Guys - when sharing twitter links, please add a line or two of commentary to why the post is important/relevant/significant/etc. Lets try to increase the quality of posts in this thread instead of just letting it be a twitter dump.
Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
@supersnoop
Continuing discussion of historical IAF vs PLAAF in 1980's.
J-7s in the mid 1980's already bought PL-8/Python 3 IR missiles that were imported from Israel and proven to be devastating against Soviet style aircraft in Lebanon, as well as retrofitted with western avionics. It was also fully absorbed for domestic production.
Funny Stuff Thread.... to loosen your day
We all know that a company can scam investors with buzzwords like AI, ML and the lot But doing so with Hypersonic Glide Vehicles is news to me O.O Lol what is this website? Alongside cheap “7th/8th gen fighters” and heavy bombers “in production.”
www.sinodefenceforum.com
Continuing discussion of historical IAF vs PLAAF in 1980's.
J-7s in the mid 1980's already bought PL-8/Python 3 IR missiles that were imported from Israel and proven to be devastating against Soviet style aircraft in Lebanon, as well as retrofitted with western avionics. It was also fully absorbed for domestic production.
Mig-21s also had big problems like poor fuel tank balance that caused the plane to become unstable when fuel got low, that J-7 solved.
So yes, they had 100 Mig-29s and Mirage 2000s but that with a few hundred Mig-21s against 2000 J-7s with imported Python 3s and later PL-8s? IDK if they'd survive that. Yeah they'd inflict a ton of damage but it wouldn't have been asymmetrical the way that US 4th gen against Iraqi 3rd gen was. The reason was because US had specific insight on Soviet planes due to backstabbing by Adolf Tolkachev, a situation that didn't have an equivalent in China.
lol, I feel like a JH for defending IAF, but I only do this for the sake of objectivity
I'm not saying that PLAAF would thoroughly be annihilated by IAF or something in the 1980's, just that IAF had a clear qualitative edge.
Of course qualitative edge is not everything as you correctly point out, especially in this generation where BVR missiles were unreliable, but referring back to the original article, I don't think that particular statement is inaccurate.
A few other points. The Python-3 was purchased in the mid-80's, but full domestic production (vs. assembly from imported components) did not occur until basically the end of the decade and into the 90's. China had max something like 1500 imported Pythons (From AAM thread) in the 80's. Let's also not forget that 80's China was still very poor and USD was not something to used to "make it rain".
I think the historical background must be taken into consideration as well.
India was purchasing newer generations of Russian aircraft because it was still in active conflict with Pakistan which had recently purchased the F-16.
For China, this was the time of economic reforms, which meant that military development took a back seat.
Programs were cut (i.e J-8II Peace Pearl, which is often wrongly attributed to Tiananmen Square, was actually cut because of the cost, possibly 700m USD for 55 planes ) - skipping the early 4th gen probably saved a lot of money
Faced with a disintegrating Soviet Union, preoccupied India, a US seeking closer ties (and as a result, dumping ROC), China did not have the military necessity in the 80's as it does now.
And just to address with the Su-30MKI, the deal was signed in the 90's. The reason it took so long for planes to be delivered was because the Russians (as @MarKoz81 likes to put it) basically fleeced India by selling non-production ready equipment.
The nicer way to put it is that India financed Russian Flanker development of the 90's/00's into the 4.5th gen.
one of the Tejas Mk1 prototypes converted into a Tejas Mk1A prototype, carrying 2 Astra Mk1 BVRAAMs
Didn't India take advantage of the USSR dissolution to pay back their debts to Russia in the just heavily evaluated rubles? (during USSR time, USSR lend billions in their currency, and it was 'roughly' about 1:1 to US dollars, but after the collapse, rubles devalued to like 100:1 or something like that, and then India came and paid back their debt with the devaluated rubles)
There were also cases where Indian MiG-25s often conducted aerial reconnaissance intrusions across the border and deep into Tibet and Xinjiang throughout the 1980s, sometimes likely going as far as Yunnan, Qinghai and Sichuan.
At that time, there was literally nothing in the PLAAF's fighter fleet that can chase after the IAF's MiG-25 at near-Mach 3 speeds, and China's SAM systems were far behind that of the Americans and the Soviets.
Besides, there is the aspect of geography and terrain which works superbly in India's favor, as they can have airbases at considerably lower altitudes (allowing IAF warplanes to takeoff and land on comparably shorter runways) and considerably flatter terrain formations (which allows more airbases to be built) on their side of the border. China, meanwhile, has to make-do with the exact opposite of what India has.
To put it simply, the four decades in the later-half of the 20th-century isn't really an easy time for the PLAAF.
But thankfully, the PLAAF of today has come a very, very long way since the 1990s.
The 1990s is indeed a pivotal point for the PLAAF's overall development, alongside marking the divergent point WRT how the PLAAF and IAF progress forward since then.
Last edited: