In fact my main point of “worry” here is about the need for identification. In a real war/fight, do the pilots have to check before shooting ?

Yes, they do have to identify. But AFAIK, it is not needed visual ID , well unless your target is already engaged in a furball with some other of your own aircrafts so you can’t have clear shot anyway. ID is a combination of ground and airborne radars keeping track record of signatures on the radar, IFF, radio communications with other friendly formations to know if someone “yours” is in the area, possible flight path (for example if the enemy has entered a flight path that for you has been designated “kill box” then it should not be friendly) and probably more that i don’t know. On this part i think it is more relevant to see experiences from US operations in the past years. AFAIK they do arrive to BVR shots, but not at the maximum range.

Because BVR sounds nice, but would a greek Mirage 2000 fire on a target 40+ km away or would it need to “identify it” before firing ?

The problem is the same for both you and the enemy. If you ask me, it’s not a bad problem, it allows the enemy to come well inside the MICA envelope. And if you are higher and faster, your missile will still get better initial boost and hence kinetic energy.

It may be a strong point for all these tools allowing for visual identification at great distance (like the Typhoon’s Pirate or the Rafale’s OSF).

Of course it is… If your opponent is flying same type aircrafts, not even this solves the problem completely. If you see F16 for example on the IRST, it can be yours, or maybe not. But it can help.

But in the end, you’re right : it will always be better to come from an higher altitude, even if only to start a dog fight.

As my old physics teacher was saying, “you are high, you accumulate dynamic energy. This you can spend then dropping, in cinetic energy”. Which is vital for the Mirage.

On a side (again – sorry), I remember the F35 being said to fly low and slower than a F16, shouldn’t it impact quite negatively this plane ? Or is it true only for versions B and C ?:o

I don’t know about the various versions, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist that if you have an aircraft at 36000 ft going say Mach 2.2 launching an Amraam and you have an aircraft at 36000 ft going Mach 1.6 launching the same Amraam, the Amraam that was launched at Mach 2.2. will have more kinematic energy and thus better envelope. If the Mach 1.6 aircraft is at 20.000ft his Amraam will have even worse kinematic energy, since it will have to ascend to reach its target (and there you must spend your kinetic energy to gain dynamic energy).

thanks a lot 🙂 The video was great as well, esp. with the translations !

about this “ideal” way of working for a M2000, high speed, high altitude, do you know/think if it would be applied this way in case of a real war ? Is there any previous “real combat” occurrence like that ? => I’m curious of the actual validity of such a model…

From what i ‘ve read, it is supposed to be used in that way. How exactly, is something that they know in “Weapons Tactics School” in Andravida AB. They are the fellows that come up with these things.

In BVR i see no problem in that. As long as you know that your aircraft goes faster at a higher altitude than your opponent, then all the better for you! You will launch your missiles at the best conditions and better than the adversary. If your adversary is lower, he will enter your no escape zone earlier. If he stays high and you know that the Mirage performs better in dogfight high, then the surviving Mirage at the merge will have better chances. If the enemy prefers to drop altitude before that, while you can’t roam at Mach 2 in there, still , you may have more momentum or the optimum kinetic energy for that altitude to spend for the 1st turn in order to make the first shot. The worst situation is an enemy at 15000 ft which for some unknown reason ,you also go down to 15000 to engage for BVR and launch your missiles from 15000 too. I can’t find any logical explanation of why you should do that , if you know that the higher altitude is better for you.

Historically, whoever was performing better at high altitude and speed, had better chances in air combat. If not for anything else, as we remember from school, the energy is never lost, simply transformed into other forms of energy.

In a defensive posture, India should be able to hold its own comfortably enough, especially if nothing happens for the next 5 years. By then, it’ll have enough BVR (ARH) fighters (500?) + AWACS to make things v.uncomforable.

In a defensive scenario, even MiG-21 bisons will give flankers headaches. The Su-30MKIs coupled with upgraded fulcrums/jags/m2ks can be used for counter attack while the Tejas, Bisons, and some upgraded fulcrums and mirages hold the line both against the PLAAF and in case the situation turns really sour, PAF as well.

USS.

Yes, i don’t think they will have war any time soon (i am not even informed on what problems they have with China), only theoretically speaking.

Being on defencive side , is always advantageous, specially if you are aggressive on your defence. 😀 Besides, nowdays, everyone would jump to make them sign peace, so it would be only a brief clash where the defender should pretty much hold its own and not lose too badly, because that would bring him from inferior position to the cease fire table (the more you have hurt the attacker, the better the terms you will get).

The Indians, being on defence can also deploy a nice network of long and medium range SAMs and designate “kill boxes”. For example as of tomorrow, from 08:00 to 12:00 anything flying in that area (known coordinates only to your pilots) will be presumed hostile and shot down without even bothering to do IFF. By the time the Chinese realize the coordinates of the kill boxes, you change them.

There’s also Nepal which for a good portion of the border acts like a “pillow”. I don’t know if it would remain neutral or not.

The biggest disadvantage (aside numbers) i see is that New Delhi is a bit close to the border. This would potentiall allow big economic blow and psychological blow in chinese advantage. On the other hand, it could possibly become fertile terrain for a nice trapping-butchering, since if you expect that will pursue that target, you can make it very costly for them.

Does’nt the Mirage-2000 have a very capable datalink ala Gripen, which would allow for such silent attacks? So in a box formation for eg., one guy lights up the radar and another chap 50kms away gets the required targeting infor to fire a Mica. Would be nice to have such capability. The greater such versatility, the greater the options to evolve tactics imho.

Yes, even without link16 (which is installable anyway), the Mirage2000-5 has datalink exchange up to 8 (maybe a bit more) aircrafts at the same time. Not sure about the non upgraded Mirage. Probably not.

The IAF may not need the MIca EM though – the upcoming Astra should do it for them. Also, can the Mica IIR be used as a HOBS missile slaved to the Topsight? I hear it is TVC equipped and will probly do well in a short range scenario.

AFAIK, the MICA IIR has several “firing modes” according to the distance you wish it to operate. One of the mods is “dogfight mode”, where it’s optimized for the use of TVC.

Make it work with Topsight is i imagine a question of software. On paper the missile can act as HOBS and has the software programming to act as one.

Teer, how do you fire a Mica-IR at long range? What silent method would you use to search/track/detect the opponent to take the full advantage of a silent Mica IR?

AWACS or linking via “non-silent” (radar emitting) aircrafts, who are “exposed” already.

Using the Mica’s Seeker as an IRST ?

This would be doable in short to medium range, not long range and depending on weather conditions. Still, it allows for longer shot than IR missiles in non-IRST fitted aircrafts.

Your passive Mica will be seen at max range by the JF17 passive sensors. What makes you so sure that Chinese are not using that system if they added it on the JF17/FC1? WE can see it on J10A/B. That will start ECM or active reply automaticly.

I presume JF17 has MAWS and that’s what you refer at. Without being an expert, i see some problems even if the MAWS detect it. It will start ECM. What’s the ECM going to do against MICA IR’s IIR seeker? IR jammers on aircrafts are still rare and the technology is at its dawn compared to EM jamming. Most aircrafts today, have only one resort against IR missiles, the good old flares. Well, the MICA is worth its weight in gold, i would expect it to be quite intellingent now to drop the flares as false targets most of the time.

On the other hand the jamming technology against EM missiles has improved much more. Will the enemy MAWS even be in position to tell that the incoming is IIR MICA and not EM? Even if it tells him, what else can he do except wait to approach and start dispencing flares? What if you launch 1 MICA IR + 1 MICA EM and the enemy thinks they are both EM because he is receiving the emission of the EM seeker? At best he should start EM jamming and dispencing both chaffs and flares at the same time (i wouldn’t want to be that pilot, the stress alone must be terrible to hope to avoid at the same time 2 different technologies).

I think that nowdays, you have much better chances dealing with EM missile than with IIR missile. Especially if the enemy has no long range IIR missile in his inventory, you can always assume that he is firing EM and start EM jamming, which has been developed much more than IR jamming over the years.

Do you think that Chinese do not have radar cover, AWACS or other means to intercept?

This is true, but if you are on the defence, you can also get mountain cover from their radars and AWACS. Also, AWACS are becoming today the most vulnerable targets from long range missiles. While against an enemy fighter formation you may be unsure of their identity and need to approach further to avoid fratricide, the AWACS is probably the only target that is clearly hostile. It’s big, its emitting huge radiation constantly, it’s like shouting “I am an AWACS”, it has poor manouverability (so your effective Pk and no escape zone is better than against a fighter) and can’t beat your speed. It will be protected of course, but i don’t think it is impossible to force it to withdraw away from your borders. The further away you can push the enemy AWACS from your borders, the worse situation chinese aircrafts that try to fly into India will come into (your coverage will be better than theirs, they will have dead sectors inside India from mountains). Also link16 is always a radio transmission. It can’t pass through mountains. Another thing to consider, is that link16 is advertised as jamming-resistant. Resistant doesn’t mean it can’t be jammed. Only that it is hard.

Do remember that a research concluded that USA would have to retreat even when using F22 cause of the numbers. You can have many MKI or upgraded X but that doesn’t make you come near to Chinese numbers. When numbers rise you lose an expensive high tech plane as easy as the old one. So I do respect you national pride in everything but it has some shortcomings. I can always say that MKI or latest upgrade X is untested in real war scenario with real smart opponent…

The numbers is always a factor, but in the F22 scenario, the problem was also the big distance from friendly bases. When you fight close to YOUR bases, this also translates to more sorties, things get different than in the F22 Rand scenario. Last but not least, theoretically, 1 aircraft with BVR missiles can kill more than 1 opponent, so this becomes a question of how to use tactics and strategy.

French asked for $56 mil/plane initially, have come down to $41 mil, and would come down even further. I dont know what their bottom or Indian upper limits are…probably $25-35 mil/plane?

We paid about 28 mln euros/ plane some years ago (when the dollar was stronger than today to the euro). The more you wait, the more they will charge you, because the aircraft is no longer in production.

The problem with that money is that Dassault herself, admits that it’s too much and that the most convenient solution is not to upgrade, but buy Rafale instead… Go figure.

If you don’t upgrade them, turn them to dedicated CAS aircrafts, since you ‘ve bought A-G ammunition too. I guess it’s the best thing you can do.

And besides which, do some research – an IIR missile remains very credible against any fighter when used optimally & only DIRCM is a proper counter so far.

I doubt the Chinese have deployed DIRCM already. And by the time they do fit all their aircrafts with it, M2000-5 will probably retire. This is even more true for Pakistan.

Raptor does not carry AIM-9X, Rafale currently doesn’t carry HMD, Rafale would probably prefer to encounter a Typhoon and an F-22 at low level, Typhoon would prefer to encounter the Rafale at high level, F22 could win “100 to 1” over a Typhoon in a 1 vs 1 if repeated 100 times, but in real situation, it would probably take 2 Typhoons to shoot down 1 F22 at least in WVR, so the 100 to 1 is purely accademic, since it can’t carry 100 missiles either. The F22 would prefer in the exercize to go guns only in WVR, the Rafale would prefer not to go to the merge, but launch MICA IRs before the merge to the F22. The Rafale would prefer if the Typhoon didn’t use HMD. The F22 would prefer a wider airspace field for the excercize to try to completely evade from the sensors of the eurocanards. The eurocanards would prefer the presence of AWACS, so to decrease chances that the F22 evades their radar/IRST.

Of course now one can understand why the “big” contenders don’t want to go against each other and go public with it. Bad publicity can come for virtually anyone , since nobody would be happy with the rules of the game.

Or to put it differently. A journalist asked a HAF pilot the brilliant question “is interception a difficult job”? :rolleyes:

The pilot answered : “I ‘d say it is, because this is not like in international excercizes where before the take off you have alltogether a common briefing and you know where the enemy will enter from, at what altitude and who the enemy will be. In our case, it’s the other side that chooses where to enter, the time, the altitude, we can’t know for sure if they are 2 or 6 entering and what their intentions are”.

I would imagine that there in a DACT with F22s, Rafales and Typhoons, the “convention” of how the DACT will be conducted becomes a matter of bargaining. At the end they split the difference and nobody is perfectly happy, because his aircrafts doesn’t go at its best conditions , nobody wants publicity.

I think that even a 10 mln difference with the Rafale is justified. The B60 is fine, but it’s still a 3rd gen aircraft trying to become 4th and at the sunset of its evolutionary career. It’s fine if you don’t want it as front line, bleeding edge aircraft to win your future wars.

On the other hand Rafale is 4th gen , trying to become 5th, and it has all the future ahead of it. So if you want something to use as longterm solution, the Rafale is more future-proof. And with that in mind, 10 mln is peanuts.

It’s about how you see things, what you plan, what other aircrafts you need or plan to need in the future, etc.