JBodnar39

As you probably know the huge country of Brazil recently made a bid for a permanent set on the Un security council and now has an active "aircraft carrier"
presumably claiming the position as the pre-eminment military power in South America and actually a world power to boot. As I have been putting together a work on world naval/miitary airpower, it has become apparant to me that Brazil has been pinching peenies on aquisitions to the point that Chile (with 1/10th of its population) actually has (or will have very shortly) an air/naval force more capable than Brazil. I am going to touch on a few specific points below and I would love to hear some feedback - maybee I'm seeing this all wrong

1. Brazil bought the Clemenceau from France for $10 million USD (I am not sure of that price tag) and 20+ Skyhawks from Kuwait for a little more than $80 million. The initial plan I heard was that 15 of the Skyhawks would be the airwing for carrier; now that sounded impressive - those are decent little fighters, and equipped with some sort of standoff anti-ship missle they would be a force to be reckoned with. However I have now read that Brazil is only funding maintainence and upkeep for 6 active A-4's in a contract for about $6.5 million, with the rest held in "flyable storage". In addition, Brazil has no anti-ship weapons in stock for the A-4's and - as far as I know - has no plans to buy any. To me at least, a carrier with an airwing of only 6 fighters with nothing more than LGB's to hit ships is not an effective operational asset - it is a showpiece.

2. Brazil's Type 22's are fading away. They can't keep them up anymore and at least 1 of the four (possibly 2) have been put up. With that going on, Brazil has "modernized" its Niteroi frigates and is building a class of 8 new frigates to replace older ships (inlcuding the Type 22s). Sounds nice, but when you look at it you see that the "modernization" of the Niterois involved little more than fitting a less than optimal single 8-cell Aspide launcher and the "new" frigates (The Barrossas) are actually undersized units with absolutely no anti-air/missle SAMs and only 4 SSMs.

3. Brazil cancelled its plans to aquire a squdaron of new AC to replace its Mirage III's. Instead it is leasing a dozen used Mirage 2000C's from France for about $6 million a plane.

4. In the meanwhile, Chile will soon have a fleet of 8 used (but still very young) ex-UK and Dutch Frigates brimming with systems that included sea Wolf, VLS Sea Sparrow, SM-1, and Harpoon. In addition, Chile has bought a sqd of brand new F-16 Blk50's and has or is getting both Phython-4's and Derby's to arm them with.

5. Brazil has ordered SCP-01 radars for its fleet of A-1's as part of a $400 million upgrade of those planes - but I have not heard on the status of that contract.

6. You know for a little bit more money ($18 million for maintainence contracts and some mavericks at $50,000 each) it could have turned its showpiece carrier into a real naval force.

Just some ideas

Any comments?

Dead_Meat

I just came back two months ago from living in Rio de Janeiro. While there I looked out across the bay and saw the AC Sao Paulo nearly everyday. The thing rarely if ever left port. The Brazilians bought the Foch (later renamed Sao Paulo) from France to replace the Minas Gerais their old vintage WWII carrier bought from Britain. The "Marinha do Brasil" is pretty good for the standards of a third world Nation but in my opinion one American Seawolf class attack submarine could destroy atleast half the Brazilian fleet.

Francois

Last pix I saw of the Sao Paolo, it was having Argentina's Super-Etendards and Trackers. But, yes, their econimy didn't yet quiet recover from the clash...