Impact of Eurofighters in the Middle East

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 18:14:03 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:
Steven DeMonnin wrote:

The real Asymmetry is in the quality of the pilots. I don't know the
Israeli training tempo, but I read a piece by Victor Hanson that said it
was comparable to the US training tempo, and that most dictatorial
states have a training regimen that is about 5% of the time the US
devotes to its pilots. In military training, marginal quantitative
difference can lead to huge qualitative differences.

Not to mention ,of course, the ground troops maintaining the planes.

Those brand new Eurofighters are going to be combat-effective for a
month, maybe two, and if they go into a heavy training regimen, it'll be
shorter than that.

And since they'll be "new" planes, they're going to have the normal
teething problems, without a good crew to do the updates and fixes that
any plane suffers off of the assemby line.

If Israel buys a counter to the Typhoon -- say Typhoons themselves,
or F-35, or F/A-22, then they too will have the same teething
troubles.

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On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 15:44:56 -0400, Peter Kemp peter_n_kempathotmaildotcom wrote:
On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 13:19:35 -0600, Scott Ferrin
wrote:

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 11:56:58 -0400, Peter Kemp
peter_n_kempathotmaildotcom wrote:

Python 4 is indeed supposed to be very good. Now look up ASRAAM, which
is a handy little performer itself.

Let's not forget the recently announced Python 5.

Indeed, although IIRC the 5 is basically a 4 with a staring array
(please correct me if my memory's going).

Yes. Python 5 is new guidance system, same everything else.

ASRAAM already has the
staring array.

Python 5 is said to have 100 degree off-boresight aquisition, and
lock on after launch which IIRC ASRAAM doesn't have.

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On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 20:22:07 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:
In article ,
(phil hunt) wrote:

Presumably, if Egypt and Saudi Arabia were prepared to pay large
amounts of money for Typhoons, they would also be prepared to pay
for pilot training.

Not from past history. The Saudis are notoriously bad at enforcing
training their pilots.

Any reason why? I mean, it doesn't make any sense to me.

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On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 22:31:02 +0100, Paul J. Adam wrote:

No, it's cheaper and easier to maintain than the F/A-22.

Pretty much anything's cheaper than the F/A-22. I wonder if it costs
more than its weight in gold.

(Notice the
hasty redesignation? This aircraft can carry two 1000lb bombs, it's a
mighty attack platform!

Indeed. Maybe it fooled a few congressmen.

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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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On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 15:35:52 -0700, Steven DeMonnin wrote:

I doubt it. If Saudi Arabia just wanted to prevent rebellions, they
could have bought something a lot cheaper than the F-15.

That article I referenced (If I could find it, I would post it.) made
the point that dictitorial regeimes (not specificly middle eastern
regeimes, this applies to all regiems of this type) have a different
military with a different objective than the militaries of the
democratic states. The military is mostly used to keep the most volitle
part of the population (single unemployed males under 25) under close
supervision.

Given the small size of the Saudi army, I don't think that can be
true.

They aren't interested in a military that actually shoots
at a forign enemy.

There are counterexamples, e.g. Nazi Germany.


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In article ,
(phil hunt) wrote:

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 18:14:03 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

And since they'll be "new" planes, they're going to have the normal
teething problems, without a good crew to do the updates and fixes that
any plane suffers off of the assemby line.

If Israel buys a counter to the Typhoon -- say Typhoons themselves,
or F-35, or F/A-22, then they too will have the same teething
troubles.

But the Israelis actually have a decent cadre of flightline troops who
can fix and/or modify the planes when that happens. The Saudis, most
definitely, do *not*.

And a month down the road, or six months down the road, right when the
Israelis are getting their into decent shape, the Saudis (or the
Egyptians, or whoever) will be trying to figure out what systems to
ignore in order to call them "mission capable."

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In article ,
(phil hunt) wrote:

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 20:22:07 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:
In article ,
(phil hunt) wrote:

Presumably, if Egypt and Saudi Arabia were prepared to pay large
amounts of money for Typhoons, they would also be prepared to pay
for pilot training.

Not from past history. The Saudis are notoriously bad at enforcing
training their pilots.

Any reason why? I mean, it doesn't make any sense to me.

Look, for example, at every other Arab military unit in the Middle East.

What makes you think the Saudi Air Force will suddenly be any different?

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Slam on brakes accordingly.

Chad Irby wrote in message . com...
In article ,
(phil hunt) wrote:

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 20:22:07 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:
In article ,
(phil hunt) wrote:

Presumably, if Egypt and Saudi Arabia were prepared to pay large
amounts of money for Typhoons, they would also be prepared to pay
for pilot training.

Not from past history. The Saudis are notoriously bad at enforcing
training their pilots.

Any reason why? I mean, it doesn't make any sense to me.

Look, for example, at every other Arab military unit in the Middle East.



btw, the Jordanian pilots are said to be well trained and tough opponents.


What makes you think the Saudi Air Force will suddenly be any different?

On Sun, 14 Sep 2003 02:47:23 +0100, (phil hunt)
wrote:

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 15:44:56 -0400, Peter Kemp peter_n_kempathotmaildotcom wrote:
On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 13:19:35 -0600, Scott Ferrin
wrote:

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 11:56:58 -0400, Peter Kemp
peter_n_kempathotmaildotcom wrote:

Python 4 is indeed supposed to be very good. Now look up ASRAAM, which
is a handy little performer itself.

Let's not forget the recently announced Python 5.

Indeed, although IIRC the 5 is basically a 4 with a staring array
(please correct me if my memory's going).

Yes. Python 5 is new guidance system, same everything else.

Ta for confirming that.

ASRAAM already has the
staring array.

Python 5 is said to have 100 degree off-boresight aquisition, and
lock on after launch which IIRC ASRAAM doesn't have.

ASRAAM does have LOAL, and it's off boresight is 90 degrees. How much
difference the extra 10 degrees would make is not something I could
estimate, but presumably with LOAL you could still "fire over the
shoulder" and have a chance of it still getting a kill (as you could
with the Python 4/5).

Peter Kemp