Featured Zaheer Ahmad Babar appointed new Chief of Pakistan Air Force

[PanzerKiel]

What you are telling us here was to be happened and couldn't happen, was it even feasible to happen from pure technical PoV i.e considering the v limited time, IAF was inside Pak airspace?

Let me paint a purely hypothetical scenario.....once the IAF planes dropped their payload and were going back, they were chased by our jets who launched several AMRAAMs / SD-10s and some IAF jets were shot down (albeit on their side of LOC)....point i want to make is....once the IAF did this, such type of on-the-spot response would have been logically accepted by the world, with IAF planes shot down to boot...would have lent credence to our stance as well, since we RESPONDED on the spot....moreover there is a lot of difference between on-the-spot resistance and going for retaliation the next day, the first thing speaks alot and deters even more.....

you can then then imagine the change in air sitation the next day when PAF would have launched its retaliatory strikes....

 

[PakShaheen79]

Let me paint a purely hypothetical scenario.....once the IAF planed dropped their payload and were going back, they were chased by our jets who launched several AMRAAMs / SD-10s and some IAF jets were shot down (albeit on their side of LOC)....point i want to make is....once the IAF did this, such type of on-the-spot response would have been logically accepted by the world, with IAF planes shot down to boot...would have lent credence to our stance as well, since we RESPONDED on the spot....moreover there is a lot of difference between on-the-spot resistance and going for retaliation the next day, the first thing speaks alot and deters even more.....

you can then then imagine the change in air sitation the next day when PAF would have launched its retaliatory strikes....

I got your point even in the previous post that PAF must had responded on 26th. But when we talk about this scenario, was it even feasible to launch a salvo of BVR weapons in chase mode and hoping for kills?

Remind you, longest BVR hit till date is not even 50 KM. Longest BVR kill was scored by TuAF F-16C with a AIM-120C7 (something we don't have) in March 2020.

 

[PanzerKiel]

I got your point even in the previous post that PAF must had responded on 26th. But when we talk about this scenario, was it even feasible to launch a salvo of BVR weapons in chase mode and hoping for kills?

Remind you, longest BVR hit till date is not even 50 KM. Longest BVR kill was scored by TuAF F-16C with a AIM-120C7 (something we don't have) in March 2020.

We could have only hoped for kills if that Salvo would have gone out from our side... Since nothing went out from our side, so we can assume anything then.....

Another point... If our intelligence agencies were that good that they were able to gather all types of info about our targets of 27 Feb, isn't it completely possible that the aufsmarsch or concentration, or indicators of IAF 26 Strike were also detected and passed on by them as well.... And I'm not talking of our AWACS yet.....

So, in a nutshell.... How come PAF which wasn't able to repulse IAF on 26, suddenly came out on top the very next day..... Not the next decade where then we can say that we got new planes, new leaders, new doctrines..... It was the same PAF, same leaders, same training..... Just a day later....

That's what very few of us know...what happened post IAF and pre PAF strike....

We could have only hoped for kills if that Salvo would have gone out from our side... Since nothing went out from our side, so we can assume anything then.....

Another point... If our intelligence agencies were that good that they were able to gather all types of info about our targets of 27 Feb, isn't it completely possible that the aufsmarsch or concentration, or indicators of IAF 26 Strike were also detected and passed on by them as well.... And I'm not talking of our AWACS yet.....

So, in a nutshell.... How come PAF which wasn't able to repulse IAF on 26, suddenly came out on top the very next day..... Not the next decade where then we can say that we got new planes, new leaders, new doctrines..... It was the same PAF, same leaders, same training..... Just a day later....

That's what very few of us know...what happened post IAF and pre PAF strike....

Its all about the status.... Weapons free or Weapons hold...or weapons tight....

 

[ARMalik]

1: Air Marshal Nauman Ali
2: Air Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Babar
3: Air Marshal Javed Saeed
4: Air Marshal Haseeb Paracha

Just think about this - out of these 4 AMs, which are the ones who did their training in UK? And perhaps we can get our answer.

 

[PakShaheen79]

We could have only hoped for kills if that Salvo would have gone out from our side... Since nothing went out from our side, so we can assume anything then.....

Another point... If our intelligence agencies were that good that they were able to gather all types of info about our targets of 27 Feb, isn't it completely possible that the aufsmarsch or concentration, or indicators of IAF 26 Strike were also detected and passed on by them as well.... And I'm not talking of our AWACS yet.....

So, in a nutshell.... How come PAF which wasn't able to repulse IAF on 26, suddenly came out on top the very next day..... Not the next decade where then we can say that we got new planes, new leaders, new doctrines..... It was the same PAF, same leaders, same training..... Just a day later....

That's what very few of us know...what happened post IAF and pre PAF strike....

1. HOPE is not a strategy. Knowing the exact outcome and then proceeding accordingly is the challenge. We must be cognizant of the fact that PAF is not USAF or IDAF, not even IAF in terms of numbers, and it has to protect a border stretching more than 3000 KM in air (including both land and sea). Then DGISPR made it crystal that there were attempts of intrusion in the South as well. May be deception, but certainly it would have increased work load of intelligence guys as well.
2. Our targets were static large targets being there since ages. They were not picked up a day earlier.
3. Next Day, PAF had the advantage of surprise just like IAF had a day before and see what happened, a much larger and well-equipped air force was not able to withstand a surprised attack that too in broad daylight. Now juxtapose IAF's performance of 27th on PAF's performance on 26th across long border, you may get a clear idea that things which looks v logical on paper turn out v differently in reality.

 

[PanzerKiel]

1. HOPE is not a strategy. Knowing the exact outcome and then proceeding accordingly is the challenge. We must be cognizant of the fact that PAF is not USAF or IDAF, not even IAF in terms of numbers, and it has to protect a border stretching more than 3000 KM in air (including both land and sea). Then DGISPR made it crystal that there were attempts of intrusion in the South as well. May be deception, but certainly it would have increased work load of intelligence guys as well.
2. Our targets were static large targets being there since ages. They were not picked up a day earlier.
3. Next Day, PAF had the advantage of surprise just like IAF had a day before and see what happened, a much larger and well-equipped air force was not able to withstand a surprised attack that too in broad daylight. Now juxtapose IAF's performance of 27th on PAF's performance on 26th across long border, you may get a clear idea that things which looks v logical on paper turn out v differently in reality.

dear, completely agree with you...

however, just to reiterate my point....shooting down intruding intruding IAF jets of 26 Feb would have been EVEN BETTER....some M-2000s would have been added to our score as well...you can then imagine the state of IAF the next morning when PAF went in.....we did the same thing at the very start of 1965 war and IAF grounded a big chunk of their fleet.

 

[PanzerKiel]

1. HOPE is not a strategy. Knowing the exact outcome and then proceeding accordingly is the challenge. We must be cognizant of the fact that PAF is not USAF or IDAF, not even IAF in terms of numbers, and it has to protect a border stretching more than 3000 KM in air (including both land and sea). Then DGISPR made it crystal that there were attempts of intrusion in the South as well. May be deception, but certainly it would have increased work load of intelligence guys as well.
2. Our targets were static large targets being there since ages. They were not picked up a day earlier.
3. Next Day, PAF had the advantage of surprise just like IAF had a day before and see what happened, a much larger and well-equipped air force was not able to withstand a surprised attack that too in broad daylight. Now juxtapose IAF's performance of 27th on PAF's performance on 26th across long border, you may get a clear idea that things which looks v logical on paper turn out v differently in reality.

1. Am not advocating HOPE as a strategy. I also dont support it. However, fact is, PAF had an opportunity to down some M2000s on 26 Feb....again i'm stating it as a fact, not hypothetically.....

2. Static or mobile targets...they are already choosen in the peacetime as part of operational planning....but before strike, some last minute changes do occur...like...we couldnt predict that the IA higher brass or senior officers would be sitting at one location on a date post 26 Feb...such things pop up at the last and are taken as targets of opportunity which multiply desired effects.

 

[Signalian]

We could have only hoped for kills if that Salvo would have gone out from our side... Since nothing went out from our side, so we can assume anything then.....

Another point... If our intelligence agencies were that good that they were able to gather all types of info about our targets of 27 Feb, isn't it completely possible that the aufsmarsch or concentration, or indicators of IAF 26 Strike were also detected and passed on by them as well.... And I'm not talking of our AWACS yet.....

So, in a nutshell.... How come PAF which wasn't able to repulse IAF on 26, suddenly came out on top the very next day..... Not the next decade where then we can say that we got new planes, new leaders, new doctrines..... It was the same PAF, same leaders, same training..... Just a day later....

That's what very few of us know...what happened post IAF and pre PAF strike....

Its all about the status.... Weapons free or Weapons hold...or weapons tight....

Performance of PA AD and PAF AD (ground) was below standard.

 

[PanzerKiel]

Performance of PA AD and PAF AD (ground) was below standard.

Personally i dont blame them...its been a long time since such a thing happened....systems gather rust over time....Feb 2019 am sure will go a long way in removing that rust...

 

[Signalian]

Personally i dont blame them...its been a long time since such a thing happened....systems gather rust over time....Feb 2019 am sure will go a long way in removing that rust...

Which PA AD system and which PAF AD system deployed there could have taken down M2K?

 

[PanzerKiel]

Which PA AD system and which PAF AD system deployed there could have taken down M2K?

OPSEC domain........however PA AD got over-ridden and were on weapons-hold status since PAF was in the air in the Missile Engagement Zone (MEZ) of PA.

 

[wasileo80]

dear, completely agree with you...

however, just to reiterate my point....shooting down intruding intruding IAF jets of 26 Feb would have been EVEN BETTER....some M-2000s would have been added to our score as well...you can then imagine the state of IAF the next morning when PAF went in.....we did the same thing at the very start of 1965 war and IAF grounded a big chunk of their fleet.

But question still remains? how can PAF shoot down a jet which intruded for only couple of minutes while turning towards IoJK?
All people are ignoring a very critical use case. These types of intrusion did happen in 2008 when PAF F-16s made a lock on and that pic later shown to US general. So in normal circumstances, there is a SOP that during this type of short time violation, defender needs to know the intentions of intruder. If that plane turned back before even facing the defender how could defender can shoot him down? on what basis?
The real case was, even they released their payloads, do we have some sort of technology that we can see the bombs fly in our airspace and can verify that those bombs were fired by IAF jets.
So at that time when PAF CAPs diverted to all 4 location where IAF sent their formations and 3 were turned back withoug crossing the IB but the forth one turned back little later and during that maneouver they violated PAK air space for couple of KMs. At that time PAF just took it a simple air space violation just like other 3.
It was later revealed that they fired the bombs and those bombs hit jaba top in KP. Then this whole fire lit up.

So at time of intrusion on 26 by IAF it was almost impossible to shoot down any plane without any reason as they turned around without engaging PAF.

But yes if they tried to engage PAF Caps and fired upon then PAF can be fully legitimate to engage them hot in return and shoot them down but this didnt happen.

 

[PanzerKiel]

But question still remains? how can PAF shoot down a jet which intruded for only couple of minutes while turning towards IoJK?
All people are ignoring a very critical use case. These types of intrusion did happen in 2008 when PAF F-16s made a lock on and that pic later shown to US general. So in normal circumstances, there is a SOP that during this type of short time violation, defender needs to know the intentions of intruder. If that plane turned back before even facing the defender how could defender can shoot him down? on what basis?
The real case was, even they released their payloads, do we have some sort of technology that we can see the bombs fly in our airspace and can verify that those bombs were fired by IAF jets.
So at that time when PAF CAPs diverted to all 4 location where IAF sent their formations and 3 were turned back withoug crossing the IB but the forth one turned back little later and during that maneouver they violated PAK air space for couple of KMs. At that time PAF just took it a simple air space violation just like other 3.
It was later revealed that they fired the bombs and those bombs hit jaba top in KP. Then this whole fire lit up.

So at time of intrusion on 26 by IAF it was almost impossible to shoot down any plane without any reason as they turned around without engaging PAF.

But yes if they tried to engage PAF Caps then PAF can engage them in return and shoot them down but this didnt happen.

Dear, i get your point.....i also understand that IAF jets were in our airspace for a very short time....my point is that the fact that they crossed into our territory and bombing would have been a good reason for us to after them and down them, even if their debris would have fallen inside IOJK.

The example which you have quoted from 2008....that is a case of locking on enemy jets while remaining in own airspace..that is something normal which happens today as well....however, in 2019 case, IAF actually crossed into our airspace....which is entirely different....bombing or no bombing....but their crossing into our airspace is good enough reason for anyone to shoot them down...

 

[arjunk]

dear, completely agree with you...

however, just to reiterate my point....shooting down intruding intruding IAF jets of 26 Feb would have been EVEN BETTER....some M-2000s would have been added to our score as well...you can then imagine the state of IAF the next morning when PAF went in.....we did the same thing at the very start of 1965 war and IAF grounded a big chunk of their fleet.

Shooting down Indian jets and crossing the border and doing multiple airstrikes the next day would damage our international reputation. 27 Feb 2019 is special because it marked the day the international community took us seriously, saw through Indian propaganda and understood our position as a victim of unprovoked aggression (while also realising that we had the full capability to respond and escalate.)

 

[PanzerKiel]

But question still remains? how can PAF shoot down a jet which intruded for only couple of minutes while turning towards IoJK?

Moreover, whenever enemy aircraft take a direct bearing towards our area, our CAPs are vectored in such a manner that they are able to immediately engage enemy aircraft in case they do something hostile....which includes firing on CAPs themselves, bombing or even crossing into our airspace...all these things are serious enough.

Shooting down Indian jets and crossing the border and doing multiple airstrikes the next day would damage our international reputation. 27 Feb 2019 is special because it marked the day the international community took us seriously, saw through Indian propaganda and understood our position as a victim of unprovoked aggression (while also realising that we had the full capability to respond and escalate.)

Yeah....but like it is said...in case of victory, all mistakes are swept under the carpet....our victory of 27 Feb mentally stops us from critically looking at what really happened on 26 Feb...again am stating this as a fact, not an opinion....

you ought to have seen what happened in the meet between PM and CAS on 26 Feb post IAF strike...