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Gloire_bb said:

Air combat isn't decided by size, it's decided by seizing the initiative. J-16 or F-15 in the same situation would be doing exact same thing.
The main advantage of larger planes in this situation is amount of fuel and weapons onboard.

Blasting mkis for defending when they were shot at is just dumb.
Any fighter will, this is normal behavior when GCI screams incoming.

Abnormal behavior was to charge and get some tea.

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India attacked Balakot Feb 26th, 2019. PAF retaliated the following day.

The MKI is India's most prominent fighter and, as expected, it was in the air during the retaliation strike from Pakistan but cannot do anything other than dodge missiles.

A large fighter outranges smaller ones and should have the advantage. It should be making the smaller fighters do the dodging. And in the MKI's case, it is not only bigger but far more numerous than the smaller F-16s and JF-17s.

For example, a J-16 should be making the opposing medium and light fighters deal with the PL-15 and PL-17. And its numbers should multiply its advantages. Larger aircraft, longer range radar, longer range BVR weapons and greater numbers should simply overwhelm smaller numbers of smaller aircraft. I would be very disappointed if a J-7E had to intercept an expected incoming strike instead of the J-16s!

My observation is that the MKI does not have those advantages normal to larger fighters over smaller ones and an upgrade is better late than never.

Gloire_bb said:

Air combat isn't decided by size, it's decided by seizing the initiative. J-16 or F-15 in the same situation would be doing exact same thing.
The main advantage of larger planes in this situation is amount of fuel and weapons onboard.

Blasting mkis for defending when they were shot at is just dumb.
Any fighter will, this is normal behavior when GCI screams incoming.

Abnormal behavior was to charge and get some tea.

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I doubt J-16 with AESA+PL15 would be outranged by an/apg-66+aim120c5 combo at those same altitudes.

sequ said:

I doubt J-16 with AESA+PL15 would be outranged by an/apg-66+aim120c5 combo at those same altitudes.

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It wasn't an open war situation, it was indian CAP getting attacked (under AEW direction) first.
R-77 was indeed a problem, but realistically attacker in these borderline peace/war situations has a huge ROE advantage.

Gloire_bb said:

It wasn't an open war situation, it was indian CAP getting attacked (under AEW direction) first.
R-77 was indeed a problem, but realistically attacker in these borderline peace/war situations has a huge ROE advantage.

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A short-legged point defense fighter managed to close with the attackers (and promptly got shot down) but the heavyweight mainstay of the IAF cannot.

What's more, the IAF instigated the initial attack. It knew that there would be a retaliatory strike. There are over 250 MKIs. There is no way they could not have mounted a better defense with those numbers if the MKI was a proper heavyweight fighter.

An equivalent would be J-16s or F-15s letting an expected strike by smaller weaker jets be handled by a J-7 or a F-5. There is a reason why air forces that can afford it pay for expensive heavy fighters over smaller ones.

Some recently leak video of border skirmish. Likely in the eastern border. 2 PLA soldiers were captured

GiantPanda said:

A short-legged point defense fighter managed to close with the attackers (and promptly got shot down) but the heavyweight mainstay of the IAF cannot.

What's more, the IAF instigated the initial attack. It knew that there would be a retaliatory strike. There are over 250 MKIs. There is no way they could not have mounted a better defense with those numbers if the MKI was a proper heavyweight fighter.

An equivalent would be J-16s or F-15s letting an expected strike by smaller weaker jets be handled by a J-7 or a F-5. There is a reason why air forces that can afford it pay for expensive heavy fighters over smaller ones.

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Well, it got shot down precisely because it decided to play charge of light brigade (i.e. to be a cooperative target when GCO literally screamed missile alert to him).

For the logic to modern aerial combat - while it's an incomplete representation, I'd recommend to watch some DCS tutorials(yes, computer game).

It'll help understand why and what in aerial warfare. This isn't a matter of balls.
MKIs failed to counterattack in time (realistically they couldn't) to interfere with glide bomb strike on border target, but they did the right thing.

tch1972 said:

Some recently leak video of border skirmish. Likely in the eastern border. 2 PLA soldiers were captured

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Is this from 2020 or did it happen recently? I swear one of these days china should teach crush these jawans so hard into the ground they won't dare to pull another stunt like this.

tch1972 said:

Some recently leak video of border skirmish. Likely in the eastern border. 2 PLA soldiers were captured

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You can violate the Geneva convention and beat outnumbered captives. Impressive.

LKK815 said:

Is this from 2020 or did it happen recently? I swear one of these days china should teach crush these jawans so hard into the ground they won't dare to pull another stunt like this.

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Old. It looked like it happened pre-galwan and the Jai Hinds are saying the scene looked like it happened at Arunachal Pradesh

If you decide to resort to fighting with sticks and fists, PLA is basically giving up her military superiority and handover the advantage to the Indian simply because they outnumbered China in terms of manpower.