Of course there is, but not everbody keeps in mind that the M2K most likely is one of our nuklear strike options and that it most likely will get further upgrades in that direction as well (specialised avionics and stuff). But apart from that, the sheer ammount of ignoring of facts about this upgrade deal in comparison to other things is amazing.
Originally Posted by neehar
@sancho does the upgrade of mki from 2015 as u mentioned also includes asea and al-41?
AESA yes, but it's not clear if Zhuk or BARS, engine upgrades were never mentioned yet,
but the recent procurement of high numbers of AL 31 hints in a clear direction.
Are we? How do you expect M2K to fight JF 17B1 or J10A today without BVR capability? Without RCS reductions? Without HMS and modern WVR missiles? So even today they lack behind and to cover that, for the use of another 10 to 15 years, they need life extention and modernisations.
The Jags as I often say are next to useless, with every multi role fighter we are adding to the fleet, since they all will be prefered in the strike from now onwards, which is why, it would have been wiser, to limit the Darin 3 upgrade to basics only and try to sell off the latest Jags to Afghanistan or similar countries.
Rafales instead Mirage is possible, since we procure it in MMRCA anyway, but the costs are several times higher than the Mirage upgrade and why would we replace it with a 4.5 gen fighter, when the aim is to replace it with a 5th gen fighter in future (FGFA)?
Most of you guys simply say the upgrade is costly, by looking only at the figure, but without seeing the whole picture of what IAF has in mind and what the other costs really would be. The $900 millions for Migs doesn't include the engine, or avionics costs, which means at the end it's more like $2.1 billion for Mirage and more than $1.5 billions for the Migs.
Doesn't look that much different anymore does it?
Not possible, once because Israel can't provide the overhaul and modernisation of the airframe, nor can Derby be used at any other hardpoints that the wet stations, which means, it would be limited to a single fuel tank and just 2 derbys.