Reports in Kenya’s media indicate that the country’s airforce will spend US$23 million acquiring obsolete fighter jets to revamp its fleet.
A Kenya Airforce F-5 fighter jet. Picture by Wikipedia.
According to the Standard newspaper, Kenya will replace its own aging F-5 fighter jets with 15 F-5s being disposed by the Jordanian Airforce. The government will pay Kshs1.5 billion ($23 million at current rates) for acquisition and transportation of the craft from Jordan. The money will also cater for spare parts and the training of Kenyan crews.
The $23 million price tag for used, obsolete fighter craft may raise more than a little eyebrows. Kenya’s economy was badly affected by violence early this year following disputed elections in December 2007. Though the government has pledged to rebuild vandalized properties and to compensate those affected by the clashes, funds are difficult to come by. Government estimates put the reconstruction budget at Shs31 billion ($500 million).
Corruption allegations in government circles may hinder the flow of funds from traditional donor nations. At the same time, uncertainty caused by political wrangling is expected to slow down investment, further undermining economic performance. Rising food and oil prices are hitting the population especially hard, further worsening the effects of poverty and 60% unemployment.
The F-5 fighter jet was developed by Northrop Corporation in the 1950s as a light combat aircraft. During the Cold War, the F-5 proved popular with allies of the United States especially in the developing world. Kenya acquired its F-5 fleet in the 1970s and 80s and probably wants to replace its aging aircraft by acquiring the same model elsewhere.
However, the last F-5 was built in 1989, indicating that the Jordanian jets are at least 20 years old. Airforce top brass are yet to explain why they could not buy new fighter jets that are readily available in the international arms market.
This would not be the first time that a purchase of military hardware in Kenya is causing scandal. An ally of President Mwai Kibaki was forced to resign several years ago, after it emerged that a ship the Navy had ordered was a converted civilian vessel. Kenya’s Police force has also come under heavy criticism for buying oversized, second hand helicopters from Russia, and whose maintenance is becoming very expensive.
Within East Africa, Uganda, has experienced a “junk helicopters” scandal. The government of President Yoweri Museveni bought obsolete helicopters from Russia at above-average prices. One of the helicopters crashed in 2006, killing among other people the new President of Southern Sudan, Dr John Garang.
Filed under: News | Tagged: airforce, corruption, f-5, f5, fighter, fighters, jet, jordan, junk, kenya, kenya airforce, kenya government, kibaki, mwai, nairobi, obsolete
I have a feeling this might spill over into the African commercial aviation market as well especially for the regional airlines.
A lot of tier 1 airlines are shedding their gas-guzzling, aging aircraft for newer, more fuel-efficient ones and it is not a stretch of the imagination to assume where these planes will end up.
I understand the concern for transparency regarding this fighter deal given the history of corruption, especially under Moi.
However, the F-5 is still a front line fighter in service in the air forces of Turkey, Greece, Spain, etc. It has a proven combat history and is less expensive to maintain than modern combat aircraft like the F-15, Tornado or Mirage. Obtaining 15 aircraft with spares for $23 million is a baragain considering one new F-15 costs for that $30 million each. The F-5 is far from “junk.” In fact, the US Air force still has 600-700 in use as trainers.
Kenya needs to upgrade it’s jet fighters but on a budget. It is a strategic country in a growing neighborhood of instability.
i agree with dan – what’s all this about f 5’s from Jordan are crap planes – the f5 tiger is still a force to reckon with – with speeds of upto mach 1.7 -it can rival any fighter jet in the world when dogfighting – ask the swiss and the turks who still have many f 5’s in their inventory – what people need to know is that the Kenyan airforce is buying the latest version of the f5 family which is the f 5em – this version is still the same model as the old ones but with modern avionics – this jets can also refuel midair like the f5em’s of the brazillian airforce – so go kenya get the planes. Yes dan maintaining them is cheaper – and boy can those planes move !!
hey guys we need new stuff from cooking oil to combat planes.the year is 1986 my first time to see our air force f-5`s during ask kapsabet show.it was also the year which the last of this tigers assembling contract was expiring! almost 3 decades down and we still see them.at least the ministry of defence ought to allocate cash to better fighters even if not latest.go for russian mig 23s and others.lets update our forces please.thank you
buying an F5 today as your top fighter is like buying old ford cortinas and peogeot 203 and you expect them to compete with top of the range BMW”s , toyota VX and subaru imprezas. for Gods sake the ethopians and the ugandans are flying the SU27 and MIG23 respectively and we pride ourself that we have an airforce. the truth is our airforce is more geared towards providing V.I.P services to govement dignitaries than being combat ready. thats why the V.I.P section of the airforce has top of the range executive jets ( the dash series ) backed by the Y12.while the fighter section makes do with obsolute F5,s that are almost 30 years old and out of production.
we should learn to change with times. the F5 is outdated and obsolute and if thats what our commanders are ordering for the airforce, it means that their military knowledge is also outdated and obsolute. one shudders to imagine what they are ordering for the other services. it is not a question of money because our neighbours i.e ethiopia and uganda are purchasing better equipment and yet our economy is far bigger than for the two countries. we are just not taking our security seriously.
um… why do we need them again? the only real wars have been civil, so unless we want to light ourselves on fire…
For this reason I think I will be able to live with the fact that we got F5’s instead of some hot shot modern avionic BVR wallet dissolving army candy!
I mean why spend for the latest and greatest? I’m content with the F5’s.
the fact of the matter is that we need to feel secure in our on country and thats why we need a fighter aircraft that can meet the modern challenges of todays warfare. by the way u dont need any modern weapons to do civil war. in the rift valley they were using bows and arrows and in rwandas genocide the most effective weapon was the panga. so we can light ourselves up weather we have modern weapons or not. kenya being the most powerfull country in this region economically also needs to be the most powerfull militarilly. thats why we need 2 have the best fighter aircraft that can outfly anything our neighbours have. our neighbours are busy arming their countries with modern stuff while we are still depending on techonology that went out of production 30 years ago. (F5). THAT DEAL STINKS OF CORRUPTION. and thats why some people are ready 2 compromise our security by buying cheap and outdated stuff for our military.
steve the f-5 is ok. you can imagine that the usa had offered them to taiwan against the chinesse until late 80,s. if they were not worth it wouldn,t that be sucidal. for east africa the f-5 are dam good and the airforce has more the 30 years in dealing with that craft. when it comes to fighter the pilot carry more marks then the planes i.e u can have a sophsticate plain but if ur guys are poorly trained it no good. and training comes with time. in the force they is over 30 year experince with this craft. about the mig 23 i think u meant mig 29. its endurance time to stay in the air is infact lower then the f5. let me enlighten you on tactics. during the ethopia/eretrain war the the ethopia new from the russian that endurance time of the mig 29 was less then the su 27 and mig29 burns tons of fuel during climbing. so during dog fight the ethopians toyed with the eretrian on high low manuevors . the mig 29 ran out of fuel and when they had to turn to base thats when the ethopian nailed them. so tactics of the pilots and training carry more then 60% of a war
These are very old planes ill suited for modern warfare. During the cold war, the F5 was dished out like candy by the US to counter the roughly equivalent Soviet Mig 21, another very obsolute plane. All users of the F5 are getting rid of them (this explains why Jordan is no longer interested in the damn things). The Turks, Greeks, Taiwanese, Norwegians, Saudis, Koreans, Swiss, Dutch, Canadians, Pakistanis, Singaporeans, Spanish, Philipinos etc etc have either fully disposed off these planes or are in the process of doing so. If they are used, it is often for recon, lead in training, targets, etc etc NOT as a frontline fighter. The decsion to purchase these relics is nothing short of bizarre!
risasi, pole i took long 2 answer you. you dont mean 2 tell me you buy out dated equipment then u say u will rely on tactics? yes tactics work but combined with the mordern equipments its even better. the f5 lacks the range, the speed, the radar and even the avionics 2 survive in todays combat enviroment. most combat planes of today have digital multi functions cockpits while the f5s cockpits is dials and many poimter needles, this increases the pilots workload. it is also a fuel guzzler and thus spends very little time in the air and has a limited range. it is an aircraft of yesteryears and i must admit it was good during its day.
Dan, Chalo and Risasi seem to be the only knowledgeable lot to have offered comments on the F5’s. The F5 is still in active service today in the US Air Force and Navy as a tactical fighter. You don’t need to offer comments if you cannot do basic research even on the US Air Force website where factual information is freely available for anyone who’s interested. Someone talked about obsolete avionics not bothering to find out which version of the F5 is being bought! Those who fly or have flown F5’s will tell you it’s still as good as when it was commissioned and when you talk of aged aircraft, B52 Long Range aircraft that were manufactured in 1952 are still in active service in the US Air Force among other equally old aircraft like the Black Bird that was commissioned in 1961 and still in active duty!
I disagree with all these issues about the F5’s being old. What may be old on those planes is only the external frame the avionics weapon systems are all up to date.
Apart from the Oil rich gulf states and the developed world very few countries can afford to purchase brand new and quality fighter planes.So what happens is countries like Israel have come up with ways of Modernizing Old fleets for some countries and i belief thats what has happened with the F5’s
Norway is buying 48 F-35’s at a price tag of 4 billion US dollars. This is a population of 4.5. With or without Nato, they can kanyanga Kenya like mavi ya kuku.
Kenya should buy the swedish jas Grippen!! and give the f5’s to the anti-stock theft unit or askari ”karae”.
Faida gani kununua mitumba when you are living in neigbourhood like ours?
I have never flown nor am i an expert on military jets but i have profound interest borne of unfulfilled childhood dreams. I follow the subject religiously and in my opinion DAN,CHALO & RISASI have goodviews.why are we always reluctant to upgrade our fighter jets inspite of ready threats in our belligerent neighbours who are better equiped?F5s are best left for training fighter pilots
guys i believe we’ve missed the boat by the river.we should ask ourselves why the jordanians are selling those relics.our fighters were bought ages ago,but have never been upgraded,even the avionics.if the country could afford to waste 10 billion shillings on a stupid referendum whose outcome was obvious,then i believe we can modernise our airforce.the operative word here is MODERNIZE not buying junks.by the way another referendum is on the way and it wont be free.get the point?
nasema kitu gani wewe!!! am back from my vacation.
Kenya has added more to its list . Z-9 from china for your information. why Kenya bought the so called relics ? these Jordain aircraft are well maintained and are up to date .they sold them after a confirmation of a supply of f-16 by the US. these birds are just a gap filler before new Chinese jets come along they server the purpose.(or now may be US fightr with Obama in power). they have a mid-flight refuel system upgrade avionic and in board flight system. look around and tell me who has that in east, central and part of south and north Africa.
replace the “dot” with a real “.” i cant paste the website
update yourself maybe we are talking about two different birds:
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/f5_34.html
http://www.patricksaviationdotcom/photos/ricardo.ricjam/19426/
http://www.patricksaviationdotcom/photos/ricardo.ricjam/18707/
http://www.patricksaviationdotcom/photos/ricardo.ricjam/18707/
http://uk.youtubedotcom/watch?v=Hqmwfsh5nes&feature=related
luck you just click below \
update yourself maybe we are talking about two different birds:
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/f5_34.html
http://www.patricksaviation.com/photos/ricardo.ricjam/19426/
http://www.patricksaviation.com/photos/ricardo.ricjam/18707/
http://www.patricksaviation.com/photos/ricardo.ricjam/18707/
uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqmwfsh5nes&feature=related
http://www.patricksaviation.com/photos/ricardo.ricjam/18195/
reply 2 risasi, wellcome back from your vacation, its only 3 three f5″s from the jordanian collection that have mid air refueling and for your infomation kenya does not have airborne fuel tankers. we simply cant afford them and they are not of strategic importance 2 us. so the quetion of mid air refueling does not arise. the chinese z9 is acttually a light utility helicopter with little combat use, they will most likely be used for shuttling top brass around. pls this info is available in the internet for everone to see.
common men its not personal. dot be so tha way…. for inform fighter can perform mid flight refuel among themselve. and also for low buget airforces there avoilable kits that can tconvert their normal cargo plane to tankers and back . Z9 will beused for shuttling top brass around .wats wrong with that? you just want them to stay in th hangers?in wartime they wil be used for logistics shipments.
Guys, I dont mean to rub your noses in the dust, but I gotta hand it to some of you for ignorance. You all ought to read what risasi has given, man knows his thing for sure. But as a Military Man, I can tell you without contradiction that our Armed Forces is without equal in these parts. Our Air force had complete Air dominance at present in the East African skies. Bear in mind what Risai says about the balance of power being tilted to the Pilot than the plane – it works similarly with all ordnance. In Simulations we have repeatedly carried out yearly, on the board though, our Armed Forces are shown to be entrenched in Kampala City within 48 hours of engagement and to wipe out all active organised resistence in Kampala within 72 hours of jump-off from the border!! Ask any military officer who has engaged in our War games at DOD, if you reckon I am blowing smoke.
i have never had fighters perform mid air refuel among them selves, its simply impossible, maybe converting cargo planes might make sense but i we dont have that capability. to answer tom, i like your patriotism an i also belive in my country but in war things are different. never underate ur enemy an dont think ug can be such a walk over, in my estimate war between the two countries can never have a clear winner an might end up being long an costly to both sides. the only advantage we might have over them is to stop their goods passing in kenya, esp oil. having air dominace over them i dont think so coz they are known to fly mig 21 which are equal to our f5s and also mig 23 which are far better than f5. their ground air defence capabilites are also fomidable. their tank force is obsolute consisting mainly T54 an T55 most of which are grounded due to poor maintance, but they have a large infantry force, far larger than ours and most of them are battle hardened. its been nice corresponding with you guys an i finally rest my case an end this correspondence.
we
Wisdom Archived?
Declassified
thanks Tom for the good word you passed across. And for Steve it was a pleasure in the conversation . wish you the best in your endeavors. i like to inform people esp. when matters pertaining military ignorance and second hand info that floats around.i understand due to lack of first hand information people would always create and rely on rumors and hear say to fill in the vacuum. its natural.
what Tom told you is a tip of classified info. and i will shade more light on it and anybody how wish to enlighten himself let him do so. mweneye macho haambiwi tazama.
yes there is corruption in Kenya and the military system. but do you think that the military is stupid or naive in decisions making and procurement? items would be purchased slight above the normal selling price due to kick backs and so forth. but is the staff worth it?.
kDOD does a lot of classified Ops that don,t reach the common mwanainchi and it is in this ops and exercise that deter any large minded neighbor from any act of aggression.they was a time when our western border neighbor was bring alot of trouble? being an immanent guerrilla he wanted to extend his empire to our country? to make the long story short, boys were trained in Libya with intentions of crossing our border in the west into Kenya. to achieve this ambition a package of an anti aircraft system. a radar and missile batteries and guns. was establish by our western neighbor meant to deter the then 82AF. Most of their MiG,s were grounded at this time. do you remember those guys and those days. and ask your self what happened to his ambition. why he change direction and went to Congo DRC to make trouble thereafter . why did in,t he go on to achieve his ambition? .well this what happened . one Sunday evening we sent 2 fighter across the border to test his new acquire air defense system. at around 5:30 – 6:00 pm local time when his solider were queuing up for supper rationing and most of the anti aircraft guns were unmanned , our “Cats” (nick name for F-5 tigers ) flew above them at a very low speed and height that the ground crew could definitely recognize the black,red and green ensigns paintings at the tails of the above air crafts. the F-5,s rolled over and did low speed maneuvers. when they realized what was going on, sounded alarms and scramble to there anti aircraft Guns. the Cats turned and headed back home. no bombs drop no guns fired but the war was over. their radar operators only managed to recognize “clumsy images ” on their screens.. that’s just some of it
Su-27/MiG -23 vs F-5
the Ethiopia Su-27 and Uganda MiG 23 are good in paper. can stay longer in the air and can go a great more distance.it has big engines and can climb and mover fast when need be. but they have a big shortcoming in the air which is virtual to us. they are to big and bulky for any formidable dogfight with a F-5.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:F-5andF-15.JPEG
they need a large turning radius and without “thrust vectors engines” they can,t out perform an F-5 in a dogfight. the F-5 has one of the best weight to thrust ratio most fighter don,t have and can turn more quicker at short radius then them..i would therefore guess therefor strategy is to hit the F-5 at a distance well before any dogfight.this is KNOWN. tactics to counter such a strategy is also known.
JUNK WARS ???
the F-5 that Kenya bought from Jordan were top in there arsenal. Jordan sold some of its F-5 to Singapore to maintain and upgrade this ones. they then sold them to Kenya after they secured a deal of f-16 and their boys were confidant they could manage the new birds and not like scrap as it has been mention above. this fighters have come in as a bridge before Kenya can purchase and manage effectively a new fighter(normally in a span of 5 years). Chile Singapore Brazil turkey Swiss among many all modifying the F-5 until their airframes were air unworthy and could no longer take it anymore. even as latest F-16 were being procured upgradings of F-5 were going on and by the way these are not poor countries. they also have other aircraft’s in there hangars like Mirages, F-4 etc. why were they doing this ? is it just a shear love for this aircraft?or maybe they have too much to spend? maybe? you tell me. Iran not forget it with all it oil wealth has even add an extra tail to the F-5 and using it despite all it American embargo’s.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/256431/irans_new_saegheh_fighter_enters_service/
now ask your self what is it that this air force generals some in NATO spheres know about F-5 ,that they would only part with it after it physical structure can no longer support it, a last and final resort.why is it that they gave more life to this aircraft. i mean just take any other aircraft put in a digital screen a good radar on its nose ,computers and BVR missile under its wings and use it. so simple not so, but why the F-5?
flight fueling Mr Steve:
about mid flight refueling between fighter has been done since early 1920. this is done by simple pods called buddy tanking pods.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Refueling,_1923.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sea_vixens_refuelling_arp.jpg
http://www.sargentfletcher.com/bus_dev/ars_image3.jpg
how do you think the US Navy operates with out KC tanker in the deep sea in case of an eventuality.
first you have to know why we need to refuel a fighter. i guess your answers is to achieve a long distance and time endurance. but this is just part of the story when it comes to tactics.for Evey aircraft to take off it has a maximum take off weigth.this is the amount of load it can take off with.i.e fuel plus ordinance. but the military has managed to go around this.it has been realize that once an aircraft is airborne and extra loading can be done to surpass its designed maximum takeoff weights.therefore with this in mind suppose a max. take off weight of aircraft is 1000kg then an aircraft can be loaded with 900kg of ordnance/weapons and 100kg of fuel just ample for take off. once airborne it can be filled with more fuel for its mission, share tactic Mr. Steve.
below are some of refueling pod that Kenya is considering buying
http://www.sargentfletcher.com/bus_dev/flyer_28_300_bbs.pdf.
http://www.sargentfletcher.com/bus_dev/flyer_34_000_wp.pdf
God willing you will see at this years end jamuhuri Day parade what you tax money has purchased
Wisdom Archived?
Seems like very many Kenyans are ignorant of our airforce ability! Thanks risasi for confirming all those stories my cousin (R.I.P.) in the airforce used to tell me while growing up.
Going thru this debate made an interesting read. I gathered that an upgraded F-5 could match an SU-27?? Why can’t Kenya talk to Turkey? They assemble F-16s am sure we could get a better deal from this NATO partner.-Risasi sema.
Mid-air refuelling for who- is Uganda Kenya’s major threat?? I think not Ethiopia has all it takes in the region we need to mordernise- our economy in 5 years can sustain a modern force. Andy
Yes Mr Andy was out of the office. About the Turkey F-16. In order to purchase them a node from the Pentagon has to accompany it. Although Turkey manufactures these jets the USA still has the right on the END USER AGREMENT.
The F-5 vs Su -27 as in “Kenya vs Ethiopia” the F-5 has high chances of bring down the Su-27.
one thing you have to bear in mind when the Russians were building this aircraft they had they own goals in mind. The prime goal was to encounter the USAF F-15 which has similar dimensions and range. At that moment Russians hadn,t a similar fighter. these two country being superpower ,long range ground and air radars were available to assist these aircraft in shoot down each other at a great distance. That’s when the Beyond Visual Range Missiles were developed. If by any chance they encountered each the F-15 and Su-27 were of the same dimension. This will again go back to the pilots to achieve any credible results. The Russia knew this and to change the balance in a dog fight. they developed the thrust vectors system in there Su-27.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgWU_E-dZno&feature=related
This is changing the direction of the jet thrust to help the fighter turn at a tight angle. Just like a motor Boat with an outboard engine. at this junction the new Su-27 has a great advantage in dog fight then most modern aircraft.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7F8XfSLXHY&feature=related
But bear in mind Dog fighters a rare in the Superpower sphere due to longer range radars, long range missiles and radar jammers .these make fighter fight a great distance apart. All this are tactics and strategies.
During the Iraq wars the Iraqis had good jets will maintained but each time they tried intercepting Allied Fighter, for every one fighter the Iraqis sent to the allied the allied would respond with 3 more fighters other then the one to be intercepted. They could see the iraq airforce take off well before they reach a engagement distances. They would actually contact the Iraqi pilots and tell them “we are six your are only Two would you still wish to engage”. This demoralized the Iraq air force and went out of action until the end of the war. That was the Allied tactics longer range radars to assist there fighters to avoid any eventual dogfight.
Back to our main topic. In the east Africa and Africa as a whole will lark that sophisticated airborne system that would help those bulky aircrafts achieve there potential. a dogfight is the only way that would settle down the scores . The Ethiopia Su-27 looks similar to the Russians Su-27 but lark the thrust vector system. which is again very complicated and expensive to maintain. A malfunction could send the aircraft to the moon or straight to the ground. Therefore with out the thrust vectors system the Mig-23 and Su-27 are bulk and large fighters unsuitable for air to air combat.. According to intelligence report, Ethiopia has 15 Su-27, Uganda has 5 Mig -23, and Kenya has 25 F-5. Work out the mathematics. assuming that all three countries will have the resource to maintain and keep them airborne worthy)
risasai,
increadible videos. tha data on ethiopia, uganda and kenya airforce jets. i believe we have less than 7 functioning f5 and hawker hunters were originaly 30 ? the HH am not sure how many are air worthy tho but am not sure they can fit in modern battle theatres. i have not seen them for so looong even in air shows. i have never been a fun of any chinese product. so to mention the purchase of their jets makes me shiver…its not worth it. go for quality and time tested products. look at the army truck and the Y12 planes ? jeeeez.
Well, with all this jargon going about a 30-year old piece of junk one is left wondering whether we guys are serious about our safety!Mach 1.7! which serious airforce today dons fighters flying this slow manze?And, this days ’stealth’ is the in thing bana, if not, then mue na some reliable radar-jamming system which I can comfortably say,hatuna! It then boils to either having radar poa na junk,or fighterz poa bila radar poa coz we aren’t like kina States or Russia who have both and more.Kenya’s option is aquiring better fighters, kitu ka Grippen au F-16 hata ka these were the ones being bought as 2-nd hand.So those guys mooing about the F-5’s good thrust-to-weight ratio and/or better fuel management as tactics,mmtashtuka!!!! You think the nerds responsible for developing this things hawajafikiria hio story?ditchini that mediocrity coz it has no place near a country’s security issues bana!!!!!!!!
l have been following this discussion very closly,l dont know much about the F;s,Migs…name them.Bt being a private pilot(trainee)n hoping to fly for the Kenya aiiforce sometime something is realiy biting me offf…Cn this small country by the name Uganda bring us down!Hey Risasi,impact some knowledge in me.R you working with the airforce?
Is that a US Airforce/Navy A-10 Warthog in your college? How did it get here? I didn’t know the US military gave donations outside the US?
2 Andy
nime relux . am waiting for guys to Ji_enjoy then niwapashe.
Risasi
it was a school trip to the US,they dont belong nor donated to our college.
which warthogs are patrick and chronicle talking about?
Sorry all,
Patrick left a link to his college website, http://www.skypathaviation.org/.
On the front page is a picture of what I initially thought was an A-10 Warthog. When I asked him about it (above) he said the picture was taken during a field trip to the US and that the aircraft was not in their school compound.
ya seen the bird its A-6 USN intruder/prowler . its a carrier based jet . folding wings. the frame was used for many missions from jet to jet refueling to radar jamming….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KA-6_F-14_DN-ST-87-10386.jpg
The Motto TUKO IMARA ANGANI still stands
Never judge a book by its cover
KAF is still and remains the most prepared Airforce in East and Central Africa despite the few F5
All you need are good pilots and good tactics.
well, this has been the most interesting debate i have read of late. risasi and tom ole nkarei … i strongly believe u are former soldiers (air force and army respectively), therefore i respect what you say. ole nkarei i have read ur blogs on security on other sites, risasi this my firts time to meet you. am abig fan of airforce jets and navy battle ships. never made it to air force nor navy. all those not believing risasi i will encourage you to google “F5″, and see for ur self ! did major mwangi, one time sqd cmnder of f5 retire from KAF ? learnt alot about Kaf during Gichangi and Eshekety period at nanyuki. all the best to KAF guys, we love u !
risasi,
i remember the incident u described above of ug guys at the border. din’t they call u ppl at one time to go and disarm a misfired anti aircraft missile coz their guys couldnt do it ? tell me something about the indian jet fighter going by the name LCA Tejas LSP-02, can’t we buy it as our next generation multi role fighter ?
To
Ernest Komu, on April 9th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Am trying to understand your debate but I am not get a full picture. You mean that kenya should buy a stealth fighter? How many country do you think in Nato have stealth technology let alone the third world countries and oil rich states? About march 1.7 that the maximum speed the jet can attain but its not practical in a normal fight.
1. the fighter will burn off it fuel very fast.
2. turning at these distance incase in a dogfight the pilot will encounter very high “G” force (more then X10 gravitational pull) that the pilot will definitely black out.
About Grippen au F-16, the f-5 are bridging gap for a procument of either Chinese Fierce Dragon or Vigorous Dragon.
About the thrust to weight ratio and fuel this is not commercial based but an aspect of the f-5 that has made it loved by many.
Risasai,
Noticed that the unit cost of one Chengdu J10 (vigorous dragon) jet fighter is $28 million USD i.e (2008 exchange rate) but $41 million USD (export version, with parts and maintenance) well it looks tough but isnt also still under testing ? the JF-17 THUNDER (CHEN FC-1) aka FIERCE DRAGON unit cost is US$15-20 million (estimated) but the J10 is described as a 4th generatin jet while the JF-17 is a 3.5 generation plane. but really how good are these chinese jets ?
To
Patrick, on April 10th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Its good to join the airforce make so hours. It thinks in your blog your asking how Ug could harass us.
But I will tell you something
1.This is the first time Ug has achieved a full military scale Force. i.e a functioning AF and ARMY at an almost professional standard. They might get trigger happy about it.
2. This is not the first time our neighbors have claimed our boarders as I know.
During Mzee time. Amin claimed up to Naivasha at the same time Tz claimed up to likoni Mombasa and Somali claim the north part all at once. Now do you see any similar Political environments within our country at that time and this time?
To
microprocessor, on April 26th, 2009 at 12:19 pm Said:
LCA Tejas LSP-02 is still an experimental based aircraft. It would not be advisable to buy them at this stage. Let them get airborne and have its on track record. Kenya will always buy products with a reputable track record like the T-72 tanks which the public is not fond of were the Tanks that would have lead an invasion of the Soviets into Europe during the could war. You can imagine the dediction employeed by the soviets at that time.
Such mistake of buying new products have been made by countries like Zimbabwe AF when it purchased Chinese prototypes Mig 21 after it was placed under embargo from the west and could not operate its Hawk jet. The Mig 21 failed to deliver during Congo war. They secretly asked Kenya to purchase Spares for there Grounded Hawks being similar to KaF ones because.
those who are trying 2 compare SU27, to the F5 are simply day dreaming. the SU27 was meant to compete with the F15. the su27 is superior and is armed with BVR missles (r27) among other missles that r far superior than the sidewinders that the F5 carrys.todays dogfights is more f tecnology than pilots tactics. risasi pole sana wen u argue 4 the F5. THE F5 HAS NO PLACE IN TODAYS AIRSPACE. IT BELONGS TO THE MUSEAM. BRING IT ON, AM READY TO ARGUE WITH FACTS.
PLS LET US NOT FIGHT TODAYS WARS WITH YESTERDAYS WEAPONS.
Since I don,t have enough time on my hands, today I will answers microprocessor. Tomorrow I will be on Airforce one,s case. The name suggest he might have been in the airforce so I expect more solid facts and a sensible agument.from you Mr Airforce one, Brace your self
. I like to hammer in all the fact and leave no doughts. Sawa?
In you Blog Mr microprocessor you mentions Kenya has only 7 F-5. Now add the 15 f-5 that we are all debating about procured from Jordan. Plus 3 which need some maintenance. To add on this are 12 Hawk Bae. Which are used as a light attack aircraft.
About the hawker hunter , they were sold to Zimbabwe. One remains in store as a souvenir
http://www.ourstory.com/thread.html?t=355326
initially Kenya had more then the 7 F-5 you talking about i.e 5 F-5e(single sitters) and 2 F-5F(double sitter) .it had 12 F-5E and 3 F-5F most of them were lost in crushes. This was mainly because these were the first supersonic jets they had acquired. And the boys were excited about the speed. That was on the surface. But to declassify more, intelligence reports posed that we were indeed at a war. A nearby country was sponsoring the boys to crush them deliberately so as to reduce them numerical. When this was suspected one of the airforce high chief borrowed a page from the Israelis. During the isreali/arab war isreali pilots were so scared of the Arabs Surface To Air missile that they ejected when they merely so smoke coming from the missile launches. They didn,t wait for the missiles to lock on their aircraft , they just ejected. Therefore a pilot fastening lock system was device to lock the pilots to avoid them to ejecting, Kenya also did that for some time until guys complained about it. Our pilots if you heard back then could not eject from the fighter if anything happened.they were locked to the cockpits You must have heard about that. the system has now been reversed. Mambo ni mengi nduguzaguni.
Mr microprocessor
Our Chinese Stuff:
One thing you ought to know is that under the table the Chinese and the west trade a lot. They just fool us in believing that there are enemies. And if they will ever fight they trade will still go on still. lately The Germans have supply submarine engine for the to Chinese Submarine, some thing that you will never hear in the local daily.
Back to the ball of contention. As I told you Kenya always buys equipment with a solid track record, lets start with equipment that you familiar in.
1. The Chinese trucks called STEYR.
http://sinotrucks.net/en/quanqu1.asp?ClassCode=19
(right corner)
Bought by the army to replace the Mercedes 911 trucks
This is a license-built version of the Austria Steyr truck used by N.A.T.O for logistic. Very reliable very strong
http://www.armyrecognition.com/europe/Suisse/vehicules_a_roues/Steyr_heavy_truck/Steyr_heavy_truck_pictures_gallery.htm
2. The Chinese Harbin Y12.
http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/3/1/1/0514113.jpg
is a Chinese military built version of the twin otter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plane_arrival_at_Barra_Airport.jpg
made by De Havilland Craft, the same company that manufactures the Buffalo. The Y 12 uses Canadian Pratt & Whitney engines
3. The Chinese Harbin Z-9 Chopper.
http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showphoto.php/photo/16954
It is a license-built version of the French Eurocopter Dauphin,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dauphin_2.jpg
Anther NATO product
4. The following proposal:
a. J-10 Vigorous Dragon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:J-10a_zhas.png
Was a improved version of an Israeli F-16. the Lavi.
http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/aircraft/lavi/lavi2.jpg
the Americans simple told the Israelis to halt the program as it would “interfere” with the American/Israeli military aid. The Israeli sold the blue prints to the Chinese and are closely behind its developments.
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/31/world/israelis-decide-not-to-construct-lavi-jet-fighter.html
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/April_2007/0704042.html
b.the FC-1 Fierce Dragon
http://www.milavia.net/aircraft/fc-1/gallery/fc-1_28.htm
is a joint program between the Chinese and the Pakistanis.
They reengineered a Pakistani F-16. the F-16 that the Americans sold to Pakistanis could not march the India airforce they were simply toys. Pakistani was under an embargo for testing a nuclear bomb.so they could not upgrade them. together with the Chinese they copied the F-16 and improved all its short comings.
http://www.usenet.com/newsgroups/soc.culture.usa/msg09103.html
I can guess your next question. And the answer is we simple can’t afford the original versions but we still need standard and proven equipments.
good day.
i hope Mr Process i have answered ur question on how good are this stuff.
Well, i will take that for now. dint know the jordanian planes are already here ? thot the deal is still being worked upon. the army track has already killed many tho, and i thot i read that the y12 has some missing essential facilities and that is why we lost akina dr bonaya godana ? did we already buy the z9 kwani ? a firend of mine lost his cousing to those chineese plane…he has been bitter that they could only bury his ear ! i hope we can afford and maintain those chineese jets ! kns jasiri…fishing boat or real battle ship ? i have seen many of its photos…looks tough tho.
Sorry about your friends tragedy. Crashes and accidents are some time inevitable. even the first world nations do suffer from accidents and air crashes. You cannot fly an aircraft with missing essential parts. I wonder which part those are. Y12 has proven itself and 10years since it was procured its still flying. I think it’s a good record, a single fatal crash although none would have been better. Below is a composed article on KNS JASIRI MOMBASA.
ok airforce one tell me why yout think the f-5 can,t take down a Su27
KNS JASIRI MOMBASA:
http://elrincondelinternauta.blogspot.com/2008/08/jasiri-mombasa-corrupcin-y-mejillones.html
http://www.pbase.com/acnielsen/kns_jasiri
The Kns Jasirir is the third Military ship that has be bought from Spain by Kenya, unlike the popular rumor; it has never been fishing or a civilian boat. It belonged to the Agencia Tributaria of spain which is similar to the US Coast guard in charge anti smuggling and drug traffic.
its sister ship in action.0:23, 1:23 seconds in the clip
After it was bought it was taken to a Spanish company which builds commercial ships for hull stretching to 85meter and Refit some basic marine electrical system on the extended area. It will be mounted with various weapons systems from reputable European companies. This is not the first time Kenya has done this. Kns Nyayo/Umoja which was built in Britain by Vosper Thornycroft , has a cocktail of weapons from different reputable European companies other then Britain the country that built it. this includes Its navigations and communications system from the Netherlands Signaal, its Fire systems ;76 mm oto melara super gun (used by almost all NATO frigates) and its Otomat/Teseo Missiles from Italy among many.
It’s a common practice.
KNS NYAYO (right) and KNS SHUJAA participating in India’s International Fleet Review Mumbai India .
http://forum.apan-info.net/Spring_01/photo_pages/01-0447.08_2.html
See the comparisons
http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=888256
http://www.pbase.com/acnielsen/image/78367213
KNS NYAYO/UMOJA
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/6149/p0114357jj3.jpg
Nyayo and Umoja are 20 year old Corvette and still have no match in the eastern side of Africa expect from Egypt, South Africa navy of late and
American and French Djibouti-based ships.
Am surprised in Europe citizens are campaign for their countries not to go to war but its reverse in Africa Esp. Kenya.
see for yourself the so called fishing boat
jasiri class sister ship Fulmar 1
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.telecable.es/personales/sva/Fotos/Fulmar%25201/index.html&ei=1lUMSt3rJpTNjAew1s2zBg&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=9&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dfulmar%2B1%2Bsva%26hl%3Den
Thanks for the info Risasi. Does anybody know the fate of KNS Jasiri? I read somewhere that the authorities are keen on having it delivered to the country save for a few bottlenecks such as cost which have skyrocketed to Ksh6 billion up from the original 4 billon.
well well i have followed this conversation for a while now and i like what risasi has been saying about our inventory in the military – the Kenyan inventory is one of the best in africa – however some guys have complained about us buying alot of chinese military goodies -apart from them being cheaper they are also well tested over time – you should see what mugabe got from them as well as the sudanese – i watched an exclusive video about the chinese military and what they have and upgrading and seriously will as kenyans have a miltary partner to look up to for a very long time.
Thanks chalo for the compliments, I say now that Mr. Kenyatta has given cash to kDOD its all kudos, keep popping up once in a while to be up dated. As for Olekoima the deal on the “fishing boat” is still on .a lots of negotiations are still going on. The problem come when they was a breach of contract between Kenya and euromarine. We all know what happened. Somebody somewhere called it a scandal and funds were halted for its development. To make the matter complicated Sri Lanka became interested in the boat and were willing to cough more. Anyway those are by goners now.
Hey Major Tom what’s kDOD’s verdict on the new India military trucks? When is there E.T.A? By the way do you know Col. Kisoso. He is from your area I guess.
What happened to those fellow bloggers who were drum beating for Su’s and Mig’s against the F-5. Has the trail run cold?
Gentlemen, we have a situation, Somali !!!!
Your take please. i think we should hold our horses first as we go about rebuilding our arsenal on land, air and the sea. these fellows have nothing to loose coz dying as a bomber gurantees them “7 virgin ladies in paradise”. Are we ready/prepared to take on these fellows ? a friend reckons they give ethiopians a rough time, i thot the ethiopians walked away to give AU fellows a chance? my fear is immigration and police have already sold us out to these ppl via eastleigh…right inside the capital city. they can do whatever they want whenever they want. Are we ready really ? retired Lt-Gen Nkaissery quoted last week concerning corruption destroying our preparedness as far as equipment is concerned … so, what to do ?
I hear from a relatively reliable source that Kenya was given \acquired cheaply 32 Chinkooks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cTFqOCJhhA and 8 F-15 fighters from the US..Also in the arsenal is 300km range missiles..Does anyone have this info??…Doesnt this tilt the regional balance of power..Should we expect a arms race in East africa since this effectively neutralises Ethiopia who were the only formidabble force??…Isit true that Kenya has a reserve force of more than 500,000 soldiers??
Chances of Succes in Somali by Kenya Forces are high. The ability and the Know-how is there. To do this it requires a Peace keeping ++ or rather a Peace enforcing mission. Similar to the one sent to Sierra Leone by the ECOMOG and mainly the small
Guinea Armed force. I know by now your saying the Americans tried and lost but I will explain our advantages as you read more. Most Somalia’s have benefited from Lawlessness in there country in one way or other and returning them to a normal and peace life isn’t a small task. It’s denying many a way of life. It will not be ready accepted.
To achieve this, a Trophy prize exist in the name of Mogadishu. He who controls the capital calls the shots. More or less. That fair, I hope it will remain that way. I feel this will elude us from any Guerilla like warfare or insurgences. Which sends many military confrontation in circles.
To achieve this two things need to be considered.
1. The occupant
2. The Host
The Occupation force.
To maintain peace or achieve peace for Somalia, a good Armor and Air Calvary battalions are needed. At the moment, Kenyans Armor Battalions are at there best. The Air Calvary is there. A well shielded ground force with an effective air support from a Calvary battalion is the key word. Therefore in paper it can be done spectaclly. But the mentioned equipments need to be compensated for. These are weapons meant to defended the Kenyan Sovereignty bought by the Kenyan tax pays. Therefore the big question is not how it will be done but who will finance operation. There several choices. The Kenya tax payers, the Somalia republic, the United Nation , AU or well wishers.
If the United Nation is involved then a second army mainly a western nation will have to be there. The U.N will never trust an African country with an open United nation Check. On the other hand the Somalis have a negative perception of the west and this will taint our image. I will explain this latter. As for the AU and the Somalia government they don’t have the supporting cash for the Operation. Let’s hope this will changes. The Well wishers are good financer but there funds can stop prematurely with change of government policies.
The Host.
The host nation holds the silver bullet. There perceptions towards the foreign army? This is where Kenya has a big Plus over many. unlike the Ethiopian which fought the Ogaden war against Somalia, Kenya has never had direct military confrontation with Somali and Our armed force which are drawn from different corners of the nation have Somali speaking soldier. This includes high ranks offices present and past among them are former Army commander like Lt. Gen Aden who can speaks Somali. In general Somalia public is likely to see us as a brother rather then a foe. An Arbitration force rather then an occupying one. And this is the perceptions that Ethiopians, the West and US can not make up for.
The Somalia’s in general see them as invaders. The ability to winning the hearts and mind of the people will give us a leading edge over many militaries and equipments . But if we mix our military with other force for any reasons what’s so ever it’s very likely that our impression can end up tainted.
Let’s wait and see what C.G.S and the defense staff has to say. If the boys will have to go in yes some boys will never come back and some will come back differently. but Inzi kufa juu ya kidonda ni kawaida. That’s there Job.
Abc The clip seen is an Exercise EDGE MALLET. The helicopter used are not Chinooks but US Navy phrogs ch-46. 32 Chinooks that’s quiet a handful for Kenya. This are twin rotor chopper which require a high quality of maintance. If they were to come they would be In batches.
For the F-15 strike eagles I highly dought. The USAF maintains a high confidential Proliferation of it is second best striker after the F-22 .its only been issued to 3 of its allied. Israel which is obviously, Saudi as a “thank you note” for there Oil, Japan there biggest and best ally in the far-east. Countries like South Korea, Australia, have all been excluded. its unlikely Kenya is joining The quartets.
The 300km missile, there was a proposal of an India one but it was latter shelved. The only missile that can come close to that range is in the navy but it’s a ship to ship missile with a large warhead. Its latest version has a GPS capability which means it can hit a stationary 50meterX 50 meter target at sea or land within its range.
The arm race is an open secret. Etopians acquired hardware from N.korea , Uganda got some from s.africa and Libya we are still waiting for a Tz contribution.
0.5 million reservist I don’t know where that presenter got that figure. +50 thousand close enough if the G.S.U, A.P ,N.Y.S and resigned staff was to be included.
Abc,
Like Risasi, i also doubt that we can be given the F-15 srike eagle. Very few countries have this plane. The F-16 is more likely to get. May be Kenya should try buying the Jas-39 Gripen from Sweden or the JF-17 Thunder from China although i believe the upgraded F-5 Tiger still serves us well enough. I think the country should consider a few more helicopter gunships. It appears they are phasing out the current MD500 defenders perhaps due to age. I notice from Wikipedia that Kenya has acquired an unknown number of self propelled 152mm Nora B-2s from Serbia and 4 Z-9 helicopters from China.
Thanks for echoing my words Olekoima. Like I said the Armor Battalions are now at there very best since our independence. The country’s military Arms are being balanced out. Our deficiencies in APC/IVF and ground to air defense systems, are now being compensated for. Not mentioning that, the existing ones are being improved. For a country whose G.D.P comprises of selling roasted coffee beans, tea leaves and tourism its Kudo,s.
If you look at African countries (militarily). of those which we can consider to be in a “same league”, we are ok. Look at the militaries Inventories of Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, S.Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Chad , e.t.c. visa vie ours, our quality and reputations and equipments are well above the 80% mark in most faculties.
They could be having equipments which we don’t but our military is generally balanced.
For Sub Saharan African we have a top number. That is fair enough.
I wonder given the level of corruption in Kenya if they are not buying all these F-5 spare parts as a front for Iran? They have yet to get the planes from Jordan and they might at best have 2 F-5 planes flying. Maybe a replay of the Ukraine T-72 tanks seized by Somali pirates destined for Southern Sudan.
Hmmmm … interesting dimension. Its been over a year since the Jordanian deal was exposed. Have the jets arrived?
The F5 is a reasonable good plane for any poor country to stock. Iran has reverse engineered this plane and is now making its own Jet Fighters perhaps we should do the same and create a plane industry like sudan.
http://johnkaranja.com/2008/12/22/kenyas-armed-forces-pictures-and-facts/
Khalid, Rockwell Collins, a major US defence company reported in its 2nd Quater 2008 (24/04/08)earnings business highlights “Rockwell Collins was selected by Jordan Aeronautical Systems Company (JAC) for the upgrade of F-5 fighter aircraft. Rockwell Collins Government Systems will provide a Rockwell Collins Business and Regional avionics system to JAC for the upgrade of 15 F-5 fighter aircraft which are to be resold to the Kenyan Air Force. The contract also provides for the initial installation and additional modification support for an estimated 14 months.
http://www.encompass.info/news/page10599.html
14 months arent over yet, so the aircraft havent arrived yet, so do start getting suspicious.
Of more interest, most developing countries take the route of developing home based military maintanance industries as a stepping stone to having their own fully fledged military industries. Is there any effort in the Kenyan military to start the same, to maximize on our “professionalism”such as upgrade of systems (under licence, for example). Jordan, Ethiopia,Sudan,Egypt etc are all doing this, as a way of gaining the skills & technology transfer, & eventually these technolgies spill over into civilian industries, (aircraft, tractor,truck manufacture etc). Can anyone shed some light? I know the kenyaairforce website talks of repairs to civillian aircraft (buffalos).Anything else,anyone? Can’t we manufacture simple drones, for example, to help patrols in the expansive north eastern region & somalia?
Guys,as much as we tout our military to be the best in the region in terms of training, equipment, readiness etc, here is our major achilles heel. Our neighbours have made serious effort to develop industries to support their militaries. They dont have to rely on outside suppliers for the very basic & frequently used items.Please see the links below to see what i mean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Industry_Corporation_(Sudan)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Industry_Sector_(Ethiopia)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/egypt/industry.htm
Eventually, these neigbours are able to develop a wide range of defence equipment, be it pistols, machineguns, uniforms, trucks,APC,etc. Unexploited potential in these industries eventually spills over into production of civilian products, eg medicines, vehicle parts, aircraft parts,hospital beds, office furniture, household items, plastic products, kitchenware, construction etc. All these contributes to technology trasfers, innovation, & ultimately,overall national development. My question to our experts on this forum is, where do we stand in terms of the above referenced area. Arent we grossly lacking in our strategic thinking? Take the case of our indian ocean coast, & the the somali coast + the risks it poses. Shouldnt we have delevoped an nascent industy to say build basic coast guard boats to help patrol these areas, reduce smuggling (revenue loss to govt,),illegal tralling etc. I read somewhere that we are the only major navy in africa & beyond that is no functional coast guard to do the more intense close-to-shore patrols..yet that is where the somali instability risk affects us most..We have to depend on the US to donate simple 11 metre patrol boats. What do you say guys?
Let me start by saying congratulations to the Sudanese so that guys dont think l am tryng to hate on there homebuilt aircraft.Am yet to get the specifications of these aircraft but from its price tag USD 15000 am pretty sure that it is a Light Sport Aircraft.Now how do you guard a country with a ultralight?which have a small range capability,less that a Cessna 172hp,payload of less than l don know 600lbs and on a straight road l can beat it with my Toyota AE91 1992model?l hope nobody will start telling me that when the Wright brothers came up with there first aircraft a joker told them that his horse is faster and could endure a longer distance than there toy.”Sudanese president was just tryng to make a point to those guys who are tryng to arrest him.Which am sure they did not give a damn”Kenya can come up with a better flying machine than this and by far.Main problem we have;l think the government is not allocating alot of cash towards engineering related activities.Those guys working in the airforce can you shed some light on these?Lets give our airforce sometime;dem aircraft gonna get here.LONG LIVE OUR AIRFORCE.
Aeromodeller,,,,,
i have shaded some light on home based production industries below. the Sudan’s Safat-01 aircraft which runs on car fuel is suppose to be a trainer. i think its similar to the project jua kali artisan building once a upon time. these Sudanese are mocking the aviation profession. am waiting to see what the have in store for Aircraft Conversion Course.
this blog dosn,t fail to amuse me as time goes by . the Blog seems to go cold for weeks and when you least expect, new suggestions and members prompts up from directions you can never imagine. its like tuko kichaka then all over sudden you get an ambush by a foe you thought you had subdued.
What makes it exiting is comments of topics that you couldn’t imagine a common mwanainchi could be conversant with or be aware of plus postings from renegades members of our armed forces.
i will post something interesting in a few days. i would like to welcome Izzo, Khalid and patrice to the blog. karibuni. those where concrete contributions you posted.
Thanks, Risasi. I look forward to your post. + the other informed participants. I am already missing your contribution.Where are you guys microprocessor,olekoima,abc,tom nkarei et al, please come alive with your thoughts.
Trying to understand why we lack a military support industry, ive come accross the below interesting sites.
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_180.shtml
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_179.shtml
The long & short of it, if you are faced in a vicious conflict situation, you ultimately have very high attrition rates on your military hardware.Your aircraft get shot at,tanks,APCs,guns etc get damaged,destroyed,worn out, & these require replacement.Yet you’ve got financial difficulties, hesitant foreign suppliers – you owe then lots of money anyway,& they wont supply in time/or at all.What to do?You are forced to improvise. You construct redumentary workshops to repair your damaged hardware, you cannibalize grounded aircraft to keep the airworthy one in the sky, you start making basic spareparts. Over time, you gain expertise & eventually some sophistication. You reverse engineer some parts, & if your major suppliers agree, you manafacture under licence. That is the experience of Jordan,Egypt, Sudan, SA, Ethiopia, Israel, Iran, Pakistan etc. It is a difficult & painful experience, but it pays its dividends.It sustains the war effort.If peace ever comes, your maintaince factories idle,instead of laying off workers, you start making tractors,shoes, school uniforms, hospital equipment instead of military trucks, tanks, APCs, army unforms, ammunation. The civilian goods industry develops & the previosly thriving military support industry. & that contributes to overall national development. That is the experience Kenya hasnt had.
Abit more; so, in regard to Kenya’s standing in the event of conflict with say our 2 northern neigbours (Sdan,Ethiopia), however professional we might be, Kenya cannot sustain conflict for a long time. They have military support industries. We dont.We have to depend on our external suppliers.The supplier countries, esp the west, will put conditinalities(force you to negotiate,etc), instead of availing parts for our F5s, buffalos, tanks,etc. We might run out of ammo without external supplies. Our adversaries on the other hand have home based industries to sustain their war effort, & would not be dependant on external suppliers as much as we do. So, in the event of western pressure to negotiate, the impact would be more on us more than them. Yet, it would take a long time for us to overcome our handicap – dependance on external suppliers for the very basic items. & the west would leverage on our weakness & hunger for spares to push us around. My conclusion, let us not underestimate our potential adverseries. Lets be objective & see what their strenghs are. For us to gain the level of sophistication that i refered to in my earlier post about military support industries, it would perhaps take us a decade or two.
What is your take on my view, my dear armchair generals?
Izzo,
Thanks for your comments. You probably haven’t heard of the Eldoret ordinance factory that is owned by the armed forces. In addition Kenya also produces apparels for the armed forces some of which is exported to other countries. I don’t think we run the risk of running out of ammo in case of war with the neighbours.
kenya does have a munitions factory of NATO standards Izzo which can cope with any eventualities or a sudden flux of ammo. i will post my comments on the order of battle between the to mentioned countries
Mr Izzo I admire your idea towards a home based military industry but its advantages are much limited in developing countries more then you would imagine. The concern of relaying indigenous principle equipments is overshadowed by procurements of foreign spare parts what so ever the situation is. Due to lark of proper research and funds these industries have there limitations in Africa. The cons of these complexes are all surmounted on Reliability engineering. And this will all be felt on the equipment your military poses with. Reliability engineering involves a matrix of events and topic which you have to take in to consideration;
1. Mean time between failures (MTBF). This is the operational time of a equipment.
2. Mean time to recover (MTTR). time taken to bring back an equipment to operation status after it has failed or taken for due service. This is again affected by expertise service and availability of spares.
Among others subjects.
Research is very expensive; it involves dedicating time and resources to achieve a result in the Far Future. For a country to develop a home based military industry large enough to manufacture a complete military entity, spare cash has to be devoted to research and an outlet in form of international exports to sustain the plant and its technology. The more your product is being used out their under different condition the more your will realize its shot comings and perfect it .The match a home based military industry can do in a Developing country as of an African status is to support countries MTTR. This again will depend on the quality of spares parts (due to lark of research and resources), which will again affect the overall MTBF values of the forces. When these industries are set most countries tend to be addicted to them. This is due to internal economical reason and vanity sakes. They then create a false military illusion in the country out weighing the real capabilities of the plants and armed forces. Therefore set them up but know its borders. Creating your own large Principle Ordinance and equipment shouldn’t be in its list of to do items, if you are dwelling in a developing country.
In Kenya a complex does exist it produces ammunition an parts for some military hardware. It has a capacity of about 20- 30 million bullets per year. Built by FN Herstal Company which adheres to NATO standards.
http://www.kofc.co.ke/
http://www.mod.go.ke/kafc.htm
It’s not as large as the Sudan, Egypt South Africa or India capacity, but its up and running and maintains a standard. We bite what we can chew and we eat what we can swallow. We manufacture what we need and export munitions and military uniforms to the great lakes region. A good example is SPLA/M. most of its officers wear DPM apparels similar to the Kenya army. The complex came under the amnesty international sports light at the time of great lakes region conflicts if you can remember.
Local unarmed naval boats are produced to Mombassa with the help of African marine Cooperation. These are mainly used for ferrying duties across the kilidini channel.
Producing armed equipment is not as easy as you would imagine. From what we have seen and leant from these industries in this part of the globe it’s a waste of time venture into this fields fully throttle.But if your still not convinced, I am willing to post to you the quality and Reliability of local based principle munitions industry from south Africa to Egypt. in this part of the global its not a wise route. I believe at the end of that posting you will level with me that it is indeed not a wise idea.
hi everyone,
am very much a live and always make it a point to read this blog. its been, and still is, very interesting discussing my motherlands security with like minded ppl. this blog has been running for very loooong. i have followed keenly from the time i last said anything (somali issue), through all the above posts, while following events going in my motherland right now e.g should recruited soldiers be tall or short ? napoleon was short ! should we domilitary factories or not, risasai says no ! am also reminded by a soldier buddy thats its only western and nyanza provinces that he has never served in, yaani no military (army, navy or air force) bases yet UG na M7 with his ambitions are right there. did you also notice that two ministers (even top military guy) have been turned back -on their way to OUR northern borders- by sudan soldiers RIGHT INSIDE OUR BORDERS ? anyway, izzo i like your line of thot ….YES WE CAN, Risasi how will you know if you do not try ? thats why we train all the time to keep fit and to identify our weak areas so that we can improve on them, huh ? well, am listening.
A defense industry component of a Armed Forces Strategy only make sense when in efffect one is faced with imminent aggression at any level about that we face, or an active export policy such as the Israeli, Swedes and Chinese and others have. Because these are justified by productivity and consumption of the products that are churned out. A peace-time Fighting force that trains to develop Excellence of strategy and effectiveness of Command / Control -such as Kenya, cannot justify the massive capital needed by theses sort of industries. However, this excellence of Strategy and effectiveness of Command / Control also develops a deep ability to technical understanding of equipment and weaponry. Indeed part of our General Plannning involves detailed training and exposure to the manufacture of basic equipment used by our Forces, from a diverse sourcing. Kenya has therefore a well-developed pool of knowledge that would quickly be brought to bear in the event of an imminent armed conflict in terms of a rapid program of armament manufacture. Coupled with this is very concrete and vital agreements with several Western Countries specifically in contigent of this eventuality. In the “D” Coy of the Paratroopers, as Risasi and others will attest, every man has the training and capacity to personalise his weapons, by making sophisticated alterations and improvements that suits him!!
Certainly, preparedness is the key to victory for any fighting force, and we in the Armed Forces of Kenya, within the limitations we face, are definitely cognisant of this indeed. Of that, I assure the doubting johns..
microprocessor
i am trying to figure out your ball of contention but am not getting your debate or contribution.
the sudan issue , i never heard of it. May be they were local bandit. cause south sudan is under SPLA/M. they are on our side if a conflict arises. About the recruits, the new askaris have to meet some standard. Not so?
Risasi,
i was not really making a contribution as such. just letting izzo and others know bado tuko. was also trying to catch up with everybody esle on the previous posts. while declaring my stand on the same issue !!!! sio lazima tuwe at opposite ends all the time, ausio? have missed in action for long enough.
heigt issue, i do not believe it should be used to curtail ppls ambition to join forces. after all modern warfare is going towards not necessarily large number of infantry men but rather “remote” combat, yaani fighting an enemy you do not necessarily meet face to face. its time to go for intelligence rather than height. standards are ok but lets avoid “descriminatory” types like alama kwa mwili. joining forces should be appreciated as patriotism such that iwe like israel not the way we do it in africa ati job opportunity thus deny other tribes those opportunities !!!
sudan was all over the newspapers, they were not rebels, they stopped otieno kajwang and saitoti and even some top military guy …. all these ppl are among our top security men (civilian or otherwise), SPLM is on our side yes, buy why did that happen ?
sawa microprocessor i understand you now . you have been missing in action for some time now. hope all is ok. in our country we are blessed with a lot of human resource. we can get tall people who are intelligent to perform a modern warfare. Once we get to a position where the supply of human resource is getting diminishing then am sure the military will reconsider, just like the role of women was before in the forces and the issue of Home based munitions. alama kwa mwili was brought by mkoloni .it can be used as a issue for extra compensation when one retires from the service. about the SPLA/M it will take some time as the seeds of there military come from rebels and militias. with time things will be better.
Don’t worry twafahamishana.
all my comment are posted at the lowest tones that you can imagine.
Risasi,
am still NOT supporting your short v/s tall arguement ! even short ppl have very good brains by the way. yes, they cant do certain “height” oriented jobs but they can be very handy too, wana brains please. i can count hundreds of short ppl who are amazing in what they are doing which require purely brains not height.
as for women, am not sure they can pure brutal combat maybe wakae ofisini, garage ama supplies not the heat of the theatre ! my cousin joined 3 years ago and i laughed when she told me how she survived the combat training …. she was almost always never firing her gun, avoided handling the gustav, no combat is not for women. am aware tho that some countries are now allowing them to fly combat missions as jet fighter pilots, the best of them is now a Lt. Col in USAF, wako pia australia, israel, china, brito, etc am sure our girl does not do combat maybe supplies. tho am impressed by the lady major who heads the puma helicopter maintainance unit.
We have been so keen on discussing about manned air vehicles,what about unmanned air vehicles like the Raven and the Predators?
l think they come with more adv….no casualties during wars…good spys..and the best part of it is that we can zero in shoot down M7ni from a backyard in Nairobi.”lt will be like playing Play Station2″What do you say Risasi/Microprocessor.Do we have some?
pato,
am not sure we have any. am a big fun of forces and their technology but not one of them. i once saw some american guys (via the net) showing kenyan soldiers how to use a wireless controlled helicopter during the eagle mallet exercise in mariakani. maybe risasi atwambie hapo ! am sure we haev the brains to maintain them and pilot them around.
what Pato is saying is good suggestion. But why should we use a hammer to crack an egg. the boys can done the job bila predator i don’t see any treat or situation that warranty such an equipment yet. but all said its a good tool to be with.
Thanks, everyone for keeping the debate alive. Risasi, those are very insightful comments. Just came across something that may be of members interest.
http://www.janes.com/news/defence/jdw/jdw090707_1_n.shtml
Looks like those tanks might not have been ours,afterall. I recall Risasi saying that deficiencies in some areas are being balanced out (09/12/09 post).
Will these satelites, you cant keep a secret for too long.
Supposing the tanks were heading to S.Sudan, would there be a way to fool the satelite imagery?Maybe dismantle & pack the tanks into containers?I would hope our guys in charge are smart enough to go round this potentially embarasing situation.
Izzo,
fooling a satelitte (the “eye”) is not easy. do you use google earth free edition ? try using it and try to imagine how you can fool it…what it sees is what you get. even if you pack dismantled parts (33 tanks) you will need trailers kadhaa to move them. thus the “eye” will still see the large number of tracks originating from kahawa barracks moving in a consistent direction in a convoy. during the 2nd world war a general used a simple video player to monitor enemy movement by having traffic cameras all over the roads by fast forwading he was able to notice that certain vehicles were stopping a certain point in large number than moving back to a certain starting point. he concluded that troops and weapons were being stock pile ready for an attack, he simply raided the new destination giving the enemy a fatal blow. all i can, now, conclude, based on this, is that kenya did not do this thing alone – it had the blessings of some big “god fathers” who gave the go ahead to arm southern sudan remember soon they will have a referandum to decide whether to split the country into two.remember also that oil is in the south not north, also food comes from the agricultural south not north, that china wants that oil, north is considered a terrorist, and north is also now building its air force rapidly etc in short these fellows seemingly, north and south, are preparing for war before/after that refferandum. could it be the reason why some of our very snr guys were turned away from our borders up there and no one complained ?
RIsasi,
have you noticed how suddenly, after the mt elgon operations, the 20th para battalion is all over the news in the internet ? they were even discussed in the bunge ya britain which then said ati they have now stopped training them due to what they did there. D company of the battalion seems to be taking a lot of the flak yet it is is described as the special ops guys i.e the ultimate soldiers/commandoes like the CDU in mombasa for the navy. tho nothing much is known about the same d company. wasemaje ?
BTW, are “green eagles” from the 20th para ? could the so called D company be the green eagles ? those guys are damn good !
D coy is a part of “WE THE PARA” battalion. Meant to be dropped behind enemy lines to cause havoc and vector in artillery or fighters. Disrupt supplies or even shoot down surface to surface missile with anti aircraft missile as SSM are being lunched. They can do the job sawa. the CLEARENCE DIVING UNIT.CDU is from the navy is suppose to be like he Special Boat Service of the uk or the SEAL of the usn. They have trained with them. They should blow up enemy ship while in harbor during wartime. And during peace time get engine signatures of potential enemy ships. yaani when a ship is sailing the engine and generators are running it produces a distinctive sound a sound signature, for instants you can here a car sound and know that’s a Peugeot or Toyota with looking at it. That’s but part of there job. This is why when our ships a leaving kilidini time to time they will run with generators or one engine on off mode. Trying to mask there sound signatures.
Hey, guys, I have served with the “D” of 20 Coy, and Risasi is spot on about this and the CDU. Those chaps are damn good, I tell you, and train with the best. We have done covert insertions all over this East Africa, and done some realy crazzzy things too. Mostly disruptions of comms, some complicated disinformation, plenty of ‘take-outs’ of some chaps in certain command structures. A lot of the stuff you read in blogs about our Armed Forces really gets us a good laugh, seing how effective the disinformation has worked – recall the writting about satelite pictures of tanks tracking to the Sudan? Come on, guys, just how stupid can one educated chap be??
Risasi,
chineese, japanese and korean soldiers are very short, and they are damn good. you do not want to mess with them. look at the technlogies coming from these countries, i was suprised to see s GPMG coming from korea called DAEWOO lakini sio gari !
its about intelligence not height ! ha ha ha ha.
these are not short fellows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSuEZSm8ZEA&feature=related
Arming the Salva Kiir with reputable Tanks like the T-72 will be leading the SPLA/M in a direct confrontation with the Sudan government. A confrontation between the Sudanese home built Type 96 tank vs the T-72. This would also grossly change the balance of Amour power in the neighboring states. Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and even Kenya. None of the mention country has a tank that can match the T-72 in paper. In that case Sudan President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir would have been the fist whistle blower to alert the West of a breech of arms embargo in his backyard. Even musevini wouldn’t allow SPLA/M to have such a tank at a Figure of +100 next to Kony.
Have a look at the below clips and get a feel of the quality of the SPLM/A in comparing to the type of equipments your talking about. This group doesn’t have basic military hardware supporting staff and ethics for such equipments.
if truly this tanks are meant for SPLA/M then will see them in action, cause they will surely use and parade them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OHmwZtIEhY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WjaEJPnTbg&NR=1
let as be careful with what western media say. Most of the times there usually use “white lies” to help them sell news. Like one instant, we normal conduct our national elections in December and this is roughly the same time the military conducts it Jamuhuri day parade. Tanks will be moved from nakuru/isolo to be paraded in Nairobi. Dou you no what Deutsche Welle reports “Mr Moi is surrounding the capital city with Military Hard wares await the election result”.
wa Swahili wa sema “kisicho fanana na mwenyewe huwa ni chakuiba”
wewe ni machokora na umevaa chain ya gold shigoni . tangulini?
http://us.mc595.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.gx=1&.tm=1249395048&.rand=0hemq8erhr14e#_pg=showMessage&sMid=5&&filterBy=&midIndex=5&mid=1_2187342_AJMMDUwAASXQSngXOwmu4V02tGE&m=1_2190528_AM8MDUwAADlhSnhA7Aw4ai24jZg,1_2189894_AKUMDUwAAV1ESng8fARKKjApiaI,1_2189260_AKsMDUwAAI41Sng2uAvHR2HeOZA,1_2188626_ALEMDUwAALsaSngsegMz5i66gJQ,1_2188001_AJkMDUwAABTsSngmkQt5qWDx%2FGQ,1_2187342_AJMMDUwAASXQSngXOwmu4V02tGE,1_2186705_AMkMDUwAAYC2SngOPwGu72c0egs,1_2186090_AJMMDUwAALXhSngLMAswiXOgWFg,1_2185442_AI0MDUwAAJwUSnfrLwEqikvYDZI,1_2184507_AL0MDUwAAT4KSne5rAf2OX7rq%2Bo,1_2183875_ALcMDUwAAOlYSneq4wWFfDIxndI,&sort=date&order=down&startMid=0&pSize=25&hash=1fd2b726df1d3171e0a38e428735a5c1&.jsrand=1896053
Check out this link.Was too long l hope l got it right
@Patrick
Thanks for sharing with us, however, we couldn’t see anything as the link you’ve posted is a Yahoo mail link. Please tell us what you found through the link, or you could give provide an alternative.
I wonder whether what i’ am seeing posted in Wikipedia is correct. In addition to the 15 F-5 jets from Jordan, there is an additional 16 F-16s and 15 F-18s from the US. Could this be correct? Anyone with information please? There also appears to be some 85 Abram tanks ( M1A1 ) although the wording is not very clear. I don’t know but this looks doubtful.
Should the above be correct, Kenya will then become the undisputed military power in East and Central Africa. No country in Africa other than Egypt possesses an Abram tank. Besides no other country apart from Morocco and Egypt in Africa has F-16 fighter jets let alone the F-18 hornets.
Olekoima
i saw the same posts some time back and thot it was a mistake, or a joker did that work. you see even wewe unaeza ku update the wikipedia.
yaani it is possible to create and account that allows you to log in and update the wiki so long as you know the syntax (rules that govern the way a wiki is updated) for updating the wiki. look at the m1a1 thing, somebody wanted to add data then abandoned/stopped the process or simply did not know what to do when he logged in. it is always assumed that we all are faithfull and honest enough not to lie when updating any wiki on the internet.
i personally do not thibk we have any of those birds nor that kifaru. infact the person who updated the wiki (line ya kwanza) did not even do it cleanly coz it is so full of errors !
I totally agree. This must be a joke.
Micrprocessor,
The South Sudan guys have finally apologized to the Kenyan goverment for the incident that befell hon. Kajwang when he toured the border last week. This is fine, but i think those fellows need to be taught not to mess up with Kenyan officials again. They may be our pals but they need to respect our borders. Kenya should not be acting soft all the time, otherwise what use is our military if it cannot protect our territorial intergrity?
find the unit cost of an Abram tank,F-16 and F-18 . then multiply it with the above figgers. then you will realise the credibilty of this information.
Risasi,
have you ever heard of Pugachev’s Cobra ? its a manouver done by jet fighter pilots. jeeez, it is one hell of a move !
just read about it today and really, enough respect to pilot Viktor Georgiyevich Pugachyov who was the pioneer of the move. am trying to understand how physics applied to all this and how the engine actually manages to help the pilot pull such a crazy move at such speeds …. its like suicide bwana.
soma kidogo about it and help me understand this wild, crazy, suicidal move by jet fighter pilots !
i know about the maneuver. I talked briefly about it when I was answering Andy on April 9th, 2009 at 8:52 am and previously on February 15th, 2009 at 11:37 pm in regarding to the F-5 vs Su27. just pass through it and see the pasted clip links ,before reading below.
Its know as the “S” cobra and the Bell, in aviation sphere. So far it can only be done by the Mig35 (modernized Mig29) and the Su30 (modernized Su27). and I think the F-22 raptor having similar aerodynamic configuration like the mention aircrafts, but I have never seen any clip. the move was discovered accidentally.
the Russian realized due to its bulkiness the Su27 it can never out maneuver a middle size fighters like the F-16 in a dog fight. The Su27 speed and climb rate was ok. It could only do that either climb or run in a dog fight. But along the horizontal it took a large turning radius to make a 360 deg turn. Middle size fighter would easily use that weakness to get behind its tail. They had to do something to help it turn . they developed thrust vectors system. Using deflection of the engines nozzles to turn the aircraft. With this the aircraft could turn at more tight angles on its horizontal. During part of the modification of the Su27, it also lost its longitudinal stability. So they add an extra pair if wings called Candid near the cockpit to keep the nose up.
When the thrust vectors were turned to an up position the aircraft nose will be forced upwards naturally. Simultaneously when the candid and the thrust vectors are turned to both lift the nose up, then the aircraft will quickly turn to 90 deg Facing up with out losing power very quickly. If do so like wise with gravity in mind and position the thust vector to counter the downwards pull of grafity (when the nose is facing upwards) and also be at angle to push the aircraft fowards ( vectors at 45 deg) while nose up, the aircraft will move forward on its belly while its nose is pointed upwards. That’s cobra move.
The Colonel went further and challenger any pilot to a dog fight during a Paris aircraft exhibition. Nobody come forward. The Mig35 and Su30 are the deadliest one on one dog fighter one can have.
https://www.fallingpixel.com/products/3279/mains/preview_su30_00.jpg
Very interesting maneouvre! It must be scary watching it in real life, as a spectator, I would fear for the pilot’s life.
For those wondering what the Cobra maneouvre is, read about it on Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pugachev%27s_Cobra
You can also view a short video clip of a US F-22 performing the Pugachev’s Cobra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJO0KzTgcMI
Risasi, any progress on the order of battle that you had mentioned with our 2 northern neighbours?
By letting the south Sudan be autonomous, a buffer region was created between Kenya and Sudan. South Sudan will always be on our side. For the north to lunch a invasion it has to fight its way via the SPLA territory before get to the border. The same principle was used by the USSR on NATO. Buffer states were created between the to powers. NATO would have to go through Romania ,Czechoslovakia bulgaria etc in order to reach the USSR. Most of its energy would have been drained by that time. But for the USSR to reach NATO the above buffer states would be a lunching pad. the same principle is applied to Kenya and Sudan.
The Ethiopians mainly use trench warfare and attack in numbers . to deal with such always keep them at arms length and soften then with long range artillery. the BM-21 will do such a Blitz. When they come in there masses Gunship are meant to reduce them.
The Ethiopians always know the Oromo will be backed by the Kenya military in any eventuality. a partisan war. the Oromos are the majority in Ethiopia, but have be oppressed by the minority tribes.
http://oromooliberationfront.org/
Kenya military DPM fatigues.
Good thinking,nice strategy.Thanks, Risasi.
We are all now in the same page as we started in this blog. the Su27 is good for a dogfight with fellow hefty aircraft like the F15 or F14. The Ethiopians have the basic version; the Su27SK until they upgrade them to Su27SM, an upgrade F-5 can still challenge it. it will all depend on the pilot and his familiarity with his aircraft. The F-5 under good pilots has brought down more superior fighters like the Mig25(which is more superior then a F-15) let alone Su27 (Ethiopian), Mig23(uganda)and Mig21(bought ug/ Ethiopia) that our neighbors have. The Sudanese were on the part of upgrading there Mig29 into Mig29SMT which would have had thrust vector.
their upgrading has yet come into effect
microprocessor you asked on your blog posted on August 1st, 2009 at 9:01 pm “how will we Know if we don’t try ?” with regards to home based munition factories . I will get back to you.
Back to the Local based mutation docoument
1. MIC of Sudan and South African, Local mutation factory set to circumnavigate UN arms embargo
2.India and Egyptian industry a germ of invention and necessity.
The SUDAN MIC is A DO IT YOURSELF home kit set up by the Chinese to circumnavigate UN arms embargo. As much as much as they claim it to be manufacturing plant it is just a assemble plant for Chinese version tanks and APC. It’s a CKD module plant and not a full scale production plant. It moulds APC and Tank shells and import heavy duty engines to push the weight of the new conceived Tank or APC. On picture the equipment would look good but underlying it is a weakness. The type of amour structure worn by MIC Tanks and APC are weak and substandard for a modern warfare. This is because armor compositions is held as a state secret by all tank producing countries.
India
the Kanchan armour
http://frontierindia.net/the-kanchan-armor
United Kingdom
Chobham armor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobham_armour
The ingredients used in the production would not be shared as this would jeopardize a entire armor fleet over mare friendship reason. Whenever you look at a military tank specification , for instant the T-72 from wikipedia take note of the Armor composition. Sudan doesn’t have the technology to manufacture such armor and will surly construct its equipments in steel plate armor. Cheap easy and best. Steel plate armor is now becoming absolute due to the advance in anti armor munitions and a pierce with a shaped charge will lead to massive structural damages. Therefore although most of there tanks would be running during peace time but when it called for the actual core business of the army, they would suffer from low MTBF values.
Developing countries within the business of manufacturing principle equipments for its own use will definitely have a low MTBF values. As for Sudan a false illusion has been created like what happed to Saddam Hussein and his SCUD derivative. But again what can they do here under an embargo. The sudan industries are nowhere near South African stardards I think we all agree on that. Now lets look at how South Africa is faring.
South Africa too has suffered grossly from relaying on principle munitions from home based industry. All South Africa Olifant (elephant) Main Battle tanks (MBT) are locally produced. there the spear heads of a tank invasion in an eventually. Similar to our Vickers MBT or the T-72 MBT. There 250 – 300 pieces in store sadly only 20% can be called for active duty. MBTF very high. Kenya has more working MBT in its arsenals at the moment more then south africa. Out of 12 Rooivalk AH-2 gunship (locally produced to) only 6 are airborne worthy. Again far less then the gunship in embakasi. . I don’t think is wise to charter our military in this direction.
India and Egyptian industry a germ of invention and necessity.
This two military have a lot of moving and mechanical parts that local production would be feasible vise vie foreign procurements. With all there wealth and military aids, they have mainly stuck military trucks manufacturing. Egypt has subject its industry to mainly spare parts manufacturing for a long time. It has built locally APC but this are mainly wheeled one i.e these are lorries or trucks in Armor suit. Its biting what they can chew. They have cash for to sustain a research and development of armored APC. Recently they tried to take the next step in tank production. Egypt made the Ramese II tank. It failed and sent it to the US for modification. India also tried an MBT program and this what come out of it
http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/army-security-forces/indias-mbt-arjun-its-standing-among-tanks-649/
so whats the military balance in this region?
Can someone explain what value we’d get in spending money converting our fixed wing pilots to helicopter training?
http://www.pressreleasenetwork.com/newsroom/news_view.phtml?news_id=2921
Is it that we are thinking of investing more in rotary aircraft.& if so,cant we train locally?
Separately,can someone adv what our most realistic wish list of purchases would be, say in the next 5 yrs, given our contraints (competing spending needs,drought,stimulation economic growth,limited budget etc) , against the backdrop of the insecurity & maintaining a significant edge agst over potential adverseries?
Would be nice if the breakdown be classed by units& make i.e corvettes, submarines, maritime helicopters, fighter planes, utility helicopters and battle tanks,, plus likely cost implication. I am thinking of stuff that can last us another 15-25 yrs, considering that most of what we have has lasted over 30yrs,served us quite well, & unfortunately, most of the inventory is coming towards its end-of-life term almost simultaneously, requiring simultaneous replacement.
equipments with the sign??? Are proposal or procurements yet to be secured
ARMY
Infantry
G3 and LMG squad automatic weapon
to be supplement by a new rile still being tested
Interceptor body armor & K-pot helmets
Humvee or VAMTAC
Mercedes 911 utility truck by the Ashok Leyland Stallion
Anti Tank
Milan Er
RPG -37
TANK
Vicker mk3 MBT mid life upgade laser targeting system and reactive amour suit.
T-72AG complete package for T-72
BMP-3
BTR-94 ???
Artillery
Type 60 Field Gun, BM-21 MRLS
Air Defense
Tigercat SAM supplemented/replaced by BUK-M1-2
Satellite communication system for Signal Battalion
Air Calvary
MD500 Midlife upgrade to 500MD Defender II/ MD530 Nightfox & (mast-mounted sight)
AIR FORCE
DASH3 helmet.
PL-8 , python,AIM-9M
AIM-120 , AIM-9x???
F-5E/F mid life upgrade to F-5S/T
Bae Hawk Mk52 supplemented with L-159 dropped
12 ex-Saudi Arabia F-5e dropped (lost to Brazil AF bid)
12 ex-Jordanian F-5E/F upgraded to F-5 Plus
DHC-5 Buffalo supplemented/replaced by CN295???
Westland Gazelle AH.1/ MBB Bo 105 supplemented/replaced by Harbin Z-9W/G
FC-1, J-10, F-16, JAS 39 Gripen ???
Wilson airport ???
NAVY
Kns Jasiri fleet flag ship.
OTO-Melara 76 mm
Gabriel IV missile
Otomat Mk 2 Block IV missile
Inshore patrol craft Spain
Maritime Operations Center (coastal & inland)
SO HOW DO YOU RATE THE MILLITARY BALANCE IN THIS REGION BASED ON ALL NECESSARY DIMENSIONS OF WARFARE IE GROUND,AIR AND SEA AND HOW DOES KENYA FARE RELATIVE TO OUR NEIGHBORS ESPECIALLY UGANDANS WHO HAVE AN APPETITE FOR AGGRESSION?ARE YOU SAYING THAT WE ARE IN A POSITION TO RUN THEM OVER OR FOR THAT MATTER ARE YOU SAYING WE HOLD HIGHER GROUND BOTH IN OUR DEFENCE STRATEGIES AND SUPERIOR EQUIPMENT? THATS FOR YOU RISASI!
The military balance in this region is fluctuating so much due to ironing out of weak areas and having more educated offices at the Helm. For instance Uganda has finally resurrected its air force with the procument of MiG23. It has also enhanced a military collage like our defense staff college Karen Nairobi at Kimaka in Jinja to study on military science and doctrines. Tanzania had the best anti aircraft system in the region and a relative weak air forces. It has placed a order on Mig29 to supplement it s airforce. Kenya was lagging behind on air defenses system and IFV. it has procure Ukrainian Buk-M1 and IFV. Sudan has shifted its concentrations to Chad. So let wait and see in another 5 years or so. The region has also tried consolidating itself with exchanging information on terrorist activities disaster managements and secret military strategy in help each other against Egypt with regard to the Nile Water Agreement of 1929. A treaty like what Kenya and Ethiopia had during the Ogaden War. i.e if Ethiopia started losing the war Kenya would join in.
In a vitual military balance matrix a lot of subjects are taken into consideration. i.e the globe status, economy, education ,equipments among many . globe status plays a key role i.e you might have small armies being equipped and financed by a superpower in the background for its own desires. E.g the Ethiopian /Eritrean war was purely a Ukrainian vs Russia proxy war. Both warring countries had mercenaries, pilots and advisors from these countries. Sudan has used Cuban /Libya/Russia pilots in the trivial darfur conflict. If Libyan pilots were to intervene in a Ugandan conflict then the Uganda 5 year old air force would be catapults to a 30+ experience one. i.e the Libyan have more knowledge on the Mig23. so kilia mtu ana akili yake. Muganda knows if Kenya overwhelms me I will get Libyans to assist. Ethiopians will get there first cousins the Jews to help them and so forth.
With all said Kenya and Ethiopia are at the top of the list in terms of equipment, strategy and tactics. Both have a balanced, strong and formidable military in the region. Looking at there Con’s rather then the pro’s. Kenya has suffered from ethnic nepotism, mismanagements of funds and misplacement of military ideas. Ethiopia has lost out too. They have had a great dispersion of its experience Armed forces member and rapid influx of equipments. When the TPLF & EPRDF come into power they dismissing senior military officers who how had sided with Mengistu Haile Mariam. Some escaped into Kenya with their families while some were executed and severed long jail terms. as if this was not enough ,when the Eritrean state was curved out of Ethiopia , ethnic Eritrean left the Ethiopia Forces to form there own armed forces. Therefore experience was reduced drastically. To curb in the rapid influx of equipments Ethiopians hired expatriate to do the jobs.
This was clearly visible during the Eritrean/Ethiopian war. The mighty Ethiopian military struggle to repulse the newly formed Eritrean Forces. Asmara is less the 100km from the border. I fail to see how they could not bring it to its knees in any hook or crook tactics.
So in terms of military experience Vis a vis tactics and weaponology we stand out then most neighbors.
In military exercise involving the three east African states like in the NATURAL FIRE EXERCISE Kenya has always out shadow other states in basic military skills tactics and ideas.
Thanks Risasi, this is useful information. I did’nt know that Tanzania has placed an order for MiG 29 until i read it here. Could they be phasing out some of our MD 500 helicopters? I note from the order of battle only 5 instead of the usual 35 for Kenya.
Tz has placed an order for 6 MiG29 and 3 Mi24 . What it about the MD500 that you distaste. The air Calvary battalion is good for dealing with the influx of soviet and Chinese tanks and armor in the region. The chopper can knock out four tanks in a single sortie with its TOW missile. It can do scout/Recce and infantry support duties. With an open area Northern frontier Gunships are needed for counter attacks. What else is needed? The 50ACB is one the largest attack helicopter battalion in Africa. Search the net and see. Some chopper might be down but there not redundant. Its just a lark of spare parts.
If you want better pictures for wikipedia I can send you.
What would be the wisdom & strategic thinking of TZ airforce commanders investing in Mig 29; my understanding is that, the 4th gen. aircraft fighter jet requires the pilots to have extensive training, air-defense infrastructure, and constant maintenance and upgrade, which would be quite costly to keep them flying. If they are struggling to have Shenyang J-5 (mig 17 derivative) & J-7 / F-7 Airguard (mig 21 derivative) flying due to airworthness problems, would they be able to support their mig 29?I know, they have a long coastline to patrol,& are looking at their north eastern “stronger” neighbour rearming robustly;they probably need an aircraft that can reach nairobi,maputo, or kampala incase of hostilities;malawi & zambia pose no major threat, as does Congo. My thinking is that the Mig29 would be way up the ladder. Perhaps a few newer J7s, which are cheaper & easier to mantain, plus some mid life upgrades of existing aircraft.
On is it that they have their eyes on tUganda, based on past conflict & expansionist tendencies?
that’s the situation the ground Izzo kila mtu ame amka. Midlife upgrade is moving on very first in the region. Uganda started the race when it bought 7 ex Polish MIG21 and Mi35 in the late 90”s early 2000 to revive its airforce. They latter upgraded the MIGs to MiG21-2000 in Israeli. they also sent 3 squadrons of pilots to be trained in Israeli for the MiG,s. This made all entire Tanzania airforce defenceless against a notorious UG with MiG21 2000 series. One of this refurbished MiG crashed and killed a Russian pilot in Entebbe if you can remember. This is the time TZ made an order for 6 MiG29 and several Mi,s too. But latter on it postponed the MiG29 plans but continue with there pilots training program at an Eastern Bloc nation. The suspension of the MiG program was to avail funds to procure a surveillance radar. The radars is said to have a good sweep like the one in MAB. A corruption scandal issue going on in kikwete regime about the radar procurement if you are following the news.. The MiG29 and MiG21/F-7 have similar cockpits more or less, so conversion usually takes less time and effort. So as you had asked air defense infrastructure almost completed, training in hand too. Now looking at what is going on at Mwanza AB you will get the see of it all. it looks like the MiG program is up again. And by the way the countries that you mention malawi, zambia & Congo are rapidly enhancing there air forces with Mi35 gunship. i have pictures of Congo Kinshasa technicians working on there Mi35 you will sit in wonder of what will become of the crafts in the next 10years.
MiG29 have a low endurance time so don,t worry about Nairobi. Plus a Tiger III can match a MiG29.
SO WHO IS OUR FRIEND AND WHO SHOULD WE FEAR IN THIS REGION?I WOULD THINK ETHIOPIA IS A THRET BUT THEN AGAIN THEIR TACTICS AGAINST ERITREA WAS MEDIEVAL AND STONE AGE (TRENCH WARFARE) .BY THE WAY EGYPT IS BENT ON CONTROLLING THE NILE AND I WONDER WHETHER OTHER NILE STATES ESPECIALLY SUDAN AND EAST AFRICA HAVE THE GUTS TO STOP EGYPT.WHAT DO YOU THINK RISASI?
Who should we trust? I think that question is in the “inside out” phase. Its “Who trusts Kenya”. The country has been involved in covert operations with the C.I.A in this region for more the two decades arms supply to rebels/Militias overthrowing and destabilizing many governments. From RENAMO/ FRELIMO, great lakes, south sudan, the ill fated Said Barre/ Mohamed Farrah Aidid plan , Mobutu Sese Seko etc. the C.I.A has enjoyed a stress free work station in this country .
The aspect of fear doesn’t arise in any situation at this point. he who feels is stronger let him come over. by now don’t you think the Ethiopians would have lunched an operation into kneya to wipe out Oromo train facilities in our soil rather then go into Somalia.
bravery is not an absences of fear but pursuing an objective while your in fear
When you talk about Egypt it’s a strong country. My perceptions are that even Isreal will struggle to fight them the incase of a eventullty now
DOES KENYA HAVE TIGER 3 TO TACKLE THE MIGS?ALL THIS DEBATE ABOUT F5s how many functional of them are in the inventory right now?
Ali,
i believe this issue of the F5s was intensively discussed earlier esp. by risasi. simly scroll up to previous posts and you will get your answers. the discussion so soo intense even comparing various planes vs the F5 in dog fights. it was also clearly pointed out that the ultimate decider would also depend on the “quality of pilots” behing the “wheels/stick” of the jet in question.
please feel free to read all the prevois posts … herein lies the answers !!!
There former blogs that you will have to read to update your self with this forum like processor said The f-5 from Jordanian are being upgraded to F-5 plus, in Jordan Aeronautical Systems Company facilities. this upgrades involves the Israel Aircraft industries assitance. There some upgrade topics that will not be covered by Israel due to Israeli position with Jordan i.e an Arab state. This uncovered areas will be upgraded by Rockwell Collins
the existing where upgraded from F-5E to F-5S by a Singapore firm
The F-5 plus and f-5S performances is discussed in the blogs below
http://www.military-today.com/aircraft/northrop_f5e_tiger_ii.htm
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17362
some fighters are indeed not flying. they haven’t been condemned as you might feel so but are missing some spare part or are to undergo schedules maintenance. with a little patch here and there they can be in action.
I had asked earlier “Can someone explain what value we’d get in spending money converting our fixed wing pilots to helicopter training?”
http://www.pressreleasenetwork.com/newsroom/news_view.phtml?news_id=2921
Risasi, perhaps you could shed some light. What would be the added value of such a move?
Izzo,
am not an expert in combat issues but from a laymans reasoning, if i was in charge maybe i should think along ‘what advantages do helicopters have over fixed wing planes in combat situations ?’, ama maintainance costs, costs of purchase, our immedite threats in terms of potential enemies and their current strategies in terms of weapons of purchase, etc what is my enemy doing in their armoury ? how do i counter that ? i would think long term in terms of what do i want to achieve by going helicopters. also can be a stop gap measure as i prepare to go high tech with my fixed wing equipment. ama vipi risasi ? tom olekoima whats your take on this ?
but am not sure why we would take current fixed wing pilots to go helicopters tho coz i’d rather recruit fresh guys and send them for the training. ama the idea is to train trainers for our pilot scollege ? thus persons with experience in other setups ? i guess the answer lies in looking at it in its most basic setup rather than a complex reasoning level !
I think the value you will get is that the pilot can fly both birds after the conversion. Ama? or am not getting the question clearly.
this is an isolated case and its wrong how the school is using it to booster their status. lieutenants have never been senior office in the air force.
IZZO – please allow me to try response. As the Officer corps is structured today, and Risasi will will bear me out, benchmarks are strictly set on competences that graduate one’s path progressively. Reviews are constant and competition very aggressive. But while persistent failure to achieve these benchmarks eventually result in your being phased out of the Corps, there are serious efforts made to sift these numbers to the bearest minimum, simply because it is extremely expensive to train and maintain one single officer in our Armed Forces Officer Corp. Now, it is clear to most of you that Kenya is aggressively building up an offensive Military Capacity on all Formations, to the effect that estimates available of USD400Million are only what is visible – alot of the spending may never see daylight outside the Military. Hence, the present strategy is to re-qualify these Fixed Wing Pilots, who may either choose to or are not clear candidates for progression, into Rotary Wing flying as a rapid expansion strategy of our Anti-tank and Rapid Deployment abilities using Helicopters. A lot of you may not understand that core to our General Military Offensive Strategy is defense in-depth which has developed Offensive Planning across our national borders – better actualised by Rotary Wing capacity.
There is no alarm in this, IZZO, and it is a sound and well thought out strategy. Risasi?
Microprocessor, thanks for your thoughts. Where are all these other folks?Please shed some light. Meanwhile,an interesting debate going on on elsewhere might be of interest.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article32298
More colloborative info from Janes Mar 27,2009 Assessment http://www.janes.com/extracts/extract/cafrsu/kenys100.html “Thousands of former and serving members of the Kenyan armed forces are being recruited with the tacit approval of their superiors, both military and civilian, to join the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA)” etc etc.
Then, lastly, what is our long term defence & diplomatic attitude towards the Illemi Triangle, with the potential oil reserves that may be lying underneath? Could be related to our behaviour to the GoSS?
Izzo,
Thanks for the link. I’ve read comments from some ignorant south Sudanese about how they view our military, they are best ignored. The issue of Illemi triangle appears sensitive, but i believe there could be oil there. Let’s wait to see how this will be handled in the days a head, however i don’t think Kenya will let it go.
Izzo,
Consider the following in a non combat situation maybe that way it would be possible to ‘reason’ in a combat situation yaani these ideas may help us forma basis for reasoning our answers to your questions while thinking combat theaters ! got them via googling.
Fixed wing aircraft
Advantages
• More economical – lower running costs.
• Less vibration.
• Good endurance.
• Plenty of space for equipment.
Disadvantages
• Wing tip or strut can get in the way.
• Continuously moving.
• Can be difficult to position.
Rotary Aircraft
Advantages
• Can hover – remain stationary in the air.
• Can operate very low to the ground.
• Greater maneuverability on the spot.
• Easy to get into the right position for the required shot.
Disadvantages
• High cost per hour.
• Smaller lower cost helicopters have greater vibration.
• Lower cost helicopters such as the R22 have very little room for equipment.
Risasi, you probably got my question wrongly. Why would KAF spend over 20m rand ( approx Kshs 200m) converting its fixed aircraft pilots to rotary pilots? & furthermore, overseas instead of locally? Why not train a fresh batch of rotary pilots,& do so locally?Could it be that we’ve got so few fixed wing aircraft,compared to the available fixed wing pilots, that we need the idle pilots crosstrained,so that instead of them spending downtime,you asign the to helicopters.?(that way,you dont have to pay more guys that u need,you just cross-train & cross-assign them to the 2 types of aircraft) Or are you intentious of having them develop as future trainers,as microprocesser suggests? Or do they intend to invest more in rotary than fixed wing craft in future?
Is it a good way of spending some Kshs 200m, if you were the decision maker? I hope you now get my drift.
Izzo, is it converting or supplementing? I thought the goal is to increase their training hence efficiency so that we can continue to maintain a lean yet a highly effective well funded force.
this boys will only be there for a short time and are already aviators not cadets. let the boys enjoy there tour of duty form the forces
There appears to be an arms race of some sort in the region. Everyone is suddenly re-arming. Look at Tanzania with MiG 29s, Sudan, Ethiopia with SU-27s, Eritrea, Uganda with upgraded MiG 21s ,Kenya etc. What is going on.
Olekoima,
could it be due to oil ? and the anticipated free government of “south sudan” ? what about being “an east and central power house” of the region …. i.e the big boss man ?
if you were the president of one of these other countries you have mentioned, why would you build your forces in this time and age ? considering who your neighbours are and their potentials ? notice all of them are building their air forces with tough birds !
if i were the one then if not for war then i would simply want to pass a message that mimi sio walk over, infact attack me at your own risk !
by the way, what is the difference between a mig 29 and a SU 27 ? they look a like to me !!!!!
The MiG29 is a home land fighter i.e was built to intercept enemy aircrafts within Russian borders .its an in theater fighter. It is smaller then the Su27. its small size made it fallout with small fuel tanks. small fuel tank + 2 larger engine equals to less endurance time. That wasn’t a problem as it was meant to operator within Russia i.e it could do a one way trip fight and land at the nearest air field. it’s midsize has made it a better dogfighter then an Su27.the MiG29 smokes a lot and you can easily tell where it is by looking at the smoke trail. The Su27 is a superiority fighter. Its function is to keep of the enemy fighter while unprotected bombers, gunships or any flying craft can roam in the enemies airspace without being attacked from the air. it also escort bombers deep in the enemies territories and back during marathon air assault. It can shoot at a long distance and can remain airborne for longer hours. It’s more or less an enlarged MiG29 but has lost out on close combat due to its size.
I feel the airforce upgradments is a dominal effect rather then a planed one. In east Africa It all start when Museveni and Moi raffled feather in the mid 80s. Museveni brought in N.korea experts to valuate his forces after. The results were without an airforce he should try to engage a major conflict or a professional military force. Museveni took the advice for granted. upon enter the Congo war the N.Korea advice echo back. he could not push inwards with out an air cover. Both his allies Rwanda and Burundi had none. On the other side Zimbabwe ,Angola and Namibia were pounding their enemies effectively from the air.
after the end of the war Uganda restructured its Military with an airforce plan being a focal point. The same effect was realized during the Ethiopian civil war. The poor state of the airfoces made it easy for them to move ahead. They too upgraded their airfoces so as to avoid a repeat on them. At that time Tz wasn,t concerned, it knew it only had Rwanda Burundi and Uganda to fight. the most notorious in the region that is. Its land border between each of these neighbors is hardly more then 100km. the Uganda border is mainly on lake Victoria. if they can hold them from crossing its 100km wide border they can easily attack the other parts of ug via the air unchallenged. with its exsiting MiG17 and its likes. it could performs any operations and fight any would be attacks from its southern parts. Tz is a peace loving nation but wouldn,t want to wait and experiment with an balanced Ug Force
time changed Uganda and ethopia have learnt the value of a functioning airforce the hard way. Sudan too had to do the same as it has an open and wide area to cover against the existing Chad reprisal. Sudan too is a peace loving country. Both sudan and chad are now armed with MiG29
technically they are the same in all variables except the manufacturer of the planes .their capabilities do not really differ.
The SU-27 has a slight edge over the MiG 29 though. I think the MiG is a little bit of a fuel guzzler too.
Fixed and Rotary flying are diametrically different and demand very different mental preparation / indoctrination. One does not cross-train here, gentlemen, and to any commander, crosstrained abilities indicate confusion of response / reflex / attitude. Remember that a part of a warrior-training is mental, and because the demands on the warrior are dependant on his equipment, cross-training is hardly done in fields so diametrically different. For instance, I went to para school, and also went to combat school – these two complimented my skills learnt at the different schools, and made me a more effective Weapon. In deadly combact, a soldier cannot be a jack of all trade, but the finite objective of a warrior is specialisation to the finest degree. Therefore my response to IZZO query earlier holds that this cross-training is an alternative to the exit-option for those fixed wing pilots who cannot see clearly paths of progression in the Fixed Wing Squadrons. And the Armed Forces proposes this altenative to retain already trained and valuable expertise within it, instead of starting afresh with raw recruits who must obvously go through the same warrior-indoctrination that may eventually fail or take years to inculcate in the recruits – these trained pilots are part of the Esprit des Corps, and available in the event of a general hostilities and general mobilisation.
So there!
Hey, guys, I have served with the “D” of 20 Coy, and Risasi is spot on about this and the CDU. Those chaps are damn good, I tell you, and train with the best. We have done covert insertions all over this East Africa, and done some realy crazzzy things too. Mostly disruptions of comms, blowing up things, some complicated disinformation, plenty of ‘take-outs’ of some chaps in certain command structures, Intel and surveillance. In virtually all countries in the regiion that conflict has been, we have been there, guys.A lot of the stuff you read in blogs about our Armed Forces really gets us a good laugh, seing how effective the disinformation has worked – recall the writting about satelite pictures of tanks tracking to the Sudan? Come on, guys, just how stupid can one educated chap be??
A defense industry component of a Armed Forces Strategy only make sense when in efffect one is faced with imminent aggression at any level about that we face, or an active export policy such as the Israeli, Swedes and Chinese and others have. Because these are justified by productivity and consumption of the products that are churned out. A peace-time Fighting force that trains to develop Excellence of strategy and effectiveness of Command / Control -such as Kenya, cannot justify the massive capital needed by theses sort of industries. However, this excellence of Strategy and effectiveness of Command / Control also develops a deep ability to technical understanding of equipment and weaponry. Indeed part of our General Plannning involves detailed training and exposure to the manufacture of basic equipment used by our Forces, from a diverse sourcing. Kenya has therefore a well-developed pool of knowledge that would quickly be brought to bear in the event of an imminent armed conflict in terms of a rapid program of armament manufacture. Coupled with this is very concrete and vital agreements with several Western Countries specifically in contigent of this eventuality. In the “D” Coy of the Paratroopers, as Risasi and others will attest, every man has the training and capacity to personalise his weapons, by making sophisticated alterations and improvements that suits him!!
Certainly, preparedness is the key to victory for any fighting force, and we in the Armed Forces of Kenya, within the limitations we face, are definitely cognisant of this indeed. Of that, I assure the doubting johns
Well said, Ole Nkarei. But with the above scenarios on what is hapening to the airforces around us,i reckon it is fair to say that the edge we have held for so long has seriously been erroded,-or perhaps wiped out-even with our upgraded F5s. Its a pity that F16s & Gripens are well beyond our financial means & amazing that we could afford/secure F5s 30yrs ago – a top fighter of its generation, & now we cannot afford/secure top fighters of the current generation. We need to work harder,guys!
IZZO, please allow me.
If you take that Defense Industries arent meant primarily to produce for domestic Military consumption but for Export, since the profit generated allows for further Research a & Development as well as Expansion, and a tidy sum to finance domestic consumption, then it follows that a lot of the Hardware on Offer in in the Market is generally over-rated, mostly duplication of other competing Hardware(similar capacities/functions), and may contain functions that are unusable in the heat of Battle, etc. The arguments for and against competing Hardware is mostly driven by the Objective to make a sale, and so might not differ very much from that between OMO and SUNLIGHT powder soaps!! Military Planners shift through this B.S guided by rational considerations of Functions Satisfied ( in the eyes of the Planners) and Cost-efffectiveness of this satisfaction. I think someone on this blog informed and correctly so that few Airmen who have had substantial hours on the F5 will think an F16 and the Gripens are a combat upgrade!
As concerns the shift of Air-power in Eastern African Skies, the truth is that the Race you are witnessing around us is infact a Catch-Up reaction by the TZ, UG, and Ethiopia. A factor that might not be clear to some is that the quality of an Officer Corps is a direct result of the quality of Education in a country. Factor that the depth of Fighter Training in Kenya ( fighter planes vide Fighet pilot) exceeds 16-to-one that of Ethiopia (closest rivals), and our much larger ability to mobilise the Economy in the event of open hostilities within a period of 45Days( Ethiopia Mobilised against tiny, puny Eritrea over a year!!), it will become clear indeed why Kenya has yet to face Armed Aggression from our Neighbours.
I need to explain too that the configuration of our Armed Forces follows a doctrine of an offensive defense – which generally interpretes as a very violently aggressive, fluidly mobile combat beyond our borders over an expansive front. Consequently you will notice that our Armed Forces have carefully constituted specialised formations that gives a very capable ability to project itself into any theatre to substantial depth.
Relax IZZO, you are in very good and capable hands, man.
There are no ABRAM tanks of any version anywhere outside Egypt in Africa. And just one squandron of even the oldest variant would bankrupt the economy of any East African Nation. Its is wholly unsuited for Armoured Combat here being hopeless superior to anything else available – ergo- it is madness to acquire them.
The dominant tanks are the T74, and some T-84 that South Africa has produced on License from the Ukraine. Even these vary in capacities due to the upgrades contained in each sequential breed.
Thanks Tom, I also doubted the existence of such a tank in East Africa. Somebody tried to post in Wikipedia that Kenya had some 85 of them. Separately Izzo posted a link indicating that Kenyan armed forces are helping train the S. Sudanese on use of various military equipment. Doesn’t this not complicate matters especially in view of the contentious Illemi triangle which appears to be claimed by three countries i.e Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya?
Actually a lot of this training is under the radar, so to speak, and we are doing in proxy to the Americans since someone has to do it. And due to the Geopolitical realities facing the Americans in the Greater Arab sector, it is preferred to “out-source” this training. Our tank schools, and combat leadership schools are really top of the range by all international standards, and hence the jobs befalls us. But also, a lot of newly retired NCO and Officers are being sent out there to undertake this job – you cannot serve in any “armed capacity” once in the disciplined forces unless expressly the GOK grants specific approval!
As concerns the ILLEMI Triangle, the reason this little bit has not gone for arbitration or blown up into a issue of concern is because there is no contention about it’s ownership at all. It is raised up occassionally to stir up emotions amongst the uninformed, and give the impression that there are issues between the three countries on this piece of land that could lead to armed conflict. But in strategic studies at our Defense Colleges, clear articulation of “this Country Kenya” is made to explicitly indicate what we know is the mission of the Armed Forces, carefully and in clear details, from both Historical and Legal basis.
One thing though is that this whole region seats atop huge reserves of rare and valuable minerals that extend into the three countries. So that all this Military posturing is simply just that, and essentially the reason that these have remained underground up to date.
We have been practically in semi-mobilised state for years. And we are as ready as we could possibly be in peace-time, olekoima, and I think you know this too.
I encourage members to read a brilliant piece by Dr. Nene Mburu, a retired army officer on Ilemi triange.
http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v7/v7i1a2.htm.
If you find time as, also check out an interesting study of what challenges Kenyatta/Kenya was facing,& we are still facing .e book Ethnic groups in conflict By Donald L. Horowitz
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1nC8htP6SE4C&pg=PA532&lpg=PA532&dq=military+balance+kenya&source=bl&ots=jwmhn2A4Mi&sig=hzueXz0M2QEtrrHpQWGiSczwRjA&hl=en&ei=t4WOSo-lIMv3-AaGjOnyDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#v=onepage&q=military%20balance%20kenya&f=false
& then, although alittle outdated,but useful nevertheless, see Military spending in developing countries: how much is too much? By Brian MacDonald, pg 127 Case Study;Kenya;Strategic Threat Analysis, down till pg 141.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=F9NEecs7ACIC&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=kenya+military+balance&source=bl&ots=bbNFqxgN4A&sig=KNPgI4IECSlnXhPZlrgXfhHrjy0&hl=en&ei=TJWnSuf8DNGgjAfv-YSrCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7#v=onepage&q=kenya%20military%20balance&f=false
It will help bridge the gap between “those-who-know-more,&those-who-know-little”.
izzo i can see your doing a great deal research on the defense capabilities in the region. when you read through the Threat Analysis Doc. you will find its just what we have been discussing for a year or so in this Blog
Thanks Izzo, i have actually seen this book. It is quite interesting and useful especially if you read it all. You will notice that some of the weaknesses raised have now been addressed, Risasi has even confirmed these by some of his posts above same as Ole Nkarei. The book may be old but atleast it gives one some insights on the kind of threats that we may face and how we are likely to fare. Obviously we are safe. Let it be so for many years.
Olekoima, what’s your unit, man? Code it pls.
Izzo, pain-in-the-ass, you?.
Thanks.
attache at kenya defence college over.am impressed by the knowledge some of u guys exhibit though ill tell you what you say here is just a tip of iceberg.our airspace is well guarded and those migs at the inventory of our neighbors are menacing from outside.but our air defence capabilities is sufficient to ensure they make no impact in this hemisphere.chill over.
I have some pictures of east African airforces if Nairobi chronicles will accept to up load them i will send them. i think Nairobi chronicles you should create a page 2 now of this blog and charge it with a more friendly Caption.
Risasi – where have you been? And Nairobi Chroniicles might suffer the same syndrome of our Media, running articles and headlines to run-up their circulation. Else this blog would have long change the Caption.
i am there my brother, just pushing on with life. lets hope Nairobi Chronicles becames a patriot and keeps good of the Crash Military Courses we have conducted in this blog and rewards us with a better page and caption.
Some 1 yr old news.
http://www.fincantieri.it/cms/data/browse/news/000254.aspx
Maybe it is time to create a regional website for regional security issues. The whole broad realm of security, not just defence issues. Food security,IT security, personal security, national security, etc etc.
I bet it would be home to many of our experts here.
What do you think, guys?I reckon there is enough stuff to keep it going for a long time, & there isnt any other such forum, that is, there is an opportunity for it.
We’ll keep plugging at this until we get some respect. The blood and sweat of years, and all you get to see and read is half-backed conjecture couched in some pseudo-intellectual B.S!! Wish i could put some of these guys through the basic obstacle pursuit course – with me and my guys hunting them, harrassing them all night!!
Just come back home from a long CI tour of the Ituri /North Kivu Sector, guys, on some R & R couple of weeks. Man, that place is hot, and the world does not know just how! Wanna hear about it, fellas?\
welcome back so how was DRC.
I am impressed by the level to which these discussions have grown. Its become clear to those who visit this pages on a regular basis that there is a depth of expertise never before seen from our defence experts. The problem is that this depth of knowledge and experience is hardly known outside of the barracks.
I have never believed those who say that our soldiers are idling in the barracks. I do know that this is not the case. I think the main failing of our defence forces is not adapting to the information society that the world has become. People are hungry for information but if the information is not there, that is why you end up with rumours, half-baked conjecture and pseudo-intellectual BS.
The US military has a communication strategy (which I have seen) that states that it is the duty of the armed forces to be open with information in order to justify their existence to the tax payer. Of course, this has to be without compromising state security. If you go to the internet, you will get any information you want about US weapons systems and personnel. I guess their argument is that anybody serious enough to want the information will already have obtained it through intelligence sources. The US forces are so serious with information that they have “Communication Specialists” within their ranks and whose job is to filter information and photos to the media. If you don’t manage your information, then don’t blame the media for depending on disgruntled elements for information about the Forces.
Coming back to Kenya, why the secrecy with the Armed Forces? Secrecy only manages to hide information from the general public but I can bet that our neighbours already know what our arsenal is. Its really not that difficult especially if you know where to look and who to ask.
In Tanzania, the Defence Forces have a monthly newspaper. Why not Kenya? This could go a long way in telling the public what you guys are doing with taxpayer money. The idea about a defence website is a good one and long overdue. It could spur the kind of lively debate we see on this blog post.
why not take the oppotionity and form a military magazine. wewe sema yote 9 lakini moja itabaki ufanye. you need to redo the caption for this blog.
A continuation to my thoughts in the previous comment:
As a start, I would suggest some sort of inter-forces publication or website. This will include news and information from all the branches of the armed forces: Army, Airforce, Navy, Kenya Police, Administration Police, Prisons, NYS and KWS. This is because, initially, there may not be enough information to have a publication for each service but as the concept grows and the information needs grow, then each service could spin off its own publication.
Target audiences should be:
- Members of the armed forces (soldiers and police need to know what’s happening in the other services other than their own). The combined numbers are more than enough to justify a publication. Just think of how many publications teachers already have!
- The general public
- The media (local and international).
nairobi chronicle,
i got a bit scared when you guys decided to go too “technical” in terms of military jargon. like i said am not military but computers ( their technology and security) esp. networks !
the idea of the publication would be good but let everyone irrespective of their background consume it. am sure, maybe, their only fear would be spies from other countries but please siku hizi all this is available on line or via magazines like janes defence weekly etc
when you do open up ppl get to know more about you and appreciate our role in the society esp where tax payers money is concerned. with TEAMS, ESSAY and SEACOM cable rolling out we are just about to witness one of the most amazing events in out country YET very few are aware of the implications of this cable in terms of security in ALL our sectors not just security in terms of ARMED FORCES. i hope our MIA, the NSIS, the POLICE and CCK are ready for these cables i.e their “capabilities” and “implications” to the nations security…….WE ARE ABOUT TO SEE A SERIOUS SURGE IN CYBER RELATED CRIMES like we have never witnessed before. we do not just need tanks, jet fighter or naval ships, its time to go specially trained cyber security experts in all our defense systems as well……….REMEMBER TO PAY THEM WELL !!!!!
don’t worry microprocessor we had to go technical otherwise the blog would have render the Armed Forces as a good for nothing “SECURITY PARASTAL”. i have sent pictures on East africa airforces to be published by the Nairobi chronicle. hope this will lighten the blog.
was reading about the new fiber optic cable, it will be a plus to this region.
HAI RISASI GOOD JOB.HOW CAN I VIEW THE PICTURES YOU MENTIONED ABOVE?
Risasi,
l second you on the idea of coming up with a Magazine.
i sent the pictures to Nairobi chronicle via email he will publish them on his web. the pictures include relic picture of Somalia aircorps,UAV aquired by sudan airforce to the newly formed congo/zaire airforce with Mirage F-1, Su25 ,Mig23, Mi35 ,C-130 ,Puma and the Mi26 helo (the bigest chopper in the world) .in paper the Congo airforce looks tougher then the jeshi la wanainchi airforce. the region has known the value of a fuctioning airforce.
A military magazine to tell our story to the civilian types is a powerful weapon both good and bad for the same civilian types. In the most classic example of this, consecutive American administrations have used the media and all this freedom to know what your tax money is doing, in concerning the Armed Foces, to permanently enslave their people to adventures that all other societies and government in the World have condemned. How do you expect the Iraqi occupation to have ran this long without the disinformation and propaganda efforts of the Armed Forces through all manner of publications? What about the slaughter taking place in Afaghanistan of innocent civilians and not so innocent combatants, and there is not serious moral debate taking place in the American Society? I am all for a magazine, and will contribute my two bits worth, but a student of military matters, I must warn that this is a double-edged sword that all despots cannot resist. Information is power, and a factor in all modern day combat situations.t
F-5 Tiger-II are junk fighters. See where F-5 is in the table:
—-
This table compares the T/W ratios using a constant fuel weight of 3505kgs(7729lbs).
T/W ratio = Max Thrust of Engine(s) / (Empty Weight + (3.505 tonnes of fuel, or fuel & weapons))
1.48 – F-15K
1.37 – F-22
1.32 – Su-35BM
1.29 – F-15C
1.26 – Su-27S
1.25 – Eurofighter
1.23 – Su-27SK & J-11A
1.22 – Su-30MKI
1.19 – Rafale C
1.18 – Mig-29M/M2
1.16 – Su-30MKK
1.15 – Mig-29A
1.148 – F/A-18E/F
1.10 – F-16 Block 52
1.09 – F-16 Block 60
1.09 – F-16 Block 50
1.08 – F-35A
1.08 – F-14D
1.06 – Mig-29k
1.03 – F-2A
1.01 – J-10
1.008 – J-8II
1.00 – F-35B
0.99 – MiG-23MLD Flogger-K
0.94 – F-35C
0.94 – Gripen NG
0.94 – F-4E
0.881 – Mirage 2000 C & H
0.88 – LCA
0.86 – F-CK-1
0.84 – JF-17
0.84 – Mig-19S**
0.83 – Tornado F3 Air Defence Variant
0.81 – Mig-27K
0.81 – F-20
0.80 – Mig-21 Bis
0.76 – J-7E & F-7BG
0.70 – F-7PG
0.68 – F-7MB
0.58 – F-5E Tiger-II
0.57 – Mirage-IIIE & 5
Pure Interceptors
1.22 – Mig-31E
0.87 – MiG-25P Foxbat-A
Empty Weight – Thrust – Fighter
31,700 – 29,160 X 2 – F-15K
43,340 – 35,000 X 2 – F-22
40,565 – 31,967 X 2 – Su-35BM
28,600 – 23,450 X 2 – F-15C
35,935 – 27,600 X 2 – Su-27S
24,250 – 20,000 X 2 – Eurofighter
37,192 – 27,600 X 2 – Su-27SK & J-11A
40,565 – 29,400 X 2 – Su-30MKI
20,948 – 17,000 X 2 – Rafale C
25,573 – 19,580 X 2 – Mig-29M/M2
39,903 – 27,600 X 2 – Su-30MKK
24,030 – 18,300 X 2 – Mig-29A
30,600 – 22,000 X 2 – F/A-18E/F
18,780 – 29,160 X 1 – F-16 Block 52
22,000 – 32,500 X 1 – F-16 Block 60
19,200 – 29,400 X 1 – F-16 Block 50
29,300 – 39,900 X 1 – F-35A
43,735 – 27,800 X 2 – F-14D
29,211 – 19,580 X 2 – Mig-29K
21,000 – 29,500 X 1 – F-2A
19,544 – 27,557 X 1 – J-10
21,653 – 14,815 X 2 – J-8II
32,000 – 39,900 X 1 – F-35B
21,153 – 28,700 X 1 – MiG-23MLD Flogger-K
34,800 – 39,900 X 1 – F-35C
15,653 – 22,000 X 1 – Gripen NG
30,328 – 17,845 X 1 – F-4E
16,538 – 21,380 X 1 – Mirage 2000 C & H
14,100 – 19,100 X 1 – LCA
14,300 – 09,500 X 2 – F-CK-1
14,134 – 18,300 X 1 – JF-17
11,983 – 08,300 X 2 – Mig-19S**
32,000 – 16,410 X 2 – Tornado F3 Air Defence Variant
26,252 – 27,600 X 1 – Mig-27K
13,150 – 17,000 X 1 – F-20
11,770 – 15,650 X 1 – Mig-21 Bis
11,667 – 14,650 X 1 – J-7E & F-7BG
11,629 – 13,448 X 1 – F-7PG
11,629 – 13,219 X 1 – F-7MB
09,558 – 05,000 X 2 – F-5E Tiger-II
15,600 – 13,240 X 1 – Mirage-IIIE & 5
Pure Interceptors
48,100 – 34,172 X 2 – Mig-31E
44,080 – 22,494 X 2 – MiG-25P Foxbat-A
Weight in lb, and Thrust in lbf.
3505 kg = 7729 lb
** Empty weight + 7729 lb exceeds max takeoff weight.
Su-35BM, Su-30MKK, J-10’s weight is an estimate.
Impressing data but being a lay man you are failing to interpret it. I will only tell you being Bottom in that list isn’t necessary an indication of an inefficient craft. Keep on with your research.
or what do you understand from the data
Simple.. if there is a dogfight, F-5 can’t climb, and can’t outmaneuver a Su-27 or Mig-29. Once it losses airspeed, it can’t recover it quickly as a su-27 or a mig-29. It can be a match for F-7’s, but F-7’s can accelerate faster and move out of harms way from a f-5.
In short, F-5 is a 2nd generation fighter which was made to counter Mig-21s. it is no match for 4th Generation Fulcrums and flankers which is possession of other African nations.
Most probably there was some bribes and kickbacks involved in this deal.
Also F-5’s are powered by highly inefficient Turbojet engines which is so ancient it’s not even in production. All 4 gen fighers are powered by Turbo fan engines.
The F-5 engines were so crappy and inefficient, that the american’s offered F-20, which is F-5 with a single, more advanced and efficient engine. See where F-20 is in that list. I can’t believe there are people defending this junk and comparing it to 4 gen fighters. It’s blasphemy.
And I’m not a layman.
And being a second Gen fighter, it probably has piss poor G-limits of 5 to 6. And because of it’s low G limits, it can’t make tighter turns. Well, having that kind of T/W ratio, you better not turn hard since once you lose Airspeed, you are as good as dead if your opponent has higher TWR.
I can go on and on.
It’s good to know your not a layman and I apologies if it offended you. if there is something educative I can learn from you then why not. I would go to sleep having learnt something new. So from your perspective and experience I would appreciate to know or if you could explain to me in simple terminology the following details.
Again from your perspective and experience.
Fuji,
The F-5 is not a second generation fighter, it is third generation. Early versions of the the MiG 21s are second generation though. Your analysis is good but you miss the point. Most of what you have given is theoretical and might not mean much. You will need to look at the practical performances of the various aircraft as well. For instance, during the gulf war the Tornado gave a good account of itself yet from your analysis, it is way below the MiG 29. The F-5 was there as well being used by the Saudis and it did not dissapoint while in the company of the more potent F-18s,F-15s, F-117s, Tornado etc.
Yes the Mig 29 and the Su 27s are more mordern and are fourth generation fighters, but that does not mean they are way a head of an upgraded F-5 fighter. Besides, you will recall that Algeria returned some her MiG 29s to Russia due to dissapointment in them.
To Mr Fuji
1. What are these pure interceptor that you have in the list?
2. what happens when a fighter higher in the list meets a lower ranking fighter. Lets say like in the third world regions where AWACS and like system are not in operational. A one on one combat episode, a basic dog fights something similar to that. What’s your suggestion?
3. Its true that the jet engines have evolved to better ones.
So what’s the fate of the f-5 in these modern times. With it’s out dated engines.
Nah.. I was not offended personally, but I was annoyed when people were making comparisons between 2nd generation and 4 gen fighters.
“So from your perspective and experience I would appreciate to know or if you could explain to me in simple terminology the following details.”
Sure. Basically T/W ratio indicates the amount of power propelling the Aircraft forward. You can say it’s Acceleration. A TWR difference of 0.1 is a LOT of difference. It means you can recover Airspeed losses quickly in a dogfight. So it means you can make tighter turns and climb faster than your opponent. The more tighter your turn, the more airspeed loss you’ll encounter. When you climb, you store potential energy and that is very useful in a Dogfight.
G limit, is the forces acting on you when you turn your Fighter. 1 G is the gravitational pull of the earth which we feel. Mig-29 can pull 9G’s. It can go even further, but a human body can only withstand upto 9 G’s. The more tighter you turn, the more G’s you get. 2nd Gen fighters can only withstand around 6 G’s. So you can’t make tighter turns. Thus your turn radius will be huge and an aircraft with a lesser turn radius(high G tolerance) will move to your behind and finish you off.
Lets say if a F-5 dogfights with an F-7. Lets assume G tolerance is 7 for F-5, and F-7’s G limit is 6, and both have similar drag profiles. Since F-5 can pull more G’s, it can make tighter turns than a F-7 and can get behind it. But the problem is its TWR is just 0.58 while that of early model F-7 is 0.68. So the moment you turn with 7 Gs, you’ll lose Airspeed quickly because of low TWR. The moment you lose speed, you’ll only turn slower and experience only 3-4 G’s. Eventhough your fighter can soak up to 7G’s, you won’t be able to utilise it completely. The F-7 on the other hand has more T/W ratio and thus has more speed. So it can utilize 5-6 G’s and turn tighter than you and get to your behind. F-5 is dead!
If F-5 fights a Mig-29, it is so dead. The 29 outclasses it in both TWR and Gs. Even if Mig has more drag than a F-5, it’s huge TWR advantage eclipses it completely. So the Mig will simple execute a 9g turn, and get to F-5’s behind. F-5 can’t accelerate, can’t out turn, and it can’t even run away since it’s top speed is less than the Mig. This is not even a contest.
There you go that is the basics of Dogfighting.
There are also other factors like AoA, Corner velocity, Sustained turn rate. There is no reliable publicly available info regarding Corner velocity and sustained turned rates . But the Angel of Attack figures of Mig-29 is huge. Around 30 degrees.
In the eyes of Beyond visual range missiles, all the above probably won’t be of any use. But the age of dogfighting is here to say. Also given that fact that African nations only have limited BVR capability, Dogfights are very much here to stay.
“The F-5 is not a second generation fighter, it is third generation. Early versions of the the MiG 21s are second generation though. Your analysis is good but you miss the point. Most of what you have given is theoretical and might not mean much. You will need to look at the practical performances of the various aircraft as well. For instance, during the gulf war the Tornado gave a good account of itself yet from your analysis, it is way below the MiG 29. The F-5 was there as well being used by the Saudis and it did not dissapoint while in the company of the more potent F-18s,F-15s, F-117s, Tornado etc.”
Strictly speaking, Mig-21 and F-5 Tiger-II is second generation. Some people claim Mig-21late model bis and F-5TigerII as third generation, but that is not right. Mig-23 & mig-27 are the true 3rd gen fighters.
This is from wiki:
“The improved second-generation F-5E Tiger II was also primarily used by American Cold War allies and, in limited quantities, served in US military aviation as a training and aggressor aircraft”
The Allies won the gulf war because of excellent AWACS, JSTARS, BVR missiles and other support aircraft. I don’t think there is Awacs, Jstars and Amraam missles in Kenya’s arsenal. If the Iraqis had all that then they might have put up a good fight. They could not have won because they don’t have many fighters as the allies/coalition.
In a dogfight scenario which is bound to happen in the African context, those F-5 are sitting ducks. Tornados are very very poor dogfighters. They are primarily bombers.
“Besides, you will recall that Algeria returned some her MiG 29s to Russia due to dissapointment in them.”
No. The russians gave them old refurbished Mig-29s and passed them off as new ones. The algerias got pissed off and cancelled the deal.
“To Mr Fuji
1. What are these pure interceptor that you have in the list?
2. what happens when a fighter higher in the list meets a lower ranking fighter. Lets say like in the third world regions where AWACS and like system are not in operational. A one on one combat episode, a basic dog fights something similar to that. What’s your suggestion?
3. Its true that the jet engines have evolved to better ones.
So what’s the fate of the f-5 in these modern times. With it’s out dated engines.”
You can read my previous reply i’ve given an exhausting account of Dogfights. And this reply I’ve talked about absense of AWACS and fights in the context of kenya’s neighborhood.
Interceptors, well they are just interceptors. They can’t dogfight. They come, launch their missiles from long ranges, and speed away. I’ll give you a detailed reply shortly. I’m AFK for a while.
In view of the recent acquisitions of fourth generation fighters by the neighbours, Kenya must not lag behind. Military planners must take stock of the potential dangers from the north i.e the MiG 29s in Sudan ( and possibly Tanzania ) and the Su 27s in Ethiopia. The purchase of 15 used F-5s from Jordan should act as a stop gap measure as the country seeks more suitable replacements. Possible candidates could be the Jas 39 Gripen, the J-10 or the JF 17 Thunder. These are relatively cheaper than most western versions of similar capability and are thus affordable for a developing country like Kenya.
If you guys are much interested in Fighter jets and military hardware, I could point you to some nice defence forums for beginners. There you can gain knowledge as well as clarify your doubts. Let me know if you are interested.
Anyway…
“To Mr Fuji
1. What are these pure interceptor that you have in the list?”
These interceptors fighters can’t dogfight. Their job is to intercept enemy fighters and cruise missiles. They have very powerful radars! They can see enemy fighters from 200-300 kms away and launch long range Air to Air missiles. After they have launched their missiles, they’ll come back. These fighters have tremendous speeds. Mig-25 and Mig-31 can reach speeds upto Mach 2.8 and altitudes of 27km. At such speeds, the missiles you launch at them won’t even reach them. The missiles would run out of fuel trying to catch them.
“2. what happens when a fighter higher in the list meets a lower ranking fighter. Lets say like in the third world regions where AWACS and like system are not in operational. A one on one combat episode, a basic dog fights something similar to that. What’s your suggestion?”
Please, read my previous reply. i’ve given a detailed account of what happens during a dogfight.
“3. Its true that the jet engines have evolved to better ones.
So what’s the fate of the f-5 in these modern times. With it’s out dated engines.””
Well, it can still dogfight against Mig-21’s and Mig-19’s & F-7s. If the Kenyan pilot is clever to use his fighter to the best, he can win. I just checked some sites, it seem you guys have only 22 F-5’s. That is the only Fighters you have!! That’s shocking. I guess the neighborhood around Kenya must be a peaceful place to have such reduced force levels.
http://www.milaviapress.com/orbat/kenya/index.php
If the area is indeed peaceful, I guess F-5 should do just fine. Here in Asia all hell could break loose.. unsolved border disputes to ethnic tensions, it’s all here. China-Taiwan issue, North Korea-South Korea, and India- pakistan zones are hot beds. Since Kenya doesn’t have any border disputes or ethnic tensions, it means no need for very expensive fighters.
ANYWAY
Article #1 pure fighter.
The MiG-25 was created to intercept the u-2 spy plane. it is also used in aerial combat.
a. Egypt used it with impunity over the first phase of the arab isreal war.
b. Syria still use it to fighter off isreal F-16.
c. During the first gulf war the first combat engagement was between a MiG25 IqaF and a F-18 USN. The F-18 lost.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-25
revise
Spend more time in the net before posting your suggestions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-25#Operational_history
Ofcourse what you posted is right. Mig-25 is a interceptor. Interceptors are basically fighters.
The Mig-25’s cannot dogfight. They are not meant to dogfight.
“Spend more time in the net before posting your suggestions”
What?
But despite this they did win some victories- http://s188567700.online.de/CMS/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=47
Also like I said, my list doesn’t affect BVR engagements. See how many were killed by Aim-54 and Aim-7. those are BVR missiles.
I don’t see any F-5 scoring individual hits on Mig-25. Only one is given and it is given as ‘Shared’. F-14 fired the first shot, and F-5 shot second at the already crippled Mig-25. The cannon is obviously a lie. No Mig-25 pilot is dumb enough to get killed by cannon, and that too from a F-5. And that’s why it is given in WHITE. Entries in white are unconfirmed kills.
The Mig-25 has to fire its missiles after locking from its radar. if the enemy planes fly close to the ground then the radar cannot detect or lock because of ground clutter(radar reflected from the ground). In that scenario, you can bring down a Mig-25 IF IT IS COMING TOWARDS YOU. If you fire missiles, and if the Mig-25 pilot knows there are missiles heading your way and speeds up in the Opposite Direction, then your missiles won’t reach him. it’ll run out of fuel. When a Mig-25 is coming towards a missile, obviously the missile will hit it, provided the Mig-25 is not flying at high altitudes and the missiles are not launched from low altitudes.
Article #2
Based on the list you provided and what you stand for we can arrive at the following hypothesis
“In a normal dogfight chase the only contended to an F-22 will be the F-15K,
the F-4 can not challenge a MiG23 or aircrafts above it, the F-5 shouldn’t be able to challenge most fighter in the list , MiG19 can out maneuvered the F-35 and the Mirage III shouldn’t cause harm to most fighter.”
I think we level on that before I proceeded.
Article #2
Based on the list you provided and what you stand for we can arrive at the following hypothesis
“In a normal dogfight chase the only contended to an F-22 will be the F-15k,
the F-4 can not challenge a MiG23 or aircrafts above it, the F-5 shouldn’t be able to challenge most fighter in the list , MiG19 can out maneuvered the F-35 and the Mirage III shouldn’t cause harm to most fighter.”
I think we level on that before I proceeded.
Now lets take the First Persian war. a war between iran vs iraq. Both oil rich with strong economies to eliminate any unnecessary. No AWACS or air support systems of the sort. The IraF composed of mainly American fighter under an arms embargo due to the ousting of the Shan regime. Lets see how they faired
the F-4 from IriaF shoot down almost all Mig23 it encountered, while the MiG23 ranks above F-4 in you list .
the IriaF F-5 brought down several IqaF MiG-25 “Pure Interceptors” and MiG-21 among other. you earlier stated the MiG-25 should be able to climb and run away from missile and other aircrafts. in one incident a Major Yadollah Javadpour piloting a F-5 brought down a MiG-25 using his canons. What am trying to imply this was a basic air to air combat maneuver. your list should have come into effect .evasive maneuvers, tight turn climbs, dive and maneuvers of similar fashions.
In short what ever the losses were the result don’t reflect your list and suggestion.
what your whats your take on this.
http://s188567700.online.de/CMS/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=47
Not necessarily. My scenario has one basic assumption, that is the pilots are trained equally well on both sides. if you place a very poor pilot in a F-22 and ask him to dogfight a superb pilot in a Mig-29, obviously the pilot in the Mig will win.
Also the Mig-23 is an Mig-23 MLD. The TWR of mig-23MF is less than that of F-4e. It’s 0.91.
And more the TWR difference, the more disadvantage you are in. But remember, the above TWR is made taken into account similar weights on fighters… that is 3505 kgs load. If a F-5 only carries 1700 fuel and weapons compared to a Mig-23 or F-7 with carries 3505 kgs or 5000 kgs, then your TWR will be higher, and theirs lower. The above TWR list is an unbiased list meant to compare the fighters.
Regarding persian war, like Is said before regarding pilot training-
“In addition to a superior air fleet, Iranian pilots were better trained. The Iranian air force adhered to NATO flight training time requirements for combat pilots, whereas at the outbreak of war Iraqi pilots had “limited hours of flying time”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Air_Force_in_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_war
But despite this they did..
(sorry I posted this in article 1. Reposting.)
But despite this they did win some victories- http://s188567700.online.de/CMS/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=47
Also like I said, my list doesn’t affect BVR engagements. See how many were killed by Aim-54 and Aim-7. those are BVR missiles.
I don’t see any F-5 scoring individual hits on Mig-25. Only one is given and it is given as ‘Shared’. F-14 fired the first shot, and F-5 shot second at the already crippled Mig-25. The cannon is obviously a lie. No Mig-25 pilot is dumb enough to get killed by cannon, and that too from a F-5. And that’s why it is given in WHITE. Entries in white are unconfirmed kills.
The Mig-25 has to fire its missiles after locking from its radar. if the enemy planes fly close to the ground then the radar cannot detect or lock because of ground clutter(radar reflected from the ground). In that scenario, you can bring down a Mig-25 IF IT IS COMING TOWARDS YOU. If you fire missiles, and if the Mig-25 pilot knows there are missiles heading your way and speeds up in the Opposite Direction, then your missiles won’t reach him. it’ll run out of fuel. When a Mig-25 is coming towards a missile, obviously the missile will hit it, provided the Mig-25 is not flying at high altitudes and the missiles are not launched from low altitudes.
i think you have made it waste no you self now. we are not disputing the out comes of the iran-iraq war. but list that you claim will be the key factor for dogfight as you put it. the MiG21 Iran air force brought down F-4e IqaF. the MiG21 is much lower in you list compared to the F-4E not so? so again you list is not the yard stick of dogfight performance.
Article #3
The numbers of fighters we have are based on own potential threats and budgets constraints.
Back to our topic of discussion.
You claim that an F-5 is good for nothing with out dated engines that can propel it in a dogfight. The F-5 rolled out as a F-5A/B Tiger. It proved it’s self and was revised by the manufacturer to a Tiger II F-5E/F. at the current moment it being upgraded by individual air force based on there needs to a Tiger III .The upgrading is being done by well to do country let alone third world nation.
tell me why most nation are rapidly modernizing the F-5E.
F-5 can be upgraded to become a good BVR fighter, and with latest advances in missiles, even in dogfights you can win provided you have Aim-9 missiles. But if the opponent has similar capability, but if he has better engines and has more power, he has better chances of evading those missiles than the F-5 which is underpowered. ofcourse liek I said, it also depends on many many many factors. It that moment you TWR may be higher because you may only be carrying 2 missles and 1000 kgs of fuel while you opponent may be carrying a lot of load. You pilot may be better trained than the other. but in a similar comparison, or in other words, a pure Aircraft to aircraft comparison, F-5 is very underpowered with ancient engines.
Regarding Mig-25, Here you go, this is from wiki-
“In yet another incident, two MiG-25s approached a pair of F-15s, fired missiles (which were evaded by the F-15s), and then outran the American fighters. Two more F-15s joined the pursuit, and a total of ten air-to-air missiles were fired at the MiG-25s, though none reached them.[27] According to the same sources, at least one F-111 was also forced to abort its mission by a MiG-25 on the first 24 hours of hostilities, during an air raid over Tikrit.”
Evading 10 air to air missiles, that is what I was talking about. Remember those are advanced missiles.
Also, in order to evade a missile, you can just out run it, or turn 90 degrees from the missile flight path. if you take a missile head on, most probably the missile will get you no matter how fast you are.
Mr Fuji
Kindly answer the article #1, #2, #3 posted in a fresh post below, before proceeding into other interesting topics or we shall find ourselves running around in meaningless circles and posting unorderly data thanks for you time.
“In view of the recent acquisitions of fourth generation fighters by the neighbours, Kenya must not lag behind. Military planners must take stock of the potential dangers from the north i.e the MiG 29s in Sudan ( and possibly Tanzania ) and the Su 27s in Ethiopia. The purchase of 15 used F-5s from Jordan should act as a stop gap measure as the country seeks more suitable replacements. Possible candidates could be the Jas 39 Gripen, the J-10 or the JF 17 Thunder. These are relatively cheaper than most western versions of similar capability and are thus affordable for a developing country like Kenya.”
If Kenya doesn’t have any major disputes with its neighbours, then f-5 should do just fine. but if someone does attacks kenya, then F-5 won’t stand much of a chance. but what are the chances of that happening? When was the last war kenya fought?
If you are looking for very high end fourth generation fighters, then Buy Su-35BM. it is very costly(65 million).. but other fighters which is equal to it is more costlier. Rafale, Eurofighter, F-15K etc are equal to Su-35bm but more costlier than it. Su-35 Bm can dogfight, can launch BVR missiles, can act as a bomber, can act as an interceptor, it’s an all in plane.
But if Su-35bm is too costly then buying a cheap BVR fighter with somewhat reasonable dogfighting capabilities is the best way forward. JF-17 is a wonderful candidate. It costs anywhere between 15-20 million a piece and can launch BVR missiles. However if the BVR(beyond visual range) missiles fails and if it gets into a dogfight with a Mig-29 or a Su-27, then it’s dead. But it can dogfight and win if the opponent is a F-7, Mig-21 or a Mig-19. It would be an equal match for earlier versions of Mig-23. Ofcourse this is only for dogfights. If the BVR missile is a top class missile, then you won’t even get to Dogfight. BVR missile ranges are between 10km to 70km. If the distance between the fighters is less than 10 km then it’s the realm of dogfights.
Basically there are several types of fighters:
1: Dogfighters-
Eg:
Top dogfighters: Mig-29M, Su-27, F-15C & K, Rafale, Eurofighter, Su-30, Su-35BM, F-22, etc.. etc..
Medium dogfighters: F-16(all versions), F/A-18E/F, F-35, Mig-23, J-10, gripen NG, .. etc etc..
Ok dogfighters: Mig-19, Mig-21, F-5, F-7, F-6, JF-17, Mirage etc etc.
-
2: BVR fighters:
Top BVR fighters: F-22 raptor, F-35, Su-35BM, Su-30, Eurofighter, rafale, Gripen NG, F-15K, F-16block 60, F/A-18E/F, Mig-29(Aesa) etc etc..
Medium BVR fighters: Mig-29, Su-27, F-16C, F-15C, J-10 etc etc.
ok BVR fighters: Mig-21 Bison(latest indian version), JF-17, F-5(if it carries BVR missiles).
-
3: Bombers/Strike Aircraft:
Top fighter Bombers: F-35, F-16 block 60, Su-35BM, rafale, Su-30, F/A-18E/F etc etc..
F-22 and eurofighter can drop bombs as well, but they will be primarily used as a BVR & Dog fighter.
Medium fighter Bombers: F-16 Block 50,40,30 , Su-27 multirole versions, Mig-29 multirole versions, F-15E, Tornado etc etc..
Ok fighter bombers: Mig-21, Mig-23, Mig-27, Su-24, JF-17, F-5, F-7 etc etc.
-
4: Close air support Fighter:
Top: A-10, Su-39
Medium end: Su-25, Mig-27, Tornado
OK close air support aircraft: Mig-21, mig-19, A-5 fantan, F-7
-
5: Interceptors:
High end: Mig-31, Mig-25
Medium end: F-15, F-22, Su-27, Su-30, Su-35bm
Ok interceptors: Mig-21, Mig-23, Mirage, Mig-29, F-16, J-8, F-7 etc etc
-
6: High speed armed recon(not much use these days)
Mig-25, Mig-31
Mr Fuji
On your article posted on September 26th, 2009 at 2:17 pm you claimed in not so many words that your Thrust/weight ratio was the Gospel of dog fighting. You went further to elaborate the issue in detail with regards to the F-5 vs F-7
I have posted episode that don,t reflect your thoughts and index and now It seem you have better suggestions called “many many many other factors, including the pilots”
1, so I ask you would like to take back your words and reconsider the postings you made on this date?
2. you claimed not to be a lay man, and promised me sincerely and offer to post “ defense forums for beginner ” to enhance this blog.. it now seem that you are avoiding questions I earlier asked. Unless you wanted to dictate to me on the issue, I was meant to believe it was going to be a 2way traffic conversation. Again I could be wrong.
I asked simple questions in article #1 #2 #3 which you haven,t replay.
So again I will ask you whats your take on the articles with regards to your list?
P/s
The MiG-21 is regarded as an interceptor and yet it has be used in many Dogfights
“”"On your article posted on September 26th, 2009 at 2:17 pm you claimed in not so many words that your Thrust/weight ratio was the Gospel of dog fighting. You went further to elaborate the issue in detail with regards to the F-5 vs F-7″”"
Never did I say that the F-7 vs F-5 scenario was the gospel. Quote me where I said gospel. Infact I even said BVR combat is different from Dogfights.
“”"I have posted episode that don,t reflect your thoughts and index and now It seem you have better suggestions called “many many many other factors, including the pilots
2. you claimed not to be a lay man, and promised me sincerely and offer to post “ defense forums for beginner ” to enhance this blog.. it now seem that you are avoiding questions I earlier asked. Unless you wanted to dictate to me on the issue, I was meant to believe it was going to be a 2way traffic conversation. Again I could be wrong.
I asked simple questions in article #1 #2 #3 which you haven,t replay.
So again I will ask you whats your take on the articles with regards to your list?
P/s””
I have already replied to your post concerning the cannons. But that post it says
“Fuji, on September 27th, 2009 at 10:05 pm Said: Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
The comment is awaiting moderation. I have split my post into 2 and posted it again.
The many many factors in Dogfights other than T/W ratio include Pilot training, pilot psychology, Morale, advanced dogfighting missiles, fuel & weapons load, altitude of engagement.
I have replied to all you queries/articles.
“”"1, so I ask you would like to take back your words and reconsider the postings you made on this date?”"”
Why? F-5 is a junk plane. Just because F-5’s pilot is superior and he has better missiles & radar doesn’t mean his plane is good. In an UNBIASED flight performance parameters comparison, F-5 is terrible.
You can win a war if you have good disciplined high morale pilot and advanced missiles inside a junk plane.
“”"The MiG-21 is regarded as an interceptor and yet it has be used in many Dogfights”"”
Yes, it can dogfight as well as intercept. For intercept you need top speed and Mig-21 gives you that. It’s top speed is Mach 2.2. F-5’s top speed is just mach 1.6.
“””The MiG-21 is regarded as an interceptor and yet it has be used in many Dogfights”””
Yes, it can dogfight as well as intercept. For intercept one of the basic things you need is top speed and Mig-21 gives you that. It’s top speed is Mach 2.2. F-5’s top speed is just mach 1.6.
The article on the MiG21 as an Inteceptor I was just implying that interceptor do Dogfight.
I will give you the benefit of doubt with regards to the iran-iraq war . some BVR missile where used. But if you narrow down the search to the use of the AIM-9 missile (a dog fighting missile) you will find that your list doesn’t tally too.
The Iranian pilots were trained to N.A.T.O standards and this was one of the attributes that contributed to that result. The same attribute is seen in the below data between PaK vs IaF. Similar economy and military readiness. But the Pakistanis had more hours with there F-6 (Chinese MiG-19) and manage to bring down several india fighter which had good T/W ratio. No BVR missile used. pure dogfight.
The Mirage III which is suppose to be a lame in you artical proved it self
http://s188567700.online.de/CMS/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=171&Itemid=47
between 23Oct73 to 10may86
I think by now you have realized that the T/W ratio is just an indictor but not the whole truth as you claimed in you article posted on September 26th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
can form a new hypotheses?
“The thrust to weight ratio is not the Bible of Dog fighting but a figure of merit. It’s good in marketing the performance of aircrafts. In dog fighting the phase “it depends on” contributes a lot to the out come of the fight”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust-to-weight_ratio
Any correction you would like to make?
So what you take on F-5 upgrading ? you claim it not to be a good dogfighter based upon you list.
If you can transform any junk into a modern fighter why are countries mainly doing it to the F-5? There many good relics laying about like f-14, mirage f1 etc. Air forces are going to the extent of buying used F-5 from other air forces and upgrading them. I feel it’s because it has stood to the test of time, proved itself worth and has a place in today’s battles.
“”"i think you have made it waste no you self now. we are not disputing the out comes of the iran-iraq war. but list that you claim will be the key factor for dogfight as you put it. the MiG21 Iran air force brought down F-4e IqaF. the MiG21 is much lower in you list compared to the F-4E not so? so again you list is not the yard stick of dogfight performance.”"”
Like I said, it also depends on pilot factor. Maybe that particular Iraqi pilot was better. Also, Mig-21’s engine can give you emergency thrust for 3 minutes!!! In that emergency thrust of 21829 lbf, it can generate TWR of 1.12 under a load of 7729 lb. If the dogfight took place under 3 mins it would have the advantage. If the fight drags longer the Mig-21 losses that advantage.
“”"The article on the MiG21 as an Inteceptor I was just implying that interceptor do Dogfight.”"”
Yes, interceptors do dogfight, that’s why Mig-21 is clubbed together with the rest of the fighters… while Mig-25 & Mig-31 are given separately. they can’t dogfight.
“”"I will give you the benefit of doubt with regards to the iran-iraq war . some BVR missile where used. But if you narrow down the search to the use of the AIM-9 missile (a dog fighting missile) you will find that your list doesn’t tally too.”"”
Aim-9 missile is better than russian missiles. But despite that fact, count how many Mig-21’s killed F-5e and how many F-5 killed Mig-21. The tally of Mig-21 killing F-5 is much more.
“”"The Iranian pilots were trained to N.A.T.O standards and this was one of the attributes that contributed to that result. The same attribute is seen in the below data between PaK vs IaF. Similar economy and military readiness. But the Pakistanis had more hours with there F-6 (Chinese MiG-19) and manage to bring down several india fighter which had good T/W ratio. No BVR missile used. pure dogfight.
The Mirage III which is suppose to be a lame in you artical proved it self”"”
Where is it good? The planes there Hunter, Su-7 etc were primarily used by the IAF as bomber/ground support aircraft. So i doubt the pilots had enough dogfighting training, and most of them were brought down during attack runs. But check out how many F-86 brought down gnats and how many gnats brought down & damaged(purple) F-86. Gnats have a higher T/W ratio than F-86, and were used primarily as dogfighters by the IAF, and F-86 as dogfighters by the PAF. Infact if you notice, most of the kills were done by Aim-9 missiles on gnats by the pakistanis, but all, I mean, ALL the kills made by gnats were done by cannon. That is because Gnats can’t even fire missiles, it has only guns as it’s weapon. But it has more kills and damages.
“”"I think by now you have realized that the T/W ratio is just an indictor but not the whole truth as you claimed in you article posted on September 26th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
can form a new hypotheses?”"”
Read my previous paragraph.
And you’re still ignoring my point. In an environment where pilot training and weapons are equal, TWR plays a big role. In an environment where pilot training and TWR are equal, weapons play a key role. In an environment where twr and weapons are equal, pilot training plays a big role. TWR is an important element of Air combat, or.. let put it this way… do you think the U.S and the Russians are fools to design better and better powerful engines with each passing day?
Why do you think the latest fighters are ALL in the top 10 in the TWR chart? Because the Americans, Russians and Europeans are idiots?
“”"So what you take on F-5 upgrading ? you claim it not to be a good dogfighter based upon you list.
If you can transform any junk into a modern fighter why are countries mainly doing it to the F-5? There many good relics laying about like f-14, mirage f1 etc. Air forces are going to the extent of buying used F-5 from other air forces and upgrading them. I feel it’s because it has stood to the test of time, proved itself worth and has a place in today’s battles.”"”
For poor countries, F-5 is all they can afford. it’s cheaper to upgrade F-5 than buying new fighters.
For middle-economy countries, the 4th generation fighters are costly and can’t be procured in numbers. So they upgrade their old F-5 to maintain their force levels.
For rich countries, they are only used as trainers and light attack craft.
Or any country regardless of economic situation would have them because there isn’t any immediate threat from neighbors and spending money on costly military equipment is just not necessary.
And America has retired their F-14, so there is very less support. Also F-14 is costlier to maintain than a F-5 for training purposes.
And Mirage F-1 is still being used by the french.
Oh.. I just saw you mentioned TWR as a marketing thing. Just so you know, the Americans are not Marketing their F-22. They are not selling that stuff to even nato members, only their very very very close allies like Japan and few others.
Even F-15 was only offered for nato and its allies. People other than U.S allies can only get F-16 & F-18. F-15 is not for sale to them.
Latest fighter will be up in the T/W ratio. its not an idiotic gesture. These are new technology and better improved or upgraded engines performances. The F-22 has displayed many of its specifications and surely this are not meant for marketing purposes but for informative data bases.
you are stating the obvious.ofcourse the americans will not sell f22 since thats one of the latest fighters they possess.its like saying south africa is not in north africa.ofcouse we know that!
Mr fuji I am not disputing that the F-5 can not de brought down in a dogfight. The ball of contention is :
1. the list you posted being a yard stick in dog fights. Your rule of thumb was fighter in the lower scales should be able to bring harm to fighter in the high scale in dogfighter. This clearly not true. My suggestion was the fight can be won both ways in the scale. You believed that it can only be won as you ascend the TWR scale. That is why I posted the Iran-Iraq war and the Paki India war. I was not interested in the out comes of the two but how lower T/W ratio birds performed. Prevailing conditions play a lot on the out comes of simple dog fighting. Whats so ever the manufacturing date of the fighter is and its index in T/W scale. “It depends on” should be taken into consideration. Am I clear?
2. the position of the F-5 in todays airfoce and as you claimed on September 25th, 2009 at 8:37 pm the F-5 should be rule out in combat and is good in dogfight with old fighter of its kind.. this is again not true. The F-5 has brought down stronger more powerful and advance in technology then itself. Like the MiG-25
I believe you have now read the websites I posted on F-5 vs MiG25. and have found out its not a fairy tale story but I reality the Lame Mirage III in the Indo-Paki, scored its hit on 10may86. In the indo-Paki I specifically single out the following span of time 23Oct73 to 10may86. here the f-6, MiG21 and the Mirage III a low TWR performance on fighter higher in your list at this time and not against Hunter, Su-7.
In history they are always marvel of engineering that prove to be more the what the manufacture thought it would be . and the f-5 has been one.
The F-5 is one few fighter that when upgrade can give a punch as good as a 4th generation fighter. It will BVR and dogfight in comfort. The on limits comes to the hours of its frame (age) against how much investment you would like to put in into it. Simple economics.
Its not only poor nations that have acknowledged and upgraded it. let me take the two countries as examples for the sake of time and space.
America
F-5N is an upgrade of the F-5 used by the US military. They use the fighter as an AGGRESSOR SQUADRONS in dogfight simulation. Former members of the squadron include the F-14 and A-4 all now retired while the F-5 was upgraded and is still in use. Now I don,t think a super power would like to lie to its self and dog fight its pilots agaist an inadequate fighter. This Instructors will fly the F-5 and the students would come in F-16 e.t.c the F-5 is one of the fewer fighter the US can contemplate to buy used/secondhand from other countries and air forces to integrate into its airforce system.
Russia
Russia to has acknowledge the fighter. They have used it against many of there fighters and admitted indeed the F-5 is better then they expected. They used the feature and performance of the F-5 as blueprint for the production 4th Generation fighters.
In addition just look at the countries in Asia ( where Fuji comes from) that still have the F-5. Fuji told us that Asia is among the world’s trouble spots and that you will be toast if you do not posses a strong airforce. Why then do countries here still fly the suppossedly ‘junk F-5 ?’ some like Taiwan have a huge inventory of F-5s facing a more potent China, are they in a hopeless situation?
Asian countries that still fly the F-5 include, Taiwan, Turkey, Jordan,Singapore,Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. Just also look at potential adversaries for these nations.
Mr Fuji is not telling us the whole truth.
None of these countries have F-5 as their main fighter, now why is that? To say specifically, Taiwan is in a bad situation, the U.S will only sell stuff to keep the balance of power. If you follow Taiwan-China drama, the U.S doesn’t even allow taiwan to have their BVR missile, which the taiwanese paid for, and keep them in the U.S. U.S will only sell when china tips the balance of power. The reasoning is the U.S wants to have status quo… if taiwan gets advanced weapons, they might declare independence, but when china gets more weapons they might invade. Infact the Taiwanese were screaming when china procured Su-27s and Su-30’s, and thats why the BVR missile was allowed to be sold. And besides, the US navy would be the one fighting the chinese as all the taiwanese airfiends will be bomb by around a 1000 ballistic and cruise missiles and their airforce grounded anyway. The chinese vigorously oppose military sales to that island, so only the U.S has guts to sell them stuff. The french who had earlier supplied them Mirages are now refusing to sell them more arms. Because of such restrictions, the taiwanese are arming themselves with their homegrown fighter plane F-CK.
The rest of the countries, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and South Korea are all also U.S allies. A war with them means a war with the U.S. If these guys were alone without the ever powerful USAF & USN backing, they would have scrapped their F-5’s long aso and would have gone for latest planes.
There is no chance of any immediate war between Singapore & Malaysia.
“”"Latest fighter will be up in the T/W ratio. its not an idiotic gesture. These are new technology and better improved or upgraded engines performances. The F-22 has displayed many of its specifications and surely this are not meant for marketing purposes but for informative data bases.”"”
Yes.
“”"Mr fuji I am not disputing that the F-5 can not de brought down in a dogfight. The ball of contention is :
1. the list you posted being a yard stick in dog fights. Your rule of thumb was fighter in the lower scales should be able to bring harm to fighter in the high scale in dogfighter. This clearly not true. My suggestion was the fight can be won both ways in the scale. You believed that it can only be won as you ascend the TWR scale. That is why I posted the Iran-Iraq war and the Paki India war. I was not interested in the out comes of the two but how lower T/W ratio birds performed. Prevailing conditions play a lot on the out comes of simple dog fighting. Whats so ever the manufacturing date of the fighter is and its index in T/W scale. “It depends on” should be taken into consideration. Am I clear?”"”
I never said dogfights depends on ONLY TWR and fighters above can NEVER be brought down. But TWR is a VERY important element of dogfight. And subsequently I highlighted how TWR is useful while dogfighting by posting a scenario using F-5 vs F-7, both piloted by equally skilled pilots.
A pilot is a human, and a missile is an addon. But TWR is an ATTRIBUTE of an Fighter Aircraft. That’s why I was saying F-5 is junk and endorsing the blog’s title ‘junk fighter jet’s’.
You saw how many F-5 were shot down by Mig-21, didn’t you? F-5s can shoot down Mig-21s, but Mig-21s can shoot down more F-5s. If “it depends on” is so much relevant then why are more kills by Mig2,1even though Mig21has inferior missiles and inferior pilots? That goes to show how much relevant TWR is. Would you risk your pilots lives knowing they are flying inferior low TWR aircrafts? I know I wouldn’t.
“”"2. the position of the F-5 in todays airfoce and as you claimed on September 25th, 2009 at 8:37 pm the F-5 should be rule out in combat and is good in dogfight with old fighter of its kind.. this is again not true. The F-5 has brought down stronger more powerful and advance in technology then itself. Like the MiG-25″”"
That is not true. The mig-25 was already heavily damaged by the long range BVR missile fired by the F-14. it was limping around when F-5 took opportunity and fired it’s Aim-9 at the crippled Mig-25. See the link which you yourself posted. It says “Shared” kill. And the other is obviously a lie. You cannot bring down a Mig-25 by cannon, that too from a f-5, which is why that entry is in White, which means not confirmed.
“”"reality the Lame Mirage III in the Indo-Paki, scored its hit on 10may86. In the indo-Paki I specifically single out the following span of time 23Oct73 to 10may86. here the f-6, MiG21 and the Mirage III a low TWR performance on fighter higher in your list at this time and not against Hunter, Su-7.”"”
The Mig-21s were used in a bomber role. During the Afghan invasion, the DRAAF and VVS(afghan & soviet AF) used to violated Pak airspace and bomb Mujahedeen camps inside Pakistan. Pakistan used to pick at those bombing missions by deploying their dogfighting squadrons.
But if you look at Mirage during indo-pak war. Mirage didn’t even bring down a single IAF Mig-21. But poor gnats were the victims. And Gnats, has a high TWR than F-86 but lower twr than Mirages. Mirages shot down more gnats, than viceversa.
“”"In history they are always marvel of engineering that prove to be more the what the manufacture thought it would be . and the f-5 has been one.
The F-5 is one few fighter that when upgrade can give a punch as good as a 4th generation fighter. It will BVR and dogfight in comfort. The on limits comes to the hours of its frame (age) against how much investment you would like to put in into it. Simple economics.”"”
A manufacturer will always say good things about his plane. But at the end it is still inferior to a Mig-21.
BTW, Can Kenyan F-5 fire BVR missiles? My guess is it cant.
“”"F-5N is an upgrade of the F-5 used by the US military. They use the fighter as an AGGRESSOR SQUADRONS in dogfight simulation. Former members of the squadron include the F-14 and A-4 all now retired while the F-5 was upgraded and is still in use. Now I don,t think a super power would like to lie to its self and dog fight its pilots agaist an inadequate fighter. This Instructors will fly the F-5 and the students would come in F-16 e.t.c the F-5 is one of the fewer fighter the US can contemplate to buy used/secondhand from other countries and air forces to integrate into its airforce system.”"”
That is why it is in an aggressor squadron. Aggressor squadron use older jets and new ones.
Here you go, this is from wikipedia:
“While aircraft used for the aggressor role are usually older jet fighters, this has not always been the case. During the mid-1980s, the US Navy determined that the A-4s and F-5s flown at Top Gun were not adequate in simulating the air-to-air capabilities of the newest Russian fighters such as the MiG-29 and Su27.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggressor_squadron
The U.S themselves are saying F-5 is old & inferior. What more do you want?
“”"”"”Russia to has acknowledge the fighter. They have used it against many of there fighters and admitted indeed the F-5 is better then they expected. They used the feature and performance of the F-5 as blueprint for the production 4th Generation fighters.”"”
Russians building fourth generation fighter by copying F-5? That is so not true.
nairobi chronicle i have a problem. i have posted two posting one 2 days back begining with…The F-5 did indeed shoot down …………………….and the other yesterday title the “Rate of climb” the article are waiting moderation. please realise them.
posting dates and time
September 29th, 2009 at 11:01 am
September 29th, 2009 at 10:43 am
September 29th, 2009 at 8:23 am Said:
I went thought the website you posted and it clear states the position of the aircraft used in those squadrons. I quote from the second paragraph “US aggressor squadrons fly light and extremely agile strike fighters……..” does this statment jog your mind with regards to the caliber of the aircraft used? poor performance fighter? What are you taking about? what you saying is just part of the story. The American quoted the F-5 as not adequate (not sufficient) and not inferior (poor quality) as you state in your posting. ok?. very different in meanings. This again this was in mid 80,s and the F-5 in question was F-5E to perform simulations of newly rolled out 4th generation fighters the F-16, Su-27 and MiG29.. Bear in mind what I had earlier said the Russia using the F-5E as a seed for there 4th generation fighters. Its obvious the Russia planes would come better. An upgrade version of the F-5E the F-20 which is simply an F-5G was offered which was as competitive as the new 4th generation in the market.
Most instructors favored the F-20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-20_Tigershark
over the F-16 (all in the website of Aggressor squadron) but lost only due to its prices tag. an upgraded F-5 competing with a new 4th generation fighter the F-16. the upgrade gets a thumbs up but failed due to its price tag. Do you get it?
.
The new F-16 designated as F-16N couldn,t coupe with the stress of continuous Dogfight and were grounded by 1992. (3rd paragraph last lines of the aggressor squadron website) the same stress the F-5 were enduring.
By the time a possible attack from the Soviet had died the USSR had collapled, and the F-18 was adequate and existed in offer. The tactics of TOPGUN school changed to ground attack
The integrity of the TOPGUN school with regards to dogfighting started depreciating and in 2003 american revives its F-5 and upgraded them to F-5N. out of all the aircrafts the TOPGUN used F-14, Kfir, A-4 e.t.c it goes back to search and procure second hand F-5 from foreign airforces, upgrade them and intergrated into there systems. the first time in history for the Americans military. the F-5N is now being replace by the F-15. this is a super power and the quality in training of its fighter pilots matter a lot. The fighters and materials use for this duty and simulations are the most respected by it pilots. Does this action ring a bell?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_Fighter_Weapons_School#History.2C_raison_d.27.C3.AAtre
.
13th paragraph
the Iranian F-5 were victims of its regime and
Attrition hard cropped in due to Irans fall out with the Americans . this is therefore not a scenario we can use to judge the F-5 performance. I was merely suggested the incident to discredit your TWR list which it did. Now your changing the story to the performance of the F-5 on that war. for vanity sake here are fair performances of the F-5
http://aces.safarikovi.org/victories/ethiopia-1977-1978.html
“”"I went thought the website you posted and it clear states the position of the aircraft used in those squadrons. I quote from the second paragraph “US aggressor squadrons fly light and extremely agile strike fighters……..” does this statment jog your mind with regards to the caliber of the aircraft used? poor performance fighter? What are you taking about? what you saying is just part of the story. The American quoted the F-5 as not adequate (not sufficient) and not inferior (poor quality) as you state in your posting. ok?. very different in meanings. This again this was in mid 80,s and the F-5 in question was F-5E to perform simulations of newly rolled out 4th generation fighters the F-16, Su-27 and MiG29.. Bear in mind what I had earlier said the Russia using the F-5E as a seed for there 4th generation fighters. Its obvious the Russia planes would come better. An upgrade version of the F-5E the F-20 which is simply an F-5G was offered which was as competitive as the new 4th generation in the market.”"”
What are you saying? It says clearly “the US Navy determined that the A-4s and F-5s flown at Top Gun were not adequate in simulating the air-to-air capabilities of the newest Russian fighters such as the MiG-29 and Su27.”
It is “not adequate in simulating” Mig-29 & Su-27, which means it’s Air to Air/Dogfighting capabilities is so inferior that you can’t simulate their behavior.
Ofcourse it is agile(even Mig-15 was agile), but not agile enough for Mig-29 and su-27s which are more agile. Which is why f-5’s simulation of m29 & s27 is inadequate.
“”"Most instructors favored the F-20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-20_Tigershark
over the F-16 (all in the website of Aggressor squadron) but lost only due to its prices tag. an upgraded F-5 competing with a new 4th generation fighter the F-16. the upgrade gets a thumbs up but failed due to its price tag. Do you get it?
.
The new F-16 designated as F-16N couldn,t coupe with the stress of continuous Dogfight and were grounded by 1992. (3rd paragraph last lines of the aggressor squadron website) the same stress the F-5 were enduring.”"”"
Ofcourse, the F-5 engines were so shitty and outdated, they were asking for F-20 which has a better engine.
This is from your own link:
“The F-20 Tigershark (initially F-5G) was a privately financed light fighter, designed and built by Northrop. Its development began in 1975 as a further evolution of Northrop’s F-5E Tiger II, featuring a new engine that greatly improved overall performance,”
“Greatly improved overall performance”, got that?
“”"By the time a possible attack from the Soviet had died the USSR had collapled, and the F-18 was adequate and existed in offer. The tactics of TOPGUN school changed to ground attack
The integrity of the TOPGUN school with regards to dogfighting started depreciating and in 2003 american revives its F-5 and upgraded them to F-5N. out of all the aircrafts the TOPGUN used F-14, Kfir, A-4 e.t.c it goes back to search and procure second hand F-5 from foreign airforces, upgrade them and intergrated into there systems. the first time in history for the Americans military. the F-5N is now being replace by the F-15. this is a super power and the quality in training of its fighter pilots matter a lot. The fighters and materials use for this duty and simulations are the most respected by it pilots. Does this action ring a bell?”"”
Where does it say it has depreciated? It only says in addition to Air-Air, it now also has Air-Ground.
They were probably procured to simulate F-7’s still used by china. Also F-5s are cheap to main than other fighters.
“”"the Iranian F-5 were victims of its regime and
Attrition hard cropped in due to Irans fall out with the Americans . this is therefore not a scenario we can use to judge the F-5 performance. I was merely suggested the incident to discredit your TWR list which it did. Now your changing the story to the performance of the F-5 on that war. for vanity sake here are fair performances of the F-5″”"
lol… Where did it discredit? F-5 was shot down much much more by the Mig-21. And Similar to F-5, F-14s were also in a disadvantage because of the new Iranian regime. But see how many kills F-14s made on Mig-21s and other fighters including the Mig-25.
Infact in the ethiopian war, Ethiopians had superior support than the somalis, like AWACS type Radar on the ground. Thus they had the advantage, like F-5s had during the Gulf war. This is from your own link:
“The tactics used by Ethiopian Air Force was to dispatch F-5As for attack missions. The planes climb to 30,000 feet to be seen by Somali radar. SAC (Somali Air Corps) mainly operated either from Hargeisa (main operational base) and Baidoa for the Southern part. As soon as the F-5As are seen by Somali radar, SAC dispatches MIGs for interception. As soon as the MIGs take off, Ethiopia’s American supplied radar, which was superior to what the Somali’s had, at Karamara detects the MIGs and F-5E take off from Dire Dawa for interception. The F-5E flew with their radars on with low output led by ground controllers until they got closer at which time they fully lit their radar. All aircraft were hit by Sidewinders (AIM-9)”
The Early warning AWACS type radar at Karamara did the crucial work, like it did for the Coalition during the Gulf war. There was no dogfight, only ambush.
The only unbiased Air to Air dogfights took place during the Iran-Iraq war. Actually, it’s not unbiased because Iraq, despite having inferior missiles, inferior pilots, low numbers of fighters, shot down a hellva lot more F-5’s than viceversa.
Its clear now that your arguments were for argument sake.You are Ill-informed.
http://www.ejection-history.org.uk/country-by-country/Iraq.htm
see 3 july 1986 in this log.
a new released acig article also mentions it
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_247.shtml
scroll down to the heading title
“Short History of MiG-25 in service with the Iraqi Air Force, since 1980”
and read its third paragraph.
MiG was flown by a Top IqaF Ace.
This why until today the Iranians have modified and are still using the F-5.
Fuji, on September 29th, 2009 at 12:52 pm Said:
………………… And the other is obviously a lie. You cannot bring down a Mig-25 by cannon, that too from a f-5, which is why that entry is in White, which means not confirmed
see the postings above
Fuji, on September 30th, 2009 at 3:48 pm Said
The F-5E flew with their radars on with low output led by ground controllers until they got closer at which time they fully lit their radar. All aircraft were hit by Sidewinders (AIM-9)”
The Early warning AWACS type radar at Karamara did the crucial work, like it did for the Coalition during the Gulf war. There was no dogfight, only ambush
like AWACS type Radar on the ground. Thus they had the advantage, like F-5s had during the Gulf war. This is from your own link:
“The tactics used by Ethiopian Air Force was to dispatch F-5As for attack missions. The planes climb to 30,000 feet to be seen by Somali radar
1. both airforces had radars that could see their enemies . No advantages or disadvantages. One set was used more tactfully then the other.
2. Sidewinder are infrared missile it has to be fired at the fighters rear. This is a Dogfight. Therefore the MiG,s were killed in dogfights. No BVR.
3. there was no AWACS technology in between Ethiopia and Somalia. This where Air surveillance radars especial during this time. Vectoring a fighter by ground radar is not AWACS AWACS = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_Warning_and_Control_System
4. the eliment of ambush wasn,t always present. Two F-5 attacked 4 Mig21.the first two might be ambushed but after the other two MiGs were aware of what was going on.
.
Ofcourse, the F-5 engines were so shitty and outdated, they were asking for F-20 which has a better engine.
This is from your own link:
“The F-20 Tigershark (initially F-5G) was a privately financed light fighter, designed and built by Northrop. Its development began in 1975 as a further evolution of Northrop’s F-5E Tiger II, featuring a new engine that greatly improved overall performance,”
“Greatly improved overall performance”, got that?
All upgrades come with improved features including engines atimes. Have you ever see an upgrade with feature below it? The TOPGUN instructors wanted a 4th generation fighter simulator. Do you even know features of a . 4th generation fighter Read through :innovative technologies introduced in fourth-generation fighters include “look-down/shoot-down” capability, head-up displays (HUD), “hands on throttle-and-stick” (HOTAS) controls, and multi-function displays (MFD), Infrared search-and-track (IRST) and atimes Composite materials in the form of bonded aluminum honeycomb structural elements and graphite epoxy laminate among others. Not crappy engines as you say. This are the upgrades that have been done to the new F-5
The aggressor squadrons
Selection of pilots to fight the aggressor squadron where the best from there unit and would again go back to give an account of what they learnt. The pilots do dogfighters with one of the best fighter pilots in their military flying the best aircrafts for dogfights.
Again when you look at the rate of climb of an aircraft a good indicator of the engine performance during dogfights
1. MiG29 lower TWR but climbs faster then a F-15.
2. F-16, F-15, F-18 all share the same Rate of climb but the TWR is F-15,F-16,F-18 in descending order.
3.Su27 vs Eurofighter2000 the Su27 has less TWR and but higher Rate of climb. The Eurofighter 2000 has the latest supercruise engines.
Fuji, on September 26th, 2009 at 2:42 pm Said
Strictly speaking, Mig-21 and F-5 Tiger-II is second generation. Some people claim Mig-21late model bis and F-5TigerII as third generation, but that is not right. Mig-23 & mig-27 are the true 3rd gen fighters
Fuji, on September 29th, 2009 at 12:57 pm Said:
None of these countries have F-5 as their main fighter, now why is that? To say specifically,……….
singapore use it as an INTERCEPTOR ROLE. The squadrons have been winning Awards as late as last year. Squadron 144 and 149
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/149_Squadron,_Republic_of_Singapore_Air_Force
Royal Thai
aggressor squadron and fighter squadron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Thai_Air_Force#Squadrons
Brazil
The backbone of the Brazilian combat aviation
http://www.electronicaviation.com/articles/Military/664
http://www.milavia.net/airforces/brazil/fab.htm
6th paragrapha
All the three example countries among many are Emerging Economies that can afford latest aircrafts. most of them have neighbors equipped with fighter higher then the TWR of the F-5 .they have given the F-5 more life and use it in interceptor roles .True dogfighters.
Fuji, on September 28th, 2009 at 6:17 pm Said
For middle-economy countries, the 4th generation fighters are costly and can’t be procured in numbers. So they upgrade their old F-5 to maintain their force levels.
For rich countries, they are only used as trainers and light attack craft
Again not true. When compared to the above and below postings.
now if you look at the articles I have posted with regards to the soviet i.e the MiG23 vs the F-5 both in hands of good pilots, same environment “friendly” the MiG23 having higher TWR then the F-5, the F-5 wins. The overall design of the aircraft does the winning.
Dogfighter depends on the quality and the overall design of the fighter in question and the training of the pilots. against each other. this holds almost 80% of the result.
CONCLUSION
United Kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/527th_Space_Aggressor_Squadron
United states
The F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is a growth of the F/A-18 Hornet, which was derived from the YF-17 Cobra, which was a redesign of the F-5 Tiger II.The product of probably more growth evolutions than any other design, the derivative
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YF-17#Development
the US used the F-5 till mid 1980. retired it. Between 1980-2003. US had fought 4 wars. Bosnian War, the 1st and second gulfwar, and afganistan. 3 of this wars had air combat as the spear head of their campaigns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_exchange_ratio
In 2003 they acquired second hand F-5 upgraded them and reinstated them in there service of aggress their lead role fighters F-16 and F-15. Not as basic trainers but still as aggressors squadrons. Read in between the lines.
US buys second hand fighters
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=1100&tid=1050&ct=1
us buy used F-5
us buy used F-5
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-6029626_ITM
USSR acknowledges the tiger
Read the last paragraphs. F-5 is better then theMiG23 let alone the MiG21.
Now what was your theory again.
Fuji, on September 29th, 2009 at 12:52 pm Said
Russians building fourth generation fighter by copying F-5? That is so not true
Read below
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-23#Performance_tests
Fuji, on September 28th, 2009 at 6:17 pm Said
And you’re still ignoring my point. In an environment where pilot training and weapons are equal, TWR plays a big role. In an environment where pilot training and TWR are equal, weapons play a key role. In an environment where twr and weapons are equal, pilot training plays a big role. TWR is an important element of Air combat,
another un true statements based on TWR of the F-5 vs that of the MiG23/ MiG21 or the experiences of the pilots. The F-5 is pure a good dogfighter based on its design. The russian tested it above blog
Fuji, on September 26th, 2009 at 5:25 pm Said:
If you guys are much interested in Fighter jets and military hardware, I could point you to some nice defence forums for beginners. There you can gain knowledge as well as clarify your doubts. Let me know if you are interested
You have constantly be changing your goal post and lying. You poses the qualities of a true Nomadic Blogger who goes around arguing for argument sake in order to boast his ego. I wouldn,t be surprise to see you in another blog arguing For the F-5 after what you have learned from here. The closest experience or feel you have about the F-5 or any military fighter is on a internet web page and that’s all. Therefore your thought and sentiments are of your own making and are inconsequential what so ever they might be. We go with the perspectives of the experts USSR USA UK and several emerging markets think and say. They have the first hand experiences.
Risasi.
Stand down, soldier. This FIJI dude is dragging this debate with long-winded postings full of generalities without details. Specifically hot air, really. Standard disinformation gimmick – compress the detail and hide the absence of fact therein!! But I think the sting is on you, mate. Lets move this thing beyond this point, and your informed contribution is valued by a lot of us, both in and out of uniform.
Asante.
Damn it.. the comments are awaiting moderation. Reposting:
“””Its clear now that your arguments were for argument sake.You are Ill-informed.”””
Oh dear lord… What you are displaying is F-5 fanboyism. Just because your fav fighter is not as you thought it would be, you are indulging in this denial. Or maybe its blind patriotism?
“””http://www.ejection-history.org.uk/country-by-country/Iraq.htm
see 3 july 1986 in this log.”””
What is wrong with you? It clearly says it is “claimed” by iranians, same as the acig site. It is unconfirmed.
“MiG-25PD
claimed”
“””a new released acig article also mentions it
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_247.shtml
scroll down to the heading title
and read its third paragraph.
MiG was flown by a Top IqaF Ace.
This why until today the Iranians have modified and are still using the F-5.”””
Ofcourse, that’s the story of the Iranians. It clearly says in both sites that it is unconfirmed.
And what do you mean recent? Did you see the dates? Your link says it was written in 2003, while the Air-Air list says it was written in 2007.
“””1. both airforces had radars that could see their enemies . No advantages or disadvantages. One set was used more tactfully then the other.”””
It clearly says Ethiopia’s is more advanced, and hence vectored their low flying fighters into a favorable position to get a sneak Aim-9 shot. Somalis can only detect fighters in high altitudes.
“””2. Sidewinder are infrared missile it has to be fired at the fighters rear. This is a Dogfight. Therefore the MiG,s were killed in dogfights. No BVR.”””
That’s what is called as an ambush. They get to the blind spot of their Mig’s radar, get to their behind, and fire their missile. That’s the advantage of having a AWACS type radar.
“””3. there was no AWACS technology in between Ethiopia and Somalia. This where Air surveillance radars especial during this time. Vectoring a fighter by ground radar is not AWACS AWACS”””
That’s why I said “TYPE”. I didn’t say they are AWACS. Awacs is a radar on a plane, similar to a air surveillance radar on the ground. But since it is mobile, it cannot be targetted by ballistic or cruise missiles. Also it’s flying height ensures that it has a greater range.
“””4. the eliment of ambush wasn,t always present. Two F-5 attacked 4 Mig21.the first two might be ambushed but after the other two MiGs were aware of what was going on.”””
Aim 9 is a fire and forget missile. Which means the moment you fire them, the next second you can take the other missile and target you opponent. You don’t have to wait till the missile hits the aircraft. It takes mere seconds to target another fighter. The first missile would not have even reached the Migs. Aim-9 have a range of around 10kms, could be higher.
“””All upgrades come with improved features including engines atimes. Have you ever see an upgrade with feature below it? The TOPGUN instructors wanted a 4th generation fighter simulator. Do you even know features of a . 4th generation fighter Read through :innovative technologies introduced in fourth-generation fighters include “look-down/shoot-down” capability, head-up displays (HUD), “hands on throttle-and-stick” (HOTAS) controls, and multi-function displays (MFD), Infrared search-and-track (IRST) and atimes Composite materials in the form of bonded aluminum honeycomb structural elements and graphite epoxy laminate among others. Not crappy engines as you say. This are the upgrades that have been done to the new F-5″””
What? It clearly says they can’t simulate the performance of Mig-29 and Su-27. So they chose the upgraded F-20 which has a better engine. And simulation does not mean 100% mimicing. Even a 60%-80% would do. But the F-5’s are so crappy, they can’t even simulate, let alone completely completely mimic the Su-27 & Mig-29.
Just because you have HUD doesn’t mean it can simulate the Russian 4 gen fighters. With such a shitty engine, Mig-29 would run circles around it.
“””Selection of pilots to fight the aggressor squadron where the best from there unit and would again go back to give an account of what they learnt. The pilots do dogfighters with one of the best fighter pilots in their military flying the best aircrafts for dogfights.”””
Yeah.. So? Aggressor pilots fly the F-5 to simulate Mig-21s and F-7s.
“””Again when you look at the rate of climb of an aircraft a good indicator of the engine performance during dogfights”””
Yes.
“””1. MiG29 lower TWR but climbs faster then a F-15.
2. F-16, F-15, F-18 all share the same Rate of climb but the TWR is F-15,F-16,F-18 in descending order.
3.Su27 vs Eurofighter2000 the Su27 has less TWR and but higher Rate of climb. The Eurofighter 2000 has the latest supercruise engines.”””
That is the instantaneous/initial rate of climb! Initial rate of climb can be misleading because a fighter with has inertia can use it to climb for a short distance. But after a while it will slow down due to low power of engines. Also as it gains altitude, lesser wing area or specifically high wing loading will slow down the fighter.
If F-15 is subjected to the same inertia, then it will climb faster than a Mig-29. The real deal is time taken to reach a decent height(5000m) and divide it by the time to get the real rate of climb. Here Mig-29 can only manage-
From wiki:
“The initial rate of climb record for pilot aircraft is held by MiG-29 at 330 m/s (65,000 ft/min). The average rate of climb for a MiG-29 is only 109 m/s from sea level to 6000 m.”
“Time to climb to 6000 m (Steigzeit): about 55 sec”
http://www.flug-revue.rotor.com/frtypen/FRMiG-29.htm
But lets look at F-15, from wiki:
“The F-15’s maneuverability is derived from low wing loading (weight to wing area ratio) with a high thrust-to-weight ratio enabling the aircraft to turn tightly without losing airspeed. The F-15 can climb to 30,000 ft (10,000 m) in around 60 seconds. The thrust output of the dual engines is greater than the aircraft’s weight, thus giving it the ability to accelerate in a vertical climb.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-15_Eagle
It is simple physics, If you throw a stone with more force, the stone goes even higher. With more powerful engine which has more force, you climb faster. This is kindergaden physics, so to speak. Although in Aeronautics, wing loading also comes into play. But when compared to TWR, wing loading is important but a bit secondary, since most modern fighters have reasonable wingloadings.
Here are some Wing loadings for 3505kg loaded weight:
290.1 – Eurofighter
291.8 – F-15C
303.9 – Mirage-IIIE
319.4 – Su-27
453.8 – F-5E Tiger-II
Empty Weight – Wing area – Fighter
11,000 – 50.00 – Eurofighter
12,973 – 56.48 – F-15C
07,050 – 34.85 – Mirage-III
16,300 – 62.00 – Su-27
04,336 – 17.28 – F-5E Tiger-II
It is interesting to note that Mirage-III makes up it’s low TWR with it’s low wing loading. Well, what do you expect from Delta winged fighters. Delta wing increases weight, so if the engine is low on thrust, then TWR is low. But it somewhat makes up for the TWR loss with superb low wing loading. So that’s another blow for the F-5.
Unlike TWR, wing loading cannot be determined for every fighter because some fighters’ fuselage is blended with the wing, and so a part of it is a part of a wing. Mig-29 & F-16 are such examples.
“””singapore use it as an INTERCEPTOR ROLE. The squadrons have been winning Awards as late as last year. Squadron 144 and 149″””
Singapore is a city. There is nothing much to intercept there. Besides, you can employ a fighter with mach 1.6 speed to intercept if the aggressor is coming towards you of angle less than 90 degrees. Even a mig-15 can intercept in that case. But for intercept involving angles greater than 90 with opponent fighter speeds in excess of mach-1.6, F-5 is as use as a scrap.
And for Brazil & Thailand, like I said, they don’t have immediate threats. Also they have Rafale(about to be procured in small numbers) & Gripen respectively.
“””Again not true. When compared to the above and below postings.
now if you look at the articles I have posted with regards to the soviet i.e the MiG23 vs the F-5 both in hands of good pilots, same environment “friendly” the MiG23 having higher TWR then the F-5, the F-5 wins. The overall design of the aircraft does the winning.
Dogfighter depends on the quality and the overall design of the fighter in question and the training of the pilots. against each other. this holds almost 80% of the result.”””
It sure didn’t seems like 80% when Mig-21s were swatting F-5s out of the sky. Where did the F-5s win with equal pilot skill and equipment? Quote it. And what overall design? This fighter as designed in the 60s for crying out loud! TWR is one of the basic of Dogfights. Without power you can’t dogfight. Why do you think there are jet engines now instead of propeller planes? It is because of high TWRs.
CONCLUSION
United Kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/527th_Space_Aggressor_Squadron
Reply “””
What the? It is not United kingdom. Read your link. it is a USAF squadron.. only based in the U.K. Also USAF does not operate F-5 because like I said before, they are inferior when compared to Mig-29 & Su-27. The squadron now uses F-16.
“””the US used the F-5 till mid 1980. retired it. Between 1980-2003. US had fought 4 wars. Bosnian War, the 1st and second gulfwar, and afganistan. 3 of this wars had air combat as the spear head of their campaigns.
wikipedia/wiki/Loss_exchange_ratio
In 2003 they acquired second hand F-5 upgraded them and reinstated them in there service of aggress their lead role fighters F-16 and F-15. Not as basic trainers but still as aggressors squadrons. Read in between the lines.”””
And your point is? So why didn’t they use their super duper F-5 in their war in afghanistan elsewhere and only use them in training? They are employed in Aggressor squadrons because of low cost and maintenance, and most importantly to simulate Mig-21s and F-7s.
“””The early MiG-23M series was also used to test the American F-5s captured by the North Vietnamese and sent to the former USSR for evaluation, however the Russians acknowledged the F-5 was a very agile aircraft and at some speeds and altitudes better than the MiG-23M, this was one of the main reasons the MiG-23MLD and MiG-29 developments were started. These tests of the F-5 allowed the russians to make modifications to several of their 4th generation aircraft, however despite the MiG-23 was not designed to combat F-5s, it showed the weaknesses of the early MiG-23 variants .”””
Read it again, it says EARLY Mig-23 variants, and most importantly only on SOME speeds. SOME SPEEDS!!! Most probably its is the slow speed envelop since early Mig-23 variants are very very poor there. Kinda loosely similar to Mig-25.
Read it from you own Mig-23 wiki link:
“The early Flogger variants were intended to be used in high-speed missile attacks, but it was soon noticed that fighters often had to engage in more stressful close-in combat. Early production aircraft had actually suffered cracks in the fuselage during their service career. Maneuverability of the aircraft was also criticized. A considerable redesign of the airframe was performed, resulting in the MiG-23ML (L – lightweight), which made it in some ways a new aircraft.”
“Intended(designed) to be used in high speed missile attacks and not close-in combats/dogfights”… Got that?
“””another un true statements based on TWR of the F-5 vs that of the MiG23/ MiG21 or the experiences of the pilots. The F-5 is pure a good dogfighter based on its design. The russian tested it above blog”””
Read above paragraph.
“”” You have constantly be changing your goal post and lying. You poses the qualities of a true Nomadic Blogger who goes around arguing for argument sake in order to boast his ego. I wouldn,t be surprise to see you in another blog arguing For the F-5 after what you have learned from here. The closest experience or feel you have about the F-5 or any military fighter is on a internet web page and that’s all. Therefore your thought and sentiments are of your own making and are inconsequential what so ever they might be. We go with the perspectives of the experts USSR USA UK and several emerging markets think and say. They have the first hand experiences.”””
lol.. I have posted numerous quotes from U.S themselves that they are inferior(and also the russians of their early Mig23s performance). Also there is the piss poor performance against the Mig-21.
You are just blind with nationalism. Just because your country has it, it is the best. Or you are an F-5 fanboy. Either one of these 2 reasons or both.
“””Stand down, soldier. This FIJI dude is dragging this debate with long-winded postings full of generalities without details. Specifically hot air, really. Standard disinformation gimmick – compress the detail and hide the absence of fact therein!! But I think the sting is on you, mate. Lets move this thing beyond this point, and your informed contribution is valued by a lot of us, both in and out of uniform.”””
Oi.. oi just because you can’t face the truth don’t reduce it to hot air. F-5 was great for it’s time, but not now.
Kinda bored.. some facts on the F-15 from wiki:
“The F-15 in all air forces had an air-to-air combined record of 104 kills to 0 losses in air combat as of February 2008. To date, no air superiority versions of the F-15 (A/B/C/D models) have ever been shot down by enemy forces.”
Cool! F-18 doesn’t have this record.. I remember it being shot down by the Iraqi AF.
Some F-20 facts:
“The main change was the replacement of the F-5’s two General Electric J85 engines with a single General Electric F404 turbofan, increasing its total thrust by 60%.”
60% increase of engine thrust!
“The Pakistan Air Force was offered the F-20 and A-10 Thunderbolt II, but insisted on choosing the F-16 because it was felt that it would give them a technological advantage.
After six years and no major buyers, Northrop cancelled the $1.2 billion project. Air forces that could afford the F-20 bought the F-16, while ones which could buy neither, purchased the cheaper F-5E/F Tiger II or the Russian MiG-21. While its performance was comparable to the Block 1/5/10 F-16 and superior to the turbojet-powered export-variant F-16/79, the F-20 airframe had virtually no remaining expansion capability, as it was built on essentially a 20 year old airframe at the limits of its capabilities.”
http://www.aircraft-list.com/db/F-20_Tigershark/83/
It was comparable to F-16 due to it’s new 60% more thrust turbofan engines. It was superior to the turbojet powered F-16s… I mentioned it sometime before that F-5 engine was crappy because of it’s low thrust and it being a turbo jet.
“20 year old airframe at the limits of its capabilities”… no surprises there. They should have modified the airframe with medium/high set wings, non-wing undercarriage and larger wing area like they did for the YF-17. F-16’s were constantly evolved into block 15,20,30,50 etc etc but the airframe design of F-20 was at its limits.
BTW, in my previous reply regarding wing loading for blended fuselages, the sentence should refined as “cannot be determined(accurately) for every fighter”. You can take the wing area and calculate the loading, but the part of the fuselage’s area will be left out of the calculation.
Fuji, on October 4th, 2009 at 9:50 pm Said:
Kinda bored.. some facts on the F-15 from wiki:
“The F-15 in all air forces had an air-to-air combined record of 104 kills to 0 losses in air combat as of February 2008. To date, no air superiority versions of the F-15 (A/B/C/D models) have ever been shot down by enemy forces.”
Cool! F-18 doesn’t have this record.. I remember it being shot down by the Iraqi AF
So what. who disputes the F-15 is better fighter then the F-5 or the F-18. its good that you have just realized it. The F-15 is one of the best lead role fighters. again arguing for argument sake
Acig states
Another MiG-25PD(export) is known to have been shot down by F-14s and F-5s, in 1983, while another – flown by the Iraqi top “ace” of the Iraq-Iran War, Lt.Col. Mohammad “Sky Falcon” Rayyan – was shot down by gunfire from an IRIAF F-5E while underway at Mach 1 and 29.000ft, in July 1986.
Crippled jets don,t move at the speed of sound.
Fuji, on October 3rd, 2009 at 5:38 pm Said
sure didn’t seems like 80% when Mig-21s were swatting F-5s out of the sky. Where did the F-5s win with equal pilot skill and equipment? Quote it. And what overall design? This fighter as designed in the 60s for crying out loud! TWR is one of the basic of Dogfights. Without power you can’t dogfight. Why do you think there are jet engines now instead of propeller planes? It is because of high TWRs
the equally trained pilots and friendly ground F-5 dogfighter against russian MiGs was done in russia. The soviets tested the F-5 against there fighters and admitted it was better.
Fuji, on October 4th, 2009 at 9:50 pm Said:
Some F-20 facts:
“The main change was the replacement of the F-5’s two General Electric J85 engines with a single General Electric F404 turbofan, increasing its total thrust by 60%.”
Most upgrade come with an improved engines if not new ones. Am surprise you find it disturbing. It’s a wise trend to improve the engine output and efficiency when changing or upgrading them, when else can you do this? See F-15A/B to F-15C/D. F-16 upgrade, the MiG23MLD all got better engines then when they roled out. I don,t see why your disturbed on this aspect. You want a new engine with less or same power? there many other examples on the net spend some time to find out.
General Electric J85. (F-5) is not a problematic engine. If fact its to the contra. Its the longest produced military engine and a success story. It has the highest powered turbojet engine for it size. The United States Air Force plans to continue using the J85 in aircraft through 2040
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_J85
“20 year old airframe at the limits of its capabilities”… no surprises there. They should have modified the airframe with medium/high set wings, non-wing undercarriage and larger wing area like they did for the YF-17. F-16’s were constantly evolved into block 15,20,30,50 etc etc but the airframe design of F-20 was at its limits
or maybe put delta or swept back wings…………….. whats your point?
The F-5 evolved from the tiger/freedom fighter, tiger II, tiger III. The new tigers consist of many upgrades (4th generation aspects) all under the same frame. Whats your point again.
. Read through the design of the F-20. Which included other things among engines. 4th generation features.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-20_Tigershark#Design
The F-20 fell out due to the following reason and not as you think so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-20_Tigershark#Limiting_exports
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-20_Tigershark#Cancellation
In all subjects there always those who like or hate it. So if you don,t like the F-5 go a head and suit yourself. It doesn’t change a thing. the truth shall always be. what you say or believe in are in your own perceptions and are inconsequential. we go by what the experts have realized. The Americans retired the F-5 in the mid 80,s and reinstated it in 2003. the first time in modern history for the US to buy used plane. the Americans have given the F-5 a 10+ years service dedicated time in there armed forces. Not as a basic trainer or for targets practice but to challenge there best pilots in 4th generation birds. the f-5 will perform this duty until 2015. I really don,t have to prove any thing more to you. It’s all above in black and white let all read and make his on judgments.
“”"So what. who disputes the F-15 is better fighter then the F-5 or the F-18. its good that you have just realized it. The F-15 is one of the best lead role fighters. again arguing for argument sake”"”
lol.. With a blind patriot like you who knows what’s in your mind. I never saw you claim F-5 is inferior to F-15.
The Su-27 & the Mig-29 was designed to counter the American F-15 and the F-16 jets. That’s the reason why F-5’s can’t simulate them. The difference in performance is very wide.
“”"Acig states
Another MiG-25PD(export) is known to have been shot down by F-14s and F-5s, in 1983, while another – flown by the Iraqi top “ace” of the Iraq-Iran War, Lt.Col. Mohammad “Sky Falcon” Rayyan – was shot down by gunfire from an IRIAF F-5E while underway at Mach 1 and 29.000ft, in July 1986.
Crippled jets don,t move at the speed of sound.”"”
I don’t know how many times I have repeated this. F-14 fired the bvr and crippled the Mig. The F-5 took another shot at the now crippled Mig using Aim-9. The gunfire story is unconfirmed, for good reasons. No Mig-25 pilot is stupid enough to get shot down by F-5’s gun. The Mig-25 was crippled at the first incident, not the second gun incident. Stop confusing yourself by living in denial.
“”"the equally trained pilots and friendly ground F-5 dogfighter against russian MiGs was done in russia. The soviets tested the F-5 against there fighters and admitted it was better.”"”
The wiki link already said the jets were not designed for slow speed combat. The early variants was only designed for hit and run combat. Why are you repeating this all over again?
“”"Most upgrade come with an improved engines if not new ones. Am surprise you find it disturbing. It’s a wise trend to improve the engine output and efficiency when changing or upgrading them, when else can you do this? See F-15A/B to F-15C/D. F-16 upgrade, the MiG23MLD all got better engines then when they roled out. I don,t see why your disturbed on this aspect. You want a new engine with less or same power? there many other examples on the net spend some time to find out.
General Electric J85. (F-5) is not a problematic engine. If fact its to the contra. Its the longest produced military engine and a success story. It has the highest powered turbojet engine for it size. The United States Air Force plans to continue using the J85 in aircraft through 2040″”"
Yeah, some upgrades come with an upgraded engine. But not a 60% increase in thrust! That’s a huge amount. If you compare the Engine thrust of F-16block 10 with F-16 block 30, it’s only around 30%. For F-15 & F-18, it’s below 30-40%. This shows the underpowered nature of the F-5s engine. F-5 whether it is tiger-II or tiger-III has the same engine. As a result it’s flight maneuvers is seriously affected due to low TWR. It can’t climb, can’t recover Airspeed losses quickly… as a result can’t make sustained sharp turns. If you can’t make sustained sharp turns during a dogfight, you’re turn radius will be huge. If your opponent has a shorter turn radius then you’re dead. Mig-23MLD, Mig-29, Su-27 can all outmaneuver the F-5 easily in a dogfight.
“”"or maybe put delta or swept back wings…………….. whats your point?
The F-5 evolved from the tiger/freedom fighter, tiger II, tiger III. The new tigers consist of many upgrades (4th generation aspects) all under the same frame. Whats your point again.
. Read through the design of the F-20. Which included other things among engines. 4th generation features.”"”
My point is the F-5’s airframe & engine is old. If you take a Subaru 360 and add smart brakes, a dvd player, power steering, GPS navigation and surround sound which is found in modern cars, the fact is it is still a crappy subaru in the end, with a shitty engine with a piss poor acceleration and top speed. Get the picture?
“”"The F-20 fell out due to the following reason and not as you think so.”"”
I didn’t think so? I didn’t think or mention that, it was mentioned by the aviation website. I gave it’s link below the statement in the previous post.
The same export restriction was applied to F-16 as well, but see how many early Block F-16s were sold to the USAF and NATO even though early Block F-16s and F-20 was comparable in performance. USAF and NATO opted for F-16 over F-20, eventhough it has a new shiny turbofan engine with 60% increase in thrust. The reason is because it’s Airframe(low set wings & wing undercarriage) is basically old design and had reached it’s end.
“”"In all subjects there always those who like or hate it. So if you don,t like the F-5 go a head and suit yourself. It doesn’t change a thing. the truth shall always be. what you say or believe in are in your own perceptions and are inconsequential. we go by what the experts have realized. The Americans retired the F-5 in the mid 80,s and reinstated it in 2003. the first time in modern history for the US to buy used plane. the Americans have given the F-5 a 10+ years service dedicated time in there armed forces. Not as a basic trainer or for targets practice but to challenge there best pilots in 4th generation birds. the f-5 will perform this duty until 2015. I really don,t have to prove any thing more to you. It’s all above in black and white let all read and make his on judgments.”"”
The U.S bought 21 Mig-29s from moldova in 1997 to be used in aggressor training. This is not “the first time in modern history for the US to buy used plane”. The U.S buys such planes to be used in Aggressor combat. The U.S also bought Mig-21s previously to be used in Aggressor training. But since the U.S has bought this from countries which have rebelled against Soviets/Russia, this means there is no support of spares. So these precious fighters are only used sparingly in Aggressor training. This is where the F-5s and F-16 come in. These 2 jets simulate Mig-2s and Mig-29’s respectively for longer flight times, while the actual Mig-21s and Mig-29s are used on only a few training occasions due to unavailability of spares & support. The U.S did not buy F-5s for use in combat operations, they are just there to mimic the now junk Mig-21/F-7s, nothing more.
The U.S bought 21 Mig-29s from moldova in 1997 to be used in aggressor training. This is not “the first time in modern history for the US to buy used plane”. The U.S buys such planes to be used in Aggressor combat. The U.S also bought Mig-21s previously to be used in Aggressor training. But since the U.S has bought this from countries which have rebelled against Soviets/Russia, this means there is no support of spares. So these precious fighters are only used sparingly in Aggressor training. This is where the F-5s and F-16 come in. These 2 jets simulate Mig-2s and Mig-29’s respectively for longer flight times, while the actual Mig-21s and Mig-29s are used on only a few training occasions due to unavailability of spares & support. The U.S did not buy F-5s for use in combat operations… the junk F-5s they are just there to mimic the junk Mig-21/F-7s, nothing more.
http://air-combat.suite101.com/article.cfm/secret_migs_flown_by_the_usaf
“The American flyers of these aircraft had to contend with un-maintainable and mysterious planes as they had no spare parts or technical manuals available. Ground crews had to resort to reverse engineering aircraft components and manufacturing them from raw materials just to keep them in the air. US pilots found out first hand how dangerous these aircraft were and two lost their lives in catastrophic crashes. They did, however, learn the strengths and weakness of the Warsaw Pact’s fast movers and this information would prove to be invaluable to NATO fliers in any sort of East/West engagement. This was proven in air to air combat every time these Soviet Cold War era aircraft have been encountered in Iraq, Libya, Angola and elsewhere.
The 4477th flew its last MiGs in 1990 and with the end of the Cold War was deactivated. The 6513th which had stopped flying MiGs in the early eighties was inactivated in 1992. In 2006, the Constant Peg program was declassified and the USAF held a series of press conferences about the former top secret US MiGs. It was revealed that the US MiGs flew more than 15,000 sorties and nearly 7,000 aircrew flew in training against dissimilar aggressors in the Nevada desert between 1980 and the end of the program in 1988. These included the ‘real’ MiGs as well as US made A4 and T-38/F5 aircraft visually modified to be ‘fake’ MiGs. The Groom Lake facility still exists (unofficially, of course).”
I’m a fan of Me262. But that doesn’t mean I’m blind. if someone says Me262 is better than a F-5 I would not stand by and let him sprout such nonsense. Me262 was a great fighter, but it is junk, just like the F-5s which are junks by todays standards.
You are just living in denial about your Airforce’s F-5.
BTW, the U.S just bought Su-27 for aggressor training a few months back.
en.rian.ru/world/20090512/155007415.html
Fuji, on October 6th, 2009 at 7:25 am Said
The wiki link already said the jets were not designed for slow speed combat. The early variants was only designed for hit and run combat. Why are you repeating this all over again?
Yes with its high speed and TWR the F-5 will bring it down when it they meet that all that matters. As you earlier stated the MiG should have “circled around the F-5 and be at a vantage point behind it. and while the F-5 tried to out maneuver the MiG it would loss power to tight turns” What happened then? what’s your assumptions now? “if the F-5 comes from behind the MiG should be able to accelerate around and behind the F-5 again” wasn,t that what your have been saying all along.
The low TWR F-5 bringing down MiGs with higher TWR gives you a double punch.
1. it not true what you say about the TWR list
2. the F-5 on a fair playing field brings down many Russian aircrafts. i.e from the MiG23 and below. The MiG 25 was brought down by the F-5 in a dogfight. On the Su27 or Mig29. its yet to be seen.. The F-5 is a good dogfighter.
The Russians tested the F-5 against the Mig21 and the F-5 won inside the USSR airspace. What else do you need to hear? This was done in a friendly environment for research purpose. Repeatedly again and again until they come out with conclusive results. I said this to inform you on that the Iranian F-5 and pilots were a victim of there regime. Otherwise more MiG21/23 would have ended up in the scrap yards. Therefore the picture posed in he iran/iraq war with regards to the F-5 vs MiG21/23 is stained. Get a clear opinion, from the manufacture of the MiG21 and MiG23 when he conducted dogfights against both aircrafts against the F-5.
and when they did come out with conclusive results about the superiority of the F-5 in dogfight against there fighters they copied it (natural thing to do) for there 4th generation fighter. something you have always denied until I showed you from wiki. who is in denial know?
Yeah, some upgrades come with an upgraded engine. But not a 60% increase in thrust! That’s a huge amount. If you compare the Engine thrust of F-16block 10 with F-16 block 30, it’s only around 30%. For F-15 & F-18, it’s below 30-40%
60% came from innovation not luck. so what if they made the better engine they shouldn’t use it?
1. Fuji, on October 6th, 2009 at 7:53 am Said:
The U.S bought 21 Mig-29s from moldova in 1997 to be used in aggressor training. ……….
No no a big lie again the US brought the MiGs because they were capable of being armed with nuclear weapons. Therefore preventing them from being sold to “rogue states”. Iran in mind The MiG29 were delivered to the National Air and Space Intelligence Center and not to aggressor squadrons as you say..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan_MiG-29#MiG_29s_in_the_United_States
The F-5 on the other hand was purchased as a supplement for the aggressor squadron
Ok posted another lie..am waiting
“”"Yes with its high speed and TWR the F-5 will bring it down when it they meet that all that matters. As you earlier stated the MiG should have “circled around the F-5 and be at a vantage point behind it. and while the F-5 tried to out maneuver the MiG it would loss power to tight turns” What happened then? what’s your assumptions now? “if the F-5 comes from behind the MiG should be able to accelerate around and behind the F-5 again” wasn,t that what your have been saying all along. “”"
What part of “it was not designed for slow speed dogfights”, didn’t you understand? In order to get behind your opponent it has to make a circle. But to do that in SLOW SPEEDS it has to reduce it’s thrust. Once it reduces it’s thrust, it’s TWR is in shambles. In the real world, you are not stupid to get into slow speeds if you are a Mig-23 pilot, Mig-23 will use it’s speed and acceleration to get behind the F-5, eventhough turn circle will be a higher, the initial advantage the F-5 has will be eclipsed with speed and TWRs.
“”"The low TWR F-5 bringing down MiGs with higher TWR gives you a double punch.
1. it not true what you say about the TWR list
2. the F-5 on a fair playing field brings down many Russian aircrafts. i.e from the MiG23 and below. The MiG 25 was brought down by the F-5 in a dogfight. On the Su27 or Mig29. its yet to be seen.. The F-5 is a good dogfighter.
The Russians tested the F-5 against the Mig21 and the F-5 won inside the USSR airspace. What else do you need to hear? This was done in a friendly environment for research purpose. Repeatedly again and again until they come out with conclusive results. I said this to inform you on that the Iranian F-5 and pilots were a victim of there regime. Otherwise more MiG21/23 would have ended up in the scrap yards. Therefore the picture posed in he iran/iraq war with regards to the F-5 vs MiG21/23 is stained. Get a clear opinion, from the manufacture of the MiG21 and MiG23 when he conducted dogfights against both aircrafts against the F-5.”"”
What are you saying? Do you have selective amnesia? How many times do I have to say that fight was staged in favor of F-5 with combat taking place in slow speeds? You yourself said it was for purely research purposes. And How many times do I have to quote from sources that iran have better pilots, more planes, better missiles and yet those F-5 Junks were shot down like flies. Those F-14s were also flown by the same pilots and missiles, but count how many kills F-14 made(both BVR and Dogfight missiles separately) on the Mig-21. And those F-14 planes are even worse to maintain than F-5 since they require a lot of spares & maintenance and are costly to fly, but surprisingly they shot down more.
And what do you mean “it not true what you say about the TWR list”? Can’t you even understand a simple fact that we are now flying jets instead of propellers because of better TWRs, rate of climb and maneuverability(if designed for it)? Can’t you even understand the simple fact that nations are developing new and better powerful engines to have high TWRs? And how many times do I have to post the link stating F-5 didn’t shoot down a single Mig-25, and the only kill it made is when the jet was already hit by F-14s missile and was crippled. And your Country’s F-5 can’t even fire BVR while Mig-29 and Su-27 can, and hold the clear edge in dogfight combat.
And what do you mean Mig-21/23? It only says Mig-23 not 21, and that too it mentions slow speed combat.
“”"and when they did come out with conclusive results about the superiority of the F-5 in dogfight against there fighters they copied it (natural thing to do) for there 4th generation fighter. something you have always denied until I showed you from wiki. who is in denial know?”"”
Yeah, conclusive results for a staged fight in favor of F-5, not a real world fight. And do you know the meaning of copied? It is said to be ’some modifications’, most probably only cockpit since American fighters are known to have easy pilot interface. Mig29’s airframe and TWR is nothing like the F-5, it’s a totally different design.
“”"60% came from innovation not luck. so what if they made the better engine they shouldn’t use it? “”"
You are missing the point, 60% increase just goes to show how much underpowered the F-5’s engine is. Other upgrades don’t have that much increase of thrust.
“”"The U.S bought 21 Mig-29s from moldova in 1997 to be used in aggressor training. ……….
No no a big lie again the US brought the MiGs because they were capable of being armed with nuclear weapons. Therefore preventing them from being sold to “rogue states”. Iran in mind The MiG29 were delivered to the National Air and Space Intelligence Center and not to aggressor squadrons as you say..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan_MiG-29#MiG_29s_in_the_United_States“”"
What? Do you think the U.S would advertise to everybody that they are buying fighters for their secret mig aggressors? Did you read the link of how U.S maintains their mig aggressors in secrecy till 2006? And your wiki link clearly says “PART of the motive”, what is the other part? To prove Working evaluation and data. How can you have a complete evaluation of a working/flying mig without being put to test as aggressors? Use common sense. Some of the 20 or so migs which are in good flying condition will surely be used as aggressors. Buying a cake and not eating it is just stupid. And BTW, Iran doesn’t even have a nuclear weapon.
“”"Ok posted another lie..am waiting”"”
The only lie in here is you lying to yourself. I’ve debunked every thing you’ve listed as lie, but you’re still lying to yourself and can’t come to terms with reality that your country operates junk fighters, most probably in a deal which involved kickbacks. And most probably those junks can’t even fire bvr weapons.
I feel Fuji is twisting facts & aurging for the sake of it,basically spliting hairs. I doent mean that Iran,a rogue nation, wouldnt be keen on buying the nuclear capable Mig 29,since they dont even have the nuclear weapon. It is widely assumed that they are working on nuclear weapons.& it should follow that they would be keen on acquring the means of delivery,-missile,aircraft,or otherwise. Now he wants to dispute Risasi’s restatement of what wiki says by saying the US wouldnt advertise their intention,bla bla bla.
This is becoming boring.In that respect, may i call members to vote, we see where views are more aligned to. Risasi’s point of view has my vote.Anyone else?
That Kenya’s F5s do not have BVR. Not necessarily a true statement (by Fuji).There isnt any info if the F5s being upgraded by Rockwell Collins will (or not) have this feature. Another false aurgument. I see Fuji bent on demonstrating how the F5 is junk, without regard to what geopolitical environmnt the F5s in discussion are. It would be informative that to check the what other airforces in the region are armed with.A country arms based on its percieved threat matrix. That US ally airforces that keep the F5,even though they can afford the better F16, is because they have the US airforce as backup.So they are ok with their “junk” fighter, i.e they do not keep it for its performance. That is a false argument. Hope everyone can see through it. It doesnt explain why say, Saudi Arabia would keep a junk airforce,but yet keep a top notch equiped army.Same as Norway, Spain, South Korea,Singapore, etc. So, applying the same augument,it doesnt explain why those that can afford are stepping up to the F16, after staying so long with “junk”. All in all, lets see what other others have to say
I agree with IZZO, and said much earlier this guy is simply hot-air deskjockey swamping us with info in the hope that he will obsfucate the absence of fact and reality in his posting. We need to move on from here, and continue to develop this discussion. This trick is as old as war itself, as any student of warfare will attest – it is called disinformation, and we are all getting sucked into this. Not worthy checking into this blog to read his posting RISASI HAS MY VOTE!!
It doesent escape you guys that there are lots of guys who manufacture reputable alternatives to the upgrade F5E /F20 who resent the continued dominance of this variant in the specific tasking that any military with non-intercontinental capacity requires. Without doubts at all, this fighter responds to all critical crieteria of Forces in this category, better than any of the other pretenders. I wouldnt be surprised if FIJI was not pushing to influence long-term strategic planning in favour of his preferred model, in which case one would doubt all the data he has swamped this blog with. Despite the plethora of “data” he offers, there is contained factual numerous contradictions amd outright misinformation in this same data FIJI posts in this blog, so as to critically wound his posting, Beware, guys!!
He he he! Come to think of it. He posted his detailed table without stating its origin/link. A fraction of me thinks its “internally generated data for comparative purposes” ,probably for the purposes implied by tom…well.never mind.am just speculating.
Long ago, before things got this heated up,someone had just come back home from a long tour “.. a CI tour of the Ituri /North Kivu Sector, then swore that the place is really “hot”, and that ..”the world does not know just how!” He promised we would hear more, then he went quiet. Also someone else promised to post some photos. Havent seen those either..
“”"I feel Fuji is twisting facts & aurging for the sake of it,basically spliting hairs. I doent mean that Iran,a rogue nation, wouldnt be keen on buying the nuclear capable Mig 29,since they dont even have the nuclear weapon. It is widely assumed that they are working on nuclear weapons.& it should follow that they would be keen on acquring the means of delivery,-missile,aircraft,or otherwise. Now he wants to dispute Risasi’s restatement of what wiki says by saying the US wouldnt advertise their intention,bla bla bla.”"”
Isn’t it the other way around? Risasi trying to twist facts to suit his F-5 fanboyism. First he gleefully posted Iran Iraq war, but later withdrew after coming to know of his folly.
And not just me, even other experts say U.S bought those for testing and studying the Aircombat potential of the Mig-29s rather than the Iran story.
“Contrary to what was broadly reported, namely, and even if at least six of these are now displayed at different places in the USA, the main purpose of that purchase was again to test and study the type, instead of preventing Iran to get additional MiG-29s. ”
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_371.shtml
You have to be pretty naive, ignorant and childish to believe that U.S bought those solely because of the Iran factor. Would you pass the opportunity to test against real enemies/Aggressors(Mig-29s) than opt for fake ones(F-16s). Even in the 2006 breifing, I think there is no mention of Mig-29s, just goes to show how secretive Mig-29s are deployed to train their pilots against Mig-29 threats from other countries.
“”"This is becoming boring.In that respect, may i call members to vote, we see where views are more aligned to. Risasi’s point of view has my vote.Anyone else?”"”
Right… in a Kenyan blog, populated by kenyans, on Kenyan’s one and only fighter, people will vote fairly. lol This isn’t democracy.
“”"That Kenya’s F5s do not have BVR. Not necessarily a true statement (by Fuji).There isnt any info if the F5s being upgraded by Rockwell Collins will (or not) have this feature. Another false aurgument. I see Fuji bent on demonstrating how the F5 is junk, without regard to what geopolitical environmnt the F5s in discussion are. It would be informative that to check the what other airforces in the region are armed with.A country arms based on its percieved threat matrix. That US ally airforces that keep the F5,even though they can afford the better F16, is because they have the US airforce as backup.So they are ok with their “junk” fighter, i.e they do not keep it for its performance. That is a false argument. Hope everyone can see through it. It doesnt explain why say, Saudi Arabia would keep a junk airforce,but yet keep a top notch equiped army.Same as Norway, Spain, South Korea,Singapore, etc. So, applying the same augument,it doesnt explain why those that can afford are stepping up to the F16, after staying so long with “junk”. All in all, lets see what other others have to say”"”
Unlike, Kenya, none of their air forces operates ONLY junk fighters, that’s the difference. Infact, they have F-16’s Mirage-2000’s and F-15s as THE jets to rely on. But you are right about one thing, F-5 are good if there is USAF backing/no threat from the neighbors,… or in other words old/junk platforms are enough for reduced threats.
And it is true that Kenyan’s F-5 most probably doesn’t have BVRs.
“”"I agree with IZZO, and said much earlier this guy is simply hot-air deskjockey swamping us with info in the hope that he will obsfucate the absence of fact and reality in his posting. We need to move on from here, and continue to develop this discussion. This trick is as old as war itself, as any student of warfare will attest – it is called disinformation, and we are all getting sucked into this. Not worthy checking into this blog to read his posting RISASI HAS MY VOTE!!
It doesent escape you guys that there are lots of guys who manufacture reputable alternatives to the upgrade F5E /F20 who resent the continued dominance of this variant in the specific tasking that any military with non-intercontinental capacity requires. Without doubts at all, this fighter responds to all critical crieteria of Forces in this category, better than any of the other pretenders. I wouldnt be surprised if FIJI was not pushing to influence long-term strategic planning in favour of his preferred model, in which case one would doubt all the data he has swamped this blog with. Despite the plethora of “data” he offers, there is contained factual numerous contradictions amd outright misinformation in this same data FIJI posts in this blog, so as to critically wound his posting, Beware, guys!!”"”
Obfuscating facts? Why’d you think Russia and U.S is spending billions on more powerful engines? They are idiots? Are they fooling the world or are they obstructing facts like me? I guess people on this blog are factual than Pratt and Whittney, General Electric, Saturn, Rolls Royce and Scnema.
Oh yeah.. Risasi gets my vote too for being a F-5 fanboy.
“”"He he he! Come to think of it. He posted his detailed table without stating its origin/link. A fraction of me thinks its “internally generated data for comparative purposes” ,probably for the purposes implied by tom…well.never mind.am just speculating.”"”
What? The empty weight/thrust data is very much available on open source if you’re not convinced. You can’t post links for each and every fighter type. F-5’s engine’s piss poor thrust is known to all.
Quoting from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/mig-29.htm# ” The US Department of Defense of the United States of America and the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Moldova reached an agreement to implement the Cooperative Threat Reduction accord signed on June 23, 1997, in Moldova. The Pentagon pounced on the planes after learning Iran had inspected the jets and expressed an interest in adding them to their inventory. Although Iran already flew the less-capable Fulcrum A, it doesn’t own any of the more advanced C-models. Of the 21 Fulcrums the United States bought, 14 are the frontline Fulcrum C’s, which contain an active radar jammer in its spine, six older A’s and one B-model two-seat trainer. This agreement authorized the United States Government to purchase nuclear-capable MiG-29 fighter planes from the Government of Moldova. This was a joint effort by both Governments to ensure that these dual-use military weapons do not fall into the hands of rogue states”. It adds “If NAIO can discover how the Fulcrum works, Air Force pilots might gain an edge if they faced the Fulcrum in future combat. ”
Very clever of you to downplay the iranian element & overplay the aggressor training element.The strategy fits you well. But it isnt very dificult to see through your tactic.
More evidence of your downlaying aspects of an issue to suit you, & overplaying others.Still on the Iranian mig 29s
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=41172
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 1997 – The United States recently bought 21 nuclear-capable MiG-29 fighter jets from the Republic of Moldova to keep them out of the hands of potential enemies, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen announced Nov. 4.” Goes on “The jets were purchased under the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program aimed at reducing, controlling and eliminating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction from the former Soviet Union.
The program, also known as the Nunn-Lugar program, has helped draw down nuclear capabilities in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. ”
Going by your line of argument, i reckon you will say,”No no, the US arent fools to state their real intentions, etc etc.
“”"Very clever of you to downplay the iranian element & overplay the aggressor training element.The strategy fits you well. But it isnt very dificult to see through your tactic.
Going by your line of argument, i reckon you will say,”No no, the US arent fools to state their real intentions, etc etc.”"”
Ofcourse, Those are statements from the official quarters. The existence of Mig aggressors were officially denied till 2006, That is a blinding fact. That quote and the news you posted happened on 1998. What part of Iran doesn’t have a Nuclear weapon didn’t you get? And what makes you think Iran wasn’t simply getting it for their Airforce? Those Migs are PRIMARILY designed for BVR & Dogfights, not a nuclear weapon platform. And the ACIG site clearly states that the main intention was to test the Fulcrums.
& to quote you, to illustrate your own back & forth-highlight-one-aspect-downpay-the-other style, you say “And it is true that Kenyan’s F-5 most probably doesn’t have BVRs.”
It is TRUE …MOST PROBABLY doenst have..
Ignoring the merits of your argument & just looking at the structure of your logic ( which btw, is evident in all your points), you state a word indicating absolute certainity (TRUE), then quickly follow it with those indicating absolute ambiguity (MOST PROBABLY), all under the same breath.
That, is what we mean argument for the sake of it. or splitting hairs, if you like.