Nuclear Clown
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Tejas has way more potential than many think... J-20 may have much less than CCP thinks : the use of Lockheed-like coating makes it a hangar queen. Shenyang returned to the coating after several years at trying to make a Dassault-like baked-in radar absorbent material that does not needs constant recoating for their J-31...
Now, although I have doubts about this ranking because, as a monster named Stalin once declared, "Numbers have a quality of their own" while he poured millions of conscript to the frontline with often a single riffle for 10 soldiers, even if IAF has received 36 of the best jet fighter on market with what is commonly seen as the best AAM (the Meteor), even if Tejas and Jaguar are receiving AESA radars, and Vympel R-73/R-77 are being replaced by MICA-IR and I-Derby-ER as standard AAMs while they can use the KS-172 to attack support aircraft at 400km, PLAAF has numbers, then, they're into generalizing AESA radars (J-10C, J-11D, J-16, J-20, J-31, export JF-17 block.3 to Pakistan), more advanced AAMs like PL-12, PL-15, PL-21 that are hard to evaluate since none has been fired in anger, then it's hard to evaluate J-20 and J-31 which have just started mass production... J-31 being fit with the same radar as J-10C which performed better when confronted to RTAF's Gripen-C during drills when it came to WVR (within visual range) engagements but J-10C was simply rammed by Gripen-C in BVR (beyond visual range), thus, Thai Gripens only had AMRAAM and Sidewinders as AAMs and the old Erickson PESA radar, an upgrade of the Sea-Harrier's one... Thailand has recently decided to upgrade with the Gripen-E's AESA radar, the Meteor BVRAAM replacing the AMRAAM and the IRIS-T replacing the Sidewinder (I'd frankly go for the MICA-NG/IR insread : with a 80km max range confused with its no escape zone and 50G manoeuvres, its seeker even ruins the advantages of stealth aircraft, and only the Meteor has a larger NEZ)...
So I think that those who ranked India over are considering such qualities but are forgetting numbers and the very Sun-Tzunan high risk of NOT knowing the whereabouts of PLAAF gear used in combat, At the same time, With barely no Chengdu/Shenyang aircraft having been used in real combat since the J-7 and decades ago and while PLAAF doesn't participates major international large scale drills and PLAAF hasn't fought a real air war since the Korean one, how PLAAF would fight is a big ????
The fact Russia which has way more "practise" has issues against the Soviet-era air defences and even aircraft. Still has to be confirmed but an Ukrainian 35y old MiG-29 may just have shot down a brand new Su-35...
But now back to IAF :
If Govt of India was listening to the DRDO+Dassault advises, which they didn't, just like they didn't cared about Kurt Tank's advices about the Marut, I can promise you no jet fighter pilot would like to enter an area patrolled by a Tejas to the Dassault proposed specifications... Remember that ADA initially bought the project from Dassault, so, at the beginning, the Tejas , as well as the Novi Avion Dassault sold to Yugoslavia's SOKO, were side projects to Rafale designed to replace the Mirage-2000 by something even better...
Safran delivered a 73/98kN version of the M88 engine to DRDO for test purposes, but since it happened, Safran has shown a 100kN dry thrust version and says it can be delivered with a 115kN afterburner into 18 months...
Even with 100kN dry thrust, it's more than the GE F414 mounted on the Gripen-E, and Thai-AF Gripen-C gave a serious spanking to PLAAF's during drills...
But the M88 is so small that it'd allow to stuff as much internal fuel into the Tejas airframe as in a Gripen-E, Mirage-2000 or F-16. The F-16's F100-PW-220 has a 105.7kN afterburner thrust for a 9t empty weight. Gripen-E's F414 = 97.9kN for a 8t empty weight.
The M88 has a funny feature : it's so easy to maintain that normal use means 6 combat sorties per 24h and intensive use = 11 sorties...
Intensive use for a F-18 means 4 sorties, when it comes to Flanker or Fulcrum, it's 3 sorties. If PRC was able to provide better engines than Klimov, Pakistan wouldn't insist on having a modified version of the MiG-29's engine on the JF-17...
The M88 is also half as cheap to use as a F414 ($10k/h while the Klimov costs $13.5k/h/engine)
Now, wouldn't India be an unsusceptible procurement mess, they'd adapt the M88 for their full fighter fleet! Moreover, it's modular, so you can change the modules to get the thrust you want..
- 100kN/dry thrust only for Rafale, MiG-29, MiG-21bis (they'd better mount copies of the J-7's double-delta wing and the Ye-6's canards, a BRS parachute would be useful too: MiG-21's stall speed is very high, it's the main reason for high crashes rates), Tejas Mk1/1A
- 50kN/dry thrust only for Jaguar. It may be feasible to install it on Hawk trainers which have a Mach1.2 VNe
- 115kN for Mirage-2000, improved Tejas, MiG-29K and if they go Rafale-M in the navy
- 115kN with vectored thrust for Su-30MKI (the lighter engine and less fuel consumption compensates the AL-31's 122.58kN afterburner's, 100kN is more dry thrust even than AL-41 on Su-35)
=> By doing so, the whole fleet cost of use would be slashed by 50% in peace time, therefore allowing the annual purchase of 36 Rafales and 42 Tejas without spending more. You also freaking improve logistics !!! Moreover, MiG-29, Su-30, Tejas, Mirage-2000, MiG-21 can all be fit with significantly larger internal fuel tanks, especially Russian aircraft whose engines are very large, you likely may stuff about 4000L+ into MiG-29 and 7000L+ into a Su-30MKI
Then the whole fleet can be pushed to 11 missions per 24h. With a total of 750 combat aircraft in IAF+INAA as for today, therefore, becoming able to perform 8250 sorties per 24h.
This would be on par with what PLAAF+PLANAF may generate
Note that I didn't included trainers like the 36x JL-9, 36x JL-10 or 35x JJ-7 with performances similar to a MiG-21/J-7, as well as the 202 JL-8 or 35 JJ-6 with performances similar to the 119 BAe Hawk into IAF/INAA. I didn't included UCAVs
At the present day, PAF may be able to generate 800-850 sorties per 24h.
Actually, in the fleet rebuild, they'd need 15 Su-30MKI squadrons of 18, 15 Rafale-C/B squadrons of 18, 15 improved Tejas squadrons of 21and 4 squadrons of 18 Rafale-Ms for INAA while older aircraft should be versed in an air national guard at Indian states level, doing sky-police, ADIZ interceptions/EEZ identifications and 2nd line missions. No more than a pilot per airframe and no need to be super trained, 2 spares per aircraft in the ANC so spare parts can be scavenged.
Note that a significant number of missiles and guided bombs should be kept in storages : I'd consider at least 8000 Meteors and 6000 MICA-NG, PLA alone weights about 7000 armoured/artillery/SAM targets, countless trucks, cars, etc... Forget about using classic airbases on which cruise and ballistic missiles are gonna rain. Su-30 may have to use highways due to weight but Rafale and Tejas can use normal roads, eventually avenues.
But back to the Tejas mods to go :
Dassault considered that HAL/ADA did some structural errors, so their mods would make Tejas able to withstand 11G+ manoeuvres w.o. metal fatigues while reducing the empty weight by half a ton...
This implies a 6100kg empty weight and potentially 10.2t dry thrust and 11.73t afterburner...
If I remember well, the 11.1t-empty F-106 Delta Dart had a 73/109kN engine and the 12.1t-empty F-105D had 64/117kN...It may help getting an idea of the potentials...
Meanwhile, Thales modified the RBE-2/AESA to fit in the Tejas' nose. From what filtered over the years, the RBE-2/AESA was 95% as powerful as the F-35's APG-81 before RBE-2/AESA's latest upgrade, now, it packs more... and a Thales's T/R modules do the job of two Northrop-Grumman ones. RBE-2/AESA is the most powerful of the 4 radars able to operate with the Meteor BVRAAM
OSF-IT is not an IRST, it's a 2nd gen QWIP EOST, DDM-NG (MAWS+EODAS), TALIOS and AREOS use the same technology... J-20, J-31, F-22, F-35, etc, are no more stealth in BVR when you have this
Now, he best way to proceed would be making only the Tejas Trainer airframe, as well as only making the Gripen-D, both Tejas and Gripen using GE F404/414, you can get similar results.
Why doing so? Make it modular, and so the rear seat+controls can be replaced by the full SPECTRA suite+additional fuel. You just have to make one type of airframe, and if the client wants, switch from the conversion trainer version to a full combat-capable single seater with the same devastating capabilities as a Rafale, including active stealth which, with the Rafale F4 introduces 3d gen stealth while 2nd gen was only available for B-2 and Rafale up to F3R. 3rd gen is also featured on the M51.3 SLBM in service sine June 2020...
Dassault even proposed a BRS parachute to save the airframe in case of engine failure
Near all the mods but the structural ones were tested and validated by DRDO, the cost per unit was estimated at $45-46M.
I'd also recommand to fit CFTs (conformal fuel tanks)
then having custom hardpoints made similar to these :
So, depending on the weapon--station rating, you may have 2 or 4 Meteor or MICA-NG mounted laterally on each pylon and add a TER for 3 more or some drop-tank or air-to-ground/surface payload...
You may easily load such an improved Tejas with 20 Meteor BVRAAMs and 4 MICA-NG/IR added with two CFTs and a 2000L drop tank...
M88 has already been seen flying for 10-12 continuous hours (better buy the US supe-dupa diapers for pilots and considering how small are such aircraft, better hire small pilots or girls. I don't want to taste the smell of a cockpit after such a flight.
For sure, Rafale will offer way more payload or range, e.g. from Taiwan or the Philippines, you may attack any ship from/to PRC, as well as doing maritime strikes on all PRC shores.
I'd strongly recommand, in case of Rafale purchase, to hardcore lobby the French govt. for a conventional version of the ASMPA-R as anti-ship missile (as it was initially designed for) as you may have serous warships with powerful CIWS to defeat, e.g. PLAN has a copy of the Goalkeeper, but they mount it with a copy of the A-10's gun ft with 11 barrels instead of 7, and higher fire rate. The ASMPA-R has smilar performances to a P-800 Oniks-M/BrahMos but weights 900kg.
The Exocet block.3 is still very good and half as cheap as a Harpoon while much lighter (650kg) but if you have to engage large warships with heavy defences...
The Apache ALCM is a version of the SCALP, a single one will ruin 400m of foundations of an airbase runway 400km+ inside an enemy airspace, e.g. 8 like these and at the Hotan airbase in occupied Xingjiang, they would have to fully rebuild the runway, while the SCALP would do more classic cruise missiles strikes and you don't even need to enter a contested airspace...
Now, why India is not proceeding this way?
Go figure why they take 10 years to decide for a jet-fighter for a procurement of 126 units and 5 more to sign a contract for 36 aircraft!!!
They were into buying 150 Mirage-2000 in the 80's, IAF barely obtained 60-70 in 2 batches and got about as much MiG-29 which were far from being as satisfactory. When it became obvious during the Kargil war, IAF pressured to get more, by the time the govt decided to go along, Mirage-2000 was out of production. Dassault proposed to move the dismantled production line in India...
This would have allowed to replace MiG-21/23/27, Jaguar and even ageing MiG-29, they started the MMRCA contest instead, which was finally torpedoed by late DM Parrikar who publicly vowed India not to receive a single Rafale and to do another large order of Flankers...
In 2019, before Rafale's introduction, Mirage-2000 again proved itself the backbone of IAF, doing a low altitude deep penetration in hostile airspace.
Indian Navy wanted the Rafale-M as soon as 2001... MiG-29K was imposed to them in replacement of ageing Sea-Harrier, in the end, they're mostly operate as land-based MiG-29 : the landing gear breaks on each deck landing
Su-30MKI reliability issues have been fixed, these came from the on one side the engine maker lagging in spare parts deliveries with prices doing the yoyo, then logistical issues at both Russian and Indian levels. At the same time... The Gold standard in IAF was the Mirage-2000 which, if properly maintained, can perform 6 missions per 24h in intensive use, therefore, when they say Su-30MKI reached 50% availability, it's in fact a close to 100% availability for a Flanker...
So, actually, IAF has simply all the tools to be the #1 Asian air power at hand, but they won't achieve this without serious procurements doctrine change and a very pragmatic approach which, BTW, wouldn't be so expensive as the modernisation can be funded simply by cutting on the costs of use, just like airlines did when they adopted another Safran designed engine, the M56, better known as CFM56 since the mass production of the best sellers of jet engines is mass produced by the CFM consortium = Safran+GE
