IAF vs PLAAF??which one is better

[ajaybhutani]

Just felt that "Air warfare " is getting very dull without any new threads/ articles. So maybe we can do some weird comparisions here.

IAF
40 SU30 with 10more by year end
66 Mig29 (they are upgrading these too)
44 M2000 left (5 lost since induction) +10 ordered as spares +18 ordered/plans(dont remember) hardwired for nuclear delivery.
130 Jaguars (upgraded recently)
130 MIG21 upgraded to mig21-93 level recentlly
130 mig 27 upgraded too.
some other mig 21 23 that are scheduled to be phased out soon.

Future plans
14 MKI per year till 2014
40 LCA by 2010
tenders floated recently for 126 light weight fighters(should be in indian AF by decade end)
Phalcon by 2005.
Working on MCA.
Wroking with Russia on PAK-Fa.
Working on Brahmos Air version
working on Astra Air to air missile.
Started work on indigeneous AWACS


PLAAf ( i dunno much but trying to sum u p what i know.)
around 140 su27,su30.
other planes like mig 21 mig19 etc. in large nos.(do they have any good 4th gen plane except sukhoi.


Working on FC1, J10, JXX
Working on AWACS.
Working on SD10


I'll talk about missiles in arsenal in the next post.

looking forward to some replys

[Garry]

I will not consider fleet numbers cause it will change later when Indians build more MKIs with their license. Now chinese have a number advantage. However in terms of the aircrafts su-30mki is more powerfull than su-30mkk....

there are two companies producing and designing Sukhoi fighters - Sukhoi Corporation (state) and Irkut Corporation (private). The most advanced MKI & MKM versions were produced and designed by private Irkut Corp from two seat Su-27 UBK, while Sukhoi Corp is producing less advanced Su-30MKK - a single seat and stripped version of Su-30 flanker...

after few confusions these two decided that Irkut will be selling only on the markets where there is an open competition with foreign suppliers - US and European, while Sukhoi Corp will be selling only to those markets where US and Europeans can not show up.

China is the market to which both US and Europeans are restricted. Another reason is that China had small scale open conflicts with USSR in 70-ies.... Hence only stripped version of flanker would be sold to China - Su-30MKK (K stands for Kitai - China) has less powerfull radar, less upgraded frame and less capable engines.

[ajaybhutani]

if we look at the fleet numbers of 4th generation fighters then both are nearly comparable china has 140 su27 while india has a mix of M2K mig29 and MKI,MK's with teh total reaching 140-160.

Though the chineese do have advantage in the number of fighters but how many of theem are advanced. ARe there some other bvr capable fighters in chineese AF..
Frankly though india is gonna produce mki's at 14 per year the chineese will be producing /getting much more of Su27-su30.

Another imp point is that all indian mki's mk's mig29's and m2k's are with helmet mounted sights. Can anyone confirm if su27 basic version that china has is helmet mounted sights.

Though called a su30 MKi is muchmore of a mixture of su37 and su35 with western avionics.It has 3D TVC canards and much more to be called just a su30 though the russians & indians prefered to call it su30 maybe because it would be easier to get it passed for export to india if called su30Mk than if su37 etc. . Its range is 8000km with single in flight refuelling.Clearly much greater than MKM's.Though chineese will get mkk3 which will be comparable to mki's todays version but with russian avionics.

I dont think any of the todays fighters can match mki bec of its 3DTVC.

]india do has advantage in teh form of technology /weapons from US. Europe israel etc. and thats what makes it more formidable Af than PLAAF (though its just my opinion rite now and is yet to proved or invalidated in this thread. ).


india recently (2 days back ) achieved fully operational mid air refuelling capability ..
CAnnanyone help me confirm if chineese have the same.??

I dont have any information about teh AWAC Plans for PLAAF. info on this can in a better comparison.

[Officer of Engineers]

The Chinese do have BVR. It's called their SAM network. However, unlike the Indians, the Chinese have a sort of "Joint Force" doctrine. The primary role of the AF is air denial, not air supremacy. Their job is to keep the enemy birds off their bellycrawlers while the ground action is being decided. This includes up to and including being targets themselves. While Indian birds are busy shooting Chinese birds out of the sky, they ain't going to bother Chinese bellycrawlers any.

Even if the InAF does manage to chase the PLAAF from the skies, they still have the ground based AD to contend with. And that's where the InAF falls short. They don't have enough bombs to matter and certainly, not enough to shape the battlefield. What the InAF might be able to achieve would be a very limited, surgical tipping of the scales (ie the straw that broke the Chinese camel's back) but it certainly won't be anything that would scare the Chinese from the battlefield.

A qualifier - as a bellycrawler, I have a very low opinion of birdbrain egos.

[Garry]

[QUOTE=Another imp point is that all indian mki's mk's mig29's and m2k's are with helmet mounted sights. Can anyone confirm if su27 basic version that china has is helmet mounted sights.[/QUOTE]

yes they do.

[ajaybhutani]

The Chinese do have BVR. It's called their SAM network.

i know chineeses have BVR in their su30's what i wanted to know is wether some other fighter they have is BVR Capable.

However, unlike the Indians, the Chinese have a sort of "Joint Force" doctrine. The primary role of the AF is air denial, not air supremacy. Their job is to keep the enemy birds off their bellycrawlers while the ground action is being decided. This includes up to and including being targets themselves. While Indian birds are busy shooting Chinese birds out of the sky, they ain't going to bother Chinese bellycrawlers any.

Well wether they bother about Chineese Bellycrawlers depends upon the amount of cooperation level in the IAF and indian army.
1. Frankly they did a very good cooperation in the Kargil. Unless u think that indians are too foolish to have a cooperation between AF and Army .Theres no post like cheif of Defence in India but theres only one Defence Minister and only one head of defence forces i.e. The President.
2. IAF has a role of Air supremacy over counterparts as well as deial of air control in its own airspace.Theres no air force that can do without air denial role .Can u name any??

"Clearly primary role of the Chineese AF is air denial and not air Supremacy?"
Well the first role of any AF is air denial .Its when they can do air denial very well that they go for air supremacy. Chineese lived with constant border problem with Russia which was extremely strong at that time and thus the PLAAF could offer at best Air Denial .Chineese didnt have the technology for sir supremacy against the russians.

Even if the InAF does manage to chase the PLAAF from the skies, they still have the ground based AD to contend with. And that's where the InAF falls short.

Indians too have S300 with green pine radars in case u didnt know .best the Chineese have S300 with i dunno which radar but if its russian it was rejected by indians for Green pine. If u think that INAF falls short in this please give me a proof of ur claim.

They don't have enough bombs to matter and certainly, not enough to shape the battlefield. What the InAF might be able to achieve would be a very limited, surgical tipping of the scales (ie the straw that broke the Chinese camel's back) but it certainly won't be anything that would scare the Chinese from the battlefield.

Can u justify this statement of urs ..??ui think indians dont have nough bombs from where did u read it and if they dont have nough bombs dont u think they have nough sources to procure them and even nough money to do the procurement.

"scare away the chineese".Chineese are not scarecrows u can take my word for it..They will fight back even in case USAF attacks.

Frankly India would be stupid and so would be China in case their planners plan to capture or do a formidable damage to the other country as their main strategy agaisnt each other.of the scale of india/china LOL..Both are nuclear powers and any damage otehr than small bearable strikes would lead to a nuclear conflict. So clearly they need to plan for air denial and for small scale limited deep strikes in enemy territory so that it dsnt invite any enemy full strength rebellion.

A qualifier - as a bellycrawler, I have a very low opinion of birdbrain egos.

Sory my english is not very good. CAn u please care to explain what u meant by this phrase of urs..

[Jay]

1. Frankly they did a very good cooperation in the Kargil. Unless u think that indians are too foolish to have a cooperation between AF and Army .Theres no post like cheif of Defence in India but theres only one Defence Minister and only one head of defence forces i.e. The President.

India does have an Integrated triforces commander. It was a part of Org reshuffle they did after the nuke test.

2. IAF has a role of Air supremacy over counterparts as well as deial of air control in its own airspace.Theres no air force that can do without air denial role .Can u name any??

I dont understand your question. But if I understand it right you need to know an airforce that can do Air Supremacy wih out denial of airspace??
I believe a flotilla of USCVBG can do that for ya.

Well the first role of any AF is air denial .Its when they can do air denial very well that they go for air supremacy. Chineese lived with constant border problem with Russia which was extremely strong at that time and thus the PLAAF could offer at best Air Denial .Chineese didnt have the technology for sir supremacy against the russians.

Tactics, I believe he Colnel can educate you on that.

Indians too have S300 with green pine radars in case u didnt know .best the Chineese have S300 with i dunno which radar but if its russian it was rejected by indians for Green pine. If u think that INAF falls short in this please give me a proof of ur claim.

Overall, we have 27 systems. Chinese have their own SAM system, FT-2000, which is a rip-off of S-300, HQ-10 and HQ-15.

Can u justify this statement of urs ..??ui think indians dont have nough bombs from where did u read it and if they dont have nough bombs dont u think they have nough sources to procure them and even nough money to do the procurement.

We import bombs, including those BVR's from Russia. Its an added overhead during war time and based on PLAAF's Quanitity.

Sory my english is not very good. CAn u please care to explain what u meant by this phrase of urs..

OoE is a Lt.Colonel from Canada Land Forces. And for him air power is not a match winner.

*Edited

[Officer of Engineers]

i know chineeses have BVR in their su30's what i wanted to know is wether some other fighter they have is BVR Capable.

They have the capability. Whether they deployed or not is another question.

Well wether they bother about Chineese Bellycrawlers depends upon the amount of cooperation level in the IAF and indian army.

The lack of a formal doctrine would make this kind of integration a bit harder, especially if they don't speak the same language (ie Air Force talk versus Army talk).

1. Frankly they did a very good cooperation in the Kargil. Unless u think that indians are too foolish to have a cooperation between AF and Army .Theres no post like cheif of Defence in India but theres only one Defence Minister and only one head of defence forces i.e. The President.

There's an Indian Army Brigadier on this board who gave me the opposite impression.

2. IAF has a role of Air supremacy over counterparts as well as deial of air control in its own airspace.Theres no air force that can do without air denial role .Can u name any??

Air denial is part of air supremacy but air supremacy is not just air denial. It's the ability to rain steel from the sky.

Well the first role of any AF is air denial .Its when they can do air denial very well that they go for air supremacy. Chineese lived with constant border problem with Russia which was extremely strong at that time and thus the PLAAF could offer at best Air Denial .Chineese didnt have the technology for sir supremacy against the russians.

I'm assuming you mean the USSR. The Chinese Air Defence Net at the time was point fighter interception, 100s of SAMs, 1000s of AAA, and bunkers dug deep into the ground. If you look at the underground shopping centres in Beijing today, they were once underground bunkers and communication net.

However, even today, the Chinese lacked the experience for Air Supremacy. They prefer to chuck artillery shells over the horizon than crapping bombs from the sky.

Then, there is also the problem of blue-on-blue (or red-on-red) scenarios. PLAAF birds don't practise enough with bellycrawlers to avoid friendly-fire situations, especially in danger-close situations.

Indians too have S300 with green pine radars in case u didnt know .best the Chineese have S300 with i dunno which radar but if its russian it was rejected by indians for Green pine. If u think that INAF falls short in this please give me a proof of ur claim.

Think you're missing the point. The Chinese doesn't want Indian birds crapping on their bellycrawlers. What you do to their birds, they couldn't care less.

Can u justify this statement of urs ..??ui think indians dont have nough bombs from where did u read it and if they dont have nough bombs dont u think they have nough sources to procure them and even nough money to do the procurement.

We did 2000 sorties a day in the Kuwait War, 400 sorties a day in the Kosovo War, 1200 sorties a day in the Iraq War, and the enemy remained viable and capable.

"scare away the chineese".Chineese are not scarecrows u can take my word for it..They will fight back even in case USAF attacks.

I was not discussing the willingness to fight but the lack of doctrine and experience. The Chinese do have an answer to air attacks - mainly mostly passive - ie concealment, earthworks, disburstment, and burial. However, passive defences do not allow active enagements.

Frankly India would be stupid and so would be China in case their planners plan to capture or do a formidable damage to the other country as their main strategy agaisnt each other.of the scale of india/china LOL..Both are nuclear powers and any damage otehr than small bearable strikes would lead to a nuclear conflict. So clearly they need to plan for air denial and for small scale limited deep strikes in enemy territory so that it dsnt invite any enemy full strength rebellion.

China is pre-occupy with Taiwan. Whatever conflict that would currently arrise between the two countries would be a much bloodier affair than both sides would anticipate - simply because the Chinese would be in a panic mode to respond and throw everything including the kitchen sink into the fight. The Chinese, undeservingly arrogantly, have not mapped out as many scenarios with India as they did with Taiwan. I don't think it would go nuke but the battlefield would leave little mercy (either asked or given) by either side.

Sory my english is not very good. CAn u please care to explain what u meant by this phrase of urs..

"No airplane in history has ever taken or held ground"

[ajaybhutani]

I dont understand your question. But if I understand it right you need to know an airforce that can do Air Supremacy wih out denial of airspace??
I believe a flotilla of USCVBG can do that for ya.

1. i did ask taht though in a more refined manned i would like to ask that can a primary and only AF in a country go for sir superiority without Air denial.BTW whats USCVBG.. can u please elaborate on taht?


[QUTOE=]Tactics, I believe he Colnel can educate you on that.[/QUOTE]
Just wanna say taht how can a country think about saving its air space obviously if u do ahve a good Air defene SAM network u can do that by again my point is that we havent proved that indian SAM network is inferior to Chineese network.Maybe some elaboration can help.

Overall, we have 6-7 systems. Chinese have their own SAM system, FT-2000, which is a rip-off of S-300.

and how many do Chineese have and indians have on corresponding borders?
and is FT2000 system with radar better than green pine with S300.

We import bombs, including those BVR's from Russia. Its an added overhead during war time and based on PLAAF's Quanitity.

u r rite in thsi but again i'll prefer the analysis of (to some extent) Indian arsenal /stocks and maybe some scenario to understand the scenario.I think OoE can help us in that since he must have already done/read some study before giving his view .Again i think we need to compare this with a scenario where PLAAF attacks india and tehn compare who did well Chineese AF in attacking india or INAF in attacking Chineese and again PLAAF in defending or IAF in defending. WE surely can say that one is bette rin one regard while the second in other or one in both.Innfact taht can give a better comparison taht jsut saying which on is better.




OoE is a Lt.Colonel from Canada Land Forces. And for him air power is not a match winner.[/QUOTE]
Well when did he say that ?? i'll prefer if he says thsi himself rather than via u.
do u mean that AF cant make a difference.? If its the case then we dont need any AF's why is Us investing so much in its AF ??

[Officer of Engineers]

u r rite in thsi but again i'll prefer the analysis of (to some extent) Indian arsenal /stocks and maybe some scenario to understand the scenario.I think OoE can help us in that since he must have already done/read some study before giving his view .Again i think we need to compare this with a scenario where PLAAF attacks india and tehn compare who did well Chineese AF in attacking india or INAF in attacking Chineese and again PLAAF in defending or IAF in defending. WE surely can say that one is bette rin one regard while the second in other or one in both.Innfact taht can give a better comparison taht jsut saying which on is better.

I'm not sure I can answer you in that regard.

1) I don't like asking who is better at what. I like to ask how they would approach battle. What do they want to do and how do they want to do it? What do they need? What are the advantages? What are the disadvantages? Why did they think this way?

2) There seemed to be a major disconnect between the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force. The newly proposed Cold Start doctrine does not seemed to include the Air Force.

3) The Chinese are pre-occupied with Taiwan (read my above post) and the difficulties 100 miles of water presents. This does not translate into the Sino-Indian border since everything upfront would be danger-close.

And there are other experts in other forums who can tell you more about the InAF and the InA than I. My expertise lies in the fact that I've studied the Chinese.

... And oh, yes, I don't think air power is a match winner.

[Garry]

What I understood about Chinese is that a decade is nothing for them. "we first need to raise our power to defend outselves from any superpower, before we start putting much emphasis on atacking. we will need more than a decade to reach this"

"Taiwan could be copped even with our current forces but US battlegroups are a threat"

"Russia is too weak and it needs us today more than we need them"

However I never heard any talks about war with Indians. They simply don't look much in your direction......

[Jay]

1. i did ask taht though in a more refined manned i would like to ask that can a primary and only AF in a country go for sir superiority without Air denial.BTW whats USCVBG.. can u please elaborate on taht?

I bet you didnt read Colonel's post,

Air denial is part of air supremacy but air supremacy is not just air denial. It's the ability to rain steel from the sky.

USCVBG = USN Carrier ask Force.

Just wanna say taht how can a country think about saving its air space obviously if u do ahve a good Air defene SAM network u can do that by again my point is that we havent proved that indian SAM network is inferior to Chineese network.Maybe some elaboration can help.

You completely misunderstood my point. Chinese tactics never wanted them to acheive air supremacy, if I may say.

and how many do Chineese have and indians have on corresponding borders? and is FT2000 system with radar better than green pine with S300.

Do you think that China is going to release the map of their SAM network?? AFAIK India purchased that many systems, coz that can be tracked from CAG report. I dont know how many FT-2000 they manufacture. the specs are avaliable on the net.

Well when did he say that ?? i'll prefer if he says thsi himself rather than via u. do u mean that AF cant make a difference.? If its the case then we dont need any AF's why is Us investing so much in its AF ??

He already did say that.

"No airplane in history has ever taken or held ground"

[ajaybhutani]

I bet you didnt read Colonel's post,

yes i didnt .I was writing one when he replied. LOL..

USCVBG = USN Carrier ask Force.

thanks . but again that is not the primary AF of US.And as OoE has said Air Supremacy includes air denial... LOL

You completely misunderstood my point. Chinese tactics never wanted them to acheive air supremacy, if I may say.

So do u mean taht we cant compare PLAAF and IAF?? maybe we need to look at scenarios to understand it better.

Do you think that China is going to release the map of their SAM network?? AFAIK India purchased that many systems, coz that can be tracked from CAG report. I dont know how many FT-2000 they manufacture. the specs are avaliable on the net.

Neither is India gonna release it.And again maybe we can talk about scenarios and discuss them up.

He already did say that.

I can see that .LOL..

[ajaybhutani]

... And oh, yes, I don't think air power is a match winner.

Well obviously An AF itself is not a match winner we need Army for that.
But again did u mean that AF dsnt matter or we donot need to discuss it. Because thats the way it sounded when Jay used it ..LOL..

[Jay]

thanks . but again that is not the primary AF of US.And as OoE has said Air Supremacy includes air denial... LOL

Yes and the point is??

So do u mean taht we cant compare PLAAF and IAF?? maybe we need to look at scenarios to understand it better.

Yes, you cannot really compare one to one with PLAAF.

Neither is India gonna release it.And again maybe we can talk about scenarios and discuss them up.

If you read my post properly, I said India has already released it. It has to, for CAG report. But if you are manufacturing it in-house you dont need to, so China will not release the info.

I can see that .LOL..

Then who posted this?

Well obviously An AF itself is not a match winner we need Army for that.
But again did u mean that AF dsnt matter or we donot need to discuss it. Because thats the way it sounded when Jay used it ..LOL..