Global militaries to study India-Pakistan jets dogfight: Report

Global militaries are likely to study the dogfight between French-made Indian Rafale and Chinese-made Pakistani jets as a way to get more insights that could help during times of future conflicts. Aerial clashes are deemed rare opportunities for defence forces to accumulate knowledge and prepare their own air forces. 

According to a report in Reuters, the dogfight between Indian and Pakistani jets would be analysed across the world, including in China and the US. 

However, the Chinese ministry, commenting on the usage of their homemade J-10 aircraft by the Pakistani air force, claimed to have no knowledge about it. On the other hand, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said they used J-10C jets to combat the Indian side. Outside of China, the Pakistan Air Force is the only other force to operate the J-10C fighter jets. 

Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies said the air warfare communities in US, China and a number of European countries would be extremely interested to try and get as much ground truth as they can on tactics, techniques, procedures, what kit was used, what worked and what didn’t, as per the report.

Barrie said, "You have arguably China's most capable weapon against the West's most capable weapon, if indeed it was being carried; we don't know that.” 

Washington-based defence expert Byron Callan said there would be audits of what works and what doesn’t but he still cautioned about the proverbial fog of war. Callan added that US arms companies are constantly getting feedback about how their products are working in the Russia-Ukraine war.

China’s PL-15’s performance would also be a focus of the Western countries, the report added, considering it signalled Beijing’s move from its dependence on Soviet-era technology.

As per the report, the US is developing the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile via Lockheed Martin in response to the PL-15. 

(With Reuters inputs)