Military AircrewA forum for the professionals who fly the non-civilian hardware, and the backroom boys and girls without whom nothing would leave the ground. Army, Navy and Airforces of the World, all equally welcome here.
Why didn't anyone tell me before, Mister B? So NATO is us, The USA and China, right? Anyway, luckily, I mistakenly said
"Iran joins NATO. Israel and the US bomb them. The rest of NATO is obliged to retaliate"
Note the accidental use of the word REST. So I need to adapt my new scenario in light of this new intelligence:
Arab League sanctions Iran. Iran applies to join NATO, EU and Euro zone and is accepted because it puts in the lowest bid to build the UK's new generation of nuclear plant AND the Trident replacement. Israel and the US bomb Iran because they need a war that can give quicker results than the previous two in order to push through their Defense (sic) spending bill. The REST of NATO is obliged to retaliate (an attack against one is an attack against all). We're at war. UK surrenders to the US so we're all effectively POWs, and the country is annexed. US has to pick up our national debt and everything is rosy.
You see, all that staff training was worthwhile in the end, you just forgot the detail...
When you say "the rest of NATO", does that include Germany and France? That new scenario is taking shape; I just hope that they don't make us drink Dr Pepper and eat maple syrup on our eggs over easy or SoS - cruel and unusual punishment.:
So get used to the Euro, sausages and that awful cabbage stuff now. Oh, dear. Next you'll be telling me our bombers and fighters will be made in Germany too!!! Now that would be stupid.
Don't forget the pig knuckle and furry tennis ball with gravy; all washed down with a quite reasonable selection of yellow beer (other types of beverage are available). Actually, some of the red cabbage dishes aren't too bad - similar to Delia's spicy recipe in her Christmas (or is it winter?) cookbook.
Mister B, my father didn't die in three world wars so we could all go around eating cabbage. Actually, I might have to give them the pig knuckle. It was very good in the German (presumably West German) Club at Deci. Hey, this plan is looking up.
Then google "iran air defences" & look at the Wikepedia entries. Their air force is outdated but large & I would suggest that due to denial of spares, the US supplied A/C are mainly grounded. However, they have a large number of Soviet supplied MIG's that could pose real problems to an Israeli/US air assault. But they have invested heavily in very potent Surface to Air Missiles with state of the art C&C systems.
The UK is now not even a 3rd world country militarily - we rank near the bottom...
The UK has NO medium to long range missile defence whatsover. Having been out of the services since 1997 I have no idea whether the Army or RAF Regt still have Rapier (only good to about 8nm)?
We have no A/C capable of long range bombing without a complex/risky & highly expensive AAR tanker trail. We have no A/C Carrier's anymore & the nuclear submarine fleet is totally dependant on US supplies/maintenance of the outdated Trident missiles. That is where the US want us to be - with second generation "cast-off nuclear missiles", & at their beck & call as to spares/maintenance - which they can refuse anytime.
This is why France, Israel, India, South Africa & Pakistan decided decades ago to develop their own nuclear weapons programs & go it alone.
To put it bluntly, the sucessive goverments from the 70's have a lot to answer for. Each one has made enormous cuts to the defence budget (to protect us all!) in favour of paying hundreds (& in many cases, thousands) of pounds a week to MILLIONS of feckless, ignoramouses who would rather sit watching daytime TV than get a job.
So, to you great people who risk your live's every day for peanuts, do you think that what you are doing makes any sense, to be paid a Central London Traffic Warden's salary to do a highly sensitive & complex photo analysts intelligence job?
Then google "iran air defences" & look at the Wikepedia entries. Their air force is outdated but large & I would suggest that due to denial of spares, the US supplied A/C are mainly grounded. However, they have a large number of Soviet supplied MIG's that could pose real problems to an Israeli/US air assault. But they have invested heavily in very potent Surface to Air Missiles with state of the art C&C systems.
The UK is now not even a 3rd world country militarily - we rank near the bottom...
The UK has NO medium to long range missile defence whatsover. Having been out of the services since 1997 I have no idea whether the Army or RAF Regt still have Rapier (only good to about 8nm)?
We have no A/C capable of long range bombing without a complex/risky & highly expensive AAR tanker trail. We have no A/C Carrier's anymore & the nuclear submarine fleet is totally dependant on US supplies/maintenance of the outdated Trident missiles. That is where the US want us to be - with second generation "cast-off nuclear missiles", & at their beck & call as to spares/maintenance - which they can refuse anytime.
This is why France, Israel, India, South Africa & Pakistan decided decades ago to develop their own nuclear weapons programs & go it alone.
To put it bluntly, the sucessive goverments from the 70's have a lot to answer for. Each one has made enormous cuts to the defence budget (to protect us all!) in favour of paying hundreds (& in many cases, thousands) of pounds a week to MILLIONS of feckless, ignoramouses who would rather sit watching daytime TV than get a job.
So, to you great people who risk your live's every day for peanuts, do you think that what you are doing makes any sense, to be paid a Central London Traffic Warden's salary to do a highly sensitive & complex photo analysts intelligence job?
Didn't Iraq have lots of Sov fighter types back in 1991?
Don't forget N Korea in that nuclear club - we expect them to pitch in after midnight on 15 Dec to get Apocalygeddon rolling; only 8 and a bit days to go now, the tension is rising.
Anyhow, some daytime telly is quite good - watched an afternoon programme the other day that kept me enthralled...Wales vs Autralia.
Yes, Mister B. They've got a lot of helos. Actually they have quite a lot of FJ airframes, but a lot are wrecks. Also, remember that Iran is a massive country with only 14 Tactical Air Bases (and some auxilliary airfields). So not much in the way of contemporary air and a huge chunk of airspace to cover.
Radar is another problem. Again a big space to cover. I don't think I can report any AWACS, athough there was talk about getting one from Russia - don't think it happened. Possibly a VHF, anti-stealth radar, but how much can one cover?
Thinking about SAMs, long range systems are located through the centre of the country and in the West - SA2 and SA5. Tactical systems are positioned, as you would expect, around strategic and population centres - mainly S200 and Hawk (yes, US sold them, they've kept them going).
There are one or two modern things, but...
That'll be Iran's high tech modern air force then.
had an interesting experience a few years back, flying Swissair to Bombay overnight. The cabin crew had insisted we pull down the blinds, but a bit later I lifted mine. As we crossed the border into Iran an F-14 passed directly over our starboard wing, in the reverse direction. At a best guess 20 feet above, 70 feet away from the fuselage. The Swissair pilot didn't flinch and our flight continued with no change in direction. Next morning as we left I asked one of the pilots about it. He totally denied it had happened
