Question to you is why Pakistan air force went to upgrade its mirages with Grifo-M radar and test were of missiles was made in sea in times when our relations with SA were really good? And why did not PAF bought F-8 BVR capable aircraft from china when offered??
Military industrial cooperation between Pakistan and South Africa dates back to the mid-1990s when the PAF sought Denel Aerospace's expertise for developing a family of precision-guided munitions for ground attack as well as a family of air combat missiles.
In February 1996, soon after the PAF concluded a US$50 million deal with Italy's Galileo Avionics for the supply of 32 Grifo-M3 airborne multi-mode pulse-Doppler radars for the upgraded Mirage IIIEAs, contractual negotiations began on a
$160 million contract with Kentron to cover the licensed-production by AERO of the latter's U-Darter within-visual-range air-to-air missile (a reverse-engineered R550 Magic-2 missile developed by MBDA). Following this,
the PAF by April 1999 had commenced contractual negotiations with Denel Aerospace for co-development of a beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) under a project codenamed H-2. Flight tests of the BVRAAM got underway in 2001 and the resultant missile is now the AERO-produced variant of Kentron's BVRAAM T-Darter missile (data linked and improved R-Darter ), which in turn is a derivative of the Derby BVRAAM developed by Israel's RAFAEL Armament Authority. Denel radar-guided R-Darter, which is virtually the same missile as the Israeli Aircraft Industries Derby. The product of Israeli and South African cooperation during the 1980s and 1990s,
the R-Darter has a weight of 120kg and reported range of 63km.
The first 4
0 F-16A/Bs of Block 15 configuration came along with 500 AIM-7F Sparrows and equal number of AIM-9L Sidewinders. Also included in this package were 20 ALQ-131 jamming pods and an equal no of ATLIS-2 laser designator pods for the Mk82 laser-guided bombs and AS-30L laser-guided air-to-ground PGMs.
US Defence Security Cooperation Agency's notification of June 1986 to the US Congress contains additional details.
125 AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles have been delivered. 125 will be delivered in 2009, 125 in 2010 and the last 125 in 2011. Many of AIM-9M's have also been delivered.
Combine the news of delivery of 125 AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles with following and it will make some sense
Pakistan Fiza'ya
Modifications
The Pakistan Air Force currently has the
Block 15 F-16A/B model in operation, which has an upgraded APG-66 radar that brings it close to the MLU (Mid-life Update) radar technology. The
main advantage is the ability to use the AIM-7 Sparrow and AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles if they were ever to be released to the PAF. Furthermore, the radar is capable of sorting out tight formations of aircraft and has a 15%-20% range increase over previous models. All the earlier F-16s were brought up to OCU standards and have received the Falcon UP structural modification package
So now
34 PAF F-16A/B Block 15 OCU are armed with 125 AIM-120 AMRAAM C-5 (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile) fire-and-forget air-to-air Missile missiles which have range of 105 km (65 miles) and 500 AIM-7F Sparrow III with range of 70 km (38 nm).46 F-16A/B that are now undergoing MLU upgrades and the new-build ones will be able to fire the AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM. About
100 F-7Ps Grifo-7 radar will be able to fire the and 60 F-7PGs Grifo-7PG radar will be able to fire H-2 beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM).
30+Mirage-III Rose-I with Grifo-M3 will be able to fire H-2 beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM).
SO far only ground testing of the Astra missile motor was done and it still need lots and lots of testing before it will be capable to deployment. Astra has yet to be ready for air testing of missile motor before actually can be tested for real interception tests.
It is yet to receive its guidance package from MBDA and now news are appearing that Astra AAM will be using the Russian AGAT JSC-built active seeker, instead of the one developed by MBDA for the Mica-EM so you can expect more and more delays in yeas and decades to come
Astra BVRAAM is no more then a Akash Medium range surface-to-air missile or Trishul short range surface-to-air missile ( both of which are rejected by indian airforce And indian navy due to lack of performance), Nag "Fire-and-forget" anti-tank missile ( Only NAG ATGM was able to achieve few of its designed objectives indian army have forget nag and its designed team will soon be fired )or
BrahMos is a supersonic cruise missile that is nothing more than indian painted version of russian P-800 Oniks / Yakhont that will now not be tested upon the SU-30MKI as it is too heavy and lacks the capabilities of modern ALCM like RAAD and other Indian projects that were super duper capable but their own armed forcees are not happy to get that
super heavy junk which is world only cruise missile that need to fly @ 14000m+ hight to have a range of 280km at low flight its range is only 120km @1.4 mach
India have yet to start the up gradation of Mirage-2000H which are currently india's most capable PGM (Laser-guided bomb) strike carrier with the help of Israel.So far it is equipped with ancient Matra Super 530 medium-range semi-active radar-guided air-to-air missile with very limited performance. Even after such upgrades its air to air weaponry will be limited to derby BVRAAM from Israel similar to south African R-Darter and less capable the T-Darter which was offered to Pakistan air force for its upgraded Mirage-III ROSE-I , F-7MP/P/PGs and JF-17 in late nineties.
Indian MiG-29 are the oldest version of MIG-29 series and under current plans IAF will perform limited upgrade to make them capable of carrying R-77 in future and after watching the pace of Indian upgrade program it looks that it will take at least an other decade to do so. In its current form it can only carry Vympel R-27 Semi-active radar guided AAM whose super performance in Africa wars is known to the whole world
Out of 120 odd MIG-27s only 40 odd will go through limited up gradation in future to provide them some of the modern ground strike capabilities until then they have very basic PGM capability.
Majority of Mig-23 are about to be retired next year or so and will see not up gradation program.
Out of 300 odd mig-21s only 125 got up gradation and are called bison. These were equipped with the
R-77 which was only tested by bison @18-20km at most and never was tested at BVR ranges. Out of which 4-5 bison already got tired and took early retirement with their pilots.
Even these upgraded Bison are less capable in air to air fight when compared to our F-7PG
Yes PAF is currently lacking behind from IAF in some aspects of warfare but it is not a one sided game yet as PAFs strike weapons are much more advance then that of IAF and BVR advantage of IAF if therre is any will end in next two to four years as
PAF will field 46-60 F-16s AM/BM MLU(as capable as Block 52 in term of avionics capability) and18 F-16s C/D Block 52+ with AIM-120 C-5 BVRAAM , 36-40 Fc-20 with SD-10A BVRAAM and 100 odd JF-17 with SD-10A/Mica BVRAAM and 100 F-7Ps Grifo-7 radar will be able to fire the and 60 F-7PGs Grifo-7PG radar will be able to fire H-2 beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM)
Pakistani modern ALCM with range of 350 km+ and GLCM Babur with range of 700 km+ both of which have a CEP of less then 3 meters H-4 with 120 km PGMs which carry terminal guided targeting system to get CEP of 3 meter (some times called Pakistani version of SA Rapter-I/II or MUPSOW).Long range PGM to be developed under Project H-4 was a 120km-range surgical missile armed with high-explosive runway-cratering bomblets, as well as a passive radiation seeker for targeting hostile ground-based air defence radars. This is according to some news is a derivative of the Rapter-I/II MUPSOW PGM that has been under development by Kentron since the early 1990s and incorporates twin side-mounted air intakes and fixed horizontal and vertical tailfins
. PAF has conducted two Successful qualification flights of the H-4 PGM , these being done on April 22 and December 17, in 2003.
All these highly capable PGMs are enough to make sure that IAF planes will have no bases left with runways to land if they start a war