That’s also a figure for the much heavier F-15E, with Pratt & Wimpy engines.

Israel has done it as well, if I remember right, they ran a probe out of one of the underwing drop tanks. They probably wouldn’t want the factory option-they’d want the same probe as the FC-1 and J-10, to make all the aircraft compatible with the same tanker.

Is Pakistan going to have a probe fitted to the F-16s to allow refueling from the MIDAS?

[color=red]20 pages, closed.[/color]

One can discount the loader which you mentioned, because it takes 15 minutes to load the loader itself and many minutes to load the TELARs. Such delay is high. They are probably used in emergencies only.

The loader/launcher is kept loaded, else it can’t reload TELARs in the field.

One feature of Akash, of which I’m not aware is present on Buk or not, is the track-on-jam and lock-on-jam features. This means that any attempt to jam will result in the jammer entity itself being tracked and locked onto by Akash — a sort of counter-HARM.

Buk does have home on jam features. TOJ/HOJ won’t do anything to a HARM though, it’s passive and tracks the radar signal. Or, if the radar is switched off, it uses GPS to track the last known position that was transmitting.

A flexibility of Akash is that 2 missiles from different TELArs can be guided to a single target; and 2 or more missiles from the same TELAR can be guided to different targets. The latter is impossible in Buk.

That’s also an impediment, take out the Akash radar and the battery is innefective. To kill a Buk battery you must kill all the TELARs.

I agree that both have their positive points.

We can agree on that.

But Austin wasnt the AKASH’s body based on another such Indian bought Soviet made SAM? I believe this was done to reduce some of the risk and based on the old idium “dont fix what aint broke”

And there’s nothing wrong with that. My point isn’t to denigrate the Akash, but to show that it is not technically superior to the Buk systems. India probably decided they didn’t need something that complex or that expensive. With that many MKIs flying around SAM coverage is a bit redundant anyway.

[color=red]If a mature level of decorum cannot be maintained, then said immaturity will be culled quickly and cleanly from the forum.[/color]

If we assume as you say, that a Buk battery consists of 6 TELARs, it seems “wasteful” that each TELAR has it’s own guidance radar. This radar can guide 3 missiles to one target at a time.

Not wasteful, as each TELAR can engage a separate target.

This is probably the reason why a Buk needs to fire 3 missiles per target for sure success, whereas an Akash can achieve the same with only 2 missiles for 99% kill rate (per DRDO official statement).

2 missiles per target for Buk, where is the three missiles coming from? Wikipedia again?

So, a Buk’s TELAR needs a reload after 1 kill, whereas an Akash TELAR needs one only after 2 kills. Thus, in an extended time, an Akash battery with 4 TELARs will have engaged 8 targets before a single reload of a TELAR. In contrast a Buk battery of 6 TELARs, would have engaged only 6 targets before the first reload.

Buk doesn’t have to stop to reload to continue engaging. Missiles can be fired directly from the loader-launcher vehicle, which carries 8 missiles.

Anyway, a Buk battery consists of 2 TELARs only. The 6 TELAR arrangement may be some another scenario with some tradeoffs.

4-6 TELARs. Wherever you’re finding the 2 TELAR figure from is still incorrect.

See, as both are command-guided missiles, reaction times will differ inversely to engagement range. Akash’s reaction time is 22 seconds.

Buk is semi-active radar guided. It has never been a command guided system.