I know I am going to get killed here for the following comments but I am going to write what’s on my mind.
First of all, Thank you
@Khafee bhai..you kept your promise!
Adding another type does not make sense to me. PAF seems to have forgone the idea of multirole and going for specialized craft.
J-15P specifically designed for maritime operation with long range makes up for a strike fighter that we were missing to keep our coast safe! With Mirages on the out we needed this to carry C-802s for a longer range.
J-10C is need of the hour with some redundancies from JF-17. I can see PAF planners going for this plane as a Mirage on steroids and more. As PAF shown before that they prefer to have two supply chains active,e.g Erieye and ZDK-03, SD-10s and AMRAAM. With JF-17 acting as work horse, PAF wanted to compliment high end F-16 52+/70/72 with J-10C.
JH-7A would the be 7th type in PAF,
1. F-16 with different blocks
2. F-7PG
3. JF-17 with different blocks
4. J-10C
5. J-15P
6. Mirage with different variants
Adding one more type to maintain does not make sense with minimal benefit. With rumours Of JH-7 on the way out in PLAAF, PAF inducting this type seems a step back. The funds for this type may be better suited for other projects such as R&D for energy weapons, hyper-sonic missiles and stealth drones. PAF could have increased the number of J-10C procured.
Anyhoo, I am not a person who pretends to know it all. I trust the PAF decision-makers, they must have done their due diligence.