The Indian AF beats the USAF: Not ! The Real Story Behind The Cope India Exersize

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo
Am I reading this correctly? I mean are intelearthling and FredT actually conceding that American pilots can't win in disadvantaged situations?

The only puzzlement here is your reluctance to se the facts for what they are. That being said, If you stack the deck in such a one sided manner, its you will loose. That being said, do you actually have a contructive argument here or are you going to bore us with your "USAF sucks" post with little or no backup to it?

This thread brings me to one question: What was the point to the exercise? If you stack the odds so that one side can't possibly win the fight, does it have any real value? It would be like dog fighting an F-86 against an F-22. Yes, the F-22 would win the fight hands down, but what good is it? The engagement couldn't possibly have any training, or Tactical value, because the threat isn't even close to realistic.

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance

without a doubt if it was real unrestricted warfare against the IAF they wouldn't have a chance against the US airforce. The IAF has a few great planes and a lot of older, inferior soviet types that would get their ass absolutely kicked by US pilots.

The older radar on the F-15 is still mighty powerful mind you, don't underestimate its capabilities.

IAF pilots did well, but IMO the average IAF pilot wouldnt compare to the average US pilot. This is just because the USAF has the fuel and the war-hardened pilots to be able to maintain a high-standard of pilots.

But what this does highlight is if you place the US at a disadvantage the enemy can do pretty well against them with mostly inferior tech mixed with some newer aircraft.

I personally see it as a political message saying "this is what's gonna happen if we start to cut the airforce budget and don't invest in new technology and keep our plane numbers up!"

thanks,
drfunk

In the modern world sometimes the ROEs are restrictive and hi tech jets are not going to get to work to thier best advantage.

In Vietnam werent the F-4 pre gun versions forced to close to id thier targets visually at one stage. I remember accounts from frustrated USN and USAF pilots who were forced into close in fights with MiG-17s , -19s and 21s because of the ROEs - at least thats what got blamed.

They couldnt use thier best envelopes and were forced into the MiGs.

I'm sure there must have been restrictive engagement rules in the Balkans for example, what with the UN and NATO worried about a free for all. Plus the close vicinity of freindly airspace to the warzone.

anyone got details of excersize held in Alaska during past july?

The US airforce has a lot of experience dropping bombs on countires with with little or no functioning Air Defence networks or fighter force. In 1991 Iraq was the closest they came, and what was left until 2003 was cobbled togther and not well operated. Serbia tried it on and lost over Kosovo.

How many dog fights have US pilots flown in for real since say, 1982 where the loser died? Were any American?
Now the proper question is in how many of those dogfights were any of the opposition fit as pilots for anything more than target practice?
I'm not saying the US pilots are not well trained or have lots of flight hours, but there are countries like India where thiers have a lot more associated with life and death encounters.
And how many encounters have occurred in training exercises with allies where the USAF has gotten as good as it gives.

As to the USAF having more experienced pilots than India, come on. They had better pilots coming out towards the end of Vietnam.
The US hasnt realistically been challenged in decades.

The IAF constantly fly close encounters along thier boarders with hostile or lukewarm opponents like the PAF and PLA-AF, and the IAF as someone admited, have been flying those Russian types for years and know how to get the best out of them. They do not fly soviet tactics. They and China both have aerospace industries improving in leaps and bounds and access to hi tech. They know from experience that they could be flying peace time routine one second and real A2A the next

Whats the worst that has happened on Red Flag or Top Gun besides an accident? - a bad fitness report?

The United States is fortunate that the opposition that they face are bunkrupt states with old hardware or terrorist groups with none.

The only ones with both the training and the kit to give the US a run for its money are allies like the RAF and a couple of other NATO states, or talented neutrals like IAF.

I think there are several countries out there who fortunately have no reason to go to war with the USA who might give them a nasty shock if they did, when it comes to A2A and Air Defence networks.
I hope people are right about how capable the USAF is, but the presumption of supremacy boarders on arrogance.

I cant see the US doing anything stupid enough to start a shoorting war with anybody who has a chance against them, simply because they have no beef with them.

Mind you, some of the comments Ive seen on this site suggest some people think the US fights with everyone

The only reason I can see for how the report was presented was to sell more F-22s as opposed to suggesting that a new F-15 with all new guts might to the same job for a fraction of the price.

We have a lobby here who want to kill off our F-111s in 2010 instead of 2020+ to buy extra F-35s to add to the Hornet replacement buy. Raptor would bankrupt us.

There was a lobby for stripping back our F-111 airframes to metal and rebuilding them with all new technology led by a Dr Carlo Kopp -don't know if youve heard of him - he has presented some papers to the USAF and over in Europe. He is a consultant and respected aviation technology writer here in Australia.

He suggested aqquiring extra F-111 frames from the US storage including old EF-11s Ravens and coming out with a super cruise F-111 with a operational life beyond 2040, with SOWs and BVR AAMs, and with the EF-111 a SOJ capability. As sole operator he argued we had the support infrastructure to do it.

The F-111 lobby lost.

Kopp has nothing against the F-35 except the project might go the way of so many other programes and leave us with empty air. For the F-18 replacement it is probably the best on offer, although some think new F-15s or Super Hornets while we can get them might be a safer bet.

But it doesnt come close to meeting the F-111s payload radius of operation with or without IFR.

Originally posted by FredT
The only puzzlement here is your reluctance to se the facts for what they are. That being said, If you stack the deck in such a one sided manner, its you will loose. That being said, do you actually have a contructive argument here or are you going to bore us with your "USAF sucks" post with little or no backup to it?

Can you give me the source where you found out I said "USAF sucks?"

Oh wait, what source? It's your creative brain!

I have a question, why would the USAF play to win? We "won" by gathering information on the combat procedures, abilities, and strategies of India. They played to win and tipped their hand, while we played conservatively not to give away our weapon performance , combat procedures, and strategy. It doesnt matter who "won" the exercise, its whose got the largest amount of information and how they apply it to their combat strategies.

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo
This is the most pathetic excuse-thread ever.

It almost doesn't even matter. The U.S. Air Force, got beat. It got beat. It got beat.

Instead of trying to cry foul, we should look at what we can improve so our Air Force will be unbeatable under ALL conditions, including supposed-inferior-technology conditions.

Question.

How do you take anything away from this exercise when the conditions do not acurately reflect real world situations. I mean, had the US lost using their main equipment (like they would in a real war) I could totally see your point, and say we have to fix this.

The fact is that you can't be unbeatable when you are outnumbered 3 to 1 by aircraft with a longer range (in terms of fist look) because of a simulated AWACS.

If this was all done dog fighting, I would agree that the USAF would need to seriously rethink their strategy, but the fact is that it was BVR, and thus is not a true representation of how our air force would perform.

Besides, hindsight is 20/20. If the U.S. Air Force won under the same circumstances, none of you would be complaining about lack of technology.

Your right - I wouldn't, because we would have won even with our hands tied behind our back outnumbered 3 to 1. I would say no one would "complain" about that.

And for the record I am not complaining that we lost - we did. But I think it is worth noting the conditions that we lost under, namely that we did not use our normal radar and that India outnembered the US 3-1.

You should show the U.S.A.F. more respect by not reducing everything to technology. There are real pilots behind these machines that train hard to get the most out of their aircraft. They may not train as well, but they do train as hard.

I don't think anyone is showing a lack of respect by saying the truth - that the US was outnumbered and flying handicapped. Besides, A2A combat isn't what it used to be. This isn't WWI or II where the best pilots would win the majority of the time. Today, your airframe and technology have a lot more to do with your performance then it used to.

I agree up to a point, I even said myself that the results of such a sham are worthless. However I note that the US view is now leaning more and more towards the point where I wouldn't be surprised to see someone try to claim that the F-15's weren't service aircraft at all, that they had been retrieved from the scrapyard and fitted with WW2 radars especially for the occasion

No they weren't the best, and the use of AWACS by only one side is duly noted but they were service aircraft flown by service pilots that MIGHT have to fight one day as they are. I know this is obvious but the fact seems to be getting lost amongst the excuses.

The Indians were allowed a simulated AWACs because at the time of "Cope India" they were due to deploy thier own. They have tankers as well guys *winks* and I think they just proved they know how to operate those recently.

The West is choosing to put the blinders on and assume these will be so inferior as not to be counted (been bitten on the arse by THAT assumption before).....It disregards the wider global availability of dual use technology, and the fact that recent history shows that there are some contractors out there that will let not a little thing like a "restricted technologies" classification stand between them and a bathtub full of cash.

The other thing (and I have mentioned it before) is the the USAF have not always been able to fly its air war in its optimum enviroment, either due to restrictive ROE, local political issues over bases, environmental (weather) or geographical disadvantages, or just plain bad luck.

A clever or suicidal plan that takes the all important AWACs out, or a Indian sub turning a CV into the worlds biggest artifical reef could put a crimp into US Battle plans at a key moment and ironically bring about political pressure to commit to an counter in unfavourable circumstances.

Its pilots are taught to fight and win per the book that says they will fight and win in circumstances to thier advantage. Exercises like "Cope India" are maybe designed to show that they must not assume they have everything thier own way. Worse case scenario.

And I think you'll find if the world went REALLY bizzaro and you found the USAF and USN up against the IAF and IN, the Indians will be innovative, willey and surprising. The end result may be the same, unless the US public don't cope with the news of the losses well. The current trend seems to agonise over "whats wrong with our system" when you fly an air campaign running into the thousands and tens of thousands of sorties, and lose three or four fighters against crud opposition, and spend tens of billions to cut a loss ratio that on any sane world would be considered a miracle. It mitigates against long term support for an effort where you might be loosing thirty or forty or more aircraft in a shorter time frame, to a well led and flown airforce protecting thier country After all even in Bizzaro world how good a case could even the US make for going to war with India.

The scary rationale "and if things went pear shaped we'd win by nuking them" is pure bs from a minority known as the "...States of Psychos".

Short of a direct threat of large scale conventional, terrorist and nuclear on the continental US, a US administration would have to be deranged to do so over a regional squabble. I think the US people draw a line somewhere.

The US though would probably win an air and naval campaign against India. But I wish people would stop talking about "turkeyshoots"

And yes, I am not a slobbering psychophant to the all mighty notion of technical superiority overwhelming an airforce of intelligent, expert pilots who know how to get the best out of thier aircraft in the real world.

Until the US comes across and has to beat an opponent who know more than the basics of managing the air warfare environment thats how its going to stay.

Originally posted by waynos
I agree up to a point, I even said myself that the results of such a sham are worthless. However I note that the US view is now leaning more and more towards the point where I wouldn't be surprised to see someone try to claim that the F-15's weren't service aircraft at all, that they had been retrieved from the scrapyard and fitted with WW2 radars especially for the occasion

Actually they really were not F-15's at all but F-86 Sabres taken the bay before from the bobeyard in Arizona. Really now, as I recall there were quite a few posts when the story first broke about the USAF getting its butts kicked and having quite a good time about it. Now that the events surrounding the exersize have come to light, we have moved to excuse making.

This reminds me of a story told in a Paul Crickmore book. The USAF wanted to see if the F-15 could intercept a SR-71. After being told when and where it was coming along with course, speed and altitude, the F-15 executed a perfectly timmed zoom climb and intercepted the SR-71. The SR-71 also had a speed limit on it as well and it was not travaling at its max. The F-15 community started spreading the word that they could intercept the SR. The next test the SR-71 people were not so accomadating and throttled up and altered course. No interception. My point here? Just because we are pointing out the clearly unfair conditions of the test does not mean we are "excuse making"

And Sweatmonica, as always I am as always enthraled by your unique point of view.

The air exercises in alaska were even and the USAF still got "drowned".

Moreover despite the 3 is to 1 advantage in the air exercises in india, the IAF beat the F-15's with Mig-21's.

Just think ....top of the line F-15's(without a few cockpit panels) got clobbered by Mig-21's....and you guys say IAF had an advantage......

You cannot say the IAF were given a handicap. To match the quality of the equipment on both sides, these constraints had to be enforced.
So it was all even and a matter who has better pilots.

Moreover the USAF itself ADMITTED to its DEFEAT in the air exercises as several UASF airmen have spoken to the press about it .

Hrer is a link : vayu-sena.tripod.com...

This link also has a few pics of mig-21's commbating F-15's, Mirage-2000's taking on F-15's.

Also the IAF did no field its best Su-30MKI as a token of sympathy to the USAF, otherwise the would have got clobbered 100 to 0.

Another intersting thread on ATSN : IL-78 'babies' make US pilots eat their words

[edit on 9-10-2004 by Stealth Spy]

*sigh* I think some of you (not all) are missing the point.

Exercise=not for real.

Other countries have student pilots, just like we do. In their syllabus, it may call for flights in a certain pattern or different maneuvers. A lot of times their instuctor pilots will come and fly with our students in exchange our instructors fly with their students. This is an opportunity for our instructors to show them a new maneuver or how to win in a dogfight or otherwise.

When USAF is training with a foreign country, ROE's are set up, such as limits to G's being pulled, altitude, and airspeed. A lot of times the instructor pilots can't even use radar, other than during RTB.

Sometimes, they are SUPPOSED to lose. (that's right...)

Exercises should not be construed as "win-lose" situations, even if they DO lead to good arguments.

...and please let's leave out the F-22. It's too busy being coddled by congressmen and reporters to actually fly a mission.

Originally posted by FredT
The complete story is here, but you have to be a subscriber to AWST
[edit on 7-10-2004 by John bull 1]

Why dont you give us you username and password so that we can all take a look.

You know its all about deny ignorance....now....come on.......

Originally posted by diefaster
*sigh* I think some of you (not all) are missing the point.

Exercise=not for real.

Other countries have student pilots, just like we do. In their syllabus, it may call for flights in a certain pattern or different maneuvers. A lot of times their instuctor pilots will come and fly with our students in exchange our instructors fly with their students. This is an opportunity for our instructors to show them a new maneuver or how to win in a dogfight or otherwise.

When USAF is training with a foreign country, ROE's are set up, such as limits to G's being pulled, altitude, and airspeed. A lot of times the instructor pilots can't even use radar, other than during RTB.

Sometimes, they are SUPPOSED to lose. (that's right...)

Exercises should not be construed as "win-lose" situations, even if they DO lead to good arguments.

...and please let's leave out the F-22. It's too busy being coddled by congressmen and reporters to actually fly a mission.

hmm i said the very same thing

Originally posted by roniii259
I have a question, why would the USAF play to win? We "won" by gathering information on the combat procedures, abilities, and strategies of India. They played to win and tipped their hand, while we played conservatively not to give away our weapon performance , combat procedures, and strategy. It doesnt matter who "won" the exercise, its whose got the largest amount of information and how they apply it to their combat strategies.

why dont people listen to me

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo
Am I reading this correctly? I mean are intelearthling and FredT actually conceding that American pilots can't win in disadvantaged situations?

I mean, disadvantages are disadvantages, but this is nothing like what these two usually say.

The only thing is that these were unrealistic disadvanteges. The USAF was out numbered 3/1 and the USAF's planes weren't even outfitted to their maximum compacity.

American Mad Man,

Good points, good points. All well taken.

I still don't think being outnumbered and lack of technology is a good excuse. The mark of true winners are the ones that win even with their backs to the wall.

Now, let's say the Americans fighters had about 1/4 fuel and guns in the BVR environment. That's a totally different situation then