[jogiba]

CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News

[jolepp]

Prudent thing to wreck radar stations, runways & other obvious targets to facilitate the takeover of the airspace, no doubt, but one wonders whether the air defence was worth much as the French apparently were confident to operate there even prior to this: BBC News - Strikes against Libyan military targets begin.

[jogiba]

Libya live blog: U.S., allies launch missiles against Gadhafi forces – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

[jeffkrol]

There goes my "socialized medicine"....... I suppose we had "old stock" to move.....

[larryinlc]

After this one day taxpayer expense, not only will they have to defund NPR, they'll have them pony up a few million for the tomahawk defense fund. Who makes these anyway? Give them a tax break.

[shooz]

According to the pentagon, they were "old stock".

[selar]

Oh okay, its your money, you can fire as many Tomahawks as you like. Severe overkill for a country like Libya though, doubt if the things you destroyed cost even half that. Hope you guys got some good videos and photos atleast to show the rest of the world. Dont see anything much on Youtube yet.

[jolepp]

It seems Libya was supposed to be well stocked with these, so the French getting in there before the cruise missile strike seems somewhat foolhardy (maybe the installations were nowhere close, it is a large country?).

[Phil1]

'The first S-200 operational regiments were deployed in 1966 with 18 sites and 342 launchers in service by the end of the year. By 1966, the S-200 was officially accepted into service in order to replace the failed anti-ballistic missile RZ-25/5V11 "Dal". The Dal was assigned the NATO reporting name SA-5 "Griffon" before it was cancelled. By 1968 there were 40 sites, and by 1969 there were 60 sites. The growth in numbers then gradually increased throughout the 1970s and early 1980s until the peak of 130 sites and 1,950 launchers was reached in 1985[1].'

If Libya has these then the French are pretty safe as they are antiques by now and ECM (electronic counter measures) have long ago been worked out. The news says some US based B2s made an airfield raid yesterday too.

Someone pointed out that the French had aircraft flying there before the Tomahawks flew. I would guess one purpose was to locate as many air defense radars as possible for the missles.

[jeffkrol]

The REAL crisis is in France.

Sarko has a presidential election next year and he's trailing behind the socialist and Marine Le Pen, who is leading the race. (Subscribers can read Janine di Giovanni's dispatch about all of this). But for Sarko, this Libyan mission has a very political purpose, one which is reassuringly absent from Cameron’s.

Sarkozy’s game | The Spectator
GOT TO snuff out that Socialism, and get that Libyan oil flowing to France

[selar]

I believe that there's a new type of tomahawk with loiter capability and they were getting rid of old stock.

[Ratmagiclady]

I believe that there's a new type of tomahawk with loiter capability and they were getting rid of old stock.

'Old stock' would be relative, since they had to replace them all after the first day of the Iraq war... One thing's for sure, they ain't cheap, either way.

[selar]

Meanwhile, the souks of Tripoli are overflowing with camel meat and the Libyans thank the Tomahawks for hunting down and killing so many camels.

[seacapt]

I thought the French said they"d take care of the situation

You Tube

You Tube

[Parallax]

An elderly American gentleman arrived in Paris by plane.

At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on.

"You have been to France before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked sarcastically.

The gentleman admitted that he had been to France previously.

"Then you should know enough to have your passport ready."

The American said, "The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it."

"Impossible. Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France !"

The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he
quietly explained, ''Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in
1944 to help liberate this country, there wasn't a Frenchman in sight to show a passport to."



I remember reading a few years back that the French army got a new fleet of main battle tanks with a unique feature. The transmissions had Low Reverse, Second Reverse, and High Reverse.
About a month later they modified them by adding a Low Forward, in case somebody sneaks up behind them.