France can not sell AWACS to China under an EU treaty. They do that and we sell Taiwan a ton of stuff. The Soviet
AWACS is poor at best at this time. FWIW - France buys our AWACS. Do you think we sell them the whole package?
Did you know the rules of engagment during the excercise with India? We were not permitted to use our latest missiles, no AWACS and not the latest F-15 radar. No wonder they won. That excercise was used by the air force to get more F-22s. Which is fine with me as they are an incredible plane.
The USAF plan is not to dogfight. Using AWACS we go in under EMCON and launch AMRAAMs before they can do anything to us. We will fight BVR. That tactic maximizes advantage of our technology. The AMRAAM is guided by GPS cordiantes updated constantly. No radar, no warning to the bad guys. Only in the last 2 or 3 miles does the homing radar go active. They will hear the sound of the RWR go off, and then boom.
As to the Chinese airforce, one Arleigh Burke destroyer has 96 launch cells. We can put 4 ESSMs in one cell. The Japanese who will be in this will have about 8 Kongo class destroyers, which are like large versions of the Arleigh Burke. And one PAC-III battery has 128 missiles. We just deployed a battery around Tokyo. We also are selling several batteries to Taiwan, to add to their PAC-II patriot batteries.
You sound well informed on the technology aspect of air warfare...How many AMRAAMs does an F-15, or actually F-18s have, since in the Straits it would be F18s doing the bulk of the fighting?
"Did you know the rules of engagment during the excercise with India? We were not permitted to use our latest missiles, no AWACS and not the latest F-15 radar. No wonder they won."
There is a BIG BIG disinformation campaign going on. Well firstly:
1. India didnt use the Su-30MKI(which are the real threat jets). Only the Su-30Ks were used which dont come any advanced weaponry or radar.
2. Secondly neither did India use (or have) AWACS. Its only now that we are buying the Isreali Phalcon.
3. Thirdly the US fighters were out numbered (1:3) but only on paper. All the jets werent Su30s. Many were Mig 27s and Mig21 BNs which are ground attacks or the Mig 21(Bis) which are antiquated (40 years old). And the F-15Cs were doing air superiority. Thats pretty much the odds they are likely to face while fighting over the straits.
It wasnt the case that all the odds were against the US fighters.