After the Pakistan Air Force's J-10CP was formed, their self-confidence gradually increased.
In the past two days, the Pakistan Air Force officially said that their air force equipment has formed a generation gap with India, and India only has Rafale to fight with the Pakistan Air Force.
Is the Pakistan Air Force really that strong?
In fact, this is more or less propaganda, the Pakistan Air Force did get the J-10CP, and the Thunder Dragon Block 3, two four-and-a-half generation fighters, but after all, the number of equipment is still small.
However, when the Pakistan Air Force's J-10CP fighter and the Thunder Dragon Block 3 fighter form combat effectiveness, the Indian Air Force does have to face an unfavorable advantage in air combat.
The main fighters of the Indian Air Force are the Rafale and Su-30MKI fighters.
Among them, although the Su-30MKI fighter is a heavy fighter, its actual combat capability is very doubtful.
From the history of the development of the Su-30MKI fighter, we can know that the Russians completely treat India as a guinea pig.
The Su-30MKI became a pedal used by Russia to develop new technologies, and through the development and experience of the Su-30MKI, Russia subsequently developed its own Su-30SM fighter.
But even the Su-30SM fighter is not very advanced in performance, and it is much lower than the Su-35 in the Russian army.
After the Su-35 came to China, it was suppressed by J-10C fighters during exercises in our Air Force's high-intensity complex electromagnetic environment.
We can simply and crudely reason about a chain of relationships: J-10C> Su-35> Su-30SM> Su-30MKI.
And the actual situation is not much different from such a comparison.
The Su-30MKI is not equipped with an active phased array radar, while the J-10C is equipped with an advanced phased array radar capable of suppressing the Su-35 during exercises.
The Su-30MKI is still mainly equipped with R27 semi-active air-to-air missiles, which have a very large gap with PL15 missiles.
How big is the gap? The performance of the R27 missile is slightly worse than that of the American-made AIM7 "Sparrow".
After the AIM7, the United States has developed AIM120A, B, C, D multi-generation products, of which AIM120D is the fourth generation of air-to-air missiles with PL15.
From this, it can be seen how big the gap is between the R27 missile and the PL15 missile.
Avionics and weapons are not superior, and the mobility of the Su-30MKI may not be comparable to the J-10C.
In the joint exercise with the Indian Air Force, the US military has organized a combat confrontation exercise between F15C fighters and Su-30MKI fighters.
In the confrontation exercise, it was found that although the Su-30MKI fighter has a strong instantaneous disk ability because of the vector engine, it is not able to stabilize the disk.
So the US pilots took advantage of the energy advantage of the F15C fighter and defeated the Su-30MKI fighter in combat.
The U.S. military later concluded that because the vector nozzle life of the Su-30MKI fighter is extremely short (India previously said that it is only 40 hours), Indian pilots have almost no training in vector maneuvering, and the instantaneous ability cannot be used.
The so-called instantaneous disk can be simply understood as the ability to quickly change the pointing of the machine head in a short time, while the stable disk is the ability to continuously change the pointing of the machine head for a long time.
Aircraft equipped with vector engines have excellent instantaneous disk ability, but to have excellent disk stabilization ability, the aircraft must have sufficient power and excellent aerodynamic design.
The aerodynamic design of the Su-30MKI is excellent, and the power alone looks at the engine is actually okay, but the weight of the Su-30MKI fighter itself is too large, resulting in the overall power of the engine is insufficient.
Therefore, when the Indian Air Force faces Pakistan's J-10CP fighters, the only thing that can compete with them is the Rafale fighters purchased from France.
The Rafale fighter, as one of the famous "European Three Winds", is a relatively advanced four-and-a-half-generation fighter.
Although the nose space of the Rafale is relatively small and the radar front area is limited, after all, it is an active phased array radar, and the detection range, anti-jamming ability, and multi-purpose ability are relatively good.
And France has also supplied India with the Meteor long-range air-to-air missile, which uses a solid rocket ramjet engine and has a power range of an astonishing 120 kilometers.
You know, even our PL15 air-to-air missile, or the American AIM120D air-to-air missile, the power range is only tens of kilometers.
However, after the meteor is separated from the dynamic range section, the air resistance is relatively large due to the shape, and the effective range can only reach about 150 kilometers.
So the Meteor is a missile that is more sword-going, within 120 kilometers, it is the best missile, beyond 120 kilometers, its performance is greatly reduced.
On the other hand, the PL15 maintains stable performance within the effective range of 150 km, especially the use of the double pulse engine, so that the PL15 still has a strong maneuverability at a distance of 150 km.
But the Indian Air Force spent $8.8 billion and brought in only 36 Rafale fighters at an average unit price of $240 million.
At a unit price of less than $40 million, the Pakistan Air Force ordered 24 J-10CP fighters in the first batch, followed by 36-60 additional orders.
What's more, the Pakistan Air Force has more than just a fourth-and-a-half-generation fighter of the J-10CP.
Although the Thunder Dragon Block 3 fighter is a light fighter, it has become a light four-and-a-half generation fighter under the magic modification of AVIC.
It is equipped with the KLJ7A active phased array radar, and its performance is actually slightly higher than that of the Rafale radar.
In addition, the Thunder Dragon Block 3 fighter is also equipped with PL15E and PL10E, two fourth-generation missiles, which are no worse than Rafale combat capabilities in the air.
The Thunder Dragon Block 3 fighter is only worse than the Rafale in terms of multi-purpose combat capability, but the air combat capability is comparable, and it can already pose a lot of threat to the Rafale.
And the Pakistan Air Force plans to equip 50 Thunder Block3 fighters, which is also considerable.
By the time the J-10CP and Thunder Block 3 fighters are equipped, the Pakistan Air Force will have hundreds of fourth-and-a-half generation fighters, while India will still have only 36 Rafale.
From the current situation, the only new aircraft that India can obtain in the short term is LCA fighters, although it is possible to introduce American F18E/F fighters, but the number will not be very large at present.
And the AWACS aircraft of the Indian Air Force do not perform very well.
Pakistani pilots have said that the Indian Air Force's AWACS aircraft often talk on public radio channels, making it easy for them to hear Indian conversations.
"It was a pleasure for us to hear the panicked voices of Indian pilots," he said.
The Pakistan Air Force has several ZDK03 AWACS aircraft purchased from China, which is a digital active phased array AWACS aircraft, and its technical level is considered advanced in the world.
Moreover, the ZDK03 AWACS aircraft, J-10CP fighters, and Thunder Dragon Block 3 fighters are all made in China, and there is no difficulty in data link interconnection.
The Indian army has always had the problem of information between AWACS aircraft and fighters, so that radio voice is needed between fighters and AWACS aircraft to identify friend or foe.
This is on the ZDK03 AWACS aircraft, which can be done only by automatically issuing instructions by the computer, without manual intervention at all.
In terms of air combat system, India is much worse than Pakistan, and even Americans feel that India's air combat system is "a mess."
Therefore, although the official propaganda of the Pakistan Air Force is exaggerated, in a few years, it will not be a reality over the South Asian subcontinent.