I ‘m unsure of OSF laser rangefinder range, but it would only be 10-20 km?

Take a look again at these:

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4813/irstfso1dl5.jpg

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/693/irstfso2sf9.jpg

They ‘re supposed to be from OSF. Since it shows distance (in nm) , i guess it was measured by the laser. A brilliant idea of the french i must say. It would be a real shame if they remove it in the OSF NG. It will actually DEGRADE its capabilities.

I agree , the Tactical players in the IAF would definately know there stuff and capability the aircrafts bring to the table , the problem (as is the same around the world) is witht he beurc. and other players that are equally important when such deals are struck.

It would be very interesting to talk to the IAF pilots or CO’s or sqd. leaders and above and see how they respond to each of the capabilities that each platform brings to the table.

We may not come to know what IAF pilots would “vote” if they were to get a poll, but you can be certain that their opinion will count at the end. Because, their “opinion” will influence the criteria up to a point. So what the IAF prefers , will be “boosted” in the evaluation criteria.

I don’t want again to be “accused” for derailing the discussion to greek matters, but here’s more or less how a competition is done:

For us, HAF has sent some pilots to fly with and/or against the aircrafts. These pilots made an opinion and report. This report, combined with the plans of what KIND of aircraft is currently needed (and baring in mind future plans), arrives to the committe that must prepare the “scoring” part in techical criteria. Some 400+ criteria are listed. To each of this criteria, a factor of importance is granted. And here’s is where the wish of the airforce and opinion can promote one aircraft, over the other. For example the list is : T/W ratio score x 1.05 —- engine thrust score x 2.5 —- radar perdormance x 4.0. This goes on for all criteria. At the end, some aircrafts, since the factor of importance is arbitrarily given according to HAF’s wishes , some aircrafts will get higher score than others.

Then, you proceed to the more bureaucratic part. The “mathematical formula” that will give the “most convenient offer”.

For us, it’s : Best offer = 0,5x comparable price + 0,1 x Local Industry Partecipation + 0,1 x greek added value + 0,1 x offsets + 0,1 x procurement cost + 0,1 x life cycle cost.

The “comparable price” has yet a formula of its own to be calculated and has biggest “weight” (0.5 factor). The “comparative price” is complicated, it’s more or less the total cost/ total ranking in technical criteria.

Each of the other factors in the equation has by its turn its own criteria (and formula) that give a score.

The procurement cost for example, isn’t simply the “contract cost”. It depends on “Present value” and “date of delivery”. On their turn, a formula gives the values of these 2.

You can very well imagine, that the political factor, can then “boost” a partecipant by influencing factors in the above formulas and sub-formulas.

In our case, some HAF criteria changed importance factor (hmmm, maybe someone told HAF not to penalize so much a competitor?). Then imagine what play you can make with the “offsets”, “added value”, “local industry partecipation”. Because two contenders can give you 100% offsets. But the offsets of the 1 , will be ranked more “desirable” than those of the other. And who can influence this? The political wishes. :rolleyes:

I wouldn’t be surprised, if the Rafal was in DEED ousted for a while (for not satisfying 1 minimum requirement in IAF’s list) and put back for political reasons. Or contrary, if the Rafale was leaked to the press by the goverment that had been ousted, to give a message to France to take the competition more seriously and then the goverment simply came out and denied it was ever ousted. :diablo:

So, i don’t know the way that India calculates the best offer, but i imagine they do something similar. Of course, the importance factors will be different, adjusted to indian criteria.

But, that’s just to say, that a winner isn’t simply made by “what the pilots like” or ” who’s the best” or simply “who will give a lower cost contract”. Even the “lower cost contract” can be something relative.

And for countries that DO look on the political side of the matter, there is PLENTY of space, to “help” someone win, although apparently doing a “mathematically accurate”, and thus “objective” ranking.

Because nobody can tell you “Why do you have the radar perfomance at x4 and not x 2 ?”. The answer is “because that’s how i like it”. Or “why do you give the other competitor’s offsets a higher score”? “Because for my criteria, getting the stuff the other gives me, is more important than those that you give me, for the same value of money”. So they can’t accuse you of being “unfair”. In fact, we have adopted this formula thing, so that we can avoid situations like when HAF had ranked F15 first and the PM chose the Typhoon. Now theoretically, the PM will simply say that the winner, is the 1st ranked at the “best offer” formula result.

I hope this will also help the Indian friends to find some peace, because i have been reading BR forum and it’s funny, it’s the same chaos as the greek ones. There is the Rafale supporter, the ones that says “we must stick with Russians”, the Tejas fan, the other who is afraid of US dependance, the one who wants the cheaper, the one who wants the “best performing” in this or that role, and ALL think that the Indian Airfoce is walking in the dark because there doesn’t seem to be a logic in these competitors. Well what do you know, you can read the same in greek fora. But that’s only because neither you nor we, have actually seen the airforce criteria and the importance factors nor what the politicians have in their mind.

So, my Indian friends, despite what one or the other wants or thinks that India wants, the final result, will be influenced by what IAF wants (which don’t worry, in her criteria , she will boost her preferable aircrafts) and what your goverment wants (which will also make sure to boost the contenders that suit her political tastes). At the end, the battle will be done, probably between the 2 that most got “boosted” by your airforces and goverment’s criteria. Probably your goverment doesn’t have an absolute favourite either, because otherwise you could just make a direct procurement from that country. But probably your goverment has 2 top vendors in mind and will make sure that one of the 2 will finally get the contract. The one that is higher in IAF’s own preference list.

But it used the laser range finder…:rolleyes:

In deed… It is still an interesting concept, but at very long distances, it must be very hard to get the laser pulse on the target…

These are 2 images posted in a greek forum :

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4813/irstfso1dl5.jpg

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/693/irstfso2sf9.jpg

In this case, probably there is no reason why you can’t launch the Mica, since you have available tracking data. But, will the OSF NG still have the laser emitter? Because you will replace the IRST with TV camera. Will the laser remain?

But, what Arthuro says here:

Unlike other IR missiles, therefore, MICA can be launched before the seeker locks, on and can perform a completely silent beyond-visual-range attack. The F2/05 will also carry the MBDA Storm Shadow/Scalp cruise missile.

is more interesting, because theoretically speaking, it could allow a LOAL approach at very long distances. *IF* the enemy aircraft doesn’t detect the launch (via IRST) and so he maintains his course and *IF* the enemy aircraft’s MAWS only alerts the pilot about the incoming MICA , when the MICA has already acquired the target with its own IIR sensor, then it’s as good as shooting someone in WVR… Now that the Rafale can carry 2 more MICAs in the outer pylon, it does worth the try to “possibly waste” a MICA IR in a LOAL launch. If the targets sees it in time and manouvers outside its seeker FOV, ok, you lost the missile. But if he doesn’t, he is in for a very unpleasant experience. And the MICA’s IIR seeker must have a very wide FOV.

The Spectre ability is certainly a big plus.

There is little to say. The French came up with very good ideas, but are stopped by insufficient funding. And the trouble with MICA is that when Meteor range missiles are out, the MICA will start falling somewhat short for BVR.

You must integrate the Meteor ASAP. And ideally, a Meteor IR should be developed. For passive attacks in LOAL mode, a passive IIR seeker certainly provides much more advantages compared to an EM guided missile.

In the area of integrating more and better the sensors with the weapons, the Rafale is probably better set than the Typhoon.

Tell Sarko to submit the new offer for complete exchange of all Mirage2000 with Rafale. It will raise Rafale’s chances in HAF.

– Thank you Swerve.
– I am sorry TMor, you are right.

It wasn’t my recommendation to become a military superpower, rather to use the need for fighter replacement as lever into doors that are closed. The seller of the Eurofighter (EADS) is also owner of a known airframer. The objective must be component manufacturing, limited engineering, services. Nothing too big, still high-tech jobs, of which Greece doesn’t have too much.

The problem is, EAB is the last place to create high tech jobs in Greece. There are too many companies around europe and after the end of cold war, too little demand. Whatever the EADS is willing to offer, will be in the final offer, just like the other ones. The fact that EADS is involved in airliners, doesn’t automatically mean that EADS is willing to give construction work to EAB about that. That’s a hypothesis that will be taken upon consideration.

A good way for Greece to make some thousands jobs quickly and with steady work, is in alternative sources of energy. They are talking about it, let’s hope they do it. If our politicians had grain of brain and were free of economic interests, now we would be full of solar panels, windmils and geothermic installations. But you see, some rich people live out of oil, either refining it or transporting it….

Greece is in danger of losing sight of other EU member states. If it wasn’t for the Euro (where Greece cheated to get in), the Drachme would see massive devaluation and could join Hungary in being a big credit dump.

Greece unfortunately hasn’t the luxury to maintain the army of Ireland or Portugal. This has been our problem for quite some time. This means that yes, you will fall behind. Not that things couldn’t have been much better if we had better politicians that actually had the welfare of the country instead of themselves as 1st priority, but however you see it, when someone has been giving yearly 4+% of his GDP in defence and another 1%, maths say that the one with 1% will go on faster.

For Drachma devaluation. The euro has brought good and bad. Stability being the biggest pro. The bad was that the conversion went bad in Greece, leading to high raise in prices. But anyway, it was a price to pay. The cheating, yes, officially happened. Unofficially, it is largely a construction. You see, before 2000 (and up until about 2006), the EU had 2 logistic options for military expenditure. Write the expenses on the year of the actual payment or in the year when the weapons are delivered. The goverments before 2000, were following the latter method. With that method we hadn’t cheated (or we were just over the limit at worst). In 2004, the opposition won the election and the first thing they did, was to make a “census” of the economy with the slight change, that they decided to change allocation system of the defence expenditures according to the 1st method (allocate the expenses in the years where the payments were actually done). This resulted, that all the defense expenditures made by the previous goverments, were re-allocated in the years that the weapons had been actually paid. So, while for example a system that was paid in 1998 , would normally appear in the 2001 budget with the old method, with the new census, the expenditure would appear in the 1998 budget and not in the 2001. Retroactively. This had as result, all the defence purchases that the socialists had done, to be retroactively re-allocated to the pre-2004 years. And the socialist goverment had ordered A LOT of weapons, right after the 1996 crisis with Turkey. The new gov submitted the new data to EU and all you read is how we cheated… We cheated, with method B, because the other expenses that had been trully misreported were sanity ones, but the big part was the defence expenditure. The new goverment gained the opportunity to blame the old goverment of “unreliablity” (in fact we self-denounced ourselves to the EU) and destroying the economy , as well as, reliefing their own budgets from defence expenditures that with the previous method, would burden them. So they were more free to do their policy, give money etc. Ironically, since about 2006, the EU decided to abolish the choosing of the 2 methods and now the only approved method for allocating defence expenditure is allocating the expenditure in the year of delivery. So our MORONS, had to go BACK to the system of the previous goverment and with today’s system, we hadn’t cheated… Of course nobody would believe us now nor would be interested to tell. This is the unknown part of the history, known only to Greeks. This speaks volumes about our politicians.

This change in methods back and forth, is also how we ended up 5th in SIRPI’s report in world’s importers chart:

http://www.sipri.org/googlemaps/at_top_20_imp_map.html

1. China
2. India
3. United Arab Emirates
4. South Korea
5. Greece
6. Israel
7. USA
8. Turkey
9. Egypt
10. Australia
11. Chile
12. Pakistan
13. Algeria
14. Singapore
15. Poland
16. Japan
17. South Africa
18. Venezuela
19. United Kingdom
20. Italy

In reality we aren’t 5th. But with the back and forth in changing way of allocating the expenditure, it happened that for the year SIRPI was examining, the defence expenditure was apparently too high, to merit the 5th place. It’s practically the opposite of the “euro-cheat”. Because when EU said that from now on the method of allocation will be the year of delivery, our goverment had to allocate back again the expenditure. Yes, that’s how economists work, pretty much you can get the idea of how the global economic crisis appeared, since it’s all about conventions and methods. So now we appear with super expenditure, while in reality, our REAL expenditure in the last 3 years, is at about 2.9% of GDP and going down. But SIRPI doesn’t know that…

In the current crisis, the euro is making the greek’s economy much more difficult ironically, because exactly, if you ask any economist, the first thing to do would be to devaluate in order to be more competitive, spend more money in the market etc. The Americans will get out of the crisis first,because unlike EU , they are determined not to look at the present statistical figures/limits, but pour money in the market, make the money circulate, increase the consume again, to get out of the recession. Europe will get out later, because looks more on respecting the Maastricht criteria, than avoiding recession.

In the case of Greece, the euro didn’t help in the crisis. Because Greece isn’t Germany. It’s a services economy, it needs to consume and the 2 first GDP sources are tourism and shipping. The shipping is influenced negatively by the eu policy and strong euro in general. Recession = less goods need transporting, less oil needs transporting. The tourism also suffers from the euro because we can’t devaluate, to attract tourists that can’t spend the money that used to. These tourists will head to Turkey or in other countries that don’t use the euro and that can devaluate. Something similar is for services. Greece in order to come back to Maastricht criteria, can’t pour money to the real economy to increase liquidity and thus boost again the services sector which is the biggest. In 2 words, we can’t do what Obama does. This is the difference in the mentality between USA and EU. USA, thinks that this isn’t the time to respect limits , but to get out of the crisis. So the 1st priority isn’t to decrease figures like pubblic debt NOW, but AFTER the crisis. In EU the opposite. And probably the Americans got it right and will come out first.

Anyway…

Actually, I would recommend Greece not to buy any military equipment at all in the foreseeable future.

Don’t worry. At least within the current crisis only “lesser” stuff will be ordered for political reasons (it has been signed an initial “ok” for 24 more Pzh2000 and 12 second handed and about 224 second hand M109). It makes you look bad if in the middle of a crisis you go and order multibillion programs.

But look at the positive side… If we don’t buy, how many high tech jobs in the european industry will be lost?

This is thoughout history the sources in % of the greek procurements.

http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/9694/eley8erotypia.jpg

1)1974-1980:

– France: 24,1%
– Germany 13,6%
– USA: 58%

2) 1981-1989
– France: 19,7 %
– Germany 16,8%
– USA 33,1%
– Netherlands: 15,1%

3) 1990-1993
– France 6,8%
– Germany 17%
– Netherlands 7,8%
– USA 64,3%

4) 1994-2004
– Germany 19,9%
– France 3,1%
– Netherlands 10,2%
– Russia 9,9%
– USA 51,1%

5) 2004-2008

– France 23,8%
– Germany 30,6%
– USA 24,1%
http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/9694/eley8erotypia.jpg

Don’t ask me with which method they are allocated in each period, i have no idea.

The best way to really allow us to stop buying, is for EU to pressure Turkey to either drop her claims or go to Hague. But, do the vendors REALLY want us to stop buying? Hmmm… With the cold war over, you can’t find paranoid enough nowdays. So, you may as well detest us for our economic performance, but we do serve our purpose too inside EU.

Actually, Greece got the M203 howitzers of the German army. I think we kept the ammo, but I don’t know the reason.

You probably mean M109s (AFAIK M203 is a charge for the ammo). If you kept the ammo, it’s probably because there is no real need:

http://www.eas.gr/index.php?lang=en&sec=&ctg=123

Although some indigenous capability is desirable, being fully independent either means your technology is outdated or you are spending big with limited offset (see France: can do all, doesn’t help them much).

Well, as i said, you must understand that big part of the turkish military industry, isn’t run by privates, but from the army itself. Imagine EADS run by the army to put it simply. It’s hard for a military man to withstand the temptation of wanting his country to become a new EADS too. This is why Turkey has become more and more obsessed with source codes (to the point that made Eurocopter and Boeing withdraw from attack heli competition), satellite tech transfer, tank armor transfer from SABRA, howitzer from Korean K9 and so on. They have “national ship” project, “national tank” project and so on. If you know the Turks as well as we do, you know what their aim is. Also, mark this day and remember it after some decades when Turkey will try to have her own naval battlegroup. Today an LPD, tomorrow a heli carrier, then the aircraft carrier.

And another issue i forgot. There was talk about the Typhoon deploying a towed decoy behind it. What’s newer about that. This is also an interesting idea, as it can serve not just to dodge a missile, but also to further worsen the enemy’s idea about your formation , increasing the clutter.

But see it the other way around: a finished product is like a Chinese DVD player: it works but doesn’t keep know-how in your country. A country as Greece with a small and not very well positioned aviation industry, integration work or small modifications are the only option to keep their knowledge current. If you buy an F-35, you don’t get your hands on any parts.

Today you don’t buy fighters primarily because you desperately need the capability, but to have your share of technology. The Turks made it correct, being participants on the A400M and the F-35, although with small workshare in both cases (but better than none at all).

The thing is this. Greece is mainly interested in being able to do maintenance of the fleet locally. Our goal isn’t to become a superpower (what Turkey wants), but to arrive to the point that we won’t have to go on with a cold war and become like Portugal.

The Turks make it correct, because they have big military plans and nobody dares challenge their defence budget. Big part of the turkish military industry is run by the army itself. In order to develop indigenous industry, Turkey is continuously aiming for know how transfer. To follow Turkey’s strategy, you must make big investments on local industry for infrastructure, meaning pouring pubblic money to it. In Greece this can’t be done, because the pubblic opinion doesn’t have the tollerance of the turkish one towards such military plans. In Greece almost all political parties when in the opposition attack the money “thrown out of the window for weapons”. In Greece, the only time we ordered 80 aircrafts at once, it was called by the press “The order of the century”. And that was back in the days that parties didn’t have the slogan “cut the money from the army and police, give it to welfare”. Turkey can order 100 aircrafts at once and nobody will stand on the parliament microphone and question if it is wise to make such a big order while the people don’t have money. I would be happy if Greece was more involved to ammunition projects.

The Turks want to arrive to the point to make turkish tanks, ships, helicopters, etc. We aren’t interested in such a thing. Also in Turkey, the building cost is considerably lower than if it was to be built in Germany, allowing them to afford better the expenses for know how transfer etc. Check for example how much the Turks paid for the Sabra M60 to get israeli know how transfer. In Greece this can’t happen. The opposition will eat the goverment alive.

Keep our knowledge current and do what with it? Become Sweden and try to make our own product to sell it to who? Integrate a weapon. Is the vendor going to give us the source codes of the aircraft? In Greece, the local air industry (EAB) isn’t there to become a giant or make the state rich. It’s simply there to give the basic things the airforce needs.

What is true, is that greek goverments could have given much more work share if they had done the contracts right, while very often there were offsets for local companies that were never asked to become reality. The “high tech” business in Europe, can be left to EADS, Dassault, SAAB. Already they have trouble financing their own high dreams.

Greece, realistically speaking, should get interested in:
– Local aircraft support. (ex. was the CCIP of the US F16s in Greece)
– Build some parts in a profitable-looking program. (like some F16 parts)
– Partecipate in ammunition programs and build simpler ammo locally. (like in the Iris-T).
– Partecipate in UAV/UCAV programs. (like in Neuron or Pegasus greek uavs).

More space exists for army or navy systems.

Turkey is a 70 million country, with neo-othomanism mentality, aiming at becoming a military superpower.

Greece is a 10 million country that has no wish to become a military superpower, just maintain a deterrent as to be left alone and eventually not need to do so at the end.

See the positive side of it. The Turks pay and pay to extend their local industries, buy foreign know how etc. In a case of crisis with Greece, all this, will become rubble under a SCALP. They can bomb ours too. What do we lose? Much less. It’s like at the end bombing all the EADS facilities and the EAB facility in Greece? The importance of EAB in Greece is trivial. We don’t have it to make money out of it. If you want to sell a howitzer to Greece and ask:

“what would you like to get as offsets? A tech transfer on how to build a howitzer’s cannon or the ammunition or second hand free howitzers”? Turkey, will reply “I want to know how to build the cannon”. Greece will reply “the ammo or the second hand howtitzers”.

Turkey wants at the end to become self sufficient in possibly every system. Become a producing country. Very well to them, they will use their own, we will buy from abroads.

Greece needs to become more serious about offsets that realistically are useful to us and that can benefit not just the basic military industry , but also used in non military applications. The cold war is over, the other day the german EADS campaign manager was saying that there are about 400 companies in Europe that are involved in military programs, it’s obvious that you can’t have 400 SAAB. The cold war is over. The future of the greek industry is to continue to support our basic needs and sooner or later be part of a wider european common defence industry network, where possibly each local sector will take a specialization to do something and each part will be integrated to common weapons bought by the member states.

US dumb iron bombs are usable by all the European aircraft. If you buy AASM, you don’t need new dumb iron bombs to use the kits with: they work with US bombs. AMRAAM & Sidewinder are integrated on Gripen & Typhoon. The only reason Black Shaheen/SCALP has not been integrated on F-16 is that the USA refused permission for the UAE – but it should be permitted for NATO members. Germany, Italy & the UK all use US AtoG weapons on Typhoon: various Paveways, HARM to be integrated for Italy, etc. Maverick is used by Sweden – on Gripen. Rafale & Gripen both use Paveway II – which Greece has.

Etc., etc.

Yes, if you buy no.1 and 2 for the one, no 3. and no.4 for the other contender, etc, you have no problem. And more WILL be integrated (we have heard many times *will* and when delivery times came, there were “problems” or “delays” that took 3 or more years to overcome). Wasn’t the Captor-E to be ready in the last T-2 batches and T-3 according to the optimistic news of when the Typhoon was in T1 or early T2? We got the Erieye. It took years to link it with OUR stuff that the Swedes had never worked with before since we were the 1st customer in our configuration. The Mirage2000-5 acceptance was delayed due to problems to the EW suite and the integration of SCALP is finishing only now at the software level.

Suppose you have an evaluation and the Americans give you today’s data which say “Harm, ready and testable whenever you want” and one which says “Have faith cause Italy will integrate it some day”, how exactly are you going to give the same score to the 2 contenders? Or “we WILL have an AESA ready by 2014, but you can’t see it working right now”. What if the radar has “youth” problems when it comes out?

And i said, i used Greece as an example because i know what we have. For us, no wonder why, the Typhoon is mainly see by HAF mainly for A-A, exactly because of the capability for Amraam, IRIS-T and HMD. It is seen somewhat as the “Mirage successor”.

But ask the Indians, will they be happy with that? Or they want more multirole ASAP? We have some MICAs, so transition to the Rafale can be easier in that. But ask the Indian Airforce. After the exaggerated upgrade price for Mirage, (and if we believe greek roumours expensive spare parts), how ready are they to buy Rafale and having to buy aall the french missiles from scratch? Can you blame the Indians if you they choose F16In or Super Hornet? I can’t. To equip 120 aircrafts with ammunition that you don’t have, you need much money. If the ammo is more expensive than competition, you need much more money.

For the Gripen, i can’t say anything about weapons integration. If the 2 eurocanards had done to theirs what the Swedes have done to the Gripen, the eurocanards would be selling well now. For myself, i wouldn’t disregard a purchase of Gripen NG for low cost solution.

The SCALP most probably won’t be allowed ever to greek F16s, at least for the forseable future. As a matter of fact the Americans had refused to sell us an american equivalent of the Popeye that the Turks were getting from Israel (US position was that they didn’t want to change the balance with Turkey= the Greeks must never have something better than the Turks). It’s the same story with our request for SM-2 many years ago. So we turned to the French who sold the SCALP and USA had pressured France not to , saying it was strategical missile. The French replied that it was “substrategical”.

As long as we have Mirage2000-5 flying, we can use them for the SCALP. If we were to get Rafale, no problem. If we were to get Typhoon and we really wanted, it could worth the money to integrate it at our own cost. If the Turks buy something equivalent, most probably USA will let us use it on F16.

But the SCALP is secondary issue. With 90 SCALPs you will be over with them very quickly. Then you must use other things, unless you get a new shipment from a “friend” in the meantime.