plawolf
Lieutenant General
There is also the logistical consideration with munitions cost.
While Chinese PGMs are almost certain to be considerably cheaper than western ones, the PAF should have a sizeable existing inventory of western PGMs that they already bought and paid for.
Retiring the Mirages would probably make many if not most of them useless, as French munitions (especially the stand-off ones) are unlikely to be integrated with American F16s or JF17s.
Keeping the Mirages is most likely as much as about making the most of that existing munitions investment as it is about replacement priorities.
In peacetime, it is also unwise to make large munitions bulk purchases, as even with the best care and maintenance, munitions do date expire.
As such, it is far better to gradually build up you munitions inventory over years, with regular modest additions.
That way you can pretty much match munitions expiry with training needs to make sure munitions about to expire are used up during regular training and exercises to avoid wastage. Which is what I expect the PAF to be doing with Chinese munitions for their JF17s.
From a training value POV, it is far better to fire live munitions from a Mirage than it is to only get to use a JF17 simulator.
Extending the Mirage fleet operational lives is probably to try and allow them to use up all existing munitions in training.
You can probably also get a lot of carry over benefits when Mirage pilots do convert to JF17s or another replacement type from them getting regular training firing live weapons.
While Chinese PGMs are almost certain to be considerably cheaper than western ones, the PAF should have a sizeable existing inventory of western PGMs that they already bought and paid for.
Retiring the Mirages would probably make many if not most of them useless, as French munitions (especially the stand-off ones) are unlikely to be integrated with American F16s or JF17s.
Keeping the Mirages is most likely as much as about making the most of that existing munitions investment as it is about replacement priorities.
In peacetime, it is also unwise to make large munitions bulk purchases, as even with the best care and maintenance, munitions do date expire.
As such, it is far better to gradually build up you munitions inventory over years, with regular modest additions.
That way you can pretty much match munitions expiry with training needs to make sure munitions about to expire are used up during regular training and exercises to avoid wastage. Which is what I expect the PAF to be doing with Chinese munitions for their JF17s.
From a training value POV, it is far better to fire live munitions from a Mirage than it is to only get to use a JF17 simulator.
Extending the Mirage fleet operational lives is probably to try and allow them to use up all existing munitions in training.
You can probably also get a lot of carry over benefits when Mirage pilots do convert to JF17s or another replacement type from them getting regular training firing live weapons.
