Ambition is ambition, does India have the strength to wage war?

Relying on dozens of F35AI, to defeat Pakistan?

Obviously, if the Indian leaders really want to think so, they will either be utter fools or crazy.

True, the F35A is a veritable fourth-generation fighter, but the F35AI, which was sold to India, is not very good, and a lot of key equipment has been canceled.

For example, the vital integrated optoelectronic system was picked up by the Americans.

Nominally, the United States has enhanced the air combat performance of the F35AI in response to India's needs, but in fact, it has secretly tricked India.

Quite simply, these F35AIs have little to no ground strike capabilities.

Although the Indian Air Force has long declared that it will not let F35AI perform ground strike missions, the purpose of purchasing F35AI is to enhance air supremacy, that is, India needs a fourth-generation fighter that can compete with J20, but can F35AI really perform air missions?

Obviously, a big question mark must be put on it.

Not to mention fighting with the Huaxia Air Force, even in the face of the Pakistan Air Force, 36 F35AIs may not be able to give the Indian Air Force enough advantages.

Why?

The Pakistan Air Force has hundreds of JF20s, and a large proportion of them are air supremacy models, and only a few are dedicated anti-aircraft suppression fighters.

Here, we have to mention the assistance of Saudi Arabia and other countries.

During the Iraqi civil war, Saudi Arabia and other Arab League countries spent huge sums of money to purchase hundreds of JF17s from Pakistan in order to support the Razak regime.

According to the original agreement, in addition to the original purchase price of the JF17, Saudi Arabia will also provide Pakistan with a sum of money in the form of military assistance, allowing Pakistan to purchase more advanced fighter jets from Huaxia, such as the JF20, to supplement the power vacuum created by the sale of the JF17.

In fact, before the end of the Iraqi civil war, the Pakistan Air Force received the first batch of 40 JF20s.

These fighters are all from the Huaxia Air Force.

Although it is a second-hand product of the Huaxia Air Force, the service time is within 5 years, and when it was sold to the Pakistan Air Force, only the friend or foe identifier was replaced, and all other supporting facilities were retained, so its combat effectiveness was equivalent to the J10 used by Huaxia.

This includes active phased array radar.

With this batch of JF20s, the Pakistan Air Force found out that this Huaxia fighter is not ordinarily good.

Needless to say, the radar is at least one level higher than the phased array radar of the third batch of JF17, which is simply incomparable.

You know, for the third batch of JF17 phased array radars, the Pakistan Air Force is already quite satisfied.

In practice, the Pakistan Air Force has found that the JF20 patrolling over the border can easily detect the U30Ki operating near New Delhi.

In good weather, it was even possible to lock on to these Indian fighters.

That is to say, the effective detection range of the JF20's active phased array radar for air targets at the level of 10 square meters has reached 300 kilometers, and the maximum locking distance is about 250 kilometers, even when the weather is not very good, the locking distance is about 200 kilometers.

It can be said that these JF20s can be used as small AWACS aircraft.

Of course, this is also only for larger heavy fighters.

In the face of targets such as Rafale with an R of about 1 square meter, the detection range of JF20 is reduced to less than 200 km, and the locking distance will not exceed 120 km.

Of course, that's good enough.

You must know that the F16/D, which was regarded as the absolute main force of the Pakistan Air Force at that time, was equipped with a fire control radar that did not have such strong performance.

In terms of maneuverability, the JF20 has nothing to say at all, at least it will not be worse than the F16/D.

In some ways, the JF20 is even slightly better.

As for the reliability that the Pakistan Air Force has been worried about, especially the reliability of the engine, after a year of intensive use, it is no longer there.

Why?

At that time, the Pakistan Air Force replaced hundreds of JF17s with 40 JF20s, so the daily tasks of these 40 JF20s were very heavy.

By the end of the Iraqi civil war, 40 JF20s had accumulated 12,000 hours of flight time, with one exceeding 600 hours.

What is this concept?

Under normal circumstances, the life of the fighter is designed according to 6,000 to 8,000 hours, and the highest is about 10,000 hours, and according to the usual 25 to 30 years of service time, the annual flight time of a fighter is between 200 and 300 hours.

In less than a year, 600 hours of flight is definitely ultra-high-intensity.

Such a high intensity of use is a huge challenge to the maintainability of the fighter, after all, the time of use is more, and the time of maintenance is required.

In fact, in addition to the need to perform combat missions, the intensity of the use of fighters will not be too high.

As for daily training, it actually relies on cheap advanced trainers with better maintainability and longer service life.

You know, even in the United States, many fighter pilots use trainer planes for daily training.

It was through this period of use that Pakistan strengthened its determination to procure JF20.

By the time the Iraqi civil war ended, Pakistan began to officially purchase JF20.

In 2021, Pakistan has acquired at least 40 JF20s, and all of them are in the second batch, corresponding to Huaxia's J10D.

In the same year, Pakistan sent the initial 40 JF20s back to China one after another to upgrade them according to the second batch.

By 2022, Pakistan had procured 40 JF20s with military assistance from Saudi Arabia.

By this year, that is, in 2023, Pakistan still plans to purchase 40 JF20s, and they are the same model as Saudi Arabia, that is, the anti-aircraft suppression type.

That is, the Pakistan Air Force has about 140 JF20s, and it will soon reach 160.

These JF20s not only replaced the first and second JF17s, but also all F16/Ds.

Now, the main force of the Pakistan Air Force is these JF20s, as well as about 100 JF17s of the third batch, in addition to a small number of older fighters such as the F7G.

Why did the Pakistan Air Force replace the F20/D with the JF16 instead of the old fighter?

Quite simply, the Indian Air Force is already armed with hundreds of F16E/F.

In addition, these F16/D can be sold for a good price.

All the F16/D eliminated by Pakistan were sold to Iraq, and the funds in exchange were enough to buy dozens of JF20s from Huaxia.

According to the plan of the Pakistan Air Force, 200 JF20 and 120 JF17 will be equipped before the JF30 is completed.

In the future, the JF30 will replace older fighters such as the F7G, and will gradually replace the original JF17 as production scales up.

That is, the JF20 will be in service with the Pakistan Air Force for at least 30 years.

So, will the Indian Air Force, with 36 F35AIs, be able to defeat the Pakistani Air Force and fully seize air supremacy in the South Asian subcontinent?

Obviously, this is an almost impossible task.