Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military From: convex!ewright@uunet.UU.NET (Edward V. Wright) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Unified Germany to use MiG-29s? Message-ID: <1990Jul12.025754.19266@cbnews.att.com> Date: 12 Jul 90 02:57:54 GMT References: <1990Jun29.025812.7577@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 26 Approved: military@att.att.com From: convex!ewright@uunet.UU.NET (Edward V. Wright) From: Yngve Larsson > >From: Wes Morgan > >smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin) writes: >> >>I saw a sketchy news item which mentioned that after the reunification, >>Germany would have access to the East German fleet of MiG-29s. > > >Hmmmmm......I can't see the USSR just calmly handing over a fleet of >MiG-29s........for that matter, are these planes the property of East >Germany, or are they "on loan" from the USSR? I'm sure that the USSR >has some sort of "resale restriction" on its hardware, much like the >US has on its hotter pieces.... Why shouldn't the Soviets want the reunified Germany equipped with MiG-29s? Think about it. They're no better than the Western state of the art (i.e., not as good as the ATF) and the Soviets know everything there is to know about these planes and thus have a tremendous edge in designing defenses against them. Besides, the Soviets need the hard currency.