mattIf they’re in hardened shelters then scattering submunitions won’t harm them.
Very true and would not dispute that, but if we take the case from the other thread where the cost of a hardened bunker is in the region of say $300,000000 well that is not the sort of money India can afford to spend specially on some of the more hard to defend forward bases.
And although it sounds a bit impossible I would put quit high the protection level afforded by a forest of tall trees and tree canopies.
It is a lot cheaper and well if hit by submunitions you would have to be very unlucky to loose a lot of your aircraft in a dense forest.
mattThe very reason below why India needs to test a few large bombs once again and ensure that the world knows that it to has a large enough stick.
Of note is the Chinese oficial line of not sensoring anything anti India.
For India and the senile and self centered babus who currently govern it the key thing to wake up on and note is the naxalite and Comunist party India (moaist) issue.
But they will mention it and talk about it and carry on trying to please the world at the stately dinners and ignore the burning issues inside the country.
See excerpts from times of india below
Not everyone in Beijing speaks in the silky language of the foreign ministry. Thursday’s parade is certain to provoke an outpouring of virulent nationalism. Curiously, the enemy most often spoken of is India. The censors permit alarmingly frank discussion on the internet of the merits of a war against India to secure the Tibetan plateau.
“Help the Maoists take over power in India to pay them back for hosting the Dalai Lama,” said one contributor.
Veterans who know the PLA from the inside say that despite all its shiny new kit, such grandiose ideas mask the reality of a force that has no recent battle experience and is riddled with corruption. They describe a system of bribes ranging from 10,000 yuan (£909) to get a good post for a private soldier to 30,000 yuan for a place at military college.
“Compared with our last war against India in 1962, our equipment is much better but the devotion to country and people of our officers and men is much worse,” said a retired officer, who cannot be named.
Or, as General Zhang Shutian, a political commissar, put it in a recent speech: “If corruption in the army continues, ideology will decay and open the way for religion, while the promotion system risks causing a mutiny.”
mattmatt, the reason to base the first squadron of Tejas in Sulur, Tamil Nadu, is unclear.
Unless a definite threat is faced from the “moribund” Sri-Lankan Air Force, there is no reason to base the first squadron of a 4.5 gen. fighter jet in Sulur. It must be based in the frontline airbases along the border with China, or Pakistan. If Sulur has to be absolutely populated, then some ageing MiG squadron may be transferred there, where they can “live their last days” in little or no action.
The argument that Sulur is close to Bangalore, where HAL can provide technical servicing, is not valid. Tejas does not need a “nanny” in “close quarters”; it is primarily meant to be an immediate replacement for all the MiGs, which are “soldiering” on well past their retirement age. Instead, the technical support facilities must be based in all airbases, and fighters need not “limp” all the way to Bangalore or Nashik to get much needed service.
Whether it is a Gripen or an LCA it seems non sensial to put prime top tier Aircraft like the SU-30MKI so far up north that they could be wiped out by Chinese SS-5 and SS-6 or some similar missile silo with submunition ware heads.
What ever happens the Su-30’s should be kept in reserve.
mattThis is an old article which came on Hindu and posted again to support ur POV ?
It is good to hear he is less of a LIAR than what i thought he is.
Ante you have been doing the same all through this thread and also in all the other threads.
You can not deny you have been posting pro US news for the MMRCA etc threads..
And let me get this right, when it suites you, you are allowed to denigrate anyone you want but woe betide anyone who goes against your rather sheltered world view?
mattWell I am sure there are enough technical reasons for us not to buy an aircraft which even the original customer was not happy with and which boeing has been desperately trying to upgrade into what it really should have been all along if it just knew how to.. ie. the much awaited F/A-18 E/F II+.
lets not even talk about the wings of the F/A not suitable for more than carrier ops.
As for the F-16 on steroids, well its hard to see why we should not go for the Gripen..
India needs a fighter that can take off and land on roads and use make shift bunkers, it would be perfect to base on Indias northern watch in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh etc etc.. hide them out of site..
It would suite recent IAF move to base aircraft so close to the north
mattIIRC during most of the Cold War US and Nato air forces faced missile attack directed at airbases (incl. chemical warheads). So what’s new, really.
Well nothing really that new, but I think the econimic shift and everything that is happening in the world is making the guys who were sitting on their laurels in the “think tanks” see the light as you say.
Its also interesting to see the later article mainly due to the fact that people may be regretting the decision not to have an F-14D replacement. What that would do against a ABSM system who knows.
mattwill have to catch it on virgin 1+.
Stuck watching strictly .. hmm not to bad though..
mattGood reason to kick out FA 18 and F16 from contest
India protests as US Senate votes to triple aid to Pakistan
PTI 25 September 2009, 01:25pm IST
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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK: The US Senate on Thursday voted unanimously to triple non-military aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion per annum till 2014,
triggering fresh concerns for India, which warned that such funds have been diverted to support hostile operations against states and needs to be monitored. ( Watch Video )
The announcement to the tripling of annual aid from $50 million to $1.5 billion was made by President Barack Obama during his address to a meeting of the ‘Friends of Democratic Pakistan’ at the UN headquarters in New York, attended by a grouping of 26 countries and international organisations.
Obama’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, called the unanimous vote on Kerry-Luger Bill “a very important step forward” for US-Pakistan ties.
“For the first time in modern era the US congress has made a multi-year commitment to Pakistan,” he said.
The Senate’s unanimous approval set the stage for action in the House of Representatives, where the measure was introduced hours later for a final vote. It will then be sent to Obama to sign it into law.
Reacting to the Senate’s passage of the bill, foreign minister S M Krishna said in New York that India was concerned about it as Islamabad had in the past diverted American aid to bolster its defences against India.
“Consider the statement that has been issued by the former president of Pakistan Musharraf himself where he has said that the aid provided to Pakistan by the US has been used for directing its hostile operations against India,” Krishna, who is participating in the opening session of United Nation General Assembly, said.
“It is that statement of President Musharraf that really bothers us,” he said, ahead of his meeting with his counterpart Hillary Clinton.
“With respect to the aid that was given to Pakistan we have brought the attention of the government of the United States that India’s concern is only that aid has to be appropriated for the purpose for which it is provided by the United States,” Krishna said, urging the US to monitor the use of the aid by Pakistan.
In its early drafts, the bill had a condition that Pakistan would not be a base for terrorist attacks against India, but now it has been replaced with a clause on cooperation with Pakistan’s neighbours on war against terror.
mattNaval but related to the above article
Why China Military Watchers Got It Wrong
Toshi Yoshihara & James Holmes 10-Sep-2009
The publication last month of a monograph which dramatically overturns longstanding assumptions about the defense of Taiwan should make sobering reading for US policymakers.
‘The United States can no longer be confident of winning the battle for the air in the air,’ said the study by the RAND Corporation, profiling the military situation in the Taiwan Strait. ‘This represents a dramatic change from the first five-plus decades of the China-Taiwan confrontation.’
The piece, based on simulations of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, assesses the relative balance of forces in the cross-strait standoff. And in a stark warning, the authors present a convincing argument that China’s large, modern missile and air forces are likely to pose a virtually insurmountable challenge to Taiwanese and American efforts to command the air over the Strait and the island.
The findings represent a sharp break with past wisdom, to which RAND analysts had also hewed closely. For years, US strategists have insisted that Taiwanese air superiority was the ultimate trump card against Chinese invasion and coercion. Without air cover, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) surface fleet and amphibious assault forces would be completely vulnerable to attack from above, making any cross-strait invasion a risky if not suicidal endeavor.
Yet this new Chinese air dominance, while by no means guaranteeing military success against the island, shifts the odds dramatically in Beijing’s direction.
Such an analytical about face by a respected US think tank is further testimony to the blind spots already identified in The Diplomat on Western appraisals of Chinese maritime power, with RAND’s reversal over Chinese air and missile power paralleling the major revisions to the disparaging views of China’s navy that prevailed in past decades. And, even more worrisome for US policymakers, is that the gap is widening between the more recent reevaluation of China’s military prowess and what were once considered ‘mainstream’ views of the PLA.
If Washington and its Asian allies want to avoid repeating such analytical failures, it is imperative that they understand how such a misdiagnosis of China’s military progress occurred in the first place, an endeavor best started by looking at the debate over China’s maritime rise.
Analysts have been too cavalier about using events from China’s maritime past – remote and more recent – to project its future. Bernard Cole, who wrote arguably the definitive book on the PLA Navy (PLAN), says China’s lack of a seafaring past deprives it of a foundation for sea power.
BIG SNIP——————————
Meanwhile, some of the arguments denigrating Chinese sea power have a straw-man feel to them, contending that since a global, blue-water navy remains a remote prospect for Beijing, the Chinese threat to US naval supremacy will thus remain minimal. This view might be summarized as: no PLAN aircraft carriers, no threat.
But this again is misguided. China does not need to compete symmetrically or across the globe to challenge US staying power in Asia, which Washington considers the main theater. That Beijing cannot fight the United States in a one-on-one contest in the Pacific says little about the strains the PLAN can impose on US naval forces short of an all-out sea battle.
As argued previously, Beijing has devised sophisticated missile tactics that could be as deadly to US naval forces as a fleet-on-fleet engagement, despite the PLAN’s utter lack of carriers and comparable weaponry. Carrier development is an unreasonably demanding standard for Chinese maritime prowess.
SNIP——————————————————-
US analysts have also casually superimposed the behavior and capabilities of past American foes on the Chinese. Observers disparage China’s prospects for deploying ASBMs, for instance, primarily because the Soviet Union failed to develop similar weaponry during the Cold War. A former director of US naval intelligence argued that the Soviets abandoned the ASBM out of technical difficulties, fears of nuclear escalation, and the availability of alternative platforms for launching anti-ship missiles. By implication, China will run into similar roadblocks and opportunity costs that will frustrate its bid for a working ASBM.
But almost four decades have passed since Moscow gave up on its ASBM program, and technology has progressed at blinding speed since. And in any case, technical barriers to entry can’t account for all strategic choices. The Soviets may have opted out of the ASBM even had the technological problem proved soluble. Nonmaterial factors like operational and strategic preferences may have prompted them to do so. Different values and proclivities, conversely, may impel the Chinese to pursue the ASBM doggedly. For example, the ASBM’s potential reach, striking power, and low political profile have beguiled imaginations in Beijing. What may not have made sense to the Russians about the ASBM may be simply irrelevant to the Chinese.
SNIP——————————-
Moreover, the navy has not deployed carrier attack aircraft or other weaponry with enough reach to let carrier strike groups place the same ordnance on target, at the same rate, from greater standoff distances.
In fact, quite the opposite. US Navy and Marine F/A-18 E/F Hornet warplanes, the core of any carrier air wing, represent a step back from previous generations of attack aircraft in terms of combat radius. The carrier has seen its striking range foreshortened, meaning that it must venture closer to shore to fulfill the same missions. Its combat punch has diminished accordingly, while its vulnerability is more acute than ever. Bemoaning this alarming state of affairs, Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments provocatively describes carrier-based airpower as a ‘wasting asset.’
If the US Navy can no longer provide for its flattops’ defense, the PLA Navy is already on the brink of sea denial in nearby waters, while local sea control is coming into sight for Beijing. Nor does the wider naval community share Ross’s confidence in the US Navy’s capacity to enforce sea control in Asia. His admission that the United States can’t ensure the survivability of its carriers, a mission verging on sacrosanct, is cold water in the faces of theater and fleet commanders entrusted with managing events in the western Pacific.
And timing is everything. Naval and military modernization programs are extraordinarily capital-intensive. The lifecycles of big-ticket defense items like warships—from research and development to serial production to regular service life to the scrap heap—are measured in decades. As such, Chinese assets that joined the PLA operating forces after the turn of the century underwent development during the 1990s, when Western observers were forced to depend on spotty open sources. In effect, these programmes were invisible to outsiders. The rapid clip at which the PLA introduced major weapons systems over the past decade confirms that they were developed in parallel. The impression is therefore that the Chinese military has leapfrogged ahead in weapons technology.
SNIP——
Read the main article at
http://www.the-diplomat.com/article.aspx?aeid=16380
its pretty good!
.
mattThis could easily be a a response posted by some one to cover his **** and ensure that the people above him do not ask later or fire him for not protesting against the basing of Typhoons in Falklands.
matt^^^^
Nice Imagination. You should try writing for cheap magazines.
All magazines are cheap magazines really…Thank you for the complements!
whether my imagination is nice or not, the game is pretty staight forward and simple.
If we are unable to take on China conventionally then we need a big stick in our hands to make sure it does not try anything on our borders or does not carry on playing games vis-vis arunachal pradesh.
Unfortunately human nature does not change; whether its in a school yard or leading a country there is only one way to make sure you do not get bullied.
mattSadly only we are unsure about that :(.
Your must test now comments will not be heard 🙂
I dont care if my comments are heard now or not, it is not my comments that need to be heard, it is coman stratigic sense and understanding that need to be heard.
If you are going to have a stick have a big stick, a small stick is only going to anoy or irritate.
example.
Something happens on the large border with china, with no one countries particular fault.
Thing escalates to war.
China drops a few hundred bombs (read ss 6, ss 5’s)in military locations which hits civilian sectors (by accident or purpose its war so who knows)
India tries to retaliate with IAF operations
China is over whelming India in the air, and at sea, Indian army ground forces are keeping ground as and when they can but fighting much larger army.
India now has a choice it can surrender and with this surrender any land that china already has captured or china may even want land it has not captured.
Or India throws up the possibility of nuclear war and asks china to retreat. We have no first use policy but are loosing conventional war so there arent really that many options.
China replies, give it your best shot and oh by the way we have enough nuclear weapons and missiles with large enough yield to wipe out all major inhabited areas in India
India capitulates!
simples!
If on the other hand if India has the proof of large yield nuclear warheards the last two lines would be a lot different!
Deterent = Big visible stick
Deterent /= small invisible floppy stick
There are a few things wars are not won by.
They are not won by good intentions
They are not won by good will
They are definately not won by good will from internal comunity or UN
They are not won by trying to be a goody too shoes
mattHe is not a moron. He is a strategic affairs analyst and thus is more qualified than any Nuclear scientist in the matter of deterrence.
.
To be honest the fact the fact that you are vouching for him makes me wonder about the credibility of the reports.
It is specially because India is going for second strike that India needs to make sure that the world knows that Indias nuclear aresenal isnt just for keeping in a show case!
It must test, and it must test now! In this economic climate countries will be more forgiving than they were in the late 1990’s. With Indias GDP growing at this rate there will be few countries that will want to try and isolate India now.
Secondly a lot of countries are now getting used to the Idea that India is a nuclear power.
mattYou are talking right and wrong and that matters for very little in diplomatic policy. :rolleyes:
We do not sanction anyone because we are not in a position to sanction anyone. If one day God willing we are in the position America is now you will see how hypocritical we are. In these things timing is key we must do right things at the right time and the current policy goes well with the need of the hour.
What makes you so sure that testing a TN device (while it is still doubted whether the first test is successful or not) is in the interest of the countries billion people. Many have rightfully pointed out that the current deterrent level is enough. What credentials do Santhanam or all these rouge scientists have to talk about Minimum deterrence, I would rather believe the scholarly circles who have studied the matter in much greater detail and who are level headed.
The reason why I doubt its a move to destabilize India’s relations with the west is that they have remained silent till now (rather than some rogue noises after the test) and decided to come out in public during this time which is signified by closer co-operation with the west, signing of the nuclear deal and IAEA waivers. It is easy to see these guys have other agendas. I won’t even be surprised if some of them are on Chinese payroll, after all DRDO and BARC only pays so less. Seeing how China Opposed the IAEA waiver given to us.
Nevertheless do you believe when the current government and the two main political parties who may head future governments say that they are convinced the test is successful that there will be a change in that view which will necessitate further tests ? Do you recall that the Vajpeyee government was very close to signing the C.T.B.T.
And in the case of a third front alternative the disregard the CPM and its allies have toward nuclear tests are well documented. So who do you think is going to test. Santaclaus this coming Christmas ?
Just live with the truth my friend that there will be no nuclear tests no matter what Santhanam or whoever says. 😉
Whether there is a nuclear test or is is a different story but what is clear is that if there is any doubt and there seems to be a big doubt that Indias nuclear weapons design capability are not 100% it categorically means that India has no Nuclear deterence.
Deterence once again means having something that the other side is sure works and will not fizzle out. i.e. 100% chance that it would do damage, not 40% not 50% not 90% but 100%!
Secondly this is the correct time for him to speak up because until now the door has been open to allow the establishment to do tests if required, once India has cow towed to USA and signed away the right to test to the P5 India will be in a ultra weakened position vis-a-vis China.
Secondly, why would you want to have India in the similar position as the USA? Do you even know anything about the USA and what is currently going on in the USA?
Again whether its your ignorance like on several other matters or its your blind faith in all things MTV, it is misplaced!
mattIt is very clear that he is part of an establishment who do not like us being close to America or the West. I am glad the government of India is taking a level headed stance.
This scientist fools do not have a grasp of strategic issues which think tanks have and they have clearly pointed out we have minimum deterrent with respect to China.
What think tanks do you refer to ? The same think tanks that are saying that India has Nuclear deterence even though China on one hand is saying it wants peace but on the other hand is constantly insulting India and its diplomats at every turn and opertunity?
The government is not taking a level stance it is burying its head just like it did in the 60s when china first invaded India.
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