In this video, we are simulating an Indian raid on Pano Aqil nuclear missile base in Pakistan. I’ve written a a bit of story about it which you can read in these links:
It doesn’t match this scenario 100%, but is close enough. Here a group of rogue Pakistani armymen have taken control of the Pano Aqil facility along with all of its ballistic missiles stored in heavily armoured underground bunkers. There are three parties in this conflict, India, Pakistan and these rogue armymen marked as Jihadis here. You can see 9 of the bunkers, the actual targets which need to be destroyed for the mission to be successful.
The jihadis control one HQ-16 SAM battery and 2 Cobra attack helicopters. The perimeter is further defended by a few ground units which include mechanised infantry, MANPADs, APCs and tanks.
2 roughly equal Pakistani columns are on their way to Pano Aqil shown in orange colour. This means that the jihadis and regular Pakistani military will not fire at each other unless provoked. But they both are red wrt India.
Pakistan air force has 12 JF-17 Block II armed with PL-12 for Air to air combat in addition to dumb bombs and H-4 guided bombs for ground targets. PAF had used the same H-4 bombs on their Mirage-3 and 5s during their failed raid on India in Feb 2019. Additionally, there are 12 F-16s in similar air to air and ground attack configuration.
Now I am swithcing to Indian side to show some weapon systems invloved in this raid. The attack will be started by two Brahmos Mk-3 cruise missile batteris firing 15 missiles each at 9 bunkers and HQ-16 SAM battery under control of Jihadis.
The next stage of attack will be performed by 10 LCA Tejas armed with 500kg dumb bombs and 1000 pound Griffin guided bombs. They will target Jihadi ground units and a few bunkers. Bulk of attack on bunkers will be done by Jaguars armed with Griffins. There are 12 Sukhoi-30s acting as escorts for Tejas and Jaguars. They are armed with R-77 and R-73 missiles for air to air role and a few of them are carrying KH-31P anti-radiation missiles to destroy SAM batteries.
2:46
Here you can see the attack plans for the fighter jets and Brahmos. The attack will start by two salvos of Brahmos targetting the storage bunkers and HQ-16 SAM battery. In this scenario, I am aiming for 40% damage on each bunker to consider it damaged enough for a successful hit. 3:13
There is another HQ-16 system under control of Pakistani military not far from our target area and it’ll try to shootdown Indian missiles as well as planes. It will be countered by KH-31Ps on Sukhoi-30s. 3:28
Now 1st salvo of Brahmos is on its way and will hit targets shortly. Some of the missiles will be shot down or will malfuntion or miss their targets. It is all simulated in the software for a bit of realism. The timeline is fastforwarded 5 times to keep the video short. You will see the same action visualised in 3D via Tacview every few minutes. As in other videos, both parts were recorded separately, so the clips are from two different playthroughs. Therefore they are not identical, but similar enough for our purpose.
1st Brahmos salvo has already hit some targets and the next is on its way. Some of the bunkers have been hit, a couple have already recieved required 40% damage but some work still remains. HQ-16 is still intact and it’ll be able to intercept a few Brahmos before it is taken down. SO far, Pakistani anti-aircraft guns and MANPAD units have not been able to do anything. It might change when Indian aircraft start their attack run.
This next part shows the same thing happening in realtime 3D view. The blue box shows name of object, 1st number on 2nd line is altitude in 100s of meters and the next number is it’s speed in mach. So 001 means 100 m altitude and 2.20 means 2.2 mach.
The blue dome like things are the air defence bubbles of the SAM batteries. Ideally the missiles should have their waypoints programmed to avoid passing through these bubbles, but it doesn’t work in autmoated attack plans.
Now you can see Indian Jaguars and Tejas starting their attack run. They are carrying Python 5 and AIM-132A short ranged air to air missiles for defence against other aircraft. But they’ll largely depend on Sukhois armed with BVR R-77 for this role. The lines on map mark their waypoints and weapon release points. Sukhois will try to protect the Tejas and Jaguars by shooting down Pakistani JF-17 and F-16s and destryoing SAM and radar guided anti-aircraft artillery.
6:33
Now you can see Indian aircraft flying towards Pano Aqil and Pakistanis trying to intercept them. An Akash battery near the border and a S-400 battery near Jaipur are also firing on Pakistani aircraft which are coming within their attack radius. Since the S-400 is firing at extreme ranges, most of its missiles will probably miss. But it will give Indian aircraft a chance to get in to a better position for their own assault.
Sukhois are engaging Pakistani fighters as well as firing KH-31 anti-radiation missiles at whatever relevant ground targets they can detect. The HQ-16 controlled by Jihadis has already taken 1 or 2 hits. The damage is not enough to completely disable it, probably 1 or 2 launchers or supply vehicles have been destroyed.
Here you can see the results of this raid. All bunkers except two recieved the required 40% damage. The two which didn’t had 29 and 30% damage. So we’re assuming that the missiles inside them were not destroyed and could be taken outside for firing. This means that more hits or a ground assault is needed which is not an ideal outcome. Close, but slightly short of expectations. India lost 4 Jaguars, atleast 2 of them were shot down by Pakistani fighters and one Sukhoi was lost too.
Pakistanis lost 6 F-16s and 9 JF-17s, that is all except 3-4 aircraft which took off from their airfields. They also lost 1 vehicle in the HQ-16. Jihadis losses are not that important, but they lost 4 anti-aircraft guns plus 2 vehicles of their 40 mm battery and 1 vehicle in HQ-16 battery.
As mentioned earlier, I ran this scenario twice for this video and the results of 2nd run were a bit better for Indian side. They lost no planes and shot down 8 F-16 and JF-17s each. Effect on bunkers was better too with nearly all bunkers receiving 45% to 70% damage. I’ve run this scneario 7-8 times and this doesn’t happen normally.
Software used: Command Modern Operations and TacView