SOCVenezuela: F-16A Block 15
Saludos
Nice find, he’s packing Python 4s.
SOCShouldn’t have been 30N6-1, that’s the radar set (in native form for the S-300PM-1) also known as 30N6E1 used in the S-300PMU-1. It would have been a 5N63S or 30N6.
SOCI still think it’s related to AARGM, check this out:
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=awst&id=news/aw122407p1.xml
Info on Navy ramjet research here:
http://www.jhuapl.edu/techdigest/td1802/waltrup.pdf
They mention that a ramjet HARM was at one point tested, the object in the picture might be a leftover airframe for trialling the drone/weapon test concept.
The missile also resembles Raytheon’s FMRAAM concept, but it was described in the USAF thing as an air-to-surface weapon, so that can’t be it either.
Looks an awful lot like the object in this picture, which may be related to ARC’s (now Aerojet) VFDR program or may be an example of SENIOR BLUE/HAVE DASH:
SOCClick here:
http://www.af.mil/news/story_media.asp?id=123082272
Then select an image from the left, and underneath the preview on the right hit “Download Full Image”.
As an aside this is probably related to the AARGM program.
SOCYou know the facts, the WMD claims backed with powerpoint presentations was bogus. The whole notion of the claim led to the war which itself was a big lie/intelligence failure call it what you will. The bottom line is the US lost credibility when no WMD’s were found as Hans Blix and hes team were saying all along. So yes it was about oil and the fact you cant see that is down to you.
The WMD assertion does appear to have been bogus, yes, but the intelligence we had at the time pointed to the existance of a WMD program. More than one nation believed both our and their own intel regarding the existance of WMDs in Iraq. Saying after the fact that oil was the reason is not based on any sort of factual evidence, is it? It’s just a logical progression of the antiwar movement to allow themselves to continue discrediting the US government.
American forces rushed in and first secured the oil fields. Now securing the country is important, as you cant station 150k troops around the oil fields can you. And by just concentrating your forces around the oil infrastructure and only caring for ramping up production off oil would of clearly been a massive PR disaster on your part, as even a blind man could of seen the clear intent for the war.
Securing the oil fields during open conflict was a logical strategy to preserve Iraq’s post-war economy, or have we forgotten what Saddam’s troops did to Kuwait’s oil wells in 1991 when things started to go badly?
American leadership is anti-iranian, so whether Bush or someone else is in power wont change your policty for the last 30 odd years now with Iran would it. You will allways cite them as a threat until you carry out another farce war against them.
The idiots in DC love to trump up China as a threat as well. And Iran does have legitimate terrorism connections to consider.
So basically it is down to oil, the reason America is in the middle east. And the israeli lobby obviously is not helping that.
I can’t argue that a good portion of the reason we’d like to see a stable Middle East is to protect the flow of oil.
So is 60,000 deaths still ok then for america to quench its oil thirst?, and that is just for Iraq going by that figure, which I find hard to believe considering over 3,500 american soldiers have died who have the best protection in Iraq. Why are you skirting around the point, how many deaths need to be taken to jusitfy your countries thirst for oil?.
I never said any deaths were alright for any reason, oil or otherwise, but the notion that you cannot be prepared to take casualties in an armed conflict isn’t logical either. And best protection? Surely you jest…if we were actually prepared to fight this kind of war like we should’ve been a lot of those deaths could have been avoided.
On the contrary you havnt dis-proved anything either.
I’m not the one who said it was about oil…
There wasn’t evidence of Iraq having links with terror or having WMD, yet that didn’t seem necessary to plan an invasion.
There was plenty of evidence in the open press even linking Saddam to terrorism, Richard Miniter’s book Disinformation cites a good deal of it that was conveniently forgotten by the mass media after the invasion.
the installations are run by Iraqis
But I thought we went there to steal their oil? Do we have secret plans to off the Iraqis running the oil industry that just haven’t been executed almost five years after the fact?
SOCAll of the operational Tu-160s should be so equipped. That was why, for a while, their intakes were covered up when they appeared at airshows.
SOCYup, just an exercise. Not really that big of a deal. And the Kh-65 was in fact NOT mentioned, but for some reason it has become the subject of much fantasy and fallacy around here lately.
SOCI dont know why your asking me or anyone else to provide proof evidence of the reason going into Iraq, because there is no authority in the world including the UN which would be taken seriously. You have to look at the actions from the actions you can come to a conclusion.
Because either this is a fact-based position, or it is merely another opinion.
You ask me why America is not importing more oil, the simple reason that Iraq has just managed to after 5 years to bring its production up to the level it was when saddam was in power. How is Iraq able to give you more oil when production was so low. Then you ask me why havnt Iraq left OPEC, why would iraq leave OPEC?, to have Iraq in OPEC influencing pro-american decisions through puppets like malaki is more effective.
If we went in for oil, then we would’ve concentrated our forces among the oil fields and worked to ramp up production capacity. Oops. We must be stupid to not get that part right, huh.
When iraqi oil production doubles to what it is now what do you think will happen with oil prices?. Development of Iraq oil infrastructure to increase production under Saddam was not possible now was it?.
Easy, they won’t really do anything, as OPEC nations will cut back their production accordingly.
Bush and hes cronies are still calling Iran the biggest threat to the world, they are trying to find ways to threaten Iran still. Or did you miss that?.
And given that they’ll be out of power in less than a year, and the fact that any action before then is unlikely now that we’ve made the no nuke statement, what does Bush calling Iran a threat have to do with anything?
Iran and the US are fighting for influence in the region, I can understand on Irans part as its own region but why would America be so bothered about Iran, minus the WMD excuse.
America cares because 1) if Iran got real irate they could mess with oil traffic in and out of the Strait, and 2) because we are stupidly allowing ourselves to be led around by a pro-Israeli foreign policy.
The figure of Iraqi deaths have been reported over many publications and news outlets, one being americas very own
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.deaths/
IBC says closer to 60,000, and the Iraqi government says this 600K figure is bogus as well. So again, where are the verifiable hundreds of thousands of deaths you speak of?
Again the point being allot of people have died for america’s thirst for oil.
A statement which you have yet to prove.
SOCHow can it be proved factually, in a court intent/motivation provides a strong case for an argument. The US openly says its reasoning was for WMD but most of the world knows it was for securing oil. yes there are other reasons as well (promoting democrasy in the middle east ect) but they all are not important enough for war. The point being every non american is happy for america to do what she likes within her own borders, but when you wage phoney wars of WMD and terror that is when you can expect to be criticized.
If the world knows what the war was about, where is the evidence. I’m not saying that there were or were not ulterior motives, but the concept of going to Iraq to control their oil supply is asinine. If that was the case, how come we aren’t importing a lot more Iraqi oil? Or removing Iraq from OPEC so we can get cheaper oil?
That is fine America and rest of the world who can afford to buy oil should do so, but as long as you dont meddle in the affairs of other nations who are oil producers to control oil prices.
How are we controlling the price of oil?
The main reason america has been criticized in relation to oil, because americas foreign policy is closley tied in with its energy policy which is tied with OPEC/Mideast oil imports. This bothers many people for the simple reason for america to quench her thirst for oil she has caused allot of instability in the mideast and other regions which has resulted in the deaths of countless hundreds of thousands of people. Iraq being the most recent example. On the same premise America now threatens Iran.
America is no longer seriously threatening Iran outside of calling for more regulation and sanctions, or did you miss the part where we now believe that they are not pursuing nuclear weapons? And I wasn’t aware that it has been documented that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people have died since 2003, either.
SOCWhen the bear roars, all the pro-western forumlingers ****s their pants…”
Its freaking hilarious:dev2:
How does one person posting the article infer that anyone pro-Western on this forum is in need of new pants?
But on more serious note, is it Kh-65 that they are firing down there?
Obviously not, as the weapon never entered the active inventory, nor has it been integrated with the Tu-160 oeprationally. The only possibilities are the Kh-55 or Kh-101, if the jets were operational fleet examples from Engels.
SOCinefficiency & personal taste.
And the world only has a possible right to complain about the first one, not the second.
SOCThat is not the problem I was trying to solve here. If you follow the thread closely you will notice that I never wanted to go comparing the US with developing countries like India (that only happened because sealord repeatedly pointed at these).
So developing countries shouldn’t be held to the same standards?
Let us go back to the roots and talk about why an average American needs to burn 2.5x as much oil as German and British (UK has 10.2 or similar figure) and five times as much as an average Slovak. Tell me why is that!? It surely isn’t because Germans or we cannot afford to buy a car..
It’s a matter of geography for one. Driving semi-trailers or trains across the country to move goods around takes a lot longer, covers more ground, and needs more fuel than doing the same thing in Germany or the UK. Then there is the large amount of travel the average American does for vacation, holidays, and the like: again, lots of distance can be covered, distances that the aforementioned nations cannot compare with. Mass transit? Doesn’t work that well here outside of large metro areas due to, again, the large areas involved.
The obvious comeback is “but what about Russia and China, they’re huge too!” Doesn’t work. Goes back to the whole “who can afford to have a car” concept. And there are large expanses of each nation that are largely uninhabited anyway.
Granted, no one nation has the right as long as its stays among internal affairs. But when one country starts to export war in order to secure supply for the ever-growing need, then it quits being an internal problem and becomes a global issue.
I wasn’t aware that it had been proven, and by proven I mean factually and not in the court of public opinion, that the United States, England, and the rest went into Iraq to take over the oil fields.
lots of people have realized that whatever Yanks burned, the others would be missing in the future.
Tough. If we can afford to buy it on the world market, then that is our prerogative.
SOCShooting at a noncooperative target at very long range is not advisable. The target has too much time to disengage and outmaneuver the weapon. Point in case, the USN trying to bag easy kills with AIM-54s over Iraq in 1991.
SOCGreece doesn’t really have all that many of each type, they’ve just managed to acquire a whole diverse range over the years for various reasons. The S-300PMU-1 deal wasn’t even their idea, that was the result of asinine Turkish complaints over the Greek Cypriots possessing that level of air defense.
A lot of the Russian network is leftover from the Cold War. Plus, with NATO expanding constantly towards the east, they still have reason to be wary.
SOCCorrect me if i’m wrong, but I thought the max range for the KS-172 was 400km and not 300km. So theoretically @ 300km shouldnn’t this missile have plenty of fuel still left? Translating it into the above scenario, a KS-172 fired @ 300km will reach its target in ~ 3-4 minutes. the AWACS needs to get away in that time window. however, it can travel only about 60-70km in that time.
The original KS-172 could be extended to 400 km with the addition of a booster stage. In theory this option still exists for the current KS-172S-1 variant.
Point is can the AWACS escorts get the flankers before the flankers get the AWACS? Cat and mouse as usual. But the Raptor stands a good chance, although slim imho.
Regards,
USS.
That’s the real advantage of this weapon, it forces you to define new tactics to ensure you can deal with the shooters before they can get a shot off.
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