The downside of imported arms

[Pratyush]

Cross posting from the LCA thread.

The offer by Reython for the Paveway is the surest sign that the Sudershan has reached maturity. The IAF will be well served to ignore this offer. The JSOW is a different issue. Lets hop that it is available to the IAF. Else the DRDO ought to launch an integrated air born Guided weapons programme. That will cater to all aspects of airborn combat.

A failure to do so will be revisiting the worst aspects of Indian Defense planning since the inception of the HF 24 programme.

[gakakkad]

The basis of stealth technology is a mathematical theorem by THE RUSSIAN PURE MATHEMATICIAN AND THEORETICAL PHYSICIST Petr Ufimtsev that deals with equations for predicting the reflection of electromagnetic waves from simple two-dimensional shapes. No technological work can be done adequate backing from pure scientists . How can we have them when going into pure science is regarded as a sign of failure . ( "padhai me weak lagta han ,BSC mein gayaa") .Its actually become a social stigma. In The US Theoretical physicist are actually revered .I have a lot of respect for ISRO which is in the top 5 space agencies in spite of all the shortcomings. .

Actually a lot of the credit for development of stealth tech should go to Lockheed's Denys OverHosler really. Ufimtsev published a paper called "Method of edge waves in the physical theory of diffraction". The key to stealth tech was actually not in the paper itself, but a small nugget buried in the appendix. What ufimtsev had done in the appendix was revisit some equations that were originally proposed by the Scotsman James Clerk Maxwell ( a pioneer of electromagnetic theory) and refined by the German expert, Arnold Summerfield. Ufimtsev had added a tiny spin of his own to those equations, showing how to predict the reflected laser energy from a flat plate and from an edge and he used those two to prove some other thing in his paper. The paper was published in 1964 but was only translated to english in 1971 and it was 1975 when Lockheed engineers became aware of it. Denys Overhosler was the guy that picked up that tiny nugget in all the other stuff in that paper and realized that it not only applied to lasers, but also any other electromagnetic waves such as radar, and allowed him to predict accurately what a given shape would reflect, without building a scale model. Prof. Ufimtsev himself was blissfully unaware of what he had done until the 1990s when he came to the US.

Ben Rich, the then head of Skunk Works, thought that the idea might have potential and basically funded a 6 month project to write the software to do the calculations for a given shape. It was classed as a small side project with no official backing and the only two guys on it were Overhosler and his mentor, Bill Schroeder, who they pulled out of retirement for this project. This is where the difference with India is, because hardly anyone in India dares work on stuff unrelated to current duties, without official backing. The results of this side project is what led to Lockheed developing stealthy shapes and what became the Have Blue program.

Yup . just as you said it was a very simple extrapolation of the fact that all electromagnetic waves have similar physical properties. The equation for rcs too is easily understandable. What I wanted to point out is the importance of collaboration of industry and academia in the development cycle of weapons . And reward mechanism for going an extra mile . An epiphany changed the course of military aviation history . Even a person with basic knowledge of physics and calculus can understand the paper .But It was extraordinary creativity to design an aircraft out of it.

http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/AD733203

I have reproduced the link of the book for the enthusiasts who might be interested . It needs knowledge of fundamentals of electromagnetism (gauss law , maxwells equations ,besides workin knowledge of calculus including partial derivatives )

[vic]

Our gross/stupid failure to manufacture full range of small/medium arms means that our small neighbours import from China and Pakistan weakening our hold on our region.