Got this by mail, from same website.

Note Magic2 & Super 530D’s & jammers on both aircraft. No shortage of jammers apparently.

Jammers look like Remora, or could be Barem, any guesses or info?

Pic of Barem:
http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/1292/jaguarfrancia21.jpg
Pic of Remora
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/os_vaj3_001.jpg

Su-30 MKI firing Kh-29 TE, which has a range of 30 Km. Its usually launched in a dive, (http://www.ausairpower.net/Kh-29-Kedge-Su-30MK-Launch-1S.jpg) which has the disadvantage of bringing the aircraft into the AD envelope. This MKI is firing the missile straight and level, and there is a Litening pod. A straight and level launch allows the aircraft to stay as far away as possible. Kh-29TE is a LOBL missile (http://edefense.blogspot.com/2005/12/25-years-of-service-of-russian-kh-29.html), so they have found some way to get the Kh-29 the Litening feed.

IAF MiG-29s have been plumbed for wing tanks

Paralay, Otaku, Quadro and the rest of our Russian enthusiasts,
A Question, has NIIP talked about whether the NIIP AESA will have significant LPI capability like the APG-77?

According to Indian reports, namely an interview with current VCAS PK Barbora, the IAF has decided on an upgrade of 50 MKIs in Phase 1 & the fleet upgrade in Phase 2, using the latest technology as it would have been developed.

Reading that in context, with the above report by Yuri Beliy and previous interviews with Tamerlane Bekirbayev, who said the same thing about an improved PESA & then AESA, it implies the IAF will follow the same path.

However, it could be that they are exploring an alternative to stage 1 by seeing what Phazatron has to offer, and whether it is worth investigating.

Its as of yet unclear whether the 42 new MKIs to be ordered will come with the new radar or the N011-M.

But I would state that the IAF will go with the improved PESA approach as being the definitive fit that will be chosen, given the huge improvement it will offer to the current Bars, which itself is a very powerful radar. The design aims are to double the range, double the number of tracked targets and increase number of engaged targets by 1.5-2 times along with corresponding improvements in modes, ECCM etc.

An AESA will follow thereafter, based on the model being developed for the PAK-FA. Modifying that design for the Su-30 MKI & Russian upgrades will allow for a huge production run & amortizing the Tx/Rx module cost.

But it will compete with the local AESA currently being developed for the LCA MK2.

Either ways, Phase 1 ie the upgrade is planned to commence by 2012.

Just a few nitpicks 🙂 ,

India does indeed have more T-90s than Russia, but the margin is not large (hundred and fifty vehicles or so). If we look at the current Russian T-90A domestic production rates (62 vehicles yearly minimum, I doubt it will increase past that any time soon), and the fact that India is switching to domestic production under license (and this domestic production is nowhere near 62 vehicles per year) then I think it is likely the numbers will balance out within the next 5 years or less.

Regarding the Fulcrum, Russia’s fleet is certainly more potent than the Indian one. That may change when we consider the MiG-29 fleet modernization India is planning, but as of now 90% of their airframes are run of the mill 9-12s….well add a few MiG-29Ks (Russia is also due to receive this aircrfat, though at a bit smaller number). The RuAF meanwhile has the 34 MiG-29SMTs in its fleet, as well a small number of MiG-29S (anywhere from a dozen to 20), but the majority of the “vanilla” fleet is still the 9-13 variant, better than the Indian 9-12s.

-TR1

Just a few points..and not to take sides,

India ordered 310+347 T-90S and is building another 1000, so thats 1657 tanks, which i think is more than Russia intends to have. I think Russia spends a lot more than India on strategic systems.

MiG-29s – 69 MiG-29 IAF UPG to SMT standards, or whatever the latest is, with all the options used, and another 45 MiG-29K ordered for the Navy. Russia will probably retire most of its MiG-29s but I wonder if they’ll order any MiG-35s to keep the firm going, even though its now part of UAC

I really like the MiG-29, though i wish there was an AESA radar ready to put in it & some new Meteor style LRAAMs, that would have been awesome. But with the Zhuk M2E and RVV-AE and RCS reduction and the Indian RWJ system, it should have the edge versus regional adversaries

1. Tomahawk cruise missile, block IV costs $1 million. Not very expensive. SRBMs while effective
are also escalatory. Hence my thinking about more cruise missile attacks.

Well, its a combination of cost & technology level. Pak does not make mini-turbofans and turbojets, they’d have to rely on the PRC for the latter. So its simpler & cheaper to rely on a larger inventory of SRBMs (200-300 km) and salvo them. Wont be very effective though.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_44d3OT-xI3U/SUFD3AYc-YI/AAAAAAAAAic/h6Zn8hitmno/s1600-h/Ghaznavi+TBM.jpg

About escalatory, well, simply put everything is escalatory, whether it be Brahmos or Prithvi or the RAAD or the above SRBM. Neither country will launch N’s on detection, but only after impact & its confirmed as such. So the status quo will remain the same.

They have started operating AWACs and Aerostats. One would think that they have covered long-range
assets now. Do you think we would start seeing them procuring more low-level gapfillers.
Since they are MUNNA, one could then expect to see American stuff being procured

They dont have aerostats. They planned to get a few L-88 based systems which would have been fairly credible, but didn’t get them. Given that we know aerostat radars are effective, and the US was not really averse to providing them initially, this tells me that it was probably cost which sunk the deal. The US funding, is not infinite either. PAF has to compete with PA & PN for the largesse, which is what happens when own economy is not sufficient to sustain acquisitions.

3. If PAF is gonna be avoiding unnecessary fights, then the number of air-superiority fighters needed
would probably decrease. However to take on the job of HVA protection against IAF’s Su-30MKIs and
MRCA’s they are gonna need top of the line stuff.

My point is they play defense, trying to conserve their assets and survive an air war, they’re still likely to procure assets which are ok in air to air.

Since F-16s are already being procured in numbers, I would expect that it would fulfill the above
requirements. Given they have more pressing matters in terms of ISR and SAMs to take care of and CAS
they could postpone/abandon J-10 purchase and make for mud-work using JF-17.

Yes, thats a possibility, but if its JF-17 vs J-10, the latter is more capable.

I disagree. You simply do not know if the IAF chief is referring to the shortage of pilots for the actual number of planes he has or for IAF full complementas per “GOI rules”. He does not state either in the article. Just a shortage of 600 full stop.

You cannot just make up the context of the qoute.

Sorry, but I am speaking the facts as they are, and nor I am not making up the context & in this case, you would be mistaken.

The IAF leadership have long been mentioning the number of pilots, PBOR and other resources they have.

When the IAF Chief says he is short of x fighter aircraft, what do you think he is referring to, but the 39.5 combat squadron limit established by the GOI. The MOD/GOI has recently allowed this to rise to 42.

FYI, in India, the Parliament, ie the GOI, fixes all sorts of baselines for the Indian Air Force, including its combat strength, its manpower & even raisings, based on inputs from the services, so as to monitor and track any shortfall. These are periodically re-evaluated eg if the IAF has more 2 seaters than single seaters planned, but they are also the basis for measurement which the IAF itself monitors & notes.

http://www.indianaviationnews.net/careers/2009/12/iaf-continues-to-lose-pilots-to-commercial-airlines.html

Worried at this exodus, IAF has been forced to “tighten controls” on “premature release” of its pilots but is still around 300 pilots short of its total sanctioned strength of 3,278 pilots, half of whom are into active operational flying.

Commercial airlines btw prefer transport pilots, who are already familiar with similar classes of aircraft, turboprops to multi-engine large jets.

By the way its a fairly debatable number, as in 2006 itself, in which year the IAF had again said it was short of ~300 pilots, IAF brasss also noted that the reduced fighter fleet had meant a surge of pilots who were on staff postings. Clearly, this “shortage” didnt take the excess manpower into account.

That itself shows the baseline effect.

Further, the issue is being addressed.

Source: Zeenews

Home » Nation
IAF to increase pilot recruitment to meet shortage
Updated on Friday, October 09, 2009, 22:17

New Delhi: To bridge the pilot shortage it faces at present, the IAF has increased the number of recruits in its pilot training institution to fill the gaps when future inductions begin, Air Chief Marshal P V Naik said on Friday.

But Naik said the shortfall in the number of pilots was not “alarming” and it could be meet.

“At the present moment, there is shortage (of pilots). But it is not alarming. Plans (to meet the shortfall) is already existing and they have been reactivated and energised,” he said here.

The pilots training institutions, which were hitherto admitting about 190 or 200 pilots annually, has recently increased the intake to 260, he added.

He said the move to increase the number of pilot trainees was to meet future demands, when more twin-seater Sukhoi aircraft are inducted into the IAF. “When this (Sukhoi induction) happens, we would require more pilots in the future,” he told a private TV channel.”

So there you have it, the so called shortage in context (namely future demands) & what steps are already in place to address it.

Namely, the shortage will decline over the next few years as the pilot academy pipeline, thanks to the Hawks and other eqpt, is being increased by 30%.

^^^

Thanks for the responses, Teer.
If I were you, I wouldn’t have bothered.
But then, you are not me.

Thanks

A quick question.
Do you have any sources/references on Anti-Awacs strategies?
I have had not success trying to google for them.

From what I know it boils down to three things:

– Swarming, take out the escorts by attacking with more equal/better aircraft; supported by EW assets etc
– Sneaky stuff…attempt to hide in clutter and get within striking distance before escorts can react, of course terrain has to help.
– Long range sniping with LRAAMs, safely sit and fire away, hoping to force the AEW&C away

And it would be cool if you could review another hypothesis

PAF’s purchases seem to be limited to HPRs. Could this be a deliberate tactic, in that, the PAF
wants only to be able to buy time to disperse quickly in case of an attack.
Otherwise, if they intended to fight back on equal footing, we might have seen a more
investment in a better SAM system.
OTH, there always seems to be money in PAF for fighter purchases.

I think they are trying to make the best of a bad situation. Like India. the bulk of their systems acquired in the early-mid 80’s are up for renewal and they have to prioritize so they have had to replace the HPR/MPRs first (with TPS-77 and YLC-2s), purchased a few LLTRs as well (10 2D YLC-6s) and are making do with refurbished Siemens 45/90 MPDRs. Then they really had no other option but to procure AEW&C aircraft after India went for the Phalcon.

They do want to have a deterrent capability, but frankly, with the rate of IAF modernization, its more of a limited retaliation capability versus true deterrence.

Even there, their options are limited to their F-16 fleet which are receiving pretty much all the advanced kit, from AMRAAMS, EW SPJ pods, Sniper and JDAM/BLU kits. The rest of their F-7s are limited to point defence and have low endurance, and the older ones need to go as do the older Mirages which too are of limited use. In contrast, the IAF is upgrading almost all its fleet to current gen standards, from MiG-29s to Jaguars to Mirages, and even the MKIs are shaping up for an upgrade. So here again, the PAF is going to be faced with a choice, either spend on fighters or strategic SAMs, which dont come cheap at all. My bet is on fighters as they really will have to make the call Fighters are more flexible versus SAMs.

If we take SAMs to be defensive and fighters to be offensive, these two points seem to
be the crux of their acquisitions:
1. Live to fight another day.
2. Offense is the best defense.

Taking a leap from there, it would almost seem they are exclusively preparing for nuclear
delivery mission.
Given that the destruction of PAF has been indicated to be a thresh-hold for the use of Nukes,
does that seem to be a valid conclusion?

~Ashish

I dont think they are exclusively preparing for a N mission. The F-16 DSCA notification shows the emphasis they placed on getting decent numbers of A2G munitions. In my estimate their “war strategy” will be a combination of 1. Live to fight another day and 3. Attack a few IAF bases in retaliation.

They know it & the IAF knows it, that with limited resources they really cant “win” the war, but at best, they’d want to get some strikes in or support a limited Pak. ground offensive for post war negotiation.

The problem with this tactic is that with current IAF inductions, the IAF is firmly moving away from the tactical aircraft approach, where a large number of frontline bases were occupied by IAF aircraft like the MiG-21 with short ranges.

The IAF’s Sukhois can take off from deeper in India and still reach Pak. This & the modernization and enhancement of India’s ADGEs with many layered SAM systems means that the PAF may not be able to really attack deep into India with aircraft.

And the Indian Army is also acquiring new SAMs- both the Akash & SpyDer are believed to be on order (first is confirmed) & once the MRSAM is developed, the Army will pick up a few for sure. The MRSAM, SRSAM plus Aerostats and AEW&C will do for Cruise Missile defence as well.

So, then they are left with BM’s – Ballistic Missiles, which are not really the best weapons in conventional conflict against hardened AFB and dispersed targets. But thats their one other option, and we can see why the IAF is so interested in ATBM systems, like the Patriot which keeps getting mentioned, and why the Indian ABM system has such support

In a nutshell

1. Try to conserve force and protect vital assets via a defensive fight; trying to layer their AEW &C, GBR for redundancy, hoping to swarm IAF platforms which strike further into Pakistan

2. A few high publicity strikes against frontline IAF bases – which wont really be effective, but will be good for domestic political reasons

3. Support any limited Pak Army ground offensive, again, they’ll have to face Tunguska regiments, Akash, SpyDer and of course, the IAF itself

4. Use BMs/CMs to target beyond the frontline IAF bases – they wont risk aircraft