Report: Pakistan Eyeing French Weaponry

R

rock45

Active member
I saw this and started reading between the lines a little. China's radar and missiles aren't that good thus the reason for Pakistan look elsewhere. Looks bad for China when the country involved in the design and R&D cost goes outside. Maybe the J-10 isn't that good or China didn't offer the good stuff to Pakistan because they afraid that the US might get a peak under the hood. Either way going French is going to bring this $20/25 million dollar per fighter up to around $30 mil per. I see in the future a little un-sold Rafale built into Block-2, J-10s, leave it up to the French.

Story I found
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h4m6SyG7MpgjfLAMczYccdiYprHg
 
Not that surprising, France sells things to everyone out there. Saddam had a few French aircraft, and the Argentine missiles which sank a few British ships in the Falklands War were French made Exocets.
 
Saddam Air Force was almost all Russian. He had a few Mirage F1 and III but most MiG and Sokoi's. He also had some US equipment as well. Some of the SAMs he fired at us in 1991 were are own (very dated) HAWK system.

Most Pakistani aircraft are American. F-5 and F-16s. I don't think Pakistan would by French for 2 reasons.

First of all most of the PAF is based on American tech, that means they would have to change their entire infrustucture in order to accommodate French Technology. Fuel, Spares, munitions, support eqipment, plus you would have to retrain the entire airforce not just the pilots but the ground crews and support staff as well. Possible? yes but a royal pain in the arse.

Secondly Pakistans greatest enemy India already flies French (and Russian Aircraft). Can you imagine the IFF problems? You could never tell if that Rafale or Mirage-2000 was Indian or Pakistani.

Its exactly the reason why India wont buy F-16s.
 
Last edited:
Whoops thats a typo I meant F-7. Sorry.

As for the rest, check again. Pakistan does operate French STRIKE aircraft, namely Mirage-III and Mirage-V. But those are extremely old airframes (Gen-3), almost 40 years old. The design is totally incompatible with 5th Generation aircraft. They would have to rebuild everything from scratch.

They still have over 50 F-16A its much smarter and easier to order the C/D and keep your infrustucture intact.

The only reason I could see Pakistan switching to French (or someone else) is due to politics.
 
Pakistan AF

I think Pakistan has way less then 50 Vipers, I'm not sure if the latest batched was delivered which bring them up to near that total.

The bulk of PAF are Mirage III/50 and JP-7, a Chinese Mig-21 copy with a wider wing. The wider wing on the J-7 makes it a better turner in a dog fight from what I read.

The reason for the French radar and missiles is because of the JF-17 you guys are over looking is that there buying 150 of these things, at least from their order. This is going to be their Mirage and J-7 replacement straight up. Sort of a hop up or slightly advance Mig-21 in a different frame. Its going to give them a 3rd + generation fighter to do away with their 2nd generation fighters. They also have an order for a squadrons of J-10s too, 2009/10 is a rough delivery. To date China hasn't confirmed that. You can go to jf-17.com or to the Chinese forum and get some updated information there.

As far as I know nobody besides the United States has and operates 5th generation aircraft.

Down the road their high end fighter will be
30 ish C/D Vipers if their lucky - Slammers might not be included
30 ish A/B Vipers -some have been updated and some spares have been sent.
a squadron J-10 - very much open really
1 squadron JF-17 2008/2009 -this has been ordered is is planned
2 more squadrons to follow date open

My feeling is if the J-10 turns out to semi real their canceled the remaining JF-17 order and go with the J-10s. The J-10 has (11) hard points and uses the Flankers AL31 engine and on paper at least goes Mach 2.2

I don't want to sell them anymore Vipers nor any Slammers but that's my two cent
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top