India Pakistan conflict along IB and LoC (July 2021 onwards)

[AnantS]

Expect official tweet by end of the day.



Panic :- Yeah we fucked up, agree. Shooting down Mi-17 by AD battery was sheer idocracy & lack of coordination, was punished duly.

F-16s took first shot :- Its exactly not that we were not able to take the first shot. Both were in each other's weapon range (effectiveness debatable because well outside NEZ).

Lets say Indian & Pakistani soldiers are patrolling the border. Both are in each other's weapon range, Pakistani soldier fires first. What will be the Indian soldiers immediate reaction ? It will be to duck for cover and return fire, not open fire immediately.

Same logic. F-16s using AIM-120s kept 2x Su-30MKI pinned down while Mirages & other F-16s dropped Glide Bombs and ran away.

See Mist you too agree our aircrafts were pinned down. granted that other aircrafts could be getting scrambled and would have soon joined fight if it ever got into one. But just as in LoC, first shot which send us ducking gives opening for tangos to slip in. Similarly if a bigger strike package is sent - chance of bogey aircrafts to slip in increases, if accompanying aircrafts fire first first volley to send AD aircrafts scampering to save their tail (Here I am thinking China)

China will not have the first shot advantage, IAF with Meteor will have first shot advantage.

Agreed. Thats why I said following in previous post:

Chinese again shall have first shoot advantage until we integrate and induct ASTRA MK2/METEOR with our Air superiority fleet.

Rafale's are few and precious. SO wont be everywhere to fire meteors as of now.

 

[rkhanna]

China will not have the first shot advantage, IAF with Meteor will have first shot advantage.

China doesnt have a first shot advantage because of terrain. They will be flying from father away over an elevated plateau against an OPFOR taking off from ground level and hiding in the ground clutter of mountains. They will be low on fuel and low on ordancne as taking off from high altitude. If they use refuelers from further inland the will be picked up by AWACs even earlier and even more time to position the Intrediction Parties

China has the following two plays:

1) China however can do a preemtive missle forces attack on our airfields and Air stations prior to launching an Air Raid.

2) War of Attrition - they will simply throw up 2.5x the airframes we can field. They will win the War of Attrition unless we have enough Akasks in the mountains and get them within range.


Meteor or lack there of given current orbat holds lesser weight as a point IMO

 

[mist_consecutive]

Seriously? In here amateurs like us were predicting how IAF could have jets waiting in A2A combat load & SAMs song LOC, ready to ambush their inevitable retaliatory strike & down them by the dozens!.. But instead the geniuses got themselves outnumbered by a numerically inferior Air force with our comms jammed, one jet downed, it's pilot paraded through streets & one face-saving kill claim literally noone else in the world took seriously.

But I understand the difficulties of embracing that reality, keep on the COPE

Yes, amateurs were also expecting to finish off PAF and take back PoK the next day, but reality is reality.

How could we ambush PAF retaliatory strike when it never crossed LoC ? Shooting across LoC was just not allowed before Feb 27th.

Comms jammed -> No, comms. were not jammed, those are fertile imagination of Pak Def fanboys which picked up steam because self-flagellation is our favourite pastime.

Pilot paraded -> Yeah deal with it. Casaulties happen in a war. IAF was not bothered. GoI (for image protection) & leech media was bothered. If one pilot paraded is too much for you to absorb them you are not prepared to be on a defence forum during skirmish/war.

Again, offering backsides & accepting defeat to the enemy at the slightest hint of disadvantage has been in the blood of Indian subcontinent, reason we were under enemy subjugation for such long.

See Mist you too agree our aircrafts were pinned down. granted that other aircrafts could be getting scrambled and would have soon joined fight if it ever got into one. But just as in LoC, first shot which send us ducking gives opening for tangos to slip in. Similarly if a bigger strike package is sent - chance of bogey aircrafts to slip in increases, if accompanying aircrafts fire first first volley to send AD aircrafts scampering to save their tail (Here I am thinking China)

Hey, in a BVR grind one has to go cold and shrug off the missiles. This is universal for any 2 BVR-capable AFs fighting. Will that opportunity be used by the enemy ? Yes, but you have AD + Backup aircrafts to cover for that.

Point is, I am not absolving our AF from 27th Feb fcukup, there are room for improvement, but saying we completely failed and PAF got better of us just isn't correct. Its a "C" grade, not a failure but didn't do the best either.

 

[Jimih]

Pilot paraded -> Yeah deal with it. Casaulties happen in a war. IAF was not bothered. GoI (for image protection) & leech media was bothered. If one pilot paraded is too much for you to absorb them you are not prepared to be on a defence forum during skirmish/war.

Lots of them are.

Anyways Wg Cdr A.V. was originally a Su-30MKI pilot and piloted a Bison at Srinagar AFB.

Closer to LoC and IAF had 'interceptors only squadron'??

(But now thankfully replaced by MiG-29 UPGs)

 

[rkhanna]

Its a "C" grade, not a failure but didn't do the best either.

Wouldnt you classify a C grade as a failure? Given all the context of what happened over those 48 hours. The initiative that was on our side, the superior ORBAT and training that was on ourside?

Given the Paki's stature - broken down economy, canabalized airforce, no fuel to train their pilots. what grade do you give them?

Tangental example. A down on its luck Man United holds Liverpool to a Draw at Anfield where liverpool had 70%+ possession and 34 shots at goal. Who was the actual winner and looser here?

 

[AnantS]

Hey, in a BVR grind one has to go cold and shrug off the missiles. This is universal for any 2 BVR-capable AFs fighting. Will that opportunity be used by the enemy ? Yes, but you have AD + Backup aircrafts to cover for that.

Point is, I am not absolving our AF from 27th Feb fcukup, there are room for improvement, but saying we failed and PAF got better than us just isn't correct. Its

Thanks for bringing AD + Backup aircrafts point. AD - now I may be incorrect - but I guess again Himalayan Terrain plays spoil sport by not giving uncluttered access to airspace view for ground based AD - There by giving enough ingress and egress points for both sides. Someone bought limitation of Chinese aircrafts from Tibetean High Altitude bases. True. But they have extra long Runways leveraging the fact Tibet is a plateau. And they have refuellers - And we dont have enough AEW. I always have suspicion in mind. China would use airspace over Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar. Even if we have AEW with Range of 400 km - isnt enough to scan every nook and corner. Refuellers can always come from low lying airfields from neighboring states.
But I am digressing. Maybe some other thread for this. I am not saying IAF is incompetent - it looked like there were gaps in the way IAF handled saturation attack from PAF. And as other said - thanks to God, adversary handled even more incompetently than us.

 

[mist_consecutive]

Wouldnt you classify a C grade as a failure? Given all the context of what happened over those 48 hours. The initiative that was on our side, the superior ORBAT and training that was on ourside?

Given the Paki's stature - broken down economy, canabalized airforce, no fuel to train their pilots. what grade do you give them?

Wasn't the previous day airstrike went just as according to the plan (sans one small miss) ?
After 27th Feb skirmish, the plan was there to strike back in the evening/night. GoI + Global powers decided it was enough play and we negotiated a peace-deal with Abhinandan's return & perhaps some other undisclosed things.
Ideally, we would have seen large-scale strikes and more skirmishes with PAF if GoI hasn't thrown down the towel. We could have judged who is superiour after a sustained 1-month long campaign.

Tangental example. A down on its luck Man United holds Liverpool to a Draw at Anfield where liverpool had 70%+ possession and 34 shots at goal. Who was the actual winner and looser here?

Its not a zero-sum game. I get your underdog outperforming the bigger club example. PAF did fantastically good, IAF did average, more was expected out of them. In an overall war, individual battles might have wins & losses. But small singular battle don't decide the outcome of the war.

See. Even advanced & prepared militaries will have bad days. Whatever could have gone wrong, went wrong during that day.
Very recently, the Israeli attack from Gaza was a prime example. Chaos, death & friendly fire. One could argue Israel was fully prepared since decades yet they saw such a disastrous outcome, and hence they are incompetent.

I just refuse to categorize a military branch as incompetent or arrive at a binary conclusion from a one-off skirmish which lasted like ~5 mins.

 

[Azaad]

Wouldnt you classify a C grade as a failure? Given all the context of what happened over those 48 hours. The initiative that was on our side, the superior ORBAT and training that was on ourside?

Given the Paki's stature - broken down economy, canabalized airforce, no fuel to train their pilots. what grade do you give them?

Tangental example. A down on its luck Man United holds Liverpool to a Draw at Anfield where liverpool had 70%+ possession and 34 shots at goal. Who was the actual winner and looser here?

The critical issue to be analysed here is was this a war because all the issues you're raising is something which comes into effect only in a war .

It's an important distinction because our SOPs prevented the IAF from crossing the LoC IIRC. This was a foolish decision even then not just in retrospect particularly when one considers that it was the IAF which broke existing protocols when it initiated the Balakote strikes. How & why did it think PAF wouldn't respond in kind ? Yet this thought escaped the attention of our security management resulting in what it did which raises the question why did we get into such a pickle & what's the solution ?

The solution to it is wargaming of precisely such scenarios which a handful of ex service personnel & strategists were repeatedly calling for , which wasn't conducted then & now till date if I'm not mistaken. With the result , we'd be up to similar activities which is running around like headless chickens the next time such an incident occurs.

Our SOPs like everything else in our land is Work in Progress WiP.

 

[mist_consecutive]

 

[daya]

Jitni lambi chaudi baatein jarnail karte hain, us paimane ke according to failure hi tha..

 

[rkhanna]

Wasn't the previous day airstrike went just as according to the plan (sans one small miss) ?
After 27th Feb skirmish, the plan was there to strike back in the evening/night. GoI + Global powers decided it was enough play and we negotiated a peace-deal with Abhinandan's return & perhaps some other undisclosed things.
Ideally, we would have seen large-scale strikes and more skirmishes with PAF if GoI hasn't thrown down the towel. We could have judged who is superiour after a sustained 1-month long campaign.

My point is it should NEVER have come down to a stalemate to let "global powers" intervene. 27th was a over the border Ground Attack against a "not so secret" stat proxy. The next day was an opportunity to spank the Very State. (not to mention an opportunity to dent the inventory of the PAF)

Its not a zero-sum game. I get your underdog outperforming the bigger club example. PAF did fantastically good, IAF did average, more was expected out of them. In an overall war, individual battles might have wins & losses. But small singular battle don't decide the outcome of the war.

This wasnt a war. This was a poorly planned hit and run from ourside

See. Even advanced & prepared militaries will have bad days. Whatever could have gone wrong, went wrong during that day.

Bro - Mr Murphy in life is a given. the IAF brass with all their collective experience didnt seem to account for him at ALL.

Thats on us. no good day or bad day can hide that fact.

Very recently, the Israeli attack from Gaza was a prime example. Chaos, death & friendly fire. One could argue Israel was fully prepared since decades yet they saw such a disastrous outcome, and hence they are incompetent.

Thank you for bringing Israel up. The Entire Brass of the IDF and the Govt Security Apparatus needs to be sacked. Their performance was an ABJECT FAILURE. Overconfidence and Arrogance is a worse quality than lack of skill or competence.

I just refuse to categorize a military branch as incompetent or arrive at a binary conclusion from a one-off skirmish which lasted like ~5 mins.

Its not about ONE incident. Across the Military these pop up more often than not, we brush it under a rug and thump our chest

 

[mist_consecutive]

My point is it should NEVER have come down to a stalemate to let "global powers" intervene. 27th was a over the border Ground Attack against a "not so secret" stat proxy. The next day was an opportunity to spank the Very State. (not to mention an opportunity to dent the inventory of the PAF)




This wasnt a war. This was a poorly planned hit and run from ourside



Bro - Mr Murphy in life is a given. the IAF brass with all their collective experience didnt seem to account for him at ALL.

Thats on us. no good day or bad day can hide that fact.




Thank you for bringing Israel up. The Entire Brass of the IDF and the Govt Security Apparatus needs to be sacked. Their performance was an ABJECT FAILURE. Overconfidence and Arrogance is a worse quality than lack of skill or competence.




Its not about ONE incident. Across the Military these pop up more often than not, we brush it under a rug and thump our chest

Agree.

On a different note, its a pleasure interacting with you. After a long time interacting with someone on DFI giving intelligent replies and educated references without getting offended & ballistic

Cheers mate

 

[rkhanna]

The solution to it is wargaming of precisely such scenarios which a handful of ex service personnel & strategists were repeatedly calling for , which wasn't conducted then & now till date if I'm not mistaken. With the result , we'd be up to similar activities which is running around like headless chickens the next time such an incident occurs.

Let me tell you a story on a strategic wargame held by the IA. This was a few months before Kargil inflitration.

A Young Officer was the opfor, the time/season of the wargame was "Winter". The Young Officer scaled his troops over the side of the mountain (men and supplies) in winter and took the mountain peaks by stealth. the BlueForce essentially was caught by suprise. (these are strategic board games not physical real world field ex)

In the AAR the "Umpires" declared the Young Officer to be an Idiot and "cheated" as such a stunt in winter was foolhardy and nobody would do it. He was given demerit points and he lost the wargame.

Few months later Mushy did pretty much the same thing.


IMO there is a paradigm shift that needs to happen across the Indian Armed Forces. Since the 90s a rot has set in. We have a disentegrating pakistan (and astan) on one side. a Desperate China on top of us. More Belligerent and anti India Neighbours around us (Bangla/Lanka/Maldives). As our Economy grows our power (both soft and hard) projection across the IOR will increase. If we EVER want to be sucessful this deep tissue fix is crtical.

otherwise Chalta hai

 

[rkhanna]

Agree.

On a different note, its a pleasure interacting with you. After a long time interacting with someone on DFI giving intelligent replies and educated references without getting offended & ballistic

Cheers mate

Bro - in my 40s now. lol Too old and tired to get worked up on the internet. But when i was in my late teens and 20s the guys on BR and WAFF and ACIG spent countless hours educating me. Happy to repay the same. the Cycle goes on.

But Ditto with you as well. I will always defend your right to disagree with me

 

[DumbPilot]

View attachment 234999

Telegram admin who posted this message:

 

[pankaj nema]

 

[pankaj nema]

 

[ChandraSingh]

Abhinandan's idiocracy is a different story which couldn't have been factored into normal planning.

This is one aspect of Feb' 27th event that doesn't get the attention it deserves.

 

[pankaj nema]

 

[Covfefe]

For all the bleeding hearts here-

"hUm dUsHmAnI mEiN bHi sHaRaFaT rAKhTe hAiN" bandwagon