F-16 Still Competitive in Fighter Market

[maverick2009]

F16 stunning fighter and a nitemare for most adversaries that have had to fly against this.

In my book F16/60 with AESA and latest jammers are almost on par with Rafale & EF.

The almost being the latest Euro JETS HAVE MUCH LOWER RCS. and more engine power.

 

[araz]

Ihave read an article form a research institute . It is burried somewhere in the archives of this forum. the result of their research suggest that it is financially more viable for Uk to sell/retire all its EFs and buy F16s. They would still end up saving money and have no detriment in their capability.
Araz

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

i still regret that PAF never decided to purchase the A-10 warthogs from USA. They offered them to us long ago and we refused them.

Perfect weapon for fighting taleban and hitting their hideouts. And if there was war with india, it would be perfect for taking out enemy armour.

Those 23-30 mm incendiary anti-armour rounds can turn steel into ash.

 

[MaXimMaRz]

i still regret that PAF never decided to purchase the A-10 warthogs from USA. They offered them to us long ago and we refused them.

Perfect weapon for fighting taleban and hitting their hideouts. And if there was war with india, it would be perfect for taking out enemy armour.

Those 23-30 mm incendiary anti-armour rounds can turn steel into ash.

A-10 is Good system, but its a Goodie. And Goodies goes to the one who has his basics taken care of. Prime role of Airpower is to maintain a certain degree of control of the air (as planned for war) , once that is achived only then you step into the arena of Air to ground equipments in terms of Counter land operations. So PAF has wisely choose not to By A-10s

 

[Tang0]

The A-10 had a long history of being ignored before the first gulf war. Its slow speed and lack of Air-to-Air capability made it vulnerable in the "Grand European Tank Battle" that the pentagon was busy dreaming up during the 80's. Its general un-sexyness made it something of a hardship assignment to AF pilots dreaming of being a fighter jock. Before the first gulf conflict the wheels were turning for the air force to turn the warthog fleet over to the army. The AF and many people in the Army were of the opinion that the new generation of attack helicopters was going to make the A-10 pretty much irrelevant anyway. The shear hardiness of the craft was born out in the gulf however, when A-10's made it home after sustaining massive damage. They racked up a very impressive number of tank kills as well. The AF decided to hang on to it, and the rest is history...

 

[MastanKhan]

i still regret that PAF never decided to purchase the A-10 warthogs from USA. They offered them to us long ago and we refused them.

Perfect weapon for fighting taleban and hitting their hideouts. And if there was war with india, it would be perfect for taking out enemy armour.

Those 23-30 mm incendiary anti-armour rounds can turn steel into ash.

Hi,

Actually for an old dog like PAF missed the easiest trick in its books to get the A 10's and then the F 16's. They were offered before the F 16's---they should have accepted that plane---after taking over---they should have gone back to the americans and stated---this plane doesnot do the job that we need it for---so can we please have some F 16's now to go with the A 10's. In the end the PAF would have killed two birds with one stone.

 

[PAFAce]

Actually for an old dog like PAF missed the easiest trick in its books to get the A 10's and then the F 16's. They were offered before the F 16's---they should have accepted that plane---after taking over---they should have gone back to the americans and stated---this plane doesnot do the job that we need it for---so can we please have some F 16's now to go with the A 10's. In the end the PAF would have killed two birds with one stone.

The Americans are not operating a 7-11 convenience store for aircrafts. We really had to fight for our F-16s (on the negotiation table) according to the official histories of the PAF. Had we gone for the A-10s earlier, who knows how many (or few) F-16s we would have been able to procure.

Our needs of the time were to keep Soviet/Afghan Air Forces out of Pakistan, a job better accomplished by the F-16s. The A-10s would have been very useful for CAS in a war with India or the recent insurgencies within our nation, however, neither of these scenarios concerned the US at the time. Therefore, it would have been difficult to convince them that we were not playing games with them at the time. But yes, I agree with you, in hindsight, some A-10s would be just about perfect right now. Who knows, maybe if our leaders get serious about fighting the terrorists, we could still replace American Reaper attacks with Pakistani A-10 attacks.

 

[araz]

The Americans are not operating a 7-11 convenience store for aircrafts. We really had to fight for our F-16s (on the negotiation table) according to the official histories of the PAF. Had we gone for the A-10s earlier, who knows how many (or few) F-16s we would have been able to procure.

Our needs of the time were to keep Soviet/Afghan Air Forces out of Pakistan, a job better accomplished by the F-16s. The A-10s would have been very useful for CAS in a war with India or the recent insurgencies within our nation, however, neither of these scenarios concerned the US at the time. Therefore, it would have been difficult to convince them that we were not playing games with them at the time. But yes, I agree with you, in hindsight, some A-10s would be just about perfect right now. Who knows, maybe if our leaders get serious about fighting the terrorists, we could still replace American Reaper attacks with Pakistani A-10 attacks.

Just out of interest, what is PAF using for attacks of this nature now. I was under the impression that the A5s were acquired for the same purpose.
WaSalam
Araz

 

[Munir]

Why do you need a10?

-Nuclear waste for decades if they use their gun...
-Very slow and vulnerable for aaa
-And do you need something that heavy for Al Qaida that have no tanks?

I would opt for armed C130... UAV's and attack heli's.

 

[Zob]

A-10s is a luxury that big powerful super powers can waste money on i rather spend money on buying attack helicopters.....and i still don't understand PAF and its obsession with American technology....by the way just out of curiosirty...if PAF ever wishes to aquire the Japanese Mitusbisihi F1s can we get them....cuz after all Japan paid for the reasearch and development and all that the fighter is strcitly a Jpanese defence force plane even though the platform is similar to that of the F-16s

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

Why do you need a10?

-Nuclear waste for decades if they use their gun...
-Very slow and vulnerable for aaa
-And do you need something that heavy for Al Qaida that have no tanks?

I would opt for armed C130... UAV's and attack heli's.

taleban have underground bunkers, and we dont have carpet bombs...even if we did, civilian casualties will be so high and its wrong to use them


A-10 are precise...quick dive, fire the anti-armour rounds, then go.


the rounds are not nuclear-tipped....they are just high velocity incendiary rounds --37mm i think.



i do agree with u, that we do need UAVs. We made request for predators, but pro-india US under Obama will not allow it. We already have UAVs, but they arent armed. We should be using them for recce at least ---i dont see why we dont



We also need Gunships......Cobras were upgraded but we should get Apache (or some european equivalent)

 

[blain2]

Just out of interest, what is PAF using for attacks of this nature now. I was under the impression that the A5s were acquired for the same purpose.
WaSalam
Araz

PAF is using the F-16s for the precision strike and Cobras for general CAS and force protection.

The problem with most aircraft (including A-10s) is the limited loiter time. AC-130 platform would be great for such missions now.

For an Air Force the size of Pakistan, you want as many MR platforms as possible. Although not a perfect solution for each of the mission profiles, the recent updates in avionics and weapons allows for greatly increased surface attack capability.

 

[blain2]

taleban have underground bunkers, and we dont have carpet bombs...even if we did, civilian casualties will be so high and its wrong to use them


A-10 are precise...quick dive, fire the anti-armour rounds, then go.


the rounds are not nuclear-tipped....they are just high velocity incendiary rounds --37mm i think.



i do agree with u, that we do need UAVs. We made request for predators, but pro-india US under Obama will not allow it. We already have UAVs, but they arent armed. We should be using them for recce at least ---i dont see why we dont



We also need Gunships......Cobras were upgraded but we should get Apache (or some european equivalent)

A-10 uses DU rounds which have caused some health issues in Iraq.

 

[qsaark]

A-10 uses DU rounds which have caused some health issues in Iraq.

DU has a very long half-life of 4.5 billion years, additionally it emits alpha particles which travel to a few cm at most hence it is not really a serious health hazard by itslef (at least apparently). The problem is related decay products such as protactinium-234 (beta emitter), thorium-234 (beta emitter), Radon-222 (alpha emitter), Polonium-218 (alpha emitter), Polonium-214 (alpha emitter), Polonium-210 (alpha emitter), Lead-214 (beta emitter), Lead-210 (beta emitter), Bismuth-214 (beta emitter), and Bismuth-210 (beta emitter).

All of the above mentioned decay products are generated within days or months. The products that take for example thousands of year to form are Uranium-234, Thorium-230, and Radium-226 (Pentagon will tell you about these products but not the one that are generated between days-months and become immediate health concern)

As we know the beta particles are high-energy, high-speed electrons or positrons that penetrate into the living matter and cause damage to the DNA. The damage to the DNA results into mutations and cells eventually become cancerous.

Blain, Is Pakistan manufacturing any DU tipped munition? I guess they do.

 

[Patriot]

DU has a very long half-life of 4.5 billion years, additionally it emits alpha particles which travel to a few cm at most hence it is not really a serious health hazard by itslef. The problem is protactinium-234 and thorium-234 which are generated by the DU. Both the protactinium-234 and thorium-234 emit the beta particle which penetrate into the living matter and cause damage to the DNA which in turn may lead to cancers etc.

Thanks for the info.I have also seen some documentries on youtube and the gulf war veterans got Cancers and other problems.