Does a country really needs air defence (beyond SHORADS, Manpads

>>29445790
Layered defence

>>29445790
Yes.

>>29445790
Yes, because Russia and our air force is not big enough for 1 vs 1 slugfest

>>29445790
>I mean, any self respecting air force would have the capability to intercept (and destroy, if necessary) any objects/entities that intrude its airspace
Not every country is the USA.

>>29445855
Israel, Singapore, the UK, even fucking Australia has capable airforce relative to the threat that they're facing and none of them (bar Israel, because, well, Israel) have anything than medium range air defence.

>>29445908
None of those countries face an actual, capable military threat.

>>29445908
And all of those, except Israel (well isn't that a coincidence?) are goddamn islands.

>>29445908
>Singapore
Whole fucking commonwealth has its ass during a war. Their tanks are parked in Australia FFS.

>>29445948
or surrounded by goddamn sea.

>>29445953
>>29445948

Well now, the americans are either surrounded by oceans or satellite pseudo-countries and they had the best air defences in the world

>>29445908

Why would Australia need more than that?

You do realize that there's not exactly many directions to attack us from...

>>29446036
For 50 years Americans planned to fight a war in Europe. Hence the land based AA. As soon as the need disappeared - you have what you see now: investment in air and navy. Not land based AA.

Basically, all of it boils down to this: if you plan on fighting a ground war - you need land based AA. Not because it's a silver bullet, but because it's an effective force multiplier.