MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

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negi
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by negi »

NEZ estimations however sophisticated i.e. even if it's a figure arrived at after computing launch altitude and bogey's velocity vector will never be able to account for biggest factor here i.e. the terrain .
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Karan M »

Terrain, EW, both.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Karan M »

negi wrote:
Karan M wrote:Abhi was cleared to engage, he didnt violate the ROE. He just pressed home his attack *despite* being warned of the risk.
Well which means there was no RoE it cannot exist for some and not for others ; it only means MKIs and others did not engage as I said earlier simply because they were not in a position to as they had been seen before they saw the f-16s and since they had been fired upon and were trying to dodge/manoeuvre out from the NEZ they had no shot (R-77 being similar in range to AIM 120) . Abhi and his wingman sort of sneaked up on the 16s (as clearly evident from various reports) and since he knew he had a good shot he went ahead primarily on his own instincts and conviction he simply informed everyone and off he went (no time to play permission permission in cockpit of a Mach 2 AC that's within Radar range of F-16s) .
No, the ROE was dont fire first. Once fired upon, everything changes. Abhi entered the fight with his team (wingman) and other Bison flights all being told they were weapons free and warned of AMRAAM launch possibilities. This is determined by the GCI/AWACs etc seeing vectors of Opfor and also Phalcon et al may even have weapons launch possibilities visible for OpFor (now a data processing challenge not a signal processing one). Based on that, they give inputs to Abhi et al, and its upto the pilots choice to engage.

In short ROE----> dont fire first. PAF fires, violates. We are weapons free. PAF wary, disengages, does not press home attack against either Su30 or Mirage. Su30 does not chase down retreating F16s either given concerns of ambush. 2nd flight of F16s still in play. Bison flight arrives to engage them vectored by ground controllers. As with Su30, Mirage, Bisons are also warned by GCI, own RWR, radar of open threat from F16 (AWACs et al can even see off axis threats which Kopyo cant and can also show which are in AMRAAM range, which RWR cant), Abhis wingman punches countermeasures goes cold, Abhi ignores threat and remains hot, angling for a kill. Gets it and gets shot down in turn.

So ROE changed moment AMRAAMS were fired, what is the issue there? Its straightforward.
Different debate altogether whether such ROEs are warranted or not.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Karan M »

negi wrote:^ Err even before Abhi would know of a AIM 120 being fired the MKIs would know before either-way for they were the target not Abhi , point I am making is this RoE is being over emphasised upon no one cares about it . MKIs did not fire as they were not in position to engage it is as simple as that. Abhi did because he had a shot and not because he was waiting for someone to fire at him (he by the way was not fired upon , it has been clearly mentioned in more than one place he and his wingman sneaked up on the 16s)
Again you are mixing up multiple things.
1st set of F16s approach. We can fire at them (with low Pk but we can) and dont because ROE. They fire. This is the point ROEs change, moment first AMRAAM is in the air! Su30s crank and turn back to engage when they see AMRAAMs are not a threat. F16s see AMRAAMs miss, Su30s turning back at them, RWR shows Bars painting them, Erieye orders disengage and they run. Su30s dont fire because would have been a R77 waste (supersonic, receding, targets at height) or chase, because ambush risk. 2nd set of F16s carry out LGb strike in haste, because their air cover is receding, and miss but Erieye sees oppty and vectors them into Su30. But IAF GCI is seeing big picture at IACCS in Punjab has already had MiG21s scramble and then directs them towards the 2nd F16 threat as it's the most urgent. At this point, again ROEs are same as for the Su30s which have just got out of BVR vs first group. F26s go hot on approaching Bisons, warned by Erieye and own radar. GCzi warns Bison. But Abhi took a risk and went for a kill against the 2nd batch of F16s nonetheless.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Singha »

I suppose even a thin guy can sucker punch a big guy once

Given its first encounter since 1971 i will give goi and iaf benefit of doubt as pak intentions were not clear before amraams fired

But lets not fall into same hole in future if they fire we need to follow up and smash their bases
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by sajaym »

Singha wrote:...Chola, i suspect a big anti airbase effort is planned using saaw and cruise missiles. its easier to either kill ac in hangars or render the bases damaged to reduce the threats.

in that respect the line of f16 bases from jacobabad , quetta , peshawar and sargodha are the prime targets. deep behind the line but in our range.
Any such anti airbase effort should be part of a 3-step response for the next round. 1st Step - Airstrike against terrorist target, 2nd Step - Air dominance patrol all along the LOC against any possible counter strike, 3rd Step - In case of a counterstike, an anti airbase strike against any of the airbases from where the counterstrike originated. This should be the text book response kept ready, even though there might be a few minutes/hours/days delay in between the steps.

Basically, throughout all the previous wars the Pakis have proved one thing - they're like a street goonda fighting a professional boxer. They might strike first and stun the boxer for a few moments, but they don't have the stomach for a fight once the boxer starts attacking back. And so this 3-step response should be used to let them and the world know what will happen if any 'non-military strike' is met with a military counterstrike.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Prasad »

Karan
one doubt - if Abhi was in R73 range, could his wingman been in R77 range and fired his own if he had disregarded radio call? Fleeing F-16 sure, but not too far?
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by VikramA »

Prasad wrote:Karan
one doubt - if Abhi was in R73 range, could his wingman been in R77 range and fired his own if he had disregarded radio call? Fleeing F-16 sure, but not too far?
Firing at a hostile aircraft with BVRAAM at 20 km when your own wingman(abhi) was chacing that same hostile aircraft 6-10 km behind the hostile aircraft with WRAAM is a sure shot way of ending with a blue on blue kill. suppose abhi's wingway had fired r77 at the f-16 and the link between mig 21 and the r77 was severed due to jamming or manoeuvring of the mig 21, the r77 would have switched on it's own radar tracker and it had a equal chance of going either for the f-16 or abhi's mig 21 because both would be infront of the r77 going in the same direction. BVRAAM do not have IFF
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Karan M »

Agree with Vikram, provided Abhi was not in the way already (having moved ahead of his wingman). Huge risk of blue-on-blue. This is why USAF does a wall when firing ARH, fighters in formation salvo F-16s. Ironically, this is easier also with SARH missiles like R-27 (see this superb account of BVR with SARH, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... ce/307291/) and likely why we still retain them. Their all the way guidance is limiting, but safer in some environments.

The wingman could have remained in the fight, provided the F-16 was in range and other F-16s hadn't flanked the formation. I mean, there are 4x F-16s vs 2x Bisons. The Kopyo can only guide missiles in a ~50km range directly in the 80 degree cone ahead of the radar (+/- 40).

This is why I keep saying Abhinandan took some real risks. He *knew* he was in extreme danger and pressed home the attack. He did what the PAF guys simply wouldn't despite out numbering the IAF guys 4:1. This sort of aggressiveness, as we can see, has pros and cons, but simply put we can do all the armchair quarterbacking we want, but he was the guy on call and it was his choice to take the risk.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by gunnvant »

Admins, is this time to close this thread? This doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Karan M »

Singha wrote:I suppose even a thin guy can sucker punch a big guy once
Just look at this:

Image

4x F-16, and 2x Bison charge into them and one guy even goes further and takes the shot, no matter what.

The Pakis had 2:1 superiority against 2x Su-30s and wouldn't risk it. We can see why.

They had the same odds against Mirage 2000s, 4x JF-17s vs 2x Mirage 2000s and wouldn't risk a fight there either.
Given its first encounter since 1971 i will give goi and iaf benefit of doubt as pak intentions were not clear before amraams fired

But lets not fall into same hole in future if they fire we need to follow up and smash their bases
Knowing us, we are masters at falling into the same hole again and again unless there is political courage to hit first.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Karan M »

gunnvant wrote:Admins, is this time to close this thread? This doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
Last time someone said this, suddenly the whole situation changed and AF came out with ton of info. Now you have gone and done it again. 8)
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Picklu »

I agree we are the masters at falling into the same hole again.

Despite tactical brilliance of Kargil and fully knowing about Paki H&D compulsion (they detonated the nuclear bombs within a month despite threats of sanction from the entire world and fully knowing their bombs work and doesn't need testing being delivered from working Chinese stock) we still allowed them to achieve local superiority in such a way that they were not in our BVR NEZ as soon as they come 10 km within their side of LoC. They launched attack within 24 hours and we allowed them to get away with their equal equal bragging rights.

Our Phalcons and Netras were definitely inadequate in numbers if they can surprise us with such 2:1 superiority. To me, that is strike 1 on IAF performance for not going for more local solutions like Netras and waiting for unobtenium.

If our wingman did cross LoC, it would have been his responsibility to protect Abhi from any other attacking aircraft. Abhi were chasing a receding aircraft; the same can't fire a missile backward. If Abhi was at 15-20k, so were the one he was chasing. Ideally the wingman should fire his BVR at those ambushing aircrafts at 40k hight, even if that's at the edge of r77 NEZ, simply to keep them busy in evasive action that will prevent them to fire/guide their own. Also the ambushing aircrafts must have an angular separation with their own receding F16, else they will cause a fratricide. Now, that hight and angular separation means the wingman r77 won't go for Abhi's mig. But didn't happen. Why? My guess, our RoE didn't permit firing BVR without permission from GC and that never came, even after they fired BVR at us. To me, that strike 2 on IAF performance.

And everyone talking about not firing SAM due to NOTAM, our own airlines etc are missing the spyder launch. Sound like Strike 3 to me.

Based on the three above, my assessment is, this time our political side came out with flying colours but military side did less than satisfactory. And that is after taking into account the balakot and f16 down. Did we achieve our strategic objective? Not fully. Our objective was to establish a disparity in conventional force strength which allows us to do surgical strike in future at impunity. By not doing a irrefutable BDA of Balakot and allowing Pakis to shootdown a mig 21 and taking a PoW, we allowed them to get away with equal-equalitis. Our achievement this time is far less than Kargil, let alone 71 and this time our political side did give a free hand. Hence the disappointment.

Note: Had we used our heavy bombs to flatten the madrasa instead of spice2k, it would have come out clearly on sat image and no amount of spinning could have saved the day for them.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Karan M »

Austin wrote:Why is a waste to fire at that range , C5 range is advertised as 90 km plus so its perfectly fine to fire a target at 50-60 km.

AMRAAM like weapon wont fire till it has positive lock on the target even in case of LOAL the weapons computer will compute the best intercept point before it fires.
It is a waste, because as anyone skilled or well-trained would know that the missile though in its launch parameters was not in its *optimal launch parameters* i.e. NEZ. The F-16 WCS would provide those ranges/bubbles, the F-16 pilots chose to take the lowest risk (for themselves) and hence lowest Pk considerations and fire. This is why AM Sinha mocked the PAF's BVR tactics in his video.
Even R-73 does not fire till it has a positive lock even if you hold the weapons to fire switch.
See above. There is a reason why Abhinandan maneuvered to get the F-16 within the R73s optimal launch zone, and didn't just use the HMS for an opportunistic shot. It can still miss the target since its not within ideal launch parameters.
AMRAAM needs a MCG post launch and it would be useful to know if F-16's or a pair of it after firing multiple AMRAAM could maintain the track of MKI that knew it was under attack and took manouveres to evade it.
It would be the credit of the pilot that avoided a salvo launch of BVR against it and perhaps even the Ground Operator or AWACS that alerted it .......TVC comes to good effect at this time to shorten your response
AMRAAM doesn't need a MCG post launch, you can fire it in LOAL mode without MCG as well, if need be. Its referred to as the austere mode and was all that was initially available on the Tornado F.3s for instance.
In this case though, it was probably a mix of EW, maneuvering against both the missile & FCR, and IAF will obviously not provide all the info. to keep the PAF guessing.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Manish_Sharma »

Picklu wrote:
Note: Had we used our heavy bombs to flatten the madrasa instead of spice2k, it would have come out clearly on sat image and no amount of spinning could have saved the day for them.
For sure this Modi has stated in interviews and bhashans that "I strictly didn't want any collateral damage, otherwise they would complaint to world community.."
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Karan M »

Picklu wrote:If our wingman did cross LoC, it would have been his responsibility to protect Abhi from any other attacking aircraft. Abhi were chasing a receding aircraft; the same can't fire a missile backward. If Abhi was at 15-20k, so were the one he was chasing. Ideally the wingman should fire his BVR at those ambushing aircrafts at 40k hight, even if that's at the edge of r77 NEZ, simply to keep them busy in evasive action that will prevent them to fire/guide their own. Also the ambushing aircrafts must have an angular separation with their own receding F16, else they will cause a fratricide. Now, that hight and angular separation means the wingman r77 won't go for Abhi's mig. But didn't happen. Why? My guess, our RoE didn't permit firing BVR without permission from GC and that never came, even after they fired BVR at us. To me, that strike 2 on IAF performance.
It doesn't work like that. The Wingman usually maintains "shape" with the pilot he is accompanying, and won't be too far away. In a dynamic combat, he won't be able to locate his own buddy otherwise.
Secondly, the Kopyo can track upto 45 km. It's not a large radar set like on the Su-30 and MiG-29 or the Mirage 2000.
This means the range differential for BVR attack advantage may well have been with the F-16s as they can fire & guide their MRAAMs in, first *until and unless* the MiG-21s close in ASAP, reducing the advantage.
How the Bisons usually play this is by carrying jammers. The Bisons on that day, likely weren't (this is where the MiG-21s limited pylon count really hurts it). The pilots chose to face the threat by skimping on defensive aids & adding more weaponry (4x AAMs) and fuel (1x center line tank).

So, the wingman concept with a limited field of view (eyeball + sensor), means that Abhi & his wingman will be located close together & as Abhi raced ahead to take the F-16 on, his wingman "broke" to avoid AMRAAM shots as the same audible was given to both Abhi & his wingman, and the wingman's assumption would be that Abhi will break off his attack, too.

Now once the Wingman goes cold, he can't fire a R77. As Joshi writes (am glad his account corroborates my thinking):
The IAF’s gound controller saw the defensive maneuvering of the F-16s, warning the MiGs in turn. While his No 2, who was lagging behind, turned ‘cold’ or away from the F-16s which were going ‘hot’ or facing the MiGs — -Abhinandan chose to ignore this threat and continued towards the F-16s.

I suspect Abhi was fully focused on his kill. He was monitoring his Kopyo, saw the F-16 hadn't completed its turn yet, was yet to get weapons status on him. He knew other F-16s were a threat, he ignored them.

As Joshi writes:
Abhinandan was 8–10 km away from the F-16, which was turning towards him — aiming for a frontal aspect launch with high closing speed between the missile and the incoming F-16.

He wanted to get a shot at the F-16 before it could shoot him (because as he turned and ran, he would be the victim). He was committed to the fight, and in such a fight, you can either hunt or run.
Based on the three above, my assessment is, this time our political side came out with flying colours but military side did less than satisfactory. And that is after taking into account the balakot and f16 down. Did we achieve our strategic objective? Not fully. Our objective was to establish a disparity in conventional force strength which allows us to do surgical strike in future at impunity. By not doing a irrefutable BDA of Balakot and allowing Pakis to shootdown a mig 21 and taking a PoW, we allowed them to get away with equal-equalitis. Our achievement this time is far less than Kargil, let alone 71 and this time our political side did give a free hand. Hence the disappointment.
I suspect political side also wanted a moderate escalation only based on MEA etc input hence all the messaging about non military target etc. I don't think your assessment of the military side is warranted, it's not their fault their equipment profile is not overwhelming. If Modi/GOI wanted a proper war, they should have prepped the IAF accordingly, and put far more focus in having MOF release funds accordingly.
Note: Had we used our heavy bombs to flatten the madrasa instead of spice2k, it would have come out clearly on sat image and no amount of spinning could have saved the day for them.
And this was again a GOI ask to avoid such heavy flattening lest it be construed as civilian damage etc.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by ramana »

gunnvant wrote:Admins, is this time to close this thread? This doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
Not yet.
FizzleYa extent of fizzle is being revealed.

Watch and learn.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by ramana »

Guys don't let our book knowledge dominate the IAF pilots field knowledge.
Otherwise we will be like the Paki brats.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by pralay »

ramana wrote:Guys don't let our book knowledge dominate the IAF pilots field knowledge.
Otherwise we will be like the Paki brats.
We should add all the videos, photos, links on first page of this thread together.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by ritesh »

Singha wrote:I suppose even a thin guy can sucker punch a big guy once

Given its first encounter since 1971 i will give goi and iaf benefit of doubt as pak intentions were not clear before amraams fired

But lets not fall into same hole in future if they fire we need to follow up and smash their bases
Think it was bad on our military planners part to expect anything lesser than jehandi behaviour and tendencies from one and all baki military establishment.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Singha »

Pie in sky concepts examples

Giant a330 awacs when murica might downsize to 737 size
We want atags but lets shave 4 tons off it first - for an army with really poor number of 155mm guns
Tejas 83 mk1a order not placed yet
Peacemeal small orders for domestic kits while “saving” money for big imports
65000t catobar with 57 f18/rafale

These are behaviours of a force in being unused to major All out wars which really stretch the country

In no war was even amritsar threatened forget the vast depth the soviets had to lose and regain
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Picklu »

You are forgetting the recent ak203 and athos!

Still this day, I can not figure out why we can not build a turret around Dhanush and put it on Arjun hull achieving synergy in our parts supply chain. If involving private sector was the goal, ask L&T to set up another arjun line.

And for gods sake, involve mahindra and tata to indigenize the engine. Both have heavy engine experience via their commercial vehicle venture.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by ramana »

Picklu,
Have you read Maj. Gen(R) Sukhwant Singh three volume study of the 1971 war? Especially the third volume. He writes same ideas as you have written about cost benefit and sacrifices made by people to equip the forces.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by arvin »

Singha,
For A330 awacs, that is only alternative to IL 76 to mount CABS radome. Boeing wont spare its 737 airframe since it already has a product based on same airframe. Plus our Awacs will have mid air refuelling so they are using extra capacity correctly.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Karan M »

Picklu, the problem is at multiple levels, while it is true the Armed Forces are somewhat stuck at PO and BSNL level, CAG reports make it clear as to how much delay & waffling there is on the services side as well, with regards to SQRs, changing specs, delayed orders etc.. we have to also admit our MOD/DPP is badly broken. I don't see for instance, why, there is no MOD level push to reform procurement to get things quick. Why is it for instance that Phalcon file (2x Phalcons) is at MOF and MOD playing passing the parcel for a decade now (not 1-2-3 years, a decade!), why is it that the Tejas Mk1A is still not ordered, why are the 7 additional Akash squadrons not ordered?
I will tell you why, for far too long, Ministry of Finance mandarins, especially the IFAs attached to procurement, have become used to rejecting orders, or playing spoilsport, and our politicians all have got used to paying "lip service" to "Army etc will get what they want" and not following through on it because its too much effort and bureaucrats play merry. Tell me, we have so much focus on Swacch Bharat & Ayushman Bharat. Did you see the PMO stand up and say, OK GaN foundry, Phalcon, Su-30 upgrade can literally win us or cost us a war, we need to fix this no matter what, the same way we find funds for social justice schemes? Do you see PMO legislate that we need to ensure GOI procurement is going to require indigenous sourcing of semicon same as PRC has done? Its always some way to say no. Unfortunately clueless bureaucrats continue to rule the roost. DPP rules, not common sense.

See, if you wish to fix the services, then you need somebody at the MOD level to take charge. Parrikar did. We no longer have him. Tell me why is the MOF run by Jetli being so parsimonious towards building a world class AF with all the funds it requires? As versus staged modernization. Yes, that is good, but given our threats, is it fast enough?

Even now, as we speak, there are 8 MiG-21 and MiG-27 squadrons retiring. Thankfully due to Modi Govt we have 5x S-400 squadrons and 2x Rafale squadrons coming in, plus previously committed 1x Su-30 MKI and 1x Tejas. Now what about the remaining 4x Tejas of the Mk1A type? What about the 7x Akash squadrons? What about the 2x Phalcons? Why are they stuck? If you can't afford the Phalcons, what is the plan for Netra? Are you even talking to the IAF there?

Why is the MOD not leaning on the IAF/DRDO to quickly hand over the last Netra to the IAF?

This lack of domain understanding or awareness is throttling us.

It irritates me beyond measure that the GaN fab is not funded. Do the jokers at the MOD/MOF level even understand what they are throttling? Is it any less important than some PM scheme for xyz class?

I will tell you, as a Modi voter what I am most deeply afraid of. That Modi & co may not come back and some ludicrous hamstrung peacenik Govt takes over, and secondly, they have not put a institutionalized process in place to take defence seriously as something that does not need a strongman Modi's PMO to support, but irrespective of who is in power, stuff gets done.

Its really baffling to me, why 2 years after Modi came, at Uri, we were running empty and Jaitley who was supposed to handle the MOD + MOF was not even held accountable. It took PMO intervention, all sorts of work from Parrikar and co, for orders to start flowing in. And again, MOF came in and tried to put an oar in the works, by refusing a non lapsable fund.

My point is simple, if you don't take this stuff seriously and give leadership to the forces, then its hubris to claim they are not doing the right thing. Either lead, and have them follow your leadership OR process what they want ASAP. We are doing neither too well. We are following a middle path.

At least this Govt is ordering *something* and the Make in India program + DRDO budget boost has helped us in several programs. I would shudder to return to the Congress days of Tejas and Arjun sabotage when Antony sat and did nothing, watching both programs wither on the vine.

But at the same time, I expect much more to be done in terms of proper roadmap to make the IAF dominant and not have the MOD just play the "we want to please worldwide economic observers by maintaining our budget oh-so-well" and yet pretend that we should not take a 1 or 2 time hit to upgrade our forces rapidly.

This business of budget year on year optimal spend may work to get them to a decent level of ops capability, but will not, make them really that dominant against 2 enemies both of whom are collaborating & hence we have to park ~40% of our force while dealing with one, expecting an attack from the other.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by VikramA »

Singha wrote:Pie in sky concepts examples

Giant a330 awacs when murica might downsize to 737 size
We want atags but lets shave 4 tons off it first - for an army with really poor number of 155mm guns
Tejas 83 mk1a order not placed yet
Peacemeal small orders for domestic kits while “saving” money for big imports
65000t catobar with 57 f18/rafale

These are behaviours of a force in being unused to major All out wars which really stretch the country

In no war was even amritsar threatened forget the vast depth the soviets had to lose and regain

i hate to agree but this is true.
tejas mark 1 might be under powered, and maintenance extensive but it is leagues ahead of mig 21s. there was no reason to drag feet in ordering 100 by setting up two assembly line churning 36 frame per year starting 2017 mark1 for point defence for replacing mig 21s till mark 1A was sorted out.

arjun mark 1 might have been heavy and not ideal example of 21st century tanks but it was and still is leagues better than t-72M. instead the army again dragged its feet.

ATAGS might be 3 ton over weight but it still superior product to replace the some 500 105mm field guns in arty regiments which are supposed to fight in punjab. in plains what difference will 3 ton make . so instead of ordering 200 ATAGS V1.0 and waiting till 2020 for the weight reduced ATAGS V 2.0 to emerge what does the army do? wait till 2020 for the perfect ATAGS model and till then order ATOS and create a logistic nightmare and 10 years down the line half of those ATOS will be unserviceable because of lack of spare parts like what happened with bofors

l
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by negi »

Karan as much as I like your data you have been missing from the dark side for too long ; I wish if it was as simple as military does not have funds or MoD has been the bottle neck . Anyways not a place for those rants , more when we meet .
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Picklu »

ramana wrote:Picklu,
Have you read Maj. Gen(R) Sukhwant Singh three volume study of the 1971 war? Especially the third volume. He writes same ideas as you have written about cost benefit and sacrifices made by people to equip the forces.
No. Will check online.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Karan M »

negi wrote:Karan as much as I like your data you have been missing from the dark side for too long ; I wish if it was as simple as military does not have funds or MoD has been the bottle neck . Anyways not a place for those rants , more when we meet .
Negi, what I mean is pick a side. If you wish to build up indigenous capabilities, track them and fund them and buy in the interim. We have seen that with radars, but its not been extended elsewhere.
You cannot have a case wherein you sit and happily spend tons of ink processing a order for some stuff but years pass, but at the same time, your Phalcons are not ordered. If something does not work, like the MiG-29Ks, then sit down with the Navy and be firm with them about how to fix it and then mention running down the NLCA to push for a 57 aircraft order is not done either.

Tell me, apart from Parrikar, did you see anyone who could do this?

This is a big issue because nobody is looking at the big picture.

If you don't spend, then you have to have everyone working optimally. That works only in the US etc which has a mature industry. In India, if you are building up indigenous capabilities, you have to simultaneously acquire some interim capability which works. Not because its a way to curry favor with a foreign Govt. Or because its a follow on acquisition. If you see why we keep buying Su-30s, its because they are a follow on acquisition.

Here's one more example of how dysfunctional our setup is. HAL sends a proposal for Mk1A to IAF, which is delayed. And non functional. Its not for a 18 month or whatever period, does not even cover some upgrades IAF wanted. IAF sends it back. HAL again sits on the file, and sends a delayed file missing some points, IAF again sends it back.. in this process, 10 months are lost and counting. In 2009, Phalcon file is sent to MOD, then MOF, rejected. In 2019, its with MOF for "review". WTF?

IISc proposes a GaN fab. DRDO jumps at the idea. Goes to GOI. No answer. WTF?

This kind of delays are usual, no accountability, in our system, kills any attempt to do things on time.

As corporate rats, would this kind of passing the file game be acceptable in any setup? But in ours, years pass without decision and critical gaps emerge. Even in private/public set up, at least at year end ppl are tracked on what they didn and didn't do, and everyone jumps through hoops to get things done. In our setup, there is no accountability for file notation guys who delay everything but get nothing done. Parrikar made some sarcastic comments about this breed in particular.

Second, Dhanoa sir said something- in air battles, the tech differential can lead to huge lopsided ratios. So you can see why they were pushing for Phalcon vs Netra. Netra is at the level of Erieye which PAF has. Now, if MOD really had sense they would have pointed out to IAF saying guys, don't be worried its not rob Peter to pay Paul you can have both. As both will help by rationalizing your capex for a large AWACS fleet and you can put in tech insertions into the AWACS over time. But but.. there is no Phalcon and nobody to ask the IAF for Netra and IAF is worried if it takes the Netra no Phalcons will come.

Is this rational? Who is to blame here?

Now, you have multiple people screaming that R77 is inferior to AMRAAM C-5. Let me posit a theory, if tomorrow PAF gets two ZDK-05 whatever, based on Y-20 and they outrange a Netra, what do you think people's reaction will be? OMGZ Netra outranged by ZDK-05, DRDO sux and Modi is an !#$@!! Meanwhile, AWACS India would remain with partial funds.

This is where we are at, and you can stop this only by taking a far bigger hands on role in terms of managing tech, development and procurement, rather than just letting babus and IAF and scientists play passing the parcel amongst each other.

The only silver lining i see is that DRDO is slowly building up to be a real one stop shop (as versus a promise one stop shop which services used to crib it was, because they wanted everything right now). We have paid our dues so to speak, and system development is now far along, this will allow us to look within for many more items.

But still, I think Jaitley wasted 2 years of his so called Def. Min. role. and MOF remains completely clueless about defence. If Modi comes back and he wants to keep playing footsie with Pak and China, he needs to give them a wake up call. Otherwise go to war only after 5 more years when minimum capabilities are built up.

Till then even you have to live with the frustration, why after every escalation, we sit back and say ok, now we are nice guys. That sort of blow hot and blow cold will only work so far. All it takes is one insane PRC and Pak leader to coordinate.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by nachiket »

Karan M wrote:
But still, I think Jaitley wasted 2 years of his so called Def. Min. role. and MOF remains completely clueless about defence. If Modi comes back and he wants to keep playing footsie with Pak and China, he needs to give them a wake up call. Otherwise go to war only after 5 more years when minimum capabilities are built up.
I wouldn't blame JetLi alone. Considering the mess our economy was in he had a huge headache already. What was the need to burden him with MoD? Would a US president appoint the same person as Secretary of Treasury and SecDef for an extended period of time? MoD is not some little ministry that can be run by a part time minister.

Our political class just does not understand the importance of the Defense sector until something like Uri or Pulwama happens and then they go to the armed forces asking what can we do? There is no thought given to prepare for eventualities and a concerted effort put in to develop capabilities for the same. And I'm sorry to see that even the Modi government has fallen into this behavior, despite being leagues better than the previous one.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Nikhil T »

Singha wrote:>> This article is correct on the RoE that exists on the LOC. The RoE were not to fire unless Pakistani aircraft are inside Indian Territory and they fire first. The first criteria was unfulfilled.

this probably dated back to when TSP had only Aim9L missiles with a 10km range. a indian a/c hovering 10km inside the LOC (as per bilateral agreement) would be on limits of the aim9L range so we could afford to wait. this was kargil roe.

clearly someone missed the bus on updating the ROE in the age of amraam and PL12 to delete the first criteria
. in any case, what does it matter where the PAF is if they open fire - a lot of lives could have been lost that day due to this condition.

PAF happily fired away from high level, even knowing half dozen civilian airliners were flying around at 10am - they clearly are far more pragmatic.

the right defensive ROE is
- fire if anyone takes a missile lock from anywhere
- fire on anyone crossing the LOC
- put missile lock if anyone is within 10km on their side
+100

We need to re-examine the RoEs for this surgical strike scenario. I don't buy the "we didn't know they'd shoot at us and risk half a dozen civilian airliners" reasoning for being surprised. The same thing happened in the aftermath of the Atlantique incident in '99, when PA launched a SAM against an IAF Mi-17 helicopter that was carrying journalists to the wreckage site. The helicopter ducked and we never retaliated.

I could be wrong, but it seems the PAF strategy here was to expend the few AMRAAMs to ward off the Sukhois and lure one or more of IAF birds into an ambush. The way I look at it, the PAF spent 5 AMRAAMs (<$10MM in total) to secure an IAF pilot and prevent their country getting a whipping from a far superior military. Not a bad way to spend that money.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Karan M »

Singha wrote: the right defensive ROE is
- fire if anyone takes a missile lock from anywhere
- fire on anyone crossing the LOC
- put missile lock if anyone is within 10km on their side
Missile lock = Single Target Track in earlier days. STT = High grade constant tracking, screeching in RWR as radar focuses energy on you to fire a semi-active radar homing missile onto you like AIM-7, Super530D, R-27 which home in on the reflected energy from your airframe.

Today, radars fire from track while scan. The radar detects you, moves to TWS mode, you start getting painted, and it can either be computing a weapons solution onto you, or just monitoring what you are doing.

So, will you open fire, the moment a radar even looks at you? No easy answers.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Picklu »

Karan M wrote:. Remember vast supply of essential items is supposed to come from OFB. And almost all of it was either stuck (Quality issues) or delayed (promised X, delivered much lesser quantities).
And I also want to lay on rest this quality issue of OFB. Do they have issues, yes they do. Any more than any other govt org including Army, no.

No major quality issues on SLR. Among foreign arms collectors, Ishapore is quite an exotic and respectable brand. Same OFB will build the Ak203 but they could not fix INSAS?

Same VFJ is manufacturing Dhanush. Same Avadi manufacturing T Series. Same guys are manufacturing those 10000 HSLD bombs or ERFB-BB shells or bi modular charges.

Somehow the moment origin is foreign, the OFB quality becomes acceptable. The moment design is desi, our guys are not ready to hand hold and accept lower quality in batches while doing iterative block improvement with time bound block level low capacity/low quality induction. They would rather continue with mig21 that induct mk1. But they will give enmass order of t90 based on Russian promise.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Karan M »

A bunch of OT Posts deleted. Back to topic. Post with a cool mind and reasoned statements (back up claims with evidence). Avoid angry/emotional outbursts. Thanks!
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by krish.pf »



New Eyewitnesses claiming 2 parachutes and 2 pilots!
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by krish.pf »

If one listens to the DGISPR, he says clearly that the second aircraft crashed in Indian territory. Now why would he say that?

A: That is because it fell in an unpopulated very remote difficult to reach area, with steep hilly features. Which explains why even the IAF and our intelligence has trouble locating it even with radar location. Since no civilian or their military saw it crashing anywhere near them, they quickly assumed it must have crashed in our territory. Plus that aircraft came down in a huge ball of fire(one of the mobile videos of some abdul). It was already pretty disintegrated mid-air itself(while the mig-21 wreckage was pretty intact for a shot down aircraft). We'll be lucky if the mangled remains resembles a tiny bit of an F-16.

---

They saw multiple parachutes and quickly came to the conclusion that it was a Su-30MKI which was one of the fighters down. Now why would they do that?

A: Because like us, even they have the radar signatures of Bars and other MKI ELINT. Courtesy, the chinese getting the info from the Russians by some means. Sowhen they took multiple shots at some radar blips on their HMD, they knew what they were firing at. Most likely bagging a Su-30 was their primary mission and bombing the ammunition dump was their secondary objective. Imagine the amount of praise and media coverage PAF might have got if they were the very first airforce on the planet to bag a Flanker!! My goodness, they would have been on cloud nine. So the moment info got out that multiple parachutes were sighted, they had good reason to assume they bagged a Sukhoi, as they lobbed Amraams like bullet fire.
Also since they knew Su-30 was in our airspace, they assumed it must have went down in our territory, since the F-16 crashed in a remote area.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Aditya_V »

Its also called scenario fulfillment, the PAF had told the Paki top brass that expect some SU-30's down, they came and fired multiple AMRAAM's expecting Su 30's will fall from the sky, they didnt expect the IAF can spoof all 5 Amraam's.

Luckicly for them they had cut internet service from POK and only those Govt approved videos were uploaded, a few abduls might have uploaded videos from Paki Punjab after travel. I just hope the Paki F-16 videos have been taken by some Abduls and we have gotten our hands on them, on the 1st day there were pics of a bent tailfin with dark grey scheme, then they disappeared and only photos of Bison with India flag came.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by krish.pf »

^ Precisely.
That means they precisely knew were the Su-30s were lurking. It was partly(or primarily) a Flanker kill mission to save their reputation after Bin Laden and Balakot strike. The tag of the first flanker kill will forever crown them and they would have never shut up about it for the next 200 years.

-----

Now why didn't PAF didn't know their own fighter got taken out, in real time?

A: Maybe Erieye can't make out their own fighters through ground clutter in a high mountainous area, and hence they themselves didn't know their aircraft went down. Most likely abinandhan's R-73 must have hit the F-16 in a critical area which meant no communication went out of the aircraft after the hit. In the heat of the battle and the fog of war, they might have thought the missing fighter must have gone back to some other airfield. Plus they never would have imagined that Abinandhan would CROSS the LOC, and engage them. Their mission was to bag a Su-30 or 2, hit an ammunition dump and scoot, all within their airspace. A relatively low risk mission, but they still screwed up and lost their prized possession. PAF is mostly about self image,1971 war with mirages safely in shelters comes to mind. Now I ask you what would boost the self image of PAF greatly, bombing a building or bagging the first ever flanker? The answer is obvious.

Also following up on the F-16 wreckage, the F-16 is a lawn dart, that falcon junk would have dived faster than a brick after the R-73 partly chewed it up. With that kinetic energy of a steep impact, i doubt anything survived which resembles an F-16.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Cybaru »

It is possible that communication and clarification took time and someone wanted to take all the glory and announced it without doing any homework.
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Re: MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

Post by Aditya_V »

Falcon being a lawn dart, you can see in many videos the hit aircraft falling down straight and after you can see contrail of the other fighter which is then hit but is falling slower at an angle
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