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PAF more vulnerable than ever: Ex IAF officer

Well PAF needs to replace old vintage aircrafts with newer ones ASAP thats all. However I dont think PAF is vulnerable as such. Every military branch has its strengths and weaknesses.

I believe PA is strongest of all three branches. So far as India is concern, it is IN. IN navy has made itself very strong inspite of lowest budget because of Indigenization and focus and many cost saving measures.
 
Never found out why IAF takes PLAAF so lightly ...
I mean PLAAF outnumbers IAF in very astonishing way..just the j10s are more in number than the whole IAF۔۔forget about the flankers and bombers ..
There is no comparison ..PLAAF outnumbers n IAF 4:1 in numbers ..much much more than what IAF does with PAF

We hold the terrain advantage, both the army and air force.

And the IAF holds the technology advantage, although the Chinese are catching up on that front.
 
franclly i think PAF will induct 5th gen fighter before IAF . its not because paksitan is my country but IAF is worse to buy things . FGFA was edge which india loss it already

It is all about how you define 5th generation plane. We rejected PAKFA and Pakistan may end up indicting a chinese fifth generation plane. Their So called fifth generation fighter J 20 was detected by our MKI from a long distance. Now imagine a scenario when we shall upgrade all of planes with AESA and state of art EW. We compared PAKFA and Rafale and found Rafale to be more effective because of its active cancellation system and Spectra EW. You can induct a chinese 5th generation fighter and claim that you did it before India but it will be of not much use in war scenario.
 
As far as IAF is concerned, PAF was never vulnerable and is now in a much stronger position than it was in say 2008.

2008 air alert
After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Pakistan Air Force was put on high alert. It deployed to all its wartime locations and started combat air patrols. The speed and intensity of the deployment and PAF's readiness took the Indian Army High Command by surprise and later reports suggest was the main factor in the Indian decision of not going for cross border raids inside Pakistan.[43][44] PAF was issued a Standing Order to launch an immediate counter-attack in case of an air attack from India, after a call from the Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee to the Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari (the call later turned out to be a hoax).

I am sorry but completely disagree with those statements. PAF was always quantitatively much inferior to the IAF. After around 1995-2000 as the Su-30, israeli upgraded Mig 21 and later the MKI and Rafale came, along with significant amounts of top notch Israeli and american EW gear the PAF has become qualitatively inferior as well. In addition, the IAF now regularly exercises and has a lot of interaction and training programs with all the western airforces, including the USAF, the european airforces, the israelis and others. Their newer pilots have a lot more opportunities to learn and hone their skills, and it may well be that their skill levels are already higher than the PAF's in many areas of air warfare. If not, it is only a matter of time before this happens.

what's new IAF outnumbers PAF 1:3(380 4th gen fighters vs 185 4the gen fighters) while IAF lacks is enough pilots (half the ratio as compared to Pakistan) to effectively mobilized all fighters at an optimum sortie rate..pakistan has twice number lf AWACs and support aircarfts with decent SAM systems

In my opion situation today is better than 1990s

In airdefence PAF is well equipped where it lacks is deep strike aircrafts ...s400 is going to make it more difficult ..

Once rafale and LCA and the precieved additional fighter comes the gap might increase


The deabte of SAM vs fighters is long one..ultimately most people prefer fighters for their flexibility if you have to choose between two ..Pakistan needs a long range SAM..hq16 range of 40? 80? Km is also concerning ..if its 40 whats the point of getting it

Sure. Aircraft are flexible, being capable of offensive as well as defensive counter-air operations, but using aircraft for defensive counter air operations is risky, particularly in the case of Pakistan:

Modern fighter aircraft are extremely costly. The PAF's F-16 Block 52 cost 80+ million dollars each. Suppose a flight of 16 enemly Rafales & Mirage 2000s armed with Meteor, ASRAAM and MICA-EM/IR missiles cross over into Pakistani airspace. Would the PAF risk sending up all of its 18 Block 52s to engage them in the air?

Aircraft are extremely vulnerable on the ground as well. Their airbases and shelters are well known to the enemy, under constant surveillance and are targets of the first-day-of-war air, cruise and ballistic missile strikes. If air defence is left to fighters, a successful pre-emptive enemy attack will hand over control of the Pakistani airspace to the enemy. This has already happened once, but the lessons learnt were forgotten: in 1971 the entire PAF in East Pakistan was grounded when the Tejgaon airfield was rendered inoperable by an Indian strike. From that day onwards, the PAF ceased to fly combat missions and the IAF were unopposed in the skies of East Pakistan. Modern PGMs and cruise missiles make these sorts of attacks a bigger threat today than in 1971.
Modern SAM systems, in comparision, can stay mobile and the enemy will have no idea where a SAM launcher is, even if the location of a surveillance radar is known.

Fighters can stay in the air for a few hours at most, even with air refueling. When they are on the ground and a siren goes off, the time it takes them to respond (time to get enough aircraft airborne, time to climb to the right altitude, time to get to weapons range) is significant and the intruders can launch weapons and retreat before your aircraft have a chance to shoot at him. In comparision, the response time of a SAM is in seconds.

What happens when the enemy aircraft turns out to be superior in air combat to yours? If your JF-17 Block 2 are called on to intercept a flight approaching of Rafales and they are forced to engage in WVR combat, who will lose more aircraft?


A modern integrated SAM system will cause the enemy to think 10 times before venturing into your airspace. Consider the headache for the PAF when they have to perform strike missions in airspace guarded by a S-400 + Spyder system and you will be able to see how much dangerous it would be for enemy aircraft to venture into Pakistani airspace protected by a modern, layered air defence system.

Pakistan doesn't need a new aircraft as much as it needs to completely re-build its weak air defence system from scratch first. That is what will keep away the hundreds of 4.5+ gen aircraft across the border that today present the greatest conventional threat to Pakistan.

PS: in wartime sortie rate is not limited by the airmen, it is limited by the aircraft. One pilot can fly a lot more sorties if multiple planes are available to him. One aircraft cannot fly more missions than the ground crew can handle, even if multiple pilots are available to fly it.
 
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It is all about how you define 5th generation plane. We rejected PAKFA and Pakistan may end up indicting a chinese fifth generation plane. Their So called fifth generation fighter J 20 was detected by our MKI from a long distance. Now imagine a scenario when we shall upgrade all of planes with AESA and state of art EW. We compared PAKFA and Rafale and found Rafale to be more effective because of its active cancellation system and Spectra EW. You can induct a chinese 5th generation fighter and claim that you did it before India but it will be of not much use in war scenario.

Shooting from the hip ..
 
terrian ...we are talking about airforce with long range fighter bomber not short legged f7s

It seems IAF is stuck in 1960s

What will bombers do without fighter jets?

If you talk of cruise missiles, then land based ones are cheaper and more numerous.
 
It is all about how you define 5th generation plane. We rejected PAKFA and Pakistan may end up indicting a chinese fifth generation plane. Their So called fifth generation fighter J 20 was detected by our MKI from a long distance. Now imagine a scenario when we shall upgrade all of planes with AESA and state of art EW. We compared PAKFA and Rafale and found Rafale to be more effective because of its active cancellation system and Spectra EW. You can induct a chinese 5th generation fighter and claim that you did it before India but it will be of not much use in war scenario.
:lol::lol::lol: and your super stealthy raptor of the east MKI invisible to J-20 AESA ,J-20 detected your raptor of the east MKI long before than MKI can detect J-20 and will be destroyed by long range PL-15 @HariPrasad :sarcastic::man_in_love::jester:;):enjoy:
 
I am sorry but completely disagree with those statements. PAF was always quantitatively much inferior to the IAF. After around 1995-2000 as the Su-30, israeli upgraded Mig 21 and later the MKI and Rafale came, along with significant amounts of top notch Israeli and american EW gear the PAF has become qualitatively inferior as well. In addition, the IAF now regularly exercises and has a lot of interaction and training programs with all the western airforces, including the USAF, the european airforces, the israelis and others. Their newer pilots have a lot more opportunities to learn and hone their skills, and it may well be that their skill levels are already higher than the PAF's in many areas of air warfare. If not, it is only a matter of time before this happens.

Sure. Aircraft are flexible, being capable of offensive as well as defensive counter-air operations, but using aircraft for defensive counter air operations is risky, particularly in the case of Pakistan:

Modern fighter aircraft are extremely costly. The PAF's F-16 Block 52 cost 80+ million dollars each. Suppose a flight of 16 enemly Rafales & Mirage 2000s armed with Meteor, ASRAAM and MICA-EM/IR missiles cross over into Pakistani airspace. Would the PAF risk sending up all of its 18 Block 52s to engage them in the air?

Aircraft are extremely vulnerable on the ground as well. Their airbases and shelters are well known to the enemy, under constant surveillance and are targets of the first-day-of-war air, cruise and ballistic missile strikes. If air defence is left to fighters, a successful pre-emptive enemy attack will hand over control of the Pakistani airspace to the enemy. This has already happened once, but the lessons learnt were forgotten: in 1971 the entire PAF in East Pakistan was grounded when the Tejgaon airfield was rendered inoperable by an Indian strike. From that day onwards, the PAF ceased to fly combat missions and the IAF were unopposed in the skies of East Pakistan. Modern PGMs and cruise missiles make these sorts of attacks a bigger threat today than in 1971.
Modern SAM systems, in comparision, can stay mobile and the enemy will have no idea where a SAM launcher is, even if the location of a surveillance radar is known.

Fighters can stay in the air for a few hours at most, even with air refueling. When they are on the ground and a siren goes off, the time it takes them to respond (time to get enough aircraft airborne, time to climb to the right altitude, time to get to weapons range) is significant and the intruders can launch weapons and retreat before your aircraft have a chance to shoot at him. In comparision, the response time of a SAM is in seconds.

What happens when the enemy aircraft turns out to be superior in air combat to yours? If your JF-17 Block 2 are called on to intercept a flight approaching of Rafales and they are forced to engage in WVR combat, who will lose more aircraft?


A modern integrated SAM system will cause the enemy to think 10 times before venturing into your airspace. Consider the headache for the PAF when they have to perform strike missions in airspace guarded by a S-400 + Spyder system and you will be able to see how much dangerous it would be for enemy aircraft to venture into Pakistani airspace protected by a modern, layered air defence system.

Pakistan doesn't need a new aircraft as much as it needs to completely re-build its weak air defence system from scratch first. That is what will keep away the hundreds of 4.5+ gen aircraft across the border that today present the greatest conventional threat to Pakistan.

PS: in wartime sortie rate is not limited by the airmen, it is limited by the aircraft. One pilot can fly a lot more sorties if multiple planes are available to him. One aircraft cannot fly more missions than the ground crew can handle, even if multiple pilots are available to fly it.

You are basically advocating SAM systems for PAF and PA. And I must remind you how SAM sites are vulnerable to EW/ECM/ECCM systems (Jamming). Besides, they can also be confused, overwhelmed and defeated. Unless we have directed energy weapons deployed over multiple SAM sites and Mobile units where targets are tracked from somewhere else and ground based stations receive enemy coordinates via hard lines for shoot and scoot missions without emitting detectable signals.
 
You are basically advocating SAM systems for PAF and PA. And I must remind you how SAM sites are vulnerable to EW/ECM/ECCM systems (Jamming). Besides, they can also be confused, overwhelmed and defeated. Unless we have directed energy weapons deployed over multiple SAM sites and Mobile units where targets are tracked from somewhere else and ground based stations receive enemy coordinates via hard lines for shoot and scoot missions without emitting detectable signals.
We need both,especially long range SAMs and long range strike jet @Mav3rick
 
Let's assume IAF deployes 60% of her assets against PAF TODAY. That means 160+ MKI's against 70 odd F-16's and 100 od JF-17's. F-16's are a superb platform but we neither have reliable spares supply for them nor any upgrades for MLU'd older F-16's. When we speak about JF-17's, they are our pride but untested in air-to-air combat environment against top of the line Air Force Assets such as MKIs. Even the upgraded Bisons would give us a tough time. And we are not even considering Indian SAM assets and AEW&CS assets because in my opinion the theater of aerial combat would entirely be in our airspace.

Our SAM assets are next to useless against IAF Fighters. And all this is because someone made an extremely bad call in 2005 to go for additional F-16's instead of some other French asset etc. We chose to be bitten by the same unreliable partner and this time it was despite being well informed.
Who told u jf17 havent been tested....trust me they ahve been through the grinder in tests...u think 100 pls front line aircraft dobt go up against the best in chinese airforce and best of pakistan airforce....you honestly believe the pilots will be left to try their luvk onnthe day of actual air combat.

Come one bro. I know u r smarter than that
 
why is IAF investing so heavily in deep strike aircrafts? Why does China and Russia do it

The elephant in the room is what was the Pakistani generals and decision makers reasoning behind not buying a deep strike Air craft? Indians don't need deep strike aircraft for Pakistan they might need it for China, but Pakistan needs deep strike aircraft for sure.
 
Fact to the matter we don't have money and continuous meddling in politics creates unstable Pakistan .A lesson to be learn here in last 5 years despite all Ooh and Aahs ,JF 17 production touched peaks which was not possible in Zardaris Era and now with enforces PM and his policies we will see delay in critical projects block 3 or any other fighter . Fidlening in politics by Armed forces have clearly weaken the base of all forces as politics is linked with economics and uncertain and incapable rulers mean poor or weak economics which means no more toys ,Alas a sad state of affairs but ultimate costs have to be paid
 

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