Chogy,
Thank you for your post---we are finding out that this strike continued for 2 hours and there were requests made to stop the air strikes---.
But that is not my point---I understand that the pilot did his job during the 80's---my problem arise out of all the bragging that is done by my counterparts---as if pak air force has done a miracle----my colleagues are setting their standards of achievement very low---very very low and that is what I am objecting to---.
Paf didnot need the F16 to take out those planes---they could have used their mirages and F7 and those would have done an equally wonderfull job.
These are cheap kills---Chogy, 22 years ago when I got into the car sales---I sold my first car to an american indian and the gross profit was close to $5000----and I was strutting around---my boss---a white guy called me to the office---told me--mk--you done a good job---but don't consider yourself a salesman yet till you make this profit on a white customer---I said what---he said kid wait and see----and he was right----. That is all I am saying---raise your sights---raise your standards---and be ready for the real enemy---when he comes---you won't know what hit you.
Mastan,
Respectfully, You need to talk to someone who was flying missions during the Afghan war before you put forth statements such as above.
You make points as if the PAF were a bunch of amateurs flying against the Soviets who did not know what they were doing, which patently was not the case. Even the Afghan pilots became decent later on after receiving training from the Russians.
Your point "Paf didnot need the F16 to take out those planes---they could have used their mirages and F7 and those would have done an equally wonderfull job." lacks the basic information which would explain why none of these kills were easy and why the aircraft that you mention were not used.
For three years, prior to the induction of the F-16s in 82, PAF flew CAPs with Mirages and F-6s and did not achieve a single kill! In all cases, these aircraft neither had the range/endurance nor the weapons or the situational awareness that the F-16s brought with them.
We had some close opportunities only when the Mirages and the F-6s were close by, but in most cases, the Soviets flew under their own radar coverage and stayed away from the Mirages and the F-6s. The F-7 did not arrive till after the end of the Russian war. The F-6 sorties were a tiring affair given the extremely short leg per sortie.
Your own professional experience, in a field in which you have been successful, being compared to the PAF operations of the 80s is essentially an apples to oranges comparison. It does not lend a whole lot to the discussion on hand because the PAF had to fly against veteran Soviet VVS pilots and later on Afghan pilots who had been trained by these very same Soviet pilots. So these pilots were tough adversaries and knew the terrain and the aircraft that they were operating well.
A kill is a hard kill given that all the kills had to happen inside of the Pakistani airspace. The kill had to be scored in a very short amount of time and with a very tiring CAP schedule that had no AWACS support. So the vectoring was a hodgepodge of GCI and the F-16's own AI radar (which both the Mirage and the F-6s lacked) doing all the work. All of this means that every single one of the shoot downs was hard. There was no BVR combat and no shots fired at standoff ranges to make things easy. All aircraft had to get close in and ensure that when the shoot down occurred, it was inside of the Pakistani territory. That by any means is not an easy task.
