Bilal Khan (Quwa)
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Drone carriers
I like the idea of UCAV's for the navy. PN don't have an airwing of their own, PAF is limited in it's resources for the moment, a fleet of UCAV would help give PN airstrike capability, and would also likely be difficult to intercept.
To everyone saying carriers and fixed-wing naval assets, it might be worth it for us to follow Turkey's developments.PLATFORMS
1) Carrier vessel. Ideally a small to midsized carrier, able to accommodate 20 or so jets to provide air defence to the fleet.....like the Italians of WW2 we are living in a fools paradise if we think that we don't need carriers, that land-based airpower is sufficient and they were operating in the narrow Mediterranean, not the open ocean as we are.
Not only are they developing UCAVs capable of operating from their current LHD (TCG Anadolu) without catapults, but the Turks are even studying what it'd take to make the Hurjet operable from that ship too (with minimal modifications to the ship).
I think this work is gamechanging. If Turkey succeeds, then even the PN can have a carrier-based aviation wing consisting of both manned fighters and drones. The dependency would be getting an LHD, which are generally available for around $2-ish billion US from several countries (China, Italy, Spain, etc).
The near thing about LHDs is that they're also configurable for amphibious operations. So the PN wouldn't have to stick with a single-purpose design, its 'carriers' can double as troop carriers, armour freighters, HADR assets, etc.
The downside would be that a theoretical PN air wing wouldn't have a large twin-engine fighter -- it's main asset would basically be the Hurjet. So, we are talking about more limited range and payload. Then again, it shouldn't be too far from the JF-17, so if the PAF can use the JF-17 for maritime ops, then the PN should be able to use the Hurjet?