>But Reuters interviews with two Indian officials and three of their Pakistani counterparts found that the performance of the Rafale wasn't the key problem: Central to its downing was an Indian intelligence failure concerning the range of the China-made PL-15 missile fired by the J-10 fighter. China and Pakistan are the only countries to operate both J-10s, known as Vigorous Dragons, and PL-15s.

>The faulty intelligence gave the Rafale pilots a false sense of confidence they were out of Pakistani firing distance, which they believed was only around 150 km, the Indian officials said, referring to the widely cited range of PL-15's export variant.

>"The Indians were not expecting to be shot at," said Justin Bronk, air warfare expert at London's Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think-tank. "And the PL-15 is clearly very capable at long range."

>The PL-15 that hit the Rafale was fired from around 200km (124.27 mi) away, according to Pakistani officials, and even farther according to Indian officials. That would make it among the longest-range air-to-air strikes recorded.

>>64068828 (OP)
Or the real range was far less and those retards are crying to get better missiles.

>>64068828 (OP)
Source:
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/how-pakistan-shot-down-indias-cutting-edge-fighter-using-chinese-gear-2025-08-02/

>>64068828 (OP)
>the PL-15 is clearly very capable at long range
which is why they got 5 aircraft out of 100+

>>64068828 (OP)
Literally everything here is retarded. The Indians are fucking morons. Very likely lying to save face, too.

>>64068828 (OP)
Only PL15E debris have been recovered. This is more coping from pajeets. Its pretty much standard practice among all the major military forces to hide the true capability of their weapon systems.

>>64068847
5% losses are twice as high as in your average WW II strategic bombing mission, not sustainable

>>64068992
Doesn't change the fact that it's a pathetic showing against an enemy with no AWACS support who wasn't even expecting to get into an A2A engagement.

>>64069018
>going to bomb another fucking country
>not expecting to get into an A2A engagement

So the incompetence goes all the way down the list. From mission planning, to procurement, to pilots.

>>64069062
>So the incompetence goes all the way down the list. From mission planning, to procurement, to pilots.
This is a revelation to you? No fucking shit. We're talking about India.

>>64068937
yes
the export model will exceed the official figures given

and any military that's not retarded will assume munitions are better than they are (even if they're not). it's always better to overestimate the enemy than underestimate them.

>>64069018
they would have detected the paki birds on their own radars, along with the radar spikes. indians fired a lot of missiles back too going by the account, but none of them hit. we can assume they were meteors and r-77s.

>>64068828 (OP)
You cunts are still going to be making these threads in the 2030s aren't you?
The "Pakistan shoots down french made Indian plane with chinese missile" incident will enter chinese history to stand beside moments like the Oath of the Peach Garden and the writing of the Four Great Classics as one of the most important days in all of Chinese history

>>64068828 (OP)
>The Indians were not expecting to be shot at
Wait. Didn't they announce where they were attacking and when?

>>64069861
this was one of the first actual mass air-to-air engagements in a long time of comparable craft and munitions, and it was exclusively bvr, so yes, it's worth talking about.

the odd and rare a2a shoot down in ukraine is incomparable.

>>64069868
>this was one of the first actual mass air-to-air engagements

But there were no actual mass air-to-air engagements...
The indians only wanted a little show for their population, no escalation, and told the paki in advance when the attack would take place and they would not target them. And they were retarded enough to think the pakis would do nothing. It was less of a military or intel failure than a huge political fuck up with retarded RoE that got them ambushed.
After their humiliation and the subsequent attack on actual paki military targets, they bombed freely pakistani bases and lost no planes in the process. And seems there were no air-to-air engement this time. Don't know were the paki air force was. Either they had no success this time (and it tells about their "success" of the first day) or they just didn't participate (and it also tells)

>>64068828 (OP)
>think tank
>speculating without hard evidence
cool, still no actual evidence then, i’m going to assume it was not what shot them down considering how hard chinks are shilling for this particular narrative.
>>64068937
Missed PL15’s, yes.

>>64069842
India does not actually have any Meteors yet, they are believed to have purchased them but there is no difference any delivery has happened which makes sense given the backlog for them right now. R-77s are a very mediocre missile that is closer to a medium range missile than a long range missile though so I can believe those missed

>>64070059
Regardless of what the Indians were expecting, they stood no chance. Their Rafales can't datalink with their AWACS and they only have MICAs, their Su-30MKIs that CAN datalink with AWACS to some degree are stuck with R-77s that have very poor kinematics. There is no real chance they had the ability to engage the Pakistanis without having to charge through a couple of dozen miles of engagement zone first

>>64068857
yeah the paki's are probably closer to accurate on the range fired at here, but the thing this speculation doesn't take into account is that if the indian planes were flying hot, they likely crossed that 150km mark and THEN tried to turn cold. this is a skill issue and india's air force is trying to avoid getting shit on by the brass.

>>64068828 (OP)
This is absolutely retarded cope. Even if it used the PL 15, AT BEST the no escape zone is ~50km. What this means is
>The mission was planned with a 50km margin of error, which an enemy jet could close in ~3 minutes
>For some reason their planes loitered in the same area when early warning systems were sounding
>They waited there for a few minutes while the PL 15 closed the gap

I imagine it's just plain old incompetence. I can already see the retarded middle management insisting their plan is foolproof
>SAARS NO WE ARE FAR FROM ENEMY WE DONT NEED AWACS, AIR TO AIR MISSILES OR EVEN TO TURN ON EARLY WARNING
>SAARS DO NOT REDEEM THE FLIGHT PLAN

>>64071380
You can pick which you think makes India looks better
>Order meteor missiles with Rafales in 2016, but still haven't received them
>Have meteor missiles but forget to arm them on the one platform that can field them
Both are almost comically incompetent

>>64070059
This is nonsensical, and part of the bizzare indian cope about it
>No mass air to air engagements
Both sides repeatedly claim they sent significant squadrons in the first day. Western sources in western news agencies also confirm this.

>Wanted a little show, no escalation
Bombing another country is pretty fucking escalatory.

>They were retarded to think Pakistan would do nothing
Yes. It is ridiculous. What government would do nothing as it's bombed?

>Retarded RoE
God knows what cluster fuck roe they had, but whatever fuck up they did ranging from not arming them with A2A, having AWACs, a proper flight plan, etc, the fault is on every level. Not just political.

>>64068828 (OP)
street shitters lying to save face
>oh no, it's because of this other problem Sar

>>64071579
Lol they're probably all playing the blame game right now internally
>Air force blames intelligence
>Intelligence points out it's fucking stupid to fly this close
>Modi blames his chief of defence
>Chief of defence insists it's not important that planes were shot down
>Mission planners blame Pakistan for retaliating
>Pilots blame Rafale
>Rafale blame indian maintenance
>Average indian blames the western media for believing Pakistani "lies"
I think truth is an almost foreign concept to the region. it doesn't matter what is true. Just that you're right.

>>64071596
>>Rafale blame indian maintenance
I'm sure frogs knew this would happen and that's why they sent a team to participate in the investigation.

>>64071602
Lol I didn't know this. And if course India is blocking the investigation. The fragility of the country is astounding. Unable to admit that your wunderwaffe Rafale which costs more than an F35 got taken out by a Temu jet that costs a third as much.

>>64071631
>temu jet
You mean by an F16

>>64073463
>Jews copy F 16 which is stolen by China and monkey modelled to Pakistan
Kinda

>>64069867
Because they're retards with massive egos and an over-inflated sense of superiority. Just look at the absurd number of aircraft that they crash every year in training. For instance, they've lost more pilots to their Mig-21s crashing than they've lost in aerial combat against Pakistan.

>>64068828 (OP)
implessive

>>64071428
India's air force is inherently incompetent, if it wasn't then they'd have AWACS that are physically capable of datalinking with their most advanced aircraft. The only point of my comment was that regardless of what India did, they were fucked in this engagement. Their procurement itself fucked the entire thing over before a shot was ever planned in this little battle. I have no doubt the Indians would've fucked up in some other way even if they had Meteors and proper datalink to their AWACS but the scale of their fuckup in May was so large that those pilots were boned regardless as soon as they did anything except flee the battle the instant the Saab 340s with Erieye started pinging them

>>64071602
>that's why they sent a team to participate in the investigation.
No, they tried to. India hasn't allowed them to because they don't want the world to know that they got 3 Rafale fighters shot down.

>>64073926
Ok, then they're fucked.

>>64073926
There's a significant chance it wasn't even Pakistan, which kinda vindicates them. In the previous engagement 80% of deaths were from indian friendly fire. India often kills more of its own soldiers than Pakistan.

>>64070059
>But there were no actual mass air-to-air engagements...
the reported fight was 100+ birds launching on one another bvr. that's one of the largest engagements in history.

>>64073765
No, just by an american made f16
>b-but you have no proof!
And despite this thread proclaiming so, neither does chinkland, so my claim has just as much worth as the constant chinkshilling around this event.

>>64071631
funnily, it could have been a mig-21 dropping the pl-15s with the datalink to an awacs and nothing would have changed. india underestimated their foe and won the prize of doing that.

>>64068847
Hello mathlet.

>>64069018
No, it's not. Lower losses grounded the A-10 fleet in Desert Storm. Especially when for third world militaries, their pilots #1 priority is bringing back their multimillion dollar fast jets.

>>64074388
>that's one of the largest engagements in history
and they got five entire planes
wow

>>64076312
Pretty much, and chinks spammed it as a fantastic victoly for the pl15 like it wasn't an astonishingly bad kill rate for the side that had awacs

>>64068937
You cannot possibly get into the mind of the pajeet thinking like this, the propaganda in India is that Pakistan is a country with no electricity, no running water other than what India begrudgingly allows them to have, all women wear burkas, there is little formal education and most people only study Islam in madrassas. To the average Indian the sheer idea of Pakistanis flying jets is hilarity in itself, much less that they are capable and prepared for air-to-air combat.

India 100% expected to bomb their targets and get away with it with zero resistance because they couldn't possibly imagine that Pakistani machinery could touch them.

>>64076356
I don't know why you're speaking in the past tense when we're literally sitting in a PL-15 shill thread right now.

>>64076475
Fair, but it was like 50 threads a day back during the great shitfling

>>64071467
>What government would do nothing as it's bombed?
In this case, the Pakistani Government which is almost overtly controlled and guided by a military junta that justifies their meddling in politics under the guise of national security. Poos really think that these same Pakistani generals had handshake agreements to let their single greatest enemy nation drop bombs on its citizens and only then reneged and shot their Rafales down?

Fuck LSD, cow piss is clearly the hallucinogen of choice.

>>64076455
Thankfully Trump is applying tariffs for their explicit funding of the Russian war effort and crimes

>>64075069
If you aren't joking, Pakistani cannot use F16s against India. Pakistani F 16s are only allowed to be used for counter terrorism

>>64076699
>pakistani cannot use F-16’s against india
Haha, this is bullshit
>nooo but the US doesn’t want them to! Maybe, but they’ve shot indian jets down with them in the past, and here they clearly have again. The US is not going to stop selling f16 parts to pakistan over some minor border shitfling, this is cope.

>>64070905
nigger

>>64076994
Faggot