“Perhaps some OV-10s would be a better choice then. Nice and slow to escort crop dusters with herbicide, like how it is done in Colombia.”

There are not to many around these days. The Philippines has had a hard time finding more OV-10s.

“But if the US can’t wipe up the Taliban so easily and the Soviets couldn’t wipe them out in 10 years either what chance has an afghan army got?”

Well provided Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Pakistan don’t fund the Taliban they will not be able to repeat their conquest of Afghanistan.

Most of the Taliban’s big advances on the battlefield were done through bribing Mujahideen commanders with money that came from other nations. And let’s not forget Pakistan advisors manning Taliban artillery pieces, tanks and planes. Without that support they are not much other then bandits.

“Best for them would be some Mil-17s and some AC-47 Turbo Dak gunships.”

More Mi-17s would be good but finding AC-47s is like finding black and white TVs these days. I guess one could make their own. But turning a An-24/26 or a An-32 into a gunship could very well be better.

I do think they could manage something like the A-10 as the DRAAF/AAF/IEAAF/DGM were able to manage MiG-21s, Su-22s, Su-7s, Il-28s, Mi-25/35s and other things.

Now if we can trust the A-10s not to be turned on Karzia is a different story…

Some Indonesian MiG-21s…

“Those evil Russians are told off for interfering in Ukraines elections but how about the wests interference in those elections… should they be ignored?”

They actually tried to poison the guy. And he did win in a fair election…

“The eastern european countries are all joining the Eu and NATO as are many of the former Soviet States… in fact the west seems to be interested in helping… but only if there is oil involved.”

Of course the Eastern European nations would want to jon the EU and NATO as would CIS states…

“Yes, look at guantanimo… the freedom of non US citizens means very little in America, why should the freedom of East Europeans mean much in Russia.”

A handful of terrorists versus all of Eastern Europe and half of Germany…

“The west has spent the better part of 80 odd years “fighting communism” including direct interference with troops in their civil war.”

Russia and thier communist buddies have a history of jumping into civil wars (Vietnam.. Laos… Afghanistan should I keep going)… your point is what….

“The west is very rich… you don’t think it happened by accident or by fair open trade do you?”

And Russia has always been poor and run by brutal governments who rule with total authority with little regard for thier people and we all know that is the fault of the west….

“Getting into debt with the devil is not a good thing if you want to keep your soul.”

So America is the devil now…

“Not true. They did ask for help from those they believed could actually provide help to solve problems they couldn’t solve themselves at the time.”

They tried to cover the thing up…

“It was a choice to build a wall to stop illegal immigration. Many of those that crossed took secrets to try to buy a new life in the west. As such you could call them spies and shoot them on sight… many were.”

And most were just trying to escape from terror and poverty and make a new life. It looked pretty bad as most of the traffic was going out of Eastern Europe and into the west…..

“No one country take the blame for creating “eastern europe”.”

Russia….

And about the Kursk… seeing as the Russian’s did not allow the crws to fly in them kept them at bay what happened was the fault of the Russian government…

You hide your bias very poorly…

my 2 cents….

“But a Mi-17 with 2-4 rocket pods and machine gun pods are not a bad think, they may not be able to maneuver, but they sure got armour and can defend themselves against small arms fire.”

Actually they make easier targets then do the Mi-24D due to lack of armor…

“Against small arms fire, the AH-6J will not do so bad, and an armed transport with plenty of rockets and machine guns like the Mi-17 is not going to be any less capable of surpressing small arms fire.”

The only people it can really suppress are small groups of people who are very poorly armed and who don’t have the stomach for a real fight. And of course the USA uses the AH-64 and such to provide suppression.

“As someone said, Mi-8s did pretty well in kargil until MANPADS were around, but even if they had some Mi-24s back then or Apaches or Cobras, they would’ve also gone down because of MANPADS.”

Please do some research on India’s operations in the Kargil or better yet the equipment they had in service before the war or to make it easier check out the helicopters they sent to Sri Lanka in the 1980s….

“Look at this scenario. Would your military have(you also have 5 Uh-60s to escort)
(lets say each F-16C/D, Apache costs 50mn, the AH-6J costs 5mn) 1) 10 F-16C/Ds(AF), 5 AH-6Js, 5 Predators=550mn Reserve 7 F-16C/Ds for Air Superiority, 3 for Interdiction + Helicopter Hunting on enemy, The AH-6Js for escorting Uh-60s, and the 5 Predators each at 5 mn for recoinassance and such. 2) 5 F-16C/Ds, 6 Apaches/8 Cobras(lets just say)=550mn 5 F-16C/Ds for all the Work for Air Superiority which I am gona need everyone of them + i’ll be at a disadvantage, I got 6 Apaches for CAS + for escort or if it makes you feel better 8 Cobras then. I have to reserve some for CAS and some for escort.”

You know the nations which actually buy AH-64s don’t have to make that call in terms of money…

And if you look at it people might as well go back to using F-51Ds rather then the F-16 as you can get a lot of F-51Ds for the price of a F-16A… think like 100 F-51Ds rather then a expensive F-16A… or the USA should cancel the F/A-22A and buy J-7PGs becuase they could get say 60 J-7PGs for the price of one F/A-22A… makes a lot of sense…. right…. ?????

“Remember Somalia, it was the Little Birds escorting UH-60s onto ****load of Small Arms fire. There were no need for bigger Attack Helicopters there.”

You’re basing your thoeries on a movie?

“True, I think an AH-6J can do this job.”

You think? Notice why the USA uses the AH-64 as their standard attack helicopter and not the AH-6J… Israel relegated their MD-500s to trainers after real attack helicopters showed up…

But to settle this one… a lot of nations use dedicated armed/armored attack helicopters such as the AH-64, Mi-24/Mi-25/Mi-35, AH-1 and so forth (dozens and dozens and the list is growing and not getting smaller) but none have thought about replacing them with trainers armed with laser guided bombs…

You also might want to look into why the dedicated armed attack helicopter came into service in the first place…

“An even cheaper substitute is something like the Super Tucano/PC-21, which can operate from short unprepared airfields. Arm it with weapons like Paveway series LGBs, KAB-250(GPS or Laser), JDAM(modified to hit moving targets), Brimstone, Hermes, SDB, and WHATEVER and give it some UAV support, FLIR or whatever and let it hit armoured tank columns from medium altitude”

Propeller driven trainers were not safe in 1969 to fly into areas that had real trash-fire defenses and I would venture they still are not. Yeah they can do the job on people with nothing better then rifle caliber GPMGs and pistols pointed in the air but once there are real defenses like radar assisted AAA and MANPADs they are not the best tool for the job. Defenses have only gotten better since 1969 such as improved man portable surface to air missiles. Add that to rather slow speeds, less defensive systems and a smaller payload then a real combat air plane…and you get something suited to bombing people running around with SMLEs and not tanks backed up with AAA defenses….

And of course helicopters seem to work so much better for expeditionary warfare and anti tank duties compared to propeller driven planes. Well not only can the helicopter make good use of terrain but they can operate many places such as off the deck of an amphi ship unlike a trainer. The damage suffered to Apaches in OIF was due to tactics used by the crews. The USMC moved while shooting and did much better in terms of getting shot to pieces with RPG-7s.

For what it is worth I would take super sonic fighter bombers like the F-16 or Mirage 2000 and attack helicopters like the AH-1, AH-64 (and others) to take out a tank column as my first picks….

Flex let me get…

Slovenia PC-9
Yugoslavian F-86
Afghan Il-28, MiG21, Su-22 and some derelict planes as well
Iraqi Il-28
Indonesia Il-28
Thailand A-7 and F-86
Turkish F-86
Kenya hawk
Nigerian MiG-21
Tanzanian J-7 or MiG-21
Kazakhstan MiG-21

“current MiG-29N is wired for R-77 and the future MKM will be able to mount the same AAM. But, induction of the R-77 in Malaysia will make neighbouring countries like Singapore and Thailand to bring in the AMRAAM in their country too, creating arm race around that region. As far as I know, there is no R-77 yet in Malaysia.”

To late for that…

“I don’t see why they’re bothering with the bug or super bug. For the money you pay for the Super bug,”

For a carrot for the SH America is offering the AIM-120 and such…

Taiwan had an excellent one on offer, probably the best. It has to use the GD-53, Tien Chien II and Tien Chien I and still be able to use AGM-65s and guided bombs. The ROCAF decided not to pick it up. Too bad because that would have given it an excellent multi role ability.

Thailand has a good upgrade with the LITENING II and having the wings strengthened to use GBU-10s. It has dropped GBU-10s in actual combat. They canceled a radar upgrade for money issues.

Turkey’s F-5A/B upgrades are for LIFT roles.

Singapore did the Grifo-S upgrade with reports of a Dash HMS, Python Mk-4 and of course the AIM-120.

Indonesia did the F-5E/F MACAN upgrade with the APG-69 radar and fitted it out for the AIM-9L and AGM-65G.

Chile’s has the M-2032, Python Mk-4 and Derby (soon enough) which gives it a very capable air to air ability.

So it would be down to Singapore and Chile.