Most powerful airforces in the world?

[JonathanC]

Was wondering if anyone can advise what they think are the five most powerful airforces in the world?
Is it really true that Israel are one of them?

[TheEnd]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_...

number 16 if number of fighter planes is a good yardstick.

[RobDickinson]

Looks (from a quick scan) they have about 400ish decent modern combat aircraft, which certainly puts them near the top of the list.

[Waynester]

Good grief, its like a repeat of '39/40.
Training counts though, & that must put us near/in the top 3..

Sad to see our armed forces being 'dismantled' & becoming a mere shadow of itself.

[mph1977]

simple numbers is not enough you have to factor in loads of stuff


- up time - how many hours of servicing and preparation does it take for the plane to be able to fly a sortie

- availability of weapons and ammunition

- availability of ISTAR and tanking and /or friendly ground based / sea borne facilities for that. (Libya proved that for that mission profile with modern fixed wing ground attack / SEAD aircraft it was achievable to literally be home for tea and medals at the end of the day )

[Simpo Two]

mph1977 said:

simple numbers is not enough you have to factor in loads of stuff

- up time - how many hours of servicing and preparation does it take for the plane to be able to fly a sortie

- availability of weapons and ammunition

And determination/aggression of the pilots.

[Talksteer]

TheEnd said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_...

number 16 if number of fighter planes is a good yardstick.

The data on there doesn't even match up with what's on Wiki itself:

The wiki numbers for fighter aircraft for those countries rate ahead of the UK is as follows:

Thailand 92
Eygpt 563
India 560
North Korea 658
Iran 339
Indonesia 62
Turkey 375
Pakistan 462
Lao 5
Azerbaijan 87
Vietnam 410
Italy 203
Taiwan 404
Uzbekistan 110

UK 219

I find it particularly amusing that Lao was rates as having 366 fighters.

Air forces can be summed up as follows:

The US has the biggest and most capable, it is capable of delivering virtually any military capability more effectively than any other air-force. It can get on ships and have tactical aircraft operate anywhere in the world (ignoring the semantics of which branch the "air force" belongs to) or strike anywhere in the world using heavy bombers. Hell the Air Force of their Navy's Army is more powerful than virtually anybody else's air force.

Everybody else has an air force that has some level of specialisation appropriate to it's task. Most of the people who have large air forces tend to have a belligerent neighbour right next to them. They have large numbers of aircraft so that should their neighbours strike they would find it difficult to destroy their air force and they would have enough planes to make a devastating counter attack. They will also tend to have a reasonable amount of SAM's to provide that quick reaction air-defence against air assault.

The RAF on the other hand doesn't really defend the UK against immediate peril from our nearest neighbours. It has no long range SAM's and would be quite vulnerable to a larger less technically advanced air force if it was in range of it's aircraft. So if the question was which air force is the hardest if you sited them 250 miles from each other and duked it out then the RAF wouldn't come out of that well, they simply couldn't generate the sortie rates.

However relative to it's size the RAF has more support aircraft and is capable to operating at considerable range from home against tough air defence with minimal casualties. If you want precision strike with low collateral damage the RAF is probably a pretty good bet as they have been engaging in this sort of operations continuously since 1998.

[PaulG40]

Not forgetting the RAFs advanced ISTAR capability and NEC battlefield management assets that mean we stay high up the list there in any NaTO brawl.

[davepoth]

Planes don't go round in circles shooting at each other with guns very much any more. It's all BVR stuff, in which case our command and control assets mean we'll be able to take on as many planes as we have missiles.

[Simpo Two]

davepoth said:

Planes don't go round in circles shooting at each other with guns very much any more. It's all BVR stuff, in which case our command and control assets mean we'll be able to take on as many planes as we have missiles.

They said that dogfighting was over in 1939 too. These days, do you just fire all your 'fire and forget' missiles from 10 miles out then run for home? I believe that when the st hits the fan there will be dogfighting, just as there will be soldiers fighting hand to hand.

[Talksteer]

Simpo Two said:

davepoth said:

Planes don't go round in circles shooting at each other with guns very much any more. It's all BVR stuff, in which case our command and control assets mean we'll be able to take on as many planes as we have missiles.

They said that dogfighting was over in 1939 too. These days, do you just fire all your 'fire and forget' missiles from 10 miles out then run for home? I believe that when the st hits the fan there will be dogfighting, just as there will be soldiers fighting hand to hand.

The problem with "dog fighting" is that modern short range missiles are utterly deadly. Helmet mounted sights (or in the case of JSF 360 degree staring IR cameras), missiles capable of turning to strike behind the firer, imaging infra-red seekers on missiles that actually "see" the target and as such are very difficult to spoof all mean that getting close to an enemy aircraft is distinctly unadvantageous.

Thus seeing your opponent and firing first are more important than extended campaigns of manoeuvring (this has always been the case but is more so). Today you can add to this detecting the launch and countermeasures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Hartmann

[anonymous-user]

And not forgetting the UK's various helo capabilities which, although smaller in number than someone like the US of A, are way out there in terms of skills, experience and methods of employment.

[GrahamG]

If you are talking "most powerful" surely the weapons carried are as important (if not rather more so) as pure numbers - Airborne nuclear capability would have to be factored ij - In that case Israel surely scores very highly.

[mph1977]

GrahamG said:

If you are talking "most powerful" surely the weapons carried are as important (if not rather more so) as pure numbers - Airborne nuclear capability would have to be factored ij - In that case Israel surely scores very highly.

but buckets of instant sunshine provided by SLBM or cruise missile also figure in that equation ...

[disco1]

Size means nothing, it's what you do with it that counts

As others have mentioned, it's about support/battlefield management.

Another thing to note is some of the listed countries may have 400+ fighters but these forces will be made up of old rubbish from the 70s and 80s and not a patch on a much smaller and highly trained force of Typhoons. We have 60 at the moment but if the push came the shove could get 100 more. We were originally going to get 230 of them!

The USA is way ahead of anyone but the UK is amongst the best of the rest. If/when the QEII class carrier comes along with 36 JSFs we could possbly be 2nd best with daylight between us and the rest The IDF may have a decent force but they can only operate out of Israel, we can operate globally.

[Simpo Two]

One must also consider how many of these technology-packed machines are going to be serviceable after a few days in combat. Let's hope the enemy doesn't figure out how out jam the missile systems too.

[Talksteer]

Simpo Two said:

One must also consider how many of these technology-packed machines are going to be serviceable after a few days in combat. Let's hope the enemy doesn't figure out how out jam the missile systems too.

Modern technology packed aircraft tend to be more serviceable that old technology packed aircraft. They also tend to be a hell of a lot more reliable.

The chances of the enemy "figuring out" how to jam missile systems is approximately 0. They will at the start of the war either be wiped out or will have imperious countermeasures that work faultlessly and wipe you out.

You fight with what you have and modern air forces have the ability to wipe each other out in very short periods of time. Vietnam and Iran-Iraq will probably be the last time that technology is adapted over the course of a two sided air war.

[davepoth]

Simpo Two said:

davepoth said:

Planes don't go round in circles shooting at each other with guns very much any more. It's all BVR stuff, in which case our command and control assets mean we'll be able to take on as many planes as we have missiles.

They said that dogfighting was over in 1939 too. These days, do you just fire all your 'fire and forget' missiles from 10 miles out then run for home? I believe that when the st hits the fan there will be dogfighting, just as there will be soldiers fighting hand to hand.

I said "very much", it's an important caveat.

It's daft to not have a gun capability on a fighter - they're very useful as a multipurpose weapon. But given the choice of lobbing a missile at someone from 10 miles and sucking on their jetwash as you try to line up you gunsight, I know which would be preferred.

We've not had a "proper" air war since we've had all this electronic stuff, so it's difficult to tell how it would shake out in real life.

[Mr Sparkle]

How the hell does Russia maintain such a massive armed force with such a small budget? particularly considering they do have some decent equipment.

[disco1]

Mr Sparkle said:

How the hell does Russia maintain such a massive armed force with such a small budget? particularly considering they do have some decent equipment.

I don't think they do maintain their kit, lots of it rusting on old airfields. An internal Russian report a few years ago deamed that 2 thirds of their Mig 29 force was unsafe and should be grounded. Also, the bulk of their airforce is old Su24s and 25s, neither of which would pose much of a threat. One thing the Russian appear to do quite a bit of lately is build prototypes such as the Su35, 37, 47 and PAK FA. All apparently the best things since sliced bread but only a handful only ever get built and never make full production.

Another thing to note is the airtime their pilots get, in some instances they get 20-30 hours a year! This is a fraction of what the western forces train to.