Both Jaguar and MiG-27 are hoplessly outdated. ECM and range/payload charcteristics don’t qualify them as strike fighters anymore.
MKI’s are primarily tasked with air superiority and naval strike with Brahmos.
M2K’s will be quite decent strikers after their upgrade, but are relatively few in numbers.
What is totally lacking in the Indian inventory are dedicated ECM/SEAD birds.
I think it is not necessary to discuss the merits of each platform anymore. We already did this ad nauseum.
Let us just discuss which capabilities should be highter weighted then others.
I nominate deep strike and ECM as most useful capabilities.
With the available informations at hand, this clearly favours 2 aircraft, if we disqualify the F-16 IN for it’s lacking development potential.
The Upgraded MIG 27s and Jaguars both carry very decent ECM gear. The Jaguars are going to get new engines (increasing payload and performance), the DARIN III Jaguars are going to have the ELTA 2032 MMR, Litening Pod, Upgraded cockpit with two large MFDs, ASRAAM/Python 5 on overwing pylons for self protection. Now that is one potent strike aircraft.
The DARIN-3 cockpit for the Jaguar IS, shown at the Aero India 2009 expo, features the same HUD as that on the Tejas LCA, along with three large MFD-55 AMLCDs supplied by THALES-Samtel Display Systems, and HOTAS controls, all utilising a MIL-STD-1553B digital databus. It remains to be seen if these upgraded Jaguars (about 120 in all to be upgraded in batches of 61 and 59 and remain in service till 2022) will also be equipped with the fly-by-wire flight control system, which was tested out by BAE Systems way back in the mid-Eighties on the Jaguar. The core avionics computer for both the to-be-upgraded Jaguar IS and MiG-27Ms will be the open systems architecture mission computer (OSAMC), originally developed by DARE and now being series-produced by an India-US joint venture involving HAL, Edge Tech India and US-based Edgewood Ventures LLC. A version of the OSAMC is presently on board the Su-30MKI and upgraded MiG-27UPG-1s and Jaguar IM maritime strike aircraft (upgraded earlier to the DARIN-2 standard). For all-weather standoff attacks using precision-guided munitions, both the upgraded Jaguar IS and MiG-27UPG-2s will be equipped with RAFAEL Litening-3 laser designation pods as well as ELTA’s EL/L-8212 jamming pods.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebEiMYaGADc
MKI is a multirole fighter and can use most A2G munitions in the IAF arsenal, I think the Air Launched Brahmos will have a land attack varaint as well. Even without it it is still a a potent striker. The MKI can use Russian ARMs like the KH 31 for SEAD.
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