Jay

Once when i traveled to Asia, a BAe engineer was near me...he told me the "m(ainta)nance" plans of arabs for their planes.
Although he was posted in UAE, he pretty much cursed Saudi's...none of born saudis care to work and most of them were so lazy that they need an assistant to hold a spanner for them!!

Even in their oil companies, most of the hard labour is done by South Asians, most executives are americans/europeans. Now the saudi govt is trying to deport all the south asians...ther's a disaster brewing!!

ZFBoxcar

As the Saudi government is right now, there is nothing to fear from its war machine. They rely on a steady pipeline of parts and maintanence from Western sources. These sources would dry up if a coup were to happen. So I was mistaken in saying that nobody fears the Saudi war machine, some do...but they are wrong to do so. I dont think it harms Israel's qualitative advantage because the Saudi government simply cant afford to get caught in the act of giving 'axis' nations advanced weaponry and they certainly wont try to use these weapons on Israel themselves. The Saudi royal familys goal is just to maintain the status quo: They get oil money and keep up the multi-billionaire lifestyle while they pay lip service to both the US and to radical Islam while supporting neither. While I think that there are a lot of Saudis who have terrorist links I doubt the royal family encourages it, I just dont think they do **** to stop it because it would cause a revolution.

bigross86

What version Merkava are we talking about? Does that number include the new Merkava Mk IV which just started production?

Does that M-113 figure include the Air Defense models also? (Zelda, Stinger Model)

And if I'm not mistaken, the IAF Magazine stated that the IAF is retiring all the UH-1's after over 25 years of service. If needed, they can be pulled out of retirement and be put back into active duty in 24 hours or less. The IAF now uses CH-53's and UH-60's.

__________________
You're a naughty girl, go to my room!

ZFBoxcar

It refers to all Merkava models although the mark IV doesnt exist in huge numbers yet. Production is something like 50 a year for now. As for the M-113 and the UH-1...I dont know

bigross86

Do you have a breakdown of how many Merkava's of each model in in active service?

ZFBoxcar

I couldnt get a great breakdown, the most specific thing I could find is
"About 1000 Merkava Mk 2 and Mk 3 tanks are in service with the IDF.
"
So I guess maybe half of the others are Merkava IVs and the others are Mark 1s

Gio

Yeah, i've heard about that. I also hear they're very arogant and racist.

Praxus

WTF are you talking about?

The IDF is defending Israel, I don't give a flying **** how many palestinians die. They refuse to overthrow the tyranny of Yassar Arafat, that is just as bad as sanctioning it.

They aren't being tuff enough!

bigross86

I think you and I will get along just fine Praxus. As for being tuff enough, Israel has targeted about a dozen high ranking Hamas members. There is also a deal in the makings of a POW/MIA return between the IDF and the Hizbollah. The bodies of the three soldiers kidnapped in the beginning of the Intifada (Adi Avitan, Binyamin Avraham & Omar Souad) are to be returned, along with the kidnapped soldier Lt. Col Elhanan Tannenbaum.

Praxus

I agree with Daniel Pipes and the folks from Ayn Rand Institute and Capitalist Magizine on most issues:-D

bigross86

Dunno who all those guys are, but sure...

Praxus

Daniel Pipes is the guy that thinks we should throw all the Muslims out of our Country and wage an all out war against the entire Muslim world, lol.

bigross86

I agree with him as well...

ZFBoxcar

Has he ever actually said that or do people just infer it from what he does say?

bigross86

Does it really make a difference? Either way they die...