Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

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Surya
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Surya »

oh boy please not the Backfire arguments again
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by nachiket »

That 26 bombs video got me thinking as well. The MKI may be matched in a-to-a by the Mig-29s perhaps, but it really has no peer in the IAF when it comes to the bomb-truck role. We refer to the Jaguar as our foremost Deep Penetration Strike Aircraft, but a flight of jaguars just doesn't hold a candle to the destructive power that a flight of MKI's can bring to bear, and at greater ranges as well. I don't know if the Bars has a good terrain-following mode, but if it did, the MKI can do the job of 2-3 Jaguars farther away than they can operate. The only problem is, that in a full-scale war with cheen for e.g., nearly all the MKI's will be tied up defending the skies against the hordes of flankers and J-10s that they will keep throwing at us.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by andy B »

nachiket wrote:That 26 bombs video got me thinking as well. The MKI may be matched in a-to-a by the Mig-29s perhaps, but it really has no peer in the IAF when it comes to the bomb-truck role. We refer to the Jaguar as our foremost Deep Penetration Strike Aircraft, but a flight of jaguars just doesn't hold a candle to the destructive power that a flight of MKI's can bring to bear, and at greater ranges as well. I don't know if the Bars has a good terrain-following mode, but if it did, the MKI can do the job of 2-3 Jaguars farther away than they can operate. The only problem is, that in a full-scale war with cheen for e.g., nearly all the MKI's will be tied up defending the skies against the hordes of flankers and J-10s that they will keep throwing at us.
X2 To add to the above the MKI brings the phenomenal capability to fight its way to and fro a target without having dedicated AA support and yes IIRC the Bars does have terrain following and some SAR capability additionally this capability would have seen some upgrades to modes, ranges, etc for sure since inductions and especially combined with the new 42 batch coming through.

Nachiket ji while I agree that the MKIs will be tied up with a lot of AA duties in any confilict with chipanda we need to take into account that upgrade mirages and jags will be able to put up quite a reasonable weapons load on target not to mention the upgraded 29s.

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j ... uOM6SLdbDg - note there is a typo in the index section as its confused the bars and irbis platforms sorry for the long url.
Surya wrote:
In fact, to frightening proportions. Correct me If I'm wrong,
not yet not yet :evil:
Baaahhh joo kuffr bania you are never going to be happy hain ji!!! p.s. shepherd pie's getting cold :mrgreen:

In terms of the bombers I think its fuitile for India to invest in something of that sort the cost involved vs. the capability is just not enough for us to justify investing in it.

As a start we face significant and advanced integrated air defence networks to the east and the west which will try their best to ensure that the bombers get blown out of the sky before they go on their shock and awe 30 or 40 or 50 bomb showers!
And no unlike Khanate we do not have the capability to go and knock out these completely giving the bombers a clear path (and no a backfire going for a supersonic dash to and fro to the target will not be enough because it will run out of range in no bloo$$ time).
In addition to the IADS ther are significant interceptor and multi role fighter assets that will go bomber hunting at the first chance of doing so and again we do not have the capability to protect these bombers enough to ensure they can get to the targets safely.
The one scenario where we can possibly use them is in the IOR to roam and hunt for surface fleets having said that though the chipanda CBG group (s)? will be a significant challenge to that too.
IMHO instead of going for a dedicated bomber fleets invest in enhancing the signficant fleet of MKIs, more rafales, FGFA, AMCA etc and most importantly more MPAs!, AWACS, global 5000s ala astors and ISR platforms. The operating region comprising of the IOR and up north in Tibet etc that the IAF and IN naval arm are tasked with is huge and having a bomber fleet means nothing if we dont have enough assets that can actually identify and verify targets for the shooters onlee!
Also one would think that if the IAF really deemed a bomber as a necessary requirement they'd have done something about it by now no? I mean this is an airforce that has fought more than its share of wars and come on top!
Last edited by andy B on 25 Feb 2013 09:36, edited 1 time in total.
ramana
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by ramana »

So how big was the diamond in which the Mirage 2000 landed the bombs from 3km away?
And what was the accuracy of the SU 30MKI bombs?

The Jag was delivering from 500 feet altitude and doesnt count.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by nachiket »

andy, thanks for the PDF. And what's up with the "ji"?
andy B
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by andy B »

nachiket wrote:andy, thanks for the PDF. And what's up with the "ji"?
Sorry bhava tend to get into this formal mode at work :roll:

P.S did find another interesting link abt the evolution of Aesa and Pesa. Be mindful that this has some reference from our infamous raptor fan from down under!

http://www.microwavejournal.com/article ... technology
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by shiv »

ramana wrote:So how big was the diamond in which the Mirage 2000 landed the bombs from 3km away?
And what was the accuracy of the SU 30MKI bombs?

The Jag was delivering from 500 feet altitude and doesnt count.
Ramanagaru my guesstimate is 200 foot diamond.

But I would quibble with the idea that the Jag's accuracy can be discounted. At 500 feet and 500 to 600 kts - about 1000 kmph the (automated) system to release the weapons has to be perfect because any inaccuracy in determining altitude and a half second early or late delivery would be a phusssss... Manual delivery is likely to be very inaccurate anyway.

The Su 30 was aiming for target no 5. Here is a screen grab from the video
Image
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by ramana »

shiv wrote:
ramana wrote:So how big was the diamond in which the Mirage 2000 landed the bombs from 3km away?
And what was the accuracy of the SU 30MKI bombs?

The Jag was delivering from 500 feet altitude and doesnt count.
Ramanagaru my guesstimate is 200 foot diamond.

But I would quibble with the idea that the Jag's accuracy can be discounted. At 500 feet and 500 to 600 kts - about 1000 kmph the (automated) system to release the weapons has to be perfect because any inaccuracy in determining altitude and a half second early or late delivery would be a phusssss... Manual delivery is likely to be very inaccurate anyway.
Thanks shiv.

So if we take the 200 feet diagonal as the diameter of the circle in which the payloads land we get the figure of merit for the aircraft for dumb bomb delivery.

200 feet ~ 60m from a height of 3000 m ie 20 mils accuracy Mirage 2000

What do we know about the SU30 MKI dropped payloads?
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by srai »

Looks like No.2 overshot the target. Maybe the smoke plume from No.1's strike interfered with the second's visual alignment. If I remember correctly, something similar happened at the last Vayu Shakti.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by shiv »

srai wrote: Looks like No.2 overshot the target. Maybe the smoke plume from No.1's strike interfered with the second's visual alignment. If I remember correctly, something similar happened at the last Vayu Shakti.
These things happen all the time. I don't think anyone should end up believing that shooting anything is easy even with practice. Try hitting a 2 cm target at 10 meters with a rifle. The ratio of distance to target size is 2/1000 - 0.2%. You won't get one shot in ten on target. Try that when you are running and you understand what shooting really means. At 1000 meters hitting a 2 meter area is seriously difficult from a plane flying at 1000 kmph. If you look at it that way the shooting at Iron Fist was spectacular.

Aerial bombardment is a chancy affair and the entire bombing campaign of world war 2 did not have the effect that would be expected from the tonnage expended. Ditto Vietnam, where the US dropped more tons of bombs than all of WW2.

That is why multiple passes may be needed. Single pass attack may not only miss, but they may hit a decoy or an unimportant target requiring a second run by which time SAM batteries will have woken up and had breakfast. PGMs really came into their own only in the 1990s with Gulf war 1 and Kosovo. They are useful only for limited conflicts because they are so expensive. So dumb bombs and multiple passes over target will be with us for some time to come.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by nits »

shiv wrote:That is why multiple passes may be needed. Single pass attack may not only miss, but they may hit a decoy or an unimportant target requiring a second run by which time SAM batteries will have woken up and had breakfast. PGMs really came into their own only in the 1990s with Gulf war 1 and Kosovo. They are useful only for limited conflicts because they are so expensive. So dumb bombs and multiple passes over target will be with us for some time to come.
Which means we need more Sudarshan's; but IAF thinks there are only 25 targets each in Pak and China worth of it...
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Singha »

if you think about it, IAF has NOT been splurging $$ in even kitting up each and every M2K, upg Jag and MKI - close to 300 airframes with a laser pod and atleast 50*300 of imported LGB kits - griffon/spice/paveway etc.

they just dont seem that interested in PGMs either out of cost issue, effectiveness issue or happy to wait for domestic efforts to provide.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by srai »

^^^

If you look at open source info like SIPRI, the IAF has less than 1,500 LGB/PGM kits (few tens (<50) or hundreds (<500) each of Paveway II, Griffin-III, KAB-500, Spice and Sudarshan). Almost all the PGM/LGB kits are for 1,000lb (or 450kg) class of bombs.

At least from previous orders, one can infer that when it comes to PGM quantities the IAF thinks in tens or hundreds, but not in thousands.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by sum »

^^ In the NSG vid, was the dog also rappelled into the field from a Mi-17?
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Singha »

Old dogs claim the avg gunnery and bombing skills of todays pilots are far inferior to the old school ww2 and korean war pilots because they do little of it...and fast jets make accuracy harder.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by abhik »

shiv wrote:... So dumb bombs and multiple passes over target will be with us for some time to come.
That is simply not true, the cost of no-frills smart bombs kits like the JDAM and Paveway has come down to 25-30k USD(Though this price may be applicable to only the US). To put that in perspective 1 billion USD (with which you could at best hope to buy a dozen Rafale fighters) will buy you 33-40,000 such bombs. At this rate it doesn't make economic sense to drop dumb bombs any more.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Misraji »

^^^
Whereas a Mk82 500 Lb bomb costs 267$ (circa 2000) according to Wiki.
There is something to be said about 2 orders of magnitude difference in cost.

--Ashish
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by ramana »

See its all about targets : Area targets and point targets.

Area targets with dumb bombs and point targets with PGMs.

In both cases the tonnage at the target means its sure destruction.

By having a smaller CEP for even the dumb bombs, the target destruction is ensured.
One measure of merit is the tonnage divided by square of CEP. So per sortie. Add all the area targets and compute number of sorties. Figure in loss rate.

About point targets the goal should be on target dead for each PGM. That means the tonnage should be adequate for the target.

I figure due to the punyness of the 450kg bomb, it will take 1.5 hits to take out point targets.

Then comes the concept of hard and very hard targets that need larger tonnage PGMs.

IAF seems to assess that TSP doesn't have many hard targets!
Or they know they can't procure hard target defeat munitons.
Nor do they trust DRDO/OFB capability for the manufacture of locally developed stuff.
The pdf in CAS journal says HSLD casings have 75% reject rate.

The current 450 kg (1000lbs) has a cast steel case and gives OK concrete defeat capability. It would be better with forged steel casing and/or improved CEP for the Sudarshan kit by flying it into vulnerable points. The wobble is not encouraging as it uses up energy better used in flying accurately into the target.

But nothing beats momentum which a 1000 kg gives.

Abhik also consider the risks of second pass over dense SAM defences.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Singha »

Misraji wrote:^^^
Whereas a Mk82 500 Lb bomb costs 267$ (circa 2000) according to Wiki.
There is something to be said about 2 orders of magnitude difference in cost.

--Ashish

more relevant would be how much does OFB charge the IAF for such a bomb. I somehow doubt our production costs are so low.

75% reject rate of HSLD casings is a indicator of which quality domain they operate in. :lol:
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by shiv »

abhik wrote:
shiv wrote:... So dumb bombs and multiple passes over target will be with us for some time to come.
That is simply not true, the cost of no-frills smart bombs kits like the JDAM and Paveway has come down to 25-30k USD(Though this price may be applicable to only the US). To put that in perspective 1 billion USD (with which you could at best hope to buy a dozen Rafale fighters) will buy you 33-40,000 such bombs. At this rate it doesn't make economic sense to drop dumb bombs any more.
No. There will be no large scale change over to PGMs. PGMs are great when you know exactly what you have to hit. Important targets are normally hidden and mobile assets are moved around so pre-war recce may not reveal where they are. So while PGMs have a role the risk of second and third passes to hit targets that are spotted during an attack will be taken in a hot war.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by member_23455 »

ramana wrote:See its all about targets. Area targets and point targets.

Area targets get dumb bombs and point targets get PGMs.
Ummm...no :wink: . The answer is it depends. Is an enemy bunker a point target? The US has been known to regularly drop a single JDAM on one of those, but let me know in the next 10 years if the Indians do so...except if it is like an all important bunker on Tiger Hill, when they will.

Ironically, the IAF is as likely to drop a PGM on an Area target - the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon, a good old fashioned dumb cluster bomb smartened with a wind corrected guidance unit that deploys 40 heat-seeking skeets that can cause some major problems for the recipients.

So really, it is about availability and affordability. Even when GW I was being bankrolled by the Gulf states, only 8% of munitions fired by Allied Forces were precision guided, because they were still not widely manufactured or issued. GW II that went upto 60% - and largely due to a new kind of PGM, the JDAM.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Lalmohan »

usaf/nato also drop pgm's on targets after the air defences have been thoroughly sanitised - involving vast amounts of elint/awacs/jstars capability that the rest of the world does not have. their game is to avoid their own casualties and have nice tv images to show sixpack-people
we will not have the time, space or capability and will have to go in lo-lo-lo and smack everything down
dont need pgms for that but they do help
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by shiv »

Targeting laser guided PGMs is fine if you have someone loitering about illuminating a target with laser - something that may fail with smoke/dust. For known targets accurate GPS signals will be needed for guidance, and we depend on everyone but us for GPS signals. For IR guidance - we are still well behind state of the art in what we build in house. So exporters are willing to sell us all this at exorbitant rates and with the risk of wartime shutting off of GPS signals and failure to supply spares.

it is the same old story. We are way way away form shifting to a pure PGM force.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Singha »

Until we get our own gps satellites, cannot invest in gps guided munitions. Glonass may nor may not be available..rus could always create temporary issues in the relevant sats to not offend their neighbour. I am not sure gagan is anything beyond a airplane navigation play and that too over indian landmass only, not over the sea or cheen.

Our iir tech is a decade behind and any form of iir or laser is defeated by weather, smoke, dust.

Looks like good raw gunnery and bombing skill is the only route open.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by abhik »

Misraji wrote:^^^
Whereas a Mk82 500 Lb bomb costs 267$ (circa 2000) according to Wiki.
There is something to be said about 2 orders of magnitude difference in cost.

--Ashish
The cost of the munition, smart or other wise is only a part of the actual cost of delivering it on the target. You must also consider the cost of the aircraft delivering the munitions, amongst other things. Lets consider for arguments sake that a strike fighter(whose main utility is deliver bombs) costs say 100M USD. This includes initial acquisition cost, spares & fuel over its lifetime, pilot/crew training etc. Now say this fighter drops 200 munitions in conflicts over its lifetime. That would translate into fighter cost per munition dropped of 500K USD. If one is using only dumb bombs then the cost goes up further. One reason is poor accuracy. If you have to drop twice the number of bombs for the same target then the fighter cost for the same target doubles to 1M USD. Plus consider the additional risk cost of putting the fighter in harms way vie lower altitude drop, multiple passes etc.
The figures I have used are completely made up, but I think you will appreciate that a dumb bomb may cost 100 less than its PGM version but the actual cost of getting the bomb on target(the figure that really counts) is a completely different matter.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Surya »

we will not have the time, space or capability and will have to go in lo-lo-lo and smack everything down

lo lo lo is not an option with the heavy AA defence our opponents will throw up

It will be part of the mix but a lot will have to be medium alt runs
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by abhik »

shiv wrote:PGMs are great when you know exactly what you have to hit. Important targets are normally hidden and mobile assets are moved around so pre-war recce may not reveal where they are.
How will a non PGM be any better at this?
So while PGMs have a role the risk of second and third passes to hit targets that are spotted during an attack will be taken in a hot war.
Any risk taking appetite reduces massively after the first few losses. Take for example Kargil where the Mirage-2000s with their LGBs took over after a few fighters/ helicopters being brought down by MANPADS while launching dumb bombs/rockets.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by abhik »

Lalmohan wrote:usaf/nato also drop pgm's on targets after the air defences have been thoroughly sanitised - involving vast amounts of elint/awacs/jstars capability that the rest of the world does not have. their game is to avoid their own casualties and have nice tv images to show sixpack-people
we will not have the time, space or capability and will have to go in lo-lo-lo and smack everything down
dont need pgms for that but they do help
We have to hit greater number of targets with lesser number of assets compared to USAF/NATO in any of their recent wars. That only makes the case for PGMs stronger. Plus Kargil has shown us the limits using dumb-munitions.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Surya »

abhik is right

If we have the money we should go with PGMs at least for all high value targets.

where feasible we have to avoid getting into an attritional scenario
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by abhik »

ramana wrote:Abhik also consider the risks of second pass over dense SAM defences.
Ramana-ji, conventional SAMs can be taken out, and is one of the top priories at the start of a conflict. But it is impossible to take out MANPADs unless you have control on ground. With proliferating MANPADs any low altitude bombing runs(required by dumb munitions) become extremely risky. We have already got a taste of this in Kargil.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by ramana »

All the more reasons to go for PGMS to keep out of range. While the pilots are brave hearts/warriors and all that their main purpose is to kill the enemy without getting hurt.
And do it allover again till all the enemy is killed dead.
Each plane is truck to deliver the munitions on target.

Following 2010 paper by Group Captain Bhanoji Rao answers the intricacies.. in AriPower Journal:

Air launched weapons
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by ramana »

How many sorties in Iron Fist and in what time?
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Surya »

equally important is attrition (i think its more important)

as aircraft become more complex and numbers are less - we cannot afford losses of a certain level and beyond

till we get UCAVs and things may change
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by ramana »

Looks like 230 a/c of all types participated.
I would like to know how many repeat flights any of the attack craft made and what was the turn around time?

In 1998 -99 timeframe there was Exercise Gajraj that had a high sortie rate and day-night ops.
Other than different a/c and ~ ten years past, how was Iron Fist different?
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Indranil »

Ramana sir,

It would be difficult to extrapolate the availability of planes during a real war even if we knew the repeat flights and turn around time for Iron fist. I mean you could have a plane go through two or more bomb runs with only fuel and armament reload time in between as long as the cumulative time is less than the MTBF.

But can this be sustained over a week. I highly doubt it.

Plus what happens to the logistics behind making the planes fly. At Iron fist only a couple of planes from each squadron flew. Can it hold up to the increased sortie rates of the entire squadron? We (the people) will never know that until a couple of years after a war.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Gagan »

Here the IAF is flying off 3-5 airfields. Moi is sure there is a Phalcon seeing everything and routing everyone onto the targets. There is probably also a Aerostat seeing everything, in addition there are multiple flights of UAVs to provide video and FLIR feeds.
Apt demonstration of a short war, except that everything is very well scripted. Real war will have this plus sudden developments and events happenings.
If Pakistan is the enemy, they will put up a staunch fight for a few days, then as usual, they will let out a long cold fart and collapse / downhillski / surrender.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by shiv »

abhik wrote:
shiv wrote:PGMs are great when you know exactly what you have to hit. Important targets are normally hidden and mobile assets are moved around so pre-war recce may not reveal where they are.
How will a non PGM be any better at this?
So while PGMs have a role the risk of second and third passes to hit targets that are spotted during an attack will be taken in a hot war.
Any risk taking appetite reduces massively after the first few losses. Take for example Kargil where the Mirage-2000s with their LGBs took over after a few fighters/ helicopters being brought down by MANPADS while launching dumb bombs/rockets.
Abhik we used 6 PGMs in the whole war. Most of the mud moving was done by dumb bombs. Despite that we had no losses after the initial phase when the extent of defences were still being ascertained. The losses occurred when the extent of defences were still being assessed - not because dumb bombs were being used.

If you don''t know where a target is you have to search and to search you have to fly over target more than once. Often a target will not become a target till it fires at you. The risk of being hit are higher but that is a risk the air force lives with. Jasjit Singh's book on air warfare is very clear about this. In the initial phases of a war there will be losses when SEAD is being done. A 10% loss rate could occur at this phase. Such a high rate cannot be sustained during the course of a campaign. PGMs in this initial phase would be most productive in keeping losses down.

A successful dumb bomb attack is as successful as a successful PGM but ten times cheaper. A failed PGM is as much of a failure as a failed dumb bomb and ten times more expensive. The air force has the means to do the math.

But all this PGM business is all theory. We don't have our own mil grade GPS so we have to depend on line of sight Laser guidance. Can't see, can't use. It's as simple as that.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by shiv »

ramana wrote:Looks like 230 a/c of all types participated.
I would like to know how many repeat flights any of the attack craft made and what was the turn around time?

In 1998 -99 timeframe there was Exercise Gajraj that had a high sortie rate and day-night ops.
Other than different a/c and ~ ten years past, how was Iron Fist different?
Ramana I can try and guess (approximate)

Flypast
1 x MiG 27 pulling bnnner
1 x MiG 29 breaking sound barrier
5 x Jaguar
5 x MiG 29
5 x Mirage 2000
3 x Su 30
1 x Tiger Moth
3 x Sarangs
1 X LCH
1 each Cheetah, Chetak, ALH
2 x Mi 17

Attacks:
6 x MiG 21
4 x Sukhoi
4 x MiG 27
4 x Jaguar
2 X MiG 29 (patrol)
2 x LCA
2 x Mirage 2000
2 x Hawk
2 x Mi 17 for NSG
2 x ALH
4 x Mi 35
2 x An 32
1 X Il 76
? x Il 78
1 x Heron UAV
1 x Embraer
1 x C-130

That makes only 70. I may have failed to mention some displays/demos.

Sortie rate in 1971 was was 500 per day IIRC
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Surya »

Despite that we had no losses after the initial phase when the extent of defences were still being ascertained. The losses occurred when the extent of defences were still being assessed - not because dumb bombs were being used.
losses stopped because we discarded previous patterns and stayed out of manpad range - pgm or no pgms
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