2019 India-Pakistani border clash

maint1234 said:

Seems the cover on the f16s shooting down is coming down.

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You "cover" evidence when you want to hide something. We literally did the opposite, by inviting the US to count our Vipers. Then the FP article came. When India countered that the State Department or the Pentagon did not "confirm" any such count, the The Washington Post article reminded India that they didnt "deny" it either, basically sealing the case shut. I heard Michael Kuggleman (a pro-India US analyst) defend FP article on an Indian news channel, telling the anchor that the writers of the FP article are credible, FP itself is credible, and the US has no reason to support Pakistan here. Especially since John Bolton approved India's operation in Balakot which WP confirmed later.

If you think that after all of this that somehow India's claim of a Viper kill will somehow be magically vindicated in the future, you are dreaming.

With constant arguments/posts denying the facts from @maint1234, IMO he thinks this is Chinese forum & majority of members are either from China or Pakistan...

Dear (maint1234) FYI, this American forum & majority of members here are from US/EU and mix of other countries (including Pakistan & China).

Hope this will suffice...

timepass said:

Not Weaker but yes Smaller...in comparison to IAF

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Certainly, the PAF is weaker and small as compared to IAF when you count the accumulated combat airframes. However in a limited conflict, that hardly matters.
Pakistan knows its capability to deter IAF diminishes after a certain threshold is crossed, for eg a large scale engagement where attrition is high, that is why it actively includes nuclear deterrence in its strategy to keep its forces away from complete destruction. In a tactical fight between limited numbers of aircraft, the difference in overall air forces doesn't matter much, what matters is how many assets you can efficiently manage to achieve the target.
So in this context, this engagement was between peer adversaries who ever able to field equivalent number of combat platforms with comparable technologies (aew, bvr).
I'm tempted to draw parallels to the hypothetical engagement of plaaf and rocaf in a limited environment here, but that is out of scope for this thread.
Imho, we should stick to event analysis of this skirmish in this thread and not veer off to personal opinions about strategic considerations or straight out bashing someone else.

Bhurki said:

Imho, we should stick to event analysis of this skirmish in this thread and not veer off to personal opinions about strategic considerations or straight out bashing someone else.

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We did. It is just that some new members here (i.e. maint1234) can't seem to accept the real facts and instead went by fake news that abides to their emotion.

maint1234 said:

Respected independent journalist David Axe -

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"Indian MiG-21s and other fighters intercepted the Pakistanis and shot down one F-16, killing its pilot, according to the Indian government. Islamabad claimed its forces shot down two MiG-21s, but New Delhi copped to losing just one jet.

Pakistani forces captured the MiG-21 pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, and held him for two days before

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to Indian officials.
India's MiG-21s, while featuring some key upgrades, still are more than 30 years old. The Pakistani F-16 that the Indians shot down reportedly was a Block 52D model that Islamabad in 2005 ordered from the United States."

Interesting article. It coincides with the awards to the IAF pilots.
Seems the cover on the f16s shooting down is coming down.

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The fact you just said David axe is a respected journalist shows you are a troll. David axe is not respected or a journalist.

PiSigma said:

The fact you just said David axe is a respected journalist shows you are a troll. David axe is not respected or a journalist.

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Wasn't the first point where this guy revealed his determination to keep his head in the sand. Big egos with lackluster ability usually create these type of "men". It shouldn't be hard to admit India suffered a tiny inconsequential and relatively unrevealing defeat in the recent skirmish. But we must remember that this type of India Stronkist usually love bashing on others at the slightest chance they get. If this happened to China or Pakistan, we wouldn't hear the end of their trash-talking. Because they received the defeat, it is simply too humiliating to even entertain the idea that they were defeated. The reality of the situation is so far off what most Indians and Pakistanis are treating themselves to.

Basically all that is revealed is that India isn't invincible and cannot pick on Pakistan conventionally as they please. There are maybe some friendly fire technicalities they need to work on. Some weapons and training did not work as planned or expected. Organisation was definitely a problem. In fact quite poor. They were unwilling to escalate the conflict after the point where Pakistan showed where the line is (events up to pre - 27th exchanges). F-16 and AMRAAM seem to perform as expected at least being capable of hitting their targets. Who knows about JF-17. I'm assuming it was F-16 here because we know at least one AMRAAM certainly fired. Ground strikes, India more likely to not have done much if any damage. Pakistan did no damage with their ground strikes but may have been intentional as a commensurate response to India's ineffective strike (assuming this is so).

Pakistan's story has only changed once in the ordeal and that was at the very beginning with the claim of number of IAF pilots they captured. This could be fog of war effect or something they decided to hide. Could have been saving India some unnecessary embarrassment or for many unknown reasons, few of which are positive for India. If people want to believe it was their F-16 pilot, please think that through carefully and try to understand how that is a ridiculous proposition . India's media stories have been all over the shop. All over. Like annoyingly inconsistent. Their official words are very limited and make no mention of any details except for how insistent they are that they shot down an F-16. US media claims this is not the case, US officially hinted as diplomatically delicate as they can that their media is right on this. The big boys all know themselves what really transpired and all of them are probably reacting as they see fit. All in all, Pakistan stood up well enough and India has deescalated. Modi hopefully understands what's up. If he wants to try again for a broken nose over a bleeding one, he is probably more than welcome because Pakistan is not the weakling Indian chauvinists like to imagine.

Now Indians having to deal with radical Islamists is indeed unfortunate and militarily a difficult problem. A different discussion to this one though. So while many of our personal thoughts may align with those of Indian's in that respect, we shouldn't let that discussion warp what the facts are here and ignore the need for evidence ie F-16 shoot down etc.

PiSigma said:

The fact you just said David axe is a respected journalist shows you are a troll. David axe is not respected or a journalist.

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David Axe is a millitary correspondent, which sort of makes him a kind of military reporter. But that alone does not disprove or degrade his article, which focused on more on the reasons as of why India used the Mig-21 rather than any other more modern fighters at its disposal. And David was careful to put the F-16 shoot down claim as being the sole attribute of the Indian side with no corroborating evidence to support it.
The article itself was fair and reasonable.

Viktor Jav said:

David Axe is a millitary correspondent, which sort of makes him a kind of military reporter. But that alone does not disprove or degrade his article, which focused on more on the reasons as of why India used the Mig-21 rather than any other more modern fighters at its disposal. And David was careful to put the F-16 shoot down claim as being the sole attribute of the Indian side with no corroborating evidence to support it.
The article itself was fair and reasonable.

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The article itself may be seem fair and reasonable. The issue here is the assumption that David Axe is a credible journalist when his other works prove he is anything but credible, fair, or accurate. Since this guy has been sketchy with other articles and often seems to play political favouritism, whatever he writes cannot be treated as gospel no matter how reasonable and fair it seems.

Maint is trying to suggest the F16 shoot down is almost certainly true since a "credible" journalist wrote it down, revealing that he only looks for material that suit his conjecture while ignoring all others. That's troll behaviour. Particularly when he attacks others for not agreeing with him. There is so much that is obviously the wrong way to go about this discussion with the way he is behaving. But of course, us exposing this issue is just us being soft snowflakes who can't handle the truth and we're all brainwashed by communist propaganda and the other half are paid CCP trolls. That's the usual comforting line used isn't it?

ougoah said:

The article itself may be seem fair and reasonable. The issue here is the assumption that David Axe is a credible journalist when his other works prove he is anything but credible, fair, or accurate. Since this guy has been sketchy with other articles and often seems to play political favouritism, whatever he writes cannot be treated as gospel no matter how reasonable and fair it seems.

Maint is trying to suggest the F16 shoot down is almost certainly true since a "credible" journalist wrote it down, revealing that he only looks for material that suit his conjecture while ignoring all others. That's troll behaviour. Particularly when he attacks others for not agreeing with him. There is so much that is obviously the wrong way to go about this discussion with the way he is behaving. But of course, us exposing this issue is just us being soft snowflakes who can't handle the truth and we're all brainwashed by communist propaganda and the other half are paid CCP trolls. That's the usual comforting line used isn't it?

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I have yet to see any article that David Axe put out that is overly biased or slighted, he can only make do with that he has given by official sources. Been following his blog for several years now and all his articles had explored both sides of the argument or at worst merely put out the issues set for by one side with adducing or reducing to it . And again this does not degrade or dispute the reasonableness or fairness of the CURRENT article that is being discussed, facts are facts which are not reduced in weight or value by any acts or intentions ,perceived or otherwise, by bystanders.
Nor am I suggesting that every single thing that David Axe put out should be treat as gospel, I have never said that and never will. But I will point out the hypocrisy and absurdity of launching personal attacks at third party sources who has nothing to gain or lose from this scenario.
And again you are misconstruing what David Axe wrote, he never wrote or claim that a PAF F-16 was conclusively shot down, he merely wrote that IAF claimed that they had shot down a PAF F-16. Again I understand that emotions and passion will run high in these debates, but that is no excuse to not read in depth what the other side brought up before discussing it.
That Maint had either ignorantly or willfully, disregard and ignore the point that David Axe was trying to put forth is a valid criticism, to attack the credibility of the person who wrote it without any proof is not.

Viktor Jav said:

I have yet to see any article that David Axe put out that is overly biased or slighted, he can only make do with that he has given by official sources. Been following his blog for several years now and all his articles had explored both sides of the argument or at worst merely put out the issues set for by one side with adducing or reducing to it . And again this does not degrade or dispute the reasonableness or fairness of the CURRENT article that is being discussed, facts are facts which are not reduced in weight or value by any acts or intentions ,perceived or otherwise, by bystanders.
Nor am I suggesting that every single thing that David Axe put out should be treat as gospel, I have never said that and never will. But I will point out the hypocrisy and absurdity of launching personal attacks at third party sources who has nothing to gain or lose from this scenario.
And again you are misconstruing what David Axe wrote, he never wrote or claim that a PAF F-16 was conclusively shot down, he merely wrote that IAF claimed that they had shot down a PAF F-16. Again I understand that emotions and passion will run high in these debates, but that is no excuse to not read in depth what the other side brought up before discussing it.
That Maint had either ignorantly or willfully, disregard and ignore the point that David Axe was trying to put forth is a valid criticism, to attack the credibility of the person who wrote it without any proof is not.

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No I did not say Axe wrote that F16 was shot down. Maint used the mentioning of the F16 as if to suggest its shooting down was a fact. At least that's how it is interpreted. Why else mention it?