Taiwan plans to retire its Mirage -2000 fleet !should India buy?

The Dassault Mirage 2000 is a French multirole, single-engine fourth-generation jet fighter manufactured by Dassault Aviation. It was designed in the late 1970s as a lightweight fighter based on the Mirage III for the French Air Force. The Mirage 2000 evolved into a multirole aircraft with several variants developed, with sales to a number of nations. The variants include the Mirage 2000N and 2000D strike variants, the improved Mirage 2000-5 and several export variants.Over 600 aircraft were built and it has been in service with nine nations.

Indian Air Force has total number of 59 Mirage 2000 in service since 1985.In 1999 During Kargil war with Pakistan ,The Mirage 2000 has a vital role in Guarding the Himalayas.The Aircraft has a limited air interdiction capability and it was heavily modified to drop laser guided as well as conventional unguided bombs during war.It is one of the most efficient fighters of the IAF due to its impressive performance and easy maintenance.

Indian Air Force currently have 50 Dassault Mirrage 2000 in service with three different versions ;39 Dassault M2000H ,9 Dassault M2000TH and 2 aircrafts of Dassault Mirage 2000I/TI version.They all are upgraded to remain operational until 2040 in Indian Air Force.

After the Trump administration cleared the sale of 66 F-16V to the Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF) and also cleared the path of upgrading its current fleet of 115 F-16s jets to the Dash-5 Upgrade configuration, Reports by Tawainese media have emerged after the supply of 66 F-16V ROCAF plans to resale its 54 Dassault Mirage 2000-5EI to an existing operator due to they are expensive to maintain and ROCAF has no budget left for them to be upgraded since their induction in 1992.

Taipei’s focus on US systems at the expense of the more costly French jets has been widely criticized by the French side but Taiwanese Defence officials have acknowledged that the parts and supplies needed to maintain them were more expensive than those needed for the indigenous aircraft and the F-16s as more of the island’s shrinking defence budget was earmarked for US weapons.

Recently,India also purchase a fleet of 32 Jaguar aircra ft, which are supposed to be used as spares to support the current fleet of Jaguar fighters operated by India. The 100 Jaguar aircraft strong fleet would also help in maintaining force levels and tackle the delay in obtaining jets beyond the 4 plus generation fighter aircraft such as Rafale due to the opposition hindering the decision-making.

An additional 2-3 Mirage squadrons could provide the Indian Air Force with a low cost means of enlarging its fleet to meet current expansion goals, and with the country already operating around 45 of the aircraft integration of a further 54 jets would bring the fleet size up to around 100. No other operator of the Mirage 2000 is expected to be interested in purchasing the fighters from Taiwan, with the Untied Arab Emirates, Qatar, Greece, Egypt and France all considering the fighter obsolete and looking to phase them out for either F-35, Rafale or, in Egypt’s case, possibly MiG-35 jets. India previously showed an interest in acquiring Qatar’s 12 Mirage 2000 fighters second hand, indicating that it does have a genuine interest in expanding the fleet. The country’s Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) notably currently produces a similarly configured lightweight fighter, the Tejas, which has overall far superior capabilities to the Mirage 2000 including integration of much more modern munitions, sensors, avionics and electronic warfare systems several decades ahead of those on the French fighter. However the currently low production rate of tejas means that there is still an incentive to procure the Mirage 2000 jets should they be offered for a low enough price.