Indian Air Force: News & Discussions

[sameer]

India is loosing fighter jet competition to technology demonstrators and CGI from China.

My man, they have 200 J20's and are manufacturing those at a rate 100 a year. They'll probably have close to 1000 in less than a decade and we'll still be at prototype phase and setting up committees. This cope work anymore.

 

[Ayan Barat]

India is loosing fighter jet competition to technology demonstrators and CGI from China.

Well that's one way to put it

Another would be; Indian air-force is so under-equipped and obsolete that even technology demonstrator and CGI from China are making us contemplate everything.

 

[Aaj Ka Hero]

IAF's Sukhoi Su-30MMKI Indigenous EW Suite Named As Yodha And Anidra; Development Completed AoN Granted

The Indian Air Force's (IAF) Sukhoi Su-30MKI is set to undergo significant upgrades, particularly with the introduction of an indigenous ele...

www.indiandefensenews.in

 

[Hari Sud]

Well that's one way to put it

Another would be; Indian air-force is so under-equipped and obsolete that even technology demonstrator and CGI from China are making us contemplate everything.

Nobody in the neighborhood is better equipped than IAF.

A huge propaganda is kept going by the Chinese and their Indian supporter about the invincibility of Chinese military hardware. That is used to scare Indian public.

Nothing is true; Chinese hardware is second rate. When the push comes to shove the Chinese hardware will fail. Their numbers are large and that is the greatest concern. That is advantage Chinese have at China Sea area. But that advantage is neutralized in the Himalayas, when they face Indians in equal numbers.

The same is true with Pakistan supplied with Chinese hardware.

Hence they are after you to lower your confidence. Do not let them succeed. Stay confident. They can threaten but can do no harm.

 

[Ayan Barat]

Nobody in the neighborhood is better equipped than IAF.

Totally agree with you Sir, not just the best equipped air-force in neighbourhood but also the fourth biggest in the world in terms of firepower.

It would be so kind of you if you can just quote me some small figures for this fourth biggest air force.

1. How many AWACS do we have?
2. How many aerial refueler we have?
3. What are the numbers of advanced, heavy attack helicopter?
4. Which stealth jet is currently in service with us?
5. What percentage of our fighters are currently flying with an AESA radar?
6. What is the production capacity of our mainstay BVR-AAM?
7. How many dedicated electronic warfare planes are there?
8. How good is our strategic heavy lift capability?
9. Half of our heavy lift capability, Il-76 (other half being C-17s) suffered from serious spare parts issues; so is it resolved or not?
10. How many of our airbases are protected using a modern, multi-layered Air Defence system?
11. How many of our fighters are so obsolete that they'd be nothing more than a flying coffin in case of a full scale war?
12. As we're taking about fighters; do we have adequate numbers of fighters for a full-fledged war?
13. How good is IAF going to perform in a GNSS denied environment? Do we have back-up?
14. What is the production rate of guidance kits for our bombs? Do we have sufficient guidance kit?
15. What is our current status in SEAD/DEAD mission? Do we have sufficient platform, weapons and especially training required for such mission.

Not a single question involved China or Pakistan, it's just we and we. So I guess there won't be any effect of Chinese propaganda.

 

[Hari Sud]

Totally agree with you Sir, not just the best equipped air-force in neighbourhood but also the fourth biggest in the world in terms of firepower.

It would be so kind of you if you can just quote me some small figures for this fourth biggest air force.

1. How many AWACS do we have?
2. How many aerial refueler we have?
3. What are the numbers of advanced, heavy attack helicopter?
4. Which stealth jet is currently in service with us?
5. What percentage of our fighters are currently flying with an AESA radar?
6. What is the production capacity of our mainstay BVR-AAM?
7. How many dedicated electronic warfare planes are there?
8. How good is our strategic heavy lift capability?
9. Half of our heavy lift capability, Il-76 (other half being C-17s) suffered from serious spare parts issues; so is it resolved or not?
10. How many of our airbases are protected using a modern, multi-layered Air Defence system?
11. How many of our fighters are so obsolete that they'd be nothing more than a flying coffin in case of a full scale war?
12. As we're taking about fighters; do we have adequate numbers of fighters for a full-fledged war?
13. How good is IAF going to perform in a GNSS denied environment? Do we have back-up?
14. What is the production rate of guidance kits for our bombs? Do we have sufficient guidance kit?
15. What is our current status in SEAD/DEAD mission? Do we have sufficient platform, weapons and especially training required for such mission.

Not a single question involved China or Pakistan, it's just we and we. So I guess there won't be any effect of Chinese propaganda.

Wrong boyish question posed….

Pose yourself the question that how many AWACS or Refueller or electronic warfare planes or stealth fighters the Chinese can divert from their Eastern front at China Sea to the Himalayas. That is good way of analysis than copying their propaganda numbers.

I have one or two answers for you….. They have two inferior AWACS in Tibet and Sinkiang, one each. Their engines are mostly under repair hence a third one is diverted.

They have one refueller and one standby in the Himalayas.

They had four stealth fighters in Tibet; they were withdrawn from Himalayan service soon after two years back the Rafale managed to track them in the air. Newer replacements will arrive whenever the newer one is available. The previous one are still there but these do not fly closer to the Himalayas.

That kind of military hardware is unlikely to scare the Indian armed forces who have fought 4 large scale wars and Chinese have fought none after 1962. They lost 1978 war with Vietnam. That they do not want to talk about.

 

[Indianhawk]

They had four stealth fighters in Tibet; they were withdrawn from Himalayan service soon after two years back the Rafale managed to track them in the air.

This is very interesting. Previously we heard iaf chief as saying that mki can track j20 iirc. Now you saying rafale tracked them ! You have any source on this.

What is the probability of j20 having luneburg lence !

 

[Ayan Barat]

Wrong boyish question posed….

Well I'm boyish so...

But on a serious note Sir, nowhere in my question I had mentioned China so I don't know why you're framing your answer around China. Not a single question is in the format of "How many...we've in comparison to China?"

My questions are rather simple and straightforward based on common sense; being the fourth biggest air force, how capable are we? Not compared to anyone but rather to the "fourth biggest air force" itself.

Like the biggest is flying six different stealth platforms, the second biggest is flying one stealth platform, the third biggest is flying four stealth platforms and the fifth biggest is flying one stealth platform.

So how many are being flown by the fourth biggest amongst these?

 

[Indianhawk]

Discovered this new forum recently.
Checking in on defence forums after a long time.

Surprisingly not much r**di Rona after Chinese flying samosa. Has the forum matured ??

 

[Ayan Barat]

Has the forum matured ??

Spoiler: Absolutely not

We're just somewhere around here, so it's bit hard to notice

 

[Indianhawk]

Well I'm boyish so...

But on a serious note Sir, nowhere in my question I had mentioned China so I don't know why you're framing your answer around China. Not a single question is in the format of "How many...we've in comparison to China?"

My questions are rather simple and straightforward based on common sense; being the fourth biggest air force, how capable are we? Not compared to anyone but rather to the "fourth biggest air force" itself.

Like the biggest is flying six different stealth platforms, the second biggest is flying one stealth platform, the third biggest is flying four stealth platforms and the fifth biggest is flying one stealth platform.

So how many are being flown by the fourth biggest amongst these?

No point in India getting any stealth jet.
The Chinese have already cancelled stealth before they flew their new stealth jet.

Don't believe me well from the horse's mouth.

China reveals anti-stealth radar with new technical pattern - Global Times

www.globaltimes.cn

It's deja vu all over again. Remember when Chinese presented us with carrier killer missiles which will make us carriers obsolete but then Chinese keep building aircraft carriers themselves.

Our Chinese friends are both doctors and patients at the same time. They have solution to all our dilemmas.

If we can't copy their stealth jets we can copy their anti stealth radar !!

Check mate chinkies !!

 

[shade2]

Discovered this new forum recently.
Checking in on defence forums after a long time.

Surprisingly not much r**di Rona after Chinese flying samosa. Has the forum matured ??

Nothing much except RR can be done on our side, what do you expect?

IAF/MoD/Defense ministry politicians and Gobiji himself do not care.

 

[Ayan Barat]

The mainstream media will never tell you but one very good way of wasting your time is trying to count missiles. Recently there was some chatter about low numbers of Astra orders so tried estimating things...

R-73 Archer ; average short range missile
Orders started from early 90s, continued till 2019; almost 5,000 procured in total. Primary WVR-AAM.

R-27 Alamo; average BVR-AAM, WVR-AAM
Orders started from early 90s, continued till 2019; around 4,000 procured in total. Primary BVR-AAMs. Variant wise breakdown is tough to find so lets say 3:1

Side Note : Only because of this high number (9,000) IAF is able to flaunt R-73/27s as SAMAR.

R-77 Adder; there are issues but overall an okay BVR-AAM
From 1996 to 2019, some 2,000 were procured. Basically complements/replaces the R-27s because of the substantial number

Meteor; currently one of best BVR-AAMs in the world
Approximately 250 came with the Rafale package. Similar or slightly more can be expected to come with the Naval Rafale order but that should all as SFDR would soon start to replace it.

ASRAAM; one of the best WVR-AAM
384 came for Jags but things go as planned then soon local production would start and we can expect numbers similar to R-73; the weapon it would replace.

Python 4/5; one of best WVR-AAM, extremely maneuverable
At least 100 were ordered as a stop-gap to R-73s on 2007. The missiles in SPYDER SAM can also be repurposed.

MICA; variant is unclear but IR variant is one of best WVR-AAM
Around 500 ordered in 2012 for Mirages. Pretty sure similar number came in Rafale package.

Derby; quite good BVR-AAM
Unspecified number ordered with no further orders as Astra was just around the corner; let's say 100. Similar to Pythons, the SAMs from SPYDER can be used.

Astra; good to one of best in its category depending on the variant
Around 600 ordered, further orders may have slowed down as there was a better option in the form of Mk-II

So, in short...
• 6,000 average heat seekers (R-73, R-27)
• 1,500 best in class heat seekers (ASRAAM, MICA-IR, Python)
• 5,000 average BVR-AAMs (R-77, R-27)
• 700 best in class BVR-AAMs (Astra, Derby)
• 250 best BVR-AAMs (Meteor)

NOTE : These are the maximum numbers procured, not the current inventory. Current inventory can be as little as half of these numbers given these starts from late 80s and missiles regularly gets depleted in training.

Based on these we can kind of extrapolate the future numbers
• around 3-4,000 ASRAAM; numbers may feel low compared to R-73 but in future WVR-AAMs would be limited to just cruise missile and UAV engagments.
• around 6,000 Astra with most of them being Mk-II as except for cost there isn't any reason to procure Mk-I
• around 1,000 Astra-III. Extremely tempting to get more of these but a new SFDR would be expensive than a vanilla rocket.

As always, my numbers can be extremely off from reality because estimating an inventory is never an accurate affair. So feel free to correct it.

 

[Corvus Splendens]

Assuming IDRW didn't pull it out of nowhere, what is the IAF thinking.

 

[Ayan Barat]

Assuming IDRW didn't pull it out of nowhere, what is the IAF thinking.
View attachment 20879

"A senior Indian Air Force (IAF) official, speaking to idrw.org on the condition of anonymity"

Yeah, I'll take things that never happened for $500, Alex.

It would be so funny if this senior IAF official, who talked on condition of anonymity turns out to be Bushra from headquarters in Aabpara

 

[rockdog]

Wrong boyish question posed….

Pose yourself the question that how many AWACS or Refueller or electronic warfare planes or stealth fighters the Chinese can divert from their Eastern front at China Sea to the Himalayas. That is good way of analysis than copying their propaganda numbers.

I have one or two answers for you….. They have two inferior AWACS in Tibet and Sinkiang, one each. Their engines are mostly under repair hence a third one is diverted.

They have one refueller and one standby in the Himalayas.

They had four stealth fighters in Tibet; they were withdrawn from Himalayan service soon after two years back the Rafale managed to track them in the air. Newer replacements will arrive whenever the newer one is available. The previous one are still there but these do not fly closer to the Himalayas.

That kind of military hardware is unlikely to scare the Indian armed forces who have fought 4 large scale wars and Chinese have fought none after 1962. They lost 1978 war with Vietnam. That they do not want to talk about.

Quite bizarre claim, any wise people willing to overestimate rivalry rather than underestimation.
Your claims didn't bring with any evidence and analysis, just 2nd 3rd hand news & sterotype, if all IAF officiers thinking the way like this, it would be good news to PLAAF.


Even our civil war gaming community when they doing the simulation between China and Inida conflict, like to make India forces 30% stronger, to make sure any worst case scenarios would be predicted.

The simuations shows around 12 - 24 J20 would significantly increase the IAF losses, and made PLAAF built strong air superiority.


Conflict simulation on Tibet region.




Conflict simulation on Karachi



Conflict simulation in A&N island.

 

[Azaad]

Quite bizarre claim, any wise people willing to overestimate rivalry rather than underestimation.
Your claims didn't bring with any evidence and analysis, just 2nd 3rd hand news & sterotype, if all IAF officiers thinking the way like this, it would be good news to PLAAF.


Even our civil war gaming community when they doing the simulation between China and Inida conflict, like to make India forces 30% stronger, to make sure any worst case scenarios would be predicted.

The simuations shows around 12 - 24 J20 would significantly increase the IAF losses, and made PLAAF built strong air superiority.


Conflict simulation on Tibet region.

View attachment 20884


Conflict simulation on Karachi
View attachment 20887
View attachment 20888

Conflict simulation in A&N island.
View attachment 20885
View attachment 20886

You're civil wargaming community is much better informed than you are . They're not considering 30% stronger IAF out of the goodness of their heart but to make the simulation more realistic .

Do you know why ? It's because the J-20s & other FAs can't take off with the same payloads from Tibet as from other parts of China due to the low density of air over the Tibetan plateau forcing these Fighter Aircrafts to take off with payloads amounting to a third - half less than they can normally carry .

It's precisely for this reason that even civil airliners on international flights avoid flying over Tibet among a host of other reasons.

why do civil airliners avoid flying over tibet - Google Search

Besides your J-20 are semi stealth Fighter Aircrafts not full stealth like the F-22 or the F-35. Neither is it equipped with a 5th Gen TF - the WS-15 which is still WiP or Work in Progress . Perhaps it's just about completed its certification & is being mass produced. Your true stealth capabilities will come from the J-36. That's a good 10-12 years away. That's the real danger to the IAF for apart from stealth it has long endurance & can easily carry a good enough payload from Tibet itself .

 

[rockdog]

You're civil wargaming community is much better informed than you are . They're not considering 30% stronger IAF out of the goodness of their heart but to make the simulation more realistic .

Do you know why ? It's because the J-20s & other FAs can't take off with the same payloads from Tibet as from other parts of China due to the low density of air over the Tibetan plateau forcing these Fighter Aircrafts to take off with payloads amounting to a third - half less than they can normally carry .

It's precisely for this reason that even civil airliners on international flights avoid flying over Tibet among a host of other reasons.

why do civil airliners avoid flying over tibet - Google Search

Nop, those factors were considered into database. CMO even considered IRST parameters, FLIR during the simulation.

1. Conflict simulation on Tibet region.
Fleet mostly took off from Hotan

2. Conflict simulation on Karachi
Fleet mostly took off from air bases in Pakistan

3. Conflict simulation in A&N island.
Fleet mostly took off from Yunnan provinces.

 

[Ayan Barat]

It's because the J-20s & other FAs can't take off with the same payloads from Tibet as from other parts of China due to the low density of air over the Tibetan plateau forcing these Fighter Aircrafts to take off with payloads amounting to a third - half less than they can normally carry .

Absolutely correct but not for J-20s.

The normal carry for stealth fighters is only that much what it can internally carry, not it's absolutely total payload. For J-20 it's hardly 1.5t (4x PL-15s of 250kg each and 2x PL-10s of 100kg each); a fraction of its total payload.

 

[rockdog]

Absolutely correct but not for J-20s.

The normal carry for stealth fighters is only that much what it can internally carry, not it's absolutely total payload. For J-20 it's hardly 1.5t (4x PL-15s of 250kg each and 2x PL-10s of 100kg each); a fraction of its total payload.

Actually, in one simulaton. There are only 3 aribases in Tibet, but others and most advanced figthers were deployed in Qinghai, Sichuan, Xinjiang provinces.

Plus, the Linzhi airport in Tibet, is “only” 2946m, since it's the nearest airbase by LAC, most aircraft are drones:

Linzhi Airport: 8 CH-4B Rainbow Drone, 8 WD-1K Winged Dragon Drone

Shigatse Air Force Base: 8 J-11D, 8 J-11B, 14 J-10A
Lhasa Gongga International Airport: 8 J-11D, 8 J-11B, 8 J-10C, 12 JH-7A, 6 JD-16 EW
Linzhi Airport: 8 CH-4B Rainbow Drone, 8 WD-1K Winged Dragon Drone
Changdu Bangda Airport: 8 J-10C, 8 J-10A, 12 JH-7A
Panzhihua airbase: 12 Su-35K
Golmud Air Force Base: 8 J-20, 8 J-10A, 8 JH-7A, 6 HY-6U Refueller, 3 Y-9G Cub EW, 3 Y-9 Cub (KJ-500), 6 EA-03 (FLIR)
Chengdu Air Force Base: 8 J-20, 8 J-10A, 12 JH-7A, 3 A-50 (KJ-2000)
Chongqing Baishiyi Air Force Base: 6 J-8IE, 16 H-6K, 2 IL-78 Refueller

Chinese war gaming community is pretty professional from my POV, i m wondering is there any similar from India side.

This map shows the airbases.