第五部分英文原文

Coming three months after the battle had concluded, it not only contradicted the earlier admission by his superior, General Chauhan, but also lacked any supporting evidence.

It appeared to be a desperate attempt to placate Prime Minister Modi, whose government has been under mounting pressure to mask the scale of the IAF’s losses. The stark contradiction between India’s top military leaders underscores the turbulence within its defence establishment.

Training to fight Rafale
The IAF had bought 36 Dassault Rafales in 2016, along with MBDA Meteor BVRAAMs, MBDA Scalp EG/Storm Shadow cruise missiles and Safran AASM Hammer glide bombs. The author sensed during subsequent visits to the PAF, that it was a concern for the leadership. Undeterred, they set about training to fight the Rafale and the European BVRAAM. In 2020, the PAF ordered both the long-range PL-15 and short-range PL-10 missiles which could be a game changer against the Meteor.

The PAF’s new tactics development school went into overdrive, employing the PAC/ Chengdu JF-17 and Lockheed Martin F-16s against Rafales in simulations. Every possible avenue was exploited to understand the weaknesses of the French jet.

Asked if the air forces of Qatar or Egypt had helped with this? ACM Sidhu said: “No. Because neither side fly the Rafale in the same tactical manner as India does.”

In the 1990s, before the PAF took delivery of the AIM-120 AMRAAM, it concentrated on within visual range (WVR) tactics, and according to the RAF and USAF pilots the author had talked to after exercises with them, they were very good at it. But it was different now.

Multi domain warfare
When ACM Sidhu became PAF Chief of the Air Staff on March 19, 2021, he ushered in some very big changes, realising the importance of different challenges of Air Power, and wanted to confront them through indigenous efforts. On the operational side, he invested time and resources into new domains like cyber, electronic warfare and space, as well as ground-based air defences and unmanned aerial vehicles. He would then integrate them with the operational fighters in what he refers to as ‘multi domain warfare’.

In June 2021, just three months after taking office, ACM Sidhu ordered 20, now much-prized Chengdu J-10Cs from China. They would be armed with the very long-range PL-15 and shorter-range PL-10 air-to-air missiles. The first six J-10Cs arrived on March 4, 2022. A multi-domain operations centre (MDOC) and a National ISR Air Ops Centre (NIIAOC) were two of many new departments the Commander created, where along with his staff and personnel, he could watch all these new assets interlinked while controlling the PAF’s every move.