Balance Of Air Power In South Asia

[Falcon26]

Complete false logic and scattered conjecture. Pakistan is FAR more advanced, powerful and developed now than it has ever been in it's entire history. That is PARTLY due to CPEC AND more to do with other less talked about projects and reforms that have been going on in Pakistan since 2012.

Pakistan's relationship with America was always a hindrance and it's breakdown was always enivateable. It served it's purpose during the Soviet era. We got F-16s and they got a regional ally against the Soviets.

Pakistan's relationship with China and Turkey however has been MUCH more fruitful and beneficial.

At the moment, the indian airforce does APPEAR to have an advantage over the PAF. But this hides many realities. Pakistan is not going to make major purchases of any fighter jets UNTIL JUST AFTER THE full on-line induction of Chinese J-20s and J-31s. Once inducted into the PAF, there will be dramatic shift in the balance of airforce power. So the majority of PAF funds will be focused on this. Also Pakistan has many advanced SAM systems to deny indian airforce superiority over Pakistani airspace. That is an easy, cost effective method to nullify the indian airforce vis-a-vis the PAF.

Your comparison of the indian economy with Pakistan's is as ridiculous as trying to compare a tiger to a rhino. india is at least 7× bigger than Pakistan. Is a different race, culture and heritage to Pakistan. Has different geopolitical and strategic constraints. Has more access to Western and Russian technologies and economic resources. Has a different economic, social set up and aims to Pakistan. Comparing the Pakistan economy to the Indian one is like comparing the Jordanian, Lebanese and Tunisian economy to India's. Ridiculous as there is nothing in common to compare.

Good points. I am always amazed why Indians never compare or compete against China economically, which will be a more fair comparison rather than countries that are 10x smaller than it.must be due to the defeatist mentality even hawks like Bharat Karnad talk about.

By the way, this is not to excuse Pakistan'a sorry state of economic affairs. As recently pointed out by the IMF chief, Pakistan seriously needs towiden its tax base (which is among the lowest in the world) and also to privatize the poorly performing state enterprises that are adding zero value to the overall economy.

PAKISTAN FOREVER

Economy and military are completely interlinked

There is a simple reason why the worlds largest GDP nations have the best equipped militarys,

The two go hand in hand.

COMPARING a 8-1 GDP is highlighting the complete imbalance and impossible task PAF and military face not today BUT for the rest of your lives.

Year in year out the CONVENTIONAL balance is just getting bigger and bigger.

PAKISTANIS have resorted to tactical nuclear weapons with open public media threads that if a war starts they will use tactical nukes.

THIS IS OPEN ADMISSION they expect to get overrun in any war

Twisted logic.

That's like saying America fielding tactical nukes during the Cold War was an admission of US inferiority in face of Soviet thrust. Utterly laughable. Tactical nukes are there to fill gaps in the deterrence spectrum. Pakistan has done a commendable job plugging the gaps. It needs to send a clear message to india's western backers that they can equip and support India all they want, once hostilities start, the punishment will be intolerable for the enemy. Or even park these tactical weapons in the full view of western satellites during periods of crisis like Israel did during the yom kippur war to send a message to the White House that if it didn't prevent Israel from being overrun, it was going to take drastic measures.

 

[danger007]

REPORT THAT!!
If you have any objects report it or ASK for proof and if not provided then engage in a civil debate. This is not a twitter page where one can tweet all he/she wants. This is a discussion forum and let us ALL stick to that. In fact, do point me to that post you are mentioning.


Never mind sir, boasting and chest thumping have become a habit now. It is the false sense of grandeur that led to immense embarrassment over the past few months, ONLY if someone could feel it!!
There are many sensible and sane members from India on the forum who know pretty well what have happened and are always a joy to talk with. They will point out the issues with us and we wont be able to disagree with them and they are open to admitting there own follies. This is how a debate should be. Better you look and talk to them rather than wasting your time with people who are delusional to the limit.

I neither demean pak or paf merely responding to elite trolling.. my response will be same even if it was Indians(in some topics)... don't you think it is immature to suggest Indian members to ask iaf, instead of backing his claims. i have reported his posts before no action taken on baseless claims. Now a days, Most probably i spend reading posts from each section..

 

[araz]

Comparing parity of 270 Su-30MKIs with 18 F-16 Block 52 (and 40 odd MLUs) is delusional, and MKI boasts much better Radar and datalink than Block 52.

Rafale will be made in collaboration with Reliance Defence, F-16s will be made with LM along with another Indian conglomerate.

The point is PAF posturing will always be defensive and deterrent. Its capabilities and ability to maintain relative parity keeping in mind its basic aims is where it has been so successful. Where it has not been capable of procuring newer aircrafts in numbers it has started an aviation industry and is partly producing its own fighters which is a much more economical way of going about fulfilling the defence needs of the nation. With all this talk of superiority IAF has not entered Pakistani air space which speaks volumes of PAFs capbilities and the respect with which it is held by its adversary.
A

Tejas Mk1 will mostly have the role of interceptors, and will be deployed in forward areas. We have missed the train with Tejas, and it will never be a front line fighter.

F-16 will be a true low cost multirole, occupying a position below MKI and Rafale. I hope MII Rafale deal will be signed within a year or two. There are requirement for 300-400 front line jets to maintain the required squadron strength. As we will be retiring 300 (Mig-21 and Mig-27)jets by 2020, and another 150 by 2025 (Jaguar)

And we will be aiming for 50+ squadron of fighters in near future.

I am glad you have been true in your interpretation of the fate of Tejas. I think HAL bit off more than it could chew and the consequences are there for all to see.
F16s should you decide to make them will come on line in 2224-26. In general it will take you 2-3 years to complete negotiations and another 3-5 years to establish industry and get operational capability with the fighter. The world would have moved on so whether this is a good decision or not remains to be seen. I dont deny that they will remain relevant till 2040 but to what extent is what i question. You also have to understand that you will never have the capability of building a full fighter in house and therefore inspte of your aspirations it will be a blow to your dreams of a fully indegenous fighter.
I have always felt that where you missed the masterly stroke was to have moved in quickly to take over the M2K assembly line in 2002-3. That would have given you capabilities and a source of advancement barring none. With the French focus having moved on to Rafale you would have had a free reign to tweek the plane which ever way you wanted unlike the US which would probably never allow you to do so.
The Rafale which every Indian worth his salt harps on about again will not be on line for 6 years. I dont deny their capability but at that price and for effective numbers to be built up you will probably end up spending 20 billion $ beofre you have a capable fleet in enough numbers to matter. I thnk the time span again is 26-28. SO how relevant will it remain although I fully agree that it is a beautiful plane.
My problem; which is a purely academic one, with the Indian acquisition strategy is its lack of direction. You cannot when you have money buy commodities from multiple buyers and have economy of scale in your acquisition. Inspite of the private industry taking over the process of building the planes you will still need to buy and maintain them. The more providers you have the more inventory and repair equipment and spares will need to be stored.. In today's world when everone is confining themselves to reducing the number of platforms to achieve economy of scale you are diversifying??????.
A

So according to the video, F16 blk 52 is better than Su30 MKI, and it was the right decision to go for it. fair enough. So why aint PAF purchasing more of F16s? AFAIK the Congress did not put any ban on its sale, they only cancelled the subsidy or the aid. So now the air chief talks about Su 35, is he expecting a similar type of military aid from Russia?




And I guess all this info was emailed to you by the air force chief, right?

It is the change in posturing of the US congress which is worrying PAF. To be fair this was always on the cards as we never had the gumption to secure our future with the 16s. Lack of finances meant that we did not set up the assembly line wqhich 10billion $could have procured us with faclilities to manufacture 200 planes. Continue with the JFT and induct them 2010 with block 2 capabilities and build on from there and your future is relatively secured till 2025. But this requires money and dealing with the US as e=qual which our generals did not do.
Much as i disliked her Benazir was about the only person with the flair and the charm to wriggle this out of the US and in many ways this fear led to her untimely death.

That makes 150 of them available at any given time. And even considering 80% availability of Blk 52 and MLUs, only 45 is available at any instant.

Parity restored.

Ypour maths leaves a lot to be desired young man!! Dont deny facts in your jingoism.
A

What balance of power?....the conventional gap is too large. There is nothing that Pakistan can do in this regard. If Pakistan can buys in 10s...India can buy in 100s

True!! you have a much larger nation and your needs are more. However being small has its advantages with regards to area needing protecting. I dont think anyone here is delusional enough to think that we will achieve parity in numbers. Capabilities wise we just need to make it painful for you to enter our air spae for us to be effective.
A

 

[amardeep mishra]

I am glad you have been true in your interpretation of the fate of Tejas. I think HAL bit off more than it could chew and the consequences are there for all to see.
F16s should you decide to make them will come on line in 2224-26. In general it will take you 2-3 years to complete negotiations and another 3-5 years to establish industry and get operational capability with the fighter. The world would have moved on so whether this is a good decision or not remains to be seen. I dont deny that they will remain relevant till 2040 but to what extent is what i question. You also have to understand that you will never have the capability of building a full fighter in house and therefore inspte of your aspirations it will be a blow to your dreams of a fully indegenous fighter.

Hi dear @araz
First of all,LCA tejas was meant to be a light fighter from the very beginning.I mean I dont know how exactly did we miss the train with LCA? A lot of folks who have never interacted with ADA team that designed LCA make statements based on media reports or even CAG report(thanks to a much more independent auditors in india vis-a-vis pakistan). The problem with IAF is,they want to have a "medium weight' fighter as their "mainstay" or backbone.They dont want to base their major chunk on "light weight fighters". This means IAF would need more than 400 aircrafts in medium category alone by 2028-2030 period when all our mirages,mig-21,23,29s etc will retire. This still means,there is a solid need of close to 200 tejas in IAF. Those who know about the plane,would testify how awesome the plane is and how awesome it responds to pilot control inputs. Yet the design and shape of the plane puts some restrictions on loitering time and some other factors. Contrary to what a lot of you write here(including indians),India has developed an entire eco-system of aviation research(not just manufacturing like how pakistan has recently achieved). This can be gauged from the fact that there are a lot of research activities going on in india in almost every aspect of aircraft engineering--right from controls(of which I am a part),propulsion,structures,avionics and radars and aerodynamics. Some of these ventures have been successful enough to be incorporated into the plane while others are being matured or worked upon. What is often ignored here,is indian pvt sector has come a long way in establishing itself as not only major system suppliers but also can support in a lot of R&D efforts. The financial and technical capabilities of some indian giants can be easily leveraged into aerospace research.
In modern era of diminishing WVR relevance,BVR is increasingly becoming dominant. And in BVR arena it is the fighter+missile combo that has larger "A-pole" wins over adversary that has smaller "A-pole".

 

[araz]

Yes, I agree with you on many points, and penetrating Pakistani air space will be tough, but do remember there is no naval arm, so how far do you think the PAF will be stretched. India will hit Pakistan, in a limited conventional exchange at its weakest point i.e. the navy and Karachi. Will the PAF be diverted to aid in the defence of Pakistan's most populous city, whilst flankers prod and probe near the LOC and Punjab border?

Is that deficiency not already covered with the induction of JFT at Masroor? By all means I understand the difficulties in keeping the IAF and their naval arm off Karachi but JFT induction will help to a great extent.
A

Hi dear @araz
First of all,LCA tejas was meant to be a light fighter from the very beginning.I mean I dont know how exactly did we miss the train with LCA? A lot of folks who have never interacted with ADA team that designed LCA make statements based on media reports or even CAG report(thanks to a much more independent auditors in india vis-a-vis pakistan). The problem with IAF is,they want to have a "medium weight' fighter as their "mainstay" or backbone.They dont want to base their major chunk on "light weight fighters". This means IAF would need more than 400 aircrafts in medium category alone by 2028-2030 period when all our mirages,mig-21,23,29s etc will retire. This still means,there is a solid need of close to 200 tejas in IAF. Those who know about the plane,would testify how awesome the plane is and how awesome it responds to pilot control inputs. Yet the design and shape of the plane puts some restrictions on loitering time and some other factors. Contrary to what a lot of you write here(including indians),India has developed an entire eco-system of aviation research(not just manufacturing like how pakistan has recently achieved). This can be gauged from the fact that there are a lot of research activities going on in india in almost every aspect of aircraft engineering--right from controls(of which I am a part),propulsion,structures,avionics and radars and aerodynamics. Some of these ventures have been successful enough to be incorporated into the plane while others are being matured or worked upon. What is often ignored here,is indian pvt sector has come a long way in establishing itself as not only major system suppliers but also can support in a lot of R&D efforts. The financial and technical capabilities of some indian giants can be easily leveraged into aerospace research.
In modern era of diminishing WVR relevance,BVR is increasingly becoming dominant. And in BVR arena it is the fighter+missile combo that has larger "A-pole" wins over adversary that has smaller "A-pole".

Thank you for your input.I always enjoy being able to interact with people who look at problems objectively. The problem of HAL was in trying to reinvent the wheel. You are much ahead in the manugfacturing cycle as compared to pakistan. However to say that you could desoign a plane from Engine up was a fallacy of the highest order. We too had to make compromises by delinking avionics from the air frame due to limitation of what was available or being sold to us. However you decided to persevere which may not have been a good idea. The problem is that it seems you lacked clear direction in what you required and halfway THROUGH KEPT CHANGING GOAL POST. Eventually you saw the error of your ways and had help from the french with the air frame, Israel helped out with avionics, and US with the engine. SO your end result is a short legged plane which is too heavy , does not have enough loitering time to make any difference in a real combat scenario. I honestly think if you had gotten your bearings right and done simple design to begin with, you would have had a plane which would have been upgradeable with the passage of time. But HAL got carried away and lost focus and this is where you guys lost the plot.
Your current strategy as well(at least to me) lacks direction. You are buying from the french yet establishing assmbly line for US products? I mean WTF are these guys playing at. If you look at your acquisitions what have you achieved by procuring 36 Rafales for 8 billion$. Would it not have been more feasible procuring F16/18s from the US lock stock and barrel and assemble them in house with local units contributing with the sub systems. That would have been so much more sensible than buying an expensive plane at the cusp of technology change which may well get countered in the time it gets inducted? You will spend 20 billion eventually acquiring 126 fighters and by the time you have them all in number the fighter would become irrelevant(at least not be cutting edge anymore) as the generation change would have occured in the Asian theatre with both Pakistan and China having moved on in part if not wholly to the fifth generation fighter.
So you can see where I feel it has been an oversight to have gone for the rafale in the time frame that you have and by the time it gets inducted and operational and your boys learn the tricks on the plane, where would you be time scale wise??? Perhaps if the contract was eexecuted in 2010 with the first plane arriving in 2014-15 and fleet operability assured by 2018 it would have made sense and you would have gotten the moneys worth out of the plane by the late 20s when newer generation platforms takes over( in part if not fully).
As always if you go ijnto jingoism i will disengage as my time is not there to be wasted interacting with idiots( no disrespect meant to you of course and the idiocy exists on both sides of the divide)
Regards
A

There is no disagreement that we are short of some Flankers or heavy weight fighters specifically for Anti-ship Role .. but even if we assume that PAF is far stretched, but if we see the Navy and their Recent Purchases they are more into building a potent Sub force , now what i am assuming here that once we start to get our Chinese AIP Subs than navy will not be on Defensive , they will be more of a threat to any Challenge presented by IN and its Naval arm ... i'd say without any Doubt that if the War stretched for more than 1 week we will be in trouble and Pakistan has to be lucky all the time on every front they will open ..

A strong sub force will not protect you from the long ranged MKIs engaging karachi from deep inside India. The air arm will help. The role you are ltalking about we still lack and need to develop.
A

 

[Arsalan]

I neither demean pak or paf merely responding to elite trolling.. my response will be same even if it was Indians(in some topics)... don't you think it is immature to suggest Indian members to ask iaf, instead of backing his claims. i have reported his posts before no action taken on baseless claims. Now a days, Most probably i spend reading posts from each section..

THAT TOO is not a valid enough reason. If you have any complains regarding moderation on the forum take the matter up in relevant section. NOTHING justifies sarcastic posts!
contribute to the discussion or else never mind posting, it is as simple as that. Again, do report troll posts rather than taking matters into your own hands!

 

[YeBeWarned]

A strong sub force will not protect you from the long ranged MKIs engaging karachi from deep inside India. The air arm will help. The role you are ltalking about we still lack and need to develop.

I did not deny the Importance of a Potent Surface fleet or separate Naval Army ... What my Point was that it wont be a Piece of Cake for Indian Navy to Bomb Karachi dock this time , One AIP can keep the Battle Carrier group at bay if it is equipped with Potent system to avoid Enemy sonars ..
I mention in my post that we need flankers for Deep Strikes not just for Navy but for Air force as well .. and for Surface fleet , we are either working of upgraded F-22P's or getting Turkish Milgem Corvette .. but we need a Modified Version with a Medium range SAM.

 

[wiseone2]

Good points. I am always amazed why Indians never compare or compete against China economically, which will be a more fair comparison rather than countries that are 10x smaller than it.must be due to the defeatist mentality even hawks like Bharat Karnad talk about.

By the way, this is not to excuse Pakistan'a sorry state of economic affairs. As recently pointed out by the IMF chief, Pakistan seriously needs towiden its tax base (which is among the lowest in the world) and also to privatize the poorly performing state enterprises that are adding zero value to the overall economy.



Twisted logic.

That's like saying America fielding tactical nukes during the Cold War was an admission of US inferiority in face of Soviet thrust. Utterly laughable. Tactical nukes are there to fill gaps in the deterrence spectrum. Pakistan has done a commendable job plugging the gaps. It needs to send a clear message to india's western backers that they can equip and support India all they want, once hostilities start, the punishment will be intolerable for the enemy. Or even park these tactical weapons in the full view of western satellites during periods of crisis like Israel did during the yom kippur war to send a message to the White House that if it didn't prevent Israel from being overrun, it was going to take drastic measures.

for a while America was outnumbered in conventional weapons. hence the reliance upon tactical nukes
India is not outnumbered against Pakistan.

If this was simply a numbers game then Pakistan would disband her air force and walk away. The reality of air operations is very different. There are the intangibles and the tangibles. You cannot just look at one aspect and think it to be the end all, be all. Those who are professionals in this field, as the AVM is, know what PAF can do with the existing inventory. He hasn't mentioned even a quarter of the initiatives and capabilities at play within the PAF that we are very sure provide Pakistan with a very potent deterrence despite the other side fielding 270 MKIs and other platforms.

This is no longer about a few aircraft. This is about optimizing the force multipliers in a way that provides unprecedented coverage of Pakistan through existing capabilities. Lots of things are unsaid, but the key point is that at least currently, PAF is not lagging behind in any specific area which would cause undue worry to the AHQ.

This is the biggest gap between the IAF and PAF. the trend line points to widening of the gap unless China becomes a world power in military aviation

 

[Stephen Cohen]

IAF is far superior to PAF and its superiority is INCREASING every year

 

[Major d1]

The contest to watch in South Asia is that between India and Pakistan. equilibrium in terms of military balance and air-power in the region.

 

[Echo_419]

Email your air chief as to how many of them can actually fly? I know the percentage and its not good.



Sure keep on dreaming . in 2008 your government couldnt invade us because your air chief said IAF lacked the depth to launch an attack .

You are deviating from the topic

 

[TylerDurden07]

i believe our MKIs are more than enough to keep PAF at bay. we just need to resolve engine issues and increase its avaiability rate to 75-80%.
Upgrade em to super sukhois. they are lovely and mean machines.
No need of rafales/F16s .

 

[danger007]

THAT TOO is not a valid enough reason. If you have any complains regarding moderation on the forum take the matter up in relevant section. NOTHING justifies sarcastic posts!
contribute to the discussion or else never mind posting, it is as simple as that. Again, do report troll posts rather than taking matters into your own hands!

It would be good, if the members stick to the topic rather personal insults or bringing defecation topics into the every other thread.. am fine to discuss defence related topic.. i been reporting many time.. but that guy got immunity from moderation..

 

[blain2]

The usual chest thumping aside, currently the balance of power is actually a healthy one. It does not allow any one side complete freedom to get away with whatever they want in terms of the execution of air operations and achieving complete superiority and that bodes well for regional security.

Frankly speaking, as I have mentioned above, PAF is in a decent trim. IAF has modernized too obviously however neither side has a capability which unnerves the other side too much.

 

[YeBeWarned]

A strong sub force will not protect you from the long ranged MKIs engaging karachi from deep inside India. The air arm will help. The role you are ltalking about we still lack and need to develop.

I did not deny the Importance of a Potent Surface fleet or separate Naval Army ... What my Point was that it wont be a Piece of Cake for Indian Navy to Bomb Karachi dock this time , One AIP can keep the Battle Carrier group at bay if it is equipped with Potent system to avoid Enemy sonars ..
I mention in my post that we need flankers for Deep Strikes not just for Navy but for Air force as well .. and for Surface fleet , we are either working of upgraded F-22P's or getting Turkish Milgem Corvette .. but we need a Modified Version with a Medium range SAM.