AspisUnfortunately, if i may add, the EU as a political international pillar will probably never get the position that it could and probably will remain a trade union of merchants ready to stab the other in the back , because there is no real european integration or european mentality and spirit amongst the populations.
Europe is still and will remain at least for many years to come, a union of separate countries, each with separate interests, conflicting often.
The problem in this, is that the world will not wait for Europe. If the Americans don’t make their return, the Chinese will, it is only a matter of time, as they are now gathering their force for later claiming their position as political , economical and military superpower.
“Ha ha, Greece is bankrupt! We are so smaaaart! Aspis must be so saaaad! I feel so haaaappy! My life seems briiighter”.
With this mentality, you will arrive to the point that you will learn what “μηδένα προ του τέλους μακάριζαι” means.
AspisI wouldn’t reply normally to the usual childish nonsense, because ever since i came to this forum, it was obvious that Sens had some issue with Greece, i don’t know if he was annoyed with the Thyssen or Leopard story having to hear the version of the other side instead of happily reading on german newspapers how perfect everything was and the only fault was Greece being bankrupt or personal motives, but i will do so once, for those that may be interested from other countries.
For the next years Greece will procure nothing.
Yes, Prime Minister. Well, look at it this way. Germany isn’t at risk of default and can’t buy the Typhoons that had signed in for. What better do you expect from Greece!
I especially liked this part that our Mod said today:
“Ο υπουργός με σημερινή δημόσια τοποθέτηση του αναφορικά με τις δήθεν πιέσεις που υπάρχουν από τις Βρυξέλες για μείωση των αμυντικών επενδύσεων απάντησε με αποστομωτικό τρόπο : «Το ακριβώς αντίστροφο περιεχόμενο έχουν οι επαφές, με τους ευρωπαίους ομόλογους μου, εννοώντας βέβαια ότι ζητούν τη ταχύτερη και στο μεγαλύτερο βαθμό απορρόφηση αμυντικών συστημάτων από αυτά που κατασκευάζουν οι χώρες τους». “
The minister with public statement today regarding the hypothetical pressure that come from Brussels to reduce defence expenditure, replied with clear manner :” The contacts have the exact opposite content, with my european colleagues, meaning that they are asking the faster and in bigger degree absorbing of defence systems , from those that their countries produce”.
http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9934&Itemid=46
So Sens, please tell your chanchellor, that we aren’t buying anything until your futher order and hence she can stop pushing to sell. 😀
The Greece financial systems has collapsed and the EU is no longer willing to pay billions every year to prevent the offical bankrupt.
Ah, yes, we have being bankrupt many times before by your books. It’s like being dead, but unofficially you are still alive. The “official” bankruptcy which is always coming but someone is saving us everytime… Now, this reminds me of the widows and the consolation from other widows. The newly widowed cries and the only temporary consolation that finds is when some other tells her “Come on, i remained widow when i was 40, much younger than you!”…
I don’t know what fairy tales your politicians are narrating to you to make you feel better or explain why the Arabs bought Thyssen, why your banks were exposed to toxic US products or anything else, but spare me the lecture about economics, go tell this to some moron who knows about economics less than you. The whole EU story wasn’t made out of charitable intentions of you or anybody else that couldn’t find a better way to donate your money. It was made to find the only feasible way to make your industrial production survive the US and Chinese competition in an emerging globalized market, where if you were to be left on your own, you would become sandwhiched between the western and the eastern emerging giant. For the same reason, UK jumped into the “union” adventure even though it was something that never won the hearts of the population or the foreign policy plans, reason for which UK always wanted to remain a traders’ union and nothing more.
The EU cohesion funds, don’t go to “pay debts”, it goes to infrastructure funds, which is a nice way of getting back money without stepping in EU penalty for illegal funding of your own businesses. So, the EU gave to Greece 3 bln/year up to 2007 and 6 for the last 2 years (theoretically, the real absorbtion is 80%) for co-funding of infrastructure, so that German, French, etc companies can then get the bid and find something to do, since you can’t rebuild Germany for the sake of just rebuilding. Ex.:
http://english.capital.gr/news.asp?id=536757
http://english.capital.gr/News.asp?id=858657
Can we ask Hochtiff the money back because they were really meant for our debt and they misunderstood? 😀
The nice thing about it, is that you can practically give money to Greece, to give it back to your company, without getting fined by EU laws about competition because you pull money from one pocket to put it back to your other pocket. And at the same time you can boast that you are paying the receiver’s debt.
The receiving country gains of course in getting cheaper infrastructure and the giving country gets better trade and when the receiving country’s GDP rises, it gets a market penetrated already , before those pesky Americans and Chinese step in and buy everything and you remain like a spot on a map where half the globe is star and stripes and the other half is red. Also if you are a rich man , who needs to sell because he has an industrial production and you are surrounded by poor, you will collapse, because the other rich man has his own production and won’t buy yours. So you need to find someone and make him grow enough to become your consumer. Similar situation would be for the german currency that would end up a currency with no international weight, a bit like the loss of luster the swiss franc has seen since the euro appeared.
Just the lowering of the international debt rating alone did rise the payments by 5 bn € per year alone and the next lowering is coming. 😉
Yes, the next lowering to BBB is coming. Remind me to buy your economics book when it is published (never). As for the 5 bln this is a projection of what will happen if the country draws its liquidity from the usual markets at the same amount as last year. It is also a projection that requires that you will do nothing to correct your budget compared to last year. The value of the predicted ratings, is more or less this:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05/hennecke112806.html
According to Standard and Poor’s 2006 prediction, by 2030 the eurozone will be practically dead and burried. If you do nothing about it.
The difference is that in Greece this risk is more immediate. If we don’t do anything about it.
It is purely hypothetical , one can make a deal with China for better terms that the german banks for example and all that changes.
The whole thing that exploded now has also a healthy amount of financial speculation since the more catastrophic scenarios and the rating itself, comes from outside the euro zone.
The greek economy is 2% of the zone, so even a default would have no impact. What worries your politicians, is that those that do speculation right now (and take advantage of CDS for Greece) may be targeting the euro and take advantage to use the climate after Greece, to test the endurance of some bigger economy of the eurozone , that if doesn’t endure the attack, will then indeed bring the euro to trouble. Of course this isn’t something said openly, and that’s why everyone is shouting “Greece, the problem is Greece!” (Look at Greece, don’t look at me and don’t look at other potential targets for God’ sake). The only talk about it is in a few financial articles , vaguely called as “domino effect danger”.
Because Greece is the less important widow, amongst more widows.
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/12/2/business/20091202124236&sec=business
“”because problems in Greece are problems of the euro area.” = after Greece, the next one can really the hurt the euro, because he won’t be the 2%.
Greece is a flight hour from Africa, but its budget planning looks more and more development-country like. If Greese wasn’t member of the Euro Group and the EU, it would have severe difficulties getting hands on any fresh cash.
I am sure “Greese” was a typo. I would never believe that a 2nd German in the same forum would have so serious problems with Greece.
If Greece wasn’t a member of euro and the EU, it would a be a poorer country, that wouldn’t be at risk of default though, just like most countries in the world that aren’t in EU and euro and simply printed money, because it would have devaluated the currency and had become more competitive to the fields of tourism and shipping , instead of having to play with rules made in Brussels and an extra strong euro, that brings export difficulties even to Germany and yesterday the ECB asked China to appreciate the yuan, in order for the EU to be able to compete with chinese products and of course China declined…
Strong euro = tourism outside euro area dropping, transport for non euro area countries dropping. With economic crisis, both drop for euro zone too.
The real problem of greek economy though is tax evasion and public overspending. These two alone, are more than enough to cover the deficit in 1 year.
If Greece wasn’t in EU, it would also mean that Greeks wouldn’t have the money to buy too much german products , so the current 2:1 trade exchange in favour of Germany, wouldn’t exist and Germany would have to find someone else to buy their products. For example in the past year, one of the measures that the greek goverment took , was to abolish the circulation taxes on every imported car for some months. This was partially a way to warm back the car industry in Europe.
German car industry warms up–> German economy restarts –> german economy boosts production-> greek shipping transports german goods again and german tourists have again money to spend —> greek economy grows.
The EU took Greece for two reasons. The shipping and the geographical position (passage towards Asia, exit to Aegean sea ports).
For similar reasons the european MoDs are asking the “unofficially dead” …eerr… i mean bankrupt, colleague of theirs to buy quicker and more.
The problem is that with the “if” you can’t go on. The EU has every reason to be upset with Greece, if you ask me, the EU should have pressured Greece to make reforms much earlier. The problem of Greece isn’t the economy itself, but the political establishment that is worthy of african country (i hope african countries won’t feel too insulted by the comparison) and only now will do some of the things that should have done a decade ago.
Fortunately, because the greek economy has more resources that those actually used by the goverments over the years, my prediction, contrary to Prof. Sens, is that Greece won’t go on default like Iceland or Dubai did, for the reason that now they are taking measures to increase income and reduce public wasted money. Oh , and this will be done without taking back Hochtiff’s EU money. :p
So, stuff it, I doubt they wil buy anything near or mid term.
Well, you can’t really accuse us for this! You don’t want someone bankrupt to buy Eurofighters i hope! We ‘re supposed to be family!
Was not this canceled back in April??
Yes, but i noticed today, that the article author, is also German. I am sure it is also a coincidence and it wasn’t just yet another case of someone who’s taking personal the thing with Greece and Thyssen.
AspisThanks for the update, keep it up!
I actually started checking out (GTranslating) that site (defencenet.gr) after you linked it enough 🙂
Well, when you don’t have a summary about what the article is saying, google translation from greek can often be very bad, because greek grammar is more complex than english and there are many synonyms or allegoric phrases. But in other cases you can get a generally good idea.
Another thing, is that as all defence magazines, defencenet has its “flaws”. It has a line that IMO shows a preference to Typhoon , russian systems and mostly anti-LM. You can imagine yourself why. There is always a logical reason behind apparently strange things.
Also, the owner used to be press representative of the old socialist goverment’s ministry of defence, so there is a general tendency to be more forgiving on the current (socialist) goverment and more harsh on the previous one.
Finally from time to time it gets involved on purely political arguments, not connected to defence, where again you can see the “preference” towards a certain direction as well as some sensationalism.
Once you are aware of this (and maybe more that i am not aware of either), it is still the only and best defence greek portal with everyday news.
I had seen speculation that CdG might be carrying Rafale F3 (sans AESA) for it’s Aegean exercises, but apparently only F1 and F2, according to their story on latest Turkish provocation. (…Insane…)
Yes, it appears that – according to the article – there were no F3s aboard. Also there seems to be no confirmation about air combat between the seperate airforces. In other press articles there was mentioned that flew mixed COMAO packages, with up to 60 greek aircrafts partecipating in the excercize.
It’s almost funny the “Greece’s scandalous defaults against Thyssen-Krupp” story gets dredged up in the recent English-language press’ resurrection of the old-news MPA tender cancellation…
This has nothing to do with fun or joke. Or to put it in another way. Do you think that only greek defence magazines show “preferences” towards certain interests? :rolleyes:
In Greece there’s a proverb that says “it is better to lose an eye than your good name”. Greece has earned a bad reputation for its economy, it is expected that some will have interest to use that for their interest. It’s nothing new. Of course sometimes this turns back and bites you ( which is why the frigates went directly to the French).
AspisA bad habit of Defpro.
And by the way, Portugal in 2006 signed a contract for 12 C-295, of wich five were of the MPA “Persuader” version with a FITS package. The cost of the complete program was 276 million Euros.
So, yes, unless the Hellenic Navy wanted the likes of the P-8 Poseidon, it was a realistic budget, actually it was dead on the C-295 and ATR-72 MPA versions.
I didn’t know that but let me tell you how things go in Greece.
Procurement programs are made in 5 year packaged. For example, the program of 2010-2015 has been already done, although with the new goverment it will be under review and priorities may change.
The prices on these packages, can’t preview the prices of 2015. They are done with prices that are current. This is why at the end, the low priority programs are cut, so that the funds of that higher priority programs will require are found. For example, THEORETICALLY, HAF has put on the 5 year procurement programs of the past, air refuelling aircrafts with a “price”. The program was low priority. It was never realised. Instead the money that had been predicted, were use on higher priority programs that exceeded the “predicted” price.
The same goes for the FREMM. The “official” price written on the 5 year procurement plan was 2.2 bln for 4 vessels. Even political newspapers know that and have written that at the end, with the missiles included (nobody had predicted a frigate with SCALP for starters), it will more likely go to 3 bln. Some lesser priority programs of the navy will be cut.
Said that, ask any Greek to tell you his opinion of the Head of the Procurement Bureau of the previous goverment… I will rather not say mine. The “50 knots” requirement that ended up there, is his responsibility. There is also that 2006 law, which was done to supposedly enhance transparency, exclude corrupted intermediaries etc. At the end, it proved to be a bureaucratic trap , where each arms procuremebt must pass through hoops in order to be “ok”.
Bottom line is that Alenia and EADS submitted offers last May, the others may have had issues with making an equally low bid or coping with the exagerated techical requirements, that’s another story. The rejection of the 2 bids, is purely a fault of our Procurements Bureau and the way that handled the bureaucratic parts of the law. If you ask me, the minister did well to cancell the bid, but he should have done better to replace the head of the bureau and change the 2006 law.
That’s it.
AspisToo much journalistic speculation and sauce for too little news…
The competition has been cancelled on 25 May 2009, hence within the same month that was anounced.
http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7805&Itemid=51
It is too technical for me to translate. You may use automatic translation. The ministry cancelled it after the procurements bureau rejected the partecipation of EADS and Alenia on purely bureaucratic grounds, which were required under a moronic law of 2006 and an inadeguate head of procurements bureau. For example EADS has not included in the file the penal records of her representative in Greece, the company and a formal statement acknowledging the general and specific terms and a formal statement about letter of guarantee.
Alenia was also rejected on similar grounds.
On top of this, one requirement was exagerrating, asking for take off capability with 50 knot wind “of any direction”.
After this, the minister cancelled the tender. Alena had said that will present legal objection for the grounds on which her offer was rejected (i don’t know if did so later or not).
The competition was not fixed priced, it was supposed to be won by the best bid.
Α new competition was to be anounced in September, with the anticipated elections it didn’t happen, one will have to wait for the new goverment to see what will do.
P.S.: The official money “put aside” in procurement programs, are never the same effectively used, because the usual practice is that when one program costs more than the “written down” amount, you slash a low priority program from the bottom of the procurement list.
AspisSeen these during my holidays at Crete 8-9 years ago. We had an airshow there at least three times a week.. The guys had nothing better to do than to turn the A-7 over the closest beach, make a low altitude flyover with the aircraft put on side or inverted so that they could see all those almost-nude girls better 🙂
Later I have seen the A-7s dumping something into the sea, maybe concrete bombs (?). Two Mirage 2000s also were spotted over the area..
If you were especially near to Chania, the chances of seeing aircrafts are always high. From time to time US carriers also go to Souda bay and you may see US aircrafts too.
The area north of Crete is a wide firing range for airforce and navy. Also SAMs are tested.
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/1408/18446673.png
(blue borders)
AspisI did not know about that dogma. The Greece military help could be symbolic at best, when Cyprus will better stick to political support the 70s in mind.
Of course it would be symbolic. To be more precise, the dogma wasn’t exactly about sending massive help to Cyprus, it was the Greece would be involved in the war (not necessarily in Cyprus). They expect some air support and possibly submarine.
The main task of the A-7s was to control the 160 nm to Darnah or the Libyan coast in control of the eastern Mediterranean during Cold War times.
Yes, but in their free time, since 1995 in the first common Greek-Cyprus excercize “Nikiforos-Toxotis” the A7s with F16 cover where doing flights up to Cyprus where the A7s were simulating bombing. Now the Block52+s are supposed to be the same, because we don’t see many Libyans coming often. I am not trying to convince you that it made sense to use A7 for strike over Cyprus, i am telling you what was happening the yearly excercizes before they stopped a few years ago for political reasons.
Sitia airport was given to show a refuelling base for a squadron-size force tasked with a long distant flight. But you are correct, Karphatos international airport en route is just 300 nm from Nicosia/Cyprus.
Yes, Sitia airport, Karpathos airport, Rhodes airport, Kasos airport (not international, but still it has a runway!) would all be nice to use. The only problem is that those airfields in case of war will probably be not available, because they are the first that will strike and those airports, despite their “international” labelling, are not exactly big. For the same reason the bases in Crete are located in the west and middle because the eastern tip is considered too vulnerable. The same goes for Lemnos military airfield, which is guaranteed that will be getting regular pounding. It is too annoying for the Tuaf to leave it operational and we know that. Airports like that will have though one brighter side, they will be keeping occupied some attacking aircrafts. Some of the eastern airport islands won’t be bothered to be attacked by air at all, they are within artillery range.
So you can probably wave “farewell” to Karpathos airport and the population will have better things to do than running all day to repair the runway.
Despite that most fighters do have some air-refuelling capability or it can be refitted.
In fact when HAF first put under demand an air refuelling aircraft , it was to support better Cyprus. But unfortunately they were always put on lower priority…
Whatever the Greece people is told about F-4s or some other fighters, it does not make sense to send that to Cyprus with a limited bomb-load and little endurance.
Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you, but it made sense to the Airforce Chief of the time because they were the best fighters we had at the time and the turkish airforce had not yet any operational wing of F4s. Send Starfighters or F5s?
When the Turkish do mean business they can outperform the limited Greece forces by ease the military geography in mind. The UN is the best deterrence and shield for Cyprus, be it for the Greece or Turkish speaking population. 😉
Yes, but in 1987 and 1996 we didn’t see any UN doing anything, so you must be ready to do something for yourself. Or i didn’t see the UN bothering to “shield” Cyprus when they wanted to install S300 on the island and Turkey threatened with war. Heck, i didn’t see the UN enforcing its own resolutions of 1974…
We may be limited and they may outperform us , but it’s better to fight within your limits if needed than not try to fight at all and hope that UN or Santa Claus will do something if the other side goes berserk. The UN steps in AFTER the events have taken their route to push again for a cease fire. But in the meantime, the more badly you lose, the worst will be for you in the UN mediation.
Try to remember Germany’s position next door to Warsaw Pact. You would be the first to be steamrolled in a soviet advancement. Your best bet would be to hope in the nuclear deterrent. But, there were scenarios of conventional war were the Soviets would halt their advance before the stage that the NATO would use nuclear weapons. So you were armed yourselves for conventional war instead of betting everything in nuclear deterrence or… UN.
AspisWhat a strange thinking. What does Greece have to do with Cyprus at first?
You ‘re right, that’s a not so well known issue. In the 90s Greece signed with Cyprus a “common defence area” dogma, according to which , Greece would assist Cyprus in case of war. Today for political reasons it is active only on paper, due to the efforts for political solution, still theoretically it exists. For the purpose of that agreement, Cyprus proceeded to the construction of 1 military airfield and 1 naval base, even though have no airforce or military navy (they have coast guard). They built them to increase chances for greek sent assistance to find a place to land or refule or repair. Otherwise it would be strange thinking indeed for a country without airforce and navy to build military airfield and port, wouldn’t it…
For the benefit of the others. The distance between Sitia/Crete and Nicosia/Cyprus is ~660 km or ~360 nm and no issue with a hi-hi-lo-hi-hi profile in mind and to return on internal fuel only. 😎
There is one problem here:
1) There is no base in Sitia, the main Cretan base is Souda. Kastelli is more to the east, but with limited capabilities.
2) No greek aircraft would bomb the capital, the issue is to bomb the northern part and possibly reinforcements to from the north part of the sea.
3) The chances that an aircraft will arrive at direct flight from Souda to Cyprus are close to zero, because the turkish aircraft on CAP will be waiting along the way and if turkish coastal radars pick you up (which they WILL if you follow that simple route and hi-hi-lo), you will be intercepted before Cyprus. This means that either you must be ready to drop tanks at some point before Cyprus, win air fight and punch through the barrier or use more southern waypoints to arrive to Cyprus from a direction that is not the most direct and hence the most obvious. And even then you can’t be sure that you won’t step upon enemy CAPs.
In 1974 our junta was studying the scenario of having F4s going once over Cyprus to strike the turkish naval forces and possibly proceed to land on Lebanon and later reclaim and aircrafts thanks to the good relations with Arabs. But at the end they didn’t send them at all. The only aircrafts sent, were Noratlas , at night , on extra low level flight lo-lo-lo, to avoid turkish radars and CAP and they also didn’t follow direct flight path.
As i said, this explains why the Block52 were put on Crete and not in the mainland, since usually most countries put their newest aircrafts closer to their most valuable areas. This also explains why before the Block52, at Crete A-7s were stationed that were the best in range.
I hope it helped you understand better.
AspisI was talking about a Mirage + Cash deal for the Rafale. Not exchanging 50 Mirages for 7 Rafale. The IAF is going to spend 41 million to upgrade a Mirage, If the Rafale can be offered at a slightly reduced price in exchange of the Mirages the IAF can get those and that would make a lot of sense than upgrading Mirages.
It’s the same thing! To us they offered that exchange ratio in order to buy 20 Rafales (and possibly win the “normal” competion about 30-40 aircrafts later), instead of upgrading the last 20 Mirage… They made us an exchange deal + some more cash for the Rafale. The 50 for 7,5 is the same thing as a cash discount on each Rafale… Think about it. Do you want me to put it in another way?
Let’s take the hypothesis of 20 to 3 ratio and 60 mln per Rafale.
If 20 Mirage are “worth” 3 Rafales, it means that 20 Mirage are worth 180 mln. This means , you get 9 mln per Mirage. If Rafale costs more, the unit price is lower. In TOTAL, you will get 50 x9 = 450 mln euro.
That’s the amount the French are willing to give you to “facilitate” you to go for Rafale instead of upgrading or non upgrading at all. Detract that 450 mln from the total price of the normal Rafale and you have a very slightly discounted Rafale price per unit.
The problem is that they French can’t give you the real worth of your aircrafts, because they may not be able to sell them at all and if they don’t that’s pure damage for them.
If you mean, that you expect them to make you an exchange deal PLUS a lowered price for each Rafale… Well, they may do it, but with us, that’s the best they came up with. Maybe they can cut you 1-2 mln per plane more than us, but i wouldn’t expect miracles.
The problem is that for the French, the exchange itself is a RISK, because what if they don’t find a buyer? For the French the exchanged aircrafts, ARE CASH, granted to YOU. I don’t think they have big margins on cutting prices on each Rafale as if it was a separate deal. The whole concept of the exchange, is that i pay you a fee, to take off your shoulders the burdon of upgrade and give you new aircrafts. That’s already a discount, which the Americans never do. The French do it, because they can’t sell easily.
Sure, you may wish to take your 50 Mirage and also offer you the Rafale at 50 mln per unit. I just don’t think it will happen… I also wish that they had told us 25 M2000-5mks plus 700 mln for 20 Rafales, but they didn’t…
If you make the division of our deal, 1.2 bln euros / 20 Rafales = 60 mln euros per Rafale. PLUS 25 Mirage2000-5mk2, 15 brand new and 10 hot out of the upgrade line.
However you may look at this, it all comes down, that at the end, each of your Mirage has a certain worth in cash, that is detracted from the price of each Rafale. The problem is that the worth is cash, is too low, because the French can’t sell them easily.
So i think it is a bit optimistic to wait for a 50mln price for the Rafale, even if you get it in bigger quantities, for the simple reasons alone, that the old M2000 is harder to sell than M2000-5mk2 and the French may end up selling them to an aicraft graveyard. We tried some years ago to sell out 27 MirageF1, nobody wanted them… at any price. If the French had taken them, it would be a net loss for them.
The other issue is this. TODAY, the French “do you a favour” and offer you basically a discount on their new aircraft by selling them the old ones. When the Rafale will be at need of upgrade, which will be the new Dassault aircraft? None… At that point you will have a huge amount of Rafales at need of upgrade, at absurd costs and NO exchange deal. The Rafale is very unlucky aircraft.
AspisNo I think you mistook me. Or may be I did not put it across correctly.
I was saying France Should over India 50-60 Million Per Rafale for 35-40 Rafale’s in a deal that would say them taking back Indian Mirages.
I was suggesting that capability wise a smaller number of Rafales may better serve us than upgrading the 50 odd Mirages we have.
I hope i have made myself clear.
The problem is that the French have already problem on what to do with UAE’s Mirages… Where are they going to sell all those Mirage? You have about 50 , right? The French can’t give you a “fair” price, because they may not be able to sell them at all…
As others pointed out, who’s gonna buy non upgraded Mirage today? Most probably only someone who already has the aircraft type. Because it makes no sense to open a new support line for a new aircraft, that is out of production, you have no spares and you know that the French charge expensively for spares and weapons. But as other said, he will either have to use them for 25% of their remaining life as they are, or pay the high price the French want for upgrade. So, the ONLY way for the French to manage to sell these aircrafts, is by trying to sell them at extremely discounted price.
As for the price, if i remember correctly, in our case, the French proposed to give them 25 Mirage2000-5mk2 (of which the 15 brand new with zero hours because we weren’t accepting them until they solved an issue in the EW suite and the 10 upgraded) PLUS 1.2 bln euros , in exchange for 20 Rafales. Basically the deal was to give 25 M2000-5mk + the money that we would give, if we would upgrade the 20 old Mirage (1.2 bln euros), in exchange for 20 Rafales. Of course you must add that the Rafale would require additional costs, for support, pilot trainning, etc.
Later rumours about a new offer to for the old Mirage, were talking about giving the 20 non upgraded Mirage, in exchange for 3 Rafales. Basically about 6 mln euros per every non upgraded Mirage and defencenet was quoting as the most possible buyer to which the French would propose them, Pakistan, in order to replace Mirage III.
It would be of course very ironic if Pakistan would buy Indian Mirage. 😀
At the end, our Airforce judged the exchange as non convenient.
The other issue with the exchange is this… Are you sure that your Airforce wants to live the same situation in 30 years from now, when you will have to upgrade the Rafale? I bet not. And i bet that this is also the reason that the Rafale won’t be selected neither in HAF nor in IAF…
With the exchange ratio that was rumoured from defencenet.gr (20 old Mirage for 3 Rafales), you would get 7,5 Rafales for your 50 Mirage, including probably your Mirage spare parts stock and weaponry.
The conclusion of these exchange deals are:
– The upgrade of the Mirage is too costly, even the French admit it and instead they propose to buy Rafale.
– While the upgrade is too costly, if you don’t upgrade them, you must relegate these aircrafts to less dangerous roles than air combat. Basically you must use them as strikers or against equally old enemy fighters, if possible.
– The exchange ratio that they offer you for every M2000 is very low, because on their turn, they will have serious trouble to sell it to some other M2000 user, so they may not be able to sell it at all.
– However you look at it, 20 aircrafts, even if less advanced, in certain roles can give more than 3 aircrafts. Even in air combat, probably if the 20 gang up on the 3, the 3 will be shot down. So the exchange isn’t convenient!
– If you DO accept the exchange, then in some future you may end up in the same dilemma, only worse, because probably the cost to upgrade the Rafale, will be even bigger and more absurd.
AspisMore substantively,
You mentioned possible new radar and Millenium CIWS (great), is HN considering the Type 45/SAMSON radar?
I wasn’t sure if the plan was only for Air-Warfare variants, or if a mix with ASW was planned? (or a hybrid?)
Ok ,since you asked earlier, here is the updated “gossip”.
1) DCNS finally signed the updated MoU with Tavularis, so that part of the soap opera is finished.
2) About the FREMM configuration. The negotiation committees have resumed negotiations about the final configuration.
The greek navy has raised an issue about the Herakles, that lacks Volume Search Radar and it appears that it doesn’t allow to take full advantage of the Aster 30. The idea to put a VSR on the stern, above the helicopter platform seems to be abbandoned, because the navy insists on putting a second cannon there.
But, the cannon positioning itself at that point raises another spacial problem, because below the canon, there must be an adeguate extra space for the automatic ammunition loading system. It is possible to go to a compromise by choosing Millenium, for which Oerlicon and DCNS and Thales have already concluded on a disposition of 2 such systems, diagonally on the vessel. The advantage of the Millenium is that it can be positioned in place without need to “dig” in the superstructure below.
Back to the radar issue raised, Thales “promices” an improved version of the Herakles, with greater range than the one of today (150km) , but also faster and better elaboration of the signal, so to give improved reaction time in order to be able to take advantage of the full effective range of the Aster30 (about 130km).
http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9876&Itemid=139
As always, i remind that this is “gossip”, it is not over until it’s over.
AspisYou probabley mean the Improved Data Modem?
You probably know more about that than me. :p
I think i remember an “IDM” in F16 B50D. I also have the impression to have read about link11 (52+?).Or are they the same.
The problem is, when it comes to aircrafts, i don’t memorize many names or technicalities. I am more interested in the “juice” of the matter. For example , if i read “The new MCSJ200 computer, with modular design and coloured MFDs, with processing power 2 Ghz/s , thanks to the linkXX aka FHSD , allows for data exchange between 12 aircrafts using SDLK software and emitting at XYZ band, most probably at the end out of all this, i will remember that the aircraft has a link that allows data exchange between 12 aircrafts. 😀
Things get worse when it comes to Navy. I am better for infantry material. 🙂
AspisI ‘d say, if you can get the money (maybe you can cut some less important program), upgrade them. Even if you use them to carry AASM and other A-G ordnance , with MICA for self-protection, they would be useful. If the French are willing to sell you SCALP, even better.
HAF also wants to upgrade the remaining non upgraded, but in our case, seems the funds won’t be found, because our new goverment has a new dogma of the “we won’t make plans for fighting a full scale war, but a localized hot episode, small crisis” and is slashing defence budget and boasting about it too. We ‘re as ridiculous as you can get, especially since all our analysts in the past decades were insisting that Turkey would prefer a small localized episode, if she is certain that we won’t escalate it to a full front war and actually the threat of an escalation is acting as deterrent.
Since your goverment doesn’t see defence as a joke, a waste of money or a convention where what you suppose what the enemy will do is also what the enemy is really going to do, i think you may manage to squeeze some other programs to upgrade the M2000. In the worst case you could put them towards the Pakistani border to cover your backs.
According to the latest defencenet issue , with article about the -5mk2, its overall performance in interception is about 50% higher than the original Mirage and it’s very effective against F16s.
(cover story)
http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/images/banners/contents/ST_09.11.16_cont.pdf
Now of course some may be journalistic “sauce” , but even if its 25% it’s something to consider, because the upgrade is costly, yes, but also the infrastructure you have set and invested in is also costly and the aircraft has still life in it.
(I haven’t read it myself though, only read forum comments).
AspisNo. The HAF Mirage 2000-5 mk2 uses a NATO standard JTIDS terminal (a link 16 terminal), it doesnt have any other type of Dlink. The status of the Thales Data Link for the UAE “-9” and “Desert Falcons” is unknown (at least for me) and thats about it.
Cheers
Well, if you insist… I was under the impression that it had a more “limited” datalink ,just like the F16B52+ which has a limited aircraft link. Only the newer B52+Adv come with Link16. (i think the previous have link-11?). I remember the number of 8 per formation…
Anyway… you can install it later if you like.
AspisWell balanced and well said.
The fact that what you do suits your own requirements, what your opponent does most likely suits his requirements, and that There is no perfect tactic are some of the things many of us often forget.
Of course. History has plenty of examples, where an inferior on paper force was winning, because it had better strategy and used superior tactics to execute his strategic plans and ruin the enemy’s ones.
You can think that what you do is best for you. But you may be wrong. It is also possible, that against a specific scenario against specific enemy, you do not employ the best tactics as you should or the enemy doesn’t. Or you have found a tactic that allows you to ruin the enemy plans. For example if India chooses to make deep strike attacks inside China, it would be a strategical error IMHO. On the other hand, if the Chinese employ a tactic which lures you to do just that, then they will turn the odds on their favour.
Similarly, in the previous scenario, if you manage to get into defensive posture 24 aircrafts with 1 Mirage , while they can put in defensive posture 4 Mirage with one of their aircrafts, tactically you have advantage and you may mitigate their numeric advantage. Also if they lock the Mirage, this means that your high end interceptors (Su and later Pak Fa) will be less locked at the same time. If you also manage to lure them into locations where you have prepared SAM traps, you may further reduce their numeric advantage. On the other hand if they manage to do many successful SEAD missions and wipe out your SAMs and border radar coverage, their advantage will increase.
Victory is mainly succeeding in enforcing your strategy at the expense of the opponent. It’s like in basketball games when one team plays better in a slow game, with strict defence, the other team prefers a quick , offensive, more loose game… If the “slow” team manages to enforce her game rythm, it has ruined the opponent’s strategy and most likely will win.
There’s no perfect weapon, no perfect tactic. For each weapon there is countermeasure. The question is 1) if you have bought it so that you can use it, 2) If you know how and where to use it effectively, 3) if you can adapt your tactics to counter the enemy moves quicker than he can do the same to yours.
Fortifications, traps and ambushes were invented to reduce the advantage of a more numerous or heavily armed opponent.
Archers to kill foot soldiers. But if the foot soldiers manage to take the archers by surprise or find them in a tight battlefield, the archers are dead.
Cavalry to kill the archers. However, if the archers lure the cavalrymen onto a terrain that slows down too much horses and they have a good distance, they may butcher the cavalrymen.
Pikemen to kill the cavalry. If however you coordinate your cavalry to follow a foot attack and just use the cavalry to flank them, the pikemen are dead.
Mountainous terrain and woods to engage an enemy in tight formation or cavarly.
Theoretically everyone should have a tactic to deal with it. But in practice one manages to do it better than the other one and wins.
Being in the defence, you have the advantage of preparing better your battlefield, since you won’t (i presume) attack deeply in China. So the pre-war setup is all for you to choose and only for you to know. You can build your sensors network as you prefer, select where your SAMs will be deployed , have plans and material for repairs on damaged installations and so on. Also you will have more airforce base support and your pilots will have moral advantage knowing they are defending (your pilots will be more prone to die than the enemy). Also, i think a bigger variety of weapons to choose from, if correctly supported in logistics, is a good thing. It is more difficult for the enemy to predict all scenarios that you can choose from, than it is for you to predict how a more “monolithic” enemy will do. An example is exactly the use of MICA in its two versions. Your pilots can always assume they are getting EM missiles against them. This means you can prepare yourselves to reply with ECM and even mass use of jamming near your border. The chinese pilot if he detects Mirage on his IRST, can’t be sure what missile is going up against and ECM won’t help if it’s IR. Same for way the RDY II tracks. They can lock your Mirage and make it feel threatened, the same Mirage can make feel threatened 24 of them and probably they will start throwing away their stock of chaffs and flares, that may need later against some other indian aircrafts (because chaffs and flares aren’t endless on an aircraft). Yes, your pilot may die, but if he takes with him one enemy pilot and has disrupted by threatening many more , his loss was less important than the damage he provoked.
This would change if the chinese could find a way to tell if they are really being launched upon and with what weapon or if they manage to use russian missiles at max range without having trouble to do IFF. On your side, you could reply by using the Mirage with mountain cover or as second wave aircrafts, coming behind your Su and Migs that will draw the attention and fire first and allow the Mirage to come closer.
That’s why wars aren’t decided on a table by counting numbers by the politicians. There are too many variables and unexpected events. You can end up losing very badly, badly, slightly, cause stalemate, win, lose but with so damage to the enemy that it will be “Pyrrhic victory” for them and so on. And all this will afect the political position of your country in the negotiations that will follow.
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