BHarwana
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Disclamer: This thread provides accounts of events from both sides and then a small bias analysis of the events. Mostly it could be considered opinion.
It is 2019 and world has seen much air to ground bombing so people forget the attempted ground attack of 26th Feb and moved on to rare air to air war of 2019. This is for some interested minds to debate and discuss the events to analyze your enemy.
Indian side of story.
Date/Time of incident.
26th February 2019 at 3:30 am Pakistan time.
Weapons and delivery systems used.
Upgraded Mirage-2000H of IAF (Manufacture: France)
Number of Air crafts used: 12.
4 Mirages equipped with Ground attack Payload
8 Mirages equipped with Air to Air Payload
Package of IAF Mirage-2000H:
Upgraded of the avionics suite ( glass cockpit, inertial navigation system, open system architecture computer etc.) and the new Thales AESA radar and electronic warfare suite ( radar warning receiver, self- protection jammer etc), and arming the aircraft with MBDA MICA air-to-air missiles that have beyond visual range.
Spice 2000 (Manufacturer: Israel)
Guidance:
EO-Guidance
Satellite Guidance GPS
Man-In-The-Loop Guidance
charge-coupled device (CCD)
Infrared homing
Inertial navigation system (INS)
Warhead:
Mk. 84 (907 kg)
Range:
100 km.
Popeye (missile)
Guidance:
Inertial navigation system (INS)
IIR Guidance
Tv Guidance
Engine:
Single-stage solid rocket
Range:
78km
Warhead:
340 kg (750 lb) blast fragmentation or 360 kg (800 lb) I-800 penetrating
Point of Air space violation by IAF:
Kiran Valley near Muzaffarabad
Point of Payload Ground contact:
Jabba near Balakot
Flight distance of Guided Munition:
60 km
Damage done by Air strikes verified by official and independent sources:
Pine Trees: 15 to 19
Wild life: Crow Qty 1
Humans: Nil
Structures: Nil
Damage reports source:
Associated Press visited the area on 26 February and saw craters and damaged trees. The villagers they met reported no casualties. A team from Al Jazeera visited the site two days after the strikes and noted "splintered pine trees and rocks" which were strewn across the four blast craters. The local hospital officials and residents asserted that they did not come across any casualty or wounded people.
Satellite data assessments:
Satellite-data analysis by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Nathan Ruser concluded that there is "no apparent evidence of more extensive damage and on the face of it does not validate Indian claims regarding the effect of the strikes. Michael Sheldon, a digital forensics analyst from Atlantic Council did another independent investigation on the issue which asserted that no damage was inflicted to any infrastructure around the target-site. It concluded that "something appeared to have gone wrong in the targeting process" and that the botch-up was mysterious in light of the autonomous nature of the supposedly used missiles. A Reuters investigation based on high-resolution satellite imagery by Planet Labs noted an unchanged landscape when compared to an April 2018 satellite photo. It noted that "there were no discernible holes in the roofs of buildings, no signs of scorching, blown-out walls, displaced trees around the madrasa or other signs of an aerial attack".
Image Proof:
____________________________________________________________
Analysis of Attack
Indian Jets violated the Pakistani Air space? Yes they did of few kilometers possibly something between 3 to 7 kilometers.
India released the payload? Yes they did.
Pakistani Air Force intercepted them? Yes they did and India retreated.
Till this point the story is verified by both sides but moving beyond this the reports of the story are conflicting as India claimed it carried out precision strikes and killed as much as 300 terrorist. Where as Pakistani side claimed they was only damage to trees and a bird Crow lost its life. Now lets conduct an analysis of the situation keeping in account the weapons capabilities.
For conducting a precision strikes with weapons such as Spice 2000 and Popeye missiles India required a ton of intelligence which included GPS coordinates from ground assets to satellite surveillance of the area both prior to mission and in real time. Plus India also requires UAV flight path footage of point of incursion to targeted site. Plus India also needs weather information of area of flight path as the combat terrain is very high altitude with thin air and Humidity level information along with air pressure and wind speed is also required in current time because India was using Glide bomb Spice 2000 along Popeye.
So how were the strikes planed on Balakot?
In this specific mission India used Spice 2000 as primary payload and Popeye as secondary payload for 100% kill confirmation of the target. The weapons release with keeping target terrain in view, Distance of target in view and battle environment (Highly defended and monitored) in view has to be very high altitude.
Now coming to the point what went wrong?
Looking at the place of impact and assessing the damage and reading the after incident statement it could be easily understood what went wrong with IAF mission and why it failed to achieve it goal of 300 terrorist kills.
Starting with weapons system. Both weapons systems (Spice 2000 and Popeye) are based on multiple guidance combination for mission achievement. So what info India could have fed the weapons package to achieve this mission.
A. Spice 2000 is heavily dependent on EO-Guidance (electro Optical Giudance) coupled with Man-in-the-loop Guidance and Popeye TV Guidance This required that India has to dominate Air space from the point of release to the point of Impact on target. PAF is a strong Air Force and India dominating the Air Space with only 8 Mirage2000H for this time period is out of question and interception of PAF forced India to retreat and let go of 3 Guidance sensors on 2 weapons packages. It means India lost the data link for EO-Guidance, Man-in-the-loop Guidance for Spice and TV Guidance for Popeye.
B. Infrared Homing for Spice 2000 and IIR Guidance for Popeye. Looking at the area being targeted the IIR Guidance and Infrared homing is only activated at last part of the flight when the targeted building is well within sensor range which could be between 5000 to 3000 meters depending on the sensors of the system and has to manually updated from the Aircraft which released the payload staying in range of the weapons system. But successful interception of PAF as told by DG ISPR proves that India had to ditch this sensor as well because the final stage of activation required India to again stay in the area and be a dominate air force for successful bombing strike. Plus the high altitude mountain terrain of the area is a big problem for a successful data-link between the weapon and launch aircraft in the final stages of sensor swap and target accusation.
C. Did India had ground assets for GPS and laser distance intelligence collection? The place which India chose for targeting is a very remote area with small village and very closed community and anyone from outside coming into the area for surveillance is very difficult so India required some surveillance asset from with in the village community and requiting such asset and the providing such asset with surveillance tools for info gathering is not possible due to the location of the target and amount of counter Pakistani intelligence in the area.
D. GPS guidance through satellite intelligence this is the only and last option India is left with in these weapons system for targeting the installment it wishes to destroy. First to achieve this goal India requires heavy satellite image monitoring of the area for pinpointing the target. India don't has the capability of ground monitoring surveillance on its on to acquire target coordinates so India would have relied on foreign intelligence for this purpose which could have come from Israel USA or France but thick vegetation and cloudy weather in the area restricts satellites from such surveillance activities and relying only on GPS coordinates turn a smart bomb like Spice 2000 into a dumb bomb. Plus there are high chances of GPS blocking via Pakistani electronic warfare.
Conclusion.
The quick reaction time by PAF forced India to let go of the main guidance sensors for this mission and IAF was forced to bailout because of PAF timely interception. Misinformation of target coordinates, lack of real-time weather information and lack of data update to INS guidance system resulted in the failure of mission. Thus India was only able to destroy trees and kill a crow in this whole mission. Further more the unsuccessful mission can also be blamed at equipment as the system had never been operational in such high altitude threat environment. It can also be blamed at the training of the IAF pilots as such precision strikes require intensive before-mission training and live practice. The major credit of IAF mission failure goes to PAF short response time and quick interception which made India forgo it main sensors of weapons package.
Major intelligence failure of India was that the place it intended to target was not a terrorist camp but a Quran learning institution for local kids. So it shows India had a major intelligence failure from the very start.
After incident Indian political statements:
Modi says ‘outcome’ would have been different if India had Rafale jets
https://arynews.tv/en/narendra-modi-rafale-jets/
Note:
This is an opinion based analysis, Mods and Think tanks are advised to add to the OP for better assessment of the situation.
It is 2019 and world has seen much air to ground bombing so people forget the attempted ground attack of 26th Feb and moved on to rare air to air war of 2019. This is for some interested minds to debate and discuss the events to analyze your enemy.
Indian side of story.
Date/Time of incident.
26th February 2019 at 3:30 am Pakistan time.
Weapons and delivery systems used.
Upgraded Mirage-2000H of IAF (Manufacture: France)
Number of Air crafts used: 12.
4 Mirages equipped with Ground attack Payload
8 Mirages equipped with Air to Air Payload
Package of IAF Mirage-2000H:
Upgraded of the avionics suite ( glass cockpit, inertial navigation system, open system architecture computer etc.) and the new Thales AESA radar and electronic warfare suite ( radar warning receiver, self- protection jammer etc), and arming the aircraft with MBDA MICA air-to-air missiles that have beyond visual range.
Spice 2000 (Manufacturer: Israel)
Guidance:
EO-Guidance
Satellite Guidance GPS
Man-In-The-Loop Guidance
charge-coupled device (CCD)
Infrared homing
Inertial navigation system (INS)
Warhead:
Mk. 84 (907 kg)
Range:
100 km.
Popeye (missile)
Guidance:
Inertial navigation system (INS)
IIR Guidance
Tv Guidance
Engine:
Single-stage solid rocket
Range:
78km
Warhead:
340 kg (750 lb) blast fragmentation or 360 kg (800 lb) I-800 penetrating
Point of Air space violation by IAF:
Kiran Valley near Muzaffarabad
Point of Payload Ground contact:
Jabba near Balakot
Flight distance of Guided Munition:
60 km
Damage done by Air strikes verified by official and independent sources:
Pine Trees: 15 to 19
Wild life: Crow Qty 1
Humans: Nil
Structures: Nil
Damage reports source:
Associated Press visited the area on 26 February and saw craters and damaged trees. The villagers they met reported no casualties. A team from Al Jazeera visited the site two days after the strikes and noted "splintered pine trees and rocks" which were strewn across the four blast craters. The local hospital officials and residents asserted that they did not come across any casualty or wounded people.
Satellite data assessments:
Satellite-data analysis by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Nathan Ruser concluded that there is "no apparent evidence of more extensive damage and on the face of it does not validate Indian claims regarding the effect of the strikes. Michael Sheldon, a digital forensics analyst from Atlantic Council did another independent investigation on the issue which asserted that no damage was inflicted to any infrastructure around the target-site. It concluded that "something appeared to have gone wrong in the targeting process" and that the botch-up was mysterious in light of the autonomous nature of the supposedly used missiles. A Reuters investigation based on high-resolution satellite imagery by Planet Labs noted an unchanged landscape when compared to an April 2018 satellite photo. It noted that "there were no discernible holes in the roofs of buildings, no signs of scorching, blown-out walls, displaced trees around the madrasa or other signs of an aerial attack".
Image Proof:
____________________________________________________________
Analysis of Attack
Indian Jets violated the Pakistani Air space? Yes they did of few kilometers possibly something between 3 to 7 kilometers.
India released the payload? Yes they did.
Pakistani Air Force intercepted them? Yes they did and India retreated.
Till this point the story is verified by both sides but moving beyond this the reports of the story are conflicting as India claimed it carried out precision strikes and killed as much as 300 terrorist. Where as Pakistani side claimed they was only damage to trees and a bird Crow lost its life. Now lets conduct an analysis of the situation keeping in account the weapons capabilities.
For conducting a precision strikes with weapons such as Spice 2000 and Popeye missiles India required a ton of intelligence which included GPS coordinates from ground assets to satellite surveillance of the area both prior to mission and in real time. Plus India also requires UAV flight path footage of point of incursion to targeted site. Plus India also needs weather information of area of flight path as the combat terrain is very high altitude with thin air and Humidity level information along with air pressure and wind speed is also required in current time because India was using Glide bomb Spice 2000 along Popeye.
So how were the strikes planed on Balakot?
In this specific mission India used Spice 2000 as primary payload and Popeye as secondary payload for 100% kill confirmation of the target. The weapons release with keeping target terrain in view, Distance of target in view and battle environment (Highly defended and monitored) in view has to be very high altitude.
Now coming to the point what went wrong?
Looking at the place of impact and assessing the damage and reading the after incident statement it could be easily understood what went wrong with IAF mission and why it failed to achieve it goal of 300 terrorist kills.
Starting with weapons system. Both weapons systems (Spice 2000 and Popeye) are based on multiple guidance combination for mission achievement. So what info India could have fed the weapons package to achieve this mission.
A. Spice 2000 is heavily dependent on EO-Guidance (electro Optical Giudance) coupled with Man-in-the-loop Guidance and Popeye TV Guidance This required that India has to dominate Air space from the point of release to the point of Impact on target. PAF is a strong Air Force and India dominating the Air Space with only 8 Mirage2000H for this time period is out of question and interception of PAF forced India to retreat and let go of 3 Guidance sensors on 2 weapons packages. It means India lost the data link for EO-Guidance, Man-in-the-loop Guidance for Spice and TV Guidance for Popeye.
B. Infrared Homing for Spice 2000 and IIR Guidance for Popeye. Looking at the area being targeted the IIR Guidance and Infrared homing is only activated at last part of the flight when the targeted building is well within sensor range which could be between 5000 to 3000 meters depending on the sensors of the system and has to manually updated from the Aircraft which released the payload staying in range of the weapons system. But successful interception of PAF as told by DG ISPR proves that India had to ditch this sensor as well because the final stage of activation required India to again stay in the area and be a dominate air force for successful bombing strike. Plus the high altitude mountain terrain of the area is a big problem for a successful data-link between the weapon and launch aircraft in the final stages of sensor swap and target accusation.
C. Did India had ground assets for GPS and laser distance intelligence collection? The place which India chose for targeting is a very remote area with small village and very closed community and anyone from outside coming into the area for surveillance is very difficult so India required some surveillance asset from with in the village community and requiting such asset and the providing such asset with surveillance tools for info gathering is not possible due to the location of the target and amount of counter Pakistani intelligence in the area.
D. GPS guidance through satellite intelligence this is the only and last option India is left with in these weapons system for targeting the installment it wishes to destroy. First to achieve this goal India requires heavy satellite image monitoring of the area for pinpointing the target. India don't has the capability of ground monitoring surveillance on its on to acquire target coordinates so India would have relied on foreign intelligence for this purpose which could have come from Israel USA or France but thick vegetation and cloudy weather in the area restricts satellites from such surveillance activities and relying only on GPS coordinates turn a smart bomb like Spice 2000 into a dumb bomb. Plus there are high chances of GPS blocking via Pakistani electronic warfare.
Conclusion.
The quick reaction time by PAF forced India to let go of the main guidance sensors for this mission and IAF was forced to bailout because of PAF timely interception. Misinformation of target coordinates, lack of real-time weather information and lack of data update to INS guidance system resulted in the failure of mission. Thus India was only able to destroy trees and kill a crow in this whole mission. Further more the unsuccessful mission can also be blamed at equipment as the system had never been operational in such high altitude threat environment. It can also be blamed at the training of the IAF pilots as such precision strikes require intensive before-mission training and live practice. The major credit of IAF mission failure goes to PAF short response time and quick interception which made India forgo it main sensors of weapons package.
Major intelligence failure of India was that the place it intended to target was not a terrorist camp but a Quran learning institution for local kids. So it shows India had a major intelligence failure from the very start.
After incident Indian political statements:
Modi says ‘outcome’ would have been different if India had Rafale jets
https://arynews.tv/en/narendra-modi-rafale-jets/
Note:
This is an opinion based analysis, Mods and Think tanks are advised to add to the OP for better assessment of the situation.
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