New Delhi (Sputnik): On Friday, Indian Air Force (IAF) Chief RKS Bhadauria said the 36 Rafale jets were not the whole solution to the IAF's needs. India signed a $7.8 billion contract with French Dassault Aviation to buy the aircraft in 2019.
Wait i thought their Airchief and Modi claimed that "if we had Rafale the result would have been different" PAF is not getting significant force multiplier anytime soon in comparison to IAF, for a "pesky" little bird like JF-17 Indian experts have already claimed that their mighty Tejas in better in almost every way so threat of JF-17 is nullified there.
The IAF's excessive focus on platforms rather than sensors and weapon systems was evident during the Kargil conflict with Pakistan two decades ago. “The IAF fulfilled the expectations only after it made emergency purchases of Laser-Guided Bombs and targeting pods,” Thakur said.
seems to me that IAF leadership lacks in future planning and acquisitions, they only take steps towards the right direction when they fail or are bitch slapped, this has been the trend since 1965, who much time do they need to learn, i think there is something very wrong at grass root levels (Academy) which bring up such poor leadership
On February 27 2019, a day after the IAF struck an alleged terror training camp at Balakot, the PAF surprised the IAF with its longer range AMRAAM and better supporting sensor capability.
Wait hold on a second, there are multiple claims by IAF suggesting that they did not hit anything and they "delibrately" missed the target OR weapons malfunctioned OR something or the other, point being this claim that IAF "
STRUCK" something beyond few trees is beyond comprehension
Second part of the statement is more surprising to me, how come IAF was caught off guard and surprised? operating parameters for F-16 and AMRAAM's are known, we did not came unannounced in the middle of night, we came after our DGISPR announced on public TV that we WILL retaliate, again my point that there is something very wrong with IAF leadership
“IAF allowed itself to be outgunned by focusing on platform acquisitions, rather than weapon system and sensor upgrades. With sufficient military foresight, the IAF could have armed its Su-30MKI with longer range air-to-air missiles acquired from Russia rather than continuing to rely on the lesser ranged missile ordered years ago from Ukraine,” IAF veteran Thakur asserted.
Could have, would have, if are statements normally used in mission reports being filed for damage assessment, regrets and failures, I might add that
IF airboss had given permission to
Weapons Free the result
COULD have been more colorful for IAF, there you go use of COULD in a statement of regret as an example.
Secondly, I normally don't like repeating myself but again this statement strongly suggest the kind of leadership IAF has and the kind of threat assessment and tactics they deployed which resulted in such a failure.