How powerful is the Chinese weapon system that brought down the Rafales?

 It is so easy to blame the tool. But the Indians forgot about this trick. The downing of so many aircraft  by Pakistan is so overwhelming that the Indians were stunned. They completely lost their senses. How could it be? They paid so much for the world's best Rafales! How could they lost? Actually they were defeated by their own conceitedness and own lies or beliefs. The Indians really believed that they have the best aircraft in the world and are now fearless. They are ready to teach the PLA a lesson. And they are going to whack the Pakistanis as a starter. Modi was so convinced by the confidence of his air force chiefs that he was willing to let them go to war with Pakistan at their own time, at their own choosing. It was a sure win scenario. The Pakistanis were a piece of cake, would be whacked beyond belief. And Modi was happily feasting in New Delhi waiting for the good news. The first barrage of bombing more than 15 targets was a big success. Nothing else can go wrong. All the champagne bottles were ready for a big national celebration in India.

Then the unexpected happened. Modi's face must have turned pale from disbelief. 5 aircraft down in one combat, with 3 Rafales, the best that India had. The Pakistanis only have backward and old Chinese aircraft for combat, cannot match the Rafales on paper and on hype, at least the western war specialists said so, at least his air commanders said so.

This is no WW2 air combat involving dogfights and pilot skills. This is a war of technology and artificial intelligence, radar and satellite technology, weapon systems. The Rafales were shot down inside Indian territories, more than 100km from the LOC. The technology involves sending a projectile, a piece of metal being sent more than 100km away to hit another piece of metal that is moving around at high speed, not stationary, and must have the perfect accuracy and timing to knock it off. Think about it, beyond visual range, unseen and unheard, through space, and the target is not sitting there to be hit.

A sniper would need how much training and experience, and tweaking his rifle, to hit a stationary target 1km away? What kind of technology would be needed to send a piece of metal in a moving aircraft in the air to hit another aircraft more than 100km away and moving all the time, even taking evasive action when needed? Remember how the F22 needed two or three missiles to take down a hot air balloon at close range?

The first thing needed is a powerful radar, with the energy to send signal to and from a target a few hundred km away. It requires a very big power source that an aircraft could not provide, nor the radar in a missile.

It was reported that the Chinese system used a very powerful radar to detect the target at a few hundred km away. It then has to transmit the information to the aircraft to launch the missiles. And an additional airborne radar was needed to guide the missile to the target until the missile is near enough to use its onboard little radar to lock on to the target. Only then that the missile would cruise on to the target, guided by its own computer system, deflect jamming and evasion, to ensure that the target cannot slip away. And all the moving parts of the missile, the fins, must move precisely to fly the Mach 5 missile to hit the target.

The whole process involves a lot to technology, energy and power, computer and AI programming and engineering, to be able to succeed to get the two pieces of metal to come into contact. It is not by sheer chance or the skill of a sniper. It is high technology and engineering precision and system coordination. One point to note, the Chinese radar system did not lock on to the Rafales. Not sure if the FL15s locked on to the Rafales or were guided by ZDK 03 AWAC radar, for the Indian pilots did not know they were locked on and did not take evasive actions until it was too late. The Rafales were equipped to be alerted if they were locked on by enemy radars. From the reports, they were hit without knowing that the missiles were coming at them. This also explained why 5 aircraft could be shot down in one phase of attack.

The Chinese have proven that it can be done, not once, not twice, but at least 5 times. Another Rafale was reported to have also been shot down. Such precision technology repeated so many times in a real combat is not pure luck and good fortune. It is pure science and technology. Not loose talk or fictitious or fake data on a piece of paper. No amount of lies and disinformation by the West can erase what the Chinese had done in this short war to bring down so many world's best aircraft in a single combat encounter. The western military experts would be scratching their heads on how the Chinese system works to avoid detection even as the missiles closed in on their targets. Practically all fighter jets would be equipped with systems to detect being locked on by radars and to activate defensive actions like firing flares and anti jamming actions. Apparently the Rafales and the other aircraft did not detect, did not react, and just went down without a fight. This is chilling. Locked on or did not locked on, the FL15 still hits its target. What guided it to the target?

Not to forget, the PL15 travels at Mach 5 against a fast moving target. It could easily whisk pass any target and missing it, without igniting the contact fuse. The proximity fuse must also be highly sensitive and accurate to detonate when near the target. The timing is extremely crucial as it takes only a fraction of a second to go pass the target. It is all about precision engineering aided by superfast AI chips.

A new chapter in modern warfare and weapon technology has just been written. The West still has no clue how the Chinese system works. There are many unknowns out there. The fear of the inscrutable and mysterious Chinaman is going to haunt the West from now.