Lordy Lordy! The same misinformation and whines are being again repeated ad nauseum
Rather than write it up again, lemmie just quote my post verbatim from the other thread
====================
Hi fellows,
Sorry for dragging what looked to be a rather acrimonious discussion from a couple months ago, but holy crud, there's a lot of misinformation about
this exercise some of you have, and I feel compelled to reply!
America accepted the rules of the excercise themselves; and they admitted they did so with the presumption that the Indian Air Force is incompetant or
stuck in rigid, predictable tactics, be they Western or Soviet. However, as they themselves admitted after the exercises, they completely
underestimated the IAF's skill and tactics.
Before I go any further, here's probably the most authoritative article on the COPE India Ex, based on interviews and quotes from the USAF pilots
themselves. There are some incorrect statements that the reporter threw in (ex: IAF Mirages are not armed with the Mica), but the quotes from the
aviators are most relevant.
3rd Wing Explains 'Cope India'
Exercise
Aviation Week & Space Technology 10/04/2004, page 50
David A. Fulghum Elmendorf AFB, Alaska
3rd Wing explains what happened when U.S. pilots faced innovative Indian air force tactics
Indian 'Scare'
The losing performance of F-15Cs in simulated air-to-air combat against the Indian air force this year is being perceived by some, both in the U.S.
and overseas, as a weakening of American capabilities, and it is generating taunts from within the competitive U.S. fighter community.
The Cope India exercise also seemingly shocked some in Congress and the Pentagon who used the event to renew the call for modernizing the U.S. fighter
force with stealthy F/A-22s and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.
The reasons for the drubbing have gone largely unexplained and been misunderstood, according to those based here with the 3rd Wing who participated.
Two major factors stand out: None of the six 3rd Wing F-15Cs was equipped with the newest long-range, active electronically scanned array (AESA)
radars. These Raytheon APG-63(V)2 radars were designed to find small and stealthy targets. At India's request, the U.S. agreed to mock combat
at 3-to-1 odds and without the use of simulated long-range, radar-guided AIM-120 Amraams that even the odds with beyond-visual-range kills.
These same U.S. participants say the Indian pilots showed innovation and flexibility in their tactics. They also admit that they came into the
exercise underrating the training and tactics of the pilots they faced. Instead of typical Cold War-style, ground-controlled interceptions, the
Indians varied aircraft mixes, altitudes and formations. Indian air force planners never reinforced failure or repeated tactics that the U.S. easily
repelled. Moreover, the IAF's airborne commanders changed tactics as opportunities arose. Nor did U.S. pilots believe they faced only India's top
guns. Instead, they said that at least in some units they faced a mix of experienced and relatively new Indian fighter and strike pilots.
Maj. Mark A. Snowden, the 3rd Wing's chief of air-to-air tactics and a participant in Cope India, spoke for the 13 U.S. pilots who attended the
exercise. They flew six F-15Cs, each equipped with a fighter data link for rapid exchange of target information, AIM-9Xs and a Joint Helmet-Mounted
Cueing System, he says. The aircraft had been to Singapore for another exercise and for the long, six-week jaunt it was decided not to bring along
the additional maintenance package needed to support AESA-equipped F-15Cs.
Cope India was held Feb. 15-28 at Gwalior, about 150 mi. south of Delhi, where the Indian air force has its Tactics Air Combat Development
Establishment, which operates late-model MiG-21 Fishbeds as fighter escorts and MiG-27 Floggers as strike aircraft. Aerospace officials who have heard
the classified brief on the exercise say the MiG-21s were equipped with a "gray-market" Bison radar and avionics upgrade.
Mica-armed Dassault Mirages 2000s are also stationed there. Brought in for the exercise were Sukhoi Su-30s (but not the newest Su-30 MKIs) carrying
simulated AA-11s and AA-12 Adders. There also were five MiG-29 Flankers involved in a peripheral role and an Antonov An-32 Cline as a simulated
AWACS.
"[color=blue]The outcome of the exercise boils down to [the fact that] they ran tactics that were more advanced than we expected[/color],"
Snowden says. "India had developed its own air tactics somewhat in a vacuum. They had done some training with the French that we knew about, but
we did not expect them to be a very well-trained air force. That was silly.
"They could come up with a game plan, but if it wasn't working they would call an audible and change [tactics in flight]," he says. "They made
good decisions about when to bring their strikers in. The MiG-21s would be embedded with a Flogger for integral protection. There was a data link
between the Flankers that was used to pass information. [Using all their assets,] they built a very good [radar] picture of what we were doing and
were able to make good decisions about when to roll [their aircraft] in and out."
Aerospace industry officials say there's some indication that the MiG-21s also may have been getting a data feed from other airborne radars that gave
them improved situational awareness of the airborne picture.
Generally the combat scenario was to have four F-15s flying at any time against about 12 Indian aircraft. While the U.S. pilots normally train to four
versus 12, that takes into account at least two of the U.S. aircraft having AESA radar and being able to make the first, beyond-visual-range shots.
For the exercise, both sides restricted long-range shots.
"That's what the Indians wanted to do," Snowden says. "That [handicap] really benefits a numerically superior force because you can't whittle
away some of their force at long range. They were simulating active missiles [including] AA-12s." This means the missile has its own radar
transmitter and doesn't depend on the launch aircraft's radar after launch. With the older AA-10 Alamo, the launching fighter has to keep its target
illuminated with radar so the U.S. pilots would know when they were being targeted. But with the AA-12, they didn't know if they had been targeted.
The Mirage 2000s carried the active Mica missile. Aerospace industry officials said that some of the radars the U.S. pilots encountered, including
that of the Mirage 2000s, exhibited different characteristics than those on standard versions of the aircraft.
Indian planners combined the use of top-line fighters like this Su-30 with older types and impressive, innovative tactics.
Credit: USAF TSGT. KEITH BROWN
The U.S. pilots used no active missiles, and the AIM-120 Amraam capability was limited to a 20-naut.-mi. range while keeping the target illuminated
when attacking and 18 naut. mi. when defending, as were all the missiles in the exercise.
"When we saw that they were a more professional air force, we realized that within the constraints of the exercise we were going to
have a very difficult time," Snowden says. "In general, it looked like they ran a broad spectrum of tactics and they were adaptive. They
would analyze what we were doing and then try something else. They weren't afraid to bring the strikers in high or low. They would move them around
so that we could never anticipate from day to day what we were going to see."
By comparison, the U.S. pilots don't think they offered the Indians any surprises. The initial tactic is to run a wall with all four F-15s up
front. That plays well when the long-range missiles and AESA radar are in play.
"You know we're there and we're not hiding," Snowden says. "But we didn't have the beyond-visual-range shot or the numerical advantage.
Eventually we were just worn down by the numbers. They were very smart about it. Their goal was to get to a target area, engage the target and then
withdraw without prolonging the fight. If there were a couple of Eagles still alive away from the target area, they would keep them pinned in, get
done with the target and then egress with all their forces.
"All their aircraft seemed to be capable of breaking out [targets] and shooting at the ranges the exercise allowed," he says. "We generally don't
train to an active missile threat [like the Mirage's Mica or the AA-12 for the Russian-built aircraft], and that was one of the things that caused us
some problems."
USAF planners here see Cope India as the first step in an annual series of exchange exercises.
The IAF exhibited incredible flexability and skill in the mission planning and flying. The tactics they used, to the great surprise of the Americans
were uniquely Indian, as, to quote a USAF pilot, Indian tactics "were developed in a vaccum"; i.e. Indian tactics were neither Soviet or Western
style. Beacuse they expected the IAF to be strictly conformal to Soviet doctrine and not at all innovative, the excercise came as a very rude shock to
the Americans.
The IAF's first ever tangle with the Armee de l'Air a couple years ago pitted IAF M2Ks versus French, which were BVR armed. The exercises showed the
Indians that, though they beat the French in WVR dogfighting, the French could pick IAF a/c off at BVR. The IAF then went all out in developing
BVR-heavy a/c (Su-30MKI, LCA), upgrading its current fighter fleet to BVR capabilities (including down to the BVR MiG-21 Bison upgrade of its MiG-21
fleet, which proved itself more than worthy in COPE India), porcuring and developing BVR weapons, and developing tactics in BVR combat from the French
and internal DACT exercises.]
That plus the fact that the Indians flew as many, and in the case of the Jags, M2Ks and Sukhois, more hours than their American counterparts. The
capabilities of the plain vanilla Su-30 (IAF didn't field their Su-30MKI 'supercars'; the IAF Su-30s will in the next couple years will be upgraded
to MKI standard) also came as a shock to the Americans.
The biggest lesson that America took away from these exercises was that a well-trained airforce can best an American force of equal footing without
American force-multipliers the dissipation of the groupthink belief that inherantly assumes American combat superiority in the post-cold war world.
Hence, this was a major reason the USAF gave in pushing for the F-22, which in terms of capabilities, is far ahead of any current aircraft. The USAF
also learned about the capabilities firsthand of the vanilla IAF Su-30 which are comparable to PLAAF Su-27s and Su-30s.
The IAF's lesson was one of the need for force multipliers (like the AWACS, which prompted India to restart its indegenous AWACS program, which is
designed to complement the Phalcon, and increased the order of Su-30MKI a/c; and the exercises refined IAF's combat tactics versus Western fighters.
The latter they did as well in the recent exercises with South African Mirages and, even more significantly, with RSAF F-16 blk 50s, which are a
generation and a half superior to the Pakistani F-16s. Unlike COPE India, these exercises were very hush-hush and, according to IAF pilots in news
reports, the exerciseses gave them significant information on how to develop F-16-specific combat tactics. Singapore was so impressed with India that
the majority of their training will now be done in and with India, so this will obviously give the IAF much more familiarity with the capabilities of
the F-16, and similarly the RSAF will get familiarity with the Sukhois, which Malaysia and potentially Indonesia operates.
===============
OK, now to address some of the misconceptions that some members here raised:
Firstly, many here suggest that the Americans were 'outnumbered' in the entire exercise. In a way, you are correct, as there were more IAF planes
that participated in COPE India.
But your implication that the USAF were solely outnumbered by the Indians throughout the missions, is incorrect. The exercise consisted of offensive
and defensive counter-air exercises, with 12 attacking aircraft (8 ground attack and 4 escorts) conducting a simulated raid on Gwalior AFB, versus 4
defending aircraft scrambling to intercept.
Both the Indian and the American fighters took turns being attacking and defending a/c, mixing the formations between MiG-21 Bis, Su-30K, M2K, and
F-15.
The numbers of a/c used in the missions was applied the same to aircraft both sides! In other words, if you were to say the American
(defenders) were mugged by the Indians, then you should say the Indian (defenders) were
equally mugged by the Indians!
It wasn't a case where 12 Indian fighters mugged the Americans due to numbers! The the exercise was to judge the
performance of the pilots in
theses scenarios. And even then, it wasn't always 12v.4, as 10v.4 and 6v.4 missions were documented.
Even so, the declassified version of the report that was sent to Congress noted that the USAF defenders lost 90% of the time, which was apparently was
a worse record than the IAF when they played the defenders.
Secondly,
the same weapons range handicaps applied to both sides! It was not as if the Americans were the only ones that these ROEs applied
to, as you are implying, but the Indians, too, limited the same range on their BVR missiles. The exercise was made to test tactics and pilot skill,
not how far the USAF or IAF can slug it out
Thirdly,
the IAF did not use AWACS against AWACS-less F-15s, as some of you suggest. Heck, the Phalcons are still a couple years in coming. The
simulated AWACS was simply an An-32 that one mission required for the fighters to protect. Both the USAF and IAF used their datalinking
capabilities, however, the IAF and especially the MiG-21s having it apparently being a shock to the Americans (though I don't know why it would be,
as it is publicly-available information...)
Forthly, so what if America didn't field their best aircraft (AESA-equipped F-15s)?. Neither did India (Su-30MKI with BARS ).
However, the even
the aircraft America fielded (i.e. AESA-less F-15s (without the hardware, software updates, etc.)) with their slotted-array radars
still
outclassed the N-001 radars of the Su-30Ks by a generation! Only the MiG-21 Bis with their Kopyo-M radar was the technological equivilant of the
F-15s, but even this doesn't have the same range. However, it should be noted that in some of the missions involved the IAF using their datalinking
capabilities, with appaerent tremendous success, but it wasn't used in every mission, though.
Fifthly,
though America fielded an average squadron, so did India! The article specifically states that the Indian pilots were a mix from
novice to expert, as is the norm in IAF squardrons, where there are no 'elite' squadrons. It is not as if the IAF aces all flew against rookie USAF
pilot.
Sixthly, what is all this ruminition about poor IAF pilot training?(!) The IAF is one of the few AFs in the world that is always at a state of
operational readiness, i.e. has the immediate ability to conduct full scale operations as soon as the order is given. They train long, and they train
hard. One reason the attrition rate is high for the old MiG-21s is because the IAF logs so very many flying hours on the machines (though even then
the attrition rate is not exceptional, given the flying hours.)
Heck, even the
USAF guys who came said their Indian pilot friends logged just as many, and in many cases more flying hours than them!
Lets see... am I forgetting anything else?
Oh yes, seventhly, the
IAF MiG-21 Bisons are probably the most advanced -21s in the world. Packed to the brim with Indian, Israeli and French
avionics, Indian software, composities and computers, and the most modern Russian technologies and radar. Not your father's -21s by any means
but
still not equal to the F-15s America brought in.
===============
The exercise (like all exercises are) was a very specific one, aimed to test the skills and abilities of the pilots applied to very exacting
scenarios. The Americans did not have their technical advantages, and neither did the Indians; as the exercises were designed to test mission
planning, aerial tactics and pilots. The ROEs did not handicap one country versus the other; there wouldn't be any value to an exercise if that were
the case. The reason that this exercise generated so much interest, was that the IAF apparently very much impressed the Americans with their
abilities, and showed that pilot-to-pilot, as an American pilot said, the IAF is "just as good as us."
I simply don't understand the bruising of egos and the need for excuses founded on misconceptions that this exercise generated. Remember, this
wasn't a competition, but a cooperation in exercise, seeing and learning and experimenting ('how would 4 F-15s fare versus 4 -27s and 2 Su30s and
these mission factors?''hmm interesting, now what about using this tactic against this situation', etc)... The
only thing to take
away from this exercise is that both sides learned a great deal from each other, and laid a great foundation for friendship and future cooperation.
Hear's to the great, up and coming US-India relationship!
Cheers,
Raj
[edit on 26-11-2004 by rajkhalsa2004]
[edit on 26-11-2004 by rajkhalsa2004]
