Performance. All the MKIs did was go cold. Once you go cold, missile range drops by 4 times because it's now tail-chase intercept.
I have no clue how many times I've used this tactic to get away from cops during my no-license, no-insurance days.
So I'm sure our pilots are experts at this.
Flying with 8222s is SOP for any large package going airborne. Maneuvering alone wouldn't have been enough to deal with AIM-120C-5s. At least not all of them. And we know multiple were launched.
No reason to assume ECM wasn't involved. It's evident from the fact that the only plane to get hit was the one that went far away from the rest of the friendly aircraft.
Times have changed. Agni V's accuracy is below 10m. And the size of the BM's warhead adequately compensates for any inaccuracy.
In any case, why do you keep shifting goalposts? The point you brought up was unintended consequences, but BMs are accurate enough to not have unintended consequences, especially when the targets are military in nature. PGMs are in fact more prone to veering off course, like what PAF experienced in 2019. BMs are a lot more predictable in terms of success rate, hence the massive expenditure into BMD.
Iranian BM tech is unlikely to be as good as our latest.
And remember that CEP only deals with assured accuracy of half of the missiles launched. The other half may or may not hit within that circle.
How's any of this got to do with the fact that our lack of inaction is seen as a weakness?
We didn't go to war with China because we are too weak. That's why China did what they did. They successfully identified our weaknesses and hit us where it hurts. Had we dealt with Pakistan more sensibly, there would have been significantly less likelihood of Galwan.
Our relative weakness vis-a-vis China isn't a case of perception, it's a fact. Any Chinese aggression (and I'm not talking about local area commanders going crazy with spiked clubs, I'm talking about directive to invade coming down from Central Military Commission) is done after assessment of what we are
capable of doing, not whether we are willing to go to war over small provocations or not.
We had already been demonstrating that we weren't ready to go to war for decades. A real effort to change that equation only began after 2014. In reality only after 2017 and getting serious only after 2020.
Going to war against Pakistan wouldn't have changed any of our real capabilities on the ground at the LAC. In fact it would have weakened our posture further.
Pakistan doesn't have the muscle or finances to do anything.
You should know by now that Pakistan doesn't even have the finances to exist. Yet it does.
As of material requirements, China would've taken care of all that in the case of a war with India.
We didn't need to meet any real military objective, just showed intent that we are willing to cross IB by actually crossing it. It was gonna be a short thrust inside Pakistan, without becoming an existential threat to them. This would have shown intent, and brought us to the table with a significant advantage to our side. We squandered the chance away.
Wars don't work like that. Once you invade, you will receive a counterattack into Rajasthan & Punjab. Pakistan has sizeable numbers of MBTs with hunter-killer capability (which most of our tanks actually lack). So far we just managed to achieve superiority through certain strategic investments like building up a fleet of Rudra armed helos to support the armoured thrusts & deploying BrahMos GLCMs. It's just enough to prevent Pakistan from thinking they can get away with carrying out conventional attacks on India like in '65 or '71. But it's not yet enough to achieve total & complete tactical superiority against Pak.
Granted, unless China steps in to provide resupply (which they likely will as it would be a cheap method to wear us out), Pakistan cannot keep up the war against India for very long, however, any such large scale conflict with Pak in 2019 would have restricted our collective strategic focus firmly on the Western front for decades to come, to the detriment & neglect of the Northern & Eastern fronts - which has been the problem since 1947.
It would have derailed our shift in focus to the Chinese threat.
Taking the long view, it would have hurt our preparedness against PRC. It's simply not a wise move to engage in large scale hostilities with Pak when the Chinese threat is still present. However, if & when the Chinese were to be engaged in a major war in the Pacific with Taiwan/US/Japan...that would indeed create a golden opportunity for us to make moves on PoK without fear of either China or the West getting in the way.
China would be too occupied to dedicate any forces or supplies to prevent us from taking over PoK, while the West would be more amenable to look the other way as they might yet need us to supply their war effort or threaten Chinese SLoCs in the IOR/Malacca.
As mentioned earlier, China did not have any capability to attack us. Even they are building forces up now. Especially air force.
They have the capability to attack. They had it even back in '62.
They just don't have enough to ensure a decisive victory is all. Their build-out was aimed at attaining that decisive advantage. But since we started our own build-out, their goal is now being pushed further away, requiring more & more resources to be committed to the LAC - every bit of which are resources they cannot commit to their enemies in the Pacific.
We didn't "capture" anything. We just positioned ourselves that gave us a tactical advantage and that allowed us some leeway during negotiations, that's all.
That's all we could realistically do.
To make any move on a larger scale, and then to sustain through the Chinese response, we'd have required infrastructure that we did not have at that point.
Pangong, Galwan, Hot Springs, Depsang etc, all happened at the same time. And it's all just one event, not multiple different events.
It was spread over a literal month.
Galwan is probably where the Chinese assumed they had the advantage to play their circus tricks.
They used the same tactics at all those hotspots. Injuries to both sides due to blunt weapons were reported at multiple locations.
It's just that at Galwan, it resulted in deaths due to the terrain.
Indo-Pak nuclear security is quite transparent on both sides. There is very little space for miscalculations. Both sides will know well in advance when a nuclear strike is to take place. Especially so with Indian nuclear capabilities, which emphasizes strict differentiation between nuclear and non-nuclear forces.
Anyway, you've been going around in circles pointlessly. Yousaid Balakot and Iran's attack were the same, but they were complete opposites. Pak intended to do serious damage and failed. Iran only wanted to demonstrate their capabilities.
How is a handful of PGMs landing in open spaces supposed to be intention of serious damage? Also, the fact that not a single one out of the six PGMs having struck anything of value is too much to be a coincidence or case of targeting failure. More than likely they were intentionally aimed so as to have the least chance at killing or injuring anyone.
Once you account for all the differences in geography, prior understandings to manage escalation & capabilities of each side - the intention of Swift Retort was largely the same as the Iranian strike: To put on a show of force to demonstrate the capability to attack, but causing as little actual damage as possible to the intended targets.
If it wasn't for Abhinandan getting carried away chasing the PAF jets (and better SOPs surrounding IFF usage ensuring we didn't shoot down our own Mi-17), the whole affair would've been extremely forgettable.
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