Shrinking fleet poses tough choices for IAF: light, medium or heavy fighters?

IAF demands more medium fighters, but shortfall is in light fighters, with MiG fleet soon retiring

By Ajai Shukla

Business Standard, 4th Jan 2017

Last Wednesday, the retiring Indian Air Force (IAF) chief, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, declared in New Delhi that the IAF requires about 200-250 medium fighters in addition to 36 Rafale multi-role fighters that were contracted with French vendor, Dassault, earlier this year.

The 36-Rafale contract was signed for Euro 7.8 billion (Rs 55,600 crore). Another 200 Rafales, or comparable fighters, would require Euro 43.3 billion (Rs 310,000 crore), far beyond India’s means, given current defence spending.

But Raha did not hesitate to put the requirement on the table. “We have just ordered 36 aircraft and we require more aircraft in the medium weight category to give [the IAF an] entire spectrum of capability,” he said.

The IAF currently operates just 33 squadrons against an assessed requirement of 42 squadrons needed to tackle China and Pakistan together. Of these, 11 squadrons of MiG-21 and MiG-27s are operationally suspect, being long overdue for retirement.

Referring to this, Raha stated: “We have already used them for four decades plus. It is time to retire them and get new aircraft… Over the next 10 years, we must have 200-250 aircraft. It has to be balanced out. In the heavy weight spectrum, we have enough. But in the medium weight category, we need to have more. Yes, about 200 will be very good”.

An analysis of the IAF's "force mix" reveals that the shortfall in fighters is actually in the light fighter segment, not in medium fighters. By 2022, when 11 squadrons of MiG-21s and MiG-27s would have to be phased out, there would be a dire shortfall of light fighters. At best, 103 Tejas Light Combat Aircraft would have come in, leaving the light fighter segment with just 5 squadrons. In contrast, there would be 14 squadrons (266 aircraft) in the medium fighter segment and another 14 squadrons (272 aircraft) of heavy fighters.

“The IAF’s needs to replace 11 squadrons of obsolescent MiGs. The replacement, therefore, must be a cheap-to-buy, cheap-to-operate, light-to-medium fighter. Since we cannot afford 200 Rafale-class fighters, and the Tejas production line is building too slowly, the IAF is left with just one option: setting up a second fighter line to build fighters in the 20-tonne class in large numbers for the IAF”, says Pushpinder Singh, combat aviation analyst and the publisher of Vayu magazine.

The government is already moving down that path. On October 7, the IAF wrote to several global aerospace giants, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Saab, and Russia’s Rosoboronexport, soliciting interest in setting up a production line in India to build single-engine, medium fighters.

US firm, Lockheed Martin, which is offering the F-16 Block 70 and Saab, which is introducing a new fighter, the Gripen E, are the current front runners, with both being marketed aggressively in New Delhi.

Over the last 15 years, the IAF has been framing its fighter aircraft requirements in terms of light, medium and heavy fighters. In the year 2000, Air Headquarters stated that an ideal “force mix” would be 200 fighters each in the light, medium and heavy categories. The rationale for this was never made clear.

Traditionally an air force’s “force mix” has been based on aircraft’s roles, not their weight or size. Air forces have calculated their need for “air superiority fighters” that shot down enemy aircraft to gain ascendency in the air; “strike aircraft” that bombed enemy targets, including airfields, roads and railways and even strategic targets; and “close air support fighters” that struck enemy targets in the tactical battle area and carried out battlefield interdiction to prevents different components of the enemy’s fighting force from coming together. Separately, they calculate their need for specialist aircraft for photoreconnaissance and electronic warfare, or jamming enemy radars to facilitate a mission.

Large air forces like the US Air Force still have super-specialist aircraft for each role. The F-22 Raptor and the F-15 Eagle perform the air superiority role; while the strike role falls to the F-35 Lightning II (called the Joint Strike Fighter because it is a common strike aircraft for the USAF, navy and Marine Corps). The US Navy has a separate fighter aircraft for combat operations off aircraft carriers, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, which operates in tandem with an electronic warfare fighter variant, the F/A-18G Growler.

Smaller (and lower-budget) militaries increasingly use multirole fighters that are capable of performing most roles, albeit slightly less proficiently than specialist aircraft. Digital avionics allow pilots to switch from one role to another (e.g. anti-air to ground strike), while higher weapons payloads allow aircraft to carry air-to-air missiles as well as surface attack bombs. Consequently, equipping an air force with multi-role combat aircraft like the Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon, F-16 and Gripen reduces the need for multiple types of aircraft in the fleet.

What does this mean in practical terms? In earlier days, a “mission package”, say for striking an oil refinery deep inside enemy territory might have required nine aircraft: four ground strike aircraft, another four air superiority fighters to protect them en route from enemy fighters, as well as an electronic warfare aircraft to jam enemy radars on the way. Now, with multirole aircraft carrying bombs, missiles as well as jammers, four to six multi-role fighters could bomb the refinery, tackle enemy fighters and jam radars en route.

What is catered for separately are “force multipliers” like air-to-air refuellers and airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft. These facilitate rapid turnaround of fighters, and greater airspace awareness, allowing air forces to do more with fewer fighters. While a Sukhoi-30MKI can do a three-and-a-half hour mission on internal fuel, the mission time can be doubled with air-to-air refuelling.

The IAF, however, is still transitioning from mission-specific to multirole fighters. Its vintage MiG-21 fleet consists of air superiority fighters, except for the MiG-21 BISON, which has been upgraded with multirole capability. The MiG-27 is a pure ground strike fighter, as is the Jaguar, though there are plans to upgrade Jaguars with air-to-air capability. The MiG-29 was an air superiority fighter, but its on-going upgrade is providing it ground strike capability, making it a multirole fighter for what remains of its service life. Meanwhile, the Sukhoi-30MKI, Mirage 2000 and Tejas Mark I are multirole fighters, as will be the Rafale.

With seven types of fighters already in the fleet (five types after the MiG-21 and MiG-27 retire), the IAF’s most worrying problem in a future war would be the logistics nightmare of maintaining and repairing all these different aircraft. This problem would be complicated further if the F-16 or Gripen are built in India.

Nor has there been a hardnosed reassessment of how many fighter squadrons the IAF really needs. The figure of 42 squadrons was arrived at years ago, but has not been revised after the advent of high-performance, multirole aircraft and a range of force multipliers. Given the cost of modern fighters and the existing pressures on India’s defence allocations, this issue will inevitably be revisited in the future.

Fighter mix in the IAF

Category	Present numbers	Fighter type	Changes	Future strength
Light fighters	8 squadrons, 130 aircraft	MiG-21M, Bis, BISON	11 MiG squadrons retire by 2022, replaced by 5 Tejas squadrons (103 fighters)	5 squadrons, 103 fighters
	3 squadrons, 35 aircraft	MiG-27 UPG
Medium fighters	3 squadrons, 50 aircraft	Mirage 2000	36 Rafale fighters being additionally inducted by 2021-22	14 squadrons, 266 fighters
	3 squadrons, 60 aircraft	MiG-29 UPG
	6 squadrons, 120 aircraft	Jaguar
Heavy fighters	11 squadrons, 210 aircraft	Sukhoi-30MKI	Total 272 Su-30 MKI by 2019-20	14 squadrons, 272 fighters