Posted on 11/20/2005 6:19:39 AM PST by Gengis Khan
KALAIKUNDA, NOV 17: As the Cope India 2005 Indo-US air force exercises wound down today after two weeks of feverish action in the eastern skies, the US Air Force were left with a stark, double-edged realization.
One — that it is no longer the unchallenged leader in the skies, and two—for all future joint operations in South Asia, the IAF would, without doubt, be its natural partner.
Vice Commander of the US Pacific Air Forces Lt Gen Dave Deptula said: ‘‘I have never seen a better executed exercise in my 29 years with the USAF. This will go a long way towards establishing peace and stability in the region. Every single objective of this exercise has been met. It was not the US against India. It was an exercise on how to operate together.’’
Admittedly, the two forces still have much to learn from each other, especially in procedures and operational routines. Both sides said that given an immediate security threat, the two forces now had the capability to fly together in response. ‘‘We will now be prepared if called upon in the future for a contingency, unnamed and unknown. We will be in a position to respond. We can get onto the task of resolving crisis situations together without wasting time,’’ Lt Gen Deptula said. Today, the two sides flew a rare high value airborne asset (HVAA) attack simulation over Kalaikunda, which principally illustrated the cohesive nature of this round of war games. In the mission, the USAF’s E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft was escorted by American F-16s and Indian Su-30s in a scenario where the AWACS was attacked by a hybrid mix of American F-16s, Indian Mirage-2000s and Su-30s. In the words of one of Mirage pilots, this, more than any of the other maneuvers in the last weeks, epitomized what Cope India was about. Air Marshal Fali Major, Eastern Commander, said: ‘‘This exercise simulated a hot war scenario in a conventional setting. It was not about terror.’’
During the last Cope India exercise in February 2004, American F-15 pilots had admitted finding it bizarre that their Indian counterparts had routed them in many maneuvers. This time round, the buzzword was a studied ‘jointness’, though pilots told this newspaper off the record that the IAF had maintained its ‘‘one-up’’.
Yeah, I'm overwhelmed. /s
Gengis, do you know how the HVAA attack went? Did the attackers get through?
But, but, but don't we have top guns???? Or whatever.
Wonder if off the record they'd acknowledge that the ROEs were heavily weighted in favor of the IAF, again.
Send the IAF to Fallon and we'll see how well they do against NFWS.
I haven't any info on that yet.
Nicey-nicey code speak for "the Indian Air Force still has a long way to go."
"Wonder if off the record they'd acknowledge that the ROEs were heavily weighted in favor of the IAF, again. "
Not this time. I dont think so.
Thanks for the reply. I would have loved to have been part of this exercise. It sounded pretty cool from all that I've read in the press releases.
"............though pilots told this newspaper off the record that the IAF had maintained its ‘‘one-up’’."
No longer unchallenged in the skies...?
Must mean that the IAF would actually risk putting their birds airborne in a tussle with the USAF, as opposed to hiding them on the ground. Either way, the enemy ends up a pile of smoking rubble.
Yeah, I'm overwhelmed. /s
Heehee. Me too.
This is total crap because our new F/22 Raptor's are without equal.
Since this exercise went so wonderful, why don't we outsource our airforce as well...
Not a fair article, admittedly. Plays to an Indian audience by possibly exaggerating the IAF's achievements.
the other possibility is that the USAF deliberately underplayed their capabilities in order to see how far the IAF could stretch. Sometimes it makes sense to not reveal all your strengths, even to friends (:-)
You missed the second point:
"for all future joint operations in South Asia, the IAF would, without doubt, be its natural partner. "
This excercise is about preparing for a joint Indo-US co-operation in aerial warfare for future conflicts in Asia (read China)........ not an India-US war.
I thought the F22 was sort of boring until I saw the latest footage on the History Channel a couple of weeks ago. The "thrust vectoring" maneuvers were awesome.
Aren't the Israelis assisting in their training?
I'm sure the IAF is very good, and the new MIGs are superior to the F-15 in some ways, but these exercies aren't really a test of best against best.
I'll let The Indian Express have the bragging rights, though. The USAF has nothing to prove.
I'd like to think India would be an ally in checking future Chinese expansion, but I'm not sold on it yet.
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