As soon as summer comes, it’s time for Indians to be active in the plateau border areas. The Indian army has been continuously carrying out troop reinforcements on the plateau since the weather got warmer this year. Let’s try to see if we can use this year’s opportunity to do some military work. Take risks to regain some face from the failure of the previous two years. Not only is the Indian military taking action in the plateau areas, Indian people have also started a new round of propaganda related to the comparison of China and India's military strength.
The Indian media Eurasia Times published an article written by its own experts in the past two days, focusing on the strength building of the Indian Air Force . This article puts forward quite directly that although India now has a considerable scale by comparison The fleet composed of advanced Rafale 4, Su-30MKI 4 and other fighter jets will be joined by more new aircraft in the future, but there is still a very big gap compared to its intended competitor, the Chinese Air Force ; and this For the Indian Army, this gap is not narrowing but expanding over time. What the Indian Army currently faces is an embarrassing situation of being lagging behind by more than 20 years as a whole.
According to the views put forward by Indian experts in the article, the first thing the Indian Air Force has to face is the gap in stealth aircraft; through development over the past few years, the Chinese Air Force has initially built a stealth fighter composed of J-20 fleet, although this type of fighter jet has not really reached its target state, it has already equalized the technological advantage held by the Americans in the past. In the eyes of Indian experts, the lack of stealth fighters and the lack of the ability to engage stealth aircraft will be the first difficulty that India must consider when preparing for plateau military operations in the next few years.
However, he still believes that the lack of stealth fighters is indeed a problem for the current Indian Air Force, but in a few years, India will definitely be able to obtain them, whether through self-development or the purchase of foreign fighters. A certain number of advanced stealth fighter jets will be able to form combat effectiveness; although this is likely to not come true until the end of this decade, it cannot widen the gap of 10 years. What's more, according to optimistic estimates, the scale of the aviation force that our army can invest in the west is limited. The Indian army can still gain a certain advantage by relying on the size advantage of its entire army over a theater of our army; it can really be said that it can be improved. The reason for the 20-year gap is that India’s aviation industry is fragmented and lacks the ability to track and develop technology for the cutting-edge unmanned loyal wingman that major powers are currently focusing on developing.
Indian experts believe that after currently completing a full set of third-generation and fourth-generation aircraft, and having a large-scale fleet that can perform a variety of tasks, the Indian Air Force still has conventional capabilities that are not backward; really, India will be The reason why the Chinese Air Force has narrowed the gap is because of its unmanned loyal wingman, which is an important component of the current Air Force tactical aircraft echelon. In the future, the Air Force will have a large number of tasks such as air defense suppression and anti-radiation, deep strikes and interdiction, etc., which will require unmanned aircraft to complete. However, India has lagged behind China in the development of such large, stealthy and high-performance unmanned aerial vehicles. At least 20 years.
Whether it is our army, the US military, or even the Russian army, which currently has a very tight budget, one of the current priorities in the development of air force tactical aircraft is high-performance stealth unmanned wingmen. We have projects such as Attack-11, and the United States has XQ -58, the Russians also have the S-70; these projects will very well supplement the mission capabilities of manned aircraft. The systematic development of air force equipment is a trend in the future, and its importance is deeply understood by the Indians.
However, it was precisely because of understanding, and the Indians did not have it for a while, that this expert realized the huge gap between China and India.Because this kind of high-performance stealth unmanned loyal wingman is currently almost impossible to buy in the international market, and instead of buying mature engines from the international market, the radar and electronic system can be stitched together like the Tejas fighter . Together, what is needed is a complete and mature aviation industry as a basis to promote research and development from the level of each subsystem; first, form its own complete set of air force systems, with its own standard data links, command and control systems, etc. Only by taking the next step can we create it.
The inability to obtain usable high-performance drones in a short period of time is indeed a troublesome thing for India. You have to say that you can also buy various commercial parts for things like long-endurance drones that integrate surveillance and attack. Come and do it yourself, the Turks can make it; but high-performance stealth unmanned wingman really depends on the developed aviation industry. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to use French Rafales to command Russian unmanned wingmen now, or use Russian export aircraft to command American unmanned wingmen. India itself does not have such R&D integration capabilities, at least it will have to wait until they really do so in the future. It has made a complete set of modern fighter jets completely independently, and solved the independent research and development and production of various subsystems. Only when it has its own standards.
In this direction, Indians have also discovered that China is now on the same level as the United States and has equaled the United States' advantages. However, if India wants to develop such a complete system, even with the help of experts, it will not be possible. It’s hard to say how many years it will take for this to be possible; the Indian expert’s statement that it is at least 20 years behind is indeed not an exaggeration. What the Indians are now worried about, in addition to the practical and loyal wingmen that China has demonstrated, is the Chinese and American sixth-generation fighter that is already in the pre-research stage.
The next generation of fighter jets will inevitably have many new paths that are currently unimaginable, whether it is a new power configuration, a new weapon type, or a new avionics architecture. And if both China and the United States will use the sixth generation When the prototype of the aircraft took off, India was still unable to solve today's problems. As Indian experts said, India is actually being pushed further and further away from China.
