member with the socialists), who said on tv: “I don’t understand why a rapist is more bad than a provocative woman. She asks for violence. Who is the most alive man? The old fool who is sitting in his house without any erotism or the one who risking his own life and freedom attacks a sensual creature? And isn’t after all, a nice thing, such an attack?”. Now, if these were words of a right winger, now all newspapers would have it front page “filthy, sexist, classical right wing mentality that reminds us of the usual pigs of the junta”. Now that comes from a leftist, we watch it on documentary on TV…
– Greece is the only place where leftist demonstrators leave home to “demonstrate” but armed with wooden poles and charge the police first. Because they know that a) they won’t get arrested , b) the few that will get arrested won’t go to jail.

http://img814.imageshack.us/i/kke2.png/
http://img9.imageshack.us/i/kke3.png/
http://img121.imageshack.us/i/pame2.jpg/
http://img137.imageshack.us/i/pame4.jpg/

– Greece is the only country where the press representative of a parlamentary party (the communist country) can go on tv and say “we don’t recognize the constitution, we only recognize the right of the worker” and pass uncommented.

– Greece is the only place, where the culture of “occupation” is considered “normal” (as long as you are leftist). Even the office of ministers gets occupied from time to time. The greek comunist party is an expert on this, since it enjoys immunity from legal prosecution. For example, this is the occupation of a passenger ship (PAME is the comunist workers syndicate, during the strike of the machinists. The ones occupying the ship, are obviously not machinists, not even sailors. They are simply party members that act as “army” and go wherever the party sends them to “do the job”.

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/9659/pamerb.jpg

Ironically, a court had declared the strike illegal, but the police didn’t intervene, because as a minister said “they would resist arrest”. And if you ‘re leftist, if the police opens your nose, you become a hero in Greece. (If you ‘re right winger, you ‘re just a scum that deserved it).

I don’t want to continue further, but in a society driven by a political ideology like this, you really think that little boys grow up with their highest dream to become a pilot? If someone sees you in pubblic reading a military magazine, they usually think you are a) a fascist, b) an ultranationalist, c) a fascist-nationalist.

Most boys want to become the usual lawyer, doctor, engineer, professor, etc. Those that want to become pilots are the exception.

What’s true, is that in order to become pilot, you have to pass the panhellenic exams with very high grades (you need lower grade to enter the Law School than the HAF school. This year, to enter the HAF School, you needed more or less to have written an average of 19/20 to enter. Only the Medical School has a higher average). This, while ensures the entrance of good students, stops the dream of some boys that would really like to become pilots and could even have a natural talent for it, but aren’t so good with maths, physics, chemistry and the likes.

is there a particular imbalance between popularity of Mirage and F-16 among the civilian population, for some reason? Or do both types enjoy rather similar amount of adoration?

For the same reasons explained above, the general population couldn’t care less about the Mirage and F16 popularity. Amongst enthusiasts, there are 2 camps fighting each other, pretty much like in this forum.

First, they have to find the money to fill them with fuel.

Ah, now that’s an innovative joke. 😀 Don’t worry mate, we ‘re not there yet. The greek politicians have managed to mess up everything (they can’t even cheat properly for God’s sake. First they cheat and then they self-denounce themselves as cheaters. How dumb must you be to do that?), but they did succeed in 1 thing! To load our debt to the banks of France, Germany and then Switzerland. The first 2, are practically running the EU. And the 3rd, is the safe heaven of all rich wordwide. So nobody wants anything bad to happen to these banks if we bankrupt. So, our fuel is guaranteed for now. Maybe in 2012 things can change, when the EU banks will have unloaded much of their burdon. But right now, the IMF/EU gives us the money to save their banks. As one american economist more or less once said “If you owe your bank 10.000 dollars, you have a problem. If you owe your bank 10.000.000 dollars, then your bank has a problem”. 😀 So for now we have the fuel. Besides, if we do go declare bankruptcy, they will loose a good customer. And good customers are so hard to find nowdays. Ah, the Cold War, these were the good days, where everyone wanted to buy weapons. :p

think the Greeks have as much reason to worry about Bulgarian tanks as Italians have to fear the Austrian army pouring over the border to retake Brixen, Sterzing, Bozen & Meran, or the Slovenians storming into Trieste.

It’s a recurring joke we have with J-7 Hotdog. Don’t take it seriously.

The militaro-industrial complex doesn’t care if the Greek-Turkish planes are paid for by greek/turkish taxpayers or by US taxpayers. It’s just one of many other ways to racket american taxpayers.

Nic

Ah, most foreign ambassadors in Athens, accompany their weapons dealers in meetings with the goverment. Like salesmen.

On an interesting note, it’s to be noted, that in the IMF/EU memorandum, nobody asked for cut in the greek procurement program. They asked in functioning costs, but not the procurement program. Odd, isn’t it? Or maybe not so odd. 🙂 Cuts will be done there too i believe, but they will be on initiative of the greek gov, not because the IMF/EU asked for. I mean, they asked to cut pensions, but not procurement program. How normal is that? Unless… you want to sell. 🙂

As usual Aspis, another great post. makes for very interesting reading indeed. 🙂

Well, this is an issue that has been debated to the death in international and greek fora and personally, i don’t know what to believe. I ‘d need statistic data. And even then, it’s also about the pilot. The greek F16 pilot in the mid air collision above was very experienced and considered an “ace”. Yet, he didn’t let go the chase in time, he miscalculated his aircrafts’ limits and crashed into the Mirage. Who knows what can happen? Take 2 individuals and put them to the same car. Will they drive equally fast or accurately? No. Consider now that up in the air, they move in the vertical axis too and you have split second decisions to make. Heck, even in Formula 1 ,two drivers from the same squad can perform very differently. Or each of them could outrun me even if i had a better car than them.

The only thing of which i am sure, is that both aircrafts can kill each other. To what ratios, i don’t know. I also know for sure that both sides enjoy the kills. 🙂

This photo is from Tanagra:

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/3016/89335254.jpg

I am sure the neighbours will have their own.

This is a personalized unofficial badge of a turkish pilot (speaks for itself).

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/7296/24309721.png

And here at 4:02 you can see the marking on the Mirage “Mehmetchik busters” (Mehmetchik is a word in turkish i think a bit like “G.I. Joe”. I think literally means something like “soldier of Mohammed”).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLxhOzyF-Pg

So, i know that much. That both sides do their “kills” and brag about it. 😀
Imagine what a thrill if both sides where to meet with their photo albums of kills. Material of 40 years! 😀 Maybe they could even exchange these funny badges/markings. 🙂

That the greek Mirage lately stopped intercepting much because they were getting eaten alive, is something i can’t believe, because they were good enough to dogfight the early turkish B30s and B40s in the 90s, but they now got scared by the B50s? Since when the B50s is better dogfighter than the B30?

The reply to the “who is better”, is bound to continue forever. If at least both sides have had the providence to put a 3rd party to keep scores, now we would have some statistics…

Looking at Greek finances I’m not so sure that the unit will ever receive new aircraft, might well be disbanded.

Even before the economic woes, it was decided to lower the ceiling of aircrafts, because it would be economically impossible to replace 1:1 all previous gen aircrafts with new ones. There are actually chances that the base of the A7 will be given to civillian use, because there are local interests in the area that lobby for it. Already since 2007, Araxos got civillian terminal and Andravida has also opened to civillian flights. Draw your own conclusions about their possible fate.

My guess is that their mission set was similar to what it is today…….interdiction and possibly CAS. Precision strike is certainly a capability due to the weapons discussed although in the case of the Paveway bombs, an external designator is required for guidance.

I’d like to know more about how the AFDS weapon system is employed (namely how its guided).

Mostly CAS nowdays, but they keep trainning also for flights in COMAO packages, with newer aircrafts passing them the tactical condition.

The AFDS is gliding ammunition dispenser system. The submunitions it carries are anti-tank or anti-runway. If memory serves me the guidance is INS/GPS. Again, if memory serves me , range when launched from 20.000 ft is about 22km (approximately,it’s been ages since the last time i read about it in greek magazine, so don’t quote me on this). If i am not mistaken its design was used as the precursor of the Taurus.

what was there role when based there??

Do possibly some sorties over Cyprus and offer some CAS to the greek Cypriots in case of new conflict. With their huge range and payload, they could approach the island from complicated waypoints. It’s an old story. The greek Cypriot 1974 veterans still to this day say on TV say “if we could have at least seen 1 greek aircraft passing over our head, even if it didn’t drop a bomb, it would have been huge for our morale”. Morale boosting. For the same reason the first F16 B52+ batch went to Crete, instead of say Larissa, where the HAF HQ is.

I don’t find the A-7 good looking but that video of the Hellenic AF flying the A-7 so close to the waters was very impressive..and it wasn’t some 20 second low flying, looks like the pilots were used to flying that low to avoid radar spotting them both due to sea clutter as well as to stay below the horizon..seems like a very steady handling jet to be flown that close to the ground/water at such speeds..somewhat like a Jaguar.

Yes, the pilots are used to flying low, because the A7 can’t count on some wonderful air combat ability. So either it needs escort or fly low. And in CAS missions, often it will have to simply fly low without escort.

And yes, it flies stable on low altitude.

Here’s from an exercize with napalms and mk82

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfMxkBzRsRA