MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

habal · Post by **habal** » 18 Mar 2019 15:19

in future the whole operation should be handed over to an army chief or air chief or dy air/army chief to supervise like IG handed over entire 71 ops to FM Manekshaw. The person in-charge will determine how to scale up or down, and decide in whether to be dharmic or adharmic in response to an action. Only then chances would be higher that PAF CAP would return back to smouldering air base.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 18 Mar 2019 15:24

After penetrating deep inside Pakistan air space and striking with PGM it is naieve of any one to think they won’t use pgm or BVR or anything to hurt us.

Mirage UPG and mki were in air why didn’t they use BVR when paf shot a bison using BVR ?

nam · Post by **nam** » 18 Mar 2019 15:34

We were not at declared war with Pak. So setting up a RoE convenient for us is not a easy thing under such a situation. What should be the RoE?

No fly zone at 20? 30? 100KM? would this need to applied on IB and Arabian sea? Apply to PN ships with anti-air missile?

Fundamentally such a RoE is open war. And that was not our objective.

PAF jets came in to the 10KM no fly zone and quickly dropped off LGB, with not hitting anything worthwhile. The H4 must have have been fired from in depth in PoK, which is why it's rockets fell off in PoK.

Unless PAF jets breached in to 10KM no fly zone, we cannot engage. We don't know if they are just flying CAP or in offensive mode. With the advent of long range A2G, it gets more complicated.

We engaged once they broke the 10KM no fly zone and came in. There could be arguments that we should have fired off BVR as soon as they came in to 10KM no fly zone. Even then we don't know the complete picture. F16 fired off Aim120 from 40- 50KM from the Su30. They may have fired them as the other batch was getting in, to distract the Su30.

We cannot waste BVR on regressing jets at 20-30KM. Just like the F16 wasted their Aim120 at such long range.Meteor may have had better chance with Ramjet chasing them for 100KM+, but we don't have it at this moment.

nam · Post by **nam** » 18 Mar 2019 15:35

I feel the 10KM no fly zone was re-inforced by the shooting down of the UAV by Su30. This must have send the message.

News also came in of PAF jets going supersonic just outside the 10KM zone. Seems they are maintaining the buffer.

JTull · Post by **JTull** » 18 Mar 2019 15:40

Kashi wrote:
negi wrote:Well the poodle might have by now passed on the wreckage to the yellow master for close inspection.
PLAAF already has R77 on their MKKs.

If there was a EW pod (el 8222?) then would it be a problem if that got into enemy hands?

habal · Post by **habal** » 18 Mar 2019 15:42

Austin wrote: when paf shot a bison using BVR ?

after those two intact missiles and almost intact debris you still say bison was bought down by a mythical bvr. No paf bvr's worked that day and they fired away at least 4-5. Usually large and lumbering commercial aircraft engines can survive a bird hit or two and it just spits out the bird like a flame ball.

But a small fighter like a MiG-21 and its tight engine enclosure can be in a real mess after a bird/debris hit. It's antiquated and tightly packed engine will not survive it.

nam · Post by **nam** » 18 Mar 2019 15:48

It is difficult to say what hit the Mig21. Whatever it was, it hit at the rear near the engine.

A BVR hitting the jet proper, would result is pieces, not the state Mig21 was.

What was left of the Mig21 which was hit by a manpad in Kargil?

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Mar 2019 15:51

Singha wrote:Yes it was failure of our political rulers to anticipate that all dharmic “rules” would be broken despite giving them a face saver exit route of non military terror target and zero civilian kia

We were lucky to escape with no lives lost and 1:1 exchange ratio fighting with one arm against someone who follows no indic rules

Chalo fool me once shame on you but fool me twice and its shame on me

I hope there is blanket signoff to throw the kitchen sink next time they try a stunt or mass attack including dollowing their retreating ac with a missile barrage on their base timed to arrive with them

One has to adapt to survive with the pakis thats for sure and indic age old rules like do not attack the defenceless have zero meaning

Well said. We have to anticipate and prepare for a proper conflict.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Mar 2019 15:52

Good logical post. Using BVR with the 10km rule is impossible. A political decision has to be taken to hit in advance. It should have been simple, if fired upon retaliate. Protect assets using all means necessary.

nam wrote:We were not at declared war with Pak. So setting up a RoE convenient for us is not a easy thing under such a situation. What should be the RoE?

No fly zone at 20? 30? 100KM? would this need to applied on IB and Arabian sea? Apply to PN ships with anti-air missile?

Fundamentally such a RoE is open war. And that was not our objective.

PAF jets came in to the 10KM no fly zone and quickly dropped off LGB, with not hitting anything worthwhile. The H4 must have have been fired from in depth in PoK, which is why it's rockets fell off in PoK.

Unless PAF jets breached in to 10KM no fly zone, we cannot engage. We don't know if they are just flying CAP or in offensive mode. With the advent of long range A2G, it gets more complicated.

We engaged once they broke the 10KM no fly zone and came in. There could be arguments that we should have fired off BVR as soon as they came in to 10KM no fly zone. Even then we don't know the complete picture. F16 fired off Aim120 from 40- 50KM from the Su30. They may have fired them as the other batch was getting in, to distract the Su30.

We cannot waste BVR on regressing jets at 20-30KM. Just like the F16 wasted their Aim120 at such long range.Meteor may have had better chance with Ramjet chasing them for 100KM+, but we don't have it at this moment.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Mar 2019 15:54

JTull wrote:If there was a EW pod (el 8222?) then would it be a problem if that got into enemy hands?

Recovering encrypted software wont be easy. Even we cant just reverse engineer them.
They can learn from the layout, hardware etc.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 18 Mar 2019 15:55

fort abbas itself is 20km in, toba village more than 50km.
the video of debris if that were from the drone and not from pak drop tanks discard during some engagement were in sand dunes area.
there are plenty of sand dunes near the border and south of fort abbas its all sand as thar intrudes into pak.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Toba/ ... 72.8592558

tsarkar · Post by **tsarkar** » 18 Mar 2019 15:59

1. India's military planning often involves bureaucratic interference, despite the PM giving a free hand to services.
2. Secondly, senior Staff Officers are also too keen to flatter bureaucrats
3. We forget Pakistan is NOT a reasonable player and it will adopt mad tactics to save face.

Firstly the air strikes were underplayed as "non military targets" and only aggressive posturing and shallow strikes with possible dogfighting envisaged.

The RoE on that day were to engage 1. If Pakistanis entered Indian territory and 2. Open fire first. What the RoE didnt factor was Pakistanis doing AEW&C supported BVR shots from well inside Pakistani territory.

The JF-17 did shallow penetrations to distract. The strike package was Mirage 3/5 with H4 missiles that fired from well inside Pakistani territory. They had F-16s flying top cover for the Mirage 3/5 and additional F-16s with AMRAAMs supported with data from AEW&C to take out Indian Su-30s and Mirage 2000.

Not a single Indian aircraft, including Abhinandan, worked out a BVR firing solution as that would have violated the RoE. Instead Abhinandan chose to close in. And enter Pakistani territory. Super Brave of him.

The older peacetime RoE has since then been changed.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 18 Mar 2019 16:04

while they can always claim the H4 was programmed to impact in some empty areas, the amraams have no way to deliberately miss....so the idea was use the bait to lure out a few high value indian interceptors, shoot down 3-4 and make a good escape. their equivalent of giving us a tight slap.

given the hysteria over one mig21, one can image what it would be like if 4 a/c were suddenly shot down that morning.

calls for modi to resign would be out by 12 noon

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Mar 2019 16:10

Could have been the first mode itself, because they would need to actually take out our specific targets, but because the Mirage 2000s and Su-30s locked on or painted them on radar, the Mirage 3's skedaddled.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Mar 2019 16:12

This time we were just lucky that this "interference" did not cost us severe casualties forcing us to go to war.
If instead of a pusillanimous crowd sitting in the Paki cockpits, what if a madcap Mirage 3 crew decided to stick around & guide the Raptors into an ammo dump, despite being at risk? We would have had a massive strike on our side and red faces all around and tremendous pressure to retaliate even harder. Launch on their launch should have been the ROE regarding BVR weapons. What understanding or capability do our bureaucrats have to understand BVR combat or the intricacies therein? And if the AF didn't bring this issue to their notice, facepalm.
And why are we sitting on the F-16 evidence. I hope that's not some babu driven harebrained "de-escalation" decision as well. Govts change but these guys and their "logic" is always the same.

tsarkar wrote:1. India's military planning often involves bureaucratic interference, despite the PM giving a free hand to services.
2. Secondly, senior Staff Officers are also too keen to flatter bureaucrats
3. We forget Pakistan is NOT a reasonable player and it will adopt mad tactics to save face.

Firstly the air strikes were underplayed as "non military targets" and only aggressive posturing and shallow strikes with possible dogfighting envisaged.

The RoE on that day were to engage 1. If Pakistanis entered Indian territory and 2. Open fire first. What the RoE didnt factor was Pakistanis doing AEW&C supported BVR shots from well inside Pakistani territory.

The JF-17 did shallow penetrations to distract. The strike package was Mirage 3/5 with H4 missiles that fired from well inside Pakistani territory. They had F-16s flying top cover for the Mirage 3/5 and additional F-16s with AMRAAMs supported with data from AEW&C to take out Indian Su-30s and Mirage 2000.

Not a single Indian aircraft, including Abhinandan, worked out a BVR firing solution as that would have violated the RoE. Instead Abhinandan chose to close in. And enter Pakistani territory. Super Brave of him.

The older peacetime RoE has since then been changed.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 18 Mar 2019 16:31

kurup Retweeted
Aditya G
@Aditya_G_Social
Mar 16
More
Long range raids by @IAF_MCC :

05/12/1961: Canberra - Kolwezi airbase - 1,290 Km ==> must be UN mission in congo?
13/09/1965: Canberra - PAF Peshawar - 1,000 Km apprx
26/02/2019: Mirage-2000 - Balakot - 1,000 Km apprx

nam · Post by **nam** » 18 Mar 2019 16:58

Even if we considered PAF firing BVR from deep PoK, it is a difficult problem to solve. We cannot engage before fired upon. And we had no intention of escalating or cross the LoC. It is a very difficult handicap to overcome, unless it is open war.

Until we had to laid down no fly zone rules within specific range either using heavy ECM or hard firing solution, there will be no clarity.

Let's say as soon as the Aim-120 was fired, message goes to the our entire CAP package to fire at will. Seeing the R77 coming there way, PAF packages go fire at will.

With 10s of BVrs firing across the LC, it is anybody's guess what the end result will be. There were atleast 36, probably more jets in the air!

With the "shootout", both IAF & PAF would need to surge to support the frontline jets, as neither of them would be sure what will happen next. Will PAF cross over and attack in full force? or will IAF cross over and attack?

This confusion actually played out, as both the airspace was immediately closed. Both were anticipating things to escalate rapidly.

It is a peculiar problem with LoC preventing physical crossover, however BVR & A2G weapons allowing standoff attacks!

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 18 Mar 2019 17:24

the epic 1000km raid on peshawar where pak had parked all its B57 bombers (shades of the 'gold' 18 units of F18 block52 kept under wraps in sargodha)

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Galle ... 5.jpg.html

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Mar 2019 17:31

Moment we saw missiles fired from their side via AWACS, we should have gone weapons free ourselves or allowed our guys to do so. We did that, otherwise Abhi couldnt have hit back. Chances are of course, the initial salvo, turn 180 degrees & then their run at full supersonic back meant that our guys didnt get the opportunity to fire back, it would have been wasting missiles without a proper solution, and to get that we would have to chase them across the LOC..
We have to remember, its not just about radar detection and WCS calculation, the targets have to be in weapons engagement zone, ideally the NEZ.. so they had to go supersonic too and chase the targets, which has its own set of risks. There could be more fighters waiting in valleys, for springing a trap. SAM traps. AWACS cant predict the latter. Fighters swarming up from line of sight restricted valleys which AWACS didnt detect, can swarm missiles against high flying targets. Fighter radar operates in a cone, it can see far targets the best, close in targets can attempt to swarm in from directly below. The PAF can operate EMCON directed by their ground based radars on hill-tops.

In short, next time around if we see them get into weapons engagement zone, we have to fire first. That's the only way to retain the initiative, and for that kind of ROE, that means war.

nam wrote:Even if we considered PAF firing BVR from deep PoK, it is a difficult problem to solve. We cannot engage before fired upon. And we had no intention of escalating or cross the LoC. It is a very difficult handicap to overcome, unless it is open war.

Until we had to laid down no fly zone rules within specific range either using heavy ECM or hard firing solution, there will be no clarity.

Let's say as soon as the Aim-120 was fired, message goes to the our entire CAP package to fire at will. Seeing the R77 coming there way, PAF packages go fire at will.

With 10s of BVrs firing across the LC, it is anybody's guess what the end result will be. There were atleast 36, probably more jets in the air!

With the "shootout", both IAF & PAF would need to surge to support the frontline jets, as neither of them would be sure what will happen next. Will PAF cross over and attack in full force? or will IAF cross over and attack?

This confusion actually played out, as both the airspace was immediately closed. Both were anticipating things to escalate rapidly.

It is a peculiar problem with LoC preventing physical crossover, however BVR & A2G weapons allowing standoff attacks!

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 18 Mar 2019 17:43

nam wrote:It is difficult to say what hit the Mig21. Whatever it was, it hit at the rear near the engine. A BVR hitting the jet proper, would result is pieces, not the state Mig21 was. What was left of the Mig21 which was hit by a manpad in Kargil?

Debris ingestion would cause compressor failure, which would cause damage there and downstream. Takes only a small piece flying through, taking out a part of a couple of blades. Stator blade pieces will do downtream not radially, while rotor blade pieces would shoot out tangential/radial.

May have been very small debris, so that the engine went into unbalanced vibration, getting worse, cutting hydraulics.. plane becomes unfliable, so pilot has to bail out. Probably had a couple of seconds to decide.

Any other kind of failure, he would probably have tried turning towards India and accelerating a bit further. At least wreckage would have fallen on Indian side.

syam · Post by **syam** » 18 Mar 2019 17:54

We seriously need some structural reforms at the administration level at least. There is like 1 day to 4 day gap between each decision. If this is how we work, we will lose every battle. Thank god, it's just Pakis who have no power except their terror camps. If it is any other military, we would have bitten dust. Just imagine a scenario,

China decided to take NE for themselves. They launched offensive. To do that,first they will make Pakis attack us on western front. All these things will take some serious preparations. Chinese might do mobilization near to NE. I have rough timeline of the whole thing.

3 months to the conflict - Terror attack.
2 months to the conflict - Indian surgical strike
1 months to the conflict - Indo-Pak war.
Conflict - China rises some NE issue and tells the world that it needs liberation.
1st month of the conflict - Indo-china war(It may not be all out war)

As we are living in very fast world, things will reach the public immediately. The timing of conflict going to be near to the election time. How will we survive in such situation? US will play it's own game. Russia will be neutral. UK and other countries don't make any difference.

Our armed forces will give good fighting. But what about other things? i don't think we will use nukes as long as they keep the battle to the particular zone. Even if we go for nukes, the whole china is somewhere on the other side. Our missiles may not reach there in time. So the deterrence is gone. To fire every missile in every situation, we definitely take few hours meeting if not few days to decide.

Am I the only guy who is worried about this whole thing?

Our gov is at its peak. We may not have the cool heads at the top all the time with big mandate. Also we can't solve the issue by doing rally. Rallies won't produce able decision makers. Even these rallies can be hijacked by the enemy.

/rant-off

The thing is, even if we shot the F-16 and done surgical strike, we gained next to nothing. Pakistanis made it clear they will retaliate if we target terror camps in Pak. No P5 guy kicked Pakis over this. We didn't kick them. Everything is back to normal now until next terror attack. Next time, we may not succeed in surgical strikes.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 18 Mar 2019 17:57

given awacs data, abhi's debrief and early Abdul-cam evidence, I am sure that the IAF has a good idea of where the F16 went down - otherwise there would have been no claim.

entirely possible that unkil has stepped in with hush-hush orders to everyone to preserve H&D all around and "de-escalate tensions"

what I can tell you is that the US colonel retiree who has the job of checking PAF inventory on site will have noticed by now that one of the birds did not come home and is not being repaired elsewhere and his drinking buddy in the officers mess hasn't shown up for work for a few weeks...

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 18 Mar 2019 18:16

>> Pakistanis made it clear they will retaliate if we target terror camps in Pak

surely you jest sire. these are not facebook scripts you run once a day and the only fallout of a bad error is facebook going offline for a few hours....these decisions affect lives. our govt does not have decades of exp playing the global bully, we have only lately gained the muscle to bully tsp.

they lost a few dozen high valley assets in the balakot tandoor oven, splattered like naans on the walls and ceiling.
so next time they do nara e takbeer and expect the cannon fodder to stream into india, its not going to look so good...PA enjoying in pindi and cadres slogging it out under indian fire.

aur retaliate kar ke bhi kya ukhaad liya? lost one of their best plane for one of our oldest and least capable. losing 1+ mil usd daily on airspace closure, economy in same old trap and junta not getting a enemy to unite over as they eat grass... IN moving around in the haze licking its lips.

its no longer a free ticket to launch mass attacks on india.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Mar 2019 18:47

syam wrote:The thing is, even if we shot the F-16 and done surgical strike, we gained next to nothing.

I hope you are kidding? We crossed the so-called redline and showed we will strike in Pak proper each time they attack us. This by itself is a huge step forward.

Pakistanis made it clear they will retaliate if we target terror camps in Pak.

Retaliate?

Is that what you call a 24 aircraft package, which turns tail on facing *8* IAF interceptors, is unable to launch a single effective strike into Indian territory, is unable to even take down an Indian asset despite salvo'ing 4-5 AMRAAMs? And loses a F-16B/D in the process? Don't know about you, but propaganda claims apart, I bet the PAF is seriously shitting bricks about its so called performance. Its Raptor PGMs didn't work. Its pilots didn't prosecute the fight to any logical conclusion. Its AMRAAMs failed.

No P5 guy kicked Pakis over this.

You sure? What do you think convinced them to de-escalate so quickly? Nobody in their corner & a belligerent India.

We didn't kick them.

I am sure the vaporized Jihadis in the JEM would disagree. Their F-16 pilots who are rapidly re-evaluating how a Bison got the jump on them would disagree.

Everything is back to normal now until next terror attack. Next time, we may not succeed in surgical strikes.

What you don't understand is this is the new normal. If they hit us, we hit back.

nam · Post by **nam** » 18 Mar 2019 18:59

The fight with Pak is not a single large war. They will just regroup after a decade. We did a full war in 71 and we are still dealing with the problem.

It is a attrition war. So far they kept in at the level of IA and playing in the area of their strength. Their human cannon fodders.

The attrition level got raised by our air strike.

We need to grind them continuously, without raising the specter of a full war.

syam · Post by **syam** » 18 Mar 2019 19:05

I am not worried about the retaliation, sir. My main issue is with the way we handled the whole thing. What will we do if it is some other big country?
We can handle pakis just fine, but pakis will come as a part of big chini package next time. How do you think that will play out?

I went through 2-front war scenarios proposed by posters. They seem to forget one simple thing here. Both of our adversaries are not democratic. Chini-pakis won't do cabinet meeting during the war time. They seem to have control over the fallout. What about us?

Another thing is, Pakis legitimized their terror outfits and got away with it. No serious backlash from any big party. It's like the world doesn't care what pakis doing.

manjgu · Post by **manjgu** » 18 Mar 2019 19:19

1) syam.. inspite of paki provocations, we have managed to do well economically. Pakis have gone down the tube, focusing just on india baiting. Like all jingos ( we would have liked more action). But as a democracy, we have to bow to the decisions our leaders make ( just as we bow down to decisions made by SC ..supreme court). This is the path we have choosen and it will be that way. There is a new leadership style which is robust and decisive as compared to the past. 2) I dont know which fallout are u talking about? 3) we have to fight our battles on our own, dont expect any backlash from any big party. As we grow economically and militarily and modi ji stays in the sadddle, I am v optimisitc of a favourable outcome in his next term. the Disparity between us and pakis in all fields is growing exponentially.

nam · Post by **nam** » 18 Mar 2019 19:23

There is no point getting in to a large war and mess our economical potential by fighting with the loser on the western front.

Better get in to intense attrition war. Intense 155MM fire assault along LoC for year or two will do more damage than a 2 week or month war.

nam · Post by **nam** » 18 Mar 2019 19:24

So PA has suspended internet along the 10KM on LoC. They have been cleaning up any leakage over F16.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1470317

JTull · Post by **JTull** » 18 Mar 2019 19:35

That's great. Light up every ammunition dump within 10km. No risk of leakage. Then they'll deny it.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 18 Mar 2019 19:39

pull the strands together... PA wants conflict, but when faced with an escalation they backed down, or were urged to back down. they realised that if the elephant starts to thrash around then they will be trampled. so comes back to the PA-State being a rent seeker and running a protection racket with anyone they can. its not about ghazwa-e-hind for the brass, but that is a nice slogan for the cannon fodder
and now the cannon fodder know it too...
things must be pretty scary for the jarnails right now...

syam · Post by **syam** » 18 Mar 2019 19:49

Karan M wrote: I hope you are kidding? We crossed the so-called redline and showed we will strike in Pak proper each time they attack us. This by itself is a huge step forward.

militarily, we did great. My issue is with reaping the fruits. It's like the whole thing is redirected to some unknown jungle and everyone scratching their head about what just happened.

Retaliate?
Is that what you call a 24 aircraft package, which turns tail on facing *8* IAF interceptors, is unable to launch a single effective strike into Indian territory, is unable to even take down an Indian asset despite salvo'ing 4-5 AMRAAMs? And loses a F-16B/D in the process? Don't know about you, but propaganda claims apart, I bet the PAF is seriously shitting bricks about its so called performance. Its Raptor PGMs didn't work. Its pilots didn't prosecute the fight to any logical conclusion. Its AMRAAMs failed.

Their retaliation is big joke. Please read my prev post. Pakis legitimized their terror camps and no big power questioned them over this. For me, it looks like we missed something.

You sure? What do you think convinced them to de-escalate so quickly? Nobody in their corner & a belligerent India.

Saar, pakis are beggars. The regular international backlash won't work on them. In a way, it looked like the big guys saved them from serious trouble.

I am sure the vaporized Jihadis in the JEM would disagree. Their F-16 pilots who are rapidly re-evaluating how a Bison got the jump on them would disagree.

Jihadis are expendable. I will be happy if it has some serious consequences.

What you don't understand is this is the new normal. If they hit us, we hit back.

They are not going to hit us any time soon. In fact, they wouldn't have hit us even now too. Some one motivated them. I might be reading too many RDji posts. It feels like we missed something big.

Zynda · Post by **Zynda** » 18 Mar 2019 19:50

Stupid Pakis are at it again. One of their so called eminent weapon/defence analyst posts a picture of wreckage of two missiles and claims that both them missiles are R-73s obtained from Abhi's MiG-21 and hence he could not have fired his missile...hence story of IAF downing TSPAF F-16 is false onlee. I guess he was hoping that no one would identify that the wreckage of the missile at the bottom is R-77 & not R-73. I guess the Pakis thought they are being clever by not including the tail lattice fins of R-77 in the pic, they could fool & convince their audience easily (perhaps they did considering their target audience is domestic folks), but Shiv Aroor & bunch of others are giving it back on Twitter nicely.

https://twitter.com/ShivAroor/status/11 ... 3910222853

BTW, how to embed tweets in to forum messages?

SidSoma · Post by **SidSoma** » 18 Mar 2019 20:00

tsarkar wrote: The RoE on that day were to engage 1. If Pakistanis entered Indian territory and 2. Open fire first. What the RoE didnt factor was Pakistanis doing AEW&C supported BVR shots from well inside Pakistani territory.

The JF-17 did shallow penetrations to distract. The strike package was Mirage 3/5 with H4 missiles that fired from well inside Pakistani territory. They had F-16s flying top cover for the Mirage 3/5 and additional F-16s with AMRAAMs supported with data from AEW&C to take out Indian Su-30s and Mirage 2000.

Not a single Indian aircraft, including Abhinandan, worked out a BVR firing solution as that would have violated the RoE. Instead Abhinandan chose to close in. And enter Pakistani territory. Super Brave of him.

TSarkarji, So is it safe to assume that the F16 that was shot down 1.) Crossed the LOC. And 2.) Fired first
hence was chased and engaged by Abhi?

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Mar 2019 20:14

syam wrote:militarily, we did great. My issue is with reaping the fruits. It's like the whole thing is redirected to some unknown jungle and everyone scratching their head about what just happened.

Like Singha said, early days. Wait & watch & hopefully, the new IW wing set up will get the GOI's act together.

Their retaliation is big joke. Please read my prev post. Pakis legitimized their terror camps and no big power questioned them over this. For me, it looks like we missed something.

Why are you obsessed with " this big power said this"? None of these guys ever cared about Pak doing all this all these days.. please read the accounts of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan.. they literally fought off waves of Pakis coming over the border.. even recovered bodies in Frontier Corps.. did the Khan do something? No!! So why are you expecting them to stand up for us, when they didn;t stand up for their own troops???

What we have to do, we have to do by ourselves. Nobody else will hold our finger ...we have started on that path.

Saar, pakis are beggars. The regular international backlash won't work on them. In a way, it looked like the big guys saved them from serious trouble.

No, what "saved them" was that we didn't want to escalate. GOI/Modi have had a perfect outcome. Strike in Pakistan, acceptable loss (one old jet, pilot recovered), heavy JEM casualties, good domestic optics..deterrence aim achieved, GOI/BJP admins consistent policy demonstrated.. and we walk away. No nuclear flashpoint nothing. Meanwhile Pakistani economy is bleeding, their airspace is in doldrums.. what's not to like for GOI? BRFs angst about F-16 loss proof, this, that is minor to GOI compared to the big picture. They sit & talk to various powers, are sharing evidence about heavy Pak losses etc.

Jihadis are expendable. I will be happy if it has some serious consequences.

Their trainers and senior personnel aren't.

They are not going to hit us any time soon. In fact, they wouldn't have hit us even now too. Some one motivated them. I might be reading too many RDji posts. It feels like we missed something big.

Yeah, I think you are over-thinking.

AdityaM · Post by **AdityaM** » 18 Mar 2019 20:18

Karan M wrote: What you don't understand is this is the new normal. If they hit us, we hit back.

Not really.
If they hit us BIG, then we may hit back.
That is the new normal.

And by firing multiple BVRs, they did attempt to hit us. But we did not hit back. Not even later.
So that’s a bit of muddled messaging.

If our ROE during the PAF raid was not to be the first to fire if Pakis were in their airspace, then our ROE did not change in the subsequent days as well.
In later days they have been flying close to the borders, we didn’t punish them for breaking expected ROE restraints.
So PAF guys would be pretty upbeat given the fact that they attempted run our noses to the ground in their attempt to scalp multiple Su30s.
They didn’t succeed, but they are not particularly worse off for that.
(Leaving aside the F16 loss, which we believe absolutely happened, but we can’t/won’t prove for whatever reasons)

By the way Jagan, the old man of BRF is less gung-ho sounding in his livefist interview than most of us here.
Why does he not post here

MeshaVishwas · Post by **MeshaVishwas** » 18 Mar 2019 20:23

AdityaM wrote:
Not really.
If they hit us BIG, then we may hit back.
That is the new normal.

And by firing multiple BVRs, they did attempt to hit us. But we did not hit back. Not even later.
So that’s a bit of muddled messaging.

+1

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 18 Mar 2019 20:25

SidSoma wrote: TSarkarji, So is it safe to assume that the F16 that was shot down 1.) Crossed the LOC. And 2.) Fired first
hence was chased and engaged by Abhi?

this was quoted from the beginning from IAF and folks like Vishnu. the F16D that crossed the LOC dropped bombs, not necessarily fired at the bison - lets wait for the fog to clear and then we will know

stick to the theory that the bison was hit by frozen yak dung ejected from the F16 in its panic

SidSoma · Post by **SidSoma** » 18 Mar 2019 21:22

AdityaM wrote:
Karan M wrote: What you don't understand is this is the new normal. If they hit us, we hit back.
Not really.
If they hit us BIG, then we may hit back.
That is the new normal.

1. Terror attacks will not be met with strategic restraint, ever cut will have consequences. I dont think all information is in public domain.
2. We retain the right to pre emptive strike, without the fear of all out nuclear war. This can mean that we strike even without any strike from them.

AdityaM wrote: And by firing multiple BVRs, they did attempt to hit us. But we did not hit back. Not even later.
So that’s a bit of muddled messaging.

Please remember that they have done a lot of naach to de-esculate the situation. There was a joint briefing called, we can only speculate what the navy was doing there. It is safe to say we did not hit back with the AF only because of the de-esculation. There is no mixed messaging there.

AdityaM wrote: If our ROE during the PAF raid was not to be the first to fire if Pakis were in their airspace, then our ROE did not change in the subsequent days as well.
In later days they have been flying close to the borders, we didn’t punish them for breaking expected ROE restraints.
So PAF guys would be pretty upbeat given the fact that they attempted run our noses to the ground in their attempt to scalp multiple Su30s.
They didn’t succeed, but they are not particularly worse off for that.
(Leaving aside the F16 loss, which we believe absolutely happened, but we can’t/won’t prove for whatever reasons)

We dont know that they have broken our RoE restraints.

PAF are much much worse off and they know it. AMRAAMs didnt do anything....zilch. Most likely if UBCN is to be believed (and looking at the MiG remains) AMRAAM could not even hit the MiG. They know how far away they have to stay from Su30s. Their only hope(AMRAAM) is now hopeless. Huge H&D loss by losing to a MiG21. PAF cannot challenge IAF in BVR. IAF is better at WVR (F-16 loss to MiG 21). So what are they going to use for Aerial delivery of their nuke bum ??. If I was in PAF I would not be a happy man.

MeshaVishwas · Post by **MeshaVishwas** » 18 Mar 2019 21:31

SidSoma wrote:
1. Terror attacks will not be met with strategic restraint, ever cut will have consequences. I dont think all information is in public domain.
2. We retain the right to pre emptive strike, without the fear of all out nuclear war. This can mean that we strike even without any strike from them.

Please remember that they have done a lot of naach to de-esculate the situation. There was a joint briefing called, we can only speculate what the navy was doing there. It is safe to say we did not hit back with the AF only because of the de-esculation. There is no mixed messaging there.

On 1. I agree that there may be actions undertaken covertly but here we are mostly talking about a military retribution.
On 2.This "Pre-emptive Strike" is IFS talk for payback with interest(As Modiji said)
Last one is just weird.
We kill un uniformed Jehadis, they attempt to kill our Jawans to avenge their cousins (from the same marriage?), We say equal equal, let us de-escalate?!