"australian seduction system" - met one once, her name was Helen ;) Thomas, I may be a hard@ss about this but. 1. If the plane is an unknown to us by location and direction 2. If the plane does not have the right IFF codes 3. If the plane is emitting the wrong kind of signals (ELINT/SIGINT) 4. If the plane does not respond to radio calls It's going down. I'm not waiting for it to get close enough to launch his missiles or use himself as a kamikaze.

1. If you see it! 2. If you can identify it - there has been some nasty incidents of blue on blue. Mainly that has been a question of poor training of pilots, but.. 3. If the technology works. I know this hasn't been a big problem for the US, as they have fought inferior foes the last 15 years.

Blue on blue will always happen, but if proceedures are followed, such as checking your IFF at takeoff time, you should have very few. GWII was much much better than GW1. But if you wait to visually ID it, and your on a ship I am risking an entire vessel. Besides most guys on ship couldn't tell a B-52 from a B-17, and what happens if it's dark and cloudy out. And if we can have our way, we will always fight inferior foes, no matter what country they come from. Never fight fair!

I support the notion of unfair fights, problem is the other side does it as well. Who said You risk your fighter to make visual ID??? Nope the joker onn the ground does that - provided they don't fly to high. and as the USAF probably will cover the higher strata, the enemy is likely to creep in under the carpet. I'm referring to an incident where a F-15 pilot shot an UH-60 down - very avoidable! The trick is that aircraft spotting training is cheap - aircraft and pilots are expensive.

What I was trying to say, if I am on a ship, I risk my ship if I wait for a visual. Same applies to ground forces as well I assume.
In all likelyhood so would a pilot. You wait for a visual, you're liable to get a missile tossed at you just about the time you make out it's a Mig. As long as we have BVR weapons, stuff will happen.

The primary AD weapon of ROC is TK2 and ChiangBai radar system. Our military planer didn't bother to store TK2 but put them into VLS ciloes. The problem of ChiangBai radar is that a key component for EW warfare is kept by the US. The whole system is developed in 1980s to 1990s under the help of the US. The US DoD provided training and tech transfer and state department granted export of key components. The major EW component will be inserted only if the war is imminent. And rumor said that there are thousands of TK2s in missile ciloes ready to be fired anytime (except maintainance). The second layer of AD is consisted of TK1 and PACII, then is HAWK, and then is Chaparral and Avenger. We still have lots of units operating vintage WWII 40mm. Can't find any better way to keep those conscripted soldiers. ROCAF and ROC missile command (for AD warfare) are under one command structure. With TK2 and PACII in our hand, we can force invading first few waves of striking package to fly low and hence get upper hand on BVR engagement. That's why PLA rather build 1000 MRBMs and SRBMs, and develop surface-launched cruise missiles for invasion. The PLA MRBMs and SRBMs are quite acurate, and that is what ROC military most feared of. Cruise missile threat is also mounting but much easier to deter thanks for the nature of an island: there is nothing can fly lower than sea level. All ROCAF bases have radar guided anti-aircraft gun systems, Antelope AD system, M55s (another WWII weapon), 40mm Bofors (WWII), M2HB with M63 mount and so on. The future ROC air defense will use CLAWS to replace HAWK, deploy more PACII/III. We might purchase some Sentinel radars also. For indigenous weapons, TK1/2 will be upgraded constantly while land-based TC-2 might go into service in a few years. CSIST demonstrated a small phased array radar similar to sentinel that can be mount on a HMMWV, but I've heard from news that system integration is always a problem to rig all the system up together and function well enough. I don't know what ROK fears of DPRK. They have PACII and will get PACIII very soon. They also have F-15Ks, F-4Es and F-16C/Ds. It is DPRK should be affraid of ROKAF, not inverse.

If PLA don't deal with ROCAF air bases and long range AD systems before launching massive air attack, then what we will see is surely very interesting. I think that in the future, ROCAF will need F-35Bs and mobile deployment capability to launch aircraft almost anywhere from the big island. What we need to put into F-35B in an air defense warfare are 2 AIM-9Xs and 2 AMRAAMs for interception. I've heard rumors that ROCAF asked US DoD for F-15, but had been rejected. If we have a squadron of modernized F-15Cs, then that will be AWESOME. Because F-15C has a great climb rate and acceleration so that it can gain higher position with faster air speed for BVR engagement. And it is also possible to install phased array radar on F-15C so that it could have tremendous ability of situation awareness.

"I've heard rumors that ROCAF asked US DoD for F-15, but had been rejected. If we have a squadron of modernized F-15Cs, then that will be AWESOME. Because F-15C has a great climb rate and acceleration so that it can gain higher position with faster air speed for BVR engagement. And it is also possible to install phased array radar on F-15C so that it could have tremendous ability of situation awareness." -- YC ---- I agree that as long as you could get them into the air, you could mop up on the PLAAF with them. Maybe you can talk the Koreans into letting ROCAF rent their F-15Ks. :-) Displacedjim

I am aware of the special problems in a task force - they do not have the depth other air defences have.