GriffinsRule
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I am aware of what happened under ROSE program. I was more interested in what if any meaningful upgrades took place for the non-ROSE mirages and particularly the reason for not going for upgrades; specially ROSE-IV which was proposed by french or even applying ROSE-I/II/III to remaining fleet. Given the sanctions and PAF needs at the time it seemed logical to continue the ROSE program.
Most often high cost and ageing fleet was cited as the reason for discontinuation of this program. I can understand the high cost part for ROSE-IV since it may have involved structural improvements and even a new engine. But a drilled down version on ROSE-IV or if not feasible ROSE-I/II/II could have been applied to the remaining fleet. The ageing fleet reason does make sense in hind-sight as Mirages end up serving for another 2+ decades.
As of today their are currently 3 non-ROSE squadrons:
As for the BVR missile being available; go through the initial pages of this thread and you would know what I am talking about. There was confirmation about presence of BVR missile based on R-Darter by many senior members/PAF insiders. But no official confirmation ever came.
- No. 8: Operating Mirage V PA2/PA3 (PA3s has Agave Radar mated with Exocet specialized for maritime strike; while PA2s have Cyrano IV radar for tactical attack role)
- No. 15 majorly having non-upgraded Mirage V (VPA2, but also few other special mission variants like reconnaissance).
- No. 22 is OCU, so mostly has dual seaters (Mirage III DP, DA, DL etc)
I am going to have to speculate myself for the reasons, but part of the problem was also which aircraft to upgrade for what configuration. Why the original Mirages were not upgraded akin to the ROSE I/II/III standard, I think is partly because of numbers and varying variants of Mirages left over. For example, PAF has lost most of the original Mirage III EP (there were 18 ordered in 1967). These would have been akin to the Mirage III Os from Australia and could have supported the Grifo M radar but probably were not upgraded due to age and the small numbers left in service. The token number of Mirage III RPs could not be upgraded to ROSE because at the time they offered the only asset that gave us the limited recon ability. (It was not until 2008-2009 that the first C-130s were upgraded with Bright Star config etc and later joined by F-16s with DB110 pods).
That leaves the Mirage V PA/PA2s ... I am not certain of the numbers left after attrition, but perhaps it was decided not to upgrade them as they are all radar equipped Mirage V variants, unlike the EFs we got from France (as No 8 Sqd also operates in the anti-shipping roles and thus upgrading half of the fleet might not have made sense?)
I think what it points to is that there is enough variations in the different Mirage variants that a standardized upgrade was not possible for the remaining Mirages. If memory serves me right, when PAF went to look for Mirages from Europe, part of the requirement was to find 40-50 of the same model. They lucked out with finding them in France. But they had also looked at Belgium and Swiss ones as well. Similarly, all the Aussie Mirage III were mostly the same ... and the ones that were not, like a few of the two-seaters and recon versions, were not part of the ROSE I upgrade. I might be wrong here of course but unless someone asks this question next time to someone at the MRF, we might never know concretely.
So to basically summarize, we probably did not upgrade the original Mirages because of a hodgepodge of variants. From the original 85-90, we have only enough left for 2 squadrons. And these also include some aircraft from Libya and Lebanon. So that is probably why (no one standard).
As for the squadrons, I think your list is right. From what I can see, the non-ROSE Mirages are in the following 3 squadrons:
Mirage V PA/PA2/PA3s: No 8 Sqd 'Haiders'
Mirage V PA, Mirage III EP/RP/DP: No 15 Sqd 'Cobras'
Mirage III/V (Mixture of varients): No 22 OCU Sqd 'Ghazis'
ROSE upgraded squadrons are below.
The 40 Mirage V EFs from France are split up between the two tactical attack squadrons,
Mirage V EF: No 25 Sqd 'Eagles' and No 27 Sqd 'Zarrars'.
Mirage III O: No 7 Sqd 'Bandits' as well as a few with the CCS.
For the BVR question, if the Mirages had the capability, it would have been made public by now. But given that there has never been any evidence of such and over the years, different PAF personnel have given interviews stating that we didn't get the BVR missiles until JF-17 and then upgraded F-16s, I think is sufficient for me to think that is perhaps closer to reality.
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