Britain sells 72 Eurofighter Typhoons to Saudi Arabia

lePobz

lePobz

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6998774.stm

Is this really wise? We designed these for our protection, and then someone screws up with the orders, then sells a massive amount of excess EF's to what could easily be a national enemy very soon.

I wish people thought with their head instead of their wallet.
 
It's not that bad. Since they are selling a fighter they know all nooks and crannies of, they can also effectively counter these fighters should the need arise.
 
How do you figure they could be your enemy soon?
 
What we didn't tell them is that their is a killswitch. War breaks out, bam, all of those fighters come crashing down :p
 
saudi arabia is not your enemyes as far I can see,they are also owners of various f15 and other american made vehicules
 
As long as we keep pouring money on them for their oil, they will never try to be a threat to the west.
 
It's hardly a stable region right now, and an American war with Iran in the near future is an absolute certainty. Throwing petrol in the fire ain't the best way of putting it out. Saudi arabia is the heart of Islam, and I fear more western inteference in the middle east may be interpreted as a war on Islam.

It's like giving an axe to a serial killer because he says he's your friend. I guess.
 
Eh, we've been selling weapons to the Saudis for years. In fact, these Typhoons are to replace the Tornadoes we sold them.

And the more forgein sales of the Typhoon the lower the individual unit cost is for the nations that make them so the British military will get more bang for their buck, so to speak. Which should hopefully mean more money for force protection and looking after soldiers, sailors and airmen who come back from their duty wounded or their families if they don't come back at all.
 
Raxxman said:
Typhoons are obsolete in combat terms anyway.
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Against one aircraft.

Which the US will never sell to anyone else.

And which is massively more expensive than the Typhoon. And its only real advantage over the typhoon, its stealth capability, my not have been worth that much after all due to recent developments in Russia. Also, unlike the typhoon, its still not equipped to combat units except in the training role.

Also the Typhoon is a much more flexible aircraft and substantially less stuck in the air superiority role than the F22.

Until the Lightning II goes into full production and fulfills its current orders with those who paid for development there is no aircraft in the world on the export market that can match the Typhoon. Even when the Lightning II does come onto the export market its still not as good an air superiority fighter as the Typhoon.

And the Raptor will never appear in significant numbers. The US has plans to use 183. The Lightning II has a planned number of around 2000.
 
meh the UK and the US have been supplying fundamentalist/tyrannical regimes with weapons for decades ..they'll ignore their horrendous human rights abuses, they'll ignore their extremism, their tyranny etc ..well until they're no longer of use at which point they'll denounce them as tyrants, extremists and a threat to human rights everywhere ...just like they did with saddam or the mujahideen, or Rafael Trujillo or augosto pinochet, or Castelo Branco or General Suharto or Papa Doc Duvalier, or Mobutu Sese Seko or Jonas Savimbi etc etc etc
 
The Eurofighter is not fit to take on anything above the F15. Against an F16, it'd be dead meat. But I guess it makes sense to give these crappy aircraft away, but to Saudi Arabia... Yeah, probably not the guys to give technology to.
 
Nemesis6 said:
The Eurofighter is not fit to take on anything above the F15. Against an F16, it'd be dead meat. But I guess it makes sense to give these crappy aircraft away, but to Saudi Arabia... Yeah, probably not the guys to give technology to.
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:LOL::LOL::LOL:
 
What conclusions can we draw about the Typhoon ? The notion that the aircraft is "almost as good as an F-22" is not supportable, indeed upgrading the F-15 with engines and a radar/IRS&T/AAM package of the same generation as that of the Typhoon would equalise almost all advantages held by the Typhoon over older F-15C/E variants. By the same token, no upgrades performed on the F/A-18A/C would equalise the performance advantages of the Typhoon over these aircraft.

The strength of the Typhoon is its very modern and comprehensive avionic package, especially that in the RAF variant, and its excellent agility when operated around its optimum combat radius of about 300 NMI (a figure to be found in older Eurofighter literature, which has since disappeared with the export drive to compete against the bigger F-15 and F-22).

The Typhoon's weaknesses are its F/A-18C class weight and thrust and the implications of this in combat at extended operational radii, and the longer term sensitivity of its BVR weapons advantage to equivalent technological developments in opposing fighters.

In terms of where to position the Typhoon in the current menagerie of fighter aircraft, it can be best described as an F/A-18C sized fighter with BVR systems and agility performance better than older F-15 models, similar to growth F-15 models with same generation systems and engines, but inferior to the F-15 in useful operating radius. The Typhoon is not a stealth aircraft, despite various assertions to this effect, nor is it a genuine supercruiser like the F-22. Its design incorporates none of the features seen in very low observable types, nor does the EJ200 incorporate the unique design features of the F119 and F120 powerplants.

The Typhoon is certainly not a lemon, although the wisdom of mass producing a high performance conventional fighter of its ilk in a period where stealth is about to hit mass production in the F-22 and JSF programs could be seriously questioned. It represents what is likely to be the last major evolutionary step in the teen series design philosophy.
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And I remember one example from about a year ago where they reported that the Eurofighter beat an American fighter jet. Only problem was: It was an F15.
 
I deplore the fact we do business with the Saudi regime. But meh at least we get money for selling them broken goods.
And I believe the British government could effectively render the fighters useless if needed.

Better to sell the enemy your own known weapons, than for them to buy just as good weapons from elsewhere.

Also, I hear that the UK MoD want to buy JSFs instead of Eurofighter now as the treasury has said they can only have one or the other.
 
kirovman said:
I deplore the fact we do business with the Saudi regime. But meh at least we get money for selling them broken goods.
And I believe the British government could effectively render the fighters useless if needed.

Better to sell the enemy your own known weapons, than for them to buy just as good weapons from elsewhere.

Also, I hear that the UK MoD want to buy JSFs instead of Eurofighter now as the treasury has said they can only have one or the other.
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Tornado replacement ie high speed, non VTOL, land based multi role fighter = Eurofighter

Harrier replacement ie slower VTOL capable multi role aircraft, carrier capable = JSF

Haven't heard about the MOD saying "one or the other". The Navy will definetly be getting F-35Bs, however, as no navalised variant of the Typhoon has been developed and as the development of the F-35 has already had a substantial investment from the UK it would be even more expensive to use the EF2000 than the JSF.
 
Bob_Marley said:
Tornado replacement ie high speed, non VTOL, land based multi role fighter = Eurofighter

Harrier replacement ie slower VTOL capable multi role aircraft, carrier capable = JSF

Haven't heard about the MOD saying "one or the other". The Navy will definetly be getting F-35Bs, however, as no navalised variant of the Typhoon has been developed and as the development of the F-35 has already had a substantial investment from the UK it would be even more expensive to use the EF2000 than the JSF.
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http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/engineering/article2441602.ece
 
Bob_Marley said:
Against one aircraft.

Which the US will never sell to anyone else.
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I believe Japan placed an order...they also asked for the software to the plane, and the US Gov't told them to $%#@ off...
 
Atomic_Piggy said:
Japan > Everyone. How can you turn them down?
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pearl_harbor.gif


/thread
 
Aww, that's just mean, Ridge! The Japanese people are a very industrious and technologically advanced society which... Still holds ceremonies where they dress up like and honor the kamikaze pilots and imperialist Japan... :|

But they make better transistors than the Chinese do, apparently, so I think that makes a little up for their crappy cartoon style(anime) and their obvious inability to face their past! :upstare:
 
Is this really wise? We designed these for our protection, and then someone screws up with the orders, then sells a massive amount of excess EF's to what could easily be a national enemy very soon.
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Not particularly wise. The Sauds have enough money to make they're own experimental or field weapons.
 
Like the Iranians. They made their own "Khaybar" rifle. Yeah, apparently they're just a tiny bit nuts.
 
Check out the name, smartass. Besides, I'm not gonna go into critique of the source you're using, you can do that yourself.
 
Nemesis6 said:
Check out the name, smartass. Besides, I'm not gonna go into critique of the source you're using, you can do that yourself.
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didnt take the time to research whether I'm right or not huh?

let me remind you of the Iran-contra Affair

wikipedia said:
Michael Ledeen, a consultant of Robert McFarlane, asked Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres for help in the sale of arms to Iran.[11] The general idea behind the plan was for Israel to ship weapons to Iran, then the US would reimburse Israel with the same weapons. The Israeli government required that the sale of arms meet high level approval from the United States government, and when Robert McFarlane convinced them that the U.S. government approved the sale, Israel obliged by agreeing to sell the arms
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair

According to the report of the U.S. Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair issued in November 1987, "the sale of U.S. arms to Iran through Israel began in the summer of 1985, after receiving the approval of President Reagan."[23] These sales included "2,008 BGM-71 TOW anti-Tank missiles, and 235 parts kits for MIM-23 Hawk surface-to-air missiles had been sent to Iran via Israel." Further shipments of up to US$2 billion of American weapons from Israel to Iran, consisting of 18 F-4 fighter-bombers, 46 A-4 Skyhawk fighter-bombers, and nearly 4,000 missiles were foiled by the U.S. Department of Justice, and "unverified reports alleged that Israel agreed to sell Iran AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, radar equipment, mortar and machinegun ammunition, field telephones, M-60 tank engines and artillery shells, and spare parts for C-130 transport planes."[24] The London Observer also estimated that Israel's arms sales to Iran during the war totalled US$ 500 million annually,[25] and Time Magazine reported that throughout 1981 and 1982, "the Israelis reportedly set up Swiss bank accounts to handle the financial end of the deals."
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War


Israel also was involved in the arming of Iran prior to the Iran-Iraq war:

* Project "Flower" Tzur, a joint collaboration between Iran and Israel, aimed to develop a "state-of-the-art sea-to-sea missile, an advanced version of the U.S. Harpoon missile, with a range of 200 kilometers." (See: Ronen Bergman, "5 billion Reasons to Talk to Iran," Haaretz (Tel Aviv), 19 March 1999; in "Israel's Outstanding Debt to Iran Viewed," FBIS Document FTS19990319001273, 19 March 1999.
* Israeli Defense Minister General Ezer Weizmann and Iranian Vice Minister of War General Hasan Toufanian discussed the co-production of Israel's Jericho-2 missile, code named Project Flower. (See: "Minutes from Meeting Held in Tel Aviv between H. E. General M. Dayan, Foreign Minister of Israel, and H.E. General H. Toufanian, Vice Minister of War, Imperial Government of Iran," Top Secret Minutes from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 18 July 1977, in Digital National Security Archive)

Israeli arms deals to Iran continued after the war, although sporadically and unofficially.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Israel_relations#Iran-Israel_military_relations


oh and you're not one to question sources ..especially since every last one of your sources originatyes from some opion piece of a special interest group with an axe to grind with brown people in general

start eating crow nemesis ... /me passes nemesis fork and dead crow
 
Wait, I'm confused - Why exactly did you bring these three incidents up? I said they were nutjobs for naming a rifle "khaybar", and you start raving about Israel giving Iran weapons. That's a bit weird, dude.
 
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