India always had numerical superiority and that will remain same as its many times bigger country with many folds larger economy. PAF always dominated with tactics / strategy.
Having said that, 388 is a massive fleet of fighter jets. Wars not like 1 fighter aircraft to 1 fighter aircraft. How many aircrafts can be operational at a given time out of 388 and how many can be for indian 616 fighter jets ? That's a main question. In a full blown conventional war, the airbases will be the first target. How much of the airforce will survive. The tactics / situational awareness to survive the first wave is way important then anything else. So that's why potent air-defense units are perhaps more important as they protect entire base. 388 will be more then enough if most of it gets airborne. Capability wise, PAF has rapidly closed the gap with IAF. By mid-2000s india had BVR capability, AEW&C aircrafts, air-refuelers.. PAF had none of such critical capabilities. We added all these capabilities + about 140 JF-17s, 18 F-16s block 52s, some older F-16s and Now J-10s.. That's remarkable acquisitions in last decade what else you need ? PAF right now is a dream airforce for anybody who watched PAF in 2000s. So, we are at the right track.
The key elements in the air warfare are battle space situational awareness + EW. We proved our superiority in both these domains recently in 2019. We have to keep edge in these domains in future.
As far as sidewinder is concerned, ALL of PAF jets can do WVR combat with sidewinders or PL-5s. The high-offbore sight missiles with J-10s / block IIIs are a new thing.. That's same case with indian fleet, not all of their fleet has this capability.
There can be difference in number of platforms, that doesn't matter as much as if there would have been a missing capabilities like it was in the past. The strategy / tactics will determine the outcome of war. Yes technology is the key and we are adding 4 / 4.5 gen aircrafts. Remember once the scenario of modern jets was PAF 38 F-16s (without BVR ) against 200+ ( mirage 2000s, mig-29s, Su-30s) all with BVR missiles and backed by AEW&Cs. So, I completely disagree to "haven't we lost track completely" statement. We are totally on right track. The matter of concern for us is not airforce but navy which was neglected till now. PAF is doing well with right directions towards future, AZM and beyond.
. I was one of guy saying this to get J10s as soon as possible . J10C is very potent fighter. We should try to increase its numbers. i.e 50 j10c. We should use it as pure air superiority fighter instead of multi role. i.e with multiple A2A missiles like PL10 and PL15s.
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