Shortcomings must be addressed mate. Otherwise we are no better than Pakistanis chest thumping and claiming victory right now.
Anyway, my question is what is India's answer to Pak possibly getting the J35 in say 5yrs time? No doubt they will expedite their plans to acquire these jets in order to come back in a few years with a face saving. China has vested interest beyond geopolitical maneuvering now as their ISR assets were hit during Op Sindoor.
@randomradio @Rajput Lion @Jaymax @Ashwin @Parthu
They plan to induct J-35 in about 2 years, not 5 years. In 5 years, they would have become largely proficient in operating it.
The J-35 will bring an ability to comfortably penetrate Indian airspace - as long as they manage to exploit any gaps in our AD. However if they try to penetrate when our IADS is still functioning, I'm pretty confident that our network is capable of bringing it down (long-wavelength radars to detect & pass info on to multiple FCRs).
As things stand however, the J-10C+PL15 combo is not far behind the Rafale+Meteor combo in terms of BVR capabilities. While Meteor still holds a significant kinematic advantage (ramjet vs dual-pulse rocket), once you factor in our restrictive ROEs the PAF actually holds certain advantages that come with initiative. But in purely aerial engagements, the J-35 will tilt the look-first/shoot-first advantage
completely in PAF's favour. So yes, IAF will face a severe disadvantage once that bird becomes operational. And as things stand, they will continue to hold that decisive advantage in this department for a good 10-15 years (till whenever AMCA becomes operational).
I've said it before, and I still stand by it:
www.strategicfront.org
This is a significant capability gap that we must seek to plug via a G2G deal, but in the meantime there are technical & political objectives we must meet. Like the induction of significantly more AEW & COMJOM assets, and the political decision to target & disable Pak military assets through SEAD/DEAD & taking out tactical airpower while it's still on the ground through missile attacks BEFORE going for the terrorist camps.
We already have the precedent of PAF coming to the aid of & retaliating on behalf of terror targets (tbh, we'd have that precedent since 2019) so it would be prudent to address PAF first before going after terrorists in future. Following the ceasefire, we've made several statements to the tune of "we will not treat Pak military as being different to terrorist assets".
Hope we live by that the next time there's a terrorist attack of the scale that requires military retaliation*, otherwise the GOI through restrictive ROEs is simply setting the IAF up to fail.
* If my hunch is right, that's not far away. Pak (on the instructions of China) wants to drag us into a long, protracted conventional war (if you ask me, that is why we made the call to target their nuclear infrastructure to bring about the ceasefire early). They have an endless supply of radicalized recruits willing & happy to die, so they're the perfect cannon fodder for the PRC to keep us occupied on the Western front.
