Decisive Strike Capability Upgrade For Air Force Still To Be Achieved

The game-changing Rafale fighter jets will only start arriving by May and other measures, including a plan to upgrade the air-to-air combat capability of the rest of the fleet are still in the works. Conversations on an additional 36 jets that will cost significantly less than the original order of € 7.6 billion have started but the order is nowhere close to being placed. “As per the current scenario, when we plan an engagement, the ideal situation is two Su-30MKIs against one F-16 for an assured kill," a senior official said

 

NEW DELHI: A year after the Balakot airstrikes and the ensuing air battle the next day on the Line of Control (LoC), a lot of plans have been implemented but a decisive strike capability upgrade for the Indian Air Force is still to be achieved.

The game-changing Rafale fighter jets will only start arriving by May and other measures, including a plan to upgrade the air-to-air combat capability of the rest of the fleet are still in the works.

 

The biggest lesson of the air skirmish, in which Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman’s aircraft was shot down across the border, was the lack of an edge over the US supplied AMRAAM beyond-visual range missiles that are in service with the Pakistan Air Force (PAF).

The engagement range of the AIM-120 AMRAAM, fired from F-16s with PAF, forced Indian fighters to take evasive manoeuvres on February 27 last year. The Indian Su-30MKI and Mirage-2000 fighters that had been scrambled to take on the enemy fighters could not get a firing solution on F-16s as both their radars and weapons were outranged by the American supplied missiles.

It was only Abhinandan who could fire away the close-range R-73 missile as he managed to sneak in close to the enemy fighter formation after taking off from Srinagar. This key capability is still missing, though the arrival of the Rafale jets armed with Meteor air-to-air missiles will change the equation.

“As per the current scenario, when we plan an engagement, the ideal situation is two Su-30MKIs against one F-16 for an assured kill. This is because of better radar and weapon on the F-16. When the Rafale comes in, one fighter jet would be adequate to go up against two F-16s,” a senior official who was involved in the Balakot operations told ET.

 

While the fleet of 36 Rafale jets would come with the Meteor, there has been no move yet to order more of the jets since the Balakot strike. Conversations on an additional 36 jets that will cost significantly less than the original order of € 7.6 billion have started but the order is nowhere close to being placed.

 

economictimes