dirtydan said:
What would then be the possibility of Israeli Aircraft Industries or some other company having done upgrade work on the E-2's? I would guess that since these planes were bought back in 1978 that something has been done to them in over 25 years of service. Not necessarily IAI, but perhaps another Israeli company or even a company from another country.
Under the administrations of Bush 1 and Clinton, Israel was found to have a lot of people in place in the intelligence community and the USN. Specifically, Israel was spying on the US to get access to information that the administrations were chosing not to provide to Israel.
Israel was also in a relationship with South Africa, where it is felt that much of the US technology that had been provided on a real-time basis was being illegally transfered to South Africa.
There wasn't an open break with Israel, but Israel wasn't being given access to the newest equipment.
dirtydan said:
By rails, I take it you are referring to the launch rails for the fighter's missiles?
More than the offensive missiles. Modern warcraft have launch rails for warshots, rails for ordanance and rails for defensive devices.
If you are too busy to chuff and huff, looking glass will do it for you.
dirtydan said:
No, an E-3 type aircraft was involved as well. Not necessarily an E-3 Sentry, but one involved in command and control. Nevertheless the pilot was being too much of a cowboy and that's what really led to those 4 deaths.
The reason that the US has lost a lot of pilots is that the E2 was the only CAC in the air. The US didn't want to fly aircraft out of Japan or the Phillipines and were therefore only using the carrier based assets.
The major wasn't being a cowboy. The E2 failed to pass on to him that the Canadians were conducting a live fire exercise with their antitank weapons.
The Canadians are the only NATO force that still uses the 106 recoilless rifle for antitank work. The 106 is basically a rocket launcher and it emits a flare very similar to a rail launched anti air system when it is fired.
The major had never witnessed a 106 being fired and had to draw on what knowledge he had in the absence of information from CAC.
He was made a scrapegoat for high level failures to:
1. provide a CAC that was capable of handling the amount of work in the area.
2. properly brief the pilots that something they weren't familiar with was being used.
3. when he contacted the CAC, prior to the attack, failing to realize that he was seeing a 106 in action, failing to realize that his experiance would tell him that it was a war shot launched at him and failing to warn him off.
The evidence presented at the court martial clearly showed that the CAC hadn't realized that it was necessary that he know that a 106 was in action. Once the command structure realized that the Canadians wanted blood, they choose to offer the major up.
Conseqently, a large number of pilots have decided if the Bush Administration wants to conduct war on the cheap, they won't be the scrapegoat when it goes wrong.
The same thing is happening at all levels of the US armed forces. The Infantry and Calvary think their lives are being offered up too cheaply, the navy isn't willing to be on a carrier that isn't excorted by a full screen and the flyboys have become adherants of gun film and personal copies of communications.