via Haaretz.
Several ministers, headed by Strategic and Intelligence Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, strongly objected to purchasing more F-35 fighter jets at the ministerial committee for defense purchases’ meeting Wednesday.Read the entire article here.
The Defense Ministry and Israel Air Force submitted to the committee a proposal to buy a second squadron of the advanced fighter jets at the expected cost of some $4.5 billion.
Steinitz spearheaded the objection to buying 31 jets, which will be added to the 19 ordered in the first deal. Steinitz is in favor of buying numerous cheap missiles to be launched from the sea, surface and air, and for increasing the use of drones, thus reducing Israel’s dependence on manned aircraft.
The committee consists of 10 members headed by the prime minister, with Steinitz as his deputy. Steinitz is supported, as far as is known, by Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir, a retired IAF colonel and former chairman of Israel Aerospace Industries. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and IAF commander Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel supported the purchase proposal in the committee.
The IAF is interested in buying a third F-35 squadron as well. Altogether the air force hopes to have 75 F-35 jets in three squadrons in the coming decade.
The deal’s opponents, who also cite the opinions of external experts such as former Defense Minister Moshe Arens, argue that in an era when myriads of rockets and missiles threaten IAF bases, Israel must not be wholly dependent on fighter jets.
What has me fired up is that we were deceived (again) by the F-35 program office. They put out the word that the Israeli's were going to buy additional jets.
Now we hear that Ministers oppose that buy. Either they know nothing about Israeli procurement procedures (not likely) or they knowingly put out false information to garner positive publicity for their program.This is not criminal behavior but it is at best deceitful at worst an outright lie. Yeah I know all is fair in love and procurement but we have been told over and over that this program is the most open in Pentagon history.
What else has the program office been deceitful/lying about?
American Budget chooses absolute air superiority through an instrument called F35 while Israeli Budget chooses absolute ground superiority through that renewed Namer program and past significant investments in Active protective systems.
ReplyDeleteProblem for F35 is its not an instrument of Air superiority .Its an over priced bomb truck . Israel gets most of US planes ither for free or at subsidised prices so would gladly take them if it was the right plane for the job.
DeleteIsrael looks for absolute air superiority more than any other nation as air power was allways Israels force multiplier. You bet they would love having F22 .
True. If the US ever was allowed to sell it. The F-22 was a card kept so close to the vest that it got crumpled. I know the feeling of always wanting a trump card hidden, but if they had opened the aircraft to sales world wide, they would have gotten economies of scale and the price per would have dropped. I really suspect that if the US had opened for business, the F-22 would still have been affordable even during the economic crisis. Not to mention that their "pivot" would have been under the umbrella of the air forces of friendly or allied nations, all of whom are more wary of China than the US. Nothing beats keeping allies loyal by them being more afraid of the enemy. :)
DeleteA squadron from Japan, a squadron from Korea, one from Australia, and soon you're talking about an auto-containment of China.
Owl, add to that equation atleast 10 squadrons of PAKFA's from India. What and in how many numbers Taiwan fields to this equation is a question that more than Taiwan....the US will have to answer.
DeleteOf particular interest to me is this line-
ReplyDelete"Steinitz is in favor of buying numerous CHEAP MISSILES to be launched from the sea, surface and air, and for increasing the use of drones"
With the words CHEAP MISSILES highlighted. Accounting and Popular opinion being that missiles are on the expensive side of things, I wonder what Israel has in store/planning as regards Cheap Missiles ? Or is he talking about missiles being Relatively cheaper to loosing dozens of soldiers ?
Anyone have a clue ?
i noticed that too. i considered two things. first the F-35 is a strike fighter. in other words a bomber or attack airplane. all this talk about it being able to swing into the air superiority role is nonsense. with that in mind even cruise missiles (and alot of them) would be cheaper and be able to attack more targets. the second thing that came to mind is air defenses. stealth was once detected by old russian radars. newer ones with properly trained techs should perform better. can a country the size of israel afford to lose one pilot? even if it can you still need to mount a rescue operation for him. with long range missiles and uavs you don't have that concern. if one malfunctions, is shot down and lost you don't lose a pilot or even risk one. its really just a matter of force protection.
Deletethe last thing is that i think the israeli's are seriously digesting the lessons of the gaza fight. uavs were stars. missiles and rockets were stars. manned airplanes? not so much. i think we're seeing a shift toward ground forces being once again the rock stars in the IDF.
But there are bad parts to going all missile/ground forces too, for example if they had to replicate the bombing of a nuclear plant, IIRC the planes had to maneuver rather smartly with a thinking pilot behind the stick to avoid all the air defences. A missile can't really think for itself, not to mention there is no such thing as air to air refueling for a missile
Deletethose were pre-planned routes and cruise missiles can duplicate that flight profile. additionally cruise missiles can be longer ranged than fighters and even if they aren't a legacy airplane can launch from the persian gulf and be out of harms way of iranian air defenses.
DeleteMaybe they refear to cheap stand off weapons.
ReplyDeleteSpice 250 bombs - the israeli Secret Weapon expos…
: http://youtu.be/xrT2KtSzMd0
SKY-SHIELD
: http://youtu.be/mpPudL-Ztdg.
i was under impression that israel got these F35 for free ... i mean they use US money to buy US weapons.. if the israeli dont want F35 even for free , then F35 must be really bad..
ReplyDeleteNah, it's just a politician making hay. I'm a bit wary of Haaretz articles, there was an old one which proposed replacing Israel's missile based defence system with lasers, totally ignoring the fact that currently lasers are still very limited and missile based interceptors still give the best range and performance (for now).
DeleteAfter all, if someone takes a politician's word for it.... there are jokes about these kinds of things you know! Usually ends with "I got something to sell you!"
Now with the congress ruled by the Republicans and Obama in such a bad shape they can finally talk openly.
ReplyDeleteI remember Rommey wanted a bigger conventional force instead of reducing the armed forces with just expensive fancy toys and the Israelis wanted Silent Eagles.
From the same newpaper:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/video/.premium-1.625016
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.624914
Israel(Actually the US taxpayers) cannot afford to replace its entire fighter jet fleet with the F-35, so Israel must start looking at an affordable fighter jet option soon.
ReplyDeleteIsrael is not used to paying for its fighter buys, which they may start doing because all the options, like the Gripen E/F, KFX, and even possibly Chinese J-20/31 are not covered by the US defense grants to Israel.
Israel is capable of producing its on jet on par with the Super Hornet or the Gripen...at the very least. they make enough components that are sought world wide that the only thing they're lacking is the airframe and the engines...and the engines would be easy enough to get from the US...as would super hornets.
DeleteSlowman, Israel doesnt need to even build its own jet....all they have to do is pick up the phone and dial F for France and R for Rafael. True, these options will be expensive from them but not unachievable and certainly cheaper in the long run than having an entire airforce consisting of F-35's. The way Israel works, I wouldnt be surprised if Israel even got a super secret squadron of PAKFA's from Russia. Just a squadron with some additional aircraft as a training component for their Air Academy. After all, Russia is relying or was relying before Ukraine fiasco a lot on Israel to upgrade their defence and civilian electronics industry.
DeleteThe big problem for Israel is that even if US delivers all 75 JSFs, that still leaves them really short in terms of numbers. Even if Israel comes up with some new fancy combat UAV, Israel currently has in active inventory 65 F15s and around 180 F16s, that's not counting what they have for reserves and training (around 150 additional F15/16s) that could be used for combat. I don't know what Israel considers the bare bone minimum number of fighter jets it needs to defend itself and also conduct offensive operations like an Iran strike or fight against Egypt but 75 JSF doesn't seem like enough so how do they make up the numbers?
ReplyDeleteNICO, the more I read your numbers the more I think that Israel will definatly not replace their entire airforce with the F35. For a country with that many veterans and combat veterans at that, it would be political suicide if the Govt. were to say......"OK, the F35 is a kickass plane and we dont need 300+ planes in our inventory"......at a time when in the best case scenario the PAKFA's will start making their appearance over the next 10 year period and some Arab country is sure to buy it.
DeleteAbout Canada....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.brandonsun.com/national/breaking-news/canada-signals-it-intends-to-buy-at-least-four-f-35s-by-2017-pentagon-briefing-281924701.html