Rafale & MMRCA News and Discussions

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member_20067
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by member_20067 »

SaiK wrote: GoI is upset with France. period.
have not they just won the tanker contract?
Kakkaji
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Kakkaji »

If Dassault invests in a new company 'Dassault-Reliance Aerospace India Ltd', I think we should welcome it with both arms. I fail to see any harm in it.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by geeth »

We should never allow the reliance JV to take over from HAL because (1) it would lead to major cost escalation, (2) the transferred tech would remain with JV,which again would be controlled by Dassault (3) Most of the talent available in the defence establishments would be pulled out by this JV leading to paralysis of existing programmes across the spectrum and also have a cascading effect on cost of everything produced indigenously
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by rajanb »

geeth wrote:We should never allow the reliance JV to take over from HAL because (1) it would lead to major cost escalation, (2) the transferred tech would remain with JV,which again would be controlled by Dassault (3) Most of the talent available in the defence establishments would be pulled out by this JV leading to paralysis of existing programmes across the spectrum and also have a cascading effect on cost of everything produced indigenously
There is a simple solution to this.

HAL --> 51%
Dassault/Reliance 49%

Takes care of lead integration, improves management policy, can get rid of slackers fast, GOI holds onto ToT. Anything else?
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Singha »

doesnt BAE-HAL already exist under that model? what does it do btw?
rajanb
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by rajanb »

Singha wrote:doesnt BAE-HAL already exist under that model? what does it do btw?
Singha,

I was involved with BAE-HAL in the early 90's. In fact had visited their offices which were at the entry road to HAL Bangalore, then the civilain airport. The CEO of BAE-HAL was the ex-IT Chief of HAL BLR! In those days, all I saw was that they were developing SW for BAE.

Later, one of my ex-colleagues became the CEO.

Do not know if the scope has changed.
member_20067
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by member_20067 »

What is the reason we don't go for a parallel production line by splitting the order at some percentage so what we get more frames delivered per year? let say 50% off the shelf and 50% by HAL? How does the number of frames decide the percentage of ToT adoption?
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by member_20453 »

Have been saying it for the longest time Dassault's tall claims of full-tot will not be met. It was BS martketing and we bought into it. No worries, still no harm in buying the SH or the EF, I am sure both will come with better TOT than the Rafale. Moreover, we can invest in the SH International upgrades. Looking at our own problems with Kaveri chances are GE F414 EPE will power the AMCA as well. With both LCA mk-2 and SH having same engines we would save billions on the long run by simple maintenance costs. The engine would be made completely in India, with a large deal we could even get unkil to drop some of the intrusive agreements we have.

SH international with its proposed upgrades would certainly be a cheaper option too. EF too seems like a better option now.

http://www.boeing.com/AeroIndia2011/pdf ... a_0111.pdf
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Manish_Sharma »

phat panting teens have no chance, at the most it'll be Typhoon.

As Kartik has said the MMRCA will be 80 single seaters and 46 two seaters. If Typhoon also shows attitude, then 'I' say we 'should' go for 80 Su-35S-s and 46 Rambhas.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by anand_sankar »

@Manish_Sharma

We are already above the limit (budget-wise) of the number of 4++ gen heavy fighters that we can operate. There will be no more orders, except maybe one or two aircraft to replace future attrition while the production line is open.

***************************

Agreed, Dassault wants to milk every penny from what could be its last ever big aircraft deal. But its treading a very fine line. It is in Dassault's interest to get this thing wrapped up quickly...

a) The Indian economy looks shaky

b) The government is shaky in numbers, sudden elections could mean the negotiations stall and the contract goes up in the air again

c) More than the other aircraft which were in the fray, Dassault needs to fear the Americans. If they offer any significant TOT and workshare in the F-35 programme out of 'goodwill' it could be the end of the MMRCA contract.

Even if Dassault settles for a bit less initially, the Rafale's service life is going to be ~25 years, plenty of time to earn money later.

I don't see how HAL is a factor for Dassault. Dassault will still make plenty of money supplying HAL assembly jigs, training HAL employees and supplying some components in kit format. As long as Dassault supplies stuff correctly (unlike BAe which screwed up the Hawk jigs), no one is going to blame it for HALs problems and delays. The JV with Reliance, while good news, is tempered by the fact that for Mr M Ambani, while he might have money, MOD is virgin territory for him. This arrangement is better left to future slow-burning projects.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Lalmohan »

isnt the sticking point to do with GOI wanting HAL to produce offsets and Dassault wanting one of their indian subsidiaries to produce the offsets?
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by abhik »

Katare wrote:
abhik wrote: I don't get how the IAF will be "crippled for decades" if it goes for the LCA instead of the MRCA. You are ignoring the fact that the heavy MKI will make up the largest part of the numbers of the IAF for the foreseeable future. What exactly is so special about the MRCA that a force of MKIs+ LCAs cant match?
How would you create 40 Squads with non existent (IOC-1) LCA? HAL can't set-up a line to make 8 aircrafts a year, it's starting now with 1500Corer budget. LCA mk2 have not been even integrated with it's new engine. Love and support for domestic MIC is great but national security should not be held hostage for it's sucess.
Do you think we are going to fill up 40 squadrons by buying an super-expensive uber fighter like the Rafale?
I remember 2-3 years back when the MMRCA thread was at its peak activity BRFites would routinely comment that we need to choose the Best-est, most well spec-ed, Sooper Fighter on offer because "money was no object". After all the MoD has soo much money that it was consistently been returning it back to Finance ministry. Right?
Two years down the line the economy is in the dumps and the MoD faces massive cuts on its budget which is already far less than what they actually wanted. Some road construction near the LAC has stopped, the mountain strike corps has be shelved for now. So what do we do now? We could reconsider our options and try to squeeze out the most value we can from the little money we have. Some thing we should have done in the first place because when the MoD was returning money it was doing so because it could not actually sign deals for new equipment even though most of the military's current kit was on its way to becoming or already completely obsolete. OR we could double down on the MRCA Rafale deal. And will end up with a just hand full of these but nowhere close to making up a significant part of the "40 squadron" strength. The rest of them will be made up of a mish-mash of 2nd-3rd-4th gen aircraft. In fact I doubt if we will ever reach 40 if we go for the Rafale.
At this stage we don't really know how much the French have asked for the Rafale. But from past experiences like the Mirage upgrade ripoff I am not optimistic. Then there is also the cost of the munitions. Last time they charged us $2m for a short range missile like the mica. I shudder to think what to that what the Meteor AAM will cost us. I think it is quite plausible it migh end up costing $5m+.
During the Libyan war all the Rafale fans trumping up all that it was doing in war enabled by its high-tech SPECTRA, AASM bombs etc. But soon the news broke out that within days of the war breaking out the French and the Brits went running to the Amricans for munitions, parts and what not. It made me realize that even though they had some of the most advanced aircraft and munitions, they had essentially lost the capability to effectively and independently wage war. That too against a weak opponent like Libya. Do note that they spend significantly more on defence than we on forces which are significantly smaller than ours. I don't we can afford to be in a similar situation. I don't think we can successfully wage war against our enemies with kit like Meteor AAMs which could cost as much as a quarter or even half a JF-17 Bundar.
The Rafale may have been the best fighter on offer technically, But I think the LCA+MKI is the superior option. And I still definitely don't get how "IAF will be crippled for decades" if we don't buy the Rafale.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by SaiK »

Hello folks! who says DASIPL is not 100% Dassault owned and solely operating to do the MMRCA, while the reliance is sidelined to do some other low end defence deals. This is the french problem here now. Now, you should know who is getting all the profits much against the 30-50% offsets. Now France may argue that the offsets would be furnished with reliance partnership, but it would fail the contractual agreement that it should be part of the primary deal. Legally france is flaunting this MMRCA right in the beginning to have the cake, and eat it all by itself.

well, imho, they have not got the deal yet.
Last edited by SaiK on 08 Jan 2013 21:24, edited 1 time in total.
member_23364
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by member_23364 »

^^^+1 Abhik

Rafale CANNOT be procured in numbers aka like the Su-30 MKI. I am sure it is a more capable bird, but if any expert can throw some light as to how much performance we are sacrificing between the MKI and the Rafale and the cost difference between the two. What is public knowledge is that we spent/will be spending $12 Billion for 272 MKI's and associated capital equipment (Engines & Spares). What is the corresponding spend for the 126 Rafales? Is it $10.4 Billion as originally laid out? I heard figures of 90,000 crores from Shooklaw's blog. That works out to $17.5 Billion, WITHOUT MUNITIONS. I would conservatively add $2-3 Billion for munitions that will not enable us to conduct sustained operations.

I am all for the Rafale deal, if it can be worked out per original intent. But if it does not, have a Plan B ready. We need to be ready with a second choice and we need the vendor engaged too. (126 Super Sukhois's or 126 F-18's)

The over riding priority should be a platform which fulfills our requirement at the minimum cost which we can sustain. In other words-sasta, sundar, tikau. Do not love the platform itself.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Singha »

Su35BM equipped with irbis-E, sudarshan, astra, son-of-r77, python5, popeye and some israeli SDB / WCMD would seem to represent a good alternative choice. but it will be LRCA not MRCA and in heavy category albeit in same price band as the MRCA horses. maybe take around 60 Su35BM and increase the number of PAKFA....move into a heavy fighter centric force to bridge the vast gaps.

its engine 117S is very powerful and is running the pakfa protos.

my spider feel says whatever level of "tot" these mrca people offer is not going to help us improve or complete original work like astra, lrde aesa fighter radar or anything in the AMCA. HAL might gain some manufacturing expertise which is good, but wont solve the original design problems needed to even get new products like AMCA to productionizing state.......so no exam "farra" there to get pass marks, whatever we know ourself has to be used.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Victor »

I wouldn't rattle off "MKI" and "LCA" in the same breath as if we could reach in our back pockets for them at our whim. The Russians will demand our left testiparticles if they realize we are desperate (which we are) for the MKI and as for LCA, A recently retired vice-chief of the IAF who didn't mince words has said “HAL’s assembly line expertise is outdated by at least three decades. They have done nothing to upgrade their technology. Setting up a modern assembly line for the Tejas is far beyond HAL’s capabilities.”

We need to internalize the cold fact that Subramanyam's "the realization has come" gem is HAL-speak for "LCA will not happen", at least not for a decade.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by SaiK »

realization should be that LCA needs to happen no matter what obstacles we have. If we are lacking in the jigs and assembly lines, so be it. Build them now!
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Lalmohan »

the 40 sqdn thingy is a red herring - that was an estimate based on at best Mig23 technology
with a Su30/Rafale combo, a smaller number of sqdns makes more sense - from a capability perspective
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Sagar G »

Lalmohan wrote:the 40 sqdn thingy is a red herring - that was an estimate based on at best Mig23 technology
with a Su30/Rafale combo, a smaller number of sqdns makes more sense - from a capability perspective
Let's not go into sq. nos. tell me what no of combat aircraft's do you wish to see in IAF which can help us deliver a bloody nose to our enemies in a two front war.

I want to see 1000+ combat jets with exact nos. being confidential.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by srin »

Lalmohan wrote:the 40 sqdn thingy is a red herring - that was an estimate based on at best Mig23 technology
with a Su30/Rafale combo, a smaller number of sqdns makes more sense - from a capability perspective
Not really - our probable opponents' capabilities have also increased. TSP has F16 B52 with AMRAAMs (generously given by US fight the Taliban airforce) and China also has Flankers, and churning out J-10s.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by SaiK »

The one that should go up in large numbers should be our four legged cheetah. I am waiting for 2014.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by arthuro »

he sale of Rafale again postponed in India?

A source close to the Indian Ministry of Defence ensures that the MRCA contract between Dassault Aviation and India will not be signed before the end of the fiscal year in India, after the end of March 2013.

Could be expected for March 2013, the sale of French Rafale in India is likely to occur later ... After assuring wish to conclude exclusive negotiations conducted with the French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation before the end of its fiscal year, which ends on March 31, India would be forced to wait several more months before finalizing the contract MRCA .

"At this rate negotiations, the chances of reaching agreement during this fiscal year is highly unlikely," said a source in the Indian Defense Ministry to AFP. "But we can expect some very positive movement after March," she added.

"The Rafale contract is in its final stages and we hope to be concluded within three to four months," had yet told Rakesh Sood, the Indian ambassador in France, Indian journalists gathered at the Indian House in London on November 6.

"The formal clauses were intended to ensure technology transfer and compensation, and Dassault Aviation has accepted", had then assured the ambassador.

Negotiations on the MRCA contract between Dassault Aviation and India runs from January 31, 2012. It concerns the sale to India of 126 Rafale fighters omnirôles.
http://www.usinenouvelle.com/article/la ... de.N189050
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by SaiK »

^.. could be the French->English translation problem:

read: "had then assured the ambassador".. not sure when was "the then". perhaps he meant, Dassault had accepted earlier after RFP/negotiations began.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Katare »

Procurement of such magnitude takes 10 years canceling this contract would cripple IAF for decades. There is no other method available for procurement of this nature, no politician is going to risk his career.

So cancel this and have another cometition but this time with diluted ASQR in 10 years when that is done the aircraft of diluted capabilities will not be of much use.

LCA is too small and MKI is 2 big and both of them lack the technology that rafel contains.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by SaiK »

Other solution is don't go for procurement of this magnitude.. do a gradual squadron update and upgrade on a per year basis. That way we really review the process, and perhaps only have the price agreement on a 5 or 10 year basis. i.e, price don't change for any new purchase without change in configuration. for every change, have a new price agreement and tenure.

BTW, get off this ToT business. Nobody is going to give it nor it is a long term sustainable plan. LCA-AMCA route is the way to go for the future, whenever that comes. We shall wait for the full blown cheetahs and lions, while IAF is not handicapped by political process with this per year /two squadron upgrade plan.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by merlin »

Katare wrote: LCA is too small and MKI is 2 big and both of them lack the technology that rafel contains.
Like?
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by abhik »

Katare wrote:..LCA is too small and MKI is 2 big and ...
So you mean to say that Rafale is the Goldilocks fighter? How so?
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by srai »

SaiK wrote:Other solution is don't go for procurement of this magnitude.. do a gradual squadron update and upgrade on a per year basis. That way we really review the process, and perhaps only have the price agreement on a 5 or 10 year basis. i.e, price don't change for any new purchase without change in configuration. for every change, have a new price agreement and tenure.
Prices fluctuates constantly even if there are no configuration changes. There are many factors such as inflationary costs, variable prices of raw materials (supply/demand, futures trading), cost of labor, etc. One of the ways to guarantee prices is to order in bulk plus optional quantities. This way the manufacturer can negotiate a "fixed" price with the parts/materials suppliers.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by member_20292 »

Where is our friend GeorgreWelch when you need him???


Everyone....in 2009, GWelch was screaming his head off about why F 18 was the best choice for India.

I was formerly gunning for the Raffy...but ...I am now turning 180 and think that we made a mistake by not going for the f 18 Shornet.

1. P8I and C130 J delivery on time , budget and smoothness has been very impressive. This is far more impressive than the usual mismanaged Russian work that we are used to receiving.

2. S Hornet, is , what 60 million flyaway? Raffy is 100 million I believe. We could have bought more of the F 18s than the Raffys.

3. ToT is warfighting ability ...if,...god forbid you enter a large scale war, you need to have tech to make the parts in house. That level of tech, we would eventually get from the Americans. Even if they would not share as much as the French ...I am now, convinced that that is not a big deal to us.

4. The main advantage of the SH, is and always has been, that the US Navy is buying large numbers of it...and that it is hooked on to the largest war fighting machine in the world, the US. Suppose we need to do a Libya, in FATA? Having french munitions does not seem like a good idea at this point of time. It seems to be far better to be plugged into the US warfighitng machine....one click order on Amazon.com jaise. Order karo, bomb maro...sasthe main kaam karo.

you dont get the latest and greatest...but you do get a decent enough, cheap solution. Which is what I would think the IAF would like to have at this point of time. Enough of the damned RnD projects already. Just get the birds and give them to us..lets fly..practise...try to make the most out of them at high altitudes...watch the Cheenis dhoti shiver with our new American munitions!

5. The chinese are HUGE on chankian look..my p3nis bigger than yours. The F 18 would be a WONDERFUL reminder to them about the US being behind us.

6. Richard Aboulafia has a very nice website and I read some of his newsletters, that he puts out every month. He spoke about the Rafale and the EuroF being a Lamborghini and a Ferrari...and to choose L1 would be like choosing between a Lambo and Ferrari.
F 18 would be a nice Porche Boxter or a Mazda Miata...Sasti, tikau aur chalne waali.

Agreed Ashley Tellis..agreed. Tum sahi the..main galath tha!
:D
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Zynda »

mahadevbhu wrote: 1. P8I and C130 J delivery on time , budget and smoothness has been very impressive. This is far more impressive than the usual mismanaged Russian work that we are used to receiving.
:D
Sir, I believe the P8I, C-130J & C-17 birds are through FMS deal. Which means, no messy off-sets business. Boeing & LM can roll off the birds from their well oiled factories in US and deliver on time. With MMRCA, the clause is around 50% off-set, which means that Boeing has to find an Indian partner (I think they have already chosen TATA)...transfer the technology to manufacture the same. Sure, initial lot of birds may roll off from US factories. What makes you think that Boeing after evaluating TATA's capabilities, will not present the same questions as the French about ability to absorb mature tech by Indian companies?
mahadevbhu wrote: 3. ToT is warfighting ability ...if,...god forbid you enter a large scale war, you need to have tech to make the parts in house. That level of tech, we would eventually get from the Americans. Even if they would not share as much as the French ...I am now, convinced that that is not a big deal to us.
:D
Please explain how Americans are willing to provide that level of tech eventually? USS Trenton purchased by Indian Navy, which is a refurbished ship and not a state-of-the-art LPD, comes with EULA and per reports, Massa folks want to "inspect" the ship periodically. This has been posted on the forum several times. I will try to dig more info on this. There is a good chance that SH might come with even more stringent EULA which may affect operational capability of IAF.
mahadevbhu wrote: 4. Having french munitions does not seem like a good idea at this point of time. It seems to be far better to be plugged into the US warfighitng machine....one click order on Amazon.com jaise. Order karo, bomb maro...sasthe main kaam karo.
:D
Sir, per reports AASM Hammer performance was extremely satisfying in Libyan conflict. Anyways, the game changing munition was as usual Massa's Thawk missiles; fired in salvos to neutralize Libya's air defenses which allowed NATO's bombers to go in for deep strike missions with impunity. Don't think we would be getting Thawk missiles as part of MRCA deal. Of course, Nirbhay when deployed will give us the ability of Thawk.

I think no matter which country, no one is going to part with their tech just because the user is willing to pay boat loads of money.

The development costs of F-16 Block 60 was paid in full by UAE. The tech is with LM/US and not shared with UAE. Of course, UAE gets royalty for each F-16 Block 60 sold.
Last edited by Zynda on 09 Jan 2013 15:10, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Singha »

I believe the loaded cost of a F-18hornet would be around the $80 mil range not $60 mil.
agreed the US system is smoothly oiled and munitions very cheap.

but thats if you order 126 SH via the FMS route with zero offsets. you will see timely deliveries and soothing photos of rollouts and immaculate assembly lines, defence journos will get free trips and tours and flights.

finding offset partners in india and delivering is one thing, then there is raft of restrictive rules for the vendor to negotiate on sensitive tech and congressional oppn to shipping aerospace manufacturing jobs overseas. if you notice, even for the cancelled A330MRTT deal, the US wanted them all made in kansas plant, all major eqpt they want made there only.

so same set of issues would likely come up.

the F-18 radar might be better and bigger and munitions cheaper and wider , but the airframe is not a good match vs what the rafale/EF can do.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Lalmohan »

the issue is not with tata or mahindra, its with hal
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Singha »

we dont really know as neither tata or mahindra have assembled even a pilatus pc7 std aircraft yet . it will take them some time even to come up to assembling CKD kits.

ofcourse they can and will poach people from HAL esp the senior people and perhaps that is why GOI is fearful.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Viv S »

Zynda wrote:Sir, I believe the P8I, C-130J & C-17 birds are through FMS deal. Which means, no messy off-sets business.
All three contracts included offsets, though their composition has come in for some criticism.

What makes you think that Boeing after evaluating TATA's capabilities, will not present the same questions as the French about ability to absorb mature tech by Indian companies?
HAL has been manufacturing fighter aircraft for over 50 years. The technology from the MMRCA program is expected to be spun off into the LCA, AMCA and AURA programs. But yes if TATA is chosen as the lead integrator instead of HAL, question about tech absorption will persist.

Sir, per reports AASM Hammer performance was extremely satisfying in Libyan conflict. Anyways, the game changing munition was as usual Massa's Thawk missiles; fired in salvos to neutralize Libya's air defenses which allowed NATO's bombers to go in for deep strike missions with impunity. Don't think we would be getting Thawk missiles as part of MRCA deal. Of course, Nirbhay when deployed will give us the ability of Thawk.
The AASM has nothing to do with the Tomahawk. If anything it should be compared to the Paveway IV, JDAM and SDB. The SDB matches the AASM on performance and far outdoes it in terms of cost effectiveness.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Zynda »

Per my understanding, the offsets from US purchases so far, are not directly involved with the actual birds (like know-how about manufacturing & integrating radar used on P8I or assembly of C-17 in India) but more about developing aero infra in India (Boeing helping us setting up a high altitude engine test facility in Chitradurga). Please correct me if I am wrong.

I am in agreement with you on the manufacturing part. The same questions about manufacturing might be posed if the lead integrator is Tata instead of HAL.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Singha »

for low unit# purchases like C17, P8I , C130J there was no point in attempting to even setup a SKD line in India. hence i think they had to find some 'creative' ways to deliver some value to us.

situation would be different if we say scrapped the MTA dog and ordered 100 C130J with 25 delivered from boeing over 2 yrs, rest assembled in India, with indigenization in form of sourcing locally made parts progressively.

or 126 hornets ofcourse.

boeing had already made a scathing assessment of where HAL was in ability to absorb the best tech and same comments as dassault would be made.
Lalmohan
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Lalmohan »

on the other hand tata and mahindra have successfully operated car production lines for some time - and are good at it
the issue is not developing cool planes, it is running an efficient production line
member_20453
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by member_20453 »

I think the SH International with proposed F414 EPE engines, CFTS, new large panel display, stealth pods, fully integrated IRST, spiral MAWS is ideal. With the F414, it brings in much needed commonality between the LCA mk-2 and MRCA. If LCA mk-2s proves itself to be a great aircraft as it is expected to be, its orders could double and the eventual savings on engine commonality would be extensive running well into billions. Moreover weapons like SDB, JDAM-ER, Paveways are significantly cheaper than the AASM which has a unit cost of well over 100K euros, looking at the number of targets we will have in terms of Chi-Pak, it is ridiculous to think of this over-priced silly weapon in the inventory since there are other bombs just or even more effective available at better rates.

SDB, CBU-105SFW WCMD-ER, JDAM-ER, Sudarshan, Paveways, SLAM-ER, AAGRM etc would be a far cheaper and sginificantly more effective weapons package. SH international would certainly come with complete engine tech and may be even AESA tech, I think if we negotiate out right order of 200 SHs International with joint develoment + funding of the proposed upgrades we are bound to gain on the long run as well since USN and RAAF will finally upgrade to those standards during MLU anyways.

We'll end up paying around 80-90 million a piece, its life cycle costs will be lower than the EF and Raffy and it has already proven itself to be a far more reliable aircraft.

I think now is a good time to chat with Unkil, an outright order of 200 aircraft would greatly alter the leverage, we can certainly get them to drop the intrusive clauses such as inspections and get significant workshare + TOT if we can promise a joint anti China stand, Unkil has wet dreams of our full collabo on an Anti china stance, we just have to align with them on that. With china readily and openly siding with pukis, tis time we take a clear side on this one.

The inherant nature of us being the largest democracy will never allow us to become Unkil's puppet and unkil will end up being partners of equal on the long run. However, tis good to keep Russia happy too, makes sense to order the proven around 1000+ Pantsir S-2 indianized launchers, it happens to be the best in town for the SHORADs competition, recently intercepted a live cruise missile during tests. Imagine 12000+ of these missiles in service :), will help maintain our capability with the world's largests SAM network.

In the event of a war with PAk and China, the only countries that can meet the volume of needs and would openly side with us are Russia and Unkil, keeping our populatuion growth in mind and our eventual destiny to be the most populous nation in the world and market dynamics, it is only right that the top 3 super powers by then (US, Russia and India) have close relations with each other. India could be the glue that keeps both Russia and US under control and in harmony.
member_20292
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by member_20292 »

Singha wrote: finding offset partners in india and delivering is one thing, then there is raft of restrictive rules for the vendor to negotiate on sensitive tech and congressional oppn to shipping aerospace manufacturing jobs overseas. if you notice, even for the cancelled A330MRTT deal, the US wanted them all made in kansas plant, all major eqpt they want made there only.

so same set of issues would likely come up.

the F-18 radar might be better and bigger and munitions cheaper and wider , but the airframe is not a good match vs what the rafale/EF can do.
1. Airframe yes. Rafale / EF better.
2. Technology. Even stevens.
3. Offsets. Advantage Rafale / EF...they are less anal retentive about this. The french are Indian strategic allies.
4. Being plugged into an amazon.com like plug and play ecosystem. Want bomb. One click ordering, delivered tomorrow to IAF HQ, nicely gift wrapped. :D F 18 superhornet.
5. upgrades. 10 years down the line....F 18 has different philosophy. No IRST. Rafale etc. all have IRST . US Navy will want upgrades and will fund them nicely.

Arrey yaar....my thought is still with the fact that the MMRCA, when it was meant to be a cheap happy, and quickly delivered fighter....should have been the F 18.

MOST IMPORTANTLY.
6. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE the Chinese fear of the USA. They are surrounded by South Korea, Japan, Taiwan ..all with US weapons...latest and greatest even. The F 18 would do VERY NICELY in demonstrating solidly that the US line is being plugged into....if there is an event on the border, we will bomb them using US weapons. This is something that HAS TO BE TAPPED into, from the Indian point of view. The only reason anyone buys weapons is to ensure long lasting peace . This would serve an excellent, and IMO, under-estimated facet of the deal.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by abhik »

We'd be fools to believe that "Tata, BirlaReliance" will solve all our problems. These companies have not even shown the capability to do Level 0 Screwdriver assembly of the simplest aircraft. They have ZERO infrastructure.I am surprised so many have bought into Dassaults (or for that mater Boeings) shenanigans. Their only motive is to get away with as little ToT and offsets as they can. There is no problem with HAL that cant be fixed.
If Reliance et al. are so confident about their own ability then I think the Government should float a tender to for the manufacture and supply of the LCA. I'd love to see their reaction to that.
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