saurav.jha wrote:not in a flash..they wont come as a whole 3.5 squads at a time..
quite right Saurav. the UAEAF at least (less sure about the QEAF's 12 Mirage-2000-5s) will only likely hand-over the Mirages to whoever purchases them, in batches, and most likely beginning with the oldest of their Mirages that were upgraded to the -9 configuration. In UAEAF service they'll be replacing them with the new Rafales start that will start trickling in but since Rafales won't arrive at one go, the Mirages won't be sold at one go.
They have recieved all of their 80 Block 60 Desert Falcons but will be unlikely to hand over all their Mirages at one go due to the Black Shaheen being integrated with that fleet alone. This is their main long range cruise missile and giving away the entire fleet in a short time will mean that some other aircraft with a similar long range strike capability must be available to them. Till Rafales with Black Shaheen integrated and tested with the AESA RBE2's arrive, they will not part with the entire Mirage-2000-9 fleet completely. and considering the UAE's demand for new M-88-3 engines, and a host of other new requirements from the Rafale, this new F4 or F4+ version of the Rafale won't enter service till 2014-15 at the very earliest, so expect them to keep the Mirages in some numbers till then.
Which makes me wonder whether the IAF will be able to convince the MoD, MoF and CCS that it requires these Mirage-2000-9s as an urgent gap-filler. There are several arguments that make it seem like these Mirages would be a good purchase if they can drive a hard bargain..
One might think that they'll be quite costly (going by the upgrade costs for our 52 Mirages), although the relatively small number of Mirage-2000 operators world over means that they have very few potential buyers who have the infrastructure set up already and if UAE links the sale of Rafales to the sale of its Mirages then France will be desperate to arrive at some solution. Peru has a very small Mirage-2000 fleet and cannot possibly afford a multi-billion $ deal. Egypt's 10 odd Mirages hardly constitute a serious force and they've only recently gone with 24 new F-16 Block 52s and are reportedly interested in the JF-17. Taiwan is unlikely to be a customer for these due to the Chinese pressure on the French, and their own poor experience with the French after sales support. Greece is as good as out of the question thanks to the massive credit crunch they're facing. Other Mirage operators that Dassault would've hoped would've become Mirage-2000 operators mostly happen to be in Latin America. Ecuador is looking to curtail its Super Tucano purchase so it can fund buying some 12 ex-SAAF Cheetah-D fighters so they're not really going to be able to afford any major number of these Mirage-2000-5/9s. Argentina's economic situation is still not improving and Brazil is no longer looking to add any Mirage-2000s after the second-hand Mirages it bought from France. Iraq may present an opportunity but Unkil will muscle France out of this deal for sure with F-16s.
India is the only one that fits the bill in terms of need (squadron numbers can be made up), money and it already has made the investment in both basing (Maharajpur AFS can house close to a 100 Mirages since the IAF set up initial infrastructure there hoping to get that many and more) as well as overhaul, maintenance facilities (HAL is the only facility outside France that does overhaul on its own for the Mirage-2000s). Or else the French will need to adopt these middle-eastern Mirages as their own and possibly retire their older Mirage-2000Cs (not the -5F) earlier.
UAE basically bought its Mirages in 2 big buys- 32 it bought in the mid-late 1980s (1986 onwards) and then 30 Mirage-2000-9s in 1999. The oldest Mirage-2000 airframes in UAEAF service have close to 20-24 years on their airframe, so they're of nearly similar vintage as the IAF's Mirages. I'm not quite sure about how heavily they've been used but my guess is that they're not flogged like NATO fighters are..its likely that they have nearly 40-50% of their service life remaining. They've been upgraded to -9 level only recently though, with the last having been received in 2007. So they have top notch avionics and weapons and are on par with the F-16 Block 50s except for no engine changes.Having fewer hours on their airframe those should be worth less than the newer 30 Mirage-2000-9s that the UAE bought from France in 1999.
Qatar's recently reported evaluation of the Shornet indicates that they're serious about replacing their Mirage-2000-5s..the MoD really snubbed them the last time with a very low offer but this time around, a respectable offer could seal the deal.
Pakistan may be tempted by such a large number of capable jets which makes a more compelling business case for setting up a brand new infrastructure to support these jets. in the 1990s they evaluated and liked the -5 but basically with their empty pockets they had no chance of getting any since France doesn't do military aid like the US and China do. their ACM has already gone on record as stating that the French will be selling their avionics and weapons to them as part of a JF-17 package despite press reports to the contrary, so they will complement each other in a way. But as mentioned before this Mirage deal is only possible for them if the UAE cannot find buyers and they have to dispose them off at very liberal credits..
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nice one and rightly so. Not that naive my friend. I meant relatively!