The only one of those that relies on Russia for its existence is the first one.

Iraq now likes Russia’s Facebook page but won’t follow it on twitter, and this wasn’t the case back then. Iran does what it can to look after itself, butI would suggest the idea of Iran and Russia being allies is pushing things.

Ally =! Relying on someone for your existence (unless you’re Israel).

Where are those allies? Actually, which states were allied to Russia and supportive of it’s regional aims at the time of the initial Syrian uprising (as opposed to being slightly more open to Russia now)?

Note, I’m not saying it’s wrong for Russia to have interests in the region or to seek to protect as such, they have been doing so for over 100 years.

Syria, Iraq, Iran.

Seeing as this thread is well and truly derailed (and no bad thing) I am chipping in here…

Delaying and causing the abatement of any action by the world community had a direct influence on the rise of groups like ISIL in the Syrian rebel ranks. They were not prominent early on, but Russia’s tactics to support the Assad regime against the rebellion, and block UN action that would have allowed help to flow, gave rise to the situation we are faced with today.

Russia warned that helping the rebels would lead to the rise of Islamic extremism in Syria and then made sure that the country’s wounds stayed open long enough to get infected. This was preferable to risking the loss of it’s last major ally in the region.

Actually it has at least 3 allies in the region ran by the more sane Shia governments. Syria got infected because the less sane Sunni governments in the region (Saudi Arabia and Qatar) started ploughing in support to the Syrian rebellion in the form of money, arms, TOW missiles and suicide bombers. The US/EU provided non-military support directly and arms indirectly. It was this support that kept the wounds open, similar to the Libyan intervention, which again has created nothing but a huge mess. Do you not see a pattern here?

Stable Iraq –> US/EU Intervention –> Gone to ****.
Stable Libya –> US/EU Intervention –> Gone to ****.
Stable Syria –> US/EU Support –> Gone to ****.
Stable Ukraine –> US/EU support –> Gone to ****.
Palestine –> US funding of Israel –> Gone to ****.
Aghanistan –> US/EU Intervention –> Gone to ****.

So where’s next? Iran? Wouldn’t be the first time. Shah II? Maybe a Pinochet II for Chile perhaps. Or a Montt II for Guatemala.

Strangely enough, protests in Bahrain have been huge but barely covered. We sent in advisers to assist their police.

I still want to go with the BAE Replica.

I used the Google Earth measure tool to get the distance from central Shizhne to the furthest-distant point in the Petropavlivka debris field, and got a figure of 23 km, well with the range of an SA-11 operating “near” Shizhne. My electronic atlas produced a similar figure.

Really. I get 43km. And Petropavlivka (Donetsk) is after Snizhne (SE – 43km) on the flight path direction and south of the flight path. Ground zero is marked as 14km West of Snizhne.

Note that the initial decision for the F35B over the F35C was made back in the early 2000s – specifically at the request of the RAF, who wanted to retain the short-field/damaged-runway STOVL capabilities of the Harrier.

The late 2010 decision for F-35C was very late in the design/build cycle of HMS QE – which led to the high costs that caused the reversion to the F-35B in early 2012.

That was roughly when the conservatives got in. For a time I thought the F-35C would have been better myself but the advantages of the B are many. There’s short fields and damaged runways, but also a carrier sortie rate improvement (not cats and arresters) and an ability to operate in worse sea conditions.

What do you to if a catapult becomes non-operational?

http://navy-matters.beedall.com/cvf1-12.htm

The generally favourable experience of STOVL carrier operations over the previous 15 years had by the mid-1990’s brought the RN close to prescribing a STOVL solution for the then Sea Harrier Replacement (subsequently incarnated as the Future Carrier Borne Aircraft and now Joint Combat Aircraft). The service was an avowed proponent of STOVL on account of, amongst other things: better sortie-generation rates; reduced aircraft impact on overall platform size and cost; and the ability to operate in higher sea states.

And the advocates of STOVL apparently had some strong arguments, for example Major Andrew G. Shorter, USMC states in article published in the September 2003 edition of the USNI Proceedings:

Studies compared the effectiveness of conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) and V/STOL aircraft at sea. One study, conducted by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) in 1980, concluded that V/STOL aircraft provide better mission performance at sea with fewer aircraft. This stems from the V/STOL’s ability to generate a greater number of sorties for a given time period, primarily because it is unconstrained by the normal deck cycles of CTOL aircraft. The AIAA study points out that “the air platform from which V/STOL operates can be smaller than today’s large deck carrier. The support costs, including logistics, maintenance, manpower, et al. are reduced for both the aircraft and the ship.” This concept sets the stage for reducing the large overhead normally associated with sea-based tactical aviation to the point where it can be considered viable on many more seagoing platforms.

The STOVL JSF greatly reduces the training and currency requirement for fixed-wing operations afloat. This increases commensurately its ability to be adopted and employed jointly as the Air Force is no longer excluded from non-land-based operations. With the large power margins, enhanced stability control, and pilot augmentation systems the STOVL JSF will incorporate, safe and efficient landings at sea will become easy and straightforward. This should lead to streamlined training and extended currency limits—so much so that non-naval-trained pilots could become ship-qualified in just a few days. Consider the flexibility of being able to jointly sea base all of the services’ primary tactical air assets, not only in the context of the tenets mentioned earlier, but also in the form of indefinite sustainment for the force structure. The STOVL JSF squadrons from any service, with minimal effort, could provide forces for surged or sustained sea-based maritime operations—a force planner’s dream.

Fewer aircraft require less hangar space, fewer maintenance and support personnel, and for STOVLs, fewer ship systems to support them and a much smaller air department. STOVLs require 30% less deck space for operations, which leads to increased operating efficiencies. Those efficiencies allow generation of more sorties given equal mission performance. For example, STOVL aircraft can generate 30% more sorties than CTOL aircraft for targets out to 400 nautical miles, and 15% more for ranges to 700 nautical miles. The affordable combination of multiple missions within one hull design can become a reality based on our emerging technology.