Rafale & MMRCA News and Discussions

[Badar]

You have still to give a convincing reason on why RN/UK has lost faith in F-35B program or the fact that F-35B is a lemon.

Right. Nor do I wish to. There is probably nothing I can tell you that you can't know about the program. It is obvious you have seen the same stuff and come to a different conclusion. Let's just disagree then, I have no wish to rehash the why's and wherefore's of the F-35B program.

I will just note that Italy quietly changed its first four F-35's buy from the STOVL version to the CTOL one.

But I find it dubious to say the least that US Marines are openly questioning the utility of F-35B variant.

http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/arti ... eds-plan-b
http://mcgazette.blogspot.in/2012/01/ge ... stovl.html

OK, let me spell it out as I see it. French Rafale program is primarily a security-sovereignty issue for the French, the economic benefits are welcome, though secondary. Rafale program would have green-lighted even if there was a prospect of zero export sales. This is in marked contrast to the F-35 program. This programs prime imperative is to dominate the military aviation industry landscape and ideally eclipse every other competing manufacturer into oblivion. Battlefield domination is welcome, but secondary goal. When one understands the underlying drivers a clearer picture emerges as to what exactly is available for sale from each producer. Who will sell the fish and who the fishing rod.
It took the UK one billion development investment, five years or wrangling and begging (this during the heyday of Blair poodle'ism) for the US to 'waive' ITAR restrictions for UK. What chance India of even operational sovereignty, let alone impossible stuff like ToT.

Again the same logic, this happened to UK hence will happen to us.

You are missing the point again please re-read the highlighted part. Ignore if you will the UK experience used as an illustration to underline the point.

We are a bigger market as compared to UK. We can put in more money as compared to UK.

Italy and UK started of with around 130-140 each. What do you envisage a realistic India buy would be? Compare that to the projected US buys.

Investing in the development is pointless at this stage.

Again let me spell it out for you. JSF ITAR coverage is not motivated by security concerns. It is simply a trade barrier under the guise of security. And it has immediate impact on day to day operational autonomy.

We live in an information world. If electronic superiority were not of primary importance, we would have stuck with all-Russian SU-30MKI and Mig-21 BISONs.

OK I don't even know what you are saying trying to say here. Bisons are being retired cause they aren't electronic wiz-bnag? Or that MMRCA was to address MKI electronic inadequacies?

Yet the IAF rejected the F-18IN despite its superlative and unrivaled electronic superiority. Electron juggling can only take you so far to compensate for a poor airframe. Old world virtues like aerodynamic agility and sheer performance still make a big and real impact on real world combat.

Neither an ally nor a client state. If buying F-35 does make us a client/ally/poodle then so does buying P-8I or C-130 or any other american component. Hell we might as well as throw out all of the PC's that GoI/MoD/IAF/IN/IA operate, because the heart of the PC is made in america Intel or AMD processor.

{ waves white flag }

So now we are discussing about degrees of dependability. Recently I read an article how the French were allegedly supplying Pakistan fighters during 1971 war, while the american president was whining that the Americans were doing nothing. This is a cause of caution and not rejection. As long as we are dependent on foreign suppliers for our weapon systems, this will remain.

Yeah the French were supplying Pakistan during 71, so? Maybe they were supplying both sides during Kargil (for the sake of argument), so what? Russia offered MiG-29 and Su-27 to Pakistan in the mid-ninties, again so what? Argument is about IAF freedom of action, not France taking sides or exclusivity.

One of us is afraid. Afraid of history. History teaches us to be cautious and be prepared. Unfortunately many of us take history to mean do not do this and do not do that. We take from US what we want, the rest is just fly on the wall. If tomorrow US goes to war with China, I will support it whole heatedly. But if it goes to war with Iran, I doubt if anybody in India, including GoI, will be understanding. Hell we have not supported Iraq invasion, even after the royal treatment that was given to a particular NDA luminary. That is not going to change, even if buy or do not buy F-35.

You don't support the war on Iran. Suddenly you are last on the priority list of countries receiving spares. There goes your readiness. Want the tech to manufacture the rubber gasket - sorry ITAR restriction as it impinges on LO capability. Well you want to screw ToT and use your own china-bazaar rubber gasket? Unauthorized end user modification violating EUMA (and will reacted to the same way as if you had integrated a nuke on the sly). If you think I am kidding ...

If you are thinking F-35MKI then forget about it. The US will not allow anyone to change any significant bits of the F-35. If you are very very good boy you will be permitted to integrate weapons and external systems in pods as a favor, plus the IFF or radios. Change the Avionics? EW? Additional or modified sensors? Out of luck.

Seriously why ??

Really give the highlighted portion above a serious reading. They will use ITAR to block any and every item they can that precludes use of US equipment.

Yes but if we are expecting F-35MKI then we need to make an approach. My concern is money. If we going towards a 4th generation fighter for MMRCA, then we will have the case of a serving IAF chief knocking on MoD/GoI doors for a 5th gen fighter, other than PAK-FA and the proposed AMCA around the time this decade ends.

Why do we need anything other than PAK-FA and AMCA? Why?

But it still does not eliminate that we might end up spending some 15+ billion for a 4th gen fighter. Why not put the same amount of money in AMCA or another 5th gen fighter.

If the F-35 was available today or if there was a firm timeline for F-35 program then there might be a modicum of merit in that approach. Even if we place a rush order roday, we won't get anything for a decade. So we sit around twiddling our thumbs for a decade hoping the F-35 comes along 'real soon now'?

[ramana]

Badar, Can you look at the combat capability of the Rafale and compare it to existing IAF fighters and give us an idea of how much more or less the IAF strength will be?

Say in interceptor role the baseline is the Mig 21 upgrade. Say Rafale is xTimes Mig 21 Upgrade
In attack role the baseline is the Jaguar. Say Rafale is y times Jaguar

How much is x and y?

My interest is to see how much is the IAF combat capability improved with this plane.

Various accounts say IAF is around 32 to 39.5 squadrons of existing inventory.

Will the addition of Rafale make it more effective strength due to capability, sortie rate and other unmeasurable 'ities'?

[pankajs]

9 factors that may have helped Dassault sell its Rafale fighter this week

So how did Dassault finally pull it off? And not just any deal, but what some say is the biggest cross-border military aviation contract of all time? Of course, the Indian government said it went to the low bidder, but that seems unlikely - particularly since the final price hasn't been set, and no one picks up jet planes just because they're on sale.

The Deal
French firm Dassault won $11 billion contract to supply 126 Rafale jets.
Snapped it up with lower bid against Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft.
The size of the contract could eventually go up to 200 aircraft.

A BETTER LUNCH
[...]
DASSAULT WAS HUNGRY
Dassault has failed to sell the Rafale abroad since 2000. Although its Mirage planes were popular in the 1970s, Dassault hasn't had a similar success with the Rafale line. Deals with the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Brazil all fell through.

To top it off, President Nicolas Sarkozy is very unpopular and faces an uphill election campaign. After all the economic troubles under his tenure, bringing home a little jambon would be seen as a positive - particularly as France has reportedly sunk more than $50 billion on the Rafale's development, a lot of money for a country that spends around $60 billion a year on defence.

Despite the fact that chairman and chief executive officer Serge Dassault is a member of Sarkozy's political party, owns the leading French conservative newspaper (Le Figaro) and even serves as a French senator (where he is vice-finance chairman), the government had recently announced plans to cease production in 2021 if outside buyers could not be found.

BECAUSE I'M WORTH IT
L'Oreal, the French cosmetics company, made a fortune selling its more-expensive home hair dye with ads that showed some sultry blonde saying she'd chosen L'Oreal, "because I'm worth it". Now that India has become a much wealthier country, it can afford the best for its pilots - and Rafale is arguably the best.

"They kind of went for the 'fun to fly' factor rather than the best value factor," says S Amer Latif, a visiting fellow in US-India policy studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC.

"If you ask me which plane is better, I'd answer Rafale is a more mature and already multi-role plane," says David Cenicotti, an Italian military aviation blogger. "The Eurofighter is a younger technology, believed to be cheaper and to have a more political clout because it is built by four European countries."

However, this can also be a flaw in times when financial crisis has seen the same four countries much distant from one another on the strategy to save eurozone.

DASSAULT IS SMART
Although the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Rafale began as more or less the same aircraft, Dassault pulled out of the design consortium in 1985, and in recent years the Rafale has made some technical gains. First, the Rafale has a more advanced radar system than the Eurofighter Typhoon. Unlike the Typhoon, it's also already possible to configure to landing on an aircraft carrier - an adjustment that can be difficult, according to James Hardy, Asia-Pacific editor of Jane's Defence Weekly.

The company has also had a tradition of being on the cutting edge. A 1973 profile of Dassault described the company as viewing sales differently than American aircraft companies: "Whereas most American aircraft companies commonly look on development as an unavoidable and not particularly attractive prelude to production, Dassault seems to view production as a buffer work assignment to fill capacity not absorbed by development."

DASSAULT IS NOT AMERICAN
American arms deals tend to come with strings attached - inspections, and possibly spare parts embargos if they don't approve of the uses to which a plane is put - as happened after India's nuclear tests in the 1990s. Buy American and you get the American agenda free.

"The US sells weapons under quite strict conditions - how to use them and where to use them," says Siemon Wezeman, senior researcher at the Stockholm International Research Institute. The US also requires buyers to submit to regular inspections, he says, which some countries find humiliating.

The French, on the other hand, tend to be more laissez-faire and more independent of the major powers - in their own way, not unlike the Indians. "The whole idea that the French are sometimes very independent vis-a-vis some of the big countries, may give them an added advantage," Wezeman adds.

OR BRITISH AND GERMAN AND SPANISH AND ITALIAN
An important part of the deal is the transfer of the technology to India. The Eurofighter is a joint product, which runs off four different production lines. This could have led to a lot of complexity down the line, particularly as the agreement calls for setting up a production line and transferring the technology to India. "It seems to me that the Eurofighter's technical transfer might have been a bit more complicated than the French," says Latif of CSIS.

FRANCE MAKES ALL THE PARTS
Even as most arms makers, including American manufacturers, have tried to cut costs and boost political consensus by creating global supply chains, France still tries to maintain an independent military industrial base. That makes things more expensive for the French taxpayer, but the Indian Air Force may see this as an advantage: rather than worry about maintaining relations with a group of countries, almost all the parts for the Rafale are sourced within France, simplifying the logistics, according to Wezeman.

THE ARAB SPRING SPRANG THE RAFALE INTO THE NEWS
To most of us, war is a horrible tragedy. To arms dealers, it's a great sales tool. Muammar Ghaddafi was a big fan of the Rafale, and even expressed interest in purchasing a number of them in 2007. Although he later changed his mind - a decision he may have regretted last spring - the one time fan inadvertently helped sell them: French Rafale fighters provided key support for Libyan rebels and reportedly performed very well.

BEAUTY IS IN THE WALLET OF THE BEHOLDER
In the late 1980s, Dassault was involved with a helicopter procurement scandal in Belgium that ended in the conviction of the minister of defence, the chairman of the Socialist Party and a number of other Belgian politicians and government officials, and 18 months' probation for CEO Serge Dassault.

However, it should be noted that at the time, Dassault was not actually breaking French law - bribing French officials was illegal but bribing foreign officials was fair game: until 2000, foreign bribery expenses were even tax deductible.

More recently, Dassault seems to have continued to have problems with his cash targeting system. In 2008, he won reelection of mayor (it's possible to hold several offices simultaneously in France) in Evry, a town south of Paris, but in 2009, the State Council invalidated results on allegations that he paid some voters for their support.

So far, no official allegations have been made about the Rafale contract, outside an outlandish claim last April by Subramanian Swamy, Janata Party leader, that a kind of criminal Italian sorority had engineered the deal, comprised Carla Bruni, the half-Italian first lady of France, and Sonia Gandhi, the head of the National Advisory Council, and Mrs Gandhi's sisters.

Whether a few fat envelopes closed the deal or not, one analyst says suspicion of corruption could still unravel the contract. "I think the biggest risk is when somebody starts shouting corruption even if there isn't anything, because it has to be investigated," Wezeman says.

[pankajs]

The French Connection

The Indian Air Force has spelt out its choice in the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) deal to acquire 126 fighters, and the decision now lies with the Indian government, and the French, to finalise the contract. The Rafale, IAF’s choice, has come full circle in the process. Dassault, its maker, had first offered the older Mirage 2000 fighters, withdrew it, bid the Rafale, was almost disqualified in 2009 when high-level diplomacy saved it, went on to top the field trials along with its European cousin, the Eurofighter Typhoon, and is now all set to win what’s arguably the biggest, and most keenly contested, defence deal on offer.

Yet, in some ways, it’s not the end of the acquisition process, but the beginning of an intense last stage. Now, it’s Dassault’s to do the bending. So, what’s the MMRCA? Why is India ready to pay nearly $20 billion to buy these aircraft?

Twenty five years ago, the Indian Air Force had some 40 squadrons, and was the pre-eminent air force in our part of the world, with a combat edge in numbers, technology and training over not only Pakistan, but even over China. Since then, however, the IAF’s combat strength has continuously dwindled, to about 28 squadrons today, due to the phasing out of fighters of the 1960s and 1970s vintage — the MiG 21s and MiG 23s. The IAF wants to buy seven squadrons of multi-role fighters to arrest the decline in combat strength numbers.

When the IAF began to look for a suitable fighter, the technology and costs of military aircraft had changed, and the world was moving towards multi-role platforms – aircraft that could be used in not only air-to-air combat, but air-to-ground attack, deep strike, nuclear missions, anti-ship strikes, etc. What’s more, the Soviet Union had imploded, and Russia had become an uncertain supplier, prompting India to look to reduce dependence on it. And India was already acquiring the Su-30 MKI air superiority fighters at the high end, and confidence in the development of the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft at the low end had risen. Inevitably, the Air Force began to look for a medium-weight, high performance, multi-role jet, and invited global vendors to bid.

With a deal of this size, along with the quantitative imperative to maintain squadron strength, the IAF had to also achieve a transformation of Indian air power in proportion to the shift in economic, strategic and geopolitical power shift from North Atlantic and Europe to Asia. It’s not only China that is rising, India is on the ascent, too, and it’s a trend that will continue for some decades.

Textbook procedure
The acquisition process has seen an agonising and exacting evaluation of over 650 technical and operational parameters against which the IAF benchmarked not one or two but six aircraft. It’s a tribute to the IAF, a reflection of its professional standards that it has done so in five years – from the request for information to the request for proposals, operational evaluation, and then field trials in the vastly different terrains in which its aircraft must operate – from the hot climes of Nagpur to the jungles of the north-east to the high altitudes of Leh. For the contenders, it was an ordeal by fire virtually, and obviously showed up the limitations of each.

Even the losers of the bid acknowledge that the evaluation has been thoroughly professional, fair and free of the much-suspected geopolitical/strategic considerations. It’s to the credit of the government that it allowed the evaluation to be done completely on the basis of operational and technical parameters.

The Rafale has been declared the lowest cost bidder, or L1. In the old days, that used to mean unit cost of an aircraft. In the more professional cost evaluation of today, it takes into account the life cycle costs of operating the aircraft over 40-50 years. It also includes offsets to the Indian aircraft industry and the transfer of technology in critical areas – the idea being that this should be the last ever import contract for combat aircraft.

The Rafale
The fact that the Rafale has been found to be the most suitable aircraft after this tough evaluation is an indication of how advanced it is. The Rafale is a delta-wing, twin-engine, nuclear capable fighter with exceptional stability due to its advanced fly-by-wire technology; its canards give it high agility in dog fights; and the high-performance Snecma M88 engines give it an operationally advantageous power-weight ratio and a range of 3,600-3,700 km.

With its ability to be armed with beyond visual range missiles, all-aspect air-to-air capability, anti-ship strikes, medium-range missiles, standoff precision-guided munitions and anti-radiation missiles, the Rafale brings a whole range of capabilities to the IAF.

The MMRCA is key to the IAF’s force structure. It can perform in sub-continental territorial defence scenarios as well as in operations that India might undertake under UN aegis or in a coalition of the willing in its strategic neighbourhood – from Central Asia to the northern Indian Ocean, from the Suez to Shanghai, from Aden to South China Sea. This is a large neighbourhood, and the MMRCA will help transform Indian air power from a sub-continental power to that of a continental power.

That transformational role extends to another dimension as well. Conventional wars of the 1971-type are not possible today. Those involved large numbers of casualties and the deliberate destruction of industrial infrastructure, etc. Such wars are not palatable to political leaderships today. The political leadership hesitates to use ground and naval forces. As a result, the salience of air power has increased.

The ability to penetrate, persist, attack precisely and carry out warfare at the strategic and tactical levels with minimal bloodletting and collateral damage makes air power attractive as a military option, especially as military and political objectives have to be achieved speedily against international intervention and the media. Speed, range and penetration have been a problem in expanding Indian power projection until now.

The Western narrative of the “changing nature of war” is built on the experience of the US and European air forces in the past 20 years in one-sided air wars in the Gulf, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya, etc., where Western air forces operated in previously sanitised air spaces, dominated them, and did not have to provide cover to ground and naval forces.

That does not work in the India-Pakistan, India-China scenarios, where we will be up against more or less equivalent forces and where any future conflict is unlikely to be limited to only the air dimension. The MMRCA will have a major role in sanitising airspace over our ground and naval forces over a vast geographical space and hit a large number of enemy targets on the ground, in the air and at sea. That’s why the IAF undertook such an agonising and exacting evaluation of the six aircraft. The Rafale will be crucial in the war scenarios India envisages – limited war under a nuclear overhang – because it affords both conventional and nuclear deterrence, and firepower, against adversaries.

The Technology Imperative
India will buy 18 Rafales in flyaway condition and will make 108 at HAL, Bengaluru, under licence and transfer of technology. The total order, in time, may go up to 189, and the deal value $20 billion or more. The size of the deal alters contract dynamics entirely. Not only Dassault but the entire French combat air industrial capability is at stake. It’s an opportunity for India to drive the hardest bargain on price and technology.

Technology from the Rafale, its advanced avionics, powerplant, etc., is vital to fill crucial gaps in Indian technological capability. Skillful negotiations with the French on critical technology transfer should help enhance Indian combat aircraft industry. The MMRCA deal can be a win-win — a new lease of life for the French industry, and take-off for the Indian industry.

The final commercial negotiations for the deal are set to begin, but there are already attempts by competitors to question the wisdom of choosing French. It’s important for the government to close the deal early to put a stop to all speculation, allegations and conspiracy theories.

(Air Vice Marshal (retd) Kapil Kak is additional director of the Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi) (As told to S. Raghotham)

[pankajs]

India tells Britain: We don't want your aid

India’s Finance Minister has said that his country “does not require” British aid, describing it as “peanuts”.

[pankajs]

Turbulence ahead on the Indian jet deal

The Indians, stormed “senior government sources,” had gone for the “Asda option instead of Waitrose”.

By preferring the French Rafale jet rather than the British-built Typhoon, they rejected, according to the Prime Minister, a “superb aircraft with far better capabilities”.

How dare they, asked MPs, snub Britain, which had given them £1.2 billion in aid? One newspaper even blamed the decision on the Gandhi family.

The truth about Britain’s “failure” to land the £6.3 billion Indian military jet deal — and the thousands of jobs it will sustain - is different. The game is not yet over.

But if we do lose, it will have nothing to do with the Gandhis, or the aid — which, as we report today, the Indians simply do not care about either way. It will be because of our own mistakes.

Senior Indian figures and military aviation experts have told The Sunday Telegraph that British defence cuts played a key part in India’s decision to prefer France for the huge 126-warplane contract. But they said the deal could still be rescued for the UK.

“For David Cameron to say that Typhoon has far better capabilities is embarrassing, and I say that as a strong supporter of the aircraft,” said Jon Lake, defence editor at Arabian Aerospace magazine, and an expert in Asian procurement.

“It would have been true to say that it has better potential than the Rafale, but thanks to the cheeseparing of our Treasury, and the other Typhoon partner nations’ treasuries, that potential has not been realised yet.”

Key to the Indian decision, said one senior defence source in Delhi, was the country’s wish for a radar and set of weapons which already exist on Rafale — but which are not currently present on Typhoon.

The French jet can launch a wide suite of smart weapons including Scalp, an air-launched cruise missile, Exocet, an anti-ship missile, and AASM, a precision-guided bomb with extended “stand-off” capability allowing it to be dropped from further away, reducing the risk to the pilot from anti-aircraft fire.

It also has an advanced reconnaissance pod and the latest electronic scanned array radar. This combination of capabilities proved highly effective in the recent war over Libya.

Typhoon currently has none of these things. The RAF badly wants the aircraft to have Scalp's British equivalent Storm Shadow — along with the anti-tank Brimstone missile, a reconnaissance pod, and the radar.

These capabilities, apart from the radar, are currently available on the RAF’s Tornado jets and were heavily used by the British in Libya. But their arrival on Typhoon has been delayed by defence cuts.

“For the Indians it’s all about credibility,” said Mr Lake. “If they believe what the Typhoon consortium told them, then by 2018 Typhoon will do everything that Rafale does now. But they clearly don’t believe it, and I don’t blame them, given the programme’s history of delays and cost overruns.

“At the moment, Typhoon can drop a laser-guided bomb, and that’s it. The combination of Typhoon and Tornado was quite effective in Libya. But on its own, Typhoon was less versatile than the Rafale.”

Tim Ripley, of Jane’s Defence Weekly, said: “The RAF are desperate for further weapons on the Typhoon but it is something the Treasury have been trying to avoid doing. This is a crucial test of the Government’s export rhetoric. The Indians ask why they should buy this kit for their own aircraft if we won’t put it on ours.”

Typhoon is built by a four-nation consortium of Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain. The Indian marketing campaign was led by the Germans, a decision which Mr Lake described as “clearly mad” given India’s historic ties with Britain.

The culture and structure of the Indian Air Force is still heavily influenced by its British origins, with identical ranks and near-identical Air Force blue uniforms.

“The Typhoons they sent to India [for evaluation] were German, flown by German aircrew, but the Germans have a completely different culture,” said Mr Lake.

“It was mindblowingly inept.”

The British Typhoon contractor BAE was later brought in to partner the bid in apparent acknowledgement of the mistake.

Despite these failures, both Indian and British defence sources say that the contract could still be rescued for Typhoon.

A spokesman for BAE said: “The assessment made last week was basically a view from the pricing committee. There’s an awful long way to go before there’s a signed contract. It is far from a done deal.”

Though Typhoon is currently less well armed than Rafale, it is probably the more capable aircraft.

Experts say it can deliver a higher kill-loss ratio in air-to-air combat than the French jet.

“If they take the Rafale, the Indians will have to continue to rely on their Sukhoi 30s [fighters] for air dominance,” said Mr Lake.

“That’s all right if you are fighting Pakistan. But if you are fighting China, who also have Su-30s, you are not going to win.”

Commercially, Rafale has a track record of “winning” at this stage of a competition, then being overhauled in the final stretch.

The aircraft was selected as preferred bidder for a 60-jet order by the United Arab Emirates, but was then dropped as “uncompetitive and unworkable in commercial terms” by the customer, though there were reports last week that it might be back in the running.

Typhoon is now again in contention for the UAE business. Rafale was preferred by the Swiss air force, but the Swiss government chose the rival Gripen fighter instead. A supposed order with Brazil has also failed so far to materialise.

The Rafale has been assessed by the Indians as cheaper than the Typhoon.

The prices offered by the two bidders are secret. But official figures for Britain’s spending on the Typhoon, compared with France’s spending on the Rafale, appear to suggest that the British jet is slightly cheaper, though the science is very imprecise and cost figures for the same aircraft can vary by up to 40% depending on what is included.

Mr Lake said: “I would suspect when the Indians probe hard into the French price they will find that it is not satisfactory and hasn’t included things.”

Yet even if the Typhoon does, in the end, come through, it will not be the British jobs bonanza that some reports have claimed.

Because the aircraft is a four-nation joint effort, Britain would only have a 37 per cent share of the deal. And perhaps the most important part of the bargain for the Indians is that they want more than half — and perhaps up to four-fifths — of the aircraft to be manufactured in India.

Even on the Indian-made jets, substaintial components would still be British - but we could end up with less than a fifth of the actual work.

In other words, Britain may end up with less than 10 per cent of the production work on the deal.

It is still a good bargain, though, according to Tim Ripley.

“The real value is not in the assembly of the planes,” he says. “It is being involved in their future support and development over the next 40 years, it is keeping the production line going, and it is being embedded with one of the world’s major economic players.

“It is the life-support system for the British military aerospace industry. That is why it is so important that we get this right.”

[ramana]

We now have US guy commenting from US on India's Rafale choice!!!

http://csis.org/expert/s-amer-latif

Sure will be objective. "Fun to fly: instead of best value!"
I guess his idea would be to buy a old clunker that cant take off in Kashmir airfields and thus save the Fizzleya!

[pankajs]

To add, from one of the previous article

9 factors that may have helped Dassault sell its Rafale fighter this week

DASSAULT IS NOT AMERICAN
American arms deals tend to come with strings attached - inspections, and possibly spare parts embargos if they don't approve of the uses to which a plane is put - as happened after India's nuclear tests in the 1990s. Buy American and you get the American agenda free.

[Manny]

Requesting the F-35s (80 or 50) is still beneficial for India.. It would certainly compliment and India is a big country. If you imagine each state like each country of Europe.

It doesn't matter if the US agrees supplying the F-35 or not..its a win win for India either way.

1) If the US supplies the F-35 with cutting edge weapons and AESA radar and what not... then India can use this in its portfolio. India doesn't have to depend on the f-35 squadrons for critical missions in case of sanctions and what not.. or at least the fear of it. It also has the advantage of the benefits of strategic alliance with the US or at least the perception of it. And India doesn't need the Tech transfer for this either.. since its working on the 5th gen Sukhois and the Rafale etc. enough technology transfer for Indians to do something with them.

2) If the US refuses the F-35 or any of the sophisticated weapons and radars, Whelp! Then Indian can say... we did not deny the US ...it was they who denied us... If the US really want strategic relationship with India, then it cannot refuse the fully loaded F-35s.

It is win win for India. the only downside is, it would chaff the butts of the anti American Desies a bit. Hopefully that would not enter the equation.

Manny

[ramana]

Manny and others, Please take F-35 posts to the JSF thread.

Thanks,

ramana

[Fidel Guevara]

Shows your level of ignorance. No matter what your previous posts say, you don't have the right to determine what does IAF hold and their capability...before posting $hitty comments like that, keep in mind that nobody is going to tolerate your ignorant views about the capability of IAF.


The interesting part is a poster by the handle created from the names of two famous Cuban revolutionaries who are completely anti-khan, is trying to prove the greatness of Khan

Earlier we just had the problem of Chini Drones, now we have to cope up with the self proclaimed Khan Drones.

It seems that you wait for mods in your personal life for everything, do you wait for a mod to come and cleanup after you are done?

So when logic fails, you get down to your forte of ad hominem attacks? When faced with disagreement, launch personal attacks. It does show deep insecurity...just be cool, man. It's OK to have different opinions. I think you're totally off-base, and you think the same of me, so we'll just agree to disagree, right?

lets discuss in the WAR SCENARIOS thread. I will be more than happy to educate you.

You, educate me? Thanks but no, I don't think so...(and there you go again with your "Let ME tell YOU, because I am OBVIOUSLY right" approach...doesn't that sound a bit like US vs India?)

Back on topic, I do believe that with this being an election year, with jobs + China being front and centre of the Khan political agenda, we will see a bending of US policy towards India. This will likely translate into further sweetening of mil sales, with less of the inflexibility and disdain the US has shown thus far in the MMRCA process. This could be in the form of add-ons and weapon systems for Raffy, or a final attempt to crack the Raffy fortress. It might be a complex set of quid pro quos from other areas...outsourcing, ISRO, Af-Pak, etc, but they will be back, and MOD should keep all proposals on the table until one firm contact is signed and ratified.

If there are no discussions with USA as part of MMRCA in the next 12-18 months, I will eat Corvus brachyrhynchos.

[Kovy]

Why has UAE asking for a uprated engines for Rafale , is it anything to do with hot weather out there which might result into performance loss ??

Because they were told by the US and british propaganda that the Rafale is underpowered.
Then, the UAE tested the plane with heavy payloads in very hot weather conditions and realized that the M88 was tremendously powerfull. As a result, they dropped their request for a more powerfull engine.

BTW, the IAF came to the same conclusion during the high altitude engine test at Leh

[shukla]

India & the market of war

Former IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major says: "Inducting a fleet of that size does take time. The Rafale will be a game-changer for the air force."

[Philip]

Tx Pankaj and others,the reports condense what we've beeen posting over months from western sources,that the EF development (for Indian requirements) was incomplete.Its capability as against cost ,sharply criticised and questioned by British politicos themselves,was shown in the Libyan campaign to need a Tornado to illuminate the target (unlike Rafale) in the campaign.As a US analyst has been saying from 2009,"the EF would be a great fighter.... when it finally arrives."
Like the much touted JSF for India in certain quarters,the IAF wisely preferred "the bird in the hand,rather than the two in the bush"!

Asinine statements from certain British quarters will only damage the good relationship that has existed for some time,with Cameron's criticism of Paki terror,etc.,righting the traditional British slant/tilt towards Pak,thus seeing more Hawks on order,etc.The fatal mistake as pointed out in one of the above posts/reports,is that the Germans were entrusted to "seal the deal"! German products might be immensely valued in India,like Mercs and Beemers,but the German military have scant interaction by comparison with the British with the Indian establishment and IAF,since the HDW scandal and earlier still when the cruiser Emden shelled Madras!
More bad-mouthing of India from London will see defence relations enter into a "tailspin" which may take quite some time to recover from.

[shukla]

BTW, the IAF came to the same conclusion during the high altitude engine test at Leh

Is there any evidence for this ?? So did the Rafale not do well in the Leh trials?

[shukla]

Deconstructing the MMRCA decision
Deccan Chronicle (Deba Mohanty - Senior Fellow in Security Studies at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi)

The multi-billion-dollar MMRCA deal has been debated for several years. The contract is now in the final stage of negotiations, and probably 6-9 months away from signing. Yet, doubts are being raised even now over the deal.

First, why buy 4+ gen. jet when 5th Gen F-35 is available: Some analysts have argued that the MMRCA deal should be scrapped at this late stage and India should opt for the American F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, which is the latest technology, and could be cheaper.

Such an argument stems from a misunderstanding of the MMRCA deal. The MMRCA is meant to achieve a balanced force structure. It will fill the gap between the indigenous Tejas LCA at the low end and the Su-30 MKI air superiority fighter at the high end, while affording new technology to Indian industry and multi-role capability and force projection to the IAF. The Air Force rejected the 1970s and 1980s vintage F-16 and F/A-18 jets, and down selected the latest operational aircraft, the Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon, before declaring the Rafale as the lowest cost bidder. Also, India made a conscious decision to co-develop a 5th Gen fighter with Russia.

When the MMRCA exercise began, the F-35 was neither on the table, nor anywhere near being operational. As we go to press, the USAF has announced that it is set to upgrade 350 F-16s because the F-35 continues to be delayed. Quite apart from Indian reluctance to buy American and obtain little technology transfer, the JSF is a high-technology project that is still subject to significant risks and whose proposed numbers have been dropped by the US from the original 1,800 to about a third of that number. None of this is to suggest that India should close its options on 5th Gen fighters. In fact, the basket of options has just enlarged, and India can take advantage of that.

Second, why Rafale when cheaper options were available: Three factors determine a major acquisition decision — whether what’s offered meets qualitative requirements, whether it is affordable and, now, what techno-industrial benefits it will bring. The Rafale buy may be difficult to justify purely on qualitative requirements, but factor in offsets and technology transfers, and the fact that India is still to drive a hard bargain on the final cost. By all indications, India would drop the deal if the final price escalates beyond about $18 billion. Given the past experience with Dassault, especially the recent Mirage upgrade deal, it will be interesting to see how hard India can negotiate. This is also a tricky situation for Dassault, because it knows that if it fails to meet the demands, the contract could slip out of its bag.

Third, will France transfer all the technology we want: No less than French President Nicholas Sarkozy has said that France/Dassault would transfer all the technology demanded in the contract, including source codes, a point he publicly reiterated when Dassault was announced as the lowest cost bidder. Still, it is for the Indian government to specify critical technologies that it wants, negotiate hard and ensure compliance. These are in some 10-12 areas, including composites and stealth, single-crystal blade technology, simulation, micro-radars, etc.

Fourth, life cycle costs. Introduction of life cycle costs as part of an acquisition is a new phenomenon. This is a result of India’s displeasure over difficulties faced in earlier acquisitions when it faced severe constraints in supply of spares and even in maintenance of critical infrastructure. Such sourcing resulted in additional costs, new contractual conditions and delays.

Fifth, beyond commercial and technological considerations. Large arms deals invariably go beyond economic and technological considerations and the MMRCA is no exception. Although this tender has so far followed a text-book procedure, not only strategic considerations but others could come into the picture. Consider these: deals for the C-130J Hercules and the P-8I maritime reconnaissance aircraft have sustained about 35,000 jobs in the US alone; the Hawk AJTs, along with the latest follow-on orders, will sustain some 27,000 jobs in the UK; and it would not be wrong to say that over a million hearths were kept going in Russia through more than a dozen large orders from India.

Dassault, for whom the Indian Rafale order will be the first export order, is looking to come off the ventilator with an MMRCA order in 2012, and a possible follow-on some years hence. That gives India leverage to drive not only a hard bargain but also mutual strategic benefits in foreign, defence and economic relations with France.

[Klaus]

Is there any evidence for this ?? So did the Rafale not do well in the Leh trials?

Quite the opposite. The Leh test corroborated the conclusions arrived at by UAE.

[ramana]

Concur with Klaus's view. Original was not phrased properly.

[shukla]

Concur with Klaus's view. Original was not phrased properly.

Thank you.

[RamaY]

Don't remember who said it, but someone suggested that India should ask French through an island in IoR into MMRCA deal as sweetener.

I think that should be the next step,

[ramana]

In earlier days, arms sales were favor that the selling country would bestow on the buying country while charging top money. In above article by Mr Mohanty one can see how many jobs were already created by India in those two Anglo Saxon countries without any acknowledgement from either of them except to voice a sense of entitlement for some illusory removal of NSG sanctions which never should have been enforced on India.

---------------

I did. I would like Reunion Island near Mauritius for IN basing rights as part of anti piracy ops.

[Prem]

The extra 80 in MRCA could be the Mirage 2009s from UAE and Qatar to make up the numbers in immediate terms.

[sooraj]

India tells Britain: We don't want your aid

India’s Finance Minister has said that his country “does not require” British aid, describing it as “peanuts”.

from comments,

"I do not not need you to send me any more money because my safety deposit box is full to overflowing; I don't even have room for a peanut".

[tejas]

^^^ If you read thru the comments section of that article there are some real (racist hate filled) gems. Time to tell the Briturds to shove their "aid" up there arse. They can never repay the $TRILLIONS they stole or make up for the poison pill to India's west they purposely left behind. One of the retarded comments even accuses India of robbing others for everything it has!! I will rejoice when that useless islands sinks to its natural level over the next few decades.
It's only "industry" left is financial "services" and hopefully India will soon (GIFT city) never need those again, Ack Thoo.

[Christopher Sidor]

The Birts are taking this very badly. Tuch Tuch.....

[Rakesh]

^^ Cameron promised them the moon, but he just could not deliver. Vive Le France as they say They thought the technological superiority (albeit debatable) of the Typhoon would negate the cost difference over the Rafale.

We have seen a lot of Katrina's accessories, but never her gun. The video in the link below is not that great (but you can hear when the pilot fires his gun)...but the close up pictures are quite nice. Take a look;

http://rafalenews.blogspot.com/2012/02/ ... ction.html

[Cain Marko]

BTW, the IAF came to the same conclusion during the high altitude engine test at Leh

Is there any evidence for this ?? So did the Rafale not do well in the Leh trials?

As far as TWR is concerned the Rafale is hardly underpowered. The idea that it lacks power is just very poor (and even malicious) rumor mongering imho. Looking at some basic stats, the bird is definitely up there in TWR. Prolly as good as any Fulcrum - and nobody is going to say that the fulcrum is underpowered! Btw, there is simply no solah or atharah that has a TWR to match Raffles, only the Tiffy is better, and that too by a small fraction *

Rafale empty weight: 9500kg, max AB: 15000kg/f - 1.57
MiG-35 empty weight: 11500kg, max AB: 18000kg/f - 1.56
EF-2000 empty weight: 11200kg, max AB: 18000kg/f - 1.60
F-16blk60 empty weight: 10000kg, max AB: 14500kg/f - 1.45
F-18e/f empty weight: 14900kg, max AB: 20000kg/f - 1.34

Considering the above figures, I'd be rather doubtful about the UAE's claims that the Rafale was underpowered, just a gimmick to get more out of Dassaut would be my guess.

* The F-15C is hyperpowered, as is the F-22 and the latest Su-35.

[JTull]

I'm going out on a limb here but I think the UAE argument was that they needed more emitters in the AESA radar and the current radar is simply not big enough. That would have meant more cooling and power requirements and there wasn't any scope with the current powerplant. So, an upgrade of an engine was needed but that in turn meant that the air-inlets needed to be bigger requiring certain redesign of the airframe. Overall an expensive requirement!

[Cain Marko]

I'm going out on a limb here but I think the UAE argument was that they needed more emitters in the AESA radar and the current radar is simply not big enough. That would have meant more cooling and power requirements and there wasn't any scope with the current powerplant. So, an upgrade of an engine was needed but that in turn meant that the air-inlets needed to be bigger requiring certain redesign of the airframe. Overall an expensive requirement!

Yes, I read those articles as well. Perhaps they simply wanted a more powerful radar - something that would be well ahead of the apg 80, not just comparable. But the whole UAE deal seemed rather unprofessional - I think they actually contacted the EF chaps just to sort of pressure Dassault, and soon after the negotiations broke down. Now, all of a sudden they are back on track.

As an aside, Dassault states around 1000+ TRMs for the RBE 2, v.respectable, and should be quite decently performing considering that the TRM count is not too different from the Apg-80, only with more power to back it up. Supposedly can manage detection of a fighter sized target (3msq?) at approximately 180km, that should make it a tad more powerful than the Apg80. Good enough for Meteor launch, and more importantly, serves IAF purpose well enough I think.

[mallikarjun]

Time for some chai and biscote...

Is this the best video ever of Katrina in an airshow??? Happy to see any other videos claimng it...
enjoy....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md39xIKy ... 7658D5A803

[SaiK]

Rafale with IAF means, they will start asking technologies in LCA-3 to match up to various things they have gained with Rafale technology.

[Cain Marko]

^ what is interesting about the Rafale's evolutionary path is the amount of noise the French are making about GaN modules - they seem to be at the forefront here.

[Christopher Sidor]

The real joy of pudding lies in eating. I have taken the liberty of highlighting certain points from the article

Turbulence ahead on the Indian jet deal
Though Typhoon is currently less well armed than Rafale, it is probably the more capable aircraft.

Experts say it can deliver a higher kill-loss ratio in air-to-air combat than the French jet.

“If they take the Rafale, the Indians will have to continue to rely on their Sukhoi 30s [fighters] for air dominance,” said Mr Lake.

“That’s all right if you are fighting Pakistan. But if you are fighting China, who also have Su-30s, you are not going to win.”

Commercially, Rafale has a track record of “winning” at this stage of a competition, then being overhauled in the final stretch.

The aircraft was selected as preferred bidder for a 60-jet order by the United Arab Emirates, but was then dropped as “uncompetitive and unworkable in commercial terms” by the customer, though there were reports last week that it might be back in the running.

Pray again remind me how Raffy fares against PLAAF and the air-defense systems of PLA.

[pankajs]

In reply another article extract.

Deconstructing the MMRCA decision
Deccan Chronicle (Deba Mohanty - Senior Fellow in Security Studies at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi)

[...]
First, why buy 4+ gen. jet when 5th Gen F-35 is available: Some analysts have argued that the MMRCA deal should be scrapped at this late stage and India should opt for the American F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, which is the latest technology, and could be cheaper.

Such an argument stems from a misunderstanding of the MMRCA deal. The MMRCA is meant to achieve a balanced force structure. It will fill the gap between the indigenous Tejas LCA at the low end and the Su-30 MKI air superiority fighter at the high end, while affording new technology to Indian industry and multi-role capability and force projection to the IAF. The Air Force rejected the 1970s and 1980s vintage F-16 and F/A-18 jets, and down selected the latest operational aircraft, the Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon, before declaring the Rafale as the lowest cost bidder. Also, India made a conscious decision to co-develop a 5th Gen fighter with Russia.
[...]

To counter the J20 we are looking at the Russian JV. Both should come online about the same time.

[shukla]

Dassault in bid to undermine Gripen in Switzerland
Jane's Defence Weekly

French manufacturer Dassault is continuing to promote its Rafale combat aircraft to Switzerland, some two months after it was announced that the country's fighter procurement competition had been won by the Swedish-built Saab JAS 39 Gripen.

In a letter seen by Jane's , Dassault's Swiss campaign director, Philippe Da Silva Passos, told the security commissions of Switzerland's two parliamentary houses that the company was now in a position to offer 18 Rafales for CHF2.7 billion (USD2.9 billion). Swiss Defence Minister Ueli Maurer said that this figure is CHF400 million below that given for 22 Gripen E/F fighters in November 2011. However, Maurer stressed that neither he nor his office had received any such renewed offer from Dassault.

Even though the future Gripen (MS21 standard) has been announced as the platform to partially replace the Swiss Air Force's ageing fleet of Northrop F-5E/F Tiger II fighters, the contract has yet to be signed. Passos explained that Dassault is making its revised offer now as it had been unable to do so previously, given the tight budgetary timeframe. Swiss sources have expressed concerns to Jane's that any moves to reverse the decision at this stage will undermine public support for the entire project and could jeopardise the outcome of the planned referendum on the issue in 2013.

Can the literal sum (or thereabouts) be used in the Indian context? In which case 126 birds would easily cross $20 Billion +

[Aditya G]

“If they take the Rafale, the Indians will have to continue to rely on their Sukhoi 30s [fighters] for air dominance,” said Mr Lake.

The Rafale's main limitation, and perhaps the only one that restricts its future growth is the maximum possible size of the radar. I think Jon Lake's comment is based on this fact, and in a sense is true. With 230 Sukhois in the fleet, does the vayu sena need another A2A champion? Globally the move is towards multirole aircraft (see parallel in USAF's reduction of A-10 fleet). The same article clearly admits that Rafale is a superior multirole aircraft than the Typhoon today - and combat proven to boot.

[Cain Marko]

^ Yeah, Jon Lake - one of the "Tiffy is the best" crowd if you ask me. Sorry to say, but the Tiffy has hardly shown air dominance in all aspects of A2A. At 30K feet and lower, I'll take a Rafale over the Tiffy. As far as the radar size is concerned, yes the Rafale has a smaller nose, but then it probly also has a smaller RCS. And then, if they really need massive radar backing, there is nothing around to beat the Rambha - just embed a couple of the big Soos in a Rafale flight and voila, the advantage of the Tiffy is nullified.

IN any case, there is nothing wrong with relying on the MKI for air dominance, and it is rather uninformed/ingenuous of Lake to compare the MKI with PLAAF flankers, as Torpy put it, "there is a generational gap there"!

[Singha]

but Rus aesa tech is lagging behind the west and so are their AAMs (meteor is being tested, there is no sign of a comparable missile in Rus other than paper claims...the gigantic AA9 variations do not count). so in a sense a smaller western radar might be as effective as a bigger aperture Rus one atleast in the next 10-20 yrs.

it would have been interesting if we could fit a EL2052-XL into MKI but thats not going to happen. some kind of Zhuk or Irbis-E is all we can get.

I would take 4 rafale + meteor + RBE2-aa over 4 MKI + R77 + bars/irbis/zhuk...just the size and RCS of the MKI alone makes it far more visible at a longer range and nullifies the advantage of its big radar. the rafale spectra could likely passively isolate the MKIs from long range without even going active and generate some solution for the meteors....

times have changed. small is no longer a disadvantage if you have the eyes. secondly AWACS is where everyone is bulking up, and as it becomes pervasive, the huge apertures of the 24x7 awacs would make fighter radars not so relevant in the defensive/offensive CAP context. future UCAVs might not carry radars at all to save on weight and cost, and just take the inertial waypoint to target off the awacs, load it onto outbound aam and shoot...in essense being nothing more than dumb stealthy nodes that will gather data passively and shoot when told to.

[pankajs]

Wouldn't the AWACS come into play for long range detection?

[Austin]

IN any case, there is nothing wrong with relying on the MKI for air dominance, and it is rather uninformed/ingenuous of Lake to compare the MKI with PLAAF flankers, as Torpy put it, "there is a generational gap there"!

Probably not a generational gap but there is certainly a gap , having said that our fighter would have to deal with an integrated IADS of chinese and not just the MKK and that would be a very tough nut to crack no matter what you put on the table.

I read the chinese are interested in Su-35 but the IP agreement is a sticking point for it and any future defense deal with China , works in our favour so wont complain