On a doctrinal level, airforce is inherently an offensive arm and its main job is to win the air battle first and also to fight out with Army an Air Land Battle, ideally at the same time but must later on. That is where SOWs and ALCMs get involved and will never be talked about much. Being smaller it also needs all its air assets to be able to fight an air superiority battle and than be in position to quickly change mode to Air Land Battle with Army. Our fleet-wise we are not there yet but are getting there faster. Munition-wise what I think is important is to first have either kits to convert most of dumb munitions into smarter ones which than can be easily used for CAS operations as well. For SOWs, first the offensive target set needs to be catered, that is strategically far more important. Once you have air-superioty it does not matter whether you are using a maverick above 10,000 feet or a dumb bomb laced with a laser kit with an infantry soldier pointing a laser at something or using a pod doing it yourself.
The issue with today I believe lies less in the equipment and more towards creating a better synergy with the army to make them understand the limitations of the airforce. I had a massive laugh at a colonel of a mechanised regiment who claimed that our F-16s would take care of any problems the IAF put up. He was oblivious to the ability of the IAF to deploy CBU-105s and decimate an entire column using just 4 aircraft and his understanding of even the basics of air warfare were delusional at best; hopefully he did not get promoted.
This is why our SOMs also need to incorporate smart weapons. The Pakistani military needs to look beyond just tac nukes as the failsafe and look for more proactive strategies such as this.
http://warontherocks.com/2014/11/th...ker-and-the-beginning-of-the-rsta-revolution/
Replace the following with India:
Soviet forces had integrated large numbers of anti-tank systems into its armored forces. Where increased effectiveness of Soviet ground forces suggested that a surprise attack might cripple NATO’s ability to use ground-launched tactical nuclear weapons, Soviet advances in air defenses suggested that NATO’s air-delivered tactical nuclear weapons might not be effective either.
and see how many of the following points reflect on Pakistan?
Among the gaps addressed in FOFA programs were:
- Lack of suitable ground-launched missiles
- Inability to operate aircraft at night and in bad weather
- Inability to acquire and target moving vehicles at night and through clouds
- Inability to dynamically identify and target armored vehicles moving in and out of urban or other areas (reacquiring lost target tracks)
- Lack of effective integration of corps, division, and battalion capabilities to support maneuver forces across division control lines
- Defeating enemy air defenses, including shoulder-fired missiles
- Ever-increasing demands to increase the depth of sensors, targeting, and deep strike systems
- Requirements for unmanned aerial vehicles
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