Posted on 10/13/2015 5:55:45 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Why are we sending them foreign aid if they can afford to buy warships?
BO sold them F15s in his quest to empower and arm our Muslim enemies. Oddly, this same Muslim maggot we call president is on a quest to disarm U.S citizens of primitive rifles and handguns.
They are the Muslim brotherhood.
“Why are we sending them foreign aid if they can afford to buy warships?”
Foreign aid is misnamed. It should be called corporate welfare. Credit is extended to foreign nations who get to spend it on American made weapons. On several programs I worked on, the hardware was actually paid for through our US customer and then transferred. I was told this was in case we couldn’t ship to our ally because they had become either an enemy or the target of some political ploy by our government. With this arrangement our customer bought and kept the hardware but my company got paid. The entire exercise was to transfer money from the taxpayer to my company. It had little to do with aiding a foreign power, although that was often the side effect.
“Foreign” aid also has the effect of making US hardware cheaper to buy for the US military. They have a limited budget which is watched by friend and foe. The fact that they can buy off an existing production line makes the hardware look cheaper than it really is. This requires that you ignore the fact that the taxpayer is paying to keep the production line running by giving the hardware to foreign governments.
What you’d probably find, if you could look deep enough, is that France gave the ship away. Any financial arrangement is simply window dressing. The idea was to pay the companies that made the ship. The French taxpayer bought the ship. One would think that France would use it, but then the budget watchers would insist on debiting that account and all of that account’s money is already being used for other stuff.
You probably mean F-16s. Egypt got their first F-16s when Reagan was President. The Obama F-16s are just a top-up!
This tub could be put to good use at the Horn of Africa combatting piracy.
possessing an aircraft carrier and effectively operating an aircraft carrier are completely different things.
How long before Egypt sells them to Russia?
Good question...
These are less a true aircraft carrier and more of a “ship with an unusually large deck”. No catapults, for one. And only rotary-wing aircraft, so fewer of the issues with launching and recovering than with fixed-wings.
Even routine evolutions such as taking on fuel, or launching and recovering aircraft (helos), can be a major ordeal. Doing any of this at night or under other, low-visibility conditions only compounds the task.
Ummmmm....NO. #BecauseSubs.
I know what it is. it’s still incredibly complicated to operate.
The Mistral is NOT an aircraft carrier. It can only carry VTOL aircraft - and the Egyptians are not getting the SVTOL F-35.
It is a landing ship. And where are the Egyptians going to land troops?
Also, Arab maintenance of heavy equipment is often terrible. There is a fair chance it will be quickly disabled by maintenance neglect.
> The French taxpayer bought the ship. One would think that France would use it...
Essentially, they are paying to keep industrial infrastructure and expertise up to date. It’s cheaper not to pay operational costs while allowing for future upgrade and spare parts sales.
Egypt is a third-world nation. We sent trainers over there for those F-15s. They had 3rd grade educations. Didn’t go well.
:-)
Aren’t aircraft carriers now obsolete?
Had a friend on a Frigate we turned over to Egypt. The Egyptian crew would light up their hibachis in the berthing areas every night and cook the fish they kept in their lockers. By the time the ship was actually transferred, the US crew couldn’t wait to get off because the whole ship stunk.
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