Britain secretly buys Russian surface-to-air missiles ...

Originally posted by chinawhite

Originally posted by longbow
No. No helicopter can carry 100 people. The largest US helicopter is Sea Stallion with over 50 soldiers. Russians have bigger Mi-26, but it cannot carry 100 people too.

There are 40 fold-down seats along the cargo bay, and 60 more seats can be fitted in the center aisle of the cargo bay.

www.vectorsite.net...

This states 100 already in a sitting position. So It is already possible

But knowing the russians 100 troops is not their limit. The actual heicopter had 140 troops insdie with 115 being killed. I think the numbers actually stated are for longer missions while i think in that situation they were ferrying troops from one base to another on a short trip.

Article frm pravada

The number of lives lost in the August 19th helicopter crash in Chechnya has reached 115 as yet another crash survivor died at the hospital of the North Caucasian Military District. The helicopter, a Mi-26 troop-carrier, had been heading for the Russian military base in Khankala with 140 servicemen on board.

Pravada

Notice this is not the rumoured number its the offical number

Mi-26: Russia's airborne 'cow'

If this is true it is the largest stupidity I ever heard - squeezing 140 people into ONE helicopter? BTW proper load for Mi-26 is 85 troops. What they were thinking? One malfunction and entire company is dead.

[edit on 29-12-2005 by longbow]

If this is true it is the largest stupidity I ever heard - squeezing 140 people into ONE helicopter? BTW proper load for Mi-26 is 85 troops. What they were thinking? One malfunction and entire company is dead.

Same thing can be said about transport airplanes.

F-14 was retired in 2004. AIM-54 was retired in the 1990's. This leaves the AMRAAM-C with its 48km range as the longest range missile in the United States Navy. This is a Navy that faces threats from aircraft that can launch anti ship missiles at over 300km. With that sort of range they are screwed in an emergency situation. The R-77 only needs a data link and some custom software to work on US warplanes. Admittedly it could probably only work on an AESA radar equipped fighter but they are already in service. You'd have the choice of the following from what I've heard:

Some F-15C's
F/A-18E's
F/A-18F's
F-22A's (their new name I suspect)

iirc the F14 is still in service. They are set to retire sometime this year. A real shame imho. The F14 is still a excellent aircraft and the best fleetdefender out there.

Originally posted by longbow

Originally posted by chinawhite

Originally posted by longbow
No. No helicopter can carry 100 people. The largest US helicopter is Sea Stallion with over 50 soldiers. Russians have bigger Mi-26, but it cannot carry 100 people too.

There are 40 fold-down seats along the cargo bay, and 60 more seats can be fitted in the center aisle of the cargo bay.

www.vectorsite.net...

This states 100 already in a sitting position. So It is already possible

But knowing the russians 100 troops is not their limit. The actual heicopter had 140 troops insdie with 115 being killed. I think the numbers actually stated are for longer missions while i think in that situation they were ferrying troops from one base to another on a short trip.

Article frm pravada

The number of lives lost in the August 19th helicopter crash in Chechnya has reached 115 as yet another crash survivor died at the hospital of the North Caucasian Military District. The helicopter, a Mi-26 troop-carrier, had been heading for the Russian military base in Khankala with 140 servicemen on board.

Pravada

Notice this is not the rumoured number its the offical number

Mi-26: Russia's airborne 'cow'

If this is true it is the largest stupidity I ever heard - squeezing 140 people into ONE helicopter? BTW proper load for Mi-26 is 85 troops. What they were thinking? One malfunction and entire company is dead.

[edit on 29-12-2005 by longbow]

I know that in 1982 the British shoved 86 paras into one chinook as most of the rotary fleet were lost when the main carrier was sunk. Often need out weighs app.arent common sense

1. If you want to overload the payload of an aircraft or helicopter, you reduce the total load. Fuel is part of the total load. Take off with half a tank full and fly half as far. Removing all the weapons and ammunition works well too.

2. Any country obtains the equipment of any other country by any means possible. If it's worth looking at, or using, anyway.

3. The US, for a while, was buying up all the MPAD surface-to-air that could be found, all over the world. Just to keep anybody else from buying them, and using them in a bad way. Somewhere there must be a huge warehouse full of them.

Tomcat; the F-14's were finally retired in 2004. This was the planned date and I haven't seen anything that contradicts this. As far as I know they are no longer stationed abord USN CV's.

As for the USA having a large warehouse of MANPADS somewhere. I doubt this severely. At any given time the USA is financing or supporting some form of guerilla army somewhere in the world. Sometimes its made very clear and other times its not as to who these groups are. My guess is if they are buying large stockpiles of weapons to keep them out of their enemies hands they are giving them to their allies either publicly or clandestinely.

Originally posted by Senor Freebie
F-14 was retired in 2004. AIM-54 was retired in the 1990's. This leaves the AMRAAM-C with its 48km range as the longest range missile in the United States Navy. This is a Navy that faces threats from aircraft that can launch anti ship missiles at over 300km. With that sort of range they are screwed in an emergency situation. The R-77 only needs a data link and some custom software to work on US warplanes. Admittedly it could probably only work on an AESA radar equipped fighter but they are already in service. You'd have the choice of the following from what I've heard:

Ahem numerous websites quote the R-77 as only having a range of 50km. So they have no range advantage over the AMRAAM.

Well not according to the us navy site. www.navy.mil... you can see a F14 right there on the homepage. The pic was made in 2k5.

If you still think its BS ask yourself this; how does the US Navy plan on maintaining fleet defence when its maximum missile range on aircraft went from 185km to 48km with the retirement of the AIM-54 pheonix and if this is an acceptable hole in their defence umbrella why are they developing the AMRAAM-D with a range in excess of 100km solely for use by F/A18's?

You said they are going to use the R-77 ( AA-12 Adder ), that isn't an AMRAAM-D is it now. Besides the R-77 isn't even compatible with teh Tomcat radar.



The F/A18's are hornets or super hornets not tomcats

The British brought them for 3 simple reasons.
1) to discover how effective the missiles are
2) if neccessery to try and develoup counter measures
3) if the missile is supereor to british air to air missiles then to try and replicate the technology to improve british air to air missiles.

Originally posted by mad scientist
Ahem numerous websites quote the R-77 as only having a range of 50km. So they have no range advantage over the AMRAAM.

You might have mis-read. It might be measured in miles instead of km. Because common range is 80km which equals 50miles(roughly)

Or check the seeker and the version

Originally posted by chinawhite
You might have mis-read. It might be measured in miles instead of km. Because common range is 80km which equals 50miles(roughly)

Or check the seeker and the version

Nope on the contrary it seems you may have misread your information, it only has a range of about 50 km not miles.
I guess it all depends wher you get your information from.

sure does..
here's a russian site and halfway down i think the range is given in the table..
www.military.cz...
translate if you want to read..
Here the range is given as 90-100km for the R-77, and 160km for R-77PD

Infact FAS.org has given the range as 50 km MORE than the AMRAAM and then given the range in the table as 50km

www.fas.org...

The most recent Russian R-77 medium-range missiles (AA-12 "AMRAAMSKI") is similar to and in some respects equal to the American AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. The R-77 missile has an active radar finder and a maximim range of 90-100 kilometers (50 km more than AMRAAM) and flies at four times the speed of sound.

Also:
en.wikipedia.org...

Infact I wonder where you found the range to be 50 km?

[edit on 18-1-2006 by Daedalus3]

www.globalsecurity.org...

Range = 50km's

The range of the R-77 is between 50km and 80km depending on the model

www.sinodefence.com...

The AA-12 has a range of up to 31 miles — about the same range as the AIM-120. The missile is guided by an active radar finder that helps it home in on flying aircraft.
taiwansecurity.org...

Hmm, that's where I got it from, maybe you should do a more thorough search next time Like I said smarty depends which site you visit.





[edit on 18-1-2006 by mad scientist]

Originally posted by PaddyInf
I know that in 1982 the British shoved 86 paras into one chinook as most of the rotary fleet were lost when the main carrier was sunk. Often need out weighs app.arent common sense

The Chinnocks (18 out of 19) were lost when the MV Atlantic Conveyor (a civilian container ship) was sunk, she was only a aircraft carrier in so far as they flew off 20 harrier from her deck (vertical take-off) that she had ferried down to the Falklands. They had flown off 1 Chinnock when she was hit.

Originally posted by mad scientist
Nope on the contrary it seems you may have misread your information, it only has a range of about 50 km not miles.
I guess it all depends wher you get your information from.

I think global has got its information wrong, Like Daedalus3 said they contridict itslef by stating 90-100km then making the difference in range as the range of the missile. 50km is most probaly a mis-print

And sinodefence is right and wrong. 50km is most probaly the NEZ range not the actul range of the missile since all versions have the same size except for dfferent seekers. And the seekers on matter on the last 15-25km of the journey