Way back during Cope India 2005 air exercises, mixed teams of Indian and American pilots on both sides took part in war games, which means that both the Indians and the Americans won, and lost. Yet, observers say that in a surprising number of encounters - particularly between the American F-16s and the Indian Sukhoi-30MKIs - the Indian pilots came out the winners

There are some signs that America's premier fighter jet, the F-16 Fighting Falcon, is losing ground to the growing sophistication of Russian-made fighter planes, and that the US should be more wary about presuming global air superiority - the linchpin of its military might.

How Pak F-16s Got Their Clocks Cleaned

Now let’s take a trip ahead to 2019 when two Su-30MKIs went head-to-head with eight F-16 fighters from the Pakistan Air Force [PAF] in a tense standoff over Jammu and Kashmir, known as ‘Operation Swift Retort’. The F-16s had one mission – to take down at least one Flanker, the symbolic powerhouse of the Indian Air Force [IAF]. Little did they know, they had greatly underestimated its capabilities.

From 0950 to 1015 hours on February 27, 2019, the Su-30MKIs, codenamed ‘Avenger’, stood vigilant over Indian installations, engaging with the approaching F-16MLUs during Op Swift Retort. According to seasoned Air Force aviator Sameer Joshi, the Su-30MKIs were prime targets for the F-16s. The PAF believed that downing a Sukhoi would effectively put the IAF on the back foot.

Joshi tweeted, “Evidence shows that PAF launched over four AMRAAMs against the Sukhois during this engagement. What is less known is how the MKIs counterattacked.”

He explained that one group of F-16s launched three Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles [AMRAAMs] against the Su-30MKI fighters, but none hit their target. To validate this claim, the IAF presented the wreckage of the AMRAAM, proving that Islamabad had deployed the F-16, as it’s the only aircraft in Pakistan’s arsenal equipped with such weaponry.

Joshi detailed how the two Su-30MKI jets fought back. Using maps to pinpoint the aircraft’s location, the Sukhoi fighters “counterattacked ignoring the high-density BVR [beyond-visual-range] threat from the F-16s…” He revealed that one of the Sukhoi jets even managed to evade a fourth AMRAAM.

In the wake of the Su-30MKIs’ counterattack, the expert asserted that 10 out of 12 payloads launched by the F-16s fell short of their intended targets. “Could these payloads have been dropped out of their intended envelope? Was this a hurried move by PAF due to the charge of the Avenger formation towards the LoC?” Joshi pondered.

The Sukhoi is a better plane than the F-16, But this is not about a single aircraft. Its talking about the overall infrastructure, the command and control systems, the radar on the ground and in the air, the technical crew on the ground, and how one maximizes that infrastructure. This is where the superiority of cohesion scores over merely dependence on hi-tech gadgetry.