Interesting article about the capabilities of the Israeli army, whether or not it is full or crap I don't know.  It is interesting how they say the Israelis have modified their F16 fighters to make them more capable than our own.

[url]http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-1/101834340582787.xml[/url]

[i]
WASHINGTON -- There was a time, in the tortured history of Israel and the Arab world, when the United States was the unquestioned military superpower in the Middle East and drew obedient, if grudging, respect from all sides.

No more.


Now Israel is the region's superpower, and where it once looked to the United States not just for diplomatic support but for military rescue, now Israel can thumb its nose at Washington and go its own way.

Israel can field 19 divisions of ground troops, by some counts; the United States boasts 13 divisions worldwide and would need weeks to move any significant military force into the region.

Israel's air force, which flies souped-up U.S. F-15 and F-16 fighters, can generate nearly 3,000 sorties, or combat missions, per day. The United States can sustain about 1,600 sorties a day. That kind of combat punch has given Israel unprecedented freedom of action, not just against lightly armed Palestinian street fighters, but against its traditional enemies of Syria and Egypt as well.

"We have created an 800-pound gorilla," said Kenneth Brower, an independent military consultant in Washington, assessing decades of U.S. military aid to Israel.

.......
[/i]

No that is BS. 19 divisions is roughly 290,000 troops EXCLUDING corps and Army troops, services, the Air Force, the Navy and the Border Police.
We would be talking about something like 1 in 5 Israelis under arms. That just doesnt fly. Israel has the same problem with a aging population as the US does. 1 in 5 of its population arent even of military age.

Not only is this inflated, it doesnt allow for the fact that if Israel ever did mobilise all of its trained personnal its economy would completely shut down. I mean really shut down. No one to man stores or drive delivery trucks.
That has only happened twice, in 1967 and 1973 and in both cases it was only sustained for a couple of weeks, and the second time with a lot of help from the US.

No this is just some joker with a Steyr AUG complex...or a ax to grind against Israel

They are right about the Air Force. We have stopped updating our F-15's and F-16's deliberately in order to save money for F-22s and F-35's. Then Congress and the Clinton admin went and squandered the savings on other things, so both programs are advancing at a snales pace. Israeli fighters have the Rafeal Python 3 missile, which is a offshoot of the Israeli copy of the Sidwinder. This latest version includes a gimball mounted seeker and a helmet mounted sight system they cribbed off of the Russians AA-12 Archer (Mossad dosn't just steal from the US).

Fortunatly, I just saw in the paper this week that we are finally taking delivery of helmet mounted sights for our fighters AND the SidewinderX has gone into production this month, with a initial high-priority buy of 10,000 rounds for all the flying services. F-15,16,18, and AV-8B will get the new missile- but at the moment Tomcat won't, and may never since it is only scheduled to be in service for a couple more years.  Also the ANG will have to wait for theirs since the A and B models of F15 and F16 aren't included.

ARMDLBRL,

First of all, what did Clinton squander the $ money?  Also, while the F22 & F35 are nice, it's not like we really need them right now.  Upgraded F-15s, 16s, the F18E/F, etc. are more than capable of holding their own against any foreseeable enemy fighter threat. Maybe that $ would be better spent on more training, raises, and actual everyday equipment - not to mention to replenish missile & guided bomb stocks.
 Also, by them time the F-22 & F-35 are fielded the technology they were designed on will be about 20+ yrs old!  Our military wastes so much money on useless weapons programs thanks to porkbarreling politicians & stupid generals who can't let their pet projects die...

I'd guess their divisions are smaller than ours. It seems they're heavier on the armor and lighter on infantry than we are, and a tank company has fewer troops than an infantry company does.

I think I read somewhere about how the IDF has 140,000 active-duty personnel, out of a population of +/- 4 million.

The article states:

[i]
Israel relies heavily on its reserve forces. There are almost 1 million Israelis under the age of 48 liable to be recalled to duty. All have done three years' active duty, as well as reserve training. Reserve troops are organized into units already matched up with vehicles and weapons.
[/i]

I'm sure the U.S. number would be very high if we counted all males under 48 years old, but then most of them have no military experience.

I agree, calling up that many reserves would shut down their economy.  It seems to me the article has some kind of angle, and they are playing up the Israeli army for some reason.  

Also, the article states that Israel keeps much more pilots ready per fighter plane so in a combat situation they can keep all planes running 24hr a day with plenty of pilots to rotate through.  This is something I recal seeing before, that we are in need of more pilots.

Errr...Kinda Sorta...

One aspect of this overlooked by everyone is the advancing age of the airframes.  US planes are accumulating many flight hours in the various ops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  As one F15E pilot said in the February issue of Air Forces magazine: "I've been wearing this uniform for 21 years and this is the first time they've handed me a new airplane."

The next generation of aircraft is moving forward with the Eurofighter,[url]http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/ef2000/[/url]Rafale,[url]http://home.achilles.net/~rjl/aircraft_html/rafale.html[/url]and the Russian Su-30MK represent the next generation of combat aircraft.  The US must have the F22 and JSF to maintain a qualitative edge in the coming years.

I think Bush made a mistake to make a demand on Israel to stop without first ensuring that they were going to comply.  Our principal source of leverage in the Middle East since the sixties has been that when we say jump, Israel asks how high.

Those Israeli jets would not fly without US spares.

S. Norman

This guy is also choosing to ignore OUR Reserves and National Guard and our independant brigades and regiments. We actually have about 25 division equivilants. Plus 4 in the USMC for a total of 29.

What I beleve is closer to the truth is that, with a total callup, the IDF has about 19 [i]Brigade[/i] Equivilants or about 6 and 1/3rd US Army Divisions. Of these I know that there are 7 active brigade headquarters in the IDF. The other brigades are reserve. The real total of the IDF is just about 50% larger than the USMC by itself- or about the same size as the British Army and RAF combined as they currently stand.

I think they could get by. Iran has with a lot less infrasturcture. They still have flyable Tomcats and F-4's carrying Russian missiles.

The Pratt and Whitney F100 engine used by both F15 and F16 are built in CANADA, no US approval needed, just go through PW Canada Ltd.

The Avionics are now all Israeli, so are most of the weapons. They use Python more than Sidewinder, AMRAAMS would be in short supply but they have their own conversions of Sparrows that they have done god knows what to.

IAI used to build aircraft- Remember the Kifir? Airframe panels for repair work would be easy for them.

It would be easier to cripple Saudi Arabia or Egypt by cutting THEIR supplies of parts. Neither country has domestic sources for missiles, avionics, or airframe parts.

The impact of our embargo on Iran was immediate.  They went from regional superpower to getting kicked around by Iraq in a couple years.  If we could degrade the Israeli forces by only a fraction of what happened Iran, that would translate into some pretty good leverage.  Also, Iran was able to keep a limited number of planes in the air only with the help of Israel.

But as to the rest of your post, if it really does pan out that the Israeli's do not need us to keep the planes flying (and I don't know whether that is true or not), we have made a significant error.

Iran got "kicked around"? Really? is that why in eight years of war and a million casualties the front lines moved less than 20 miles? And Iraq had to settle for a 'status quo antibellum' peace agreement, when THEY were the agressor? Even with 8 Billion in new Soviet/Russian weaponry?

How on earth did you come to THAT conclusion?

The Israeli army is a conscript army. Their training and experience of their army doesn't compare to our volunteer army. The advantage that they have is that their equipment is on the scene. Give us six months, and we can get our people there. Another excellent case for the intermediate brigades.

They don't have the B-1, B-2, or the B-52.  

That number is reserves included.
A number of those reserves are false, too. A number of Americans go to their homeland and take basic as part of a package, and then work on a community style farm for a few months before coming back to the US for grad school.
In theory, in a war they are supposed to muster in NY and be flown to Israel...in real life????

Kind of like the "Which superhero is baddest?" argument played by school kids.

"Gee, the IDF can kick US butt!"

Wrong.  Like most windbag theories this sounds good on paper.  There is now only one superpower in the world.  It is the United States.  Nobody, but nobody can stand up to the US Armed forces for any length of time; at least not in any conflict that the political weenies take off the shackles.

Oooh, big bad Israel can fly 2x the total US sorties.  Bull poop.  Check out the number of sorties flown off the decks of the Eisenhower during her tour off Afghanistan.  That's just one frigging carrier!

The Israelis are very good at modifying other peoples arms.  That's because it takes less effort to modify another person's work than to start from scratch and design something from the bottom up.  This is a question of efficiency from a vastly smaller defense industry, not a sign of superior technology by any stretch of the imagination.

No disrespect meant to Israel, but let's get real here -- They may be good, they may be the best regional army, but they are no match for the United States.  I've got some swamp land to sell anybody who seriously believes they are.

The US military is stronger than the next 15 militaries in the world COMBINED!

I think the Israeli units are better motivated than our US volunteers, ie, the Israelis lose, their country is kaput. I also think their intelligence services are probably twice as good in human intelligence.

SS109 made the most correct statement.  I had the privaledge of going to Isreal while in the MED in 93.  If you wanted to open carry that is where you would want to live.  If it came down to it we would win but the body count would make the pacific in WW2 look like panama or grenada in comparison.  Isreal's whole society is centered around the defense of it's country.  All aspects of the Isreali military is capable and we would be playing on their turf.  What we have in the article is some poor oppressed palastinian sympathizer trying to stir up anti Isreali sentiment and from the post I am reading it is working. All of the middle east combined could not take on Isreal and win.  We know it & they know it.  That is why you have all the talk from the arab states and no show.      

Take a look at Iran v. Iraq in the early 1970s.  Iran had many times the GNP, 2-3x the population, and was really the regional superpower with some of our most modern stuff.  A few years later, they can not even beat Iraq.  You are not saying that the Iranians displayed great military effectiveness in that war are you?  We know what bufoons the Iraqis are in military matters.  The Iranians certainly did not have air superiority, even with F-14s.  The reason was that the F-14s were not flying, except in a limited role as ad hoc AWACs.  If the war had taken place a few years earlier, and Iran still had access to our stuff, it would have been a walkover.

Just to be sure you know the context of the original article was that the IDF was stronger than the US military...

Hey no doubt Israel would fight tough with it's back against the wall.  I agree the body count would be high (plenty of dead IDF members).  But how are they going to do to defend themselves against several hundred/thousand cruise missiles, constant B52 strikes and smart bombs?  Sorry.  They don't have a credible Navy.  They can't project military power very far beyond their own border.  In time, the US would achieve air superiority by grinding away at their air defenses.  After that, it would just be a question of how long it would take them to die.

Beyond the death of not a few of our aviators, what would make anyone believe that any significant US body count would build up?  There would be virtually no reason to fight a land war with Israel.  While destroying their armed forces from the air and sea, the US could just wait to starve them out as their economy ground to a halt.

Now, that said, I absolutely agree that if all the Arab armies combined (which would require them to quit killing each other for the duration - an impossible task in itself), they would still be no match for Israel.

As far as force naval projection from our stand point you are correct.  How ever in the limited confines of the med they have enough missle boats to be a serious threat.  The boats I saw in Haifa carried 8-10 stand off type anti ship missiles.  My job in the Navy was a Fire Controlment.  I dealt with the ships weapon systems. Lets run this scenario.  say only 10 ships attacked a Battle group.  Lets say they only carry eight missiles.  That is 80 missiles in bound at a carrier task force.  A sea skimming missile will not become visable until it is approx 36 mile out depending on antenna height.  With Spy 1A and Spy 1D (Aegis) being mounted as low as they are it would definitely be closer. Lets give a closing speed of 600mph (10 miles a minute) that gives you 3 and a half minutes to engage and destroy 80 missiles.  The net result is allot of dead sailors and burning hulks.  This same scenario was run during a war game in the Caribbean.  The America was the task force center piece and Hydrofoils played the aggressors.  The Hydrofoils launched at Stand off distance then let the missiles do their work.  The result was the loss of a carrier task force.  You do not have to have a large navy to have a capable one.  For a live demonstration look at the Falkland War.  The British lost two Destroyers, two Frigates and two support ships to the Argentinean Air Force and Navy. If Argentina had been willing to sacrifice its only sub the would have had crippled or lost their carrier.  Do you not think the Isrealies could do better. Desert Storm and and every action since in no way would prepare for the scenario you predict.  Israeli pilots are not going to fly to Iran, their AAA is as good as ours and their Kibbutz's (Sp) would feed themselves.  Israel has adapted to being surrounded by enemies.  Of course we are all running scenarios that will never happen but the Israelies would be a whole different breed of opponent than any we have ever seen before.    

lrfc2,

I defer somewhat to your practical experience but you leave a few things out.  How would those little glorified patrol boats get close enough to standoff range?  A CVBG is not the USS Liberty.  How would they get past the E-2 AWACS, the forward deployed sub, the ship radars themselves, our Harpoons, Tomahawks, F-18s, S-3s, F-14s?  Maybe if we thought they were coming to say "hi," and all of a sudden they pulled off another Liberty on us - it would still be a suicide mission for them.  

Also, from what I remember, carrier group defenses were designed w/ the fact that TU-22s & TU-85s would be launching hundreds, not dozens, of missiles from afar.  The defense premise was base on detecting & eliminating those bombers while they were away, then intercepting their missiles on the way in.  The defenses are designed to pick up the launching platform - they are proactive, they don't sit around just waiting for 80 missiles to pop up on the screen.

They'd be simply strangled by the US, blockaded and starved, atritted, and then crushed. Blow up a few fuel dumps and then wait for a while.

Incidentally the intermediate brigades probably wouldn't work very well against the Israelis, who have plenty of main battle tanks and know how to use them.

Roger that, mcgredo!

Although I do have respect for the Israeli Defense Forces, they are not Uber-soldiers.  It would only be a question of time.  Perhaps US losses would mount, but again, there is zero reason for involving ground forces, and therefore zero reason to suspect "a bloodbath greater than the Pacific in WWII".

OK, I'm done.  I'm off my soapbox and out of my armchair general mode.  However, I will sleep soundly knowing how capable our own military is.  God bless them all, for I sleep soundly at their expense.

Jobux

You are assuming air superiority.  Which would be questionable.  Tomohawk ASMs have been out of inventory Since the company that manufactured them bought the company that manufactured the Harpoon.  The Harpoon really would not look for a missle boat.  It's parameters are for big targets. In fact say a cargo ship was further out it would completely ignore the smaller boats and attack the cargo ship.  You are correct about the about the Tu-95
and TU-22 (both Blinder and Backfire)  My RADAR set was designed specifically for the threat that the missiles they were capable of launching pose.  the F14 / AIM54 was the counter to large bomber formations. A Ships radar would never see the the missile boats due to surface search RADAR is primarily navigational and limited in range. Only the E2 and E3 Aircraft would be able to see them because they have enough processing power to wash out sea clutter.  And agian look at the lessons from the Falkland War.  Even with CAP in place They lost 4 out of 6 to dropped ordnance.  Only two were lost to Exocets.  The Sheffield and the Global Conveyer.  I mean were are only talking Harriers but a Harrier is more than a match for the A4s that were dropping the Ordnance.  Only one British aicraft was lost to Argentinean Aircraft.  I know it worked in war games for us against us, so to think that it could not be perpetrated by a foriegn country whose equipment is on equal footing is not very smart.  As far as a suicide mission. If they could get close enough to launch and then were lost every one.  What are 10 small boats to even one capital ship lost?    

Thx for the insight.  Good points.

That is where I disagree.  Neither the Harrier GR3 or the Sea-Harrier could match the faster Argentine Mirage IIIs and A-4 Skyhawks.

Air superiority is the key to engaging a battle group.  The smaller boats could never get within 150 miles of the battle group unless they had air superiority.  

The only chance of destroying a battle group is with a surprise attack, which has a lot of other negative consequences to it.  Something about the sleeping giant comes to mind.  

Give me a break.

No they are out of the inventory because they were considered redundant and were converted to TLAM  

Not true, Harpoon has a excellent history against fast attack craft. In fact it has never killed anything else yet. Two Nanchuka II's in the Gulf of Sidra in 1986 and one Vosper Thornycroft in the Persian Gulf in 1987 during Operation Preying Mantis. All launched from A-6E aircraft.
 
No, not true, In fact SPS-55 and SPS-65 double as Low Altitude air search radar for sea skimming aircraft and missiles  in the Mk 23 TAS point defense system that is used in ships that dont have AEGIS or the Mk86 GFCS. In ships without AEGIS but with Mk 86 (just the [i]Spruance[/i] class anymore) its the SPQ-9 radar that performs that function. AEGIS tracks everything from the surface to above 100,000 feet. And in those fitted with the SPY-1E upgrade for ballistic missile defense that is extended to Low Earth Orbit.  

No they are not the only things that can see, S-3 Vikings normally have the Anti-FAC duty from carriers, backed by F-18's if needed. If you are near enough to a land base P-3C's will help. Even without the carriers the DD's and CG's SH-60's now carry Penguin ASM's, and the definitive 'next generation' Seahawk, SH-60R with weapons wings and the ability to carry Hellfire, 70mm rockets, and 20mm gatling pods are being delivered.  

That was Atlantic Conveyer. And what happened in the Falklands can't happen again. It could never have happend to a US CVBG in the first place. The British ships were virtually unarmed with modern air defense weapons. US vessels of the era were nowhere near that vulnerable- our SAMs actually worked, and we had started issuing Phalanx guns in 1977.  

Oh? What wargames are these?
Fast attack craft are suicide boats. They have zero chance against a modern destroyer, much less carrier aircraft.  

Thing is they wouldn't get close enough to launch, and even if they got a round off, it would be shot down. Even without carriers, Seahawks would detect them, kill them from a distance with Penguin, and if they ran out of Penguin they would call for Harpoon from their parent ships.

Even during Operation Preying Manits in 87 against Iran. Where we were severly restricted in the use of beyond visual range weapons due to the presence of a Soviet squadron and numerous commercial ships and a shortage of helicopters. One of Iran's Vosper frigates thought it had a free shot at one of our gunless 1960's vintage [i]Leahy[/i] class CG's- I think it was the [i]USS Dale[/i]. Instead our ship ripped a broadside of four SM-1ER Standard SAM's into her. Yes, Standards do work against surface ships. Everything above the little frigates main deck was ripped off and unburnt solid fuel from the Standards and from her own SeaCat and Otomat batteries melted her down to the waterline.

One of her sisters was then caught running away by a A-6E from [i]Enterprise[/i], and in a single pass that A-6 put first a Harpoon, a AGM-123 Skipper, and finally a pair of Rockeyes into it. The wreck was then approached by [i]USS LaSalle[/i], and the world was treated to the sight of a LPH playing destroyer. When Marines were prohibited from boarding the wreck by the heat of fires the remains were sent to the bottom by the [i]LaSalles[/i] 'obsolete' 3in/50cal AA guns.

Yeehaw!  I was right after all!

After reading some of these replys, it seems many of you feel threatened by that article. We have to remember that Israel is our allies, and pretty much our western front in the middle east, with western beliefs. Once we've had enough with all this middle east bullshit and decide to finally take over, its the Israeli's who will be fighting by our side. I say the sooner the better. World domination anyone?

lrfc2 you might find this website infomative.

[url]www.warships1.com[/url] its THE naval resourse on the internet. Taught me a lot.

Comparing the IDF and the US military is really an apples and oranges type thing.

Despite constant Arab rants about "israeli aggression," the IDF is truly a defensive force.

The IDF is set up to provide a rapid deployment of moderately well trained force of fairly well-equipped troops on a fairly rapid basis to keep the country from being overrun and destroyed. These fairly large reserve forces are backed up by a smaller but better trained, disciplined and equipped active force to stiffen the line and engage in limited counteroffensives.

What the Israelies lack, and what the US forces are completely centered on, is Force Projection. The US can deploy a small but capable force and significant airpower, to most places in the world in  a few weeks. In a six to 9 month period (and with a massive Guard and Reserve call-up, these days) they can deploy 1-2 Corps-sized units globally for a large-scale medium intensity war.

The IDF can't perform anything close to that. At the most, they could probably do limited Special Operations anywhere in the region at the Team and maybe as high as Platoon level, with single raids and strikes at the Company and Battalion level (like Entebee and Osirak).

The IDF is a defensive force. The US military can be a deployed defensive force, or an offensive force. The Gulf War, for example, was a defensive war in a strategic sense of stopping Iraqi aggression, but the liberation of Kuwait and the destruction of Iraqi heavy units was an offensive action, tactically.

Being in a constant state of psudo-war, it seems the Israelis have more live fire experience/practice than anyone in the world.

ArmdLbrl
Thx for the link.  You are correct about the SM1 incident but the SM1 is out of service and the SM2 could not be counted on to perform the same task due to launch characteristics.
I still do not understand our dismissing the IAF.  We would have to bring our planes to them and yes they do have RADAR as sophisticated as ours.  You would not be trying to jam 20 and 30 yr old Russian RADAR sets but frequency agile sets that would would not be as easy to interfere with. There were only three Aircraft in the world that could interfere with my RADAR set and it was nearly 20yrs old when I got out in 96 although upgraded extensively. And I would be willing to bet that Israeli SAMs Have Home On Jam capability.  

As far as Ships Surface Search RADAR It is not a Matter of detection but of RADAR horizon.  The earth is round not flat and well high frequency RF does not bend with the curvature of the earth for crap.  TAS would have the longest range because it mounted higher.  But the weapon systems it is linked to NATO Sea Sparrow and Rolling Airframe Missiles are limited in range and limited by the number of directors.  I do not know allot about RAM.  It was entering the fleet as I was getting out.  But Sea Sparrow has only 2 directors per launcher.  And don't get me started on CIWS. We did not call it Cheese wiz for nothing.  Although Block 3 was supposed to resolve allot of issues.  The British Goal Keeper is a better system.  The one of the British ships had Phalanx in the Falklands and the Sheffield maneuvered to play missile sponge for it.

What I said of the Harpoon is true.  It will attack anything it can get a reflection off of but if it choosing between a smaller reflection IE missile boat VS A big reflection IE Cargo ship IT WILL IGNORE THE SMALLER REFLECTION.    

The War Game I spoke of was told to me by one of my instructors who was on one of the PHMs during the exercise.  

For Magic the numbers Speak for themselves.


HMS Hermes, No.800 Sea Harriers:

Lt Cmdr A D Auld (DSC) RN  2 Daggers [a50, a51]
Lt Cmdr G W J Batt (post DSC) RN -
Lt Cmdr M S Blissett (MID) RN Skyhawk [a36]
Lt Cmdr R V Frederiksen (MID) RN  Dagger [a38]
Lt M Hale RN  Dagger [a49]
Flt Lt J Leeming RAF Skyhawk [a43]
Flt Lt D H S Morgan (DSC) RAF 2 Skyhawks [a67, a68]
Lt C R W Morrell (MID) RN  1½ Skyhawks [a42, a44]
Flt Lt R Penfold RAF Dagger [a7]
Lt D A Smith (MID) RN Dagger [a52], Skyhawk [a69]
Lt Cmdr N W Thomas (DSC) RN Skyhawk [a37]
plus
3 Pucaras [a2,a3,a4], 1½ Pumas [a45, a47], Agusta 109A [a46]

HMS Invincible, No.801 Sea Harriers:

Flt Lt P C Barton RAF Mirage [a5]
Lt W A Curtis (post MID) RN Canberra [a8]
Lt S R Thomas (DSC) RN Mirage [a6], 2 Daggers [a39,a40]
Cmdr N D Ward (DSC) AFC RN Pucara [a35], Dagger [a41], Hercules [a65]
plus
½ Puma [a47

3rd Attack Group
(Grupo 3) 24 Pucaras to Falklands, 13 lost and 11 captured, plus one mainland-based aircraft lost Only British aircraft casualty directly due to Argentine aircraft is Royal Marine Scout [b28] shot down by a Grupo 3 Pucara on the 28th May  

Don't we need to ask what type of objective we have? are we talking a military victory so as to occupy land or are we talking all out war? If all out war is the standard wouldn't three to five minutemen launched from wyoming with three megaton warheads each be the soloution? N0 AMERICAN casualities.

-CK  

I don't think there is any doubt that the harriers had the superior weapons systems, but look at the Seahawk/Mirage record.  The harriers were supposed to be protecting the ships and look at what the Argentines did to them.  The British [b]did not[/b] have air superiority.
The Argentines had major problems with their ordnance.  I have read estimates as low as 20% for the detonation percentage of the Argentine bombs.

Destroyer "SHEFFIELD" sunk by Exocet
Frigate "ANTELOPE" sunk by bombs
Support ship "ATLANTIC CONVEYOR" sunk by Exocet
Frigate "ARDENT" sunk by bombs
Destroyer "COVENTRY" sunk by bombs
LSL's "SIR GALAHAD" damaged by bombs(later scuttled)
LCU F4 "Fearless" sunk by bombs

The British did not have air superiority over the Falklands for the simple reason that there were so frequently NO SeaHarriers over the British fleet. And even when they were there was no AWACS and the old FRS.1 SeaHarriers did not have lookdown/shootdown radar. Blue Fox was a really crude, cheap radar. Many of the Argintine planes shot down were killed as they exited the target area- because Harriers rarely knew they were there untill ships reported that they were under attack. The SeaHarriers then were nothing like their current form, the F/A.1 SeaHarrier today has about the same radar capability as a F-18C/D Hornet and can shoot AMRAMM and soon will be fitted with the European ASRAAM missile in place of Sidewinder and its associated Helmet Mounted Sight.

In fact everything about the RN in the Falklands was crude and cheep. The loss of the [i]Sheffeld[/i] for example was caused by cheep, flammable wireing, the fact that the RN had no repair or salvage ships of its own and was using charters and "ships taken up from trade".  The effectiveness of Sea Dart had been compromised by the failure of the Government to buy a modern air search radar for the Type42's that worked. The old type 965M sets were not even as good as SPS-40, and we were already replacing it with SPS-49 in 1981.

Coventry was lost to the ineffectiveness of its radar and the fact that [i]Broadsword[/i]s Sea Wolf was not fully tested and it chose to have a computer crash at that moment the Skyhawks were coming at Coventry. Earlier that same morning those same two ships had combined to wipe out a whole 4 ship of Skyhawks trying the exact same attack.

Everything wrong with the British was a direct result of a simple failure to buy proper equipment or to test and evaluate what they had- not that the technology didn't exist to protect them. Had the Argentines tried just a year or two earlier. [i]ArkRoyal[/i] and her Phantoms and Buccaneers would have torn the Argentine Navy apart by themselves, even though they were "old". Assuming that any Argentine planes could get past the F4's, a hard task since [i]ArkRoyal[/i] carried AEW aircraft (Gannet AEW.4) so the sea skimming wouldn't have worked. They would then have had to get past not only the SeaWolf of [i]Broadsword[/i] but the very good 3in/70cal AA machine cannon of the 6in gun crusers [i]Blake[/i] and [i]Tiger[/i].
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And VL Standard SM2 are designed to handle sea skimming missiles. Something as big as a FAC would still be a easy target. [i]Dale[/i] engaged the frigate she killed at about ten or eleven miles, just inside visual ID so her still having the old twin arm Mk10 launchers was irrelevent. VL Standard has a minimum range of about a KM or so. But the 3" and 5" guns all our ships carry (none of 1960's vintage ships built without guns remain in service) have no minimum range.  But they would have to get past the choppers, Harpoon, and Standards before they could even get within gun range.

Also Standard isnt the only one of our SAMs that can kill ships. Sea Sparrow can too, as was dramaticly revealed about eight years ago when the [i]Eisenhower[/i] accidentally blew the bridge off of one of the Turkish navy's old WWII vintage [i]Gearing[/i] class DD's during a training exercise in the Med. We wound up having to give them a [i]Perry[/i] class frigate for that one. Have not seen yet whether RAM can be used against surface threats yet. But the latest upgrade to Phalanx gives it a FLIR to allow for a manual back up channel and also permit the engagement of swimmers, speedboats, zodiacs, helicopters, oil rigs and other targets that fall below the radars doppler threshold.

The greatest fault of the British during the Falkland War was underestimating the Argentinean military.  The whole we are invincible line of thinking led the British to have the losses they incurred and had the Argentinean Navy been willing to sacrifice it the could have crippled or sunk the Hermes.  Their only submarine trailed it for two or three days before being called off.  You figure 23 destroyers and frigates and 6 submarines somebody would be looking for it.  But apparently nobody considered it a threat.  If you play the what if and the Hermes had been sunk what would the reaction at home be. The British do not build their warships on the same compartmentalization philosophy as we do which is why the Sheffield sank and the Stark stayed afloat.  The point I have been trying to make is if you underestimate the the little guy, he is going to hurt you.  Israel is infinitely more capable than the Argentineans and contrary to what some on this post have stated they could stand toe to toe with us and the whole attitude that we can walk on water disappears when we find we are in over our head.  Of course this is all supposition and it would have to actually have to come to an engagement to prove who is right.