IAF has lowest combat power in decade

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 24

In a damning reality, the Indian Air Force (IAF) is now at its lowest combat strength in more than a decade.

The IAF has informed the government about the gravity of the situation that the force is now in the middle of the shortage. Three squadrons of the vintage single-engine Soviet Union origin MiG-21 and MiG-27 have been phased out as on January 1 this year, leaving the IAF with only 32 squadrons (some 16-18 planes in each). This is some 10 short of the government mandated 42 squadrons needed to tackle a simultaneous two-front war with China and Pakistan.

In simple words, the IAF will have some 576 fighter jets and will be short of the 750-strong fighter jet fleet mandated by a government sanction to wage a simultaneous two-front war with Pakistan and China.

Of the 32 squadrons, the vintage MiG-21 and MiG-27 will form 11 squadrons. The Sukhoi 30-MKI populates 10 squadron, the 1970’s design British Jaguar is in six squadrons, followed by French Mirage 2000 and Soviet Union’s MiG-29 in two and three squadrons, respectively. The last three are being upgraded with better missiles and avionics.

The country is now facing the reality of projections on IAF fighter fleet made, separately, over the past 10 years, by the Indian Air Force, strategic thinkers, successive reports of Parliamentary Committees on Defence and the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). Warnings on the “lackadaisical” pace of induction of new fighter jets into the Indian Air Force and the resultant lose of “combative edge” in battle are now ringing true, sources say.

A senior official admitted: “We are in the middle of the predicted shortage.”

It is the replacements which bother the IAF. The IAF will be raising a squadron of the twin-engine Russian-origin Sukhoi-30-MKI within this year but much depends on the speed of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), which is licensed to produce it in India.

HAL, a Ministry of Defence (MoD)-owned public sector undertaking, was mandated by the Cabinet Committee on Security in March 2006 to produce 16 planes annually and deliver 180 in phases by 2017. The project is running three years behind schedule. Till 2011, the HAL had the capacity to produce just eight Sukhoi-30 jets annually, said a report of the CAG in 2014.

The Sukhois were ordered in phases since 1997, the IAF wants 272 of these in its fleet by 2020. The other choice for the IAF is to seek faster induction of the 106 Tejas “Mark-1A” which have been ordered.

The MoD has set a 2018 deadline for the first aircraft to be ready with a target to complete its production by 2022-23. In September, new specifications were agreed upon and the IAF accepted 43 modifications that could be carried out without changing the existing design.

10 squadrons short for two-front war with China, Pak

• Three squadrons of the vintage single-engine Soviet Union origin MiG-21 and MiG-27 have been phased out on January 1, leaving the IAF with only 32 squadrons (some 16-18 planes in each) 
• This is 10 short of the mandated 42 squadrons needed to tackle a simultaneous war with China and Pakistan