Tactics and training for starters. The development of stealth tech to defeat SAM batteries. Priority of targeting SAM batteries to the exclusion of all else at the beginning of a air campaign. Airframe countermeasures. Satellite data to pinpoint locations of stationary SAM batteries. And even more that I cant exactly recall in a moments notice.
The Iraqi equipment was in the desert. The entire northern and western border of Pakistan is mountains.
Makes no real difference for a couple of reasons. We arent talking about helicopters crossing the border here, but stealth capable aircraft, most likely at night. Those valleys will inhibit a SAM batteries field of fire as well, but a radar emission signature will most certainly be easy to detect. They have to go 'active' in order to even have a chance at detecting a stealth capable plane. Once they do, their survivability rate is going to be measured in a matter of minutes.
Thats provided we havent spotted them from sats from orbit and pinpointed their position. If thats the case, they wont even live to go active on their radar.
I'm not saying we'd get slaughered, I'm saying it's not worth the cost. Again, remember what happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan. A man on a hillside with a missile is much more powerful and hard to kill than the gunship he's firing at.
We wouldnt be sending helicopters in there. It would all be stealth aircraft, or predators with hellfires.
Again, we have a much better capability than the soviets did. And a guy with a shoulder launched SAM isnt going to be taking down a jet fighter/bomber.
And do what with it? Sooner or later we're going to have to hit the ground, after all, we'd be fighting them to get the right to attack terrorists there.
We dont hit the ground until we have air superiority, and a reasonable chance of success of a cross-border mission. I worked in an Army Aviation Brigade and have taken part of the target aquisition process, and corridor prep prior to the mission. The bottom line is we are very good at doing this type of thing and have a lot of experience at it. If we want to do it bad enough, the pakis cant stop us from doing it. Ultimately, its up to them if they want to play with us, or play with the terrorists, but we are only going to patient with them for so long in regards to terrorists being harbored/aided cross border.
Remember how the Serbs did it. It can be done, its just a matter of planning, timing, and luck.
Serbs took advantage of some oversights on our part there. One, the F-117 at that time had no radar warning indicator light to tell the pilot he was being targeted....a deficiency that has most likely been fixed I assure you. Secondly, mission planners had relied upon the stealth tech too much and had gotten into the habit of using the same flight paths for multiple missions. This allowed the Serbs to predict where the aircraft would be and allowed them to use night vision goggles to first acquire the aircraft prior to firing upon it. These days our aircraft operate at much higher altitudes to avoid such visual targeting systems and we are also mandated to vary mission flight paths to avoid what happened in Kosovo.
You see, Cheesy, the pakis would have to take advantage of something we have overseen and not learned over the last decade or so. And if they did, just like the Serbs did, we would learn from our mistakes and put measures in place to rectify the shortfall.
