Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

[aharam]

Hi,
Looks like there are a lot of posts to respond to, so I will try.

The point I was trying to make in my original post was that in the past we did not really have doctrinal flexibility due to budgets. In the 60s, when every great power was building bomber fleets based on incorrect lessons on strategic bomber effectiveness learned from WWII, India simply did not have the money to pay for it. While doctrines are forward looking, they fundamentally cannot be detached from reality. The primary guiding factor for a doctrinal shift to arise is national aspiration on the world stage, which is a civilian function. What the nation aspires to be is translated in military terms to a doctrine that can practically achieve it in the military sphere. An IAF planner in the 60s could have espoused a strategic air command like force till he/she was blue in the face, but it would not have fit in the non aligned movement goals of the civilian govt. what that planner would have got for their efforts was a posting to a remote staff college position.

Whatever else you say, IAF planners are pragmatists. They have to live within budgetary constraints, unlike the US or the erstwhile Soviet Union. Doctrines have to be realistic and practically achievable, else they are no more than an academic exercise. In the 50s and 60s with little budgets, the only aviation doctrine open to us was army air aviation, it was practical, it supported the much larger army, which had to bear th brunt of the fighting and the budgets supported it.

The question I was raising based on Singha's post was "now that we have budgets, should we be looking at a long range bomber fleet". Your reply focused on one part of my post, the claim that we didn't have budgets in the 60s, but that was not the point of my post. Given that this forum has access to large number of well informed chaiwallahs, I was trying to see if there was any shift from army aviation into building an Air Force that is more of an independent strategic arm.

As for capabilities building, I don't think your examples below are entirely accurate. We have had help in the reactor miniaturization on Arihant. As for Brahmos, I would suggest taking a look at the history of the yakhont. Barring the germans, no one has built a missile from scratch, and they shouldn't either - there is not much gain in reinventing the wheel. The Chinese bomber fleet based in the H6 is a copy of the badger - they are not building it from scratch either. I believe we can find friendly nations to partner with on this exercise, just as we have done its other platforms, hence the PAK DA example from Singha.

Thoughts?

Cheers
Aharam

Also, your statements on Boyd, Spey and the fighter mafia are not quite correct. They were a reform movement, but they were very much the underdogs.

The thing with doctrines is that they are not supposed to go lock-step with current needs or capabilities. Which is the reason why when some of these doctrines succeed, the people behind them are hailed as visionaries et al.

Now that India has the budgets, there is no one really building a long range bomber fleet other than the Chinese, hence no real availability or choice.

Where do you suppose the Chinese are "coming up" with these capabilities to build bombers then. Was anyone selling SSBNs, yet we have managed to "come up" with Arihant? Was anyone selling Cruise missiles, yet we have "come up" with the Brahmos.

So let's stop being apologists for the IAF planners and accept that as far as a dedicated bombing fleet is concerned, there is no one to fight for that capability - which really was the original point that I have been making all along.

[aharam]

Hi Shiv
Nice series on posts. Let me see if I can take a contrarian position

Fundamentally, I agree with you on the effectiveness of strategic bombing in WWII. It was started by the Germans as a terror weapon to empty cities and block the exit routes of defending/entry of supporting armies. Bomber Harris extended this to decimating cities in the name of morale reduction and that was an utter failure in spite of the large number of cities razed. The vaunted Norden bomb sight only laid a dumb bomb within a 1000 yards in reality, so the only option was wasteful carpet bombing. All in all, not a pretty picture and bloody useless at actually achieving any real strategic goal.

But precision munitions have changed this game. You can place a JDAM pretty close to target. The way I envisioned the usage was along the lines of the US - this is not a carpet bombing machine. This is a platform for surgical destruction of a large number of targets in a single sortie. The obvious problem is defense. A bomber is relatively defenseless against a modern fighter with a BVR load out. In deploying this platform, there are two things that come into play. First is an air equivalent of force concentration. While your enemy may have a larger Air Force, the attacker controls the time and place of attack. The point is, just like firepower concentration in a ground war, you would concentrate your fighter assets into a relatively large strike package escorting a small number of fast bombers hitting a very specific sector, where you can overwhelm the local defenses. What you have done is a time limited local sanitization - it is not going to last, but it gives you a window. This is why you need a small number of large payload bombers with precision munitions - you can use it to destroy pretty much anything of value with a single sortie, and thats pretty much all you are going to get, before the airspace is contested again. The accuracy and payloads make this deadly against an industrialized enemy that cannot afford to lose entire sectors. The attacker has the initiative here and this is no different from schwerpunkt. Concentrate force on a single point and if you choose well, you will succeed against greater numbers. An enemy cannot be equally strong everywhere.

The second question now becomes why large payload heavy bombers and not medium bombers or even heave multi role aircraft. Let me start with the latter. Multi role aircraft simply don't have the payload - it requires too many in numbers to be effective. For the strategy above to be effective, you will soon need to go deeper and deeper to find worthwhile targets. Basically, the reach of your air arm will exceed ground forces, so your forward air bases will still be quite far from our targets. Also, bombers in this case escorted by fighters will need to operate beyond their usual cruising speed to reduce time inflight and risk. This will reduce range. The ideal choice here is a fast bomber like a B1, blackjack or the PAK DA.

The reason I went along this path was to to figure out the utility of Chinese Badgers. They are certainly building a fleet. I can understand the refuellers or transports, but they are building a lot of fairly old bombers, that are not survivable even against MiG 21 bisons. So what's their strategy. Almost everyone they have a quarrel with currently is capable of downing the badgers.

Our neighborhood in the past did not have long range heavy bombers, but it does now. The question is what is the strategy that makes them useful - it certainly is not carpet bombing, but precision weapons offer other options.

Thoughts much welcome - I am trying to make sense of PLAAF strategy, and it doesn't pay to underestimate them.

Cheers
Aharam

truth be told we cannot even think of touching targets in northern half of tibet, qinghai, gansu, sinkiang with any variety of rafale/su30 tempting as they may be. Cheen can line up fighters like on display on the tarmacs with impunity.
that would change if we could have a few B1s with stealthy JASSM type weapons.
.

I believe that heavy bombers will allow us to touch them. But they will do nothing more than a kiss and a caress. A line of dumb bombs most of which are guaranteed to miss the target is totally useless compared to the cost of maintaining and sending heavy bombers. The damage will be repaired in a few hours to days and if we try repeat raids the bombers will soon all be shot down.

I think you are talking about entering into a prolonged conventional war of attrition with China of the WW2 type. We are guaranteed to lose a lot in such a war with or without heavy bombers. Such costly prolonged wars must not be fought when we have nuclear weapons. One puny 20 kt nuke will do the job of 1000 heavy bombers.

[aharam]

Hi Shiv
While I agree on the Ploesti oil field raids - they were not effective, the main reason for industrial production increase in Germany was Albert Speer. His autobiography is an interesting read and if he had risen to his post as armaments minister in 39 instead of late in the war, the results may have been terrifyingly different. Basically, Germany had not really moved into a true war economy and Speer pulled the production increases from efficiency gains, which were massive even by modern standards. As an example, they went from we need a modern submarine - not a u boat - to the submarine rolling out operational in 9 months, and that was the basis of the nautilus and to this day remains the modern submarine. For most of the war carpet bombing didn't achieve any strategic goals, with one exception probably being the ball bearing factory raid on schweinfurt. Raids on ships at sea were quite effective, but then that was torpedoes not carpet bombing.

Cheers
Aharam

Singha: I think you are totally mistaken about Ploesti.
The refineries were hardly damaged and were back
in operation within a month. There was a tremendous
loss of aircrew, it is called "the Black Sunday raid".
Even the so-called Dambuster's raid did not have
any lasting impact beyond 2 months and factories
in the Ruhr were back to full production after 2 months.


Here is a piece of the Wiki entry for Operation Tidal Wave( Ploesti Raid)
I am sure you can check yourself

310 aircrewmen were killed, 108 were captured by the Axis, and 78 were interned in Turkey.[1]:76 Three of the five Medals of Honor (the most for any single air action in history) were awarded posthumously.[1]:77 Allied assessment of the attack estimated a loss of 40% of the refining capacity at the Ploiești refineries,[1]:75 although some refineries were largely untouched. Most of the damage was repaired within weeks, after which the net output of fuel was greater than before the raid

The official history of the Bomber Offensive in WW2 records that at the height of the bomber raids on Germany in 1944, the last year of the war in Europe, German industrial production rose to a peak - higher than it was in any of the earlier years. All that bombing failed to degrade German industry or power supply. It was the US's overwhelming industrial ability to do more than replace losses that ultimately tipped the balance. Apart from the Soviet front.

As for Japan - the war was made shorter by the Atom Bombs. But Japan was already losing when the bombs were dropped and the war would likely have ended a few months to a year later anyway.

[aharam]

Hi Kiran
Can the MRTA be converted? Based on the specs on google, it certainly looks doable. I am by no means an expert, this is just my 2 cents. By the same token, most long range civilian airframes are also amenable to modification to a transport or bomber role - this is a structures problem more so than anything else.

That said, the payload at 20 tons would put it more in the class of a light medium bomber and not a heavy. Personally, the ideal would be something like a b1 or PakDA, both of which have excellent payload (140 - 150 tons), range and speed. The problem is the B1 is horrendously expensive and the PakDA is by on paper. Wish there were some real choices

Does anyone know anything more on the h8?



Cheers
Aharam

Hi,....

Superb post!

What do you make of the feasibility (or lack thereof) of converting an airframe like the Ilyushin-HAL MRTA into a cruise missile carrier or a bomber of sorts? Doable?

On an unrelated note..

All I can offer in return is this image of an upgraded MiG-29. I must say, its quite turning into a multirole plane from the dedicated Air Superiority aircraft it was..but it may turn out to be very potent in its new guise!!

[shiv]

But precision munitions have changed this game. You can place a JDAM pretty close to target. The way I envisioned the usage was along the lines of the US - this is not a carpet bombing machine. This is a platform for surgical destruction of a large number of targets in a single sortie.

I believe this is easier said than done, attractive as the idea might be.

The JDAM equipped heavy bombers are only the central bride and groom of this party. But we need marriage hall, family, priest and cook as well. I mean that we also need:

• A set of satellites and a recce system in place to accurately map within less than 10 meter accuracy the targets we want to hit
• A seat of satellites/target markers to aid final guidance
• SEAD aircraft, preferably stealthy to suppress/take out defences before lumbering bombers go in
• A slew of PGMs that can be carried on any bomber we design/build/buy

With all this, this kind of system has only been tested by USA against Iraq and Afghanistan. In no case has the job requirement involved overflying 2500 km of hostile enemy territory.

The question to my mind is what do we hope to achieve on the battlefront by bombing targets 1500 to 2000 km inside China?

If we are looking at making a difference to the immediate battle zone, then SEAD, airfield and radar neutralization and supply line targeting within 500 km of the battle front would do the job.

It we are aiming to fight a wishy-washy "strategic war" where we want to degrade military and industrial assets of China in a prolonged world war 2 like conflict, I don't think heavy bombers with conventional munitions would be able to do the job even if I ignore the tremendous costs of mounting such an effort. History just does not support the idea that this is possible.

If we are looking simply at power projection 5,000 or 10,000 km away, then what we need is naval air power and foreign bases. Not heavy bombers.

[shiv]

Thoughts much welcome - I am trying to make sense of PLAAF strategy, and it doesn't pay to underestimate them.

I think there are two separate topics under discussion here
1. What would we do with heavy, long range bombers?
2. What would China do?

At worst China would bomb the heck out of targets deep inside India unless we have the radar and air defence cover to take out big chunks of their attacking force.

I do not disagree that we must not underestimate China, but if we are to assess China accurately I would guess that China would also conduct spectacular air raids deep inside India to scare the shit out of Indians. The actual physical damage might not be that much. I do not believe that China could take out India's short term war fighting potential by long range bomber raids.

But China could significantly degrade Indian political will and morale by hitting a target like Kolkata harbor. I believe that is something we need to watch out for. There is no way India's open information system could hide spectacular raids of this type. On the other hand I beleive that any damage we might do in China will be hidden from the Chinese public and do less damage to national morale.

Of course nukes are a different ball game.

[member_23455]

So let's stop being apologists for the IAF planners and accept that as far as a dedicated bombing fleet is concerned, there is no one to fight for that capability - which really was the original point that I have been making all along.

Could you point me to any post you might have made citing the advantages of a dedicated bombing fleet in the IAF context? I belong to the same club of armchair strategists as you, but I believe that heavy bombers have never won any wars (not even world war 2) and have been used more as hot air and rhetoric than anything else. Please allow me to point out that agreeing with you is not being an apologist for you any more than disagreeing with you amounts to being an apologist for the IAF. Rhetoric is fun, but is only a digression.

Heavy bombers are huge, expensive to maintain and fly, vulnerable and remain unused in most air forces throughout their working lives. I personally cannot see the point in an aircraft flying 6000 km in a 7 to 8 hour round trip over China merely to drop 40 x 500 kg bombs on some target. Bombs are always dropped along a straight line, and a line of destruction that is 2 km long and 100 meters wide is of no use for doing much damage to anything other than city blocks - even if one sends 4 bombers. It's another matter that there was a time (in 1940) when this line of bomb destruction was "state of the art" but it never actually did and serious military degradation to anyone. And losing even one bomber would degrade the attacking forces a great deal.

The US committed about 50 B 52 to Vietnam and lost half of them. In a later era, flying in sanitized airspace over Iraq and Afghanistan and equipped with PGMs, B 52s played a better role IMO, but that was because "fighter jocks" and AWACS jocks worked alongside them. Besides the USA was fighting against Iraq or Afghanistan with the entire industrialized world on their side plus some.

I think heavy dedicated bombers would be an expensive waste for the IAF. If a radar installation or an airfield or power station requires 4 well placed PGMs - a heavy bomber would be inappropriate. I would guess that a squadron of heavy bombers in the IAF would cost as much as 4 squadrons of fighters over their lifetime and while multirole fighters would be able to partly fulfil a bomber role, the bombers would be zeros in a fighter role.

Shiv, you are spot on - I have not advocated the advantage of bombers because I am trying to get through a totally different point - ironically to the bomber advocates with their wishlists - that one of the major reasons why they will not get what they seek is the absence of doctrine around such a specialized weapon system. And the lack of champions to create/carry that doctrine in the organization that will use them.

And as most of the posters spend so much time and effort to prove that doctrinally there is no need for them, let's point to that as the reason rather than raise the bogey of limited budgets, availability etc. for the lack of such a capability in the IAF.

[shiv]

Going seriously OT here, but when it comes to exerting power over far flung islands air power is useful. In the case of China, they know that Japan, Vietnam and Korea will not interfere if the Chinese bully the Philipplines, same as Vietnam can be bullied without Japan interfering. So if its about Islands and control, the Chinese can send Badgers over thousands of km of safe ocean and bomb occupying forces of other small nations and exert hegemony if push comes to shove.

Over India Badgers can do some harm, but once India wakes up they will be shot down.

[Singha]

from Indian POV both past and present
- in 1948 did we operate any B24 liberators(HAL was overhauling them for usaf). could have been useful to bomb the pakis and cause landslides on mountain roads
- in 1962 did we have any useful bombers. again a B24/B29 could have been useful to bomb all the routes out of tawang area and curtail the cheen offensive, also hit their supply dumps in tibet. ofcourse political decision was taken not to involve the AF at the same time Nehru the clown was begging the US for bombers to attack the cheen columns in assam. Lo-ji.
- 1965 - not sure what the air war picture was like
- 1971 - we could have pounded the PA in BD and also west pakis somewhat more effectively than the hunters and canberras.

today - we could pound any island in the IOR with the backfire/pakda. with 1 refueling on each leg, perhaps attack hainan and east china sea targets. we could cheaply bomb a kargil type intrusion to bits using mass JDAM salvos. we could release SFW munitions in bulk for convoy or assembly area attacks. Cheen SAGs could be tracked and attacked effectively(though P8I can do it, payload is only 2 harpoons! .... a backfire could likely release 12 harpoons)

there's a lot of fun to be had with bombers/

[Aditya_V]

Bottom line, heavy Bombers in our context can only be used for 1) launching long range cruise missiles to take out High value targets 2) they can be useful only in battlefieds once Air dominance and enemy Sam/ air defences are suppressed to allow them to drop heavy bombs.

My guess is since IAF does not have nowehere near enough Fighters and AEW/ AWACS assets it needs, it wants to prioritise these before looking to acquire heavy bombers.

[member_23694]

Thoughts much welcome - I am trying to make sense of PLAAF strategy, and it doesn't pay to underestimate them.

China could use the long range bomber for precision attacks using bombs / supersonic cruise missile via Pakistan airspace to hit our strategic / industrial complex in the West part of India.
Or through their bases near Indian ocean launch attack on our assets in Indian ocean/east cost.

Basically they could try to hit our strategic / industrial complex on east/west coast and Indian ocean with precision without going nuclear or using long range missile .
They have the advantage of taking off from there own bases and attack us but for India it will be difficult without the support of some other country to conduct such raid on the Chinese Industrial complex on their eastern side border

[Singha]

once we get nirbhay ALCM which is inevitable, the question is which is better - 2 per MKI or maybe 12 in a internal+external carriage on a adapted P8-IB having b1 bomb bay system internally.

the P8-IB will likely have twice the unrefueled combat radius of MKI.thats a pro.
as we see even for khan, the lack of tankers is the brake on sortie rates for long range strike.

even to strike east china, someone has to penetrate 1000km into over sichuan to release and then fly back. so maybe MKIs are more survivable in that context.

[abhishek_sharma]

MiGs over Kargil: How the Fulcrum buzzed the Falcons

[Aditya_V]

MiGs over Kargil: How the Fulcrum buzzed the Falcons

Shooting down the falcons would have been much better.

[tsarkar]

one of the major reasons why they will not get what they seek is the absence of doctrine around such a specialized weapon system. And the lack of champions to create/carry that doctrine in the organization that will use them.

What you've written here, if I translate into plain English, is tying the cart before the horse.

Requirements decide equipment. Doctrines are formed to establish procedures to fulfill requirements. One doesnt build/buy equipment & then find requirements for them and write doctrines.

Tonnage of explosives was required in the past to 1. Saturate Large Targets or 2. Compensate for lack of accuracy.

For saturating large targets, missiles with nuclear weapons equivalent to Megatons of TNT, suffice. Earlier X megatons of TNT required Y number of bombs requiring Z number of bombers. Today, a single ICBM/IRBM suffices.

Even for conventional strike, say taking out an aircraft or tank factory spread over many acres, ICBMs with Cluster Bomb warheads will suffice. Check the Prithvi Cluster Bomb warhead. An Agni 3 or 5 can carry many more, and take out an aircraft factory with HEAT bomblets + delayed action mines to prevent anyone from salvaging machinery.

There is no lack of accuracy today, so no need of a bomber fleet to bomb the Tripitz.

Regarding the Chinese, China needs defences against Russia, Canada, US Carrier Battle Groups + Island Bases, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Vietnam & India. China has fought all of then since PRC was created.

Before 2010, they never had PGMs in the scale required to take on a US Carrier Battle Group. Hence the need for saturation weapons like bombers.

Post 2010, China has cruise missiles. Hence they need large number of cheap launch platforms. Hence re-roling the old bombers. Their survivability + effectiveness is pathetic.

India needs to only choke mountain passes or sea lines of communications and bleed China there. We've better ways of doing that than buy/build bombers. Since we dont plan to invade Madagascar or Mongolia, we dont need a long ranged delivery platform. If for some special occasion, we urgently need to courier some megatons afar, we've Arihant & Agni for that purpose.

No one wants bombers. Since this is simple to understand, I'll make it complex & translate it to your language - No one wants to get what they dont seek in the first place.

[Singha]

Post 2010, China has cruise missiles. Hence they need large number of cheap launch platforms. Hence re-roling the old bombers. Their survivability + effectiveness is pathetic.

they only need to fly H6 from a nice secure airbase out of our range and drop CJ10 long sword ALCMs down to their lo-lo-lo attack runs over tibet, sinkiang and yunnan to devastate targets in the indian heartland.

as it stands we are barely getting a few spyder units for airbase defence. 1000s of infra & industry targets have no protection and will get none.

your move next.

[member_23455]

one of the major reasons why they will not get what they seek is the absence of doctrine around such a specialized weapon system. And the lack of champions to create/carry that doctrine in the organization that will use them.

What you've written here, if I translate into plain English, is tying the cart before the horse.

Requirements decide equipment. Doctrines are formed to establish procedures to fulfill requirements. One doesnt build/buy equipment & then find requirements for them and write doctrines.

[/i]

If that is what you have surmised from my posts, best of luck and enjoy the internetz

Samjhnewaale samajh gayein hain nasamjhe woh....

[tsarkar]

Which are the best ways to deliver firepower 700/2000/3000 km away?

1. Have a Tu-142 carry Sudarshan LGB for 700/2000/3000 km & then drop it.

2. Have a Boeing 737 carry Sudarshan LGB for 700/2000/3000 km & then drop it.

3. Have a Il-76 carry Sudarshan LGB for 700/2000/3000 km & then drop it.

4. Have a Tu-142 carry Sea Eagle for 600/1900/2900 km & then launch it.

5. Have a Boeing 737 carry Sea Eagle for 600/1900/2900 km & then launch it.

6. Have a Il-76 carry Sea Eagle for 600/1900/2900 km & then launch it.

7. Have a Tu-142 carry Brahmos for 400/1700/2700 km & then launch it.

8. Have a Boeing 737 carry Brahmos for 400/1700/2700 km & then launch it.

9. Have a Il-76 carry carry Brahmos for 400/1700/2700 km & then launch it.

10. Launch Shourya 700 km away

11. Launch DF-21 2000 km away

12. Launch Agni 4 3000 km away

Points 1-9 clumsily extend bomb/missile range with air breathing booster while point 10-12 simply & cost effectively extend range.

Added later -

they only need to fly H6 from a nice secure airbase out of our range and drop CJ10 long sword ALCMs down to their lo-lo-lo attack runs over tibet, sinkiang and yunnan to devastate targets in the indian heartland.

They can do it simpler by developing a ground launched cruise missile and base the trucks at tibet, sinkiang and yunnan...the operators can enjoy chai-samosa while at it.

What difference does it make to defenders if a cruise missile is launched 300 or 700 km away? The defensive bubble works best when the radius & area are less instead of stretched out.

And India needs to take out those airbases, not by bomber launched ALCM each delivering 300 kg HE, but conventionally loaded Shourya/Agni4 delivering 900-1200 kg HE.

[member_20292]

Tibet, is China's greatest "wall" of all. It is a 2000 km thick wall, and it is located inside chinese territory. India has no such thing.

Chin can attack us from air bases in Tibet...but even if we attack their bases in Tibet using long range multi role fighters, their major war fighting machinery remains in the interior, near the eastern coasts of China.

So question is.
1. How do we damage the eastern coast of China ?
2. How do we, like Singha said above, bomb an airbase in tibet which is , say 2000 km in, say in Chengdu? Because, I perceive, aircraft getting made at chengdu, being trucked or railed to bases in tibet and then taking off for bombing targets in India. How do you stall that?

N.B: according to shiv et al above, bombing does not achieve much at all. having said that. What is to be done in a scenario similar to 2. ?

[member_23694]

Tibet, is China's greatest "wall" of all. It is a 2000 km thick wall, and it is located inside chinese territory. India has no such thing.

Chin can attack us from air bases in Tibet...but even if we attack their bases in Tibet using long range multi role fighters, their major war fighting machinery remains in the interior, near the eastern coasts of China.

completely agree Sir..... my understanding is that destroying assets in Tibet can be considered as a some kind of defensive measure by India to reduce / delay forward movement by the Chinese.
The real offensive measure will be if and when India is in a position to attack there assets / complexes in their heartland / eastern coast

[Singha]

also conventionally armed A2-A5 will be hugely expensive and our production rates do not indicate any desire or ability to use them in such a role. prithvi sure, but that will barely cross the himalayas.

shourya is a enigma...no word on SAC placing any orders for it and what its intended role is. perhaps it can be used in conventional role if cheap enough. but it can take a 1t payload only to 600km. it wont cross Lhasa or kashgar.

nirbhay ALCM is 1000km with full payload. the distance to chengdu itself is more. unless you move the firing platform to chengdu level we cannot even begin to target anything further east.

Cheen has no such problem and as you said can drive GLCM TELARs upto the border and rain missiles on us.

from our needs pov, what can we do to strike their heartland in exchange? throwing a couple dozen conventional A2 (A1 is outranged) is like a fly biting on a elephants hide.

[shyamd]

Hearing news that IAF just upped Rafale order to 189 - up from the original number. earlier there was debate about the split order but now looks like IAF wants Rafale

[Aditya G]

Following are the instances when we used "bombers":

- 1947/48: Dakotas were used to air drop bombs. I am not sure if they flew out from the plains or operated from the valley itself.

- 1960: Air strike over Kolwezi (sic?) which stands till date as the longest distance strike mission in IAF history.

- 1971: Caribous were used to air drop bombs over Dhaka at night time. They advantage was longer endurance compared to other types.

- 1971: Otters were converted to gunship role in the Eastern theatre.

- 1965/71: Canberras in SEAD, recce, counter-air, interdiction. Those operating from Agra were also long range.

Unfortunately Liberators were used for the maritime role AFAIK. Canberra ofcourse was a dedicated bomber and has participated in each and every conflict including 2002 escalation.

In more recent time An-32s have been converted to bomb trucks and to deliver Harpy UAV.

from Indian POV both past and present
- in 1948 did we operate any B24 liberators(HAL was overhauling them for usaf). could have been useful to bomb the pakis and cause landslides on mountain roads
- in 1962 did we have any useful bombers. again a B24/B29 could have been useful to bomb all the routes out of tawang area and curtail the cheen offensive, also hit their supply dumps in tibet. ofcourse political decision was taken not to involve the AF at the same time Nehru the clown was begging the US for bombers to attack the cheen columns in assam. Lo-ji.
- 1965 - not sure what the air war picture was like
- 1971 - we could have pounded the PA in BD and also west pakis somewhat more effectively than the hunters and canberras.

today - we could pound any island in the IOR with the backfire/pakda. with 1 refueling on each leg, perhaps attack hainan and east china sea targets. we could cheaply bomb a kargil type intrusion to bits using mass JDAM salvos. we could release SFW munitions in bulk for convoy or assembly area attacks. Cheen SAGs could be tracked and attacked effectively(though P8I can do it, payload is only 2 harpoons! .... a backfire could likely release 12 harpoons)

there's a lot of fun to be had with bombers/

[member_20292]

Cheen has no such problem and as you said can drive GLCM TELARs upto the border and rain missiles on us.

from our needs pov, what can we do to strike their heartland in exchange? throwing a couple dozen conventional A2 (A1 is outranged) is like a fly biting on a elephants hide.

Succcint.

How indeed does one strike the Chinese heartland?

Stealth kamikaze UAVs?

Fill more fuel shut it forget it Agni six with conventional sensor fused weapons?

The answer might be that we need bases in Vietnam and Japan and Korea ....if at all possible or plausible?

Cheap nuke subs with cruise missiles in bulk also will help

[member_23694]

Cheap nuke subs with cruise missiles in bulk also will help

honestly, one quick fix solution is instead of project 75I , buy 8 - 10 borei class submarine off the shelf, no need for any tech transfer for that money and we continue our effort with Arihant class sub for tech capability , and pack them with K 4/K15/XYZ missiles and let them loiter around the south China sea and Pacific and forget about them.
Any attack towards India from the North, then simply unleash those missile towards the heartland.
This is true deterrence

[prashanth]

also conventionally armed A2-A5 will be hugely expensive and our production rates do not indicate any desire or ability to use them in such a role. prithvi sure, but that will barely cross the himalayas.

nirbhay ALCM is 1000km with full payload. the distance to chengdu itself is more. unless you move the firing platform to chengdu level we cannot even begin to target anything further east.

Cheen has no such problem and as you said can drive GLCM TELARs upto the border and rain missiles on us.

from our needs pov, what can we do to strike their heartland in exchange? throwing a couple dozen conventional A2 (A1 is outranged) is like a fly biting on a elephants hide.

Newbie opinion.
Yes, it is quite difficult to target far eastern targets using missiles (unless we develop something like RK55 GLCM/AGM-129 ACM and produced in Numbers). But Su-MKIs may be used to neutralize air defence, ground targets and achieve air superiority over Tibet. PLA troops in tibet can be put to significant distress by damaging the railway, stopping their supplies.

Another possible way to target the far eastern places is to use SLCMs loaded on Arihant/successors (as some here have suggested), but we are still many years away from deploying SSGNs in pacific on a continuous prowl.

[Sagar G]

from our needs pov, what can we do to strike their heartland in exchange? throwing a couple dozen conventional A2 (A1 is outranged) is like a fly biting on a elephants hide.

If China wants to target Indian mainland then it has no other choice but to develop strong logistical tail in Tibet because you can't just load up in Beijing, fly over and bomb Delhi. So if China wants to strike India's mainland then it has to develop a solid logistical support for it's fighters in Tibet region and anything in this region is well within range of our missiles. They would have to beef up there military close to the borders and by doing such thing it has only raised Indian eyebrows and we can see the counter effect of such moves i.e. India beefing up it's military presence in the border areas.

If we are assuming that China has decided to hit Indian mainland then the shit has hit the roof and many things can be done to pay back in kind. Like moving in with our submarines and hitting there cities, reducing the payload of missile and taking out there economic center's etc. etc. (assuming GOI has given us the actual figures for max range ). Nirbhay and Brahmos become crucial here, both can be used to hit there military's logistical center's hence reducing there war fighting capabilities. If there "major war fighting equipment's" remain in eastern coast then they are most probably not for fighting us they have there hands more than full in that hemisphere. How come members here are convincing themselves that Chinese will fly down all the way from there eastern borders to our heartland, bomb us and go back safe and sound ???

[JTull]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 063447.cms

India mulls huge rise in French Rafale combat jet order, may buy up to 189 jets in multi-billion dollar deal

[tsarkar]

- 1947/48: Dakotas were used to air drop bombs. I am not sure if they flew out from the plains or operated from the valley itself.

That was the legendary Mehar Baba because of shortage of aircraft http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Perso ... Singh.html

1960: Air strike over Kolwezi (sic?) which stands till date as the longest distance strike mission in IAF history.

The Canberras were used as interdictors since they fired only cannons http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Histo ... l[quote]UN decreed that no bombs would be carried or dropped[/quote]And they operated locally, and staged via Nairobi
http://vayu-sena-aux.tripod.com/pix/ONU ... 64c1_o.jpg
http://vayu-sena-aux.tripod.com/pix/ONU ... de4e_o.jpg

- 1971: Caribous were used to air drop bombs over Dhaka at night time. They advantage was longer endurance compared to other types.

1971 was when everyone wanted a piece of fun An12s too dropped bombs in the Western Sector.

The Agra Canberras operated East & West & flew the longest sorties.

Ofcourse, after 28 sq destroyed Tezgaon & Kurmitola http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Histo ... Dacca.html mission planners should not have wasted Canberra sorties that resulted in a loss in the last day of the war
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Histo ... berra.html

We didn't realize that one of our boys from Gorakhpur had gone down a few minutes ahead of us.

Unfortunately Liberators were used for the maritime role AFAIK.

Sitting ducks for AA. MPA birds shadow enemy fleets from a distance & stay out of SAM range.

This is what happens to bombers/MPA when they fly in contested airspace http://vayu-sena-aux.tripod.com/pix/198 ... _IN318.jpg

Link for pictures http://vayu-sena-aux.tripod.com/other-g ... misc1.html

[svinayak]

from our needs pov, what can we do to strike their heartland in exchange? throwing a couple dozen conventional A2 (A1 is outranged) is like a fly biting on a elephants hide.

If China wants to target Indian mainland then it has no other choice but to develop strong logistical tail in Tibet because you can't just load up in Beijing, fly over and bomb Delhi. So if China wants to strike India's mainland then it has to develop a solid logistical support for it's fighters in Tibet region and anything in this region is well within range of our missiles. They would have to beef up there military close to the borders and by doing such thing it has only raised Indian eyebrows and we can see the counter effect of such moves i.e. India beefing up it's military presence in the border areas.

PLA logistic tail highly vulnerable both on Land and on Sea. They do not have any safe logistic tail and their war front troops and divisions can be easily isolated.

[tsarkar]

Singha ji,

Any border conflict will be localized to 300 km either way. Any escalation will be all out no holds barred.

First Generation Missile Prithvi & Next Generation Missiles like Shourya & Agni 4 are for cost effective conventional strike.

First Generation Agni 1 & 2, Interim Generation Agni 3 & Next Generation Agni 5 are for nuclear delivery.

Nirbhay can be ground launched from the hinterland.

Also, enemy missiles will need GPS refresh for INS or datalinks, both of which can be jammed. Or worse, satellites knocked out.

[svinayak]

If we are assuming that China has decided to hit Indian mainland then the shit has hit the roof and many things can be done to pay back in kind. Like moving in with our submarines and hitting there cities, reducing the payload of missile and taking out there economic center's etc. etc. (assuming GOI has given us the actual figures for max range ). Nirbhay and Brahmos become crucial here, both can be used to hit there military's logistical center's hence reducing there war fighting capabilities. If there "major war fighting equipment's" remain in eastern coast then they are most probably not for fighting us they have there hands more than full in that hemisphere. How come members here are convincing themselves that Chinese will fly down all the way from there eastern borders to our heartland, bomb us and go back safe and sound ???

Any border incursion by PLA in the west will need direct threat to Beijing, Shangai and HK from the sea. That will change their threat aggressive tactic and larger strategic plans against India.

[Sagar G]

Any border incursion by PLA in the west will need direct threat to Beijing, Shangai and HK from the sea. That will change their threat aggressive tactic and larger strategic plans against India.

We can achieve the same objective by breaking there logistical backbone in and around there border areas and to top that we can enforce a naval blockade. If they are attacking New Delhi and we are going to Beijing then nuclear threshold will be crossed.

[svinayak]

It is not the same. The psychological effect is different with threat to Beijing, Shangai and HK

[Sagar G]

It is not the same. The psychological effect is different with threat to Beijing, Shangai and HK

We have already created the threat in the form of A5. Why else do you think there was a huge hue and cry in Chinese govt. controlled media when India successfully tested it ???

Also, enemy missiles will need GPS refresh for INS or datalinks, both of which can be jammed. Or worse, satellites knocked out.

They are getting there own GPS and so are we.

[svinayak]

It is not the same. The psychological effect is different with threat to Beijing, Shangai and HK

We have already created the threat in the form of A5. Why else do you think there was a huge hue and cry in Chinese govt. controlled media when India successfully tested it ???

Big difference in the rest of Asia!

[Singha]

I was reading about the breguet alize we used.
it had a turboprop engine in the front , wing pylons and a radar in a retractable radome under the rear fuselage. it also had a bomb bay for small bombs or a single LWT. endurance was pretty good at around 4:30

but its predecessor the br.960 vultur makes for a interesting read. only two were built.
it had the turboprop engine in nose, it has a RR nene engine in the back (!). later this engine was removed to make room for the bomb bay and radar on alize
http://www.google.co.in/url?source=imgl ... kndnwuHHgw

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_Vultur

the RR orpheus dorsal pod on our old fairchild packets to improve leh performance rates as another mixed effort
http://www.google.co.in/url?source=imgl ... XhVYn-_IiQ

convair b36 peacemaker had 10 engines of mixed type
http://www.aviation-central.com/1946-19 ... b1d-dx.gif

[Singha]

also the french had this huge aw101 sized heli called super frelon http://www.google.co.in/url?source=imgl ... Dd5GSiVayQ

it was cobbed together using help from fiat and sikorsky to enlarge the frelon.

in ASW version from french carrier it operated in teams of 4 it seems with one using dunking sonar and sonobuoys and the other 3 free to launch attacks. this was apparently done in support of the french SSBNs, which runs contrary to the new philosophy of SSBNs using pure stealth to disappear. looks like in 1st gen they kept their SSBNs close and under heavy surface group protection in the atlantic or med...this is perhaps a tactic we can also follow until we get hunter killer SSNs to sanitize areas deeper out in the IOR.

[shiv]

I was reading about the breguet alize we used.
it had a turboprop engine in the front , wing pylons and a radar in a retractable radome under the rear fuselage. it also had a bomb bay for small bombs or a single LWT. endurance was pretty good at around 4:30

Interesting thing was it was a three seater. Soon after the 1971 war there was an airshow at Lohegaon where I saw a thrilling Alize flight demo. At least I was thrilled. Saw a HF 24 flight demo too there.

[shiv]

also the french had this huge aw101 sized heli called super frelon http://www.google.co.in/url?source=imgl ... Dd5GSiVayQ

Sold to and later copied by China ans produced as Y-8