So with your approach 360 Rafale are able to generate the same amont of sorties than 600 MKI during the 5 first days.
But you don't take into account the availability: Suppose a high intensity war tomorrow Triggered by China : you wouldn't get 272 MKI to generate your sorties but perhaps 55% of them, It is only if you are the one attacking that you can prepare to have 100% availability.
If you apply a 60% availability to MKI and a 90% availability to Rafale 200 Rafale will generate 900 sorties and 600 MKI will generate 1080 sorties....
So you just need 240 Rafale to be able to generate the same amont of sorties than 600 MKI during the 5 first days.
55% or 60% is peacetime availability. And it's mainly due to spares supply. During wartime, spares availability will be increased to its peak by tapping into reserves, so it can go well above 80%. Only the jets in 3rd line maintenance will not be available and that's only 10-15% of the fleet. Rafale will at best have a 10% advantage.
During Exercise Gagan Shakti, which involved all assets of the air force, the availability of the entire air force was close to 80%. So this includes all our Cold War era relics. So MKI was definitely more than 80%.
Indian Defence Review (IDR), quarterly journal, the brainchild of former captain of the Indian Army, was launched on January 1, 1986 as a logical continuum to Lancer established in 1979, the first Indian publishing house dedicated to put forward the military experience and point of view.
www.indiandefencereview.com
Almost the entire might of the IAF was exercised to validate its concept of operations and war waging capabilities. Nuclear and biological warfare were at the periphery of the exercise and the ability to fight a two-front war with China and Pakistan, an unspoken agenda. The first part of the exercise focussed on the Western front and then the whole activity shifted to the Northern front. The IAF flew over 11,000 sorties, including nearly 9,000 by its combat aircraft.
Sources said that Exercise Gagan Shakti was not about learning tactical lessons but focused on checking logistics stamina to build up and sustain the high serviceability levels.
indianexpress.com
In an exclusive conversation with The Indian Express, Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa said that “full credit goes to our engineers that we have built up the serviceability of fighter aircraft to 80%, compared to a target of 75%, and a dispatch reliability of more than 95% during Gagan Shakti exercise”.
Also, with the changes in the Russian system, the spares supply for their jets has become very reliable. So availability is now closer to 70% for peacetime.
Anyway, what you're arguing for is more Rafales vs other aircraft, but that's not my point, I don't disagree with it either. My point is absolute numbers necessary to generate all the sorties necessary. So, if we are aiming for 3000 sorties a day, we need a pretty big fleet. Even with only Rafales in the fleet, we will need well over 600 of them. I'm arguing against the earlier point you made, that you replaced 500+ jets with 150+ Rafale. We need those 500+ jets and the 150+ Rafales.
Coming to the other point you made, due to the real world effect of numbers, I'd rather have the USS Truman with 60 SHs and F-35s than the CdG with 24 Rafales if I want to generate more sorties. Greater number of jets performing lesser number of sorties is definitely better than lesser number of jets doing greater number of sorties. It's because during war the number of jets are going to start falling quickly during the first 3 days.
