Sir,
@Windjammer can you please clarify the allegation that
@MastanKhan levels regularly on the forum against the PAF that 'it was absent from the Kargil war'?
Two different topics. What Mr. Khan usually talks about is not that the PAF didn't want to get involved and was therefore "absent", as it is a part of the Pakistani military and does what its set up to do when the country requires.
But his posts are generally referring to the "lost decades" that did have a huge impact for a while, where India acquired sophisticated aircraft and weapons very rapidly, while the Pakistan AF was under US F-16 embargo. He also thinks (and I agree) that other steps could've been taken to bring the PAF back to the age at that time.
However, it was like 18 years ago, so no use in crying over the past.
Sir was there any DECLARATION OF WAR form either sides .... ??
India didn't declare a war on their side. She wasn't ready to mobilize their military for a war like response as it takes about 2-3 months to be in a war ready situation (thus people in IA really started to think about what the hell happened, and came up with the Cold Start a few years later).
So for this conflict, they also went with a "local conflict" scenario. They did try to involve the IAF a few times hoping it would escalate and may be they can take down some PAF jets to set an example, as the PAF didn't have the BVR weapons, etc, at that point. But the PAF played smarter and kept a defensive posture. Another problem was that the spares for the F-16's weren't available so they had to cut the flying time on the F-16's to preserve them for a war like scenario if that came about.
@Windjammer : do you know how long the spare inventory is kept now in the PAF? I knew that with the MLU and the acquisition of new -16's, at some point, the PAF wanted to advance purchase all critical spares for 5 years. Not sure if that was implemented or not.
I dont why the OP thought fit to regurgitate the same stuff again and again.... Perhaps getting his posts deleted and getting warnings from Moderators has affected him / her ;-)
Can we know where this fairytale was copy-pasted from? Don't pretend you wrote it
Anyway, this thread started by someone who hasn't any idea about serving in any armed force has just called a true hero of PAF, Air Cmde Kaiser Tufail a liar....... Again I recollect you calling him an unreliable and undependable source in the past. ...smh...
These are Tufail's words:
On this occasion, I gather the Indian MiG-27s did cross the LOC briefly and the local NLI commander who was having the crap bombed out of him called in desparately for support- the PAF, which had been frustrated at having to sit it out till now, saw an opportunity to bloody the IAF nose as they were reported to have crossed the LOC. Two Falcons on alert were vectored into the MiGs, but received the jolt of their lives when an IAF MiG-29 locked onto BOTH of them (to answer the ongoing debate I see on this aspect of the IAF Mig-29s capability). They tried to break lock- but the MiG persisted, and while I do agree they could have pressed home- there were some controlling factors:
1) strict orders not to cross the LOC
2) Hell, they thought they were about to get a salvo of R-27s up their noses...as an aside, one of the Falcon pilots was a greenhorn and was pretty shaken by this experience- got razzed to death for weeks afterwards.
What would have happened if the Falcons had pressed home- who knows???? The MiG had a definite BVR edge and in close combat with the R-73/HMS, all bets are off. Plus, if the Falcons did cross the LOC, they would have been fair game to any other MiG-29s lurking about as they would no longer be over friendly terriotory- sometimes discretion is the better part of valour, n'est c'est pas?
Warning for other readers : Watch out for a flurry of words like " Albeit / Psyche " and strange home-made idioms and insults coming our way!!!
It is a true event that the Mig-29 had locked onto both the F-16's. But it is also true (and a standard practice for previous models of the -16's) to drop down to a few hundred feet, slow down significantly and lose the lock of those radars built at that time (and the -16's had awesome jamming pods which would disrupt the Fulcrum's radar frequency for a couple of minutes at the least, enough time to get out of range). Also, this was over Himalaya's, so if you knew the radars back then, flying over so many mountains and valleys, and continue to keep a lock onto fighters descending down to 500 feet was, (and to some part still is) impossible due to the altitude and mountainous region involved.
Falcon's small size at a few hundred feet makes it very difficult to detect. Plus, the BVR missiles 17 years ago, were still in their first generation implementation, even 20 miles was not considered to be a good enough distance for a BVR to be 90% accurate. Lock on is one thing, it is also just avionics / radar based. Hitting a target so close to the ground, with much lower speed, or in such bad terrain, is much difficult as you may be confusing some ground clutter with a jet.
This issue was well shared and discussed in various exercises till a couple of years after that . In fact there were some air-combat training exercises that used German Mig-29's to repeat similar scenario to prepare NATO Viper pilots to deal with Fulcrum's BVR range. The Russian radar upgrades had started to show improvements and long range detection and lock-on capabilities (stuff actually working, not the junk like stuff that the Russians used to produce before).
