Just a reminder…its 2013 last I checked.

You were stating that IAF has been independent since 1940s. It’s British influence lasted at least to the 1960s when the 1940s trained guys would’ve started retiring.

Err..what?

Point is MiG-21 and MiiG-27 are a huge component of IAF. They are perfectly adequate for fighting against other third world old tech junk that makes up a huge component of Pakistani and Chinese militaries.

And they will make a huge component of IAF up to at least 2020 (provided they can get Tejas and MRCA delivered on time).

And all that is not ONE country or ONE nation.. and as a result, putting it all together looks good on paper, but there is not a single AF which has all that..
And if it WERE to be one nation, judging by what we have seen, there’d be further cuts to that number as well..

In case you haven’t noticed, but Europeans nearly always fight in alliances – it’s the nature of small, crowded continent. And those alliances have grown in importance over the last century.

The Europeans are more integrated economically than what India is with it’s tariffs and intra-province border controls!

From a defence perspective, Western Europe does a lot to integrate – e.g. shared C3I facilities, shared E-3, shared C-17, joint brigades etc. They have joint naval taskforces and operate shared aircrew training facilities (e.g. NATO flying training in Canada).

And while India is one country it’s one country with insurgencies and internal strife in some parts. And as stated there are border controls between some states (the equivalent of needing to stop at a border check point and pay a toll for going from South Dakota to North Dakota).

Whereas, the AFs that do exist, linked to individual nations are dismissed by you on whimsy..

An airforce that is still largely equipped with fighters that were obsolete in 1970s, an airforce that has less AWACS and tankers than UK!

Just bunk.. the IA can deploy combat forces to Africa, the IAF combat choppers, the IN can operate pretty much off Africa…and expeditionary warfare is some unattainable art…yeah, right.

I seriously doubt the Indians would be able to pull off a Libyan style operation and wouild probably require way more US assistance than what the Europeans did.

There’s 2 squadrons of F-16s at Aviano, Italy plus potential reinforcement form Germany (1 F-16 squadron) and 3 F-15C/D/E squadrons based in Britain.

LHA USS Kearsarge is in Red Sea – not sure of how many AV-8Bs it’s carrying though.

I am explaining the reason for poor performance. Those reasons are not present in 2013. 1970s Soviet Union was barely recover from WW11. Its standard of living and precision were still a decade or so behind US and by extension Israel.

This is daft.

According to you North Vietnamese, Chinese (Korea) and Korean (Korea) pilots shouldn’t have been able to fly at all because the North Vietnamese/North Korea/China standard of living was dismal!

Really clutching at straws now.

Whey they panicked? didnot they trained for such eventuallity for past 2 decades? or do you think Georgian sleeping?

Panic and scared? what kind of excuse is that.

Obviously the training and the command structures were insufficient. Georgian army performed poorly and that’s it.

Russian army performed poorly from a professional perspective. But they had overwhelming numerical superiority and didn’t run.

Weopons does matter provided there is sufficient training and manned by well paid professioanals not some one collected from bottom strata of society.

You forget that the vast brunt of the fighting done by your victorious Red Army in 1942-45 was poorly educated, often illiterate bottom strata of society e.g. tank commander civilian requirement was that they had experience with a tractor!

The educated types were sent to higher level, more complicated positions.

I didnot say this thing not happening but they are far less than what you can expect in Soviet system.

[quote]

They are still enough to keep Russian Army as an overall poor performer.

Kosov not important?. i think you should step aside this humanitarian nonsense. Kosov is important for some one else.

Not important to US and NATO and certainly not important enough for a ground offensive.

except Russia didnot plan against them for decades thats what Israel planning all year long.

Really? Then that’s indication of a poor military intelligence service and pathetic military planning.

Georgia/South Ossetia has been a conflict spot since 1991 – there was a full blown civil war in 1991-92. And the Russians have been getting more and more involved since then.

If the Russian military can’t keep tabs on a small potential opponent and plan the suppression of their AD systems, then how would they expect to tackle on a bigger and more capable opponent?

Planning and intelligence are key components of any military operation.

Your posts get more and more bizarre each time around. So you pick some arbitrary yardstick – “expeditionary deployments” and make it the be-all and end-all, assuming it is something only NATO AF can do? The IAF has deployed aircraft to Red Flag, to Cope Thunder, to exercises in the UK, France and South Africa and integrated them into local procedures… something other AF like SoKo and RSAF have done too. Your premise is completely dodgy.

Exercises are different to deploying to a conflict zone.

And to be fair even the Australians struggled with this in East Timor and East Timor was a glorified police action with virutally no combat.

Obviously the experience resulted in massive changes and Australia did well with Afghanistan and Iraq in terms of force sustainment

Lol. Sending a handful of aircraft to operate as part of a wider US led engagement with the US doing most of the heavy lifting is what makes all the NATO AF, superior? You seriously need to come up with more serious stuff. This is funny stuff right here.

That’s the NATO model and it works.

MiG-21 and MiG-27 in IAF service are both upgraded platforms! The Bison for instance confers both ARH/PGM capability and the MiG-27s have both an EW role and a PGM delivery capability. Heck, several years back, the IAF was using the MiG-27s to lob LGBs which were being guided in by UAVs. Do Belgium et al have that capability?

And how does that change the following:

1. Short range
2. Lack of aerial refuelling capability
3. Poor MTBO etc which means aircraft have short combat lives before needing overhauls.

Both are fine against Pakistan or China who all operate equal or more amounts of ancient garbage (J-7, J-8, Mirage III/V).

India’s AF trains for complete autonomy, unlike the hub and spoke model of NATO which depends heavily on the US and select NATO nations for critical capability.

NATO’s model is what it is and it generally works and allows NATO dominance of global affairs.

Second, India has built up a huge local infrastructure to maintain & service its MiGs, and make sure availability is not compromised.

Which is great for defence of India and doesn’t help one bit for force projection.

Regular upgrades add to that. The MiG-29s for instance are now going through a SMT level upgrade, and part of the deal is to have a local depot for services/spares for the consolidated MiG-29 and MiG-29K fleet.
Indian MiG pilots fly around 300 sorties per year for the MiG-21s, and the MiG-29 req is 180hrs/pilot which actually is just the baseline.
Coming to the Jaguars, DARIN-2 Jaguars, several squadrons of which are in service, can carry a variety of PGMs and also have EW capability. The remaining fleet is getting upgraded now to a new local std. which includes a local FCR for all weather attack capability, and the entire fleet is getting reengined as well.[/quote

Your earlier claims on C3 and logistics were also off base. The IAF has a purposed built logistics system designed for its specific needs. It went into service in 2006. Here’s a 2011 case study. http://www.tcs.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/Case%20Studies/Government_CaseStudy_Indian_Air_Force_resource_planning_efficiency_05_2011.pdf

In terms of C3, the IAF has an entire architecture purpose designed for it called the IACCS, with nodes for the entire country. Around half are already operational for the key areas, with the remaining getting into service after having been cleared a couple of years back. In parallel, the IAF has also operationalized its high bandwidth, fiber optic based AFNET to link all its assets together, and also has a pilot deployment of its own data link, the ODL underway. Meanwhile, the Su’s all come with their own data links as do the MiG-29s.

In the meanwhile, the IAF is busy recapitalizing most of its radar, SAM and other holdings, in many cases with technology that is still being hawked to European air arms, but not adopted because of the lack of perceived need in those low combat risk nations.

And it’s all based in India’s primary need: which is defence of India and defence against opponents which are generally equipped with third rate equipment (Pakistan) or have just come awoken from hibernating since 1953 (China).

Most of the discussions here have been about force projection.

India’s ability to make long range deployments is far superior to several of those NATO nations you mentioned as it has more airframes and a larger pool of resources! The simple and biggest reason why India does not need to or want to make “long range combat deployments” is political. Why the heck would it engage in such actions such as the Iraq War or the proposed tomfoolery that is suggested for Syria? Such political interventionism has become much the favor in the west, which seems to be seeking excuses to intervene in conflicts where its intervention only makes things worse. India’s leaders, for all their warts, have so far at least, not engaged in such behaviour.

You want to be an international player, you have to be able to project force.

It’s always been like that since human history began.

And even today force projection is important. The US and co can control critical shipping lanes and oil supply simply due to their force projection power.

In fact as demand for oil and other energy resources, force projection becomes even more important.

So India and China can putter along knowing they’re safe from invasion, but meanwhile it’s Uncle Sam and the Euro club who control energy flows with massive military including naval supremacy.

Second, India seeks a layered defence concept instead of splurging on merely a limited number of force multipliers. This means a huge ADGES with the latest radars, SAMs, aerostat radars with a large footprint (obviating the need for significant investments in only AWACs), EW aids and max multimission capability on as many airframes as possible, judicious use of airframe life via upgrades (as versus purchases for the heck of them).. all of these translate into far more punch than just a handful of gold plated aids.

All good for defence of India. All kind of sucky if you want to protect your claim in Malacca Strait or Arabian peninsula.

Do Belgium and Netherlands plan for a shooting war with heavily armed neighbours, in some cases with the latest tech -e,g Flankers, S3XX level platforms? Do they or can they complete dedicated SEAD and DEAD missions on their own, without NATO/USAF coming to their aid? Do they have their own EW/Top Gun style academies and exercises (google for TACDE and when it was formed)? Do they have a country wide ADGEs? Do they have access to their own ballistic missile systems, or truck launched AR drones? Do they have access to or are they operating their own mil sats?

Do they have a need to? No.

That doesn’t mean they’re not quality airforces. In fact they’re combat proven forces.

Is Indian or China combat proven? Not really for India and not at all for China.

The above list is just BS I am afraid… just playing to bias about superior west, inferior rest etc.

The USAF and several of the ballyhooed western NATO AF have been busy canvassing India for the past several years to hold more international exercises, as the quality of DACT they get in India is worth it. Its the IAF which has been pushing back so as to not disrupt its ongoing operations/yearly regime etc. IAF instructor pilots are posted abroad and have won plaudits as well.

I have no doubt that Indian Air Force is a professional organisation.

Indian and Pakistani Air Forces were set up using English military cultural values and those still remain in place, albeit indigenised and turned into something of their own.

Only reason I rank them lower is:

1. The dominance of MiG-21 and MiG-27 squadrons in the AF (still over half). Their pilots, wing commanders and ground crew may be excellent, but the airframes are obsolete, manpower intensive and in a proper shooting war struggle to generate sorties. MiG-21 is also extremely short range. They’re also undeployable due to obsolescence and extreme lack of utility.

In an average Western AF, all squadrons are combat deployable.

2. India does not have much in the way of force multipliers – Western NATO has access to US (and generally Western NATO operates under US leadership).

3. India does not have experience in sustained long range international combat deployments. Though it did perform well in Kargil albeit with a couple of losses. But Kargil was a border area.

This is just silly. The US of course is entitled to a tier of its own, but the remainder of classification is almost arbitrary. ‘Most Western NATO’ airforces ahead of Singapore, Japan and South Korea? India at par with Thailand and Egypt?

I’m afraid you’re going by your gut rather than facts here.

Actually note the parameters I included – they’re not about numbers or types of aircraft (e.g. long range bombers).

Tier 1 includes “capable of long range combat deployments”.

Something that say Belgium or Netherlands has done repeatedly but Japan, South Korea and Singapore never have.

Expeditionary warfare is complicated and the Western NATO partners have extensive experience in it.

As for India being at the same level as Thailand and Egypt – India does not have a world class airforce. A big chunk of it’s force is obsolescent (MiG-21 and MiG-27 and to some degree Jaguar and Sea Harrier). Something like a MiG-21 or MiG-27 generally has poor readiness at best simply due to poor servicability of these types (e.g. very low MTBO). Even MiG-29 is a poor performer here.

Secondly India’s ability to make “long range combat deployments” is limited due to its own massive defence needs, small numbers of force multipliers etc.

To suggest that Australia spend nothing on defence and spend that money on welfare strikes me as being more patronising than suggesting that India doesn’t need an SSN.

While Australia doesn’t have ‘natural enemies’ like India does we do inhabit a region which has seen its share of strife and fighting within my lifetime, and considerably more before I was born. In a chaotic environment there is nothing wrong with Australia equipping itself with the military tools to ensure that such strife and fighting does not cause too much damage to Australia and Australian interests.

And India has survived without SSNs for decades. And this includes during the Cold War period when strife was far more likely and India fought 2 wars against Pakistan.

People do seem to forget the Cold War as well as all the numerous conventional wars fought during it.

Australia spends 1.7% of GDP on defence whereas impoverised India spends 2.5%.

Australian military is less than 60,000 strong which is far smaller than most SE Asian states.

As for spending on more welfare programs – NO! It just creates more welfare dependent losers. Most Australians think this by the way.

At least service in the military is useful and you generally get a trade out of it.

I grew up in poor suburbs and my parents are welfare depedent losers by the way.