Qatar enters deal for Typhoons

Qatar has begun one of the biggest military upgrades seen in recent years. In 2015 they ordered 24 Dassault Rafales from France, to begin deliveries in 2018. A few days ago they announced that they were adding an additional 12 aircraft to the deal.

Today it was announced that they are adding 24 Typhoons to the mix, to begin delivering in 2022. That deal is worth $6.7B. Both of these are in addition to the $12B deal they have with Boeing for 36 F-15QA fighters. The QA is an advanced version of the F-15E.

Qatar currently operates 12 Mirage 2000s, and 6 Alpha Jets. They have also ordered 24 AH-64Es.

www.flightglobal.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

2022? I admire their optimism. Was anything ever revealed about that "nuclear" bomb that Wikileaks tweeted about Qatar?

They are also taking a big box of munitions including Brimstone and Meteor. In addition to Typhoons I read they are also taking some Hawk trainers. All good news, except perhaps for Iran who can see the Gulf States all getting tooled up. Qatar will soon be back on side with Saudi et al and all their equipment seems to be the same!

a reply to: paraphi

In 2015 it was announced that 34 Gulf nations, including Qatar were forming the Islamic Military Alliance (IslamicMilitary Counter Terrorism Coalition). It's supposedly to fight terrorism, regardless of sect or name, but all 41 member nations are Sunni dominated governments.

a reply to: Wide-Eyes

They released something in June that Qatar had been supporting ISIS for years, but it never went very big news.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Not surprising. Sunni/Wahhabi seem to be untouchable in the world order.

a reply to: Zaphod58
So I am guessing that the Islamic military alliance is the military bloc for the Gulf Cooperation council. Would that be close to accurate?

41 Nation bloc in there, plus 27 of the 28 member NATO, and the 55 member African Union are all participating in CJT OIR. Thats 123 nations participating or contributing either directly or indirectly to a united global conflict. Thats just the good side of course. The bad guys on the East I have not even started counting.

Sure sounds like World War 3 disguised as a simple global counter terrorism OP to me. But then again, that is exactly why our domestic news is stuck on a broken record of Trump worship. Cannot have the general public actually understand the realities of the global conflict involving over 150 nations. God bless them I guess.

Factor in all the atrocities that have been going on in Syria since 2012, I would say we got damn near a direct parallel to WW2 with the only exception that advance technology and machines have eliminated the need to throw hundreds of thousands of angry and scared men at each other in open conflict. Everything has become either flatten it out and occupy, or hit and run back into the shadows. Hmm, that actually does not sound different at all. Just a lower volume of humans on the field at once.

Chemical weapons, crimes against humanity, collective punishment, the absolute destruction of entire societies. I'll bet any amount of money that although we may not see it here in North America, places like Russia and others in the Middle East will be calling this WW3 in their history books in twenty years. Its just not finished. We still have to deal with the nuclear problem in the Pacific. See, cant't have a world war until a nuke goes off I guess. I mean, thats literally the only action left to occur for this last decade to pretty much mirror the technicalities of the last global conflict.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

It's a closer alliance than the GCC. They're trying for something like NATO in the Gulf.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Really?

Didn't we read lately that in some air training exercise, the Typhoon fliers lost to practically every competitor? And weren't the Dassault Rafales rejected by Israel?

I don't get this......why buy so many different types when all they need is the F-15?

a reply to: TonyS

Because it gives them the most flexibility. Don't believe everything you read during exercises. Yes it gives a good idea of capabilities, but at the same time, some deliberately tie both hands behind your back to allow another force to build confidence and get experience.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Well, yea........more flexibility.........but if it were me, I'd be thinking about parts interchangeability, standardized maintenance and parts volume discounts across a fleet.

Guess that's why I'm not the Emir of Qatar, I'm too cheep.

a reply to: TonyS

You don't want all of one type though. Yes, it keeps commonality, but if something happens like the longeron problem the F-15s saw a few years ago, and they all get grounded, you just lost your entire force until they can be fixed.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: TonyS

You don't want all of one type though. Yes, it keeps commonality, but if something happens like the longeron problem the F-15s saw a few years ago, and they all get grounded, you just lost your entire force until they can be fixed.

it also does not hurt to spread your spending around in terms of buying a bit of good will