would you care to elaborate?????? IAF would be stupid to go for another "great" ground attack and "good" fighter as the new fighter will not only bring additional maintainence and infrastructure costs and will increase the number of fighters in use,leading to techinical burden.....Mirag 2000 and Mig-29 are still "great" fighters as you said....why not to upgrade them like MKI?????.....the forces over the globe are converting into "specific and selective fighter" forces, look at USAF (only F-22 and F-35 for the future) Russia (SU-35-Pak-fa or at max paired with Mig-35) Germany (EF) France (Rafale and Mirages) even PAF (JF-17-FC-20-F-16) .Well boy your current post negate your previous posts.....and this time I mean qulity and logical reply.....I would like to reply only to a qulity post.....better learn something from "sancho" ( as He is the most respected and logical, atleast in my view, indian poster around here)
Thanks for the compliment, but he is not completely wrong!
The MKI offers a lot range, high payload, many weapon stations and many heavy and guided weapons (KAB 500/1500, Kh 59, Kh 35, Kh 31 and soon Brahmos too) in the ground attack role and the number of unguided bombs it can carry might be unmatched by any MMRCA (28-32 bombs between 100 and 250Kg!!!).
So for heavy bombard after achieving air superiority, or heavy attacks from distance it will be very useful, but when it comes to special strikes, or SEAD, fighters like Rafale, or F18SH will be clearly superior. They will have a way lower RCS and can enter enemy airspace undetected, their EWS are maybe the best at the moment, especially for such roles and unlike the MKI, they also offer good and more accurate guided A2G weapons in the lower range (125-250Kg Paveway, JDAM, AASM bombs).
The intention of IAF might have been to have only FGFA, MCA and LCA for the future, but delays caused the MMRCA in between and if you have to buy new fighters anyway, they should be capable and offer advantages that the present fighters don't offer right?
Around 100 Mig 27 will be phased out, Mig 29 and Jags have only limited multi role capabilities and M2k is capable, but only available in a relative small number. Also these fighters will only stay in service till around 2025 and should be replaced by FGFA and MCA. That means, if IAF don't want to rely on a few M2ks and old Jags in this special roles for over a decade, MMRCA should be more capable.