abdulbarijan
PDF THINK TANK: ANALYST
- Joined
- May 15, 2010
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it would be kinda weird to buy the Su-35 when Indian has hundreds Su-30MKI. which is basically the same in performance to the Su-35
the J-16 would make more sense since it comes with Chinese avionics and weapons that India does not posses, and so would have no experience with their capabilities.
F-16,JF-17, and a few dozen or more J-16 would be a powerful trio.
Sukhois are notorious for being expensive to maintain, and Russia charges an arm and leg for parts to fix'em. maybe that's why India was looking towards to Western jets.
but yeah Pakistan needs a heavy fighter with long range.
think there is thread about the Xiang JH-7B that would give Pakistan that capability.
There are a few factors we should be considering here ...
-The Chinese flankers according to the rumor mill are not for export because of the issues of intellectual property rights ... while Russia can live with the Chinese taking their basic designs of the flankers and getting them upgraded by using Chinese systems to get J-11/15/16etc. .... they cannot simply afford to loose market to Chinese flankers ... So I guess thats why we cannot get hands on the Chinese flankers even though they might be much more preferable if there were no such factors at play ...
-Coming to the point of JH-7 .. It is a very good strike platform with 8+ tonnes payload capability .. however the problem is with the protection of EEZ and the CPEC ... what Pakistan needs is to have deterrence ... the IN carriers deploy the Mig-29 K ... the latest version of the Mig-29 series .. and not to mention ... the SU-30's can actually support IN owing to their long range ... So to deter such odds we would need JFT's in numbers to support the JH-7's as it is not as capable an air to air fighter ...
Instead of going that route, getting in 1 squadron of SU-35 and 1 of JFT as a naval air arm would be more then enough to deter any kind of threat ... Not only that, but we get a major diplomatic breakthrough if the deal gets through ... we can then negotiate for other weapon systems such as the S-300 etc adding more teeth to our defense capabilities..
-Lastly, provided the deal goes through ... the most likely chance is of heavy input in the avionics/radars/weapons from the Chinese side which may lead the fighter jet to become another beast altogether, just like how the SU-30K for export differs from the SU-30 MKI/MKK or the MKM... so the most likely chance (again, provided the deal goes through) is that the flanker up for export which is purely Russian wouldn't be the one we end up getting ...