Your and other peoples opinions on this topic do make me rethink if downsizing is the best way to achieve modernization in the PA, it however only further reinforces my belief that the current rate of replacement and modernization in PA is too slow and something needs to be done to increase it’s speed, if that’s not downsizing, then it has to be something else.
The army wanted* an APC. When exactly was Talha inducted? It is so hopelessly outdated that we might as well send the soldiers in on foot. A single small caliber explosive weapon, IED or heavy machine gun (it cannot withstand 12.7MM in most cases) can take it out. And we haven’t been able to replace a single one because the program would be far too costly to do on any sort of large scale. If the army gets IFVs in a small number, that’s still the same because 90% of the force will be going into war akin to how we started the war on terror, with troops riding into battle on hiluxs. The army has trialed several IFVs and APCs and hasn’t been able to pick any, we’re very very late to start replacing them, they should have been the highest priority if they were going to be delivering every single infantryman. I know the doctrine is to use them as battle taxis and deploy them behind the armor, but this doesn’t mean they won’t come under fire.
The Type 59s and type 69s are still in service, over 600 of them, at the current stage we should have been retiring the Al-Zarrars and type 85s. All of these are very poorly armored and india has good ATGMs and AT weapons, a single penetration and the entire crew is likely lost due to ammo cook off. These tanks have no provision to protect against ammo cook off. I am aware the war on terror slowed down the replacement of these tanks, but at the current rate it’s going to take over a decade to retire these, I’m afraid we might eventually hit a point where existing regiments are awaiting new armored vehicles with their older ones being retired as they could not be serviced further, hence sitting idle. This is something we’ve already seen with the PAA and it’s gunships. Currently they’re just operating on the hope that a conflict doesn’t start before they get their new gunships, and they’ve been sitting with this hope ever since the T129 deal hit trouble. Our mechanized and armored regiments are in danger of being put in this situation.
I am unfortunately not versed well enough in ORBAT to discuss with you how downsizing could or could not work in the forces, but I will assume you’re presenting a totally fair point as you have been so far, but to my eyes our 2 offensive cores aren’t equipped well enough either. In my opinion the conditions of war between india and Pakistan have or is slowly changing from an all out conflict to smaller, concentrated skirmishes where technology will matter more than numbers. I’m not saying downsizing is our only option to improve our technology, if there is another option that we can use, I’m all up for taking that, but as it stands I don’t see another, and the rate at which we are replacing things is definitely not fast enough, more things will start to need replacement before we can get rid of the current ones, our Al-Zarrars will be as dangerously outdated as our Type 59s and Type 69s before we can get to replacing them, our M113s are already at that stage with no replacement in sight. And PA is still using either G3s or Older model AKs which don’t allow you to equip sights in the proper place because they won’t hold zero (over the dust cover).
PA doesn’t have 48 gunships, many of the cobras have been retired and we’re well aware of their age. Now the T-129B deal was obviously not the army’s fault entirely, but we’re yet to see a replacement, something the army has been working on, but that’s an advantage we lost and will likely not regain over india due to how slow things are going, and again I feel money is playing a role here because the army has to prioritize what it spends on first, but for a few years, we’ve been basically operating without proper gunships, and will be for a few more years, If a conflict had started any time in between this, we’d have a handful of obsolete gunships covering our entire armored advance. UCAVs are a recent welcome addition however, PA/PAF has gained advantage over IAF in this field.
On an unrelated note, most of the heavier UCAVs seem to be going to the PAF, how will they use these to cover the PA properly, is there enough inter-service coordination to pull this off?
IMO PA cannot sell a lot of its older weapons to other countries, most of the stuff that needs replacing is so old that nobody will buy it or it is better off being placed in reserve. In the Russia-Ukraine conflict even WW2 weaponry is being pulled out of reserve to equip troops because they don’t hs be enough modern rifles and weapons.
The rest I agree with, my point therefore is no longer that we absolutely have to downsize, but that we need to increase the rate at which the forces are modernizing, the weaponry Pakistani does buy is generally comparable or even better than whatever india gets due to the smarter purchasing practices of the PA, however our economic situation dictates that we cannot get as many as them as fast enough as our adversary, one of the solutions I see to this is downsizing, maybe Gen Bajwa agrees and hence made the comment, but if that’s not a realistic option, another one must be found, of course improving the economy is an obvious one, but with the current state of things I don’t know if that one’s realistic either.
or open some fancy franchise?
