Israel selling reconnaissance drones to Russia

Israel selling reconnaissance drones to Russia

www.haaretz.com

Russia has signed a contract to purchase Israeli reconnaissance drones in an attempt to improve its own unmanned aircraft after a poor performance in the war against Georgia last August. The deal, the first-ever purchase announced by Russia of Israeli military hardware, was signed about three weeks ago by senior Israeli and Russian officials.

Israel reportedly hopes the sale to Russia will help dissuade Russia from providing Iran with advanced missile systems.

(visit the link for the full news article)


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What this basically boils down to is the Israelis fear of the S-300 and other Russian SAM complexes hindering their ability to launch a successful air strike against Iran sometime in the future, if they are sold to Iran.

So far there is no real assertion from Russia that the deal will not go through:

A recently retired Israeli official informed about bilateral security talks with Russia said that while Israel has made clear its objections about Iran receiving S-300s, "the Russians don't make promises of this kind."

"The most we have at this point is a vague assurance that the deal is not going ahead," the ex-official said. "But that could change at any time, and one of the relevant factors is Israel's policies on Iran."

www.reuters.com...

Considering the desperate measures here being used to placate Iran's closest ally, Russia (Israel has never before sold Russian military hardware), it makes it blatantly obvious Israel is gearing up for a military manoeuvre sometime soon and want to leave nothing to chance.

It also hints at perhaps, an undisclosed weakness the IAF is unwilling to admit, in regards to advanced SAM systems deployed against their airforce.

Any Israeli attack on Iranian facilities (which scattered across wide area in the South of Iran) would require travelling deep into Iranian territory and most definitely within the range of it's extensive SAM network, which you can see below.

Iranian SAM Network (combination of the American HAWK, and the Russian SA-2, SA-5, Tor, S-200, Strela 2, SA-16, SA-18):


www.haaretz.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 13/4/09 by The Godfather of Conspira]

I think Israel will attack Iran long before they set up S300's...
Even if they did buy them this afternoon.

I think it's odd though...
US giving loads of money and material to Israel, who makes aircraft and sells them to Russia. Our closest friend and enemy, for some reason.

I guess this is like arming the Taliban to fight the Russians, but are now using those same weapons to kill NATO.

[edit on 13-4-2009 by xbranscombex]

All Israel need do is try to buy the Rafale's from France, I doubt they'd turn anybody down with the huge number of orders they have had for their extremely advanced fighter.

Would I be correct in assuming much of the Israeli drone technologies have been backward engineered United States military Drones?



Edit; The initial line is jokingly referring to the lack of purchases of the French Rafale.

[edit on 13-4-2009 by MrAnonUK]

Originally posted by MrAnonUK
All Israel need do is try to buy the Rafale's from France, I doubt they'd turn anybody down with the huge number of orders they have had for their extremely advanced fighter.

Would I be correct in assuming much of the Israeli drone technologies have been backward engineered United States military Drones?

Yes, Yes and Yes.

As for the S300, from shipment to deployment is only needs 14 working days. Dont think thats its such a big task. The most difficult part of it all is calibrating the IFF with the existing infrastructure.

reply to post by MrAnonUK

All Israel need do is try to buy the Rafale's from France, I doubt they'd turn anybody down with the huge number of orders they have had for their extremely advanced fighter.

How is this going to solve their problem of vulnerability to extensive SAM systems?

When it comes to counter-measures you have ECM, flares, chaff and pilot situational awareness. That's it.
5th Gen. Aircraft still use the same old tricks of the trade.

It's radar is an older PESA variant that isn't particularly stellar in the ECM role and it's range is now considered insufficient, especially in comparison to the current American AESA systems such as the AN/APG-63(V)3 and AN/APG-79.

The Rafale won't make that big of a difference from their current Block C F-16's.

Would I be correct in assuming much of the Israeli drone technologies have been backward engineered United States military Drones?

Well what hasn't Israel adopted or reverse-engineered from the United States, really.

Knowing Russia they wont buy many... After they get those, they will broke those to pieces, and build their own system with look-alike products - cheap copies.

And that happens before anyone has time to say "Oops" ...

It was brilliant in Georgia Op, when marines left their new recon-Humwees to Russian hands - what you expect happened to those?

--- And not forget what happened to that recon-airplane what was forced to land to China, and US get thet plane back, in million pieces...

reply to post by JanusFIN


Hate to be tedious here but two-things:

It was brilliant in Georgia Op, when marines left their new recon-Humwees to Russian hands - what you expect happened to those?

The Russian GAZ-3937 "Vodnik" is vastly superior to the HMMWV in all respects and actually comes with inbuilt safe-guards against IED and mine explosions.

It's not only more powerful, but also amphibious and carries more men.

--- And not forget what happened to that recon-airplane what was forced to land to China, and US get thet plane back, in million pieces...

Yes and that was the CHINESE. They took that plane apart to collect the reconnaissance data and photographs it had taken, not to reverse engineer it.

The plane that was forced to land at Hainan was an almost 40 year old Lockheed EP-3.

I'm not denying the Russians or Chinese haven't copied successful designs in the past, but those were two negligible examples.

reply to post by The Godfather of Conspira


All do respect, I admire Vodnik as the best 4x4 vechile ever made to army purposes... I learn that it was not the vechile they were interested about, but new radio-GPS-situation hardware inside the humwees... Those were latest models.

Yep - Chinese example was more far picked up - but thats the style in east - and when we look back in warhistory - there is lots of examples from straight copies... That you can agree?

Ofcourse thats only my quess - drones are here to stay - unmanned vechiles will lift battlefields to new era in all warfare.

Originally posted by The Godfather of Conspira
reply to post by MrAnonUK

 

All Israel need do is try to buy the Rafale's from France, I doubt they'd turn anybody down with the huge number of orders they have had for their extremely advanced fighter.

How is this going to solve their problem of vulnerability to extensive SAM systems?

When it comes to counter-measures you have ECM, flares, chaff and pilot situational awareness. That's it.
5th Gen. Aircraft still use the same old tricks of the trade.

It's radar is an older PESA variant that isn't particularly stellar in the ECM role and it's range is now considered insufficient, especially in comparison to the current American AESA systems such as the AN/APG-63(V)3 and AN/APG-79.

The Rafale won't make that big of a difference from their current Block C F-16's.

Would I be correct in assuming much of the Israeli drone technologies have been backward engineered United States military Drones?

Well what hasn't Israel adopted or reverse-engineered from the United States, really.

I wasn't making a serious remark when writing regarding the Rafale, I thought I made the context amply clear but obviously not. I apologise, but lighten up a bit.

You followed with quotation which lead to a response to a question in which I was being genuine in asking, but your response does nothing to answer it as from that one sentence I cannot draw any actual facts. Just apparent assumption.

I've since looked up whether it was the case that technologies was derived from the United States and although not largely backward engineered the Israeli drone technologies received large input from a United States citizen that emigrated to Israel specifically for work within their military aircraft industry.

The Israelis were the prime movers in establishing the battlefield UAV as a standard military weapon. After the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East in 1973, when the Israelis suffered substantial air losses from Soviet built SAMs fired by Arab forces, the Israeli military searched for new technology to ensure they would not have the same problems in the future. This led them to cross paths with Alvin Ellis, who had been born and raised in the US and worked for Ryan on the Firebee and the Lightning Bugs. He emigrated to Israel in 1967 to join Israel Aircraft Industries and work on the Kfir fighter, a derivative of the French Dassault Mirage III/5 fighter but fitted with an American GE J79 engine.

The history of Ellis and the battlefield UAV tends to recall that of Reginald Denny and the target drone. Ellis liked to tinker with RC models, and after the Yom Kippur War he decided that a small drone with a TV camera might be an answer to some of Israeli's battlefield needs. He joined up with an IAI colleague named Yehuda Manor and the two put together a prototype in Manor's garage. They flew the prototype for a short time, but it crashed when one of its two engines failed. Ellis still felt the idea was good and pitched it to IAI management, but was turned down. Undiscouraged, Ellis took the idea to Tadiran, the Israeli electronics conglomerate, and the company funded a second prototype.

Original Source

So it's pretty safe to assume through this purchase Russia has received a small amount of United States technology, I doubt anything of great importance though as I'm sure Ellis would have been requested or ordered not to reveal anything too sensitive if he had that knowledge.

Originally posted by JanusFIN
Knowing Russia they wont buy many... After they get those, they will broke those to pieces, and build their own system with look-alike products - cheap copies.

Looks like this will be the case, as Russia is only planning to order several drones. I wouldn't say that they want to make cheap copies however. The Russian military is fairly advanced to adapt only the most crucial technologies to enhance equipment that is already operational in the Russian military. Russia already has a number of recon UAV's of its own design, however it appears that it does not yet have adequate technology to make effective attack-UAV capable to firing on targets.

The issue is that Russia was never really interested much in the UAV idea untill now - otherwise it would have long ago developed the technology to rival that of US. And instead of starting from the bottom up, Russia wants to quickly jump start their program by learning from Israel's UAV's. Perhaps what it is most interested in is the computer technology behind the concept.



Israel knows this very well. The fact that it is still willing to sell the UAV's to Russia, likely shows that it hopes that this will pave way toward future dialogue, and perhaps shift Russia's attention away from siding with Iran.

Originally posted by JanusFIN
It was brilliant in Georgia Op, when marines left their new recon-Humwees to Russian hands - what you expect happened to those?

Reliable sources indicate that there was nothing of highly material importance in those Humvees. Nothing the Russians could use to enhance their technology anyway. The worst case scenerio is that it compromised some intel of the US.

Originally posted by JanusFIN
--- And not forget what happened to that recon-airplane what was forced to land to China, and US get thet plane back, in million pieces...

Don't compare Russia's military to China. Russia designed many innovative technologies in the military field, and in most aspects could compete very well with Western counterparts without having to be a carbon copy.

[edit on 13-4-2009 by maloy]

reply to post by maloy

likely shows that it hopes that this will pave way toward future dialogue, and perhaps shift Russia's attention away from siding with Iran.

That's Israel's greatest wish currently.

S-300's protecting Iranian enrichment facilities would be no picnic for the IAF and their rather limited Close-Air Support and "ground & pound" capability.

Save for their 25 Strike Eagles, and limited adoption of JDAM munitions for their F-16's, they would have no real, safe way to eliminate S-300's in a pure air offensive.

Even then, they would surely be facing some serious losses trying to approach SAM complexes that have ranges greater than a lot of cruise missiles.