Indian Air Force: News & Discussions

[daya]

F15 is too costly both price and maintenance wise and will kill su30 upgrade program,
f21 will kill LCA mark 2
We will lose if we purchase any of this

Will depend on the Govt.. how the Govt takes the scenario...

 

[Corvus Splendens]

Americans are trialing chemical laser pods with twin seater F-15s

 

[Spitfire IX]

In theory we can acquire up to 12 squadrons from France + UAE + Greece but that requires France to get rid of almost all their mirages. Which barring economic collapse, they won't.
Realistically, we can acquire 1 to 1.5 squadrons from France, their oldest batch of mirage-2000 that they decided not to upgrade to the F5 standard ( latest standard), along with approx 2 squadrons from UAE and 1 from Greece. Though UAE number is at best going to be 1 squadron because i read somewhere recently that they are selling 1 squadron to Morocco.

Nobody is gonna 'throw in' Mirage-2000 as a sweetener deal, especially because Mirage-2000 is STILL one of the best bang for your buck plane in the world today - it has exceptionally low maintaiance costs ( fyi i know from IAF insiders that 1 Mig-29 = 3 Mirage-2000 in upkeep cost), is a heavy payload delivery single seater and has always lived up in tough, hardy conditions better than an F16 has.

Its basically your reliable trusty ambassador taxi that no one wants to get rid of because it is so damn reliable and cheap to maintain.
So the only acquisition pathway, is through nations that are slated to phase them out due to more modern acquisitions. Such as Greece and UAE getting more F-35s/Rafales and de-comissioning their Mirage-2000s.

France doesn't wanna give us a lot of their mirage-2000 basically because Dassault is worried that if we take too much Mirage-2000, then our Rafale orders will only be the M version for the navy and that means only 40-50 birds at max.
But i suspect that if India does order another 70+ Rafales (which is likely - the rumour is that India is gonna activate its option of another 36 from the original order option and order another 40-odd M variant for the navy), then Dassault will drop its objection to the French Air Force selling us a few more squadrons of Mirage-2000s.

I suspect actually that if things work out, India will keep the Mirage-2000 flying well into the 2040s, because of new emergent low intensity threats in our region : from Myanmar being a civil war zone to Bangladesh going kanglu-way.
These are bringing up scenarios of potential conflict where you need amriki style 'bomb the rag tag barbarians from the air because their best air defence is an assault rifle' and this is where a hardy, high lift, low maintainance khataara ( which the Mirage-2000 isnt today, but will be by late 2030s) is the ideal tool and doesnt require exposure of the much more expensive to maintain and fly Rafale/Tejas/MKI.

If In 2028 IAF had

+ 2-3 squadrons Mirage 2000
+ 3-4 squadrons Tejas Mk1A
- 2 squadrons MiG-21

Any need for MRFA?

 

[GaudaNaresh]

If In 2028 IAF had

+ 2-3 squadrons Mirage 2000
+ 3-4 squadrons Tejas Mk1A
- 2 squadrons MiG-21

Any need for MRFA?

Yes. we need MRFA/ORCA/TBDF/AMCA to keep our air force modernised.
The mirage+tejas are supposed to fill in the already existing shortfall from 42 min squadrons. Remember, our squadrons are also smaller than the western/russian squadrons, who have 24 planes per squadron, while we have 18.
The primary function of Mirage + tejas is to be point defence and low intensity warfare : they are to bomb rag tag rebels and engage in air combat over friendly airspace meaning our own.
The Su30 + all the above options are for air dominance, aka fight over enemy airspace. So that requirement will remain regardless of how many point defence fighters we acquire.

 

[Vishnugupt]

Yes. we need MRFA/ORCA/TBDF/AMCA to keep our air force modernised.
The mirage+tejas are supposed to fill in the already existing shortfall from 42 min squadrons. Remember, our squadrons are also smaller than the western/russian squadrons, who have 24 planes per squadron, while we have 18.
The primary function of Mirage + tejas is to be point defence and low intensity warfare : they are to bomb rag tag rebels and engage in air combat over friendly airspace meaning our own.
The Su30 + all the above options are for air dominance, aka fight over enemy airspace. So that requirement will remain regardless of how many point defence fighters we acquire.

Gauda ji, there is nothing called as a point defence, over friendly sir space and over enemy airspace.

Tejas will be more useful to strike in so called enemy airspace then SU-30mki, giving it small size and low IR Signature.

Our enemy don't lie in Europe or Africa. They just inch away from us. So fancy classification of light, medium and heavy aircraft is flawed. Light and heavy aircrafts alone enough.

Take Ukraine as an example. Tejas will work in the same way as F-15 or Su-30mki in Ukrainian airspace except later have advantage delivering cruise missiles.

 

[GaudaNaresh]

Gauda ji, there is nothing called as a point defence, over friendly sir space and over enemy airspace.

Tejas will be more useful to strike in so called enemy airspace then SU-30mki, giving it small size and low IR Signature.

Our enemy don't lie in Europe or Africa. They just inch away from us. So fancy classification of light, medium and heavy aircraft is flawed. Light and heavy aircrafts alone enough.

Take Ukraine as an example. Tejas will work in the same way as F-15 or Su-30mki in Ukrainian airspace except later have advantage delivering cruise missiles.

There most definitely is point defence vs fighting over enemy airspace - this is factored by whether you are under your own radar + AA coverage or not. The mission profile of Tejas isnt to carry out strikes inside China, its to intercept Chinese fighters over indian air space.
Its the same reason MiG-21s were not used for balakot ( it has to go over enemy airspace) but were deployed during defense of Jammu - as its over friendly airspace. The tejas is supposed to fill in the mission profile for MiG-21. Hence its likely to be deployed as a point defence fighter when deployed exclusively - at best it can be mixed in with some Su or Rafale strike missions to mitigate risk to the higher value fighters.

 

[Bleh]

In theory we can acquire up to 12 squadrons from France + UAE + Greece but that requires France to get rid of almost all their mirages. Which barring economic collapse, they won't.
Realistically, we can acquire 1 to 1.5 squadrons from France, their oldest batch of mirage-2000 that they decided not to upgrade to the F5 standard ( latest standard), along with approx 2 squadrons from UAE and 1 from Greece. Though UAE number is at best going to be 1 squadron because i read somewhere recently that they are selling 1 squadron to Morocco.

Nobody is gonna 'throw in' Mirage-2000 as a sweetener deal, especially because Mirage-2000 is STILL one of the best bang for your buck plane in the world today - it has exceptionally low maintaiance costs ( fyi i know from IAF insiders that 1 Mig-29 = 3 Mirage-2000 in upkeep cost), is a heavy payload delivery single seater and has always lived up in tough, hardy conditions better than an F16 has.

Its basically your reliable trusty ambassador taxi that no one wants to get rid of because it is so damn reliable and cheap to maintain.
So the only acquisition pathway, is through nations that are slated to phase them out due to more modern acquisitions. Such as Greece and UAE getting more F-35s/Rafales and de-comissioning their Mirage-2000s.

France doesn't wanna give us a lot of their mirage-2000 basically because Dassault is worried that if we take too much Mirage-2000, then our Rafale orders will only be the M version for the navy and that means only 40-50 birds at max.
But i suspect that if India does order another 70+ Rafales (which is likely - the rumour is that India is gonna activate its option of another 36 from the original order option and order another 40-odd M variant for the navy), then Dassault will drop its objection to the French Air Force selling us a few more squadrons of Mirage-2000s.

I suspect actually that if things work out, India will keep the Mirage-2000 flying well into the 2040s, because of new emergent low intensity threats in our region : from Myanmar being a civil war zone to Bangladesh going kanglu-way.
These are bringing up scenarios of potential conflict where you need amriki style 'bomb the rag tag barbarians from the air because their best air defence is an assault rifle' and this is where a hardy, high lift, low maintainance khataara ( which the Mirage-2000 isnt today, but will be by late 2030s) is the ideal tool and doesnt require exposure of the much more expensive to maintain and fly Rafale/Tejas/MKI.

There was need reports in 2021 that India has already signed a deal for 24 Mirages of unknown age with 8 in flyaway condition (the rest have ejection seats removed).

India Signs Contract for 24 Second-Hand ‘Mirage’ Aircraft

The Indian Air Force has signed a 27-million euro contract to purchase 24 phased-out Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft, Hindustan Times revealed.

thedefensepost.com

This June it was reported we'll be getting 2nd hand operational Mirages from Qatar.

https://www.business-standard.com/external-affairs-defence-security/news/india-qatar-hold-talks-on-sale-of-12-used-mirage-2000-fighter-jets-124062200261_1.html

 

[GaudaNaresh]

There was need reports in 2021 that India has already signed a deal for 24 Mirages of unknown age with 8 in flyaway condition (the rest have ejection seats removed).

India Signs Contract for 24 Second-Hand ‘Mirage’ Aircraft

The Indian Air Force has signed a 27-million euro contract to purchase 24 phased-out Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft, Hindustan Times revealed.

thedefensepost.com

This June it was reported we'll be getting 2nd hand operational Mirages from Qatar.

https://www.business-standard.com/external-affairs-defence-security/news/india-qatar-hold-talks-on-sale-of-12-used-mirage-2000-fighter-jets-124062200261_1.html

yes, the first one is from france. They have like 120+ mirage 2000s, some of them too shitty for us to even want, which we took for parts.
Remember, mirage-2000 is a scavenger hunt, coz production has stopped for all parts & components. You may be able to repair things or service things better at a plant, but at the end of the day, critical parts failure will only be replaced by scavenging.
So we took a bunch of French khataaras that they were gonna chuck out ( not even give to ukraine coz it will be like shooting gallery for russians ) for parts but we got 8 flyaway ones, meaning probably their 2000C variant, whichis significantly worse than our 2000H variants.
Remember, Mirage too, is like the F16 ( the mirage is literally supposed to be the delta wing variant competitor of the F16 and that was also the original intent of its launch) and has several blocks and some are far better than the others.

For the qatari ones, i am not aware, nor do i think its likely because as far as i know, qatar has already decomissioned its mirage-2000 fleet.
Once fleets get decomissioned, they rarely get put back into flyaway conditions but it was not that long ago, so who knows, a deal is still possible, but its also qatar, the rabid al jazeera monkey so i am suspicious.

UAE seems like a far better bet, especially since they WANT to get rid of their mirage-2000s and morocco i think already beat us to the punch for 1 squadron's worth.
The UAE mirage-2000s are also extremely high quality variants, since both EAD and 9s are two of the top tier variants of the mirage-2000.

 

[Nutcracker]

France’s Mirage 2000-5F Surplus Fighters and Potential Acquisition by India – Indian Defence Research Wing

idrw.org

Will be too overpriced, as it's coming from France. Also if we ask these at fairly low price around 300-400M for 14 airframes, Macron would rather give it to Cykraine and chest beat in his globhomo circlejerk about muh freedom and sapport as he did with 6 airframes.

 

[GaudaNaresh]

Will be too overpriced, as it's coming from France. Also if we ask these at fairly low price around 300-400M for 14 airframes, Macron would rather give it to Cykraine and chest beat in his globhomo circlejerk about muh freedom and sapport as he did with 6 airframes.

Yes, Macron is virtually guaranteed to give Ukraine some, but that window is closing with Trump coming to power and if market is correct that Ukraine's odds evaporate over the next year.
But France has 300+ mirage 2000s.
They will never part with their nook delivery version ( unique to them i think) thats close to 100 of their fleet and is virtually guranteed to keep most of their D versions, which is like 50-60 of them, till they drop dead, coz they are the specialised attack (meaning A2G) version and the real backbone of France bombing people in Africa.
But this leaves about 150 other 2000s to go around, of which around 50 are the F5 standard and the rest are the lower model C version ( lower than ours) that we can do basic avionics upgrade to bring them up to snuff and the tweaks required are minor since they share the same radar and its only avionics that are slightly more primitive.

So if France wants to offload Mirage-2000s, we are a prime customer, but this would obviously mean if we want France to drop its price for Mirage-2000, we have to give them like 100 rafale for 12-13 billion to get another 50 mirages thrown in for a billion and half or so.

Our better bets are to target greece & UAE, particularly since the Mk2 version is allegedly the best variant of the mirage put out outside the french nook variant.

If we wish to keep our rafale orders small - say like 50 odd ( 36 from prior option going to navy, one more squadron for AF), we may be able to persuade them to part with 1 squadron for half a billion or so.

Again, i dont think we should swing too much in the Mirage-2000 is god camp either - the whole idea of mirage-2000 is that if persued seriously, it can show up in multiple squadron numbers in the next couple of years and last another 10-15 years before being retired. That is 2040 and we will either have independent production of our own fighters by then or be someone's bitch, making the point moot for then, but either way, the mirage's nitche is to make up falling sqaudron numbers, maybe even beef it up a bit by inducting 2-4 squadrons of it.
We can get 3 squadrons outta UAE + Greece alone and if Qatar is really gonna give us their half squadron, yay,plus another one from france and suddenly we can breathe a bit easy and not get stuck in an 'immediate high end phoren maal vs must develop local maal' anxiety loop in terms of planners and political pressures being exerted.
That i believe is a feasible goal, in terms of scoring these 70 odd mirages for around 2 billion total.

 

[Vishnugupt]

There most definitely is point defence vs fighting over enemy airspace - this is factored by whether you are under your own radar + AA coverage or not. The mission profile of Tejas isnt to carry out strikes inside China, its to intercept Chinese fighters over indian air space.
Its the same reason MiG-21s were not used for balakot ( it has to go over enemy airspace) but were deployed during defense of Jammu - as its over friendly airspace. The tejas is supposed to fill in the mission profile for MiG-21. Hence its likely to be deployed as a point defence fighter when deployed exclusively - at best it can be mixed in with some Su or Rafale strike missions to mitigate risk to the higher value fighters.

Gauda ji, Problem of this forum is people give their opinion based on Gulf war, Israeli Arab war, Libyan war where one adversary was heavily outnumbered by another.

If Chinese jets are flying in our airspace that means technically we have already lost the war. In the war there is a contact line where you all focus lies. You use missiles to target inside enemy territory.

Nobody risk a fighter jets to cross heavily armed contact line because due to countless layer of air defence.

Mig-21 was not used because it did not carry Spice-2000. Still Mirages were used over superior SU-30MKI.

Tejas can carry Spice-2000 and many other weapons. So technically it can go in Chinese airspace. Infact it has more survival chance giving it better EW capacity, Rafale is only better for now.

During Pakistani attack on Feb-2019, Mig was not sent as point defence but infact it was near to the point where attack was taken place, Hence become first responder. All other jets ( Mirage and Su-30mki) was rushing to that point as well.

Anything India buy below generation 5 aircraft, is a pure waste of money. India better build more Tejas and SU-30mki

 

[GaudaNaresh]

Gauda ji, Problem of this forum is people give their opinion based on Gulf war, Israeli Arab war, Libyan war where one adversary was heavily outnumbered by another.

If Chinese jets are flying in our airspace that means technically we have already lost the war. In the war there is a contact line where you all focus lies. You use missiles to target inside enemy territory.

Nobody risk a fighter jets to cross heavily armed contact line because due to countless layer of air defence.

Mig-21 was not used because it did not carry Spice-2000. Still Mirages were used over superior SU-30MKI.

Tejas can carry Spice-2000 and many other weapons. So technically it can go in Chinese airspace. Infact it has more survival chance giving it better EW capacity, Rafale is only better for now.

During Pakistani attack on Feb-2019, Mig was not sent as point defence but infact it was near to the point where attack was taken place, Hence become first responder. All other jets ( Mirage and Su-30mki) was rushing to that point as well.

Anything India buy below generation 5 aircraft, is a pure waste of money. India better build more Tejas and SU-30mki

build more tejas is not the answer, because we are here talking about mirage-2000 precisely coz we cannot build more tejas due to engine jadu-tona, bhai.
Until i see 15+ tejas being deliverted in one year to IAF, i am not gonna consider tejas as the solution.

you are mostly correct about contact lines, but you forget, in a war of near peers, we are not talking about a Russia-Ukraine scenario alone. We are talking about air forces who are 100s of fighters strong, who know there are gaps in ADZ of the entire frontier due to terrain and thus, can run the gauntlet for deep pentration strikes to bomb strategic targets, with air escort.
This will be reality of any major peer2 peer air forces and cannot be avoided over a himalayan frontier for either party. yes, China has an advantage due to Tibet being ultimately flat and much easier target acquisition for planes due to less flight time (intercept from tibet takes 30% less time than on anywhere else on the planet coz well tibet has +5km gap control advantage over planes) but their ADIZ around Kunming are very much game for penetration and provides high value targets that they simply cannot cover.
We are afterall, talking of 3000km deep pentration strikes over areas of low ADZ coverage.

And this requires you to have point defence fighters - fighters who are there to intercept and deal with these kind of strike missions, with possible ground help or via saturation tactics. This is where the single engine aircraft shines along with taking turns at frontline bomb-lobbing as you describe above.

China too, fyi has fighters for this specific purpose. this type of air warfare has always existed between near peer powers in air combat, be it arab israel wars or india pakistan wars, i see no reason why this wont be a reality in Indo-Chinese wars, especially with us having to bat point defence, since PLAAF has like 6:1 or so advantage over us in numbers and they will definitely try to blow up kolkata shipyards/dockyards via penetration strikes during war and not risk a missile lob at kolkata itself- something very much doable for them with burmese shadow-zone of air cover + kangludesh air space etc.
There are advantages to bringing in your strike squadron if you can be reasonably sure you can get them away in one piece, like we did in balakot. Why not launch prithvi ?well coz icbms are not that pin point accurate that you can blow up a complex 50m away from rest of urban area and minimise casualties. Same reason IAF didnt just lob missiles at Iran but launched its air force to go bomb it from near iran air space.
our IAF realizes this and that is the entire point of why we deployed MiG-21s in the first place in the NE.
The Tejas, whatever its capabilities are, the intention is to fill this same role of an interceptor. it is not a traditional 'all gas and no manueverability' interceptor, those days are over as far as technical details go, but the role itself has not evaporated and it will still be a couple of decades before it does.

 

[Bleh]

yes, the first one is from france. They have like 120+ mirage 2000s, some of them too shitty for us to even want, which we took for parts.
Remember, mirage-2000 is a scavenger hunt, coz production has stopped for all parts & components. You may be able to repair things or service things better at a plant, but at the end of the day, critical parts failure will only be replaced by scavenging.
So we took a bunch of French khataaras that they were gonna chuck out ( not even give to ukraine coz it will be like shooting gallery for russians ) for parts but we got 8 flyaway ones, meaning probably their 2000C variant, whichis significantly worse than our 2000H variants.
Remember, Mirage too, is like the F16 ( the mirage is literally supposed to be the delta wing variant competitor of the F16 and that was also the original intent of its launch) and has several blocks and some are far better than the others.

For the qatari ones, i am not aware, nor do i think its likely because as far as i know, qatar has already decomissioned its mirage-2000 fleet.
Once fleets get decomissioned, they rarely get put back into flyaway conditions but it was not that long ago, so who knows, a deal is still possible, but its also qatar, the rabid al jazeera monkey so i am suspicious.

UAE seems like a far better bet, especially since they WANT to get rid of their mirage-2000s and morocco i think already beat us to the punch for 1 squadron's worth.
The UAE mirage-2000s are also extremely high quality variants, since both EAD and 9s are two of the top tier variants of the mirage-2000.

UAE & Qatar are best bet..

UAE fleet is the newest & latest (32 follow-on order Mirage2000-9s started delivery in 2003, 30 of the order batch are also all upgraded & Morocco is getting from those).
Qatari fleet of 12 Mirage 2000-5 are slightly older at 1997 1st delivery.
France has a fair number of Mirage 2000 2-seater strike versions.

But the problem is that when India got our mirages upgraded to 2000I standard, I remember it was reported that the cost was almost same as buy new jets. So if the jets are in 2009 standards then find otherwise you should upgrade them with Indian stuff from Tejas or MWF.

 

[GaudaNaresh]

UAE & Qatar are best bet..

UAE fleet is the newest & latest (32 follow-on order Mirage2000-9s started delivery in 2003, 30 of the order batch are also all upgraded & Morocco is getting from those).
Qatari fleet of 12 Mirage 2000-5 are slightly older at 1997 1st delivery.
France has a fair number of Mirage 2000 2-seater strike versions.

But the problem is that when India got our mirages upgraded to 2000I standard, I remember it was reported that the cost was almost same as buy new jets. So if the jets are in 2009 standards then find otherwise you should upgrade them with Indian stuff from Tejas or MWF.

As i said, france is never letting go of its strike versions. They are the bread and butter of france bombing africa. they are the best mirages in business if you just wanna lob bombs at ground, specifically made such for avionics and such. The French mirages that are nook capable and strike versions are no beno. France aint getting rid of those till they die. Coz thats how you bomb boko haramis or niger-ians or mauritaneans and all those in africa for cheap cheap and low risk even at worst case scenarios, coz losing a mirage but pilot ejecting safely is nowhere as bad for france from some stray stinger or whatever if thats a rafale.

The India standard is expensive, but not required for the mk2 version of greece which is the best flying ones out there fyi outside france and maybe us, followed by the UAE ones. At best, if we get the qatari one plus french one, we bite the bullet and upgrade the 1.5 squadrones that are qatari-frenchie.

Remember, i dont think the frogs are stupid enough to let us buy a shit ton of their mirages so we buy just a wee bit of rafales or none at all, so to get a lotta mirages from the frogs means to get a shit ton of rafale from them and get the mirages as sweetener deal, which is still 15 billion ballpark deal. No beno there either.

if India wishes to get a good quick order of mirages to get a few squadrons up,its primarily gotta shop via uae+greece+qatar.

 

[BON PLAN]

France has a fair number of Mirage 2000 2-seater strike versions.

We are not ready to sell them.
And they are only air to ground potent. The radar is blind in air to air.

 

[Spitfire IX]

As i said, france is never letting go of its strike versions. They are the bread and butter of france bombing africa. they are the best mirages in business if you just wanna lob bombs at ground, specifically made such for avionics and such. The French mirages that are nook capable and strike versions are no beno. France aint getting rid of those till they die. Coz thats how you bomb boko haramis or niger-ians or mauritaneans and all those in africa for cheap cheap and low risk even at worst case scenarios, coz losing a mirage but pilot ejecting safely is nowhere as bad for france from some stray stinger or whatever if thats a rafale.

The India standard is expensive, but not required for the mk2 version of greece which is the best flying ones out there fyi outside france and maybe us, followed by the UAE ones. At best, if we get the qatari one plus french one, we bite the bullet and upgrade the 1.5 squadrones that are qatari-frenchie.

Remember, i dont think the frogs are stupid enough to let us buy a shit ton of their mirages so we buy just a wee bit of rafales or none at all, so to get a lotta mirages from the frogs means to get a shit ton of rafale from them and get the mirages as sweetener deal, which is still 15 billion ballpark deal. No beno there either.

if India wishes to get a good quick order of mirages to get a few squadrons up,its primarily gotta shop via uae+greece+qatar.

I suggest buying the UAE or Qatari or Greek aircraft. No1 need of the IAF is more fighters. Fretting over the price is dumb. Buying new aircraft will cost much, much more and the MRFA aircraft won't be delivered much this side of 2030 - possibly after that.

MRFA would involve building the aircraft in India but I think that ToT would be nominal. Once India has committed, in reality the OEM concerned can limit ToT to what it wants. 114 4G screwdrivergiri aircraft for perhaps $20-$25 billion is a dumb deal to me.

And all the time Tejas Mk2 has been in development. It must have been obvious that the Tejas venture did not work due to the inadequacy of its project management yet India elected to do nothing to change the system. The same sort of project management was used to develop and build Tejas Mk2. Unsurprisingly with the same result - massive delay, hence IAF's squadron numbers crisis.

 

[Vishnugupt]

build more tejas is not the answer, because we are here talking about mirage-2000 precisely coz we cannot build more tejas due to engine jadu-tona, bhai.
Until i see 15+ tejas being deliverted in one year to IAF, i am not gonna consider tejas as the solution.

you are mostly correct about contact lines, but you forget, in a war of near peers, we are not talking about a Russia-Ukraine scenario alone. We are talking about air forces who are 100s of fighters strong, who know there are gaps in ADZ of the entire frontier due to terrain and thus, can run the gauntlet for deep pentration strikes to bomb strategic targets, with air escort.
This will be reality of any major peer2 peer air forces and cannot be avoided over a himalayan frontier for either party. yes, China has an advantage due to Tibet being ultimately flat and much easier target acquisition for planes due to less flight time (intercept from tibet takes 30% less time than on anywhere else on the planet coz well tibet has +5km gap control advantage over planes) but their ADIZ around Kunming are very much game for penetration and provides high value targets that they simply cannot cover.
We are afterall, talking of 3000km deep pentration strikes over areas of low ADZ coverage.

And this requires you to have point defence fighters - fighters who are there to intercept and deal with these kind of strike missions, with possible ground help or via saturation tactics. This is where the single engine aircraft shines along with taking turns at frontline bomb-lobbing as you describe above.

China too, fyi has fighters for this specific purpose. this type of air warfare has always existed between near peer powers in air combat, be it arab israel wars or india pakistan wars, i see no reason why this wont be a reality in Indo-Chinese wars, especially with us having to bat point defence, since PLAAF has like 6:1 or so advantage over us in numbers and they will definitely try to blow up kolkata shipyards/dockyards via penetration strikes during war and not risk a missile lob at kolkata itself- something very much doable for them with burmese shadow-zone of air cover + kangludesh air space etc.
There are advantages to bringing in your strike squadron if you can be reasonably sure you can get them away in one piece, like we did in balakot. Why not launch prithvi ?well coz icbms are not that pin point accurate that you can blow up a complex 50m away from rest of urban area and minimise casualties. Same reason IAF didnt just lob missiles at Iran but launched its air force to go bomb it from near iran air space.
our IAF realizes this and that is the entire point of why we deployed MiG-21s in the first place in the NE.
The Tejas, whatever its capabilities are, the intention is to fill this same role of an interceptor. it is not a traditional 'all gas and no manueverability' interceptor, those days are over as far as technical details go, but the role itself has not evaporated and it will still be a couple of decades before it does.

If your hypothesized scenario is true Against China, then Our Imported AF is non-existent. Bitter but true. No amount of mirage or rafale going to compensate.

Blind UN Generals couldn't get air superiority against China within overnight such thing required long term planning.

If India can't arrange GE engine for Tejas then mirage is also not coming anytime soon. Neither it will provide long term solution.

Better India concentrate on AD to counter arial attack.

Instead of Wasting time in negotiation for a 4th generation aircraft, better negotiate for SU-57.

 

[Spitfire IX]

Instead of Wasting time in negotiation for a 4th generation aircraft, better negotiate for SU-57.

Makes sense to me, given the uncertainty with schedules where Indian fighters are concerned. For all we know AMCA may not be delivered until near 2040, Tejas Mk2 until near 203., MRFA may not be delivered until the early years of the next decade whereas Su-57 could be available before 2030.

 

[Ayan Barat]

 

[Anants]

As i noted earlier, this is a stop-gap measure that gives best bang for our buck and as far as i know, MoD is exploring Mirage-2000 acquisition plans seriously.
They are basically a less manueverable but higher payload F16 planes and the best version of the Mirage-2000 is equivalent to F-16 block-D planes, if not better.

Reality is, the Mirage-2000 is something that can tide us over till 2035-2040, by which time, we should be production capable of significiant amount of desi maal.
And they can be targetted for acquisition at 20-30 million per plane, which is basically 2002 Su-30 prices.

We have already been in talks with Greece to acquire 1 squadron from them and as far as i know, we are persuing getting another 2-3 squadron's worth from UAE, Greece and France.
Dassault setting up a Mirage-2000 spare parts and repair factory in India is a big tell that India is seriously persuing getting more squadrons of Mirage-2000 and not just acquire decomissioned planes for parts.
The only country we are not persuing in this mirage-2000 scenario is taiwan, because taiwan's mirage-2000 have the most wear and tear issues of all mirages ever deployed - they've had issues with corrosion of their air frame & turbine blades - so whatever the hell the taiwanese are doing to their planes, its eating into their lifecycle and have had to do a lot of 'marammat' to keep them flying.

Hope We are not beginning to sound like Pakis when they were got Mirage Rose aircrafts