MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

[negi]

Gupt rogi Shekhar is trying to discredit the IAF because for him IAF failing implies Modi failing the intent is to finally target Modi that's the bigger picture there.

[Karan M]

Unfortunately, Sumair, your post is full of the usual generic complaints, we must, should, somehow, do this, or that. But the details involved in "this, or that", are left unsaid.

Your reply is that of the politician, pre-election who offers everyone Roti Kapda aur Makan, delightfully skimping the details of how exactly that is to be achieved.

Like most people on the forum, I too do not have very high regards for Mr. Shekhar Gupta, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. So let’s remove the messenger from the message for a second and look at the essence of the message; whether we downed their one plane or not is irrelevant. Considering our resources we should have an overwhelming advantage in these “skirmishes”. It is no revelation that the probability of these kind skirmishes is a lot higher than a full blown war in our scenario, yet we have not adequately prepared for these skirmishes for whatever reasons.

Do you even read the responses to your replies?

First, Is it hard to understand that there is no guarantee that these "skirmishes" won't escalate into an all-out war, when one side sees its at an disadvantage and escalates there?

What happens when that sector turns out to have absolutely less kit because you prioritized all your resources on some A team to be deployed to a "skirmish" zone?

Second, "considering our resources" - where are these resources? Please go through the federal budget (i.e. the central budget) and tell us what can be fixed to rapidly deploy the kind of resources you wish to deploy. Lets get something useful out of this debate.

At least lets see which social justice programs can be cut, where waste can be trimmed, without having a politician lose the election & yet he should be able to deliver ample resources to the military.

Propose real action, not pie in the sky claims propagated by Gupta.

There is absolutely no excuse for our first contact soldiers to have similar qualitative weaponry (or in some cases even inferior) to our economically weaker enemy.
So until our decision makers understand this aspect of war and achieve an overwhelming advantage at the first point of contact or be prepared escalate to a far wider spectrum, we are doomed to these sorts of claims and counter claims.

Please list out what superior qualitative weaponry would have helped us achieve on the 27th of February. Again, we need specifics.

The ROE were clearly that we could not fire first & didn't. So I would like to see which fighter in the world today, would have allowed the IAF to

a) just "turn" those AMRAAMs off so the IAF fighters didn't have to maneuver kinematically at all
B ) after they turned back to re-engage, which missiles in the world would allow them to engage receding targets, located far above you, going supersonic in the other direction.

Lets begin from here. Meanwhile, let me introduce you to one more event of "qualitatively old technology" meeting "new one".

https://defensemaven.io/warriormaven/hi ... vE8hdwTXg/

[Anujan]

The only valid thing that shekhar Gupta told was that if we'd shifted mirage production line to India in 1998, we'd have had several sqdns of them now. By now our AF would be mix of mirage 2000, MKI, Mig 29, Tejas and Jags. Quite potent.

Which is a valid point.

However the reason why George Fernandes refused single vendor deal was because of tehelka nonsense, media crying hoarse about coffin "scam", labeling kargil as India's failure and even hounding GF for saying that if Pakistan troops retreat from peaks or surrender IA won't fire on them. (which is an obvious thing to say but media was up in arms). This was the situation. Imagine what would have happened if he'd just agreed to shift mirage production line to India !!

Could the govt had shown more political courage? Sure. But then the likes of Gupta and N Ram have seen scams all over and run a 100 "scoops"

[Karan M]

The Mirages also would have needed upgrade by now, and the other question arises, today, we even debate whether Rafale is going to be sufficient against 5Gen (more like 4.5Gen PRC birds). IAF says yes, they will (based on classified studies). But would the Mirages be sufficient?

The problem was not that the NDA turned the Mirage 2000 deal into the MMRCA provided we had purchased the planes thereafter, showing the political courage Modi did.

The problem was the UPA sat on the deal for 8 long years, forcing a convoluted process that resulted in nothing! In those 8 years, the US has started introducing 5G planes, the Russians developed something else, and our LCA was wanting of funding & support, and the MMRCA was nowhere to be seen either. We now have evidence that lobbyists had clear access to the level of the ruling political party, the Def Min, and reporters even.

Even the Tejas was sorted out by Parrikar sitting down with ADA, HAL, IAF in a room and having them fix the niggling issues which were preventing an otherwise workable jet from entering service.

But all this, Gupta won't cover but seek a scapegoat like Antony to pin the whole mess on. How much of a role did he play in this sordid mess, and why does the ED report on Michel mention him and Pubby in particular for having their reports toned down.

Also note that Nitin Gokhale had his interview of the Naval Chief yanked after he apparently indirectly referred to either Gupta or a reporter as being a darling of arms vendors.

https://www.opindia.com/2017/10/ndtv-is ... left-ndtv/
https://www.opindia.com/2019/04/shekhar ... -dk-joshi/

[atreya]

Did someone on Bharat-Rakshak write this article?

https://www.businesstoday.in/opinion/co ... 34901.html

Apologies if posted earlier. Good to see a number of media outlets trashing the Baki Echandee. Must read for everyone in full. Posting some excerpts below:

The Pakistani military sucks at fighting - it has lost all four wars against India - but when it comes to lying, it's in a league of its own.

One of the biggest lies peddled by Pakistan was the "30 seconds over Sargodha" incident. On September 7, at the height of the 1965 War, Mohammed Alam, a Pakistan Air Force squadron leader, claimed he had shot down as many as five Indian Hunter aircraft in only 23 seconds.

You get the picture: the Pakistani military leadership and civilian elites will never admit they have lost to India. They need to assure the masses that the country is in safe hands and that India has been checkmated.

[Bart S]

Did someone on Bharat-Rakshak write this article?

https://www.businesstoday.in/opinion/co ... 34901.html

The guy frequently comes off as being pro-Russian even more than pro-Indian (he was also a regular columnist on a Russian site https://www.rbth.com/author/Rakesh+Krishnan+Simha), and that is the likely motivation/angle for it, but he did research it well and covered most bases with pretty much the same thrust as anybody on BR would come up with, as evidenced by the whining by angry Pakis in the comments section

[Karan M]

That article is deliciously vicious enough as it relies on quoted facts, that it can send most Pakistanis reading it into a fit of apoplectic rage. The whines in the comments section are to be expected.

[SSridhar]

That was indeed a wonderful article.

[Karan M]

This article, literally pulls no punches and needs to be posted in larger excerpts. I hope the author understands the intent and is OK with it!

https://www.businesstoday.in/opinion/co ... 34901.html

Falcon down: Why Pakistan is desperate to fake the F-16 dogfight
Refusal to analyse these setbacks will continue to cost its armed forces dearly in future wars.

Rakesh Krishnan New Delhi Last Updated: April 7, 2019 | 16:00 IST

The Pakistani military sucks at fighting - it has lost all four wars against India - but when it comes to lying, it's in a league of its own.

Throughout its short history Pakistan has attempted to hide its quite considerable war losses while making highly exaggerated claims about imaginary victories notched up by its armed forces. After decades of Islamist indoctrination, the Pakistani military establishment has become so deeply infected with the virus of jihad that it will never admit losing to India. In this backdrop, the February 27 downing of a Pakistan Air Force F-16 Falcon over Kashmir by Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman is unlikely to be acknowledged by Islamabad.


The reason why it clings to lies and fakery is that for all its size the Pakistan military machine is a paper tiger that cannot fight India for more than a few days. To shore up morale - and to keep up the myth of the invincibility of the Pakistani soldier against the Indian - the military has to present defeats as victory and at the same time claim to have routed Indian forces. Although many Pakistani military officers and media commentators now agree that India defeated Pakistan in all four wars, the gullible masses of that country remain convinced that Pakistan has never been defeated.


The Pakistanis know their claims will get traction in the West. Because most of Pakistan's war fighting equipment is of Western origin, Islamabad has plenty of supporters in the West, especially in the Pentagon - the US Defence Department - and the virulently anti-Indian left liberal media. The ingratiating behaviour of Pakistan Army generals has also endeared them to Westerners who back up their stories by offering 'expert' analysis. Such analysis is gamed from the start because these so-called experts are at best company men or at worst charlatans. However, they have one thing in common - they work for Western interests and are by no means neutral or unbiased.

The latest instance of Western 'experts' trying to bolster the Pakistani narrative comes from Foreign Policy magazine which quotes two anonymous American military officials on the F-16 shooting. The magazine reports that US defence personnel conducted a physical count of Pakistan's F-16 fleet and found none missing. The difference this time was that the Pentagon quickly declared it wasn't aware of such an investigation.

1965 War drama

One of the biggest lies peddled by Pakistan was the "30 seconds over Sargodha" incident. On September 7, at the height of the 1965 War, Mohammed Alam, a Pakistan Air Force squadron leader, claimed he had shot down as many as five Indian Hunter aircraft in only 23 seconds.


British writer John Fricker was commissioned by the PAF to write a book, in which Fricker eulogised the Pakistanis. His 'Battle for Pakistan - The Air War of 1965' made it to the stores only in 1979 as he couldn't find a publisher. Because he couldn't narrate his tales soon enough, Fricker wrote an article titled "30 Seconds Over Sargodha" which was published in 'Aeroplane' magazine.

Fricker's article popularised Alam's claim in the West, where they gleefully accepted such fiction as truth. There was a huge sense of satisfaction in the West at India's apparent failure. Cold War and colonial biases had trumped logic and military aerodynamics.

However, highly credible research by military historian Pushpinder Singh Chopra and others has shown that Alam was exaggerating. In an article titled 'Laying the Sargodha Ghost to Rest' Singh explained why the PAF backed Alam's claims: "The people of Pakistan had to be re-assured their air force's super image, carefully cultivated over the years, was restored by examples of daring-do and glory."

Not all Pakistanis, however, are delusional. Retired PAF air commodore S. Sajad Haider has demolished Alam's claims in his exhaustive book 'Flight of the Falcon: Demolishing Myths of the 1965 War'. Referring to Alam as a "very unprofessional" pilot, Haider says, "It is tactically and mathematically very difficult to resurrect the incident in which all five Hunters in a hard turn were claimed to have been shot down in a 270-degree turn in 23 seconds."

Alam had said he had blown away all five aircraft and that none of the pilots were able to eject. On this Haider adds, "Logically, since the five were claimed to have been shot down in 23 seconds, then they should all have crashed in close proximity. The conjecture that all the rest could have crashed after 8-9 minutes of flying is superfluous and unworthy of the official PAF history."

Even the PAF is having trouble swallowing such a blatant lie. According to Bharat Rakshak, "While the PAF's 1982 history accepts Alam's story as told by Fricker, the PAF's 1988 history is surprisingly silent about the names. In fact, the PAF's 1988 history does not even list the names of the five IAF pilots."

This is not to say the Pakistanis were chumps. On the contrary, due to superior training as part of Pakistan's membership in Western military alliances, some were excellent flyers and gunners.

The PAF also had large numbers of the latest F-104 and F-86 jets whereas the IAF - thanks to Jawaharlal Nehru and Defence Minister Krishna Menon's neglect of the armed forces - was flying outdated World War II aircraft.

However, PAF pilots seemed to have underestimated the IAF's resolve; they also believed their President Ayub Khan's claim that one Pakistani was equal to three Indians. In fact, Ayub had assured the military: "As a general rule, Hindu morale would not stand for more than a couple of hard blows delivered at the right time and the right place."

Religious fanaticism was also seen rearing its ugly head in the PAF, with many pilots believing they were under divine protection. Alam, for instance, became an Islamic fundamentalist and berated his fellow officers and seniors who consumed alcohol. Not surprisingly, he was sidelined on the rather amusing allegation that he could not read or write. Post retirement, he lived like a mullah, a virtual recluse. Had he been a real war hero, he would not have been treated in so humiliating a manner.
....................

1971 War: PAF caught fudging losses

This incident is eerily similar to Foreign Policy's unsubstantiated F-16 count. During the 1971 War the IAF notched up a large number of air-to-air kills, particularly of the Mirage-III fighter. After the war ended, in order to dent India's claims, the Pakistanis said they had received 24 Mirages from France and that that all of them were intact.

The PAF conducted a major PR exercise, lining up 22 Mirage-III jets to show that none had been lost in combat. Plus, the PAF claimed that one Mirage was written off in a training sortie prior to the war and another was undergoing repairs.

However, in a major embarrassment to Pakistan, the French aircraft maker Dassault revealed that the PAF had taken delivery of no less than 28 Mirage-IIIs in and not 24 Mirages as claimed by the PAF. Further, Chris Bishop writes in The Encyclopedia of 20th Century Air Warfare (2001 edition) that six Mirages were supplied to the PAF during wartime by Libya. Since the IAF only claimed one or two Mirage-IIIs confirmed as destroyed on the ground and one shot down by anti-aircraft artillery, it is quite likely that the Mirage did suffer a number of air-to-air losses at the hands of IAF fighters.

Western bias: Chuck Yeager's intolerable hatred

India won the 1971 War so decisively that most Pakistanis do not dispute their entire defence forces capitulated in a matter of days. Over 93,000 Pakistan Army soldiers and officers were held for a year in Indian POW camps - cowering in fear from Bengali mobs - and it remains the single most humiliating episode in Pakistan's history. It was also the largest capitulation in history - greater than the surrender at Stalingrad of 91,000 German soldiers of General Paulus' Sixth Army. And yet a decorated American general claims that Pakistan won that war.
.........................

The reality is that it took the IAF just over a week to achieve complete domination of the subcontinent's skies. A measure of the IAF's air supremacy was the million-man open air rallies held by the Indian Prime Minister in northern Indian cities, a week into the war. This couldn't have been possible if Pakistani planes were still airborne.

The IAF did lose a slightly larger number of aircraft (75 vs 58) but this was mainly because the Indians were flying a broad range of missions. While Pakistani pilots were obsessed with aerial combat, IAF tactics were highly sophisticated in nature, involving bomber escorts, tactical recce, ground attack and decoy runs to divert Pakistani interceptors away from the main targets. Plus, the IAF had to reckon with the dozens of modern aircraft being supplied to Pakistan by Muslim countries like Jordan, Turkey and the UAE.

Most missions flown by Indian pilots were conducted by day and at low level, with the pilots making repeated attacks on well defended targets. Indian aircraft flew into Pakistani skies thick with flak, virtually non-stop during the 14-day war. Many Bengali guerrillas later told the victorious Indian Army that it was the sight of epic air battles fought over their skies by IAF pilots and the sight of Indian aircraft diving in on Pakistani positions that inspired them to fight.


Indeed, Indian military historians like Chopra have painstakingly gathered the details of virtually every sortie undertaken by the IAF and PAF and have tabulated the losses and kills on both sides, in order to nail the outrageous lies that were peddled by the PAF and later gleefully published by Western writers.

In reality the 1971 air war was a complete and utter rout for the PAF. According to a report by Indranil Banerjie, Rupak Chattopadhyay and Air Marshal (retired) C.V. Gole titled '1971 India-Pakistan War: The Air War', "By the end of the first week of the war, PAF fighters in the west appeared to have lost their will to fight. By this time, the IAF was repeatedly hitting secondary targets including railway yards, cantonments, bridges and other installations as well as providing close air support to the army wherever it was required. The most dangerous were the close air support missions which involved flying low and exposing aircraft to intense ground fire. The IAF lost the most aircraft on these missions as is proved by the high losses suffered by IAF Sukhoi-7 and Hunter squadrons. But their pilots flew sortie after sortie keeping up with the army and disrupting enemy troop and tank concentrations."

Once it was known that the Indian Army was knocking at the gates of Dhaka, the PAF in the west virtually gave up flying. "During the last few days of the war, the IAF brass ordered attacks on PAF airfields with the sole purpose of drawing out their aircraft. But that rarely succeeded as the PAF aircraft for the most part remained secured inside their pens, refusing to come out and fight."

Even the Pakistanis agree that the PAF was too scared to fight. Lt. Gen. A.A.K. Niazi, the commander of the Pakistan Army in East Pakistan, wrote in his book The Betrayal of East Pakistan: "While the enemy was free to fly over our territory, Air Marshal M. Rahim Khan kept himself and his air force hidden during the conflict."

On December 11, with the PAF almost neutralised and the Indian Army scything through East Pakistan towards Dhaka, here's what Pakistan's Morning News published on its front page: "Indian forces in East Wing suffer significant losses." The blatant lying continued even after Niazi and his 93,000 soldiers were in Indian custody and Bengalis were celebrating the birth of Bangladesh. On December 17, the day after Pakistani forces had surrendered and the fighting had ended, here's what the newspaper Dawn headlined: "War Till Victory."

You get the picture: the Pakistani military leadership and civilian elites will never admit they have lost to India. They need to assure the masses that the country is in safe hands and that India has been checkmated. Unfortunately, the jihadi fervour of the average Pakistani and the hatred of India and Hindus that is drilled into every Pakistani from childhood ensure that the people of Pakistan rarely question their military's competence - or the lack of it.

The danger for Pakistan is that the complete denial of past defeats - and the refusal to analyse these setbacks - will continue to cost its armed forces dearly in future wars.

(The author is a New Zealand-based defence and foreign affairs analyst)

[Atmavik]

^^ really nice article.a breath of fresh air after all the DDM articles

[hnair]

Like most people on the forum, I too do not have very high regards for Mr. Shekhar Gupta, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. So let’s remove the messenger from the message for a second and look at the essence of the message;
There is absolutely no excuse for our first contact soldiers to have similar qualitative weaponry (or in some cases even inferior) to our economically weaker enemy.

As Karan M pointed out in that rebuttal to dinesh_kimar's post: avoid cliches about pakis superiority that the pakis themselves floated around for decades! Some of our earlier gen believed these lies, because the pakis floated these dog-poo stories into India, about "PAF superiority in weapons and professionals" using "reliable and superior" western media like BBC, Reuters etc. What is your excuse in this age of internet?

The issue everyone is bringing out here and which you want to ignore is "whose message is gupta peddling?" Why should the message of a messenger who tried to tarnish the reputation of the sword arm of Indian establishment with that coup story be even considered as something more than a ghost-written one by American or French manufacturers?

There is absolutely no excuse for our first contact soldiers to have similar qualitative weaponry (or in some cases even inferior) to our economically weaker enemy.

Ok, let us treat you as a messenger: Where is the qualitative superiority in paki equipment you are claiming here on behalf of PAF? Their vaunted AMRAAMs decided to do a namaz at an inopportune time, their F16s turned tail after the AMRAAMs got shaken off by Su30MKIs, Their WWII steam-punk PGMs landed everywhere except the target, Wg Cdr Abhinandan snuck up on them and shoved an R73 up the tailpipe and last but not least. their ISPR Gafoora joker did not even know he was talking about two PAF downed pilots when he made his stupid claims.

All these doesn't sound like a side that is fighting an India that, to quote you, "in some cases even inferior to our economically weaker enemy". So step peddling such troll-bait around here.

[UlanBatori]

Rakesh Krishnan's blast catches me by surprise. His previous article didn't read so well, or I misread it.
Maybe he lulled his editors into complacency before launching this devastating blast. Done like a true BRFee veteran.

[manjgu]

hnair..with due respects..nobody ( except coupta) is saying the Pakis have superiority over us either in men/material/motivation/morale . Atleast the little point i am making is that WE dont have the kind of overwhelming superiority that a economy which is atleast 8 to 10 times larger should have. Attribute it to our faulty governance, procurement delays, army being under civilian control, rampant corruption in defence procurement etc etc but atleast in my mind that fact remains. Why do chiefs say 'we will fight with whatever we have' type of statements?

[negi]

^ I have always been amazed as to why is to difficult for India and Indians to get it i.e. overwhelming superiority in military can only be achieved one way i.e. by fckng building stuff on your own even the oil rich countries with $s to throw at any problem have superiority over only the goat buggers . The only countries with overwhelming military superiority over most of the countries have one thing in common they all not just build almost everything on their own they make money out of it by exporting stuff. As for the forces having to fight with what they have well they are not doing enough , none of the countries that are self reliant in this area got there by doing what we do without having to fight for a long time with whatever they could build and often they did not build the best tank/gun/plane out there, self reliance comes at a cost not sure if we have what it takes to get there.

[manjgu]

yes negi ji..totally agree. Self reliance can happen in india on a slow pace onlee..so much moolah to be made via imports. netas, babus all have a hand in the pie. but whatever the reasons the fact remains that WE dont have superiority of a nation with an economy atleast 10 times that of napakis. i hope Modi ji will reverse the trend for all times to come. allah be praised !!

[negi]

I personally also do not agree with a set pattern in our narrative i.e. when we talk about arming the forces or lack thereof suddenly the military becomes good and the MoD/babus become evil then when context moves to fielding an indigenous platform like Arjun/Tejas or whatever military becomes bad and the DRDO et al become good . I personally believe all of them (all come under the MoD by the way) are good or bad on a whole because none of the decisions that need to be taken are taken at individual level , our system literally takes democracy to a whole new level where everyone in the room has a say and then the door too is constantly revolving where people come and go . What we lack is an 'attachment' to what we do the said attachment partly comes from within and also via various motivating factors for players involved , we lack both ; likes of US and Russia know for a fact that not everything they will build will be the best in it's class out there but they stick with it nonetheless and yet one would rarely hear wails for importing something from any quarter because they are too invested into their own programs . Not a single program except for strategic ones like Space/Nuclear have we made it matter of almost life or death even the Americans had to literally say something on the lines of eating grass when they were left behind in the space race and initiated their Moon mission. Our efforts are like using a hand held fan to dispel fog , we might be able to clear some space equivalent of a room with what we are doing but never really get there unless a stick is wielded and waved at across all levels .

[hnair]

ok, we are going off-topic:

Atleast the little point i am making is that WE dont have the kind of overwhelming superiority that a economy which is atleast 8 to 10 times larger should have.

This "overwhelming superiority" is an american term coined after Vietnam war to mean "we shall attack a military that is 1/100th of our firepower or capability, after cutting off arms and fuel supplies via sanctions".

Vietnam war taught america to:
1) define a "First rule of overwhelming superiority, is to talk endlessly about it as a pre-req for going to war"
2) not invade a weaker power, who is a known proxy of a serious power (Noko, Iran, Syria, venezuela, cuba etc)
3) make sure the military capability is degraded by economic sanctions etc first

Pakistani military enriches itself as a mercenary of gulf sheikhs, NATO bribe, cheen rent for infra and of course, drug trade. Pakistan is not such a shrunken power (yet) nor India can choke it with sanctions before attacking. India in the past fought a technologically near-par opponent and in Balakot, a slightly inferior opponent. It showed in the results - a far superior in number force of PAF turned tail, while an older gen craft shot down one of the retreating ones, but went down too. The final body count on paki side is not clear, but it is not just air-war that is going on. Because we are so used to artillery exchanges, we are not bothered about the heavy fire and indian escalations on ground.

But what is public is that that the figleaf of "usage of airforce is a redline" that the pakis had waved at India, is blown to shreds. Their calculations of unleashing a wave of soosa-bombings has suddenly got complicated with the incursion across IB.

So in Indian context, this "overwhelming superiority" without which a country cannot punish another one is a myth created by Americans, along with Nucular Armageddon etc - to make sure that war remains the sole domain of khan

Why do chiefs say 'we will fight with whatever we have' type of statements?

This question came up from the ranks of the one military that has claims of your "overwhelming superiority military", that too against fighting tribals with small-arms in a sparsely covered barren countryside!



The answer sound heartless and Rummy was panned a bit in khanland for his statement, but is the most honest one I heard

[hnair]

negi - spot on about having Tier1 platforms being developed in India.

[manjgu]

That stmt came from gen malik during kargil ... i dont care what rumsfeld said.

[hnair]

That stmt came from gen malik during kargil ... i dont care what rumsfeld said.

You should care - you were the one bleating about "overwhelming superiority" and that video of Rumsfeld is what "overwhelming superiority" force feels about its "overwhelming superiority" in a combat zone.

(if you dont care about someone responding to your , suggest not to engage that person in the first place and waste his time)

[negi]

That stmt came from gen malik during kargil ... i dont care what rumsfeld said.

Let's not talk about gen Malik and other career types ; most of them akin to a certain Adm. Rmdas have been only muddying the waters they have no vision leave alone any concern for this country . Inability to detect and be prepared for Kargil was not a failure at only MOD or PMO level there were tactical and decision making failures at IA's top brass too . It's one thing to say that 'we will fight with what we have' but true leaders would have also thought on the lines of 'we will build what we cannot buy' , what did this chap and many other aya ram and gaya rams did do accelerate the development of Arjun ? Need for a WLR like Swathi did not arise out of the blue during Kargil, if one requires a Kargil to happen to know this then one better not talk about vision .

Generals that want better weapons for their troops better start promoting a trait of building weapons , I mean for world's second largest army in terms of man power how many from the IA came up with an idea of building a small arm on lines of General Kalashnikov leave alone people like Artem Mikoyan ? We lack the culture of promoting those who have scientific temper within the forces and such a culture will only produce Generals that demand for toys not those who can also contribute in making them.

[tsarkar]

Negi,

There is an extremely bloated Military Headquarters (across all three services). We have more Admirals than we have capital ships and submarines. The military bureaucracy is as conformist and non-committal as the civilian bureaucracy. Also, sufficient field experience is lacking. We have Senior Officers who have done a lot of courses and promoted on that basis but without sufficient field experience.

And that shows when Rules of Engagement out of sync with the modern battlespace are issued.

Also, there is a tendency to over-control rather than leave the tactical decision making (eg. when to shoot) with the pilots and battlefield managers.

Reaction to AWACS cued BVR missiles fired from well inside the LOC/IB was not factored. Pilots were not empowered to shoot aggressors well inside LoC/IB.

[Karan M]

At the fundamental level, we have to realize several things.

First,India has a lot of socioeconomic issues which dictate the election cycle. National security doesn't. This means politicians have to perforce focus on that. This is what has capped the overall spend. As the economy grows, this spend will grow, but seriously, in a country where the PM goes on the Red Fort and asks people to take care of public hygiene, expecting 8x of opponents money to be made available for defence won't happen because the opponent cares nothing for all this and his x remains artificially high. Their cities look like pig-stys, their economy is non existent in many areas and they only spend on their military. This will tell in the long run for them.

Second, our MIC is growing without direction or intent in many cases because the MOD/MOF are staffed by careerists looking at their own depts and without the big picture or domain interest or expertise. MOD personnel often regard acquisitions (not indigenous MIC building) as their primary focus, ditto some in senior services posts and the lack of a professional RM adds to the problems. Parrikar was the rare exception. For instance, when IN was doing its best to sink the NLCA and push the 57 aircraft fleet idea, he had 18 meetings with NLCA ADA team to have the program continue for learning potential and indigenization.

Third, MOF regards spend on defence as wasteful. Many tricks are used to prevent expenditure by MOD. Again ties back to point 1, they follow what their bosses agree to.

Fourth, keeping pvt sector out of defence has been a DPSU goal because of unionism and politics. Successive DRDO chiefs have gone on record with their intense frustration that they could not have the pvt partner who worked with them to develop an item, manufacture it. Parrikar himself saw this first hand. So changed the policy. ADA for instance openly says that if a pvt firm helped them, they should make the subsystem, not HAL.
DPSUs also don't care much about indigenization, having seen it as a problem area which prevents them from timely delivery and locked up revenue/profit. For instance, HAL went for a RFP for Israeli AESAR + SPJ even though ADA recommended that the LCA radar (2032) be retained till Uttam was available for Mk1A, as LCA radar was already exceeding IAF requirements post radome change. Without the 83 unit order, Uttam would have been killed, but thankfully, we now at least have talk of the 40 LCA Mk1s being moved to Uttam.

Fifth, the lack of a big picture. This comes out in talks academics abroad who do planning activities have with our service guys etc. They note we acquire elements piecemeal, not because we have a big picture of where we want to go, what we want to defeat and how etc. This again, flows from our incoherent MOD/MOF setup which does not have sufficient institutional expertise to set a national policy and follow it, irrespective of which politician is in power. This is why we have a MMRCA which has fighters which compete with the LCA but also fighters which can go toe to toe with a Su-30 MKI, completely different classes of aircraft but in the same deal.

Sixth, final point - our procurement system is setup to avoid allegations of corruption, not maximize speed of response or efficacy of equipment (e.g. L1). This has the final set of issues.

Despite all of this we have a plethora of local systems and have managed to get to a decent level of capability. With Modi govt fixing some aspects, e.g pvt sector contribution and also looking at industry feedback seriously, we have a good chance of getting out of some of the morass.

[manjgu]

IAF presser at 5.30 pm !!

[Aditya_V]

Cant wait, I hope we have soem real good info. for a slam dunk. Wishes were courses some summgled pics from POK on F solah and the 2 pilots being thrashed, funeral pics , tail number of aircraft, radio communication from PAF, names of Pilots etc.

[Karan M]

Generals that want better weapons for their troops better start promoting a trait of building weapons , I mean for world's second largest army in terms of man power how many from the IA came up with an idea of building a small arm on lines of General Kalashnikov leave alone people like Artem Mikoyan ? We lack the culture of promoting those who have scientific temper within the forces and such a culture will only produce Generals that demand for toys not those who can also contribute in making them.

Times are a changing.
http://indiandefenceindustries.in/moder ... of-success
https://palepurshankar.blogspot.com/201 ... gen-p.html

[Aditya_V]

Ever since 27 Feb 2019 morning after hearing of Wing Commander flight going down, waiting to see the details of the PAF F-16 that crashed. keeping my fingers crossed today we have the details.

[Karan M]

I dont wish to be a wet blanket, but over expectation can lead to unnecessary disappointment. IAF has already released more than sufficient details. Why keep expecting more.

[Aditya_V]

I dont wish to be a wet blanket, but over expectation can lead to unnecessary disappointment. IAF has already released more than sufficient details. Why keep expecting more.

True, even though we were successful in Balakot, Chakoti and Muzaffurabad on 26 Feb, Wing Commander getting into Paki custody took the sheen off, we won the real war but love to see the F-16 details

[chandrasekaran]

Any links for the IAF press meet ? Where was this reported ?

[Aditya_V]

So far only Shiv Aroor and a few Tweets that IAF will be briefing at 5:30 PM

[chandrasekaran]

Didn't find any from the official twitter handle of IAF!

[UlanBatori]

UBCN prediction: Mainly what will be shown is videos of Paki Jarnails running to their pakistan-Mahals. Decency precludes showing the "feed" from the millimeter wave cameras that can see right through the pM roofs w/o benefit of Spice.

[Aditya_V]

India today is now reporting at 5:30 there will be a press release by IAF

[manjgu]

Hnair..u got me wrong. 1) Rumsfeld was a past master of spin doctoring and wordsmithing. SO what he said about US forces needs to be taken with a bucket of salt and may have other motivations. We all know US forces are well funded etc etc. I am not sure how relevant its in the indian context. We all know how building of capabilities has been neglected over successive governments. 2) 'overwhelming superiority' -- true cant be objectively defined and has different meaning for different people. But i know it when i see it..like we had over the Napakis in 1971 ( on the eastern front)...like IN has over PN as of today....

[fanne]

Even if by chance IAF released a real photo or a screen grab or a dead pilot, people can still claim it to be fake, manipulated. Some people who have deep conviction of India being inferior (and they are themselves good hearted, patriotic people, with deep inferiority) will keep on asking for proof. Not that they do not believe IAF/GOI, they do not believe themselves, in psychology it is called - The unanswerable question - Is India great!! (they want it to be but would always doubt, no matter what the proof).
The second class of Indians are people - if they were transported to TSP, the average patriotism of both country will rise. You can never convince them, in fact there is no need, they may even logically agree on what happened, but outwardly put arguments just to run down Bharat. They are not sleeping people whom you have to awake, they are awake people who you are assuming to be sleeping.
The third class is of course people who are uninformed, you inform them and they change. Focus your attempt on the third, sympathies with first (and if you have time, go ahead baby sit them, I will not) and ignore/block the second type.

[Aditya_V]

I dont care about them, I just like more official details coming from the IAF for discussing the details, you can never convince Pakis and Paki like minded persons.

[Aditya_V]

Damn this is liek the PM's briefing now news yet

[sudhan]

Aroor posted a statement from IAF, seems to be the same kind of presser after the FP article came out..

[mmasand]

So there was no presser, a written statement on record of the events as shown to the journos off camera was distributed.