Absolutely, they are intent on bragging about generally smaller achievements which pale in comparison to many other air forces. But then very few air forces have modern combat experience. They shot down a 60s Mig-21 and possibly brought down the integrations nightmare known as the Su-30MKi but those are two kills in a combined op.
You gave a lot away when conducting that op too. However, that doesn’t mean mature commanders don’t exist within both PAF and Navy who were part of WoT ops and know warfare. The issue is that those that are the right candidates aren’t always the ones that may end up leading the force. The 65 war was a loss for the PAF because it poorly executed a great plan but ended up rewarding those who didn’t even fight and reportedly were nervous about flying in combat. In 71 many opportunities were lost due to personal whims of opportunists who eventually still got promoted and continued their damage to the PAF until retirement.
But this is the story of many militaries and the US, British and others have similar characters. Take the recent Russo-Ukrainian war - for all the weaponry the RuAF is performing like a flying club instead of an airforce.
About the bolded part;
u think those right candidates dont end up being in high command? U say culture....i agree with it. However i had gone a step ahead to tell u where that culture stems from.
Zamany ki maar jiss insan ny khaye hoti ha na, wo kabhi dubara ghaltian nahi karta. Even if he still does, that ratio is far less vs those who havnt seen zamany ki maar.
Kuch lessons seekhny k lea zindagi ki maar khana zaroori hoti ha. Jisne nahi khaye wo apni zindagi main ghaltian karta rehta ha vs that person who has.
Army ny zindagi or warfare ki asal maar khaye ha in the last 2 decades. While PAF Navy hasnt. Thats why they dont have the right criteria to look for in an officer inorder to promote him to higher ranks. And u learn that from yr practical soldiering, u find out what kind of a person will still stay put even under the hard 155mm artillery barrage coming from 3 sides. Or if he is in the defensive position, the constant wave after wave of enemy attacks coming from all 3 sides......And u commanding yr men as an officer in such circumstances show how much resilience u have as a man itself. Do u have a heart of a lion or a heart of a chicken?
These r some of the criteria that u start looking at a man while thinking of promoting him, this criteria that u have learnt from practical soldiering. And that only comes when u have hard earned battle exp. in which u were tested to yr absolute limits, limits of yr patience, resilience, yr human efficiency, yr fighting prowess etc etc
Now think abt the other services besides the army, as an institution........Have they gone through such bitter tests, practical battle piloting and practical battle sailoring? You say that there is a problem with merit, while i agree with that generally but i go a step ahead to say even if they do start being just, they would still keep on committing the same mistakes over and over again, because of the lack of suitable criteria to look for in a man! to see if he is the right man for the right job or not?
Im of the view that these two ''other'' services havnt yet developed a suitable criteria to look for themselves which is indigenous and suiting to the psyche of men in our country which is vastly different to British, US or other that u mentioned.
Their criteria is that if u have won sword of honor, yr guaranteed being a General, Air Marshall or an Admiral. Which is horseshit IMHO. And i still mention Generals because this was the same military which had put a man like Gen Raheel Sharif's leadership caliber in mere IGTI role before NS ''mistakenly'' made him COAS and we came to know how effective he was in leadership role vs This current guy who was made a Lt Gen without even firing a single bullet in anger himself. And now we can see the difference b/w these two men.
So its all about criteria. These Britishers, these Americans are some ones who had been fighting wars after wars throughout their history. putting their men in the heat of the battle one after another, thats why i believe now they r in a better position to judge thanks to their better and matured criteria for their own men and people's psyche. Its funny if u look at their history, u will think at one point if they had done anything besides fighting all this time?,
While we lack in that thanks to our lack of exp.
