Ok, so how do you encounter rafale, seems Pakistan has no solution.
JF-17/FC-1 Fighter Aircraft thread
- Thread starter johnqh
- Start date
It's not an absolute requirement to counter Rafale the moment Rafales are inducted and trained up with IAF pilots. To counter it in future, Pakistan's project is AZM and aims to introduce a 5th gen fighter into PAF. This will likely involve deep partnership with China and/or Turkey. The more important question would be is it wise to spend billions more to counter it or spend a fraction of that towards diplomacy as to eventually negate the need for a direct counter.
As for surviving a war with India, Pakistan's deterrence does not lie with fighters. For conventional and contained fights, a hundred or so JF-17 blk 3 should be more than able to hold off 36 Rafales and MKIs as front line fighters. This is assuming blk 3 receives PL-15 and the AESA can make use of its extended range.
Pakistan needs to come up with better strategies at countering Indian military if it wishes to go down the confrontational arms race path. India can outspend Pakistan and beat it with sheer numbers alone and it also has superior firepower on paper. So the nuclear deterrence is the main one and conventionally it has so far relied on India's relative passivity at striking militants.
The advantage Pakistan has at the moment is that the Indian military is not geared for offensive operations. My source for this is Force Magazine's editor. He is former Indian Army and was the most senior Janes South Asia correspondent (so he knows what he's talking about.)
The Indian strategy is to focus on holding Kashmir and conduct "limited operations" across the border. As the Balakot response showed, this "limited response" BS doesn't work, unless you can back it up with the threat of actual war, which India is simply not prepared for. They don't even have enough ammunition stored, unlike Pakistan which is self-sufficient in ammunition and exports it. India's spare part situation is also abysmal (across the board.) On top of this, their communications equipment is decades behind and mostly unencrypted.
The biggest problem for India is that their Army and Air Force do not work together on combined Air-Land training, which signals they are not even preparing for actual war. The Army exercises usually don't involve the Air Force at all, which means they are just playing around in the sand. While the Pakistan Army has not only trained in combined arms and joint Air-Land operations, but even tested it out and applied it already in the Zarb-e-Azab operation.
Now, with that said, this does not mean that we should rely on our enemy's ineptness (that's a huge mistake that we've made before.) Tomorrow, India could begin to change all of this and be prepared for war in a decade's time. Which means that the PAF (especially) has to keep pace with matching the potential (not the actual kinetic capacity) of the IAF. The Rafale+Meteor+S400 pose a serious challenge. The Block III are just one piece of the puzzle we need. Increased focus needs to be given to unmanned platforms which can be used to saturate the enemy air defense network, and I believe this is finally getting some attention. Cruise Missiles are also needed and they need to be produced in numbers. Of course, "Project Azm" which comes after the Block III is not a toy project. There are a lot of research facilities that the PAF is setting up right now, which means they are serious about it. Otherwise, they wouldn't bother with the academic side. They are clearly thinking about the long-term picture.
Strategically, the priority is actually the economy. The military knows this very well. This is why we are seeing the drastic political changes in the country right now. Without a growing economy, all this stuff above will not matter. This is also why CPEC is so crucial for Pakistan. It is an official strategic priority of the military. We need to sort the economy out ASAP.
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On PDF everyone is a chauvinist. SDF over the years has gotten more political for sure. But PDF has since gone down into the basement. Its no longer political over there its all about trolling, nation bashing and trash talking. I have a account there but I stopped posting their years ago. I still visit the site occasionally because they got great pictures.@Mohsin77 thank you for the recommendations. I've already grabbed the first book.
Don't worry about it, Chinese chauvinist is how I describe myself.
I'm one of the worst of them on PDF. I love it, in a sense... it gives me the freedom to get into verbal altercations and spew venom so I'm sort of calmed down when I engage here.
One can't exist without the other. I think I've reached a point in my political philosophy where I consider "freedom" a synonym for "chaotic, disorganised, chauvinistic, tribal, unintelligent."
I'll put it this way: I'm happy both PDF and SDF exist.
To go way off topic before the mods nuke this exchange, and in keeping with the theme of Middle Eastern geopolitics, General Qassem Soleimani was recently assassinated by the US in Baghdad. The reports are piling up and they seem credible - I find myself shocked and saddened. A great soldier has fallen today.
Let's hope this isn't an Archduke Ferdinand moment.
Dizasta1
Senior Member
The same was the case when India was powering away with the much touted Su-30 MKi Flankers with it's 400km range, being a "Mini-AWACS," incorporating Western Avionics such as the french SAGEM GPS and the israeli EL/M-8222 EW Suite. The invincible and super indian Flanker was suppose to instill fear and horror in Pakistan Air Force. However, on the 27th of February 2019, all Indian Air Force managed to muster, from it's 230 odd Super Flankers, was just 2 aircraft, who turned tail and ran for cover. In fact, the french Mirage-2000s weren't anywhere to be seen either, on that fateful day.
Essentially, Pakistan reserves every right to defend itself from any foreign aggression and will take all possible, "prudent" measures to defend itself with the best available weapons' platform available and which would not break the proverbial bank. Unlike it's yuppie neighbor, Pakistan doesn't just go willy nilly into a procurement drive and take a decade to actually decide and induct aircraft. Pakistan isn't stupid or have the $$$ to squander away embroiled in it's own vanity. So steps are taken to ensure that Pakistan Military evaluates and procures weapons' systems that are the best bang for the buck.
Brumby
Major
Rafale is not a magical solution for the IAF even though Rafale itself is a very capable aircraft especially the IAF will be getting the F3-R variant which has just gone IOC last month with the French airforce.
IMO, the major issues are with the IAF and having the Rafale will not overcome those structural problems. I will first walk through the IAF issues and then describe how the JF-17 (Block 3) may possibly make a difference
1) 36 units of Rafale will simply not be sufficient especially when you are dealing with two fronts, down time and training requirements. The IAF cannot afford more because it is expensive but strategically IMO it is the wrong call.
2)The Indian government in its effort to go local is creating all kinds of unintended issues. Mk1 is draining resources and not making substantive progress with numbers. Local assembly of SU-30MKIs cost 70 % more when compared to Russian prices. Future programs are getting bogged down by Indian bureaucracy. The net result are future requirements will likely be shortended and current force structure is a hotchpotch of planes. Modern air conflicts are force on force not individual actions. Planes within a force structure need to have the ability to talk to each other and share information for greater situational awareness, effective force cohesion and preventive fratricide It will be challenging to integrate data links between Russian, French, Indian products and with Israeli electronics in between. You then have to throw in the infrastructure tail needed to support such a mixed force. In summary, the IAF on paper might look to be sufficiently robust but its overall effectiveness is questionable. The Feb 2019 incident and the IAF's overall performance is symptomatic of these issues.
3)The backbone of the IAF is its much vaunted SU-30MKI fleet. The issue with modern platforms is that its utility is a function of its upgradeability. Unfortunately the Russian's promise of a "Super Sukhoi" is not happening because it is having difficulty delivering an AESA radar as part of that upgrade. In addition, the SAP-518 ECM pod that was integral to the SU-30MKI's self protection has been abandoned by the Indians because it was causing a significant degradation to its aerodynamic performance. In the words of an Indian official, the wingtip pods were turning the SU-30MKI into a transport plane.
As this is a JF-17 thread all of the above need to tie back to the proper subject matter. There are two sides to a coin and in modern air warfare it is about the sensors (offence) and the EW suite (defense). It is a general expectation that Block 3 will get an AESA radar and a matter of confirmation on which one. It is also an expectation and belief that it can be retrofitted to earlier blocks. In essence, the PAF could potentially have a force structure of 150 plus JF-17s with AESA radar. In contrast, the IAF is limited to only 36 Rafales with such capability. The Teja program might deliver some additional capacity through its Mk1A variant but historically, the track record is rather long on promises but short on delivery. Time will tell.
This leads me to the question of the EW upgrade with the Block 3 which I raised a number of posts back but the discussion was effectively derailed. The question that need addressing is what EW capability upgrade is important and why. EW is generally referred to as suite because it actually comprised of 4 components that are either integrated or federated. They are RWR, ESM, jammer and expendables. EW capabilities tend to lag sensor developments because their sole purpose in life is to counter the sensors. The introduction of AESA radar creates a new set of problems for legacy ECM systems and may effectively make them ineffective without upgrades. That is the reason why I posed the question what EW capabilities were forthcoming with Block 3. In order for an ECM suite to do its job, it must first have the ability to detect a RF threat. The problem with AESA radar and when operating in LPD/LPI mode is that legacy RWR will struggle to cope with such new waveforms. It is all about sensitivity and threat ID capability within acceptable time window as modern AESA radar has a very short window between track and launch sequence. The point is a Block 3 with a capable ECM suite will be better placed to deal with the Rafale's AESA radar and reduce the Meteor's launch distance in the process.
Finally a force structure of JF-17s supported by data links can be more effective than a disparate force not adequately supported by appropriate data links. It is about situational awareness. . .
Hard to say, I suppose one might encounter Rafale in a dark alley or behind your local gas station?
(joking of course)
In all seriousness; modern aerial warfare is a game of systems of systems.
The Rafale of course is a modern and capable fighter with a good payload and range. However in the scheme of a system of systems aerial campaign, the individual capability of an aircraft is less than the totality of interlinked combat aircraft, AEW&C, EW/ECM, and your own offensive counter air systems.
For the PAF, ways to "counter" the Rafale could include procurement of a larger run of JF-17 Block IIIs, to buy the export PL-15 variant, to enhance their AEW&C fleet and datalinking capabilities, enhancement of EW systems, upgrading their existing JF-17 Block I and IIs with AESA and subsystems to enable PL-15 carriage as well.
And yes, if they really want an airframe to airframe peer of Rafale, they could consider buying some J-10Cs in the near future to supplement their F-16C fleet... but there are a lot of other options available to them in terms of enhancing their existing fleet prior to procuring a whole new type of combat aircraft.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Have PAF JF17s and ZDK-3s ever exercised with other PLAAF AWACS aircraft?
In the event of direct conflict between Pakistan and India, one of the most powerful yet lowkey ways China could massively help the PAF is to fly its own KJ series AWACS along the boarder and datalink that information directly into the PAF battle network.
Such a tactic might even be sufficient to effectively counter any future IAF stealth aircraft, since any such stealths running missions against Pakistan would want to present their best stealth angles at Pakistani defences, but that would then potentially mean they are presenting their flanks to PLAAF AWACS flying in Chinese airspace in Tibet.
With co-operative engagement and long range AAMs, such data sharing could massively tip the balance of any fight in the PAF’s favour and might even be more beneficial to Pakistan than direct Chinese involvement in any such conflict.
In the event of direct conflict between Pakistan and India, one of the most powerful yet lowkey ways China could massively help the PAF is to fly its own KJ series AWACS along the boarder and datalink that information directly into the PAF battle network.
Such a tactic might even be sufficient to effectively counter any future IAF stealth aircraft, since any such stealths running missions against Pakistan would want to present their best stealth angles at Pakistani defences, but that would then potentially mean they are presenting their flanks to PLAAF AWACS flying in Chinese airspace in Tibet.
With co-operative engagement and long range AAMs, such data sharing could massively tip the balance of any fight in the PAF’s favour and might even be more beneficial to Pakistan than direct Chinese involvement in any such conflict.
asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
Good post plawolf and also I believe the Americans did this technique in the 1980s along with the Saudis F15 to down Iranian aircraft during the Iran-Iraq war
Since Block III has Chinese ASEA there is little doubt that B3 would be able to data link with Chinese AWACS, as a matter of fact it’s guaranteed
Would probably only require to do the formalities in terms of codes etc
Can such a Chinese AWACS vector in PAF fighter ? 100% yes
would they need to do it? Maybe not since PAF has that sector covered pretty good with ground and air radars
However if PAF has lost its eyes and ears then PLAAF can fill that gap
Since Block III has Chinese ASEA there is little doubt that B3 would be able to data link with Chinese AWACS, as a matter of fact it’s guaranteed
Would probably only require to do the formalities in terms of codes etc
Can such a Chinese AWACS vector in PAF fighter ? 100% yes
would they need to do it? Maybe not since PAF has that sector covered pretty good with ground and air radars
However if PAF has lost its eyes and ears then PLAAF can fill that gap
Since when were AWACs capable of cooperative engagement with fighters? On top of this, another airforce's fighters and missiles. I think it's beyond a simply matter of having Chinese AWACs communicating with Chinese radars. It ought to be a whole lot more complex otherwise CEC with fighters would be common.