As Myanmar’s military regime struggles to contain a rising tide of armed resistance to its coup of 2021, its unchallenged airpower has already emerged as a central factor in the civil war. At the dawn of 2023, the question now confronting both sides is whether the Myanmar Air Force’s improving capabilities will prove decisive.
With hostilities almost certain to escalate during this impending dry season, observers and analysts wonder whether sustained MAF bombardments will be sufficient to halt the advances and break the resolve of the still fragmented federal-democratic armed opposition, allowing the military to reassert control over wide swathes of territory now held by various rebel forces.
Lethal airstrikes on civilians, most shockingly at a school in Sagaing’s Depayin township last September and at a concert near the Kachin jade-mining center of Hpakant in October, have underscored the ruthless indifference of the military’s ruling State Administrative Council (SAC) to mass civilian casualties.
More air-delivered atrocities are expected in the coming months, possibly as part of a deliberate strategy aimed at targeting popular support for the war while seeking to divide powerful ethnic resistance organizations (EROs) being offered peace deals from Bamar-led Peoples Defense Forces (PDFs) that have been branded as “terrorists” that must be crushed.
But strikes on civilians that have roused international condemnation are part of a wider campaign that has expanded into the centerpiece of the junta’s war effort. Since mid-2022, the MAF has ramped up a strikingly high tempo of daily sorties aimed not only at beating back attacks by PDFs and their ethnic army allies, but also at hitting ERO bases, command centers and economic resources in an unprecedented blitz.
Opposition forces in Kachin, Karen, Karenni, Shan and Chin states have borne the brunt of the bombardment with the most recent strikes on January 10 targeting for the first time the Camp Victoria headquarters of the Chin National Army on the Indian border.
Air power showcase
Showcased at a December 15 ceremony to mark the MAF’s 75th anniversary, a steady ratcheting up of combat aircraft numbers in service has been one element of the marked improvement in MAF capabilities seen in 2022.
Presided over by junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the event showed the newly commissioned first of six new Sukhoi SU-30 jets purchased from Russia in 2018 that are now the pride of the MAF.
Also on display were five new Chinese FTC-2000Gs, single-engine, twin-seat light attack jets which will reinforce now obsolescent warplanes acquired from China in the 1990s, namely F-7 ‘Airguard’ interceptors – a Chinese copy of the now-ancient Soviet-era Mig-21 – and A-5 ‘Fantan’ ground attack jets.
Far more dated additions to the fleet, apparently bought second-hand and doubtless cheap from other operators phasing them out of service, were also commissioned. Surprisingly those included one more F-7, possibly the first of a newly-sourced batch of aging but upgraded airframes, and four K-8 Karakorum jet trainer/light attack jets, another type that the MAF has flown for decades but appears to want more of.
Also spotted at the show was one SOKO G-4 Super Galeb, an aging jet trainer/ground attack jet bought from Yugoslavia, when Yugoslavia was still a country. As one Bangkok-based military analyst noted dryly: “It looks rather as if they are on a ‘get me anything that flies and drops bombs’ search.”
It remains to be seen whether the new SU-30s – high-performance 4th generation-plus fighters designed for air supremacy and interdiction missions against foreign incursions – will be deployed to drop bombs on Myanmar’s villages. But even without the Russia-made Sukhoi’s, the MAF’s ground-attack line-up is a startling mishmash of types and vintages.
This motley air armada includes the new FTC-2000s; older Russian Mig-29 ‘Fulcrum’ air superiority fighters bought in the 2000s; newer, smaller and lethally agile Yakovlev Yak-130 light ground attack jets acquired since 2015; the China-made F-7s and A-5s that can still fly, along with the aging K-8 jet trainers; and an estimated three surviving 1970’s-era Super Galebs.
If new Sino-Pakistani-designed JF-17 ‘Thunder’ jets join the fray, then the line-up may be expanded further. In 2018, the MAF acquired from Pakistan an initial batch of seven JF-17 light single-engine multi-role jets that are capable of ground attack missions and were deployed extensively by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) during counterinsurgency campaigns along the border with Afghanistan in the 2010s.
But Myanmar’s well-connected The Irrawaddy magazine reported in November that the new JF-17 fleet appears to have been entirely grounded due to a range of problems that the MAF is trying to work through with PAF training and technical assistance.
The MAF’s hard-pressed rotary arm has also benefitted from reinforcement in the unmistakable shape of Russian Kamov KA-29s, two of which – the first of an order for five – were on the tarmac in December. The distinctive co-axial choppers (with layered counter-rotating rotors for added stability and maneuverability) can serve in both an attack role and for troop transport.
The KA-29s will serve to relieve growing pressure on the workhorses of the MAF’s rotary fleet – an estimated 20 Mi-17 ‘Hip’ transports and around 10 Mi-24 ‘Hind’ gunships. First deployed in combat during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the redoubtable ‘Hind’ undoubtedly ranks as the most widely exported and battle-tested attack helicopter ever designed.
Sharper cutting edge
Underpinning this muscular mobilization of airframes are two other factors calculated to provide regime airpower with a sharper cutting edge in the coming months. One is the large number of airbases available to the MAF across the country.
Major facilities include Shante outside Meiktila in the center of the country, Mingaladon on the edge of Yangon and Magwe in the west. But MAF assets can also operate out of smaller bases in Hmawbi, north of Yangon, Nampong near Myitkyina in Kachin state, Tada-U co-located with Mandalay International Airport, Namsang in southern Shan state, Toungoo in central Bago Region, Mawlamyine in southeastern Mon state and Pathein in Ayeyarwady Region.
Forward operating facilities suitable for close air support (CAS) missions by choppers but also able to accommodate fixed-wing aircraft include Lashio in northern Shan state, Bhamo in Kachin state and Myeik on the Andaman Sea coast in the far south.
This multiplicity of primary bases and forward airfields translates directly into tactical flexibility for quick response times to insurgent attacks, increased operational time over targets and economy of fuel expenditure.
The second factor is the MAF’s improved performance as the conflict escalates and growing numbers of MAF pilots benefit from more flying hours and operational experience than ever before.
During the 2010s, when the MAF first emerged as an actor over Myanmar’s borderland warzones, ground attack operations were largely limited to occasional bursts of activity involving only limited numbers of aircraft.
Following the return to war in Kachin state in mid-2011, the first such air campaign unfolded over eastern Kachin in the 2012-13 period and was followed with a further burst of operations during the monsoon season of 2018.
The 2015 war in northeastern Kokang saw another campaign focused on often desperate CAS missions to relieve ground troops embattled by the ethnic Chinese Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA). It was during these operations that in mid-March 2015 a MAF jet – ironically a Chinese-built F-7 – famously bombed Chinese territory, killing four farmers, wounding nine and enraging Beijing.
The war against the Arakan Army (AA) in Rakhine in the 2018-2019 period saw a further operational surge and the first combat use of the new Russian Yak-130s. Ground attack aircraft that double up as jet-trainers, the twin-seat Yaks – designated ‘Mitten’ by NATO – carry a far greater payload than older, roughly similar types such as the K-8, and in Rakhine in 2019-2020 proved their worth during low-level strikes at night.
However, both in duration and intensity, those campaigns have paled compared to the current air war and its beneficial impact on MAF pilot skills. Practical experience now being gained in daily sorties over much of the national heartland, in addition to the borderlands where the MAF has traditionally operated, appears to have enabled more accurate targeting from lower-flying aircraft.
One seasoned source with experience on the receiving end of air strikes in both eastern Karenni and Karen states noted to Asia Times in December that one year ago the accuracy of bombing raids struck across a wide radius of up to 3,000 meters from the intended target. Today, he said, that has shrunk to 400 meters or less.
He also noted the growing intensity of ground attacks that now involve jets making three passes over a target, first dropping bombs, then firing rockets and finally strafing with heavy cannon fire.
Airbourne lessons
The MAF has also developed a new, albeit still shaky, capacity for airmobile operations – lifting troops into combat zones while providing them with close air support after they are deployed on the ground.
These operations first gathered pace in western Sagaing Region in early to mid-2022 on a limited basis and usually involved lifting around 50 or 60 soldiers in two Mi-17 transports supported by one ‘Hind’ gunship.
The objective of these missions was to launch a surprise raid on one or more villages, search them for weapons and PDF fighters, and then after setting houses ablaze, move on. Given usually limited resistance from poorly armed local fighters, there was not much that could go wrong.
Where the military has attempted more ambitious airmobile forays, however, plenty has gone wrong. The single most striking debacle occurred in Namhsan township in the northwest of Shan state in early December when five MAF Mi-17s airlifted around 200 troops – or what in the Myanmar Army passes for a battalion-sized unit – into an area dominated by the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), a major ethnic insurgent force.
Apparently planning to raid either a major arms dump or command center, a woeful failure of intelligence saw the troops lifted into a hornet’s nest of well-armed enemy forces where they were left to be decimated over the course of four days.
Notwithstanding repeated CAS sorties by MAF jets, TNLA sources later claimed 47 army troops killed and 24 captured – probably, if true, the army’s highest casualty toll in a single action over consecutive days since the February 1, 2021 coup.
Not by coincidence, the Namhsan battle carried loud echoes of a similar fiasco in Paletwa district of western Chin state in March 2020. An attempt to relieve an outpost on the Kaladan River besieged by the AA ended in disaster when the unit inserted was surrounded and lost 20 killed and 36 captured. That included the lieutenant colonel commanding the unit, who was later photographed by his captors bandaged, unsmiling and shackled to a tree.
Viewed together, these two painful lessons appear to reflect both a lack of tactical experience and chronically poor intelligence in a military that despite recent improvements still has much to learn about airmobile warfare. Given the high cost in manpower and morale, the appetite for further heliborne forays into well-armed, enemy-dominated territory will likely be limited in the months to come.
This is the first of a two-part in-depth analysis of Myanmar’s air war. Part two will be published on January 13.