AdityaM wrote:Not really.
If they hit us BIG, then we may hit back.
That is the new normal.
You are completely mistaken. Please read up.
https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cove ... 2018-02-15
From the clouds of gunsmoke and the debris of collapsed border posts has emerged a new unnamed Indian army strategy to counter this proxy war, the coercive end of the Modi government's 'talks and terror can't go hand in hand' hard line with Pakistan. The 'proactive strategy', as one general calls it, is different from the earlier 'reactive strategy'-to retaliate only to specific incidents of fire. "Earlier, it was bullet for bullet," says a general in the Northern Command. "Now, it is a hundred rounds for every round he fires."
There is possibly some truth in his statement. Last December, a Pakistani foreign office spokesperson accused the Indian army of over 1,300 ceasefire violations, over 60 per cent more violations than India blames Pakistan for. India lost 19 soldiers and BSF troopers along the LoC and international boundary in 2017 and 12 personnel at the same locations this year. Pakistan has not supplied figures for its troop losses. The army claims to have inflicted more losses across the border. "They have suffered three or four times more than us," army chief General Bipin Rawat told the media on January 12 this year.
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The army says the post-2016 proactive strategy is different. Not only have the curbs over trans-LoC operations been lifted, the volume of firepower too has gone up. There are now increasing fire assaults-light artillery and mortars designed to destroy posts along the Pakistan side. Alpha Company's secret weapon is an I-tank or Infantry-tank, a retired T-55 battle tank driven up to the LoC and used as a mobile pillbox, its 100 mm gun providing devastating direct fire.
Net, there is no "big event" necessary for retaliation. We see any emerging threat, as at Balakot we have the wherewithal and policy to attack.
Note what was said about Balakote. It was a pre-emptive attack to take out suicide bombers. What this means is if the threat is not localized to the LOC or IB, we have the choice to hit deep into Pakistan and we will.
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.
Abhinandan chased the Paki F-16 into their airspace and took it down with a R-73E, hardly muddled messaging. We didnt hit back because we wanted to hit them & not have a full blown war. That's to our advantage. We pressurise them, minimize asset loss & economic risk, by making them bleed. The idiots fell for it. Besides, we were smart enough (rather the IAF GCI/AWACS guys were) not to have our escorts go deeper into TSP. Traps galore were a possibility.
As to why not a full blown war, multiple reasons. Apart from the obvious risks etc of the escalation angle, there is also the fact we are in the middle of a slow yet steady recapitalization process which had been muddled up by a decade of the UPA. We are steadily moving to the armed forces we require as versus "we will fight with what we have". Its to India's advantage that we have a conflict that we are at our maximum & PAF at their minimum or normal. We have multiple SAM, weapons, aircraft procurement programs ordered, but deliveries yet to commence. The Pakistanis know it & their counter-orders from PRC can't hope to match what we are getting. Its to our benefit to keep the situation at a boil. Neither overt war, nor peace with periodic strikes into Pakistan or on the LOC, while keeping the economic pressure ongoing. The constant pressure is what they have not had thanks to MMS & his craven cowardice, and which policy has now clearly changed.
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.
Says who? If they aggressively come up with a threatening profile against Indian assets, then theres every chance we will defend ourselves.
In later days they have been flying close to the borders, we didn’t punish them for breaking expected ROE restraints.
Because they would have broken off the mission profiles very quickly before we lock onto them. They will protect their scarce assets.
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.
They lost a premier airframe to an obsolete fighter which is due retirement. Their 24 aircraft strike package resulted in no kills. Their premier silver bullet AMRAAM gave them no kills, in all likelihood Abhi's loss was due to a flame out..do you really think they aren't worse off?
(Leaving aside the F16 loss, which we believe absolutely happened, but we can’t/won’t prove for whatever reasons)
Why should we just look at the F-16 loss. Multiple AMRAAMs launched, their Raptors launched...results zero. Speaks poorly of both their combat capability, persistence in the fight & their over reliance on items which didn;t work out for them. Our SPICEs worked out for us. So did our upgraded Bisons.
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
Jagan is welcome to his views. But he has a telling point, why is the PAF not displaying all its F-16s? That itself shows the reality. As matter of fact like I noted earlier, they will wait till they can get more airframes and then put on a dog & pony show. Their silence speaks volumes though, till then.
