Reply #23: I generally concur [View All]

[14thColony]

1. Their artillery rockets (not the RPGs) would be useless against aircraft, even hovering helicopters. Golden BB to the 10th power for one to hit an aircraft.

2. I would seriously doubt they'd turn the counter-measure systems off. Few pilots will stake their life on the squadron intel guy's word that the other side doesn't have SAMs.

3. What's the harm in leaving them on? Flares are cheap and accidental discharges only burn up Palestinian stuff, so who cares? (sarcasm here)

4. Shoulder-fired SAMs are way cheaper than you think, especially first-gen stuff like the SA-7/Strela-2, which I've seen for as cheap as $500 per unit, which is a gripstock and two loaded launch tubes. Is it too much for me to buy one and claim it's for home defense?

5. If HAMAS has no shoulder-fired SAMs it's only because they don't want any. In most of the world they're only slightly harder to get than an STD. Hell, al-Shabaab in Somalia has freaking SA-18s for God's sake! Who knows? Maybe they shot one or two. But the older they are the better you have to be trained to use them. The SA-7 is a finicky little cuss.

6. I would be surprised if HAMAS didn't have some 12.7mm or 14.5mm heavy AAMGs, but it's a moot point. Of little practical use against fixed-wing, and IAF Apaches (and maybe Cobras) are armored against those rounds.

Bottom line is IAF owns the sky and can do what they want. If some flares drop on some Palestinians, I doubt they lose any sleep. But I do tend to think these are accidental discharges.

Now the white phosphorous rounds are a WHOLE nother world. That's bad and wrong and bad and criminal and bad and inhuman.