White and Green with M/S
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I don't thinks so Mig-29 that capable of early F-16, Russians/Soviets always behind the avionics/radars/ system integration/sensor fusion as well as in range/combat radius etc etc that's it was not Chosen, M2K was the closest rival of F-16 and we had a good relation with France but pure delta has own limitations its good on instantaneous turn rates but poor in sustain turn rates, and its avionics/radars was quite primitives as compare to early F-16 ( I am talking about early version of Mirage-2000 not Mirage-2000/5) and we all know what happened into mid 90s when PAF want to buy M2K from France, PPP govt and especially Mr-10% want a kickbacks on that dealIf I could find the Dawn paper from time long past then I would but alas I don't have it, here the great 'Nur Khan, RIP' wrote an article that PAF made a blunder by buying F-16s. He was of the opinion that if PAF hadn't bought F-16 then IAF wouldn't have gone on and purchased M2K and Mig-29 Combo. Now fast forward a decade and PAF without F-16 and IAF decides to go for SU-30s, what position do you think PAF would have been at that point ? At best, PAF may have gone for M2K, would the M2K had played as good of role as the Super Duper F-16s did on Feb 27th ?
Now, he had retired but if there are officers of that mind set serving and making those type of decision then you can decide for yourself as to what you may think of them.
People may say what they want about ACM Shamim, but Kudos to him and his staff for sticking to their guns and getting the F-16s with the right gadgets, which in turn became the catalyst for further F-16s and upgrade of its capabilities.
PS: I write this as just an opinion and I mean no disrespect to Nur Khan and any other PAF ACMs past or present.
And please do tell me what other option we had have other than F-16 in late 70s early 80s, early Mirage-2000, which is not quite comparable to early F-16
PS: Russians/Soviets Had a difficulty to develop modern radars/Avionics For early Mig-29, very early MIG-29 used a slightly modified version of Radars/Avionics from MIG-23, when utilized SU-27 BARS radar technologies into Mig-29 than Mig-29 radars/avionics problems had been solved
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