Maybe lasers used for blinding the IR-sensor? Such a systme would be very interesting.
As to the "Alster".
It is unimportant if you say that:
The incident with the helicopter was another one which was not related to the "Alster" situation.
I never heard of any F-16 firing flares there or that one of our ships tried to light them up.
You should also take one thing into account. Due to our past every captain who would do anything which looks agressive, not to talk of trying to lock on a IAF plane, would be getting his ass kicked if he would not be able to give a very, very good explanation.
A confrontation with the IDF is the aspect which was most feared by our politicians and was also one of the main reasons for not sending ground forces. They thought that it would be much less possible that ships could have to deal with the IDF.
The outcry because of german soldiers firing at IDF (jewish) soldiers would be amazing.
As to the "Alster".
It is unimportant if you say that:
That may be right in most cases but our Oste class just do not carry any weapons apart form personal small arms (P8, G36, MG3, G3, P1).ELINT ships in most cases have weapons to defend themselves, specially Sea-Air missiles, or ammunition of this kind or another, which in our case will be the same for the F-16 counter measures systems.
The incident with the helicopter was another one which was not related to the "Alster" situation.
I never heard of any F-16 firing flares there or that one of our ships tried to light them up.
You should also take one thing into account. Due to our past every captain who would do anything which looks agressive, not to talk of trying to lock on a IAF plane, would be getting his ass kicked if he would not be able to give a very, very good explanation.
A confrontation with the IDF is the aspect which was most feared by our politicians and was also one of the main reasons for not sending ground forces. They thought that it would be much less possible that ships could have to deal with the IDF.
The outcry because of german soldiers firing at IDF (jewish) soldiers would be amazing.