Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

ougoah said:

Wow never realised the Mig-21 was capable of carrying R-77s. Surely the modernised radars cannot give justice to the R-77's claimed ranges. Seems like Indian claims about their shot down pilot being the one who killed an F-16 is yet another tall tale told by Indian authorities and media. Doubtful that Mig was carrying any more A2As. If one or more of these Russian missiles presented in that photo actually came from another IAF fighter, Pakistan will have the wreckage and evidence of more downed IAF fighter/s so it's almost certain that downed Mig-21 did not shoot down an F-16 or anything since all its missiles were obviously not launched otherwise the seekers and most of the frame would have been impossible to recover in that state. Then again Indian claims were doubtful as soon as they started claiming Mig-21 wreckage photos as F-16.

Will be interesting to see how the Indians spin this with the new evidence. Perhaps they'll just ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist... get ready for fake made in China R-77s used by Pakistan comments

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It is the MiG-21-93 'BISON'. India had 125 MiG-21bis upgraded to the 'BISON' standard. The reason it can carry R-77 is because unlike the J-7G (which is based on the MiG-21F) the MiG-21bis has a much larger nose (Like the J-7C based on the MiG-21MF). So they managed to fit the 'Kopyo' radar. I think the Indians also use an HMS and even an Israeli jammer if necessary. These MiG-21s scored multiple kills against the USAF F-15s in DACT. They are not very agile (when compared to a J-7E/G due to the double delta in the latter) but that is compensated by heavy modernization and in the right hands can be a very dangerous even against 4th gen fighters.

Here are some old MiG-21-93 pics and a vid,

(4x R-77)
(2x R-73, 2x R-77)

I am fairly certain the Chinese could make a similar upgrade package for the J-7 with the radar they have on the L-15.
But today it is better for them to just build more J-10s.
Still 20 years ago when the Indians made those upgrades I guess they made sense. With minimal investment you got a competitive aircraft.

Nowadays with modern engines and the proliferation of stealth aircraft I think these low power radars don't make sense in air-to-air combat anymore.

A trick they used in India Cope was to use have Flankers act as quarterbacks for the Bisons. The Flankers would use there radars to locate the F15 then data link that to the Bison who didn't bother turning on there own radars. Using this passive system the Bison would ambush Eagles.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

A trick they used in India Cope was to use have Flankers act as quarterbacks for the Bisons. The Flankers would use there radars to locate the F15 then data link that to the Bison who didn't bother turning on there own radars. Using this passive system the Bison would ambush Eagles.

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That makes sense because the Flanker has a much larger radar. So you can basically use it like an AWACS platform. If the Indian Flanker was the Su-30MKI it is also a dual seater so you can use the weapons operator to coordinate things. This would be similar to the Russian concept of using drones together with the Su-57 except the pilot isn't overloaded.

This is one reason why thinking the F-35 is going to be the end all of everything is such a terrible idea. It might just be that the ideal manned platform is a larger aircraft with as large a radar as possible. Think of it like a MiG-31 with drones or smaller low visibility manned aircraft. The MiG-31 has an even larger nose than the Su-27 derived aircraft.

In this case where the Indians attacked Pakistan however they are at a disadvantage because the other side has their own radar network as well. It is not just the airplanes fighting each other. Also from what I read the area is mountainous and it seems they had issues with ground clutter. The Chinese radar in the JF-17 probably has less issues because it has more advanced digital signal processing electronics. The original Su-27 was not optimized for low level flight but high-altitude combat.

gelgoog said:

I am fairly certain the Chinese could make a similar upgrade package for the J-7 with the radar they have on the L-15.
But today it is better for them to just build more J-10s.
Still 20 years ago when the Indians made those upgrades I guess they made sense. With minimal investment you got a competitive aircraft.

Nowadays with modern engines and the proliferation of stealth aircraft I think these low power radars don't make sense in air-to-air combat anymore.

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Right now, there is no point of upgraded MiG-21s even for cash-strapped countries (like mine). China has the right approach when it comes to low-end export market. You can get brand new J-7G variants, FTC-2000G and FC-1/JF-17. J-10 is in a different class and will cost a lot more and not many countries can afford it. I am curious what the J-10CE price is. I would expect it be easily over USD 50 million. Pakistan might be the first customer.

The reasons India upgraded 125 of their MiG-21bis is because they had a very large and aging MiG-21 fleet. At one time they were dubbed the flying coffins. They were supposed to have been replaced by the LCA but that didn't happen. Even the MiG-21 BISON has only a few years left in them.

gelgoog said:

That makes sense because the Flanker has a much larger radar. So you can basically use it like an AWACS platform. If the Indian Flanker was the Su-30MKI it is also a dual seater so you can use the weapons operator to coordinate things. This would be similar to the Russian concept of using drones together with the Su-57 except the pilot isn't overloaded.

This is one reason why thinking the F-35 is going to be the end all of everything is such a terrible idea. It might just be that the ideal manned platform is a larger aircraft with as large a radar as possible. Think of it like a MiG-31 with drones or smaller low visibility manned aircraft. The MiG-31 has an even larger nose than the Su-27 derived aircraft.

In this case where the Indians attacked Pakistan however they are at a disadvantage because the other side has their own radar network as well. It is not just the airplanes fighting each other. Also from what I read the area is mountainous and it seems they had issues with ground clutter. The Chinese radar in the JF-17 probably has less issues because it has more advanced digital signal processing electronics. The original Su-27 was not optimized for low level flight but high-altitude combat.

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During the 1st cope India in 2004, India did not use the Su-30MKI. They only used the older Su-30K (now retired). It was a major embarrassment for the USAF. They were not expecting those tactics by the IAF and MiG-21 scored many kills. I think during debriefings USAF had stated that Indian MiG-21s simulated both R-73 and R-77 in BVR.

gelgoog said:

That makes sense because the Flanker has a much larger radar. So you can basically use it like an AWACS platform. If the Indian Flanker was the Su-30MKI it is also a dual seater so you can use the weapons operator to coordinate things. This would be similar to the Russian concept of using drones together with the Su-57 except the pilot isn't overloaded.

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Reports I heard was that they kept voice to a minimum. Data links allowed exchange of situational awareness.
The Bisons then used there jammers to close in.

Hyperwarp said:

During the 1st cope India in 2004, India did not use the Su-30MKI. They only used the older Su-30K (now retired). It was a major embarrassment for the USAF. They were not expecting those tactics by the IAF and MiG-21 scored many kills. I think during debriefings USAF had stated that Indian MiG-21s simulated both R-73 and R-77 in BVR.

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After that the USAF Agressors squadron fleet started wearing the same jammer as those the Indians had used and added data links to them as well.
The fifth gens F22 And F35 fully integrate data links and jamming ability with a powerful radar and other systems.

gelgoog said:

I am fairly certain the Chinese could make a similar upgrade package for the J-7 with the radar they have on the L-15.
But today it is better for them to just build more J-10s.
Still 20 years ago when the Indians made those upgrades I guess they made sense. With minimal investment you got a competitive aircraft.

Nowadays with modern engines and the proliferation of stealth aircraft I think these low power radars don't make sense in air-to-air combat anymore.

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China's modernized MiG-21 package is JF-17. It's a more extensive redesign compared to the BISON, but similar in idea. A better radar can be fitted to it since its nose cone has been redesigned.

IMHO the MiG-21, regardless of upgraded state, has no combat role in IAF if they plan on becoming a world class airforce. PLAF uses no MiG-21 (aside from training), not even the JF-17 block II, even if that is the most powerful MiG-21 variant by a fair margin. USAF has also abandoned F-4E.

J-7s are still useful as targets, soaking up missiles... if only all of them can be converted to be remotely controlled but then the costs and time spent couldn't possibly justify it even though it has been done and trialed. The future of air combat, at least for air superiority roles, is in UCAV "wingman" and drone swarms. I believe Russia is not anywhere near the first one to start practicing this method with their hunter UCAV as much as they want to show off everything they've got these days. USAF already has drone swarms and ordinance aimed at saturating an environment. PLAAF has had the dark sword / hidden sword programs publicly leaked for nearly a decade now.
Probably already trialing at least a few different platforms that are flying with J-20. At least we've seen one X vehicle test flight and one life sized mock-up leaked.

IAF tactics perfectly plays into their Su-30s with second pilot able to assist with this sort of communication and workload sharing. Small fighters like Bison with good jammers can be pretty deadly. This tactic isn't unique to IAF or the Cope India exercise though. The Americans can't possibly be aware of all the minutia of how things can be used. They may even have feigned surprise in how effective that strategy was.

JF-17 is a replacement for the J-7/Mig-21 platforms. They are not a development from these. Longer range, higher speeds, higher altitude, more payload, and modern electronics and sensors.

Biscuits said:

China's modernized MiG-21 package is JF-17. It's a more extensive redesign compared to the BISON, but similar in idea.

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It's a completely new plane.
Significant design heritage is here, but there is heritage between f-5e and f-18. Not reinventing the wheel(in a few places, since their basic centerplane is different) doesn't mean being a modernization.

Biscuits said:

IMHO the MiG-21, regardless of upgraded state, has no combat role in IAF if they plan on becoming a world class airforce.

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Going by original plans, it should've been replaced by tejas long time ago. Now it is tejas mk.1a, which hasn't even flown yet.

ougoah said:

J-7s are still useful as targets, soaking up missiles... i

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Soaking missiles with manned fighters? Excellent plan.
Use MALDs for this, it's their designed usage at least.

ougoah said:

Russia is not anywhere near the first one to start practicing this method with their hunter UCAV

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Nevertheless, it's the first confirmed production-intended article of this sort.