Alright well
I had to sign up after reading bits of the other "Will Pakistan maintain air superiority" thread where the discussion has long been diverted from the topic to a dick measuring contest (sorry if im going a bit far with the selection of the words here) where both parties have failed to add any technical value to the topic or provide any facts or figures to any claims.

So i thought i will start a fresh and see if i can add some reasonable facts here


First of all I would like to point out that Pakistan Air Force (PAF) when dealing with indian air force (IAF) in a full scale conflict will be playing mostly defense as of current stats and available platforms and even though it will undertake many deep strike missions within indian territory but will not dream nor try to achieve air superiority within indian territory but will give no ground to indians in Pakistan when on the defensive and will easily and without doubt maintain air superiority throughout the length of the war.

Now yes, one may argue that india possesses more and advanced platforms as compared to Pakistan and that simply put, gives india an edge but there are five main factors people neglect so easy.

1) india has a long border with China and cannot deploy all or most assets facing Pakistan for then it will present an open and easy target for the Chinese to come and take at will.

2) More depends on the man and not the machine and Pakistani Pilots through all their engagements be it india, USSR or Israel have proven themselves better (Proof: check out any neutral kill ratios between PAF and IAF in all their conflicts while keeping in mind india always enjoyed quantitative and qualitative edge)

3) The Western Platforms Pakistan possesses are all proven and F-16 is the most proven and with the highest kill ratio platform in existence on the planet while Russian platforms are not proven and the only engagements they ever enjoyed against the western tech have been disastrous to the Russian built including many Su platforms stated to be better than their Western counterparts in the said conflict (Proof: google plz)

4) AIM120's and sidewinders attached to the Pakistani F-16's are a proven and the most relied upon weapon in the world, the same cannot be said about the indian missiles as they are good on papers but never tested in real combat scenarios. (The Chinese SD-10 BVR missiles and sidewinders available on the Pakistani JF-17's also fall in the non tested category but on paper are equally as potent as any possessed by india)

5) Modern air wars depend more on the number and quality of sensors in the field and less on the platforms these days. Even though indian Su-30 MKI's are overall a better platform as compared to the Pakistani F-16 C/D but with the "Erieye" (static) with a detection range of 450 km + and "ZDK-03" (rotary) with even higher detection range patrolling Pakistani skies at any given time it simply nullifies any advantage possessed by Su-30 MKI or any other platform india currently possesses or may acquire in the future (eg PAK-FA) and brings down the fight to better maneuverability and i don't think anyone here will disagree that F-16 is way more maneuverable than the twin engine Su-30MKI or the Mirage-2000 (altho the mirage-2000 and F-16 maneuverability is quite worth a long discussion)

Simply put, you are entering enemy airspace and you are detected 450 km out there then even somali pirates provided the means would easily pick you off...

And to add to this
By 2012 Pakistan Air Force will be operating 250 JF-17's (easily comparable to indian Mirage-2000s or close to Pakistani F-16 C/D's and can even perform better with the introduction of western avionics which will start after the first 150 badge) and somewhere around 45 FC-20s (Fc-20 is the PAF tag for heavily modified J-10B's according to PAF needs and with inclusion of western radars and armaments)



Moreover, Pakistani Missile technology is far more advanced as compared to india's and here we are talking about non ballistic stuff since any ballistic launch from either nation might easily be mistaken as a nuke launch

And going by one of the Pakistani Officials remarks once

After the start of a full scale war with india, we will only have to take care of the few indian jets in the air since all their bases would have already been blown by missile strikes...





And apart from the Air Forces

Armies of the both countries are equally equipped (check any stats anywhere) while the Pakistani side enjoys better artillery platforms and better coordination with the airforce and has had a lot of experience with the current war on terror and experience as they say is always the deciding factor and even though indians enjoy the quantitative superiority in the form of more men but then again, they can't neglect their huge border with China nor the one with Bangladesh and Pakistani Army in the past has held its own (200 Pakistani soldiers held on against 8000 invading indian troops on the night of 6th september 1965 for the entire length of the night till reinforcements arrived in the morning and indians were pushed out (proof: the accounts of indian invasion of Pakistan on 6th september 1965 by any neutral author) without much hurdles and rather taken the war swiftly to the indian territory (proofs: the accounts of the 1965 war and 1971 war in the west by any neutral authors while the 1948 war was fought in a territory acceeded to india by its ruler as per indian claim and hence indian territory and the war of Kargil again was about occupying indian territory and withdrawing after immense international pressure)


On the Navy side, indian navy has more and better surface combatants and an aircraft carrier. Pakistan has better submarines and anti sub and anti surface weapons and missile boats so the battles would be noteworthy while india won't risk their aircraft carrier by taking it out of the ports nor engaging in open sea with the great risk of falling prey to Paki subs or anti ship missiles ...

During 1965 war, india didn't risk its navy and kept it in ports for the fear of a lone Paki Submarine (india had no submarine at the time) while Pakistani Navy bombed indian port city of Dwarka in an attempt to try and draw out indian Navy but to no avail.

In 1971 indian missile boats blockaded Pakistani port city of Karachi successfully.

No other Navy battles took place...




Now i would expect replies with claims backed by facts and figures from neutral sources and please no Pak-india flaming and useless and senseless bashing leading to no conclusions...

Wow, a very nice, informative and well-balanced post. Thank you Flash.

And welcme to the forums, by the way.

I just have one question regarding this part of your post:



Does PAF have AIM-9X missiles for close-in combat or are they considering acquiring some?

_________________
"If you want peace, prepare for war."
Flavius Vegetius Renatus. Roman Military strategist. c. 390. A.D

PAF uses

-AIM-9M
-AIM-9L
-AIM-9P
-AIM-7 Sparrow
-Magic-II R-550
-PL-9 Thunderbolt

For close in combat

and

-AIM 120C
-SD-10

for BVR Combat

and

-AGM-88 HARM
-MAR-1

for Anti RAD combat



now let me think if i missed something...

and thanks

and PAF didn't go for AIM-9X for they are looking to acquire IRIS-T

and what i forgot to mention
all old PAF F-16A/B's will be upgraded to MLU-3 aka C/D block 52+ avionics standard by 2011-2012 to go on par with the rest of the PAF F-16C/D block 52+


while speculation also places The R and T-Darters in PAF inventory but since PAF keeps its secrets close as much as possible so sometimes information is hard to get or even speculate so i didn't put these in the list as no one can be sure ...

the f-16 is less maneuverable than the sukhoi -30 MKI.......after all ,the sukhoi possesses thrust vector control , which the f-16 does not have .

now i suppose you are going to prove how thrust vector control is useless etc

you conveniently forgot to mention that indian osa class missile boats made a daring raid on karachi harbour which resulted in 4 ships destroyed , and also the petroleum storage tankers at the harbour were destroyed.

pakistan does not possess the AIM 9X missile which really can match the AA-11 archer missile of India.

first of all a word of advise
try compiling all quotes in one post and then posting rather posting each quote in a different one...... that would really help and not look like trolling aka building up post count......thanks

on to topic
PAF operates various AIM-9 variants as i compiled in above posts but they didn't go for AIM-9x purchase since they are looking to equip all current and future fighters with IRIS-T which is much more advanced and capable than either AIM-9X or R-73 aka AA-11

http://www.airpower.at/news02/1103_eu-m ... ris-t2.gif





I was trying to avoid going into smaller details or there is plenty i didn't discuss about various aspects of both wars anyway
the fact that they successfully blockaded the port is enough to tell that the Pakistani navy was rendered incapable of defending its ports and once a port is blockaded there is no attack that could be termed as a daring attack on the harbor ...





nothing is useless
but i left out some details on purpose to check the quality of technical replies i was hoping for

maneuverability only comes into play when two fighters are at close range ie close enough to engage with sidewinders and cannon fire aka dog fighting

Can you try and guess who will win a dog fight between a modern F-16 and a SU-30MKI?
I'll let you in one a few details

Maneuverability depends on a few factors
Of which one is that both the Viper and Su-30MKI are capable of flying at 180 degrees AoA for a brief amount of time and still recover but the Viper aka F-16 can hold 180 degrees longer while the MKI can't even hold 120 degrees for 4 seconds (from actual combat exercises between the two). And thrust-vectoring is almost useless in actual combat as it is almost never needed and causes severe stress to the aircraft's airframe but yes its better to have it than not having it.
Another one being the F-16 could keep its vector and make turns at much slower speed as compared to the SU-30MKI.

But these and plenty more (i'll like to avoid for now) come into play only if SU-30MKI is allowed to come this close to an F-16

Now, what happens when an F-16 with its radars and sensors turned off detects an SU-30MKI at a range of 400+ km while the SU-30MKI has no clue of the Viper's whereabouts until its already too late and an AMRAAM is off to turn the MKI into rubble?

hay you missed PAF's very own BVR crescent arrow

_________________

and you're telling who...a doctor....i still remeber an indian finance professional wrote up a whole article on SU-30MKI on his blog and the first reply was "sir its SU-30 MKI not MK1"

_________________