Pardon me if this has been covered & I have missed it. I was wondering why there has been no sighting of any F-16s being up in air during the entire conflict. There have been couple of claims of dowing of F-16s which have not been confirmed. The only mentions have been of Chinese aircraft & Mirage
Also one of the claims which as close to confirmed as possible is a Mirage III/V being downed & debries being found in India. Connecting the 2 dots. If they had F-16s why would they use such an old Mirage in an attack role? For me atleast this does not add up. Were all F-16s grounded? or were not allowed to take part in attack missions?
Nope instead of semantics u need to go into details of why PAF F-16 et al Didn't appear while IAF was pounding PAF airbases with impunity.
Oki let me provide u all with my logical analysis of what happened nd what missed beyond in this theatrics of war & it's associated semantics. Herein i will weigh the scenarios wrt capabilities of both side.
On 7th night when india carried out operation sindoor it was well known that we will encounter some men or material loses & it was already accounted for.
Coz when u launch an operation of this humongous scale where u are striking 9 targets across length nd breadth of paxtan without doing any SEAD or DEAD.. it was literally a suicide mission for IAF.
however IAF with remarkably achieved all of it's assigned targets by destroying all targets with pin point precision.
Remember on 7th May we were only engaging terror infrastructure not military installations of paxtan.
Now after striking paxtan terror infrastructure.. IAF integrated ADS was well prepared & waited for PAF response.
However Paxtan instead of repeating swift retort like in 2019 where they responded Within 24 hours.. was completely missing from the picture this time.. why??
Because PAF was cognizant of the threat it faced with layered integrated ADS. Ingressing even 100km close to border would've meant detrimental for PAF as it knew it's entire strike package would hv been taken out by long range S400 nd MRSAM..nd RAFALE meteor combo waiting for PAF vectors to establish a kill chain.. the attrition of PAF would be so high that their entire image would've demolished after initial limited success.
So what did paxtan do??
As expected they resorted to 3rd rate turkish drone stikes across India hoping some would pass indian ADS nd it can salvage some pride.
Now this is where whole conflict took a different shape & this is where peeps missed the finer details of what actually transpired.
India was actually waiting for an opportunity for Paxtan to undertake a military to military operation & once military to military operations started indian armed forces displayed absolute dominance on their peers.
India launched it's own drone offensive in return.. where scenes of Harop having a free pass over paxtani airspace was going viral.. with paxtani AD nuetred by a mere drone.. It had a massive psychological blow to paxtani masses..
Paxtani found them helpless nd defenseless against IAF drone strike.
Even after such tactical nd strategic blow paxtan didn't respond nd much famed PAF was again missing from picture.. why??
Again because PAF was rendered futile nd it's entire operation was successfully impeded..
INDIA was baiting PAF to launch an offensive however PAF refrained seeing the danger it faced..
Now to add insult to injury india again stuck heart of PAF i.e nur khan airbase Rawalpindi.. which was considered as scared nd impregnable .. along with nur khan india also attacked Rafiqui nd Chakwal airbases.
Now this rang alarm bell in pindi nd they were left red faced seeing indian audacity to strike it's command & control centres nd it's important assets across 3 most secure PAF air bases.
This certainly warranteed a response but here again PAF was completely missing from the picture.. NO SWIFT RETORT type theatrics no PAF going deep in india or even close to border to stike india or repeat what IAF could achieve with damm precision..
Why?? Again the answers lies in integrated ADS of india nd its associated threat wrt PAF nd anyone want's to dig deeper should study why in RUS-UKRN war the much more superior russian airforce failed to enforce Air superiority over ukraine nd give victory to russia..
Now with PAF nuetred paxtan could only resort to launching some cheap green painted chinese MLRS under hideous name of operation Banyan ul whatever.. to salvage it's face infront of it's awaam.. but to no avail .. india was ready nd it's integrated ADS intercepted whatever paxtan threw at it.. heck they even tried to target delhi with their much acclaimed FATAH-2 (400Km) but it was also intercepted over sirsa by MRSAM.
This warranted a response from india nd it rightly started targeting airbases nd it's assets nd all along paxtan launching air launched brahmos nd scalp..
If anyone noticed it was a classic SEAD & DEAD where IAF with precision first took out radar sites at Lahore, chunian, gujranwala nd parur to blind PAF eyes nd then in next waves it destroyed PAF airbases nd it's assets by it's will..
At last IAF delivered a sucker punch to PAF by taking out it's prized asset swedish AWACS in Bholari.. also killing it's squadron leader among other chaps.
Still PAF wasn't even dared to respond to destruction IAF caused..
heck while most of PAF airbases was bombed it couldn't even take a random airstrip in Srinagar Airbase to save it's face.. tch tch tch..
Again why?? Because PAF lacked horribly in PGMs quality nd quantity as compared to IAF.. it couldn't even launch it's air launched RAAD because it's a rudimentary subsonic missile an easy target for Akash et al.
So coming to conclusions all while india nd IAF was humiliating nd slapping paxtan nd PAF all across it's length nd breadth.. paxtan couldn't even afford to land a blow..
Paxtan from starting was playing theatrics with it's military nd govt trying to save it's face infront of their qaum..while india was hell bent on teaching paxtani army nd it's govt a lesson that it can't try to bleed india by it's proxies while making merry in PINDI..
MESSAGE WAS RIGHTFULLY DELIVERED!!