Israel blamed for piracy of Russian vessel

[Mediocrates]

I haven't looked at them. I tend to focus more on production anomalies for in service equipment. AFAIK FGFA is pre proof of concept. My personal take on it is that 5-gen will be the last front line manned fighters that modern states develop and the performance specs for front line UCAV will blow them out of the water (or the air as it were). Russia can dump tons of cash to play catch up to the F-22 but since the F-22 is already curtailed I can promise you that fully autonomous UCAV with air superiority flight performance is not that far away.

[bararallu]

Would you know ballpark what the upfront and lifecycle cost delta would be between say a f22 and comparable UCAV (not built yet obviously)?. I would gather that safety, additional lift, and human UI would be a serious addition to the equation.

All this talk about UCAVs I cant imagine that there aren't heated discussions in the IDF/IAF whether to forgo maned flight at all, bombing first and foremost. Is the limitation satellite access, electronic countermeasures?

On the subjetc, when do you think we will see fully autonomous UCAVs? In the sense of targeting and fire control autonomy?

[Mediocrates]

F-22s we know have about 2x the ground maintenance time per flight hour as an F-16. Similar to a B2b Spirit. The main problems are stealth coating maintenance, moisture management in and around the flight control surface electro controls and the engines tend to run hotter which stresses the turbines more. But let's face facts at $120 million a copy and 2 million dollars in pilot training we tend to take that stuff pretty seriously. A UCAV that costs $25 million bucks and can't kill a pilot, we might just fly the crap out of them until they fall out of the sky. I would have to guess that the basic components of ground maintenance are the same-materiel-wise. On the other hand I bet the flight computers need a great deal more tweaking and will probably fail frequently in the initial offerings. If the Navy elects to develop the UF-47 type UCAV, there are going to be a great deal of unknowns in carrier operations; salt water maintenance, landing crashes, designing a catapult-able or STOL airframe strong enough to hold together and fly. And did I mention that mid air refueling is also a bottom line requirement? But on the whole, I would guestimate that ground maintenance for a production UCAV is half what a corresponding 5-Gen manned fighter is on a totals hours per flight hour basis spread out over the lifecycle.

[bararallu]

1/2 ha? Add to that that active tech stealth is 10 years off and materials for passive tech will improve pretty dramatically as we get our nano/pico lasers (= basically modern day alchemy right?) from science into technology, then it would be an immense savings for the life cycle. I would predict that people are going to hold off on massive requisitions and blame things on the economy, but realistically wait for the new entries. Israel has no business buying foreign here. They have a lot of back ground in the space we should build a fleet.

[Mediocrates]

Russia trying to offload some surplus MiG-31Ms

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htp.../20090906.aspx


Keeping in mind that the 31 is a long range interceptor, not a super dog fighter, with limited look-down-shoot-down, essentially a long range stand-off platform.

[wat0n]

Now the BBC is reporting that some guy close to the Israeli intelligence community said that Israel did intercept the ship:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8247273.stm

[Mediocrates]

hmmm unnamed sources talking about a non existent cargo of the highest security importance, to the Beeb, about Israel.

Yeah that stinks of credibility.

[Mil]

Israelis hitting on Russian mafia.... that's freaking embarrassing. But Russians actually like Israelis.

[Sanket]

Now the BBC is reporting that some guy close to the Israeli intelligence community said that Israel did intercept the ship:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8247273.stm

My head is spinning with all these news.

[Sanket]

Things are changing faster than i imagined.

[Kachah]

The theory of a Russian cargo ship secretly loaded with the S-300 destined for Iran and/or Syria at least is not controversial. The vessel was being "serviced" in Kaliningrad giving plenty of time for the Russians to get their toys aboard clandestinely.
It does after all make sense for Israel to "alert" the Russian officials as to give them the escape route pretending it's some "bad officers" illiegaly trading arms "unaurthorized" by the Putin establishment. Yet the load hasn't made its way to its destination, mission accomplished.
What was Netaniahu doing in Moscow over his secret trip (and was there the trip itself)? Timewise the connection is undeniable.
The idea of piracy in the Baltcis is quite laughable, next thing it will probably be the piracy in Geneva Lake or in The Thames.

[wat0n]

Does Iran already have S-300 missiles? I thought Croatia sold them some... Any confirmation?

Is it legal for Russia to sell those missiles to Iran (ie are they considered as a weapon for a mainly defensive use?)

[Kachah]

Oh, it's legal (and if it is not I don't think it'll make any difference in the context of Russia's mid-Eastern plans). I can even imagine this whole circus totally orchestrated and played by the Russians to give some credibility to the hints that Iran IS ALREADY in posesseion of the advanced SAM systems and deter any potential strike force (like IAF or USAF) from taking any decisive action. It definitely sits well with the Russian idea of nurturing Iran to its nuclear anti-American maturity (and anti-Israeli as a side effect).

Where would Croatia get them from, though, they are fairly new... regardless, I don't think Croatia with its EU aspirations would risk selling this stuff to Iran.

[Sanket]

What was Netaniahu doing in Moscow over his secret trip (and was there the trip itself)? Timewise the connection is undeniable.

Couple of treaties were signed.

Something has changed between US-Iran Relations and Israel is not happy with it. That's the info i got from my Chaiwalla (The info might be wrong).

[Kachah]

Couple of treaties were signed.

Something has changed between US-Iran Relations and Israel is not happy with it.

It's no rocket science, shravan. What's changed was widely televized all over the world - a President with common sense and responsibility had been replaced by a naive socialist lunatic (or worse, a socialist lunatic with an agenda). THe people who are rallying in DC today against his idiotic medical doctrine have got it spot on - hammer and sickle are now going to be the tools of trade.
Buck Ofama, that's what changed.