Looks at the mindset of most of the folks here. The moment US threw the bone, eveeryone jumped on it to get more F16s. a slave mindset can never be independent. You should be saying, lets continue with JF17 and AzM program instead of wasting brain cells on F16s. THe world has moved to JSF 35 and Pakistan wants F16s... sad indeed sad.
You are right, we do suffer from a slave mindset. It is, in my opinion the biggest reason for our underdevelopment, lack of merit and corruption. All these slaves, starting from Ayub Khan preferred London over Pakistan, and today even you see our corrupt are corrupt because they want to be white, want to own mansions in England, USA, etc.
We did jump the boat the moment we were offered F-16s, like Pavlov's dogs. The other side of it is that we saw on the 27th how effective our F-16s were. What they could do. We shot down 8 aircraft without losing a single plane. And got a helicopter as a bonus own goal for the IAF. There is a high probability of a limited war within the next 5 years and the air force will play a pivotal role.
The air force needs F-16s. The tech is superior to the Chinese and Russian stuff out there. The kinematics are better than the JFT. We don't want to be another Iraq or Syria. And we can't fight effectively without these machines to provide top cover against Rafales, MKI and what not.
If we could get the F-35, we certainly would get it, but
this is the best we can get.
The other part of this equation is for the first time in a long time, we are making this deal as equals with the US, not as its henchman. Even Zia didn't have this, he literally handed photographs of our nuclear installations to the US, even though the ISI caught the spies red handed.
We do have to think bigger. In the time of Machiavelli, and later with the collapse of the Roman empire, it was the mercenary armies, and allied Germanic tribes that, while they initially worked for the Romans (like we did for the US), they increasingly gained in power and prestige until they had their own game going. Notice the Huns who ultimately became a major power by themselves.
Now, to do this, we have to take this kind of opportunities now, and look for other opportunities. We have to be like the Mamluks, and work our way upwards in the food chain. We have to think strategically and not, as you noted, continue with the slave mind. We have to stop continuing to be a colonial army and start thinking big. Thinking of how we can take advantage from the mess in the Middle East, In Iran, in Afghanistan. Howe we can act as a gateway to central asia, using the Chinese belt and road.
Howe we can make big deals with Turkey and Malaysia. How we can act like the mercenary armies of the time of Machiavelli who increasingly became a force unto themselves. In this way, we have to become a new and nascent Sparta.
As
@MastanKhan noted, we have to see the silver lining in the dark clouds. Yemen could easily be a strategic gain for us, giving us control of the Strait of Hormuz. Essentially blocking the Indian Navy no matter how much bigger they are, we can sink their ships at will. Had we seen that vision earlier, today we would have had that silver lining from that cloud.
There are many more such opportunities, hanging there, waiting for us to have the vision to see them. And for that, as you so wisely noted, we need a new kind of mindset, that we lost during the 200 years of British and Sikh rule. Yet, I think the F-16s could be thought of as a useful step in the ladder for us in serving that same interest. Remember, the difference between a master and a slave is not that one is free of all economic wants, but one that can act upon his free will to take opportunities that he sees, and one that cannot, and sometimes does not even have the vision to see those opportunities.
The APG-80 AESA of the Block-60 has better specs than APG-83 of the Block-70/72 as per the Internet.
Would appreciate it if you could share any information to the contrary that you may have regarding the specs of APG-80 vis-a-vis APG-83.
My understanding is that the APG-80 is a full-spec AESA with the requisite cooling to get top performance from the GAA AESA radar. While the SABR uses GAN, a better technology, but is partially air-cooled, meaning it cannot get the max performance from the radar.
Cooling is a problem as it requires, power, space and weight. Which are in short supply as is. The SABR is a very flexible upgrade solution, as it can easily fit into the needs of the F-16 upgrade programs, but gains this flexibility at the tradeoff of max performance.
