How exactly would you:
A. Deploy this mixed bag fleet of obsolete and/or heavy fighters in a real world scenario
B. Manage the training and logistics of three types with two different generation engines and performance parameters?
C. The distance to eastern India( assuming you are wanting to fly across mainland India to get to eastern India) is about 1200mi of which 90% is over hostile airspace with air defense and interceptors. That is also roughly the same distance to the southernmost IN base.
The maximum straight line radius of operations for a JH-7 is about 1000mi with refueling and assuming no AB use and forgetting any on station time for them.
The maximum radius for the J-15/J-16 is around 1500mi to 1600mi on high altitude flight with zero evasive maneuvers and no station time(meaning it goes and comes back). Adding the real life aspects of having to engage enemy aircraft on route or means this range drops down further to around 900mi or so effective range which is really why the IAF can only consider using it’s MKIs to fly around Pakistan via air refueling.
So now we need air refueling back and forth to get to South or East India with any meaningful payload - which means that considering the threat level that High value asset so far from friendly skies is going to need its own protection that needs either a J-16 or J-15 to guard it. So now for just 4 J-16s you need 2 or 4 J-15s to guard its refueller. Then, even if these aircraft get that far they need a good indication where to look for vessels otherwise they need a MPA(another HVAA that will need support) out there to advise them where to fine tune their SEA mode searches since the flight time isn’t exactly 10 minutes and ships do move even if at a stately 25 knots.
Finally, after each sortie there is maintenance time so the average servicibikity of flanker variants even in the best of airforces barely crosses 65%. Which means of your proposed 50 mix of JH-7, J-15(why you are even including a carrier variant is beyond me) ,J-16 we have About 30 at best available of which only 20 would be the flanker variants with the pilot fatigue in that mix as well.
So even if we sent a flight of 2 armed with 4 AsHMs(which could even with a 100% success rate that never happens) take 8 ships out every time to fight their way to a target and fight it out with refueling - after the first day surge we would barely have 6-8 flankers serviceable at any given time for responses which may also be required for other duties as well besides blowing the IN out of the water.
Finally, assuming the obsolete “new” JH-7s cost $25 million , J-15s at $60 and J-16s at $65 and getting 16 aircraft each puts you at $2.4 billion for the airframes alone - add in training for pilots and technicians, facilities, spares, weapons adds another $400 million easily with higher priced spares since you cant use volume discounts nor offset with local production unlike the JF-17.
So for all that money you are getting three different systems that require a lot of support to achieve a goal that has really no need to occur with a lifecycle cost that will be too much to bear for the PN budget in the first place. Would love to see what your justifications are for A,B and C
