As good as F-16s are and lot of other gear Morocco has.......
...... how does morocco make them survivable past an iskander strike on the (few + known) airbases (and naval bases for ships) that hold them?
Iskander TBM are limited by MTCR regulations for export version, to really hit anything inside Morocco, Iskander battery needs to come close, the footprint is large, with multiple TELs , command vehicle etc .
Convoys of Iskander battery could be detected easily, hence achieving surprise will be hard.
If Morocco smell anything fishy in regards to Iskander posing to diver a first strike, they could disperse their jets all over the country out of harms way. Ukraine did the same in the opening days of the war.
Morocco need to worry more about the Kalibr equipped pr.663 submarines. How good is Moroccan navy ASW ?
The opening moves of the wargaming overall favour Algeria heavily IMO....till Morocco gains credible capability and counters to this tier.
Not if they're unable to achieve surprise.
There's very few occasions where surprise elements are met, Barbarossa (1941), Pearl (1941), six day war (1967).
It would be hard to replicate those now with the commercialization of social media and satellite based imagery.
IMO, for forseeable current conflict window......Algeria's objectives will likely be (after the first strike advantage) to grab land in disputed/contested border zones and try punish morocco's military and infrastructure as much as possible. I.e tactical and punitive quick war.
Both side must have their own plan, I'm sure of that, Morocco planned for A while Algeria planned for B. But to quote Von Clausewitz, there's really no plan that survive first contact.
It will be the the armies with the best flexibility of command that will win.
I don't mean to generalize, but developing countries armies, especially in the MENA despite their abundance of weapon, has not prove their mettle in combat. Mostly because most of them are really designed for social control (and vast business interest) and their rigid and outdated command system prevent correct decision by field commanders.
This is why we keep seeing armies in MENA surrendering or outperformed by relatively small but efficient and flexible armies, ranging from non state actors like Isis, Houthis, to conventional armies like Israel.
Initiative and independent thinking are not encouraged, low field commanders would have to ask to the higher ups on what and what not to do.
Even if one side manage to occupy some lands it's questionable if they could move forward since.
I do not see either side having the long drawn out logistics, force sizes and funding for a longer strategic war.
Neither do I.