No one can get F-22 due to the so-called “Obey Amendment.” US was worried that some of the sensitive and secretive technologies that went into developing the F-22 could be discovered and reverse-engineered by enemies if the U.S. were to export it.
From memory they didn't formulate that policy till after production at stopped.
The original plan was to produce around 1,500 F-22s to replace most of the F-15s, with the F-35 supposed to replace everything else in a cheaper lighter form.
The end of the cold war meant a 200 million dollar fighter plane seemed overkill because at that time they thought Russia was finished and would probably end up buying old F-16s when HATO moved on to newer stealthy designs because no sales for Russia and eastern europe now joining HATO and not wanting or being allowed Russian fighters meant no market for Russian fighters... only third world countries that were charity rather than profit so MiG and Sukhoi were expected to go under.
The numbers for the F-22 went from 1,500, to 750, to production ends now at 189 and everything is to be dismantled so the next government can't reverse our decision...
At the time Australia and Japan and Israel were probably thinking they might be able to get F-22s... but the US wanted partners in the F-35... supposedly to reduce costs, but effectively mainly just to secure export customers.
The rapid demise of the F-22 production led to the F-35 being required to be rather more than the cheaper simpler lighter support plane to teh bigger more capable more expensive F-22.
In fact they wanted to make the light cheap fighter better than the bigger heavier fighter... which of course was doomed to fail.
[qutoe]But later not even the US get the planned numbers ,the 750 decreased to 185 now in service and the program has stopped so no way it can be exported .[/quote]
Before production was stopped those countries still held out hopes even if they had to pay a bit more...
This global system ensure the distribution of power as per US plans and it's their way to increase or decrease the capability of the countries .
It is more a case of crowd control and playing favourites without actually playing favourites. For instance you can make money selling F-16s to Egypt, but to ensure they are never a real threat to Israel you let Israel have AMRAAMs and don't let Egypt have them... if they had Egypt written off and refused to sell them anything then Egypt would pretty soon be buying French or Soviet aircraft and then the US would have no control at all.
The key is to make them think they are getting a good deal, when in actually fact it is just a corrupt way of bribing government officials... Give Egypt a billion dollars in aide but they can't spend it on schools or hospitals or medicine or food... the aide is not to aid Egypt, it is to aid Boeing and General Dynamics because that money goes straight to US arms companies... it is a subsidy programme that pretends to be good will and support but only supports the US MIC... and US politicians benefit because when they retire from public office companies like Boeing and GD hire them as soon as they can because they have security clearance and they know all the people in government likely to make important decisions about procurement... inside contract information... or better still the people who were under you are now running the place... you used to be their boss, so if you suggest a requirement for a particular contract that means your new company will definitely win the contract you will probably be a million dollar bonus... and that is on top of your half million dollar a year salary to have lunch and meetings in your old offices with your former employees. To sweeten the deals you just tell them what you do... wine and dine former employees for half a million a year... in a few years when they are getting close to retiring from their government jobs you might slow down your work and spend more time with your family... make these changes in the contract and I get a 5 million dollar bonus... if I get that bonus I can retire in 4 years when your retire from this job and I could recommend you for my job at Boeing... no deadlines or need for serious work... just schmooshing the guys currently under you now for great money and embarrassing bonus schemes...
There is no need to install a device in each platform to stop it at a specific time , simply they will provide Israel with higher capabilities and in war time they will cut the logistics and munitions that necessary to operate properly such platforms in Egypt . Of course Egypt can keep using it's fleet for years but not for decades as it was planned before.
Inside every aircraft and every weapon is software with millions of lines of programming... there would be billions of different interactions and combinations of events it needs to cope with... don't expect the screen in an F-16 to pop up saying cannot engage Israeli aircraft... that is not allowed... what is more likely to happen is that the missile you fire develops a fault or the proximity fuse sets the warhead off 200m short of the target... in other words the engagement will fail but it wont be obvious why it failed... you launch ten missiles and you might get ten different types of failures... but the result is that you wont be engaging Israeli planes.
It is easier to do for aircraft and missiles than anything else.... the 120mm tank round wont know or care whether you are firing at an Israeli tank or a sand bank, but with a sophisticated weapon like AMRAAM or the F-16... it is much easier because the target is identified...
Iran is operating F-4 , F-5, F-14 ,P-3 Orion ,C-130 Hercules , CH-47 Chinook ,why didn't the US stopped them from flying near to US carriers .
Computer technology of the time wouldn't allow such sabotage... the Iranians also reverse engineered many of the missiles these platforms carry so an Iranian missile would not have the Trojan Horse code in it like an American missile would.
Russians have no plans for the world like US so they care more about revenues and they are more flexible and smart .
The Russians are not angels and may have put some features they could exploit if they come up against them in a future conflict, but the fact of the matter is... they can buy yours or they can buy someone elses... it is better when they buy yours because you know yours better, and the money you made in the sale can be used to make the new stuff even better...
In the 1990s the Russians sold Tunguska 2S6Ms to Britain, and S-300V SA-12 systems to the US... the latter was not a complete system but I am sure the Americans learned a lot.
At the time neither were new systems and the money earned went to create rather more advanced models that were more capable and have since entered service.
Mind you a F-14 Tomcat pair flying past might bring a tear to some eyes on board if they did.
A very amusing thought...
Also, with regard to the US 'assisting' use of the aircraft they supply, many deals have US technicians included and they can be withdrawn (as I think in Iraq currently) also if part way through deliveries the US can stop shipments, like Turkey's F-35 and Iraq's F-16s, in both cases deliveries were made in the US but not allowed to fly them home.
Also when things turn south suddenly the technicians can perform sabotage operations on equipment before they leave like they did in Iran.
But even just not supplying standard components mean they wont stay operational for that long most of the time.
That's hard to believe. Exocet sunk ships or more prcisely frigates.
At the time of the war it was not revealed that they didn't explode. Afterwards after information was analysed it was determined that none of the warheads of the missiles that hit exploded properly.
The ships sank because of the fires they started and the materials the ships were made of...
That wouldn't be possible if the warheads didn't explode.
Fire on a warship on a long range operational mission is a dangerous thing... all that fuel and ammo and ships made of materials that burned is a lethal combination.
There opposite stories saying that french engineers that were in Argentina during the war helped convert ship launched exocets to air launched versions, in other words fighting UK.
The stories I heard about were from the British and from well after the war ended. Analysis showing that the warheads of the missiles probably didn't explode suggested a problem in fusing, and there were rumours that French engineer specialists might have done that on purpose, but it was all speculation.
I meant to say "their AD missiles could not intercept antiship missiles". Sorry for the mistake. Back in the time there was almost no AD system so good to lock on such small targets flying so low because of parasite signals coming back from water. Even today with digitalization and computer power it's hard to do. That's why soviets put ak-630 everywhere.
Their SAMs went from the ridiculous (Sea Slug and Sea Cat) to the good enough (Sea Dart) to the very good (Sea Wolf).
The Sea Slug and Sea Cat were terrible, the Sea Dart on paper was a useful weapon, but only the Sea Wolf had a good chance against sea skimming missiles.
As I said there were two problems with the Sea Wolf... it was brand new so there were still bugs, but most importantly it was only on a few ships.
If we started new topics for every off topic ....
We would end up with a whole forum...
I am sure if the Argentines had better aircraft the result could have been totally different.
Even if they had fighters like F-4s... their Sparrow missiles would still be awful, but how long would the British have lasted with wave after wave of fighters launching AAMs from outside their Sidewinders range... the British didn't have that many fighter aircraft and their helicopters would be horribly vulnerable to fighter attack too.
A new light cheap fighter might shift the balance of power in some conflicts... Kh-31 and Kh-35 could have been available by the mid 1980s... an early model MiG-29 with an SMT like upgrade could have been really tricky for the Harriers to deal with... if they had delayed the invasion to the late 1980s and bought some MiG-29s to operate from the shorter airfields on the islands... rather interesting...
These days a Yak-130 modification as a light fighter would probably lack the range to be useful in that situation except to operate from the island itself...
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