On 13 Sep 2003 15:57:53 -0700, Quant wrote:
The Eurofighter Typhoon will give the Saudi Armed Forces the
capability maintain air superiority over any country in the Middle
East including Israel.

Hang, on, who's saying thre Saudis are buying the Typhoon? If they
are, I haven't heard of it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2274194.stm

That report is a year old.

BAE Systems has denied a report that it is in talks with Saudi Arabia
about the sale of Typhoon Eurofighter jets.

If they're denying it, it must be true! :-)

(Just like when the PM tells everyone a minister "has his full
support", you know the guy will shortly be sacked).

The Observer newspaper said that the company was in talks with Saudi
Arabia about the sale of 50 jets in a deal worth at least £1.5bn
($2.3bn).

I think 50 Eurofighters would set the Saudis back considerably more
than that. Austria are paying EUR 62 m each, which works out at GBP
2.183 bn for 50. And then you have to add weapons, spares, training,
etc.

And the paper added that Saudi Arabia might make some of the payments
for the jets through oil shipments, similar to the al-Yamamah
oil-for-arms deal struck in the 1980s.

Plausible.

Elbit systems (Israel) already have such an operative system, but
people in this NG suggested that appropriate modification to the
missiles can neutralize this system.

You could home in on the laser beam, for example.

and would fit its planes with appropriate counter measures, the Saudis
won't have a clue about Israel's unique technological modifications
because Israel is doing a lot of those modifications itself.

I don't see why SA and Egypt couldn't make modifications ot their
aircraft too, even if they don't have a large electronics industry.

Israel for example can develop a special decoy to deal with specific
system it knows the Arabs have. Israel could develop measures to
disrupt specific communications.

The Arabs could re-write parts of the software, to make the systems
behave differently.

The Arabs doesn't have an electronic industry at all. Not even a small
one.

You don't need one to write software. I bet a lot of modern avionics
these days is FPGAs and other programmable chips which are kinda
like software (in the sense that you don't need a massive
capital-intensive industry to make changes).

I doubt if Israel's electronics industry is better than Europe's;
Europe's is certainly a lot bigger. And size counts: how many
models of anti-aircraft missile does Israel produce?

Python 5 and Derby. The US is using Israel's ITALD. US and many
European countries use Israel's litening syustem. Elbit will develop
and produce the JSF HMD, etc. It's true that Israel's industry is
smaller but many of its products are the best in the world.

Hmm. If Israel's aviation industry is so good, how come they
couldn't develop the Lavi, but Sweden, with a similar population
(and probably smaller development budget) could develop the Gripen?

I'm willing to beleive that Israel makes competent military kit. I'm
not willing to beleive that Israeli kit is consistently better than
the best European kit. Israelis are humans, not supermen.

Europe produces
more variety. So even if the best Israeli missile is better than a
typical European one, it might not be better than the best European
one.

Europe doesn't develop measures especially to counter Israeli weapons.

That's true, and a good point. Typhoon (and much other European kit)
was designed to counter the USSR, specifically the MiG-29.

But the USSR doesn't exist any more. Defence contractors (*like
other businesses) make what people will buy. Al Yamammah was one of
the biggest defence contracts ever -- who says BAE or MBDA won't
make kit to counter israeli weapons in future?

Israel is devloping measures especially to counter weapons that Arabs
are buying.

Indeed true.

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