phil hunt wrote:

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 08:58:49 -0700, 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.


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. These days a lot can be donev with simulators;
the UK has the JOUST simulator hookup which links 8 simulators
together allowing multi-pilot simulated dogfights; presumably this
is useful in developing tactics.


The reality is, these airplanes are to be used on the local population
when they get fractious.


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


You would think that. They spend the up front money, they should pay
for the training. It dosn't actually work that way.

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. They aren't interested in a military that actually shoots
at a forign enemy. The best trained and highest motived part of the
army is usually the praetorian gard. (like the Republlican Guard of Iraq)

An effective air force requires intense training and independent
thinkers. In most dictitorial regeims, independent thinkers have their
independent thinking apparatus blown out.

The history of all Israel's wars shows that the Arab leaders fear their
air forces more than they fear Israel's. This usually means that within
the first day of a way the IAF is busy shooting up the opposing
airforces on the ground, and the remainer of the war Israel has the
skies to itself.

This may also be the reason why regeims such as this devote so much of
their budget to SAM missles. A missle dosn't give back chat, and it is
the only way to stop the IAF after the air force gets blown up on the
tarmac.


--
Wherever there is a jackboot stepping on a human face, there will be a
well-heeled Western liberal there to assure us that the face enjoys free
health care and a high degree of literacy.\
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^\
John Derbyshire

http://www.aracnet.com/~reynard/blogbog.htm}