Sounds good on paper, but it’ll have to proove it’s self.

And Russian claims that new ECM gear can jam the latest Western radar systems shouldn’t have to be proven?

Anybody has any idea what this simple innovation could be?

It’s likely something optical. There are a whole mess of optical systems you can get as “after-market” accessories for your Russian-made SAM systems. I’m pretty sure that the only major SAM systems to not have some sort of optics available are the S-300P/V, S-400, and S-200. For obvious reasons.

Barring optics, my guess’d be something off the wall like an IFF interrogator reading NATO modes and codes. The F-117 didn’t fly around squawking, I don’t think, but some sort of communication intercept system or whatever may have been a possibility.

Colonel Dani claims the same thing.

Yeah, and Yugoslavia claimed to have shot down hundreds of jets, a B-2, and all sorts of stuff. Pull the other one.

And as far as the whole stealth discussion goes, you guys are missing a big part of the equation. It’s way more than simple faceting or shaping or RAM/RAS work. Look at the intake of an F-117. If you can figure out why it looks like that, you’ll be onto something.

Both you and Trident are sidestepping the issue. Which of these weapon deployments does in fact change the actual, real nuclear balance of power between NATO on the one hand and the Russian Federation on the other.
A. NATO’s proposed BMD system, or,
B. The RF’s increasing number of S-400s?

Both affect the nuclear balance of power to a degree if you aren’t limiting the discussion to strategic-range ballistic missiles.

The Moscow ABM system perhaps is within treaty, but what about all the other systems which Almaz advertises as been capable of taking out ballistic targets. Is the Russian Federation allowed an unlimited number of S-400s?

The S-400 cannot intercept an ICBM, and is therefore not regulated (or wouldn’t have been regulated) by the ABM treaty. Stating that your system can hit a ballistic missile doesn’t mean you can hit an ICBM. The speeds involved are much different. Longer range missiles have higher velocities, making them much more difficult to hit.

systems able to intercept only SRBMs were never covered by the treaty (other than establishing what kind of performance was tolerable without becoming subject to limitation).

Exactly. The speeds of interceptor missiles were monitored, as below a certain velocity threshold you had basically zero chance of hitting an ICBM warhead. That’s part of the reason for a lot of the ELINT and SIGINT type work during the Cold War monitoring Soviet missile testing grounds (and conversely why the Soviets tested air defense missiles WAY inland at Sary Shagan or Emba for the most part), as you needed to collect telemetry data to figure out performance characteristics. A lot of times we could tell you how it worked and what it could do well before we knew what it actually looked like.

All of this talk and still nobody wants to get blasted out of the sky…what gives? :diablo:

SoC,

The point was that there was more stale, tired, Anglo-bashing in the very week that we were celebrating the 65th anniversary.

Which is a valid point, until it devolves into a mess that I have to come in here and try and sort through to clean up! One or two comments, I wouldn’t have cared. But it was getting a bit tedious after it sort of took a life of its own. No harm, no foul, I cleared everything up (in theory) that got everyone into an uproar.

[color=red]Contrary to popular belief, D-Day and what the French and English think of each other are not appropriate topics for nationalistic discussion. Which in itself is not entirely appropraite either.[/color]

Tiffy, Gripen and Rafale are all expected to have AESA by 2012-13, there is no reason why this would be delayed.

There may well be plenty of reasons. I mean, it’s not like Germany ever tried to have the Luftwaffe’s EF-2000’s fitted with the APG-65 or anything. Or might be looking (again) to buy fewer jets. Just because it is planned today doesn’t mean it might not change tomorrow.

[color=red]Threadstomp. Start another.[/color]