US may be facing its own F-16's in combat against Pakistan

[aneeshm]

The ideal thing for India:

a) McCain wins the US election.
b) After the next elections, the BJP sweeps in with a brute majority.
c) There is a terrorist attack in the USA. Nothing major, but still scary.
d) It is traced back to Pakistan.
e) The Pakistani government refuses to allow US troops to use its space beyond a point.
f) This leads to a standoff between the USA and Pakistan.
g) The USA acts unilaterally and violates Pakistani airspace.
h) This triggers a civil war in Pakistan between the moderates and hardline Islamists (over what the response should be)
i) The hardliners win
j) To stop Pakistani nukes from falling into the wrong hands, the USA and Isreal launch a combined attack on all Pakistani nuclear facilities. It succeeds.
k) The hardliners, being total idiots, have by or before then declared war on India.
l) The BJP, not wanting to waste a chance to win eternal glory as "The Conquerors of Kashmir", orders a military strike and invasion. Our forces sweep into Kashmir, destroy what remains of the Pakistani presence there, and reclaim it. To complete the Pakistani humiliation, they also take some more territory to act as a buffer.

 

[aneeshm]

And Pakistan has been incapable and unwilling of dealing with those groups. The Taliban is undergoing a resurgence right now.

Resurgence? They've annexed Waziristan!

Also the Pakistani military and the ISI have been aiding the Taliban and other terrorist groups

"Aid" is too weak a word. They created them, armed them, and in all other ways provided support.

 

[Cutlass]

Because we all know how well occupying a country filled with radical muslims works.

 

[Gooblah]

Well, this is a problem, but not a huge one. US pilots log thousands of hours and are among the best in the world. Pakistan? Not so much.

 

[aneeshm]

Because we all know how well occupying a country filled with radical muslims works.

Nobody wants Pakistan - it's a craphole, and would be a useless drain on our national resources. We just want our part of Kashmir.

 

[silver 2039]

a) McCain wins the US election.
b) After the next elections, the BJP sweeps in with a brute majority.
c) There is a terrorist attack in the USA. Nothing major, but still scary.
d) It is traced back to Pakistan.
e) The Pakistani government refuses to allow US troops to use its space beyond a point.
f) This leads to a standoff between the USA and Pakistan.
g) The USA acts unilaterally and violates Pakistani airspace.
h) This triggers a civil war in Pakistan between the moderates and hardline Islamists (over what the response should be)
i) The hardliners win
j) To stop Pakistani nukes from falling into the wrong hands, the USA and Isreal launch a combined attack on all Pakistani nuclear facilities. It succeeds.
k) The hardliners, being total idiots, have by or before then declared war on India.
l) The BJP, not wanting to waste a chance to win eternal glory as "The Conquerors of Kashmir", orders a military strike and invasion. Our forces sweep into Kashmir, destroy what remains of the Pakistani presence there, and reclaim it. To complete the Pakistani humiliation, they also take some more territory to act as a buffer.

I think I may have orgasmed. But don't you think India would have gotten involved well before then?

Though I question how easy it would be take out Pakistan's arsenal. Pakistan actually has decentralized command. There are 16 corps commanders in Pakistan and each one has the authority to launch on their own because Pakistan feels that if they lose Islamabad and the central command to a first strike by India they'll still be able to strike back since the corps commanders can launch.

So the situation may not be quite so easy.

Nobody wants Pakistan - it's a craphole, and would be a useless drain on our national resources. We just want our part of Kashmir.

I think I've mentioned this more than once. Pakistan should be broken up. Azad Kashmir should be annexed along with the Sagenska bulge which overlooks Islamabad, and perhaps a buffer zone in the south near Karachi. The new states would be Baluchistan, Sindh, and Pakistani Punjab....I'm not sure what to do with the N.W.F.P maybe give it to Baluchistan.

 

[aneeshm]

I think I may have orgasmed. But don't you think India would have gotten involved well before then?

Why should we, when the USA is doing most of the dirty work, but without actually getting their hands dirty - i.e., from the air? We step in when we have almost nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Though I question how easy it would be take out Pakistan's arsenal. Pakistan actually has decentralized command. There are 16 corps commanders in Pakistan and each one has the authority to launch on their own because Pakistan feels that if they lose Islamabad and the central command to a first strike by India they'll still be able to strike back since the corps commanders can launch.

True. However, there will be no warning when the USA and Israel strike all nuclear installations simultaneously. The "loss of Islamabad" scenario makes sense only when there is a nuclear strike to the central command, not when there are two mutually conflicting central commands.

Further, given that central command is going to be divided - remember the hardliner-moderate civil war - many of the corps commanders are going to have divided loyalties. Also, given that the civil war happened after and due to the strike on nuclear facilities, we don't have to worry about that, either. The army itself may be split down the middle, with the ISI faction - siding with the hardliners - pitted against the militarist faction, siding with the moderates. In any case, it would be total chaos, which is all to our benefit.

Again, this is only an "ideal" scenario, where almost nobody who matters gets hurt and we get what we want.

 

[nc-1701]

Not a huge worry F-16s are no better than Mig-29s, and we have fought them witrhout any difficulty. A war with Pakistan would be quite dangerous of course especially given the nuclear angle and many American lives would be lost, but Pakistan doesn't have the forces to be a huge threat. Really only Russia and China could hold air superiority against USAF for any extended period of time.

Just a little irony at the Indian nationalism here, isn't imperialism and hyper-nationalism Americas thing? But wow, I mean at least we dress it up "liberation".

 

[emzie]

Not a huge worry F-16s are no better than Mig-29s, and we have fought them witrhout any difficulty. A war with Pakistan would be quite dangerous of course especially given the nuclear angle and many American lives would be lost, but Pakistan doesn't have the forces to be a huge threat. Really only Russia and China could hold air superiority against USAF for any extended period of time.

Just a little irony at the Indian nationalism here, isn't imperialism and hyper-nationalism Americas thing? But wow, I mean at least we dress it up "liberation".

Mig 29s kicked the crap out of F-16s until Americans got around to implementing the helmet tracking system thing the Migs came with.

 

[Naval Power]

Really only Russia and China could hold air superiority against USAF for any extended period of time.

I wouldn't even go as far as saying that in all honesty

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Very true. But those advantages aren't enough to overcome the inescapable US air superiority, when it comes to training and planes. The US has both quality and quantity on its side, if it comes to a fight with the Pakistani Air Force - and playing on the home field won't do all that much to counteract that.

I'm not hoping for a fight, nor do I think it would be good or desirable to do so. I'm just realistic enough to know that if the US military really decided to seize air superiority over Pakistan, they could do so. We'd lose some men, but they'd lose more - that's about the long and short of it.

I'm sure the Soviets thought similar things when invading Afghanistan in 1979. Don't underestimate the mountain people of the Hindu Kush, or the great problems of eradicating an enemy or controlling the area there. Hell, even the British never actually controlled the area, they just paid the tribes there not to attack them!

 

[Elrohir]

I'm sure the Soviets thought similar things when invading Afghanistan in 1979. Don't underestimate the mountain people of the Hindu Kush, or the great problems of eradicating an enemy or controlling the area there. Hell, even the British never actually controlled the area, they just paid the tribes there not to attack them!

Whoa, when did we move to the subject of eradication? The topic is on Pakistan's Air Force, and how much of a threat it would be if we had to fight it. I agree that the US trying to conquer Pakistan would be a disaster (Especially if we're already juggling Afghanistan and Iraq), and I'm not suggesting it.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Whoa, when did we move to the subject of eradication? The topic is on Pakistan's Air Force, and how much of a threat it would be if we had to fight it. I agree that the US trying to conquer Pakistan would be a disaster (Especially if we're already juggling Afghanistan and Iraq), and I'm not suggesting it.

Because you were talking about SAMs and air defenses. It's obviously necessary to attack SAMs if you're going to own the air. Hitting ground targets means knowing where they are, unless you want to play the wild weasel game, but we saw how well that turned out in Vietnam. To be quite simple, there's no way an exchange with the Pakistani Air Force would remain an air war. At some point, we're going to have to do something about the ground, we can't just keep pummeling their air defenses until they can't replace them anymore, the gains are just not worth the cost; we have to own the ground they're being placed on, and controlling the Northwest Frontier and Baluchistan is damn near impossible, as I said previously. And screw the rule against ending sentences in prepositions, it's a stupid rule and something up with which I will most certainly put.

 

[SG-17]

A F-22 squadron consisting of 7 or 8 F-22s could take out all 62 of Pakistan's F-16s before the Pakistani's even are in visual range of the F-22s.

 

[Elrohir]

Because you were talking about SAMs and air defenses. It's obviously necessary to attack SAMs if you're going to own the air. Hitting ground targets means knowing where they are, unless you want to play the wild weasel game, but we saw how well that turned out in Vietnam. To be quite simple, there's no way an exchange with the Pakistani Air Force would remain an air war. At some point, we're going to have to do something about the ground, we can't just keep pummeling their air defenses until they can't replace them anymore, the gains are just not worth the cost; we have to own the ground they're being placed on, and controlling the Northwest Frontier and Baluchistan is damn near impossible, as I said previously. And screw the rule against ending sentences in prepositions, it's a stupid rule and something up with which I will most certainly put.

That would depend entirely upon the circumstances. Are we fighting a protracted war to establish a new leader in Islamabad? Are we going in to seize the Pakistani nuclear arsenal before it falls into the hands of radicals? Or are we running raids into Waziristan to blow up suspected Al Qaeda hideouts?

You can't say for sure what would happen either way, because there are so many diverse circumstances under which US fighters would square off against the Pakistani Air Force.

 

[pau17]

Can F-22s and B-2s be targeted by SAMs?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Just how important is dealing arms to other nations to US diplomacy and its economy?

 

[MobBoss]

A F-22 squadron consisting of 7 or 8 F-22s could take out all 62 of Pakistan's F-16s before the Pakistani's even are in visual range of the F-22s.

Actually, at a kill ratio of about 28:1 it wouldnt even take 7 or 8.

Can F-22s and B-2s be targeted by SAMs?

Targeted? The B-2 probably not. But the B-2 is far more stealthy than the F-22. The F-22 is stealthy and can supercruise at extremely high altitudes. Not sure what the pakis have that could deal with it.

 

[MobBoss]

Because you were talking about SAMs and air defenses. It's obviously necessary to attack SAMs if you're going to own the air. Hitting ground targets means knowing where they are, unless you want to play the wild weasel game, but we saw how well that turned out in Vietnam.

Cheezy....we have learned a bit since Vietnam. The tech gap surrounding this kind of thing is much wider than it was then. It would largely be a replay of Iraq where our airpower was able to destroy their entire SAM capability within a few days. Simply, if it gets turned on, it dies. Thats about it.

To be quite simple, there's no way an exchange with the Pakistani Air Force would remain an air war. At some point, we're going to have to do something about the ground, we can't just keep pummeling their air defenses until they can't replace them anymore

Actually, yes, we can.

 

[Cutlass]

Can F-22s and B-2s be targeted by SAMs?

By very few if any. AEGIS might be able to do it, but anything else would have to be extremely close.