Now thank RaMo for explaining that to you Haris Zuberi...Thanks RaMo...
RaMo,
Thoughtful analysis.
I see the Arrows differently, particularly in light of the Phalcon deal finally going through.
India recently purchased training aircraft from the UK that will give thier pilots a lot more flying hours. The Phalcon gives a huge advantage to the Indians in terms of command and control, and while the Arrows only proved limited defensive capability, it is SOME defensive capability. I would wager that they will be deployed to military areas, not cities. The only outcome of a war of cities I am afraid is already written. The Arrows could provide a decided advantage in the event of limited nuclear warfare, and could provide enough deterent to make a limited scenario less clear. This is the most probable scenario with the current flash point of Kashmir.
That gives India three big new advantages, flying time, command and control, and some defensive capability. Add to that a growing naval capability, and the balance is swinging quite a bit.
You have detailed a lot of advantages of individual aircraft and their features, but the studies are all still the same. Highly trained pilots with good command and contol, and lots of flight time can prevail consitantly over superior aircraft with less intel and pilots with less flight time. India is putting it's efforts in all the right places. What's more, with the pipeline wide open to Israel and Russia, they have access to a great deal of other sophisticated equipment.
Lastly if I hear one more story on jobs being "outplaced" to India and China I may puke. To the extent business interests flood into India, there will also be an economy, political alliances, and a technology base that provides future advantages in a conflict.
So, I think the f16's are sort of symbolic, but are probably a sign of frustration on a lot of fronts.
Ohioguy,
Not sure i entirely agree with some of your analysis. Firstly the hawk deal. I don't see how this will give Indian pilots more flying hours. What it will do is ease the transition from subsonic aircraft to supersonic aircraft (which is what the Indian pilots are having problems with at the moment apparently). All that will happen is some of their syllabus which is being conducted on Mig-21's at the moment will transfer to Hawks, and they're hoping that this will ease the transition for trainee pilots to more demanding aircraft. IMHO, i think that pilot training is only half their problem - the other half is aircraft maintainance. A lot of the Mig-21 crashes seem to have been related to engine problems, so i don't see the Hawk acquisition helping too much in this regard.
I totally agree that the Phalcon acquisition seriously tips the balance of power in favour of the IAF. Everything you said about command and control is 100% true. I once read a comment that went something like (and i'm paraphrasing here) "To truly have an Air Force you need AWACS, otherwise you're just pushing some planes around the sky aimlessly". However, its not so much the platform that matters as the capability. If the PAF were to acquire the Erieye (or even the Hawkeye) it would give it all the command and control it needs. I know the Phalcon is often said to be the best AWACS platform around at the moment, but the reason for that is it uses Electronically scanned phased arrays. This means that unlike traditional AWACS systems, it scans its radar beam electronically and this gives it a huge adavantage over Mechanically scanned radars. The Erieye uses the same technology, just on a smaller scale. Given that the Pakistan has much smaller airspace to monitor and control, the Erieye would be more than adequate for the PAF's needs.
While India may have access to Russian and Israeli equipment, Pakistan has to rely on China. While this may not mean much now, at the rate China is improving, I'll bet that in 10-20 years they will have surpassed Russia as a source of high-tech equipment. The problem for Pakistan is getting by until China can meet more of its high-tech military needs. Also bear in mind the links the Chinese have with Israel - thats one of the avenues the Chinese are using to improve their tech in leaps and bounds.
Finally the Arrow deal. My reasoning for saying they're being bought to defend cities was that in most articles it mentions India buying a very small number of these systems. That means they can either defend a small number of targets (presumably cities) quite well, or they can spread their Arrow batteries around and defend a larger number of targets poorly. If they forward deploy their Arrow batteries to defend military formations, then they come into range of the much larger number of Pakistani tactical missiles (IMHO the one area we're clearly ahead of the Indians in). Now each Arrow missile costs over $1m. Most of these tactical missiles cost of a fraction of that. I just don't see the cost effectiveness in using Arrow batteries to defend military formations against masses of short range missiles. The only situation it makes sense to use the Arrows in (for the Indians - its different for Israelis) bearing in mind the planned size of the acquisition is to defend targets in their rear from the longer range Pakistani ballistic missiles. And pretty much the only target for these missiles would be Indian cities.
Having said that, in the latest round of missile tests the Shaheen 1 missile with a range of 450 miles acheived a CEP of 50m, which would make it pretty useful for attacking military targets as well like supply depots and airfields.
RaMo,
My thought is that the Arrow will be used to defend airfields, command and control, and nuclear installations. India is too well populated, if the goal is to kill civilians in huge quantities, that can always be done.
The Hawks are a highly available , rugged, easlily serviced, and can accumulate lots of traning hours. The solution to better pilots is hours, hours, hours, and this is what the hawk gives.
Back to the F16's, I believe that this is a much bigger snub lately, partly because Musharraf keeps bringing it up. By publicly calling for the release of thes weapons when he has been told in private that it will not happen, he shoots himself in the foot. Undoubtedly he has been told what the conditions are for the release of these aircraft, he chooses not to realize that the economy of Pakistan is the best defensive weapon he can have.
I would wager that the f16's are linked to a resolution of Kashmir, finding OBL, or cracking down on radical elements (and not letting them out the back door the next day). Undoubtedly he has been shopping the world for his needs, but the US aid package of 3 Bil over 5 years will be jeopardized if he gets in bed to with the likes of the North Koreans.
OhioGuy,
The more i think about it the more your projected use of the Arrow makes sense. C&C and nuclear installations definately make sense. I can't see every airfield being Arrow defended, but the big ones do make a certain amount of sense. However, i would imagine the Indians would have to carefully pick which ones to defend. Unlike the Israelis who can fire off virtually unlimited numbers of these missiles (they have the budget for it, and because of their situation they can't really afford for a single missile to get through), the Indians have to make sure they only use it to defend targets which aren't in range of the more numerous shorter range tactical missiles (lest the battery be overwhlemed by numbers). Some of the forward Indian bases are definately in range of short range missiles so I'm guessing these aren't candidates for Arrow pretection.
As for the Hawks, i still disagree with you here. The biggest problem for the IAF pilots currently doesnt seem to be quantity of hours, its quality. There isn't much wrong with their current basic trainer (HAL Kiran) and while the Mig-21 doesn't have the greatest servicability record, the sheer numbers in service with the IAF surely means that availability shouldn't be a problem there. Their biggest problem is that its a big step for a pilot to transition from an easy to fly subsonic trainer like the Kiran to a supersonic plane like the Mig-21. The Hawk will help this transition by letting them fly an easy handling transonic plane that will let pilots acclimatise to the quicker reaction times required from supersonic aircraft. The other problem for the IAF seems to be maintainance of Mig-21s (several of the crashes were related to engine problems), and transfering some of the training burden to the Hawks should let them retire a few of the older Migs thereby hopefully improving pilot safety. I see the Hawk buy as mainly improving flight safety in the IAF, rather doing anything drastic to increase the number of hours being flown by IAF pilots. Don't get me wrong - i agree that the more hours a pilot flies, the better that pilot is. However, I can't see how the Hawk would accomplish this - it allows for a better training syllabus, but i doubt they would extend their training syllabus much just because they're using Hawks. And once pilots transition out of training units then Hawks have no effect on their flying hours.
I completely agree about the F-16s. I don't know why the Pakistani Govt keeps bringin this issue up and getting shot down time after time after time. Surely its better to either drop it all together and move on, or just work on it quietly in the background. My preferance would be for us to just forget about it all together and move on. What the PAF needs more than F-16s is an AWACs platform and a BVR missile. Quite frankly, the F-16s we would be supplied with would do absolutely nothing to bridge the tech gap between the PAF and IAF. However purchasing the Erieye AWACs and Mica BVRAAM (or even South African R-Darter/Chinese SD-10) would instantly cut the gap between the 2 PAF and IAF to much more manageable levels. The IAF would still have a slight lead, but nothing that couldn't be overcome through use of good tactics. At the moment the IAF and PAF are on fundamentally different technology levels. The PAF is still on a 70s/80s tech level (IR missiles, no BVR capability, no AWACs) while the IAF is in the process of transitioning to the the next generation of technology (Active BVRAAMs, AWACs, Air-to-air refuelling etc). That is what the PAF needs to overcome, and quite frankly more used Block 15 F-16s just aren't going to make that much of a difference ultimately.
RaMo
Thanks a lot for the explanataions! i owe you one for that!
is IRST the technology that the stealth is famous for i.e. it can deceive the radars…? and there’s one more plane like the stealth what’s it called? stealth is F117 right?
are you and OhioGuy studying aeronautics or something, i’m impressed by your knowledge! :k:
Today a mirage fighter crashed in the Malir Cantt. area of karachi, i ahven't received any news of the pilot's well being yet...i wonder if he ejected or not...
Stealth isn't just any one technology. Stealth is all about making a plane less visible both to radars and IR sensors. This is accomplished in a number of ways. Firstly, if you aren't transmitting any emissions, that instantly makes you less visible to the enemy. That is where an IRST system comes in. It lets you (passivly) detect eneemy planes using their heat signature. The best analogy is using a flashlight in the dark to find someone. While the flashlight lets you see a small distance in front of you very clearly, it lets people know where you are, from much further away than you can see. Now if you were to use a passive system (like night vision goggles) you might not see quite as far, or as clearly as with a flashlight, but you also don't give your position away. That is what an IRST system is for
The next aspect of stealth is the one that most people think about. When the enemy is using radar to try to find you, you can do various things to make it difficult for him. You can try to deflect the radar energy away from the enemy or you can try to absorb some of that radar energy. But the important things to remember here is that it is impossible to make a plane invisible to radar. You can however make it much more dificult for radar to see, and usually that is enough to get the job done. The first generation generation stealth plane was the F-117. This primarily relied on deflecting radar waves away from the enemy using a technique called "faceting". The downside of this was that this meant the plane had a very unaerodynamic shape which made it difficult to fly and unmanouverable. Lucky FBW systems solved the flying part, but you're still left with a plane that can't manouver very well due to its shape (but arguably doesn't need to). The next generation of stealth planes like the B-2 bomber, F-22 and F-35 fighters rely on a combination of absorbing and deflecting radar waves to come up with a much more aerodynamic shape which allows to them manouver as well as traditional fighters.
I see...
The Phalcon Deal: Adversely tilting the balance
The usual analysis from Sehgal, the F16 thread’s most recent posts should be merged with this thread.
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/Oct-2003/18/EDITOR/op1.asp
Ikram Sehgal
India and Israel appear to have reached a new dimension in their defence partnership during Ariel Sharon’s recent trip to New Delhi, three Phalcon Airborne Radar Systems, estimated to be worth one billion dollars, will certainly trigger a new arms race in South Asia. The deal is more Pakistan-specific than being “China-Pakistan” in general. The United States, which had a few years earlier blocked the sale of the same Phalcons to China, has now given Tel Aviv go-ahead to sign the AWACS deal with New Delhi. Israel has become India’s second largest defence supplier after Russia with armament sales touching 60 billion rupees (1.25 billion dollars) in 2001 alone. Setting aside US$ 65 million for formation of “lethal platoons” with the help of the Israelis to counter militancy, especially in the insurgency-wracked Kashmir, India is also looking at Israel for joint production of unarmed aerial vehicles (UAVs), night-vision devices for its main battle tanks and battlefield surveillance equipment, besides Barak missiles for the navy and Arrow anti-missile system for the Indian Aerospace Force (IAF). Interestingly India labels Kashmir as an insurgency as a raison d’etre for acquiring state-of-the-art weaponry, otherwise it portrays the Kashmiri freedom fighters as “terrorists”.
Moeed Wasim Yusuf recently wrote from Washington, “India already exercises strong military disparity against Pakistan with an army twice the size of its adversary, an air force, which is three times Pakistan’s and a navy, which is four times as large. This disparity is critical given the region’s nuclear framework. Both countries, having declared their nuclear status, are striving to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent. Aircraft are more vulnerable to air strikes since aircraft can be destroyed while still parked in aircraft shelters, as can the runways they use. Pakistan possesses (a depleted force of) F-16s as the most likely medium for delivery of a nuclear weapon, the Mirage III and Mirage V, could also be used for this purpose. To maintain a credible deterrent Pakistan has to ensure that its aircraft cannot be rendered ineffective by an Indian pre-emptive strike that is capable of destroying important runways or aircraft shelters housing Pakistani delivery aircraft before giving Pakistan a chance to retaliate, the nuclear deterrent will no longer remain credible”, unquote. When conventional forces of one country are numerically far more in numbers than the other, the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) theory is the only credible deterrent to a possible nuclear war.
The Phalcon Airborne Early Warning Command and Control (AEWC&C) state-of-the-art radar system developed by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) for India will be installed in the nose of a Russian-built Ilyushin-76 cargo aircraft, the Indians preferring this airborne platform to the superior US Boeing aircraft. The aircraft is the hub of a communications system that spots enemy planes and missiles, and then co-ordinates defence against them. The Phalcon system can play a decisive role on the modern battlefield by providing real-time intelligence and command and control needed to achieve and maintain air superiority over the combat area and to enable surveillance of borders in peacetime. The Phalcon can detect enemy aircraft and missiles within a range of hundreds of miles, at high or low altitudes, by day and night and in all weather conditions, it also carries equipment that monitors, analyses and decodes enemy radio transmissions. The system uses Active Phased Array Electronic Scanning Technology rather than a mechanically rotating antenna (rotodome) used by current US AWACS systems, giving greater operational maneuverability and flexibility, improving performance by several orders of magnitude. Based on four sensors: phased-array radar, phased-array IFF, ESM/ELINT and CSM/COMINT, the unique fusion technology continuously cross-relates the data gathered by all sensors, when detected, the system automatically initiates an active search of the complementary sensors, viz (1) the AEWC&C phased array electronically steered beam radar replaces the conventional mechanically-rotated antenna of the rotodome radar and tracks high maneuvering targets. Track initiation is achieved in 2 to 4 seconds as compared to 20 to 40 seconds with the present US Awacs-type rotodome radar (2) the IFF system employs solid state phased array technology perform interrogation, decoding, target detection and tracking, the IFF data being automatically correlated with the phased array radar (3) the ESM/ELINT system receives, analyses and locates radar signals, covering 360 degrees. It combines high sensitivity with high probability of intercept, and achieves excellent accuracy in bearing measurement. Very high bearing accuracy is achieved through Differential Time of Arrival (DTOA) measurements, the system also collects and analyzes ELINT data (4) the PHALCON’s CSM/COMINT receives signals in UHF, VHF and HF, rapidly searching for airborne, shipborne or ground communications signals of interest, a DF capability locates targets. Selected radio nets can be monitored for signal activity, extensive use being made of computers to reduce the load on operators. While the aircraft communicates, via its data link, with Air Defense HQ, data from additional air defense sensors are fused to create a complete spatial picture.
The PHALCON system acts as a major force-multiplier, drastically altering the military balance in South Asia, allowing India to execute its counter-air campaign against Pakistan more effectively, while providing for an enhanced capability of preventing a Pakistani aerial counter-attack. With the technology required to assess radar systems nonexistent in Pakistan, Pakistani strategists will inevitably take an even more pessimistic view of the chance of survival of their aircraft in a sustained conflict, a more conservative view of Indian strategic defenses will increase focus on greater missile-capability development. “When the United States cut off aid to Pakistan in 1991, the inability to acquire the F-16s intensified Pakistan’s efforts to develop mobile delivery systems”, Moeed Wasim Yusuf wrote, “Ballistic missiles, launched from mobile delivery systems are less vulnerable to pre-emptive strikes. The mobile systems allow wide dispersal of the missiles, making it more difficult for the adversary to target all functioning systems. In case of India and Pakistan, it is also difficult to determine the actual number of missiles possessed by either side, the initiator can never be sure if all systems in the enemy’s arsenal have actually been destroyed in a pre-emptive strike. What is conveniently ignored is that the West must take part of the blame for the recent Pakistani missile development. If the West, especially the Untied States, wants to continue providing military assistance to India, directly or indirectly, but then no one has a right to condemn Pakistani ballistic missile tests, which make perfect strategic sense,” unquote.
While the Israel-India-Russia deal is called a three-country arrangement, the basic state-of-the-art Raytheon technology is US. Russia’s involvement is an Indian psy-war initiative directed to make Pakistan feel the geo-political heat of the 4-country association. Thus seemingly isolated, Pakistan will be hard pressed to produce a credible deterrent, China’s geo-political interests being inadvertently caught in the line of fire by this blatant discrimination may be our salvation. Labeled a “strategic competitor” in the National Security Strategy annunciated by the Bush Administration on coming to power in Jan 2001, China’s apprehension that India is being used by the US as a proxy for it’s containment will be reinforced.
Necessity may be the mother of invention as well as innovation, to survive there is no alternative to pragmatism. What is of dire, indeed strategic, importance, is the necessity of having an immediate face-to-face dialogue with Israel so that they understand that Pakistan is being forced into a corner by Israel’s force-multiplier support to an implacable enemy whose leaders regularly promise Pakistan that they will blow us into oblivion. That should sound familiar to the Israelis who have lived in a “Masada complex” corner themselves for over 50 years and in 1973, faced with disaster, had almost activated Dimona. Why not be an optimist and turn the situation on its head? If the deal is not Pakistan-specific what would Israel say if Pakistan were to show an interest in purchasing two PHALCON systems?
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good article by I. Sehgal. thanks for sharing Zakk.
with this much happening around us in the arms market i think we must expand our horizons farther than just the F16s. there's alot more that we have to keep up with and make sure we are not left behind in this somewhat foolish arms race.