Horse_Rider
BANNED
- Joined
- Nov 24, 2022
- Messages
- 550
- Reaction score
- 1
- Country
- Location
I did a write up a while ago somewhere. I thought I'd share it here. Lately, after reviewing the global warfare situation, Pakistan's aviation industry’s capability, PAF's current and future air warfare needs and local economic situation, it makes sense to discuss a few options for future air warfare management. Let's first analyze global air warfare and where it is today first:
* CURRENT AIR WARFARE TRENDS:
The current war with Ukraine vs. Russia has revealed how the future wars may be fought. The fate of a war will be defined, whether offensively or defensively, by airpower / air warfare primarily. Supporting roles will obviously be needed by artillery, tanks on the ground, and ships in a naval scenario but airpower will be the only sole factor.
Note: Airpower is NOT having just good numbers of fighters / bombers, rather airspace management and dominance. I won't use air supremacy as that's essentially dominated by the US as the sole superpower since the WWII. Russia and China are unable to accomplish this.
What is included in the air power, you ask? The airpower in today's concept would mean air space management whether in an offensive or defensive scenario. Please note, the conflicts of the future may not be old school large scale wars. It may be limited distributed battles that might take place over a much longer period of time so all scenarios below call for adequate inventories of weapons, sensors and technologies. Some critical components of today’s airpower include:
1) Effective A2AD weapons (Anti Access - Area Denial): This includes AD systems including radars of various types, InfraRed sensors, missiles, AAG, Lasers, spanning across tiers, LOMADs and HIMADS as traditionally called. But these must have now have the capacity to identify and remove threats posed by small drones, such as loitering munitions. Another component not applicable here is the Ballistic Missile Defense as that's limited to just a handful of nations across the globe.
2) Electromagnetic / RF Control: This has become the most critical aspect of all future wars. Close to 100% of ALL Sea-Air-Land assets will use some aspect of electromagnetic spectrum (Radio Frequency, Microwave, Lasers, IR, etc). 100% of the assets will do some form of communication. So having the ability to effectively manage and counter electromagnetic spectrum (jamming, spoofing, analyzing, interpreting) have become essential. In a battle scenario, you could leave a highly effective and larger force useless if you can compromise the electromagnetic spectrum and jam or compromise communication, or spoof it. That's easier said than done.
3) Aircraft / Drones: To deliver offensive and defensive weapons, ISR/AEW/EW operations and counter enemy's fighter aircraft and drones.
4) Supersonic cruise missiles with depressed trajectory: With current AD technologies, the "cruise missiles" of the 2000’s have become much less effective. A large number of these missiles can be taken out from a volley, rendering a military operation useless.
In Ukraine-Russia war. the older S-300 AD system have been taking out around 45-60% of the incoming cruise missiles. Add NASAMS, IRIS-T and the results are scarier for the Russians, close to 70%. IRIS-T has shown 100% effectiveness against cruise missiles and drones and was appreciated by Ukraine's president and various senior military officials.
5) Hypersonic vehicles: Just a handful of nations are able to build these weapons. India has internal projects currently working on this.
* CURRENT CHALLENGES FOR PAKISTAN:
- Economy: Pakistan's current financial struggle has put serious constraints on it's defense budget. Due to this situation, Pakistan needs to proactively create a strategy to ensure it's conventional military deterrence even in this tough financial environment remains intact.
Better and long term planning is much needed and can provide results with pay offs in these tough times. Further worsening economic situation could pose yet another threat to the country's territorial security so a well thought out strategy is critical with long term objectives laid out.
One thing to note is that the Pakistani military buys majority of it's high-end assets from the West. The dollar value increase has put a dent in Pakistani military's buying power significantly.
- Indian Weapons Programs and Acquisition:
One of the fastest weapons acquisition is taking place by neighboring India. India is executing a bunch of programs for it's military simultaneously. These include:
- Layered AD systems including aim at Anti Ballistic Missile systems. These systems are acquired from Israel, Russia, EU and soon, some from the US. India's DRDO is almost starting to deploy home built AD systems also with various weapons like Akash, etc.
- Short range ballistic missiles focusing primarily on Pakistan. It is said by many Indian planners that there are over 15,000 missiles of various kinds in Indian arsenal as it prepares for a two front war with China and Pakistan. It’s been said that there are a few thousand Brahmos supersonic cruise missiles aimed at primarily Pakistan. These are cost effective hi-mach missiles and extremely hard to intercept. A couple thousand Brahmos will be a powerful force to fight with, when launch and impact is expected within 1.5 - 4 minutes in majority of Pakistan due to close proximity.
- Large scale aircraft purchase and modernization: India recently acquired Rafales. And post 2019, the IAF upgraded all of it's SU-30's (prime fighter facing the PAF) with 200 KM+ BVR weapons and new sensors.
It is said in the Indian defense circles that the IAF blames lack of longer range BVR weapons on the events that took places in February, 2019 as the PAF's F-16's and JF-17 Thunders were able to lock on and fire on IAF aircrafts from a longer distance, keeping them play "defense" post lock-on AMRAAM firing by the PAF. Add Rafale acquisition into the mix!
The IAF is working on TWO 5th generation platforms. One being built under AMCA locally and second, options to acquire a US platform such as the F-35 or another jet custom developed for India with potential ToT while India has departed from Russian stealth platforms to build its own.
- Naval Acquisitions: Self explanatory, multiple aircraft carriers, nuclear subs, etc, present a regional power to a mini-super power like ambitions.
- Pakistan Military's Options:
The purpose of this analysis and conclusion is primarily focused on PAF's air power in terms of air space management capability. The PAF's role is purely defensive with limited offensive capability. The key concept to reduce costs remains with efforts to indigenize certain defense articles and technologies (in part or full):
* Acquire an offensive supersonic missile system capable of hi-mach, depressed trajectory flight and locally produce it in large numbers. This alone is the single most critical deterrence needed.
* Continue to build JF-17 Block III and replace aging Mirages and F-7P's.
* Deploy J-10C in larger numbers beyond 36 (to 90-110)
* Embark on local production in larger quantities of swarm drones and loitering munitions. The role for loitering munitions is rather limited to defense against a ground attack only as India has many bases close to the Pakistani borders and in a conflict, it can alternate between bases if one was under attack.
* Localize an AD system and produce it in larger numbers due to threat perception. In the alternative, until the economy recovers, acquire larger numbers to create an effective defensive-offensive strategy in case of a conflict.
- The Way Forward:
Due to financial constraints on the national economy, Pakistan may be restricted in purchasing more modern hardware for a while. But it can use a few of advantages for it's benefit to build some strategic systems locally (in part or full) and offset the costs. The way forward for Pakistan is to build strategic systems itself. Pakistan enjoys preferential treatment from China and a few Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Pakistan also produces great engineering talent (50,000 or more graduates a year in direct engineering or related disciplines), This young, talented and English speaking labor force provides a much cheaper alternative for foreign labor that builds it's systems, thus reducing the cost to build by 30-50%. This massive availability of young, trainable technical labor in Pakistan should be used to indigenize various strategic systems through following steps.
* Build Centers of Excellence in key strategic areas of national defense and expand in house development, assembly and licensed manufacturing of key systems.
* Air defense missiles: The nature of Air Defense systems (like S-300 / HQ-9P, etc) is very complicated. It takes years of expertise to build such systems. It is suggested that Pakistan acquire fire control and surveillance Radars from China to create a larger AD network. But build the missiles and other components internally through ToT from China. Pakistan has a good missile building infrastructure and technical base, so it's labor can be trained in building missile used in HQ-9P / FD-2000 AD systems resulting in significant cost reduction.
* Standardize PAF to a Hi/Lo combination. Expand JFT's Center of Excellence and training of local engineers on J-10C platform, and install a manufacturing line for the J-10C fighters with local assembly and ToT options (limited / full / licensed production). Even at 50-60% local production, Pakistan can build, upgrade, sustain a larger number of J-10C and keep a decent Hi/Lo combination flying for 40% less cost than what it would pay in purchasing jets close to unit cost from China on it's order of 70-90 jets (that would later go up). Plus critical revenue remains in the country paid to the local labor.
* Standardize a BVR missile platform and sustain it going forward. The best option here would be Turkish BVR missiles that can be produced in a JV fashion along with TFX.
* Continue the JV on TFX for PAF's 5th generation needs. Alternatively, a J-10C like stealth platform can be designed by Chinese R&D rather quickly by reducing J-20's airframe dimensions to make it a single engine platform. This jet can be produced by a J-10C local production line with minimal changes, allowing one production line to support J-10C and a stealthy variant of the same platform. This strategy alone has huge cost benefits, almost parallel to buying a separate production line that won’t be required via re-configuration and re-use of technologies between J-10C and a single engine variant of J-20 (name J-XX)
NOTE: As part of Pakistan’s national defense, majority of the systems mentioned here, Pakistan will have to buy somehow to keep some parity with India. But certain systems that will need to be procured in numbers, would make sense to be produced locally (in part of full). The order costs will be offset by local production costs, and the initial savings on a larger order vs, local build, can go to acquire some manufacturing line with a payoff schedule of 5 years or as allowed by China. But at this time, to maintain parity with India, it's time Pakistan uses it's own talent and grow it's own military industrial complex, indigenizing critical platforms, building industry, employment and helping the Pakistani economy. To eliminate waste and risk, Pakistan must only acquire matured platforms and not new articles like what happened in the JFT project. A pre-project feasibility for export to Saudia / China / Turkey / Egypt / Morocco and other African and Middle Eastern nations may also help with exporting some products or services (through our talented labor).
@Windjammer @FOOLS_NIGHTMARE @Bilal Khan (Quwa) @MastanKhan @GOAT @_NOBODY_ @Hakikat ve Hikmet @araz @Kingdom come @siegecrossbow @Deino @Beidou2020 @mudas777 @SoulSpokesman @tman786 @Trango Towers @etylo @Corax @Goenitz @GriffinsRule @bananarepublic @BananaRepublicUK @fatman17 @LeGenD @maverick1977 @Tameem @VIRUS7762 @AZ1 @Tank131 @Falcon26 @jamal18 @Mentee
* CURRENT AIR WARFARE TRENDS:
The current war with Ukraine vs. Russia has revealed how the future wars may be fought. The fate of a war will be defined, whether offensively or defensively, by airpower / air warfare primarily. Supporting roles will obviously be needed by artillery, tanks on the ground, and ships in a naval scenario but airpower will be the only sole factor.
Note: Airpower is NOT having just good numbers of fighters / bombers, rather airspace management and dominance. I won't use air supremacy as that's essentially dominated by the US as the sole superpower since the WWII. Russia and China are unable to accomplish this.
What is included in the air power, you ask? The airpower in today's concept would mean air space management whether in an offensive or defensive scenario. Please note, the conflicts of the future may not be old school large scale wars. It may be limited distributed battles that might take place over a much longer period of time so all scenarios below call for adequate inventories of weapons, sensors and technologies. Some critical components of today’s airpower include:
1) Effective A2AD weapons (Anti Access - Area Denial): This includes AD systems including radars of various types, InfraRed sensors, missiles, AAG, Lasers, spanning across tiers, LOMADs and HIMADS as traditionally called. But these must have now have the capacity to identify and remove threats posed by small drones, such as loitering munitions. Another component not applicable here is the Ballistic Missile Defense as that's limited to just a handful of nations across the globe.
2) Electromagnetic / RF Control: This has become the most critical aspect of all future wars. Close to 100% of ALL Sea-Air-Land assets will use some aspect of electromagnetic spectrum (Radio Frequency, Microwave, Lasers, IR, etc). 100% of the assets will do some form of communication. So having the ability to effectively manage and counter electromagnetic spectrum (jamming, spoofing, analyzing, interpreting) have become essential. In a battle scenario, you could leave a highly effective and larger force useless if you can compromise the electromagnetic spectrum and jam or compromise communication, or spoof it. That's easier said than done.
3) Aircraft / Drones: To deliver offensive and defensive weapons, ISR/AEW/EW operations and counter enemy's fighter aircraft and drones.
4) Supersonic cruise missiles with depressed trajectory: With current AD technologies, the "cruise missiles" of the 2000’s have become much less effective. A large number of these missiles can be taken out from a volley, rendering a military operation useless.
In Ukraine-Russia war. the older S-300 AD system have been taking out around 45-60% of the incoming cruise missiles. Add NASAMS, IRIS-T and the results are scarier for the Russians, close to 70%. IRIS-T has shown 100% effectiveness against cruise missiles and drones and was appreciated by Ukraine's president and various senior military officials.
5) Hypersonic vehicles: Just a handful of nations are able to build these weapons. India has internal projects currently working on this.
* CURRENT CHALLENGES FOR PAKISTAN:
- Economy: Pakistan's current financial struggle has put serious constraints on it's defense budget. Due to this situation, Pakistan needs to proactively create a strategy to ensure it's conventional military deterrence even in this tough financial environment remains intact.
Better and long term planning is much needed and can provide results with pay offs in these tough times. Further worsening economic situation could pose yet another threat to the country's territorial security so a well thought out strategy is critical with long term objectives laid out.
One thing to note is that the Pakistani military buys majority of it's high-end assets from the West. The dollar value increase has put a dent in Pakistani military's buying power significantly.
- Indian Weapons Programs and Acquisition:
One of the fastest weapons acquisition is taking place by neighboring India. India is executing a bunch of programs for it's military simultaneously. These include:
- Layered AD systems including aim at Anti Ballistic Missile systems. These systems are acquired from Israel, Russia, EU and soon, some from the US. India's DRDO is almost starting to deploy home built AD systems also with various weapons like Akash, etc.
- Short range ballistic missiles focusing primarily on Pakistan. It is said by many Indian planners that there are over 15,000 missiles of various kinds in Indian arsenal as it prepares for a two front war with China and Pakistan. It’s been said that there are a few thousand Brahmos supersonic cruise missiles aimed at primarily Pakistan. These are cost effective hi-mach missiles and extremely hard to intercept. A couple thousand Brahmos will be a powerful force to fight with, when launch and impact is expected within 1.5 - 4 minutes in majority of Pakistan due to close proximity.
- Large scale aircraft purchase and modernization: India recently acquired Rafales. And post 2019, the IAF upgraded all of it's SU-30's (prime fighter facing the PAF) with 200 KM+ BVR weapons and new sensors.
It is said in the Indian defense circles that the IAF blames lack of longer range BVR weapons on the events that took places in February, 2019 as the PAF's F-16's and JF-17 Thunders were able to lock on and fire on IAF aircrafts from a longer distance, keeping them play "defense" post lock-on AMRAAM firing by the PAF. Add Rafale acquisition into the mix!
The IAF is working on TWO 5th generation platforms. One being built under AMCA locally and second, options to acquire a US platform such as the F-35 or another jet custom developed for India with potential ToT while India has departed from Russian stealth platforms to build its own.
- Naval Acquisitions: Self explanatory, multiple aircraft carriers, nuclear subs, etc, present a regional power to a mini-super power like ambitions.
- Pakistan Military's Options:
The purpose of this analysis and conclusion is primarily focused on PAF's air power in terms of air space management capability. The PAF's role is purely defensive with limited offensive capability. The key concept to reduce costs remains with efforts to indigenize certain defense articles and technologies (in part or full):
* Acquire an offensive supersonic missile system capable of hi-mach, depressed trajectory flight and locally produce it in large numbers. This alone is the single most critical deterrence needed.
* Continue to build JF-17 Block III and replace aging Mirages and F-7P's.
* Deploy J-10C in larger numbers beyond 36 (to 90-110)
* Embark on local production in larger quantities of swarm drones and loitering munitions. The role for loitering munitions is rather limited to defense against a ground attack only as India has many bases close to the Pakistani borders and in a conflict, it can alternate between bases if one was under attack.
* Localize an AD system and produce it in larger numbers due to threat perception. In the alternative, until the economy recovers, acquire larger numbers to create an effective defensive-offensive strategy in case of a conflict.
- The Way Forward:
Due to financial constraints on the national economy, Pakistan may be restricted in purchasing more modern hardware for a while. But it can use a few of advantages for it's benefit to build some strategic systems locally (in part or full) and offset the costs. The way forward for Pakistan is to build strategic systems itself. Pakistan enjoys preferential treatment from China and a few Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Pakistan also produces great engineering talent (50,000 or more graduates a year in direct engineering or related disciplines), This young, talented and English speaking labor force provides a much cheaper alternative for foreign labor that builds it's systems, thus reducing the cost to build by 30-50%. This massive availability of young, trainable technical labor in Pakistan should be used to indigenize various strategic systems through following steps.
* Build Centers of Excellence in key strategic areas of national defense and expand in house development, assembly and licensed manufacturing of key systems.
* Air defense missiles: The nature of Air Defense systems (like S-300 / HQ-9P, etc) is very complicated. It takes years of expertise to build such systems. It is suggested that Pakistan acquire fire control and surveillance Radars from China to create a larger AD network. But build the missiles and other components internally through ToT from China. Pakistan has a good missile building infrastructure and technical base, so it's labor can be trained in building missile used in HQ-9P / FD-2000 AD systems resulting in significant cost reduction.
* Standardize PAF to a Hi/Lo combination. Expand JFT's Center of Excellence and training of local engineers on J-10C platform, and install a manufacturing line for the J-10C fighters with local assembly and ToT options (limited / full / licensed production). Even at 50-60% local production, Pakistan can build, upgrade, sustain a larger number of J-10C and keep a decent Hi/Lo combination flying for 40% less cost than what it would pay in purchasing jets close to unit cost from China on it's order of 70-90 jets (that would later go up). Plus critical revenue remains in the country paid to the local labor.
* Standardize a BVR missile platform and sustain it going forward. The best option here would be Turkish BVR missiles that can be produced in a JV fashion along with TFX.
* Continue the JV on TFX for PAF's 5th generation needs. Alternatively, a J-10C like stealth platform can be designed by Chinese R&D rather quickly by reducing J-20's airframe dimensions to make it a single engine platform. This jet can be produced by a J-10C local production line with minimal changes, allowing one production line to support J-10C and a stealthy variant of the same platform. This strategy alone has huge cost benefits, almost parallel to buying a separate production line that won’t be required via re-configuration and re-use of technologies between J-10C and a single engine variant of J-20 (name J-XX)
NOTE: As part of Pakistan’s national defense, majority of the systems mentioned here, Pakistan will have to buy somehow to keep some parity with India. But certain systems that will need to be procured in numbers, would make sense to be produced locally (in part of full). The order costs will be offset by local production costs, and the initial savings on a larger order vs, local build, can go to acquire some manufacturing line with a payoff schedule of 5 years or as allowed by China. But at this time, to maintain parity with India, it's time Pakistan uses it's own talent and grow it's own military industrial complex, indigenizing critical platforms, building industry, employment and helping the Pakistani economy. To eliminate waste and risk, Pakistan must only acquire matured platforms and not new articles like what happened in the JFT project. A pre-project feasibility for export to Saudia / China / Turkey / Egypt / Morocco and other African and Middle Eastern nations may also help with exporting some products or services (through our talented labor).
@Windjammer @FOOLS_NIGHTMARE @Bilal Khan (Quwa) @MastanKhan @GOAT @_NOBODY_ @Hakikat ve Hikmet @araz @Kingdom come @siegecrossbow @Deino @Beidou2020 @mudas777 @SoulSpokesman @tman786 @Trango Towers @etylo @Corax @Goenitz @GriffinsRule @bananarepublic @BananaRepublicUK @fatman17 @LeGenD @maverick1977 @Tameem @VIRUS7762 @AZ1 @Tank131 @Falcon26 @jamal18 @Mentee
