Impact of Eurofighters in the Middle East

On 13 Sep 2003 04:51:07 -0700, Quant wrote:
(Jack White) wrote

I'm not an air force expert but it is clear from your post that
neither do you. Lets post your claims at rec.aviation.military and
watch the replies.

[I'm not an expert either, but I'll wade in nevertheless...]

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.

The Eurofighter Typhoon has the Meteor Mach4+ Ramjet Powered air to
air BVR missiles with OVER 100km range.

It will have in the future; currently Meteor is still under
development.

So? The US AIM-54 is operative for many years now and has a range of
at least 135 km.

That's a theoretical range; what's a typical engagement range, and
what's the furthest range it's been successfully fired at?

Bear in mind that planes under attack aren't going to just sit
there. They could run away, hoping to outrange the missile. Or the
could manouvre. Or use electronic countermeasures. If the missile
depends on a radar from the firing aircraft illuminating the target,
the target aircraft can fire a missile of its own, to make the
firing aircraft turn away and stop illuminating (obviously this
won't work for fire-and-forget missiles). The target aircraft can
also fire flares to confuse IR-homing missiles, or trailing pod to
give a false radar image (the Typhoon does this; I'm not sure if
any other fighters do).

Some people have suggested that a defending aircraft could fire a
laser beam to confuse/destroy the sensors in a missile.

Why do you think that future American or Israeli made
missiles won't have those capabilities? Why do you think that in the
tiny Israeli airspace medium/long range missiles are more important
than short range ones?

Clearly, if there was a long-range missile that was immune to all
those countermeasures, it would be very useful. Then again, the
ability to turn lead into gold woulds be useful too.

In the past, people removed guns from fighters, claiming
they'll never be used because all engagements would be long range.
This prediction turned out to be false, and the guns were put back
in. (incidently, the RAF's Typhoons won't have a gun, but the other
countries' variants will).

Israel clearly has superiority in the short
range. Also, successful tactics, good pilots and electronic measures
and counter measures are very important.

Good pilots are probably the single most important factor.

While Israel will know the
exact characteristics of the systems Saudi Arabia and Egypt will have

Why?

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.

The Eurofighter Typhoon has the capability to destroy F-15Is and
F-16Is before the F-15I or F-16I even knows that the Eurofighter
Typhoon is there.

This may or may not be the case. Typhoon is almost certainly a
better plane than the F-15 or F-16; it's more manouvrable, has a
better thrust-to-weight ratio, can supercruise, is partially
stealthed, and has better avionics making the pilot's job easier.
However, until it has seen combat, it's to early to say
definitievely what its capabilities are.

The info will probably come from early warning systems. Israel is
relying upon its own early warning systems while Saudi Arabia and
Egypt will have to rely upon inferior systems, unless the US will sell
its best technology to these Arab countries

Or unless the Europeans do.

(and I doubt it will
happen). and again, electronic measures and counter measures are
important here and Israel's own industry gives it the technological
superiority over its neighbors.

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? 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.

The F-22 Raptor is the only aircraft that performs better than the
Eurofighter Typhoon in an air superiority capacity.
From what I've read I don't think even the JSF is up to the
Eurofighter Typhoon's level in the air superiority role.

The JSF isn't designed to be a pure air superiority aircraft, it's,
as its name suggests, designed to be multi-role.

The JSF would certainly be a huge improvement for Israel over F-15Is
and F-16Is though.
An Israeli pilot plus a JSF would probably be
better than a Saudi Pilot with a Eurofighter Typhoon, but with equal
pilots, ONLY the F-22 Raptor is better than the Eurofighter Typhoon
from what I've read.

This may well be right; certainly the DERA study suggests it is.

Summing this subject I think that none of us could answer the
hypothetical question about air force superiority in the Middle East
in case the Arabs will have Eurofighters.

There are lots of hypotheticals. For example, if SA is buying
Eurofighters they will also probably buy an anti-runway cruise
missile in the Apache / SCALP / Storm Shadow family, which might
enable them to shut down Israeli airbases.

It is clear though that the Egyptian army, and maybe also the Saudi
Army pose a real threat on Israel. This is not new.

My understanding is the Saudi army is rather small. Dunno about the
Egyptian army.

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