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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 13, 2016 20:53:31 GMT -6
The real answer that you and I agree on is that there are alternatives, and they should and are exploring them. With both the French and British designing and building carriers, why not go with those two. They have to get away from relying on our carrier force in the Indian Ocean to protect them. One of the days, we are not going to be there, on a permanent basis. Now what? Well, the Indians have never exactly "relied" on us to protect them - in fact, back in 1971 we deployed Enterprise to the IO as a show of force against the Indian Navy's blockade of then-East Pakistan, which was led by their carrier INS Vikrant. During the Cold War, they were more closely aligned with the Soviets while we supported Pakistan. The recent cooperation with the US on defense matters really only began in the past fifteen years with the Afghanistan War, Pakistan's instability, and the rise of the PRC. They've had their own carrier force since the 1960s, which was trained and equipped by the British. The Brits are building two new carriers, although that's been full of hiccups and those are STOVL designs with no catapults or arresting wires. The French originally planned to cooperate with the UK in building a third CATOBAR ship for themselves on a similar hull, but budget cuts and disagreements over the design caused the French to back out (France wanted nuclear propulsion, and the British QEs are gas-turbine designs). Last I checked, France had canceled any new carrier plans for the foreseeable future. India in the meantime is focusing on building its own ships these days; they have a new 40,000-ton STOBAR carrier fitting out for commissioning in 2018-2019 and are in the early stages of designing a 60,000-ton CATOBAR carrier. Given that their domestic shipbuilding industry is also turning out destroyers, frigates, and subs (both nuclear and conventional) it seems they are intent on moving away from buying export hulls. Now they just need to either buy or build some decent airplanes for them; the MiG-29K and HAL Tejas aren't going to cut it. Well, that was then, this is now. The geopolitical situation has changed drastically in almost 50 years. East Pakistan is now Bangladesh, Russia can barely keep her fleet afloat and the best she can do, is the eastern Mediterranean. India has grown economically and politically. She and the other states bordering the Indian Ocean must cooperate and protect their trade routes and littoral zones. Their best aid is from the US and Europe. They must protect the area against the encroachment of the Chinese Navy. The real issue isn't the carriers or the birds, its the support of destroyers, cruisers and submarines. They must have plenty of these ships in support or those carriers will be just targets. The carriers she is having designed and built are just for projection of power and are not of much use to her, frankly. You cannot project power with two carriers. One will be in port while the other is at sea. She does need better aircraft, the Russian aircraft are sorry excuses for carrier aircraft. On the whole, the Indian's are world power want-to-be in my opinion. They still have unrest at home in certain sectors so she should focus on that, not building carriers she can't afford nor operate.
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Post by steel selachian on Aug 29, 2016 18:20:55 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 30, 2016 8:36:28 GMT -6
Actually, their reasoning is correct, if you are not up against an air force with air to air capability, why risk your best missiles on those aircraft. If you lose one, then the west gets a look at the missile. I suspect there is an economic issue besides, probably don't have the funding to buy more missiles.
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Post by steel selachian on Aug 30, 2016 19:34:44 GMT -6
We have used the same reasoning at least early on in Syria - Super Hornets were spotted carrying AIM-7M Sparrows in the early stages of the conflict. I believe that's changed since the Russians entered the picture there.
That said, these days SARH-guided AAMs like the AIM-7 and R-27 are no longer front-line weapons. It's one thing to elect not to equip weapons like the AIM-120 or R-77 in a low-threat environment. It's another to a) not use them when you've already lost one aircraft that flew into defended airspace and are outnumbered by fighters that might turn hostile in a bad situation, and b) not procure enough of them to go around on your front-line combat squadrons. Additionally, as far as I know the R-77 has never gotten a combat test; better to work out the kinks of carrying and possibly using those things in a low-threat environment than go up against a capable adversary and find they're bugged. We deployed a limited number of AIM-120s in the first Gulf War (none were actually fired) and the majority of the weapon's kills since have been in circumstances where it could arguably have been left at home. Heck, in the 1990s we had F-14s carrying Phoenixes over the No-Fly Zones in Iraq, which was gross overkill.
Given that as previously discussed the Indians found half their export-model R-77-AEs to be defective, it may be questionable whether the few weapons the Russians do have will even work as advertised.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 30, 2016 21:35:12 GMT -6
We have used the same reasoning at least early on in Syria - Super Hornets were spotted carrying AIM-7M Sparrows in the early stages of the conflict. I believe that's changed since the Russians entered the picture there. That said, these days SARH-guided AAMs like the AIM-7 and R-27 are no longer front-line weapons. It's one thing to elect not to equip weapons like the AIM-120 or R-77 in a low-threat environment. It's another to a) not use them when you've already lost one aircraft that flew into defended airspace and are outnumbered by fighters that might turn hostile in a bad situation, and b) not procure enough of them to go around on your front-line combat squadrons. Additionally, as far as I know the R-77 has never gotten a combat test; better to work out the kinks of carrying and possibly using those things in a low-threat environment than go up against a capable adversary and find they're bugged. We deployed a limited number of AIM-120s in the first Gulf War (none were actually fired) and the majority of the weapon's kills since have been in circumstances where it could arguably have been left at home. Heck, in the 1990s we had F-14s carrying Phoenixes over the No-Fly Zones in Iraq, which was gross overkill. Given that as previously discussed the Indians found half their export-model R-77-AEs to be defective, it may be questionable whether the few weapons the Russians do have will even work as advertised. I agree with you up to a point. We did the very same thing in the two Iraq wars. We used older missiles in a mixed load with AIM-120's because we didn't have enough for a full load and did not expect much opposition. I agree that testing in combat is the best way to find out problems. We didn't figure out the problems with the AIM-7 until we took it to Vietnam and then the problems became apparent. As to the question of the export versions of the R-77, the Russian's are notorious for providing inferior versions of their weapons. However, we did the same to Iran with the F-14's.
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Post by steel selachian on Sept 5, 2016 19:42:34 GMT -6
Interesting piece, although we had plenty of other sources on Soviet weapons. The USAF had a nice little collection of MiG-21s and MiG-23s to play with by the 1980s. Probably a few grains of salt in this. warisboring.com/the-man-who-ruined-the-soviet-warplane-industry-b1bd3527e508#.6pa7n48ny"Well-informed Iraqi and Libyan sources counter this impression, insisting that their air forces possessed modern equipment operated by well-trained and skilled officers and pilots." - yeah, I'm calling BS on that. I'm sure they looked very nice and could fly in formation during parades, but the Soviets did give them monkey-model export equipment and they sure as hell didn't have Red Flag or Top Gun.
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Post by steel selachian on Nov 1, 2016 19:46:36 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Nov 2, 2016 7:58:15 GMT -6
It's an interesting video of simple maneuvers, but the real test is, can it fly and hit targets with its weapons systems? That's the real test as you and I know. It's great for air shows to show the flag and impress visitors and their people. But how will it perform is only a guess. Thanks for posting it, it is fun to watch.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2016 4:34:15 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Nov 3, 2016 6:45:33 GMT -6
Excellent, I love these kinds of videos. Did you notice the FOD walk behind the bird on the deck? Also, the LHA was not moving very fast during the video.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2016 8:58:00 GMT -6
Excellent, I love these kinds of videos. Did you notice the FOD walk behind the bird on the deck? Also, the LHA was not moving very fast during the video. There's tons of them vids on the tube. Airbase ops, refueling cams are apparently most common. Youtube ala "media", one of the new century's biggest commercial success:D However, a good, well made video, is still quite rare. last one i really liked www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEN7VklmtUYcan't wait to see le frog fully kitted out like the F-16 today does.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Nov 9, 2016 17:21:46 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Nov 14, 2016 19:38:22 GMT -6
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Post by steel selachian on Nov 14, 2016 20:13:09 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Nov 14, 2016 20:46:06 GMT -6
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