fwiw a guy named Bojan or Bovan in tank-net.org was saying only 30% of the PA T-80s have the spec sheet thermal imagers.
you can look it up in the ‘new indian tanks’ thread of their AFV forum, no need to pursue it here anymore.

unless you can arrange for economic hypergrowth, choose between preserving the welfare state (healthcare, govt schooling, cheap higher education) and higher defence expenditure.

it seems to me UK has done the right thing, “outsourced” the role of global bully to usa, while partaking of the benefits of bullyhood with minimal supporting efforts. AND keeping its money for the more important internal uses above.

so its not a situation to be unhappy about. I wish india had such a sugar daddy.

UK is still the worlds 4th largest economy and a center of research and hi-tech products.

well since the PJ10 will be used by IAF also…

right now US indirectly subsidises its own industry by giving
aid=X to israel and specifying X can only be used to buy US arms
(f16/f15 etc). nobody dislikes a free meal. Israel could never afford such a large and powerful armed forces through internal resources I think.

anyway if ever Israel wanted to get rid of USA , they’d be forced
to design their own to reduce cost.

imo they should design atleast a light fighter to not let the
skills wither away…who knows how relations will shift in the
future.

usa & india look to be the only ones solidly with israel at present….the rest make the right ‘noises’ but dont have a real strategic convergence.

yes its the toss bomb technique. PIADS shamelessly copied some of that from a USAF manual with no attribution….

are the IL76 images from elmendorf,alaska ? the AN12 image
also looks not in india by the vegetation and style of tarmac.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/History/Kargil/PCamp.html

IAF flew ~1200 sorties in kargil, lost 1 AC and 1 non-flare armed Mi17 to manpads and 1 AC to a engine flameout. surprising thing is PAF never intervened to save their own troops even though F16s with elite pilots were orbiting just 15km on pak side over Gultari. one the one occasion known they came close to the border two got locked up by a roving mig29, and turned away.

various people have said that PAFs main focus is air defence and
some limited deep strike, and I agree. CAS has never been their area of interest.

so the A5 serves no value other than a drain on resources.
better to get rid of it.

http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source/CFW/details.aspx?iid=2930292&print=true

the newly raised airbase protection force for IAF. all the MI17s
seem to have got the flare dispensers now scabbed to the
side. I wonder what that box attached below the tail is ?