israel learned to respect the egyptian fighting sprit and dedication to fight in 1973, why cant you? Egyptian equipment is quite world class now, and their pilot training is known to be #2 in the region, and the gap between them and israel isnt what it was, especially in the air.

This is correct! The first stage of the 1973 conflict had tremedous Arab success!

Well, the trick to a successful EMP strike is of course the altitude to set the burst. Set it too low, and the blast radiation kills a whole lot of people including civilians. Set it too high and the EMP generated will knock out the infrastructure of the surrounding countries. Needless to say, the French would have to figure out the right altitude to detonate their EMP bombs. But if they do it right, they would manage to knock out 95% of the electronic equipment in Eygpt without killing Egyptian civilians or destroying the infrastructure of neighboring nations. Now keep in mind, this wouldn't technically be an attack on the civilian populace of Egypt, so responding with plague filled scuds on french citizens may even give France the moral high ground. In either case, Egypt's military would effectively be paralyzed. And basic services to the major population centers of Eygpt will be halted. So I mean things like phone lines, electricity, clean water, sanitation. The Egyption government will basically be facing a logistical nightmare of trying to keep it's own urban citizens from starving or getting nasty diseases that comes naturally comes with the loss of essential utilities. So yes, using this tactic, the French will be able to conquor the whole of Egypt with their existing forces and with minimal casualties.

i welcome your entry into this discussion, achtunglag. perhaps it will temper my arab diatribe a bit. i based my evaluation on their socio-political situation, i.e. they represent a totalitarian regime and have little stake in a combat. they may even welcome a toppling of the regime. in third world countries materiel procurement is often not based on a comprehensive military concept, but on various 'transfer pricing' deals and influence peddling, resulting in procurement of a mish mash of unsuitable equipment, meant to enrich the procureurs and nothing else. my analysis is also based on the arab soldiers i have met who, veins bulging in their necks and ready to have an aneurysm, rail against cowardly commanders, non-existent provisions, impossible objectives, etc., that embarrass them time and time again. it is true that they do not have a good track record. they are number two in the region; i assume you mean that israel is number 1: but there may be a very very long distance between number one and two. regards GoG

Now one thing that I'm not sure about is the capabilities of the French SLBM. What do mean that it's trajectory will cause the EMP to damage infrastructure in Saudi Arabia? Is it because the missle has a preset detonation altitude? It seems that this is something that should be easily configurable.

EMP is line of sight. TO get the effect you want over all of Egypt and not have significant effects in other nations would require the SLBM detonate at about 60,000 ft altitude. Definately on the way down. TO effect ONLY North East Egypt where the civil infrastructure is the detonation is at 20,000 ft. Consider the warhead is re-entering at very high speed. Many Many times the speed of sound. Even a few milliseconds off for the fuse and you get an air burst over a populated area and thats real bad. Either the warhead explodes too high and effects other nations or too low and does too much damage. The ASMP might be a better weapon if it could reach the required altitudes. Not tomention you basically have SLBM's apporaching Israel who migh decide the French represent a greater threat than the Egyptians.

In a one on one fight Egypt CANNOT DEAL WITH FRENCH NUCLEAR POWER. But as we know at that point it would not be one on one. And Egypt could directly retaliate on France with Chem/Bio attack.

Well the point that I was making is: if France manages to get this scenario right(meaning no significant civilian nuke casualites, no damage to neighboring nations), they would be able to take over Egypt in a very short period of time. Assuming that they pull this off as a surprise attack, Egypt will have a very hard time retaliating with the Chemical/Bio weaponery of their own, being that scuds can be shot down. It takes a Chinaman to tell the French how to win!!! :)

i know what you mean, but, i thought it was generally accepted that at all levels the egyptians are thought to have performed foremost among the arabs, and even if the men dislike their regime arabs, and egyptians in particular, have a very strong sense of country and national pride, and woudl react to such an invasion with zeal (its not like their fighting hyperpower america)and act in a competent manner. Its not 1967 you konw. What i understant the israelis learned from the yom kippur war was to respect the egyptian soldier as a worthy foe, mind you, althoguh many surrendered, a good lot died "faces to the foe" and steadfast in the face of attack. The same thing goes for iraq...who knows what would have happened in GWI if it was only the british, or only the french, or even an anglofrench mission to fight them? Performance vs America on anyones part is not doing the foe justice. In the conflicts which arab troops have fought in the past century, i believe the west has mistaken failure on the part of crude and inferior weaponry with justifiable poor morale and collapse as a result for pure cowardice and incompetence. If it were 1975 i might give this to the french, but now that egypt has modern, good weaponry, and men that know how to use it(contrary to, again, stereotypes from 30 years ago, they DO), AND the ridiculous numerical advantage in this scenario, egypt will again be inundated with dead frogs everywhere...

No mithradates. Not win. Unless the objective is to cause hell for the sake of it. This scenario would ensure direct international support if a traditional nuke is used to produce the effects. Imagine the headline, "French detonate a nuclear weapon over Egypt in an unprovoked attack". The average person will only understand it as a nuclear attack. And anarchy and chaos will break out in Egypt. Every AK-47 in that nation will still finction as will most of the other military equipment. What will happen is a super insurgency with modern weapons systems under no central authority and no means to issue surrender orders. Iraq is many time weaker and look at the trouble. France has much less power than the US and would have to deal with a much bigger problem. So in summary France would be able to invade but still not conquer. Also the attack I mentioned on the CdG would still enjoy a high probability of success.