Just who does Uncle Sam trust?
Not the Australians, by the look of things.
This rather handsome beast in the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor:
And the Royal Australian Air Force has been told that it will not be allowed to buy any of them. Even a crippled version with some of the more bleeding edge stuff excluded, and the same would seem to go for Japan. Given that "By the time all 183 jets have been purchased, around $28 billion will have been spent on research and development, with an additional $34 billion spent on actually procuring the aircraft. This will result in a cost of about $339 million per aircraft including program. The current cost, or "fly away cost" for one additional F-22 stands at about $120 million", (source) one would have thought an opportunity to make some money out of it must have been a temptation. Unlike us, Oz has fought in all of the US's 20th century wars of any consequence, and must rate as the most reliable ally going. Perhaps we should be grateful that we have a defence industry of sorts so such a blackballing is not a prospect.
This rather handsome beast in the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor:
And the Royal Australian Air Force has been told that it will not be allowed to buy any of them. Even a crippled version with some of the more bleeding edge stuff excluded, and the same would seem to go for Japan. Given that "By the time all 183 jets have been purchased, around $28 billion will have been spent on research and development, with an additional $34 billion spent on actually procuring the aircraft. This will result in a cost of about $339 million per aircraft including program. The current cost, or "fly away cost" for one additional F-22 stands at about $120 million", (source) one would have thought an opportunity to make some money out of it must have been a temptation. Unlike us, Oz has fought in all of the US's 20th century wars of any consequence, and must rate as the most reliable ally going. Perhaps we should be grateful that we have a defence industry of sorts so such a blackballing is not a prospect.
Labels: Australia, Japan, United States
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on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 at 9:00 am.
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Aren`t they lovely ...swoon...
Well nobody's getting them, so the Aussies shouldn't be too upset.
'Section 8092 of Public Law No: 106-79 "Making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, and for other purposes", prohibits the use of funds for the license or sale of the F-22 advanced tactical aircraft to any foreign government.'
Anyway, I doubt the Americans will use them much anyway. The reason they don't want to sell them abroad is that they're worried the technology will fall into enemy hands. So it's unlikely that they'll ever expose them to frontline combat unless world war 3 breaks out -just as the B2 has hardly been risked in combat for fear of geting shot down.
Better blow them up on the ground then as well as downed Hercules with secret stuff on- The thought has just run through my head by Kipling,about the death of a British officer in Empire days. along the lines of thousands of pounds worth of education cut down by a 6d of lead cast in a scruffy shop in the bazaar in Kabul. I need to pull the quote out of the big box of poetry books still awaiting shelving.
The point I am driving at is that for all their technology, the US has been defeated by a determined enemy in Vietnam armed with $100 AK47's and recycled coke cans and ball bearings as hand grenades. The same is happening in Iraq with Austrian sniper rifles in the hands of a committed fighter. It is the morale behind the gun that counts everytime.
Guthrum, this poem, I believe, 'Arithemetic on the frontier:
"A scrimmage in a Border Station—
A canter down some dark defile—
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail—
The Crammer’s boast, the Squadron’s pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!"
Have to disagree with Guthrum. Vietnam may have had primitive weapons in the VietCong, but the NVA was heavily armed by the Russians and Chinese. The funs were enormous.
The parallel is to the Russians lsoing in Afghanistan when the US started selling stinger missiles that could shoot down the Hind-24's.
Iraq is similar in that the insurgency is being armed by Iran.
The difficulty in conflicts is often the neutral allies of your enemies as well as your enemies.
In the Flaklans the US famously would nto tell the Argies how to fix their bombs (which they had just sold them) to go off when dropped from a low height. This saved many of our ships. Sadly the French were more commercially aware when it came to helping with the excoet guidance manuals.
The F22 is a beauty, a white elephant, but a beauty.
Bet israel gets them
then they could sell the technology to china as they have done in he past
C- Damn, I have just spent an hour looking for my copy- yes that is extract.
U- The NVA was heavily armed by the Russians, but the Viet-Cong relied on small arms and recycled improvised weapons. The Tet offensive was an attempt to fight a conventional war that the NVA/VC lost. The US was defeated by an ideologically inspired insurgency against an occupying power and a puppet regime.
PH is probably correct in this
Not getting the yanks to flog us fully equipped F-22's should go down as Blair's greatest dipomatic failure.
When they wanted support in Afghanistan and Iraq it should have been in return for full technology transfer on the F-35, more F-35 contracts and the right to purchase a dozen fully equipped raptors.
'The reason they don't want to sell them abroad is that they're worried the technology will fall into enemy hands. So it's unlikely that they'll ever expose them to frontline combat unless world war 3 breaks out'
How can you shoot down a plane that has the radar shadow of a goose? The stealth features are even supposed to prevent short range heat-seeking missiles from getting a lock on. In wargames they've scored 108-0 kill rations against 4th generation jets.
I think they will see combat some time within the next 20 years. Who's airforce will be unlucky enough to get trashed in 12 hours flat we'll just have to wait and see.
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