Indian Air Force: News & Discussions

[concard]

36 nos Rafales are a given . It should've been ordered long ago. Beyond that we'd have to rely on the IAF's judgement who think the Rafales are the only plane out there in our reach which can go up against the J-20 + J-16 combo.

Now we can sit & debate this till kingdom come but in the final analysis they're the experts & we've got to trust their judgement. Besides there's no other FA in our inventory which can go up against this combo.

The MKI in its present form is a bomb truck but it'd shine like a Christmas tree on the AESA radars . Unfortunately the Super Sukhoi upgrades will take their own sweet time to be realised in good numbers.

LCA Mk-1a is short legged , good enough for CAP . Ditto for Mirage 2000. Both of them have their utility as ambush FAs in the valleys of the huge mountains straddling the LAC . Hence they make good secondary FAs. The MiG-29s are the jokers in the pack .

But we need something to break open the barn door so to speak i.e for SEAD / DEAD missions in Tibet & Xinjiang thru the dense IADS network , ISR , Cyber Space , Refuellers , Satellite network , etc capabilities of the PLAAF & that'd be the Rafale + MKI combo.

Unfortunately once again we don't have the numbers. Given the fact that the PLAAF will field close to 1000 J-20s likely more & an equal number of J-16s by 2030 , even if they deploy a third in the WTC & surrounding theatres our goose is cooked.

Please note that all these arguments being circulated of the limitations of taking off from Tibet with a limited payload etc doesn't hold when you've a whole army of Refuellers who'd be flying over mid Tibet refuelling FAs to & from missions across the LAC.

That's what the PLAAF is practising intensely including taking off from Yunnan over Myanmar & BD to target our rear in the NE & Eastern sectors & from Yunnan over Myanmar & possibly Thailand to target the A & N islands & possibly our eastern coast.

Had there been no immediate threat from the Chinese , we could have gone for 36 nos Rafales & closed the chapter. The rest could be made up by the mid 2030s with the Mk-2 & the AMCA Mk-1 in addition to the 220 odd Mk-1a's .

That's not the case today & unfortunately there's no guarantee even if we sign the agreement for the remainder of the 36 nos Rafales of which in itself there's no guarantee we'd do it ASAP , we'd get the full complement before 2030 .

We lost crucial years between 2020-2022 which it turns out was due to a dispute over the mode of procurement , with the MoD / GoI insisting on piece meal acquisitions & ex ACM Chaudhari insisting on the tender & here we are.

I would dispute few of the points you have made.

--> "Given the fact that the PLAAF will field close to 1000 J-20s likely more & an equal number of J-16s by 2030."

This is impractical. USAF stopped production of F-22 at 180 and have never restarted production again. When they started F-35 they knew the costs would go through the roof. That is why they got other countries to partner in return for F-35 aircrafts. As I have mentioned before operating these stealth aircrafts are expensive. If you say money is not a big deal then I have other news for you. These aircrafts also need very intensive maintenance operations. For example, F-35 pilots are asked not to go supersonic because it erodes the Radar coating of the aircraft.

The Pentagon will have to live with limits on F-35’s supersonic flights

The Navy's and Marine Corps' versions of the F-35 will have restrictions on how long they can fly at supersonic speeds because of a risk of damage to the tail section.

www.defensenews.com

The same problems exist for F-22 albeit there is no restriction on going supersonic. But all stealth aircrafts face the same problem. You wanna go supersonic? Then get ready for RAM coating damage which increases the heat signature of aircraft.

J-20 is not a fully stealth aircraft like F-22. But I get the reason behind why they have designed it that way. Basically they wanted an aircraft which could cover entire Chinese mainland. So they designed a huge fighter aircraft even adding canards at the front to give it additional lift during take off at the cost of it's stealth signature. You bet maintaining J-20 would be even bigger nightmare than F-22 since it has more control surfaces.

-->Please note that all these arguments being circulated of the limitations of taking off from Tibet with a limited payload etc doesn't hold when you've a whole army of Refuellers who'd be flying over mid Tibet refuelling FAs to & from missions across the LAC.

Even with refueling aircraft they have to take off far away from high altitude regions and then fly close to nearby air bases to refuel the fighter aircrafts. This presents a logistical problem as fighters cannot engage in the battle until they are refueled. If you looked at locations of their airbases this is easier said than done. Their logistics of transporting food and fuel would be a nightmare in the high altitude regions. Bomb their railway tracks you are looking at their army and air force being cut off.

That being said I am attaching the links of few videos with wonderful analysis of this topic.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0wCt3cyQc&t=1s&ab_channel=Cybersurg


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ2fx4eicTk&t=1s&ab_channel=Cybersurg


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkA2rsEXLNI&ab_channel=Cybersurg

 

[ArjunMK1A]

I would dispute few of the points you have made.

--> "Given the fact that the PLAAF will field close to 1000 J-20s likely more & an equal number of J-16s by 2030."

This is impractical. USAF stopped production of F-22 at 180 and have never restarted production again. When they started F-35 they knew the costs would go through the roof. That is why they got other countries to partner in return for F-35 aircrafts. As I have mentioned before operating these stealth aircrafts are expensive. If you say money is not a big deal then I have other news for you. These aircrafts also need very intensive maintenance operations. For example, F-35 pilots are asked not to go supersonic because it erodes the Radar coating of the aircraft.

The Pentagon will have to live with limits on F-35’s supersonic flights

The Navy's and Marine Corps' versions of the F-35 will have restrictions on how long they can fly at supersonic speeds because of a risk of damage to the tail section.

www.defensenews.com

The same problems exist for F-22 albeit there is no restriction on going supersonic. But all stealth aircrafts face the same problem. You wanna go supersonic? Then get ready for RAM coating damage which increases the heat signature of aircraft.

J-20 is not a fully stealth aircraft like F-22. But I get the reason behind why they have designed it that way. Basically they wanted an aircraft which could cover entire Chinese mainland. So they designed a huge fighter aircraft even adding canards at the front to give it additional lift during take off at the cost of it's stealth signature. You bet maintaining J-20 would be even bigger nightmare than F-22 since it has more control surfaces.

-->Please note that all these arguments being circulated of the limitations of taking off from Tibet with a limited payload etc doesn't hold when you've a whole army of Refuellers who'd be flying over mid Tibet refuelling FAs to & from missions across the LAC.

Even with refueling aircraft they have to take off far away from high altitude regions and then fly close to nearby air bases to refuel the fighter aircrafts. This presents a logistical problem as fighters cannot engage in the battle until they are refueled. If you looked at locations of their airbases this is easier said than done. Their logistics of transporting food and fuel would be a nightmare in the high altitude regions. Bomb their railway tracks you are looking at their army and air force being cut off.

That being said I am attaching the links of few videos with wonderful analysis of this topic.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0wCt3cyQc&t=1s&ab_channel=Cybersurg


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ2fx4eicTk&t=1s&ab_channel=Cybersurg


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkA2rsEXLNI&ab_channel=Cybersurg

Tibet theatre is always an nightmare for PLA. They have limited access to the plateau with no settlement large enough to sustain them there.

But the problem we are having is lack of equipment's to get control on their vital supply chains. We are lacking fighters to support air dominance so our Troops can sit on lot of strategic areas. Without fighters PLAAF can sustain the operation from their Mainland with refuelling since they have numbers to do this. Unfortunately we started to loose fighters then we are screwed up.

Also another problem is their Rocket artillery which give good advantage to them. We have Pinaka which can cover upto 120km. Pralay to take care up to 500Km. We need huge numbers to take their bases out in Tibet.

I believe if we consistently screw their supply regions over a long period of time then we can win. But to sustain we need equipments to arrive like Ladli behna yojana where everyone get 2000 rupees anytime.

 

[concard]

Without fighters PLAAF can sustain the operation from their Mainland with refuelling since they have numbers to do this.

Didn't understand this point? What do you mean? Without fighter aircrafts they can't sustain their operation from mainland?

 

[ArjunMK1A]

Didn't understand this point? What do you mean? Without fighter aircrafts they can't sustain their operation from mainland?

Nope. What I am implying here is.

Lets say we destroy their Runways near Indian borders. In the process we took down their fighters in aerial as well as on ground.

Now China needs to force their Airforce to operate from Mainland region like chengdu etc. Now the distance is longer, but since PLAAF have huge numbers in terms of Tanker fleet, fighters they can flew from there and engage us again. On the other hand once we loose numbers on our Fighters we may need to rethink our strategy since we don't have very few key critical components like Engine to sustain production. We need to think about foreign help. Eventhough we may have less distance in terms of logistics.

We need large numbers in equipment to sustain the war against China.

When it comes to their lapdog they are geographically screwed so we will always wipe them out.

 

[RocketMan]

I the shade, hereby attest that I have only roasted the Genrol & Marshol, not the two guys you have tagged above.

Genrol & Marshol deserve all the roasting they can get.

Look at based Admirals, they build their own ships, collaborate with DPSUs for anything else they may need, all G&M do is stone-wall and force multiple revisions, then complain about delay and "increased weight", only to make their situation so bad viz enemies so that they can force GoI into ((( emergency procoorments )))

Genrol & Marshol behave like "customer", Admiral behaves like client of shipyard and collaborator for DPSU/DRDO.

That is the difference, this is a financially-challenged country, G&M should make the best of what they are allocated from both DPSU and Private Sector instead of optimising for what foreign imported toy gives the maximum favors and kickbacks

But then, how can "muh emergency imports" be done by our esteemed gernails n marshols ? I suggest we seriously think about importing proven gernails as well.

 

[RocketMan]

Waise bhi the Govt didn't want it, they don't have that kind of money to burn.

Max the IAF would get is 36 more Rafales or maybe 72, that is the tax to be paid to the French if we want Safran's collaboration on the IMRH engine and Kaveri, the pumpjet technology used on their Suffren-class for our nuclear submarines and don't know if anything else is there we can score from them.

MRFA type contract is also a waste because in exchange for spending huge sums in "ToT" all we would get is screwdriver-giri license production and the line will die once all aircraft are delivered.

While we keep losing squadron strength every year & have piecemeal acquisition of jets, 3000 black jets of Xi Jinping will be descending upon us after anchluss of Taiwan by 2049.

 

[shade2]

36 nos Rafales are a given . It should've been ordered long ago. Beyond that we'd have to rely on the IAF's judgement who think the Rafales are the only plane out there in our reach which can go up against the J-20 + J-16 combo.

Now we can sit & debate this till kingdom come but in the final analysis they're the experts & we've got to trust their judgement. Besides there's no other FA in our inventory which can go up against this combo.

That's not the case today & unfortunately there's no guarantee even if we sign the agreement for the remainder of the 36 nos Rafales of which in itself there's no guarantee we'd do it ASAP , we'd get the full complement before 2030 .

We lost crucial years between 2020-2022 which it turns out was due to a dispute over the mode of procurement , with the MoD / GoI insisting on piece meal acquisitions & ex ACM Chaudhari insisting on the tender & here we are.

According to you which jet can do equal-equal with Rafale's capability to go against J-20?
Since we can't get them quickly, however there are other merchants who can help in the "we gotta pump up the numbers" division like

>Gripen
>Eurofighter Typhoon
>F-16 ( )

Not mentioning F-15 since we already have that class of fighter, and any Roosi jet will be so delayed it's better waiting for Tejas mk2 instead.

If it's Rafale only then to get them swiftly and quickly we have to buy existing jets from French air force, and buy their share of in-production Rafales at Dassault, the French govt ofc will milk us well for this, and def without any large order

 

[Azaad]

I would dispute few of the points you have made.

--> "Given the fact that the PLAAF will field close to 1000 J-20s likely more & an equal number of J-16s by 2030."

This is impractical. USAF stopped production of F-22 at 180 and have never restarted production again. When they started F-35 they knew the costs would go through the roof. That is why they got other countries to partner in return for F-35 aircrafts. As I have mentioned before operating these stealth aircrafts are expensive. If you say money is not a big deal then I have other news for you. These aircrafts also need very intensive maintenance operations. For example, F-35 pilots are asked not to go supersonic because it erodes the Radar coating of the aircraft.

The Pentagon will have to live with limits on F-35’s supersonic flights

The Navy's and Marine Corps' versions of the F-35 will have restrictions on how long they can fly at supersonic speeds because of a risk of damage to the tail section.

www.defensenews.com

The same problems exist for F-22 albeit there is no restriction on going supersonic. But all stealth aircrafts face the same problem. You wanna go supersonic? Then get ready for RAM coating damage which increases the heat signature of aircraft.

J-20 is not a fully stealth aircraft like F-22. But I get the reason behind why they have designed it that way. Basically they wanted an aircraft which could cover entire Chinese mainland. So they designed a huge fighter aircraft even adding canards at the front to give it additional lift during take off at the cost of it's stealth signature. You bet maintaining J-20 would be even bigger nightmare than F-22 since it has more control surfaces.

Maintaining a 5th Gen FA with stealth characteristics isn't easy. Absolutely true. That's one of the reasons you build them up in numbers to cater to redundancy.

Moreover the primary aim of PLAAF is still to outdo the USAF not the IAF, however in so doing they automatically achieve dominance over IAF in terms of numbers, platform superiority, etc.

Here are a few publications on Chinese production plans of its various FAs.

https://www.janes.com/osint-insight...hina-inducts-additional-j-20-stealth-fighters

China’s J-16 Fleet Surpasses 350 Fighters as Thirteenth Batch Begins Deliveries: Numbers Outstrip All Contemporary Rivals

New images have confirmed expanded deployments of J-16 fighters under the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force 125th Air Brigade, which in early 2024 began

militarywatchmagazine.com

Do note China already possesses between 200-300 nos J-20 & ~ 350 nos J-16.

-->Please note that all these arguments being circulated of the limitations of taking off from Tibet with a limited payload etc doesn't hold when you've a whole army of Refuellers who'd be flying over mid Tibet refuelling FAs to & from missions across the LAC.

Even with refueling aircraft they have to take off far away from high altitude regions and then fly close to nearby air bases to refuel the fighter aircrafts. This presents a logistical problem as fighters cannot engage in the battle until they are refueled. If you looked at locations of their airbases this is easier said than done. Their logistics of transporting food and fuel would be a nightmare in the high altitude regions. Bomb their railway tracks you are looking at their army and air force being cut off.

That being said I am attaching the links of few videos with wonderful analysis of this topic.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0wCt3cyQc&t=1s&ab_channel=Cybersurg


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ2fx4eicTk&t=1s&ab_channel=Cybersurg


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkA2rsEXLNI&ab_channel=Cybersurg

Yes but where are the numbers of OUR FAs with the endurance & stealth necessary to interdict Chinese logistics ?

Look at the bases in regions bordering Tibet to get an idea of how PLAAF will likely conduct its air campaign & then factor in refuellers operating deep within Tibet closer to the middle as I put it towards the periphery of Tibet inside China to see how they'd deploy these FAs in a war against India.

Needless to say this would be in addition to the air bases inside Tibet featuring such FAs. These are just part of their overall war machinery which also includes a highly networked IADS , PLARF , Cyberspace capabilities & ISR including space based assets

No Place to Hide: A Look into China’s Geosynchronous Surveillance Capabilities

In December 2023, China launched a new optical surveillance satellite, called Yaogan-41, that may allow it to keep watch around the clock on the entire Indo-Pacific region from geostationary orbit.

www.csis.org

Spy Satellite Race: China Leads ‘Global Espionage’ With Yaogan Series Of Satellites; India A ‘Decade’ Behind

The strategic value of space assets is surging, with Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (IRS) satellites becoming increasingly vital in influencing ground-based military developments. These satellites orbit at altitudes of approximately 500 kilometers, offering crucial insights into...

www.eurasiantimes.com

 

[Azaad]

According to you which jet can do equal-equal with Rafale's capability to go against J-20?
Since we can't get them quickly, however there are other merchants who can help in the "we gotta pump up the numbers" division like

>Gripen
>Eurofighter Typhoon
>F-16 ( )

Not mentioning F-15 since we already have that class of fighter, and any Roosi jet will be so delayed it's better waiting for Tejas mk2 instead.

If it's Rafale only then to get them swiftly and quickly we have to buy existing jets from French air force, and buy their share of in-production Rafales at Dassault, the French govt ofc will milk us well for this, and def without any large order

As of now only the F-22 & the F-35. Eurofighter Typhoon is a good FA but lacks the avionics the French have deployed aboard the Rafales notably SPECTRA.

Then there's the Su-57 which on the face of it looks like a good prospect but my gut feeling is it'd take another 4-5 years for it to hammer out the kinks & mature as a good platform.

As you see in all the above cases the alternatives won't materialise for 1 reason or another.

Last ditch attempt could be to lean on France to expedite mfg our FA which we can do with the Rafale M but in case of the IAF, where's the order? Problem is the MoD & IAF probably think of Dassault as HAL which'd begin the process of mfg without a firm order in hand.