Originally Posted by
tonker
How can a country with a population of only 10 million people crew a thousand combat aircraft, when we a country of approx 70 million struggle to crew 200?
They decided it was important enough to devote resources to being able to do that, at the cost of other choices.
Also, they have land borders abutting countries filled with people who want to kill them all.
The UK is lucky that they are not in that situation.
Originally Posted by
tartare
Naive question - in terms of engaging using air power, how difficult would it be for an IAF fast jet to engage a Hamas powered paraglider in an area where there are lots of manpads?
Not seeing fast jet as a best tool there, but certainly a capable tool. Your Apache guess strikes me as more apt.
Assume an Apache cannon engagement would be more effective and practicable.
Reason I ask is it actually seemed like a pretty cunning way to infiltrate from the air.
Low cost, slow, probably hard to pick up against ground clutter and very STOL.
Of course the easiest way to kill them would be to just shoot at them using an SLR from the ground...
That's why they came at night, I suspect. Small/low radar signature, in the ground clutter, hard to see.