Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

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Will
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Will »

shiv wrote:
Will wrote: Shiv you are getting crabby in your old age :) :) :) :)
Seriously I think there is a huge gap between the mental picture I have of an armed helicopter in a war zone and the visualization of that helicopter suddenly sticking out an arm that engages a wing and reloads weapons over the battlefield. I mean I have see such stuff only in the movies.

Even if such an arm could be designed and fitted and even if the FCS could handle the flight with the arm moving about I have a few questions
1. How long would the reloading process take. 30 seconds? What if the helo gets hit by a SAM in those 30 seconds. Or would 1500 kg of munitions be reloaded in 5 seconds by a super duper robotic arm?
2. Would the FCS be able to handle violent maneuvers while reloading or would the pilot have to fly steady? I would like to meet the creators of FCS that controls a helo that is maneuvering while a robotic arm reloads a 1500 kg set of munitions on to a wing.
3. If the helo had a wet pylon where would the refuelling get done? Refuelling requires steady flight at altitude for several minutes.

I mean the ideas were suggested and I just expressed my views - but if I am told that it is all feasible and perfectly possible then who am I to continue arguing? Not crabby. Simply astounded. To mind this is science fiction. Not science. I think the idea is a bad one. My opinion. But i was being polite. Not crabby.
Thats what I ment, it wasnt a topic worth the effort and energy you put in, rebutting it Lol. :D Let the lil ones have their fantasies sometimes :)
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by tsarkar »

I remember our reloading genius - he is the same chap who believes there are TERPROM systems that can prevent plane from crashing into the ground under any circumstances, since the system would take over control from the pilot and fly away.

One simply needs to swipe the card & buy these systems.

Sadly, neither such omnipotent FCS nor such omnipotent TERPROM exist, or can be created for every flight situation, however our genius believes in the power of brochures. No amount of reasonable explaining worked with him.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by shiv »

tsarkar wrote:I remember our reloading genius - he is the same chap who believes there are TERPROM systems that can prevent plane from crashing into the ground under any circumstances, since the system would take over control from the pilot and fly away.

One simply needs to swipe the card & buy these systems.

Sadly, neither such omnipotent FCS nor such omnipotent TERPROM exist, or can be created for every flight situation, however our genius believes in the power of brochures. No amount of reasonable explaining worked with him.
Ah now I remember. Yes. It's amnesia that's getting me. Spent too much effort on the OIT thread. Ban RajeshA :)
Will
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Will »

shiv wrote:
tsarkar wrote:I remember our reloading genius - he is the same chap who believes there are TERPROM systems that can prevent plane from crashing into the ground under any circumstances, since the system would take over control from the pilot and fly away.

One simply needs to swipe the card & buy these systems.

Sadly, neither such omnipotent FCS nor such omnipotent TERPROM exist, or can be created for every flight situation, however our genius believes in the power of brochures. No amount of reasonable explaining worked with him.
Ah now I remember. Yes. It's amnesia that's getting me. Spent too much effort on the OIT thread. Ban RajeshA :)
Told you. Its old age catching up :wink:
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Katare »

tsarkar wrote:
Victor wrote:CBU-105 seems like a very complicated weapon, each with multiple timed rockets, parachutes and 40 heat-seeking, armor-piercing projectiles. It is not a simple cluster bomb.
OFB manufactures the BL755 under license http://ofbindia.gov.in/products/data/am ... n/rb/9.htm & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BL755

Sensor Fused Weapon takes the game to a whole new level.

Edit - Added later - Sitaphal takes naming to a whole new level :D
That is just dumb cluster bomb released at very low level on top of a clusterrd targets in hope that they will all be damaged/killed by blated fragment balls. Cheap and effective but dangerous to deploy due to low altitude release restrictions.

Senson fused CBU-105 is a whole differen ball game. It is released from stand off range at higher altitude and each of the 40 bumblets independently searches and locks on to a target for destruiction.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by vasu raya »

'Re-arming Mi-17 in flight'

Hmmm... most of my detractors landed on the same thread :-)

Anyways, the message I get is adding an arm impacts the aerodynamic stability of the Helo, simple! we have Kamov with a rotating radar panel under its fuselage, another radar will be positioned right at the rear door in a Helo's GMTI/SAR role, and they operate at standoff distances which can be termed as safe zones and they need not necessarily land. As far as re-fueling goes, some of today's choppers carry refueling probes so there is no point in questioning their utility.

The basic premise is the Mi-17 has more capacity than what it can carry on its pylons while being maneuvarable enough in combat zone. The limiting factor for the pylons is the load stability which follows a thin Bell curve with its peak centered around the Helo's CG. The goal would be to utilize this available capacity without significantly impacting the Helo's aerodynamic stability. Looks like the arm thing is not convincing enough to meet such a goal.

Those stub wings seen on Apache's, if the pylons are hung from a slider that is positioned on the underside of the stub wing, the pylons can then be pulled inside the cabin through a underwing door in the fuselage and pushed back after re-arming. The slider movement is not simple if the wing keeps flexing in flight, anyways, Western Helos usually have side doors while the Russian ones have rear doors. So, an Mi-17 would need fuselage modifications which is not going to happen in the Indian scenario, an armed role is not its original goal anyways. The current pylon design it has is the same it had from its initial development days. if one has to re-design them, this is an option. (The arm thing came from trying to make it an add-on attachment without tinkering too much with the existing design of the Mi-17, same thing with the detachable refueling probe mounted on a wet pylon instead of making it an integral part of the fuselage seen on most IFR probe equipped helos)

The whole discussion would be moot if somebody can conclusively say the Mi-17 cannot carry additional armaments internally without drastically impacting its 'combat' profile or that the threshold is close enough to the 1500kg (the current pylon capacity) that a re-design would be as good as digging the mountain for a mole kind of effort

Off subject: TERPROM or like systems on Rafale are WIP from a technology development viewpoint, from a operational viewpoint it either usable in a scenario or not making it a black and white decision, so who is judging the system correctly in the iterative development of avionics? for somebody who gives free lectures on what afflicts desis, and those lectures are not worth a dime, keeping a broader perspective helps.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Indranil »

Vasu ji,

A helicopter vibrates quite a lot, it might not be so easy to precisely (clip on/clip off armament) as you. All the gizmos that would be required to achieve this level of precision would unnecessarily eat up payload capacity and take up space. And Shivji is very right, in a combat situation, the heli will not be in a position to hover for sometime for the crane go about doing its job.

The aim of Mi-17 is to be primarily a transport helicopter which can take be armed if required (mainly for self-defense). If you need a bigger ground attack profile, use a suitable platform like a strike fighter or a bomber. It does not make sense to lug around an unnecessary swing arm.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Victor »

Katare wrote:
Senson fused CBU-105 is a whole differen ball game. It is released from stand off range at higher altitude and each of the 40 bumblets independently searches and locks on to a target for destruiction.
Per specs it can be released at anywhere between 200 ft and 20,000 ft. The parachutes not only stabilize and orient the individual canisters but also delay detonation till the aircraft is far gone so low level is possible. It would be psychologically devastating to boot when delivered by a Jaguar going supersonic at low level.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by shiv »

vasu raya wrote:'

The whole discussion would be moot if somebody can conclusively say the Mi-17 cannot carry additional armaments internally without drastically impacting its 'combat' profile or that the threshold is close enough to the 1500kg (the current pylon capacity) that a re-design would be as good as digging the mountain for a mole kind of effort
Not at all. It is a very relevant discussion. I am sure the Mi 17 can carry at last two more reloads inside the cabin. Please post more ideas.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Singha »

a few of these CBU105 released from B52 during OIF in Iraq apparently made a entire column of iraqi vehicles "go up in flames" and saved a outgunned USMC unit trying to block their path. the survivors got spooked and poured out of their vehicles to surrender!

atleast thats what they claim.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by tsarkar »

vasu raya wrote:We have Kamov with a rotating radar panel under its fuselage, another radar will be positioned right at the rear door in a Helo's GMTI/SAR role, and they operate at standoff distances which can be termed as safe zones and they need not necessarily land.
The Kamov with folding & rotating radar has much restricted flight envelope than an ASW or SAR Kamov. Even Phalcon has a restricted flight envelope than a tanker or transport Il-76.

Its not simple making these platforms – remember the Hs748 AEW crash?

The Ka31 has a simple folding & rotating mechanism with simple movements whereas a robotic arm would have more complex movements.

Given that the envelope would be restricted; would one want such a lumbering bird in a war zone? Phalcons and Ka-31 are used far from the battlefield.
vasu raya wrote:The basic premise is the Mi-17 has more capacity than what it can carry on its pylons while being maneuvarable enough in combat zone.
No, its NOT maneuvarable enough for full fledged attack missions. CERTAINLY NOT with a heavy load. Weapons are an additional capacity but these birds spend 99% of their missions transporting.

The perils of using transport Mi-17 in attack role was tragically demonstrated at Kargil.
vasu raya wrote:Hmmm... most of my detractors landed on the same thread :-) somebody who gives free lectures on what afflicts desis, and those lectures are not worth a dime, keeping a broader perspective helps.
My worth is well known to the world, but since you spoke of broader perspective...

You’ve got the problem right. Certain situations may require firepower more that what an aircraft can carry. Like a ground position being surrounded, and after the aircraft/helicopter providing cover exhausts its ammo, then what? The ground position may be overrun by the time the aircraft/helicopter rearms & returns.

Do we really need a helicopter incase firepower volume is required? No, all a helicopter does differently than an aircraft is hover & VTOL, that is useful to SAR people & land/takeoff where there is no runway or flying really low to avoid radar. For delivering firepower, hover, VTOL capability is not essential, and neither is low flying. And where one needs to deploy volume of firepower persistently, the enemy will know you'll come & you'll stay.

So if an aircraft can do the job, lets use a bomber. Tu-142 / B-52 with very high endurance. Can stay over Tora Bora for hours, if not most of the day.

But everyone doesn’t have bombers.

However, most forces have transports, that have both volume & endurance.

Eureka!

Gunships!

Equip a Dakota or C-130 or An-12 or An-32 with bombs & machine guns. You got volume and you got endurance.

As a bonus, they can also carry DIRCM or loads of flares to decoy MANPADS and use armour in vital areas.

Problem solved!

http://imageshack.us/f/168/r3879662353.jpg/
vasu raya wrote:keeping a broader perspective helps
So now we know whose mind is narrowly focussed on robotic arms reloading. Those with broader perspective solved the problem 48 years ago in 1964, probably before you were born.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by sharma.abhinav »

So now we know whose mind is narrowly focussed on robotic arms reloading. Those with broader perspective solved the problem 48 years ago in 1964, probably before you were born.
Why is there not a like button. :D
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Will »

Oh Lol!!! Are we at it again today? :twisted: :rotfl:
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by vasu raya »

indranilroy wrote:Vasu ji,

A helicopter vibrates quite a lot, it might not be so easy to precisely (clip on/clip off armament) as you. All the gizmos that would be required to achieve this level of precision would unnecessarily eat up payload capacity and take up space. And Shivji is very right, in a combat situation, the heli will not be in a position to hover for sometime for the crane go about doing its job.

The aim of Mi-17 is to be primarily a transport helicopter which can take be armed if required (mainly for self-defense). If you need a bigger ground attack profile, use a suitable platform like a strike fighter or a bomber. It does not make sense to lug around an unnecessary swing arm.
Few points while agreeing with your post as well as Shiv,

Kargil war saw use of Mi-17's initially and after one was downed, fixed aircraft were used

AAC doesn't own any fixed wing aircraft so its CAS is mostly reliant on IAF, so building redundancies helps. Use of IAF is being seen as an escalation in certain situations.

The full capacity of Mi-17's is probably not being used in its armed role, and design efforts should be made to exploit it in its own right.

Think of a scenario that we want to use an Mi-17 in the armed role, how do you make best use of it? its not an argument for replacing bombers etc
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by vasu raya »

tsarkar, is there anything new that you are saying? your argument style is take the one liner counterpoints both from other posters and me as well :lol: , pepper them with known details and make it into a lecture, right now you are inserting yourself into this subject because you smell blood, given those two, arguing with you will be like running in a mousewheel, sorry will not entertain, but you have fun recruiting few chumps along the way
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Indranil »

vasu raya wrote:
indranilroy wrote:Vasu ji,

A helicopter vibrates quite a lot, it might not be so easy to precisely (clip on/clip off armament) as you. All the gizmos that would be required to achieve this level of precision would unnecessarily eat up payload capacity and take up space. And Shivji is very right, in a combat situation, the heli will not be in a position to hover for sometime for the crane go about doing its job.

The aim of Mi-17 is to be primarily a transport helicopter which can take be armed if required (mainly for self-defense). If you need a bigger ground attack profile, use a suitable platform like a strike fighter or a bomber. It does not make sense to lug around an unnecessary swing arm.
Few points while agreeing with your post as well as Shiv,

Kargil war saw use of Mi-17's initially and after one was downed, fixed aircraft were used

AAC doesn't own any fixed wing aircraft so its CAS is mostly reliant on IAF, so building redundancies helps. Use of IAF is being seen as an escalation in certain situations.

The full capacity of Mi-17's is probably not being used in its armed role, and design efforts should be made to exploit it in its own right.

Think of a scenario that we want to use an Mi-17 in the armed role, how do you make best use of it? its not an argument for replacing bombers etc
While creating redundancy, you want to evaluate alternatives to create the redundancy. Instead of developing such a system (if possible), it would be much better to buying more dedicated attack helicopters and jets.

Mi-17 is not an attack helicopter. It is too sluggish for that. There is no point of making it even more sluggish. Buy more LCH/Apaches. There is a lot of transportation to be achieved. We don't have enough Mi-17s to do that.

P.S. Tsarkar and hakim have been on this forum for much longer than us. They are not amused by naive questions anymore. You will get there some day too. (Yes, you will understand how naive your question was with time, trust me on that :wink: ) So don't take things to heart. Lots to learn, no point of having hard feelings :-)
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Victor »

vasu raya wrote: Think of a scenario that we want to use an Mi-17 in the armed role, how do you make best use of it? its not an argument for replacing bombers etc
Is this what you had in mind?

Image

The basic Mi-17's capabilities were recognized long ago and morphed into the Mi-35 Hind. Similar exercises had been carried out on the American Huey to produce the Cobra gunship (the first gunship) and our own LCH which came from the Dhruv.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Katare »

Victor wrote:
Katare wrote:
Senson fused CBU-105 is a whole differen ball game. It is released from stand off range at higher altitude and each of the 40 bumblets independently searches and locks on to a target for destruiction.
Per specs it can be released at anywhere between 200 ft and 20,000 ft. The parachutes not only stabilize and orient the individual canisters but also delay detonation till the aircraft is far gone so low level is possible. It would be psychologically devastating to boot when delivered by a Jaguar going supersonic at low level.
If you are flying low pretty much any dumb weapon will do the job but you risk the aircraft to short range air defense. Advantage that CBU provids is it's ability to be deployed from higher altitudes and stand off distances.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by srai »

shiv wrote:
vasu raya wrote:'

The whole discussion would be moot if somebody can conclusively say the Mi-17 cannot carry additional armaments internally without drastically impacting its 'combat' profile or that the threshold is close enough to the 1500kg (the current pylon capacity) that a re-design would be as good as digging the mountain for a mole kind of effort
Not at all. It is a very relevant discussion. I am sure the Mi 17 can carry at last two more reloads inside the cabin. Please post more ideas.
No need for complicated in-flight reloader which would be expensive to make, operationally limiting (during use) and add to weight gain (hence less performance). Simpler would to land (since this is a helicopter we are talking about) and have a manual reload (those that are carried in cabin). This is what the British army did with their Lynx helicopters in anti-tank roles before they got the Apaches. A Lynx helo would be armed with 8 anti-tank missiles (4-pack on each side) with 2 more reloads (8 to 16 more missiles) in the cabin. For reloading, helicopter would land and the crew would manually reload the paylons.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by shiv »

srai wrote:
vasu raya wrote:'

The whole discussion would be moot if somebody can conclusively say the Mi-17 cannot carry additional armaments internally without drastically impacting its 'combat' profile or that the threshold is close enough to the 1500kg (the current pylon capacity) that a re-design would be as good as digging the mountain for a mole kind of effort
No need for complicated in-flight reloader which would be expensive to make, operationally limiting (during use) and add to weight gain (hence less performance). Simpler would to land (since this is a helicopter we are talking about) and have a manual reload (those that are carried in cabin). This is what the British army did with their Lynx helicopters in anti-tank roles before they got the Apaches. A Lynx helo would be armed with 8 anti-tank missiles (4-pack on each side) with 2 more reloads (8 to 16 more missiles) in the cabin. For reloading, helicopter would land and the crew would manually reload the paylons.
Naaah! Kalki ruled that out ages ago :D
vasu raya wrote:
shiv wrote:2. If he has to fly elsewhere he is losing time and burning up fuel and will have even less fuel to flying around the frontline after a reload. Perhaps it would be better to just fly somewhere safe and land at a pre arranged clearing for a reload. The pilot can have a pee and a smoke while the chopper is reloaded and refuelled.
The downside of multiple trips in the same flight path in a warzone is they could be targeted by manpads even if the first sorties are a surprise, I would rather have one of the inner pylons as a wet one on which a refueling probe can be mounted, the kind seen on the C-130j.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Victor »

Katare wrote: If you are flying low pretty much any dumb weapon will do the job but you risk the aircraft to short range air defense. Advantage that CBU provids is it's ability to be deployed from higher altitudes and stand off distances.
Dumb bombs released at 200 ft will not give a fighter enough time to escape damage from the shock and debris of the explosion. Retarded fall bombs like the CBU-105 will give the aircraft time to get away.

A fast, low level "below the radar" attack is more difficult to detect and stop by air defense than one from a higher altitude, even with AWACS. The shakina value is very high. This is only possible of course in flat, open country like the western plains and desert. In the mountains, the CBU-105 can be released by any plane at higher altitudes.

CBU-105 is not a standoff weapon although there is a special kit which converts it into one using flip-out control fins which can guide it for up to 16 kilometers when dropped from 40,000 ft. This kit has not been ordered by the IAF afaik.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by vasu raya »

Indranilroy, while we are buying Mi-17's from Kazan, China has an assembly line for it already, they might actually benefit with anything innovative using this platform.

Naive or not, there are some more old timers and knowledgeable people on the forum, it never gets to an argument with them, I will leave it at that.

Victor, its on similar lines, and its more to do with fleet size, while dedicated attack choppers are the way to go, what to do with the Mi-17 itself since they are versatile and available in nos. It similar to the way we have both Rudra and the LCH.

srai, its exactly this concept and glad to know it was an operational tactic, there are supposed to be about 3000 sites across the Himalayan stretch suitable for heli landing operations, so if there is no viable solution for in-flight re-arming then those landing sites might come in handy (pre-positioning stocks and fuel is an iffy in a dynamic situation), however as Kargil has proved that the valleys limit the ingress and egress routes and predictable sorties along them can be an issue. Another example is that of a downed Chinook carrying SEALS in Afghanistan.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by nash »

Apart from divestment Govt should re organize HAL so that they can more efficient in absorbing new technology,manufacturing and most important meet the given dead line.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Austin »

They should sell 49 % stake to strategic Indian companies and keep 51 % with them
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Victor »

Selling 10% shares like this is desperate window dressing by politicians and babus to plug the deficit, not to make the company more efficient and productive. It is an attempt to paper over their fiscal incompetence and has zero to do with improving national defense capability which will see a net negative result.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by nash »

Victor wrote:Selling 10% shares like this is desperate window dressing by politicians and babus to plug the deficit, not to make the company more efficient and productive. It is an attempt to paper over their fiscal incompetence and has zero to do with improving national defense capability which will see a net negative result.
well, there is no doubt about that government is doing this to bring down the FD, because if they do not then rupee would go for toss and MMRCA and other Deal will need more Rs to done.

Our only hope that next time a strong Government come into the center who is more innovative and eager not only to make the current industries more efficient but also create a whole Eco-system of MIC.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Victor »

The Rupee has already gone for a toss and any more would be a catastrophe. Unfortunately, all efforts by GoI to stem the tide have been band-aid, smoke-and-mirrors efforts and the Rupee is almost certain to go lower. Only drastic and dramatic action by the GoI will stave off a further devaluation and this looks impossible right now as the measly 10% exercise shows. They simply don't have the imagination, guts or confidence for fear of losing their gaddis, country be damned. I hope I'm wrong.

When MMRCA deal was signed, the Euro was at 49 to a Rupee. Today it is 69 but it had gone higher a couple of months ago as it surely will again. That is a bigger than 40% increase in Rupee terms in less than a year, so the Rs 42,000 crore budgeted would now be Rs 59,000 crore or more. Hopefully GoI had the foresight to hedge the exchange rate for an additional 2% or so back then and not left things open-ended. If not, the MMRCA is in jeopardy IMO because by the time deliveries begin, the cost could escalate beyond Rs 70,000 crores.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Nikhil T »

Victor wrote:The Rupee has already gone for a toss and any more would be a catastrophe. Unfortunately, all efforts by GoI to stem the tide have been band-aid, smoke-and-mirrors efforts and the Rupee is almost certain to go lower. Only drastic and dramatic action by the GoI will stave off a further devaluation and this looks impossible right now as the measly 10% exercise shows. They simply don't have the imagination, guts or confidence for fear of losing their gaddis, country be damned. I hope I'm wrong.

When MMRCA deal was signed, the Euro was at 49 to a Rupee. Today it is 69 but it had gone higher a couple of months ago as it surely will again. That is a bigger than 40% increase in Rupee terms in less than a year, so the Rs 42,000 crore budgeted would now be Rs 59,000 crore or more. Hopefully GoI had the foresight to hedge the exchange rate for an additional 2% or so back then and not left things open-ended. If not, the MMRCA is in jeopardy IMO because by the time deliveries begin, the cost could escalate beyond Rs 70,000 crores.
The exchange rate is the one prevailing on the day of the bid opening. (Stratpostand Ajai)
The Defense Procurement Procedure (DPP) specifically stipulates that the Base Currency selling rate, the rate at which the Indian Rupee is sold on the day of the opening of the commercial bids will determine the value of the order. It also says that it will only consider the prevailing rate at the Parliament Street branch of the State Bank of India to make the determination.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Victor »

Yes, the "value of the order" was fixed on the date the bids were opened but that doesn't mean either party will take theoretically unlimited risks with future exchange rates. The buyer especially (India) would (or should) have hedged future currency fluctuations. For example, if the Rafale costs Euro 100 million to make today, do you think the French will sell it to us 5 years from now if we insist on paying only Euro 60,000 million just because the Rupee depreciated? Even if there somehow was an agreement for such an absurd situation, the French would play every loophole in the book (the jig broke, the boilers exploded, the factory collapsed, the chief engineer got a stroke etc) and make sure we never got a single plane. No, the price was fixed in Euros and the value will fluctuate in Rupees. It's up to us to come up with the difference, either by having hedged the deal, by doing the things that will boost the Rupee or by selling the country down the river.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by vasu raya »

Dragging the Mi-17 back into the discussion :P , even if it were to land at makeshift helipads for reloading, is there a reason why all munitions it carries are designed to be of low weights that can be manually handled? I mean why not go with heavier munitions that give it a standoff range proofing its vulnerability due to sluggishness and let the frontline be handled by properly optimized gunships

The current pylon capacity of 1500kg means each innermost pylon should be able to carry a 750kg max. load, is it the g forces which should be tolerated while in flight that reduce this upper bound?

Interested in knowing the weapons that give enough stand off range while being below the upper bound of the pylon capacity
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Nikhil T »

Victor wrote:Yes, the "value of the order" was fixed on the date the bids were opened but that doesn't mean either party will take theoretically unlimited risks with future exchange rates. The buyer especially (India) would (or should) have hedged future currency fluctuations. For example, if the Rafale costs Euro 100 million to make today, do you think the French will sell it to us 5 years from now if we insist on paying only Euro 60,000 million just because the Rupee depreciated?
i) The competition took longer than expected but do remember that the bids had an expiry date for the exact same reason. When this date was reached, the MoD asked each company to extend the bids for another year. All the companies agreed to extend their bids.

ii) The fact that this was going to be a long-drawn out contract wasn't a surprise. Every one knew the MoD's track record. The companies would have factored in atleast a reasonable delay into their bids.

iii) Hedging is a two-way street. Wall Street firms invest hundreds of millions of $ in research to develop hedging strategies. And .. even they've went wrong in their calls many times. MoD doesn't have the expertise and frankly, should not even bother, since it could become a political minefield in case the hedging bets went wrong.
Victor wrote: Even if there somehow was an agreement for such an absurd situation, the French would play every loophole in the book (the jig broke, the boilers exploded, the factory collapsed, the chief engineer got a stroke etc) and make sure we never got a single plane. No, the price was fixed in Euros and the value will fluctuate in Rupees. It's up to us to come up with the difference, either by having hedged the deal, by doing the things that will boost the Rupee or by selling the country down the river.
i) The French (and any other company) for that matter will always try to exploit each loophole, but would never go to the extent of not delivering even one plane. Remember the French have drummed up their support on the 'IAF 60 years - 5 aircraft' tagline. Plus the MoD is not really known to forgive and forget when screwed over politically (and rightly so).

ii) Artificially boosting the Rupee is not without financial costs of its own.
Plus it screams irresponsibility on part of the GoI. If we were to play up the Rupee, all future foreign defense purchases will have this cost factored in - meaning that we will pay for our actions of today many times over in the future.

Having a team to plug any holes in the final contract and ensuring that both sides stick to the contract is the way to go.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Singha »

in vietnam before cobra gunships were invented, they needed some airborne artillery. a UH1 heli used to carry around 72 x 2" rockets to bombard vietcong positions with. a Mi17 in that heavy hitter mode with no passengers except maybe a minigun operator could cart a lot more.

by todays stds very crude, but they used it
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/sh ... 1-Gunships

imo "best is the enemy of good enough".
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by vivek_ahuja »

vasu raya wrote:Dragging the Mi-17 back into the discussion :P , even if it were to land at makeshift helipads for reloading, is there a reason why all munitions it carries are designed to be of low weights that can be manually handled? I mean why not go with heavier munitions that give it a standoff range proofing its vulnerability due to sluggishness and let the frontline be handled by properly optimized gunships

The current pylon capacity of 1500kg means each innermost pylon should be able to carry a 750kg max. load, is it the g forces which should be tolerated while in flight that reduce this upper bound?

Interested in knowing the weapons that give enough stand off range while being below the upper bound of the pylon capacity
Think of it this way:

a) Line of Sight: You are talking about helicopters. Slow and unwieldy compared to aircraft, correct? So their survivability in the face of enemy depends on being able to take advantage of low altitudes above ground level and terrain masking. If you are low and close the ground, generally speaking the terrain will not allow LOS beyond certain limits unlike high altitude aircraft dropping PGMs or low altitude aircraft flying higher than helicopters but having the speed and ruggedness to survive hits from enemy fire. Plus they (the aircraft) have the altitude to deploy IR countermeasures and ECM more effectively. The helicopters need weapons that fall within the ~10 km range for most targets they are ever likely to see. Anything beyond that you bring in fixed wing aircraft.

b) Energy: Why are these munitions so small and light? Consider the kind of weapons that a helicopter deploys. It is not dropping free-fall bombs overhead, is it? Its not dropping stabilized munitions from high altitude like aircraft do. So it can't depend on converting potential energy to directed kinetic energy during free-fall. So what its needs is munitions that go more horizontal than vertical when they are fired. It needs munitions that can fly or it needs munitions with very high momentum in the horizontal than the vertical (rockets fired horizontally experiencing ballistic drop). When you consider that, you notice that helicopter-fired missiles and rockets therefore require the same argument as to why aircraft need to be as light as possible: the Thrust-to-Weight ratio. Missiles have to have as high an impulse assigned to them in the horizontal direction and as quickly as possible. Hence the horizontal tube launched stuff: rockets and TOW missiles (and all other anti-tank missiles in general). Now, if we are talking impulse, could we simply not scale it up? Make the warhead bigger by adding a bigger rocket motor behind it, thereby maintaining the TW ratio? Yes you can, and some Mi-24/35 rockets (S-24?) do in fact use this concept when LOS allows. In most cases, where you can increase the size of the warhead, the LOS issue in point (a) above becomes dominant.

c) Pylon Loading in Flight: Yes, the loads on the pylon are critical for helicopters just as they are for fixed wing aircraft. Helicopters devoted to combat are rated for a certain minimum Rate-Of-Climb (ROC) settings that the engine must be able to compensate for regardless of the payload. For attack helicopters, at least 8-10m/sec ROC is required in hover to allow safe pop-up maneuvers for launching missiles (minimum is 2.5m/sec ROC but that's for transports in rear areas and high altitude locations only). So, first the engine has to have enough reserve power to provide this spare requirement for combat (power (W) usually scales with mass (converted to Newtons, N, in weight) to the power of 1.5). Then the load settings themselves come into play for the pylons under this kind of acceleration environment. Higher the mass of the munitions hanging underneath, higher the stresses suffered by pylons. And when you start considering that at higher altitudes the power drops off heavily for helicopters compared to fixed wing aircraft, it becomes economical to use the latter instead unless we are talking transport/casevac etc that might require some light firepower support.

d) Accuracy of munitions: rockets and other unguided projectile munitions (30 mm cannon rounds included) have a tendency to splatter all over the place. Hence the optimization for larger numbers of lighter (yes) and shorter range (also yes) warheads to allow target saturation. If we changed an Mi-17 loadout from S-5 rockets to S-24 rockets, you can carry one per pylon of the latter compared with half dozen or more (generally more, lot more) of the former. Which is better? It becomes a question of target spread and kill over-pressure required. Usually for the kind of targets engaged with unguided rockets, the wider spread of larger rocket numbers is usually sufficient. S-24 type warheads are better left to fixed-wing aircraft to deploy against hardened targets. If you do encounter a semi-hardened target like a bunker or something, an anti-tank guided missile will be better and usually sufficient.

Hopefully it might answer a few of your questions. Anyway, JMT.

Regards
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Lalmohan »

Singha wrote:in vietnam before cobra gunships were invented, they needed some airborne artillery. a UH1 heli used to carry around 72 x 2" rockets to bombard vietcong positions with. a Mi17 in that heavy hitter mode with no passengers except maybe a minigun operator could cart a lot more.

by todays stds very crude, but they used it
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/sh ... 1-Gunships

imo "best is the enemy of good enough".
viet cong had little anti air firepower, and jungles offered plenty of get out of line of fire capability for choppers. the cobra was however specifically developed to have a narrow frontal aspect to minimise vulnerability to fire. that said, someone i know who used to fly hueys in nam told me once of his last tour of duty where the huey next to his got hit by a mortar round and was obliterated

on the pak front big choppers like the mi17 are quite vulnerable if they are hanging around or doing bomb truck missions
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by shiv »

Lalmohan wrote: on the pak front big choppers like the mi17 are quite vulnerable if they are hanging around or doing bomb truck missions
Well can't you imagine a scenario where the Mi 17's missile warning detector comes on and the pilot pushes The Red Button that quickly loads an anti-missile missile onto the robotic arm, the arm extends and fits the missile onto the pylon and the missile is fired, obliterating the threat even as the pilot holds down The Blue Switch that causes the helo to make violent evasive maneuvers while he turns and winks at his pretty lady co pilot?
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Lalmohan »

hakimullah, you are describing my normal 'night-vision'
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by vasu raya »

Vivek, as usual your post is detail oriented and Singha has captured the theme correctly as 'flying artillery', here is a simple minded response,
vivek_ahuja wrote:a) Line of Sight: You are talking about helicopters. Slow and unwieldy compared to aircraft, correct? So their survivability in the face of enemy depends on being able to take advantage of low altitudes above ground level and terrain masking. If you are low and close the ground, generally speaking the terrain will not allow LOS beyond certain limits unlike high altitude aircraft dropping PGMs or low altitude aircraft flying higher than helicopters but having the speed and ruggedness to survive hits from enemy fire. Plus they (the aircraft) have the altitude to deploy IR countermeasures and ECM more effectively. The helicopters need weapons that fall within the ~10 km range for most targets they are ever likely to see. Anything beyond that you bring in fixed wing aircraft.
The LOS limitation may not continue to apply in the age of network centric warfare where the sensor is separated from the shooter, the Mi-17 will just play the role of the shooter. In that case 10km needn't be the threshold, these days there is also a plan to equip GMTI/SAR radars on choppers and the UAV's are already there
vivek_ahuja wrote:b) Energy: Why are these munitions so small and light? Consider the kind of weapons that a helicopter deploys. It is not dropping free-fall bombs overhead, is it? Its not dropping stabilized munitions from high altitude like aircraft do. So it can't depend on converting potential energy to directed kinetic energy during free-fall. So what its needs is munitions that go more horizontal than vertical when they are fired. It needs munitions that can fly or it needs munitions with very high momentum in the horizontal than the vertical (rockets fired horizontally experiencing ballistic drop). When you consider that, you notice that helicopter-fired missiles and rockets therefore require the same argument as to why aircraft need to be as light as possible: the Thrust-to-Weight ratio. Missiles have to have as high an impulse assigned to them in the horizontal direction and as quickly as possible. Hence the horizontal tube launched stuff: rockets and TOW missiles (and all other anti-tank missiles in general). Now, if we are talking impulse, could we simply not scale it up? Make the warhead bigger by adding a bigger rocket motor behind it, thereby maintaining the TW ratio? Yes you can, and some Mi-24/35 rockets (S-24?) do in fact use this concept when LOS allows. In most cases, where you can increase the size of the warhead, the LOS issue in point (a) above becomes dominant.
Yes passive propulsion munitions would need enough altitude for say the Sudarshan kit to do its magic of precision and still achieve the requisite stand off range, so they are ruled out on the Mi-17s. Maybe high altitude capable Choppers like the Rudra or the LCH can consider them. Its my tunnel vision for AAC that makes me forget about IAF
vivek_ahuja wrote:d) Accuracy of munitions: rockets and other unguided projectile munitions (30 mm cannon rounds included) have a tendency to splatter all over the place. Hence the optimization for larger numbers of lighter (yes) and shorter range (also yes) warheads to allow target saturation. If we changed an Mi-17 loadout from S-5 rockets to S-24 rockets, you can carry one per pylon of the latter compared with half dozen or more (generally more, lot more) of the former. Which is better? It becomes a question of target spread and kill over-pressure required. Usually for the kind of targets engaged with unguided rockets, the wider spread of larger rocket numbers is usually sufficient. S-24 type warheads are better left to fixed-wing aircraft to deploy against hardened targets. If you do encounter a semi-hardened target like a bunker or something, an anti-tank guided missile will be better and usually sufficient.
Yes while having multiple smaller rockets than one large inaccurate rocket on the pylons makes sense, the Mi-17 is a transport so it can carry reloads in the cabin. For NLOS targets one needs large rockets and its their accuracy issue that needs to be addressed like using GPS antenna patches etc. Except in mountainous terrain, altitude is not really needed for firing precision rockets which means we can avoid the case c) high altitude and heavy pylon load, however higher altitude is preferred

In one of the episodes of your mil scenario thread, there is a situation where the Pinaka reload vehicles are stuck on some muddy path while the launchers themselves are positioned to fire and they are very much vulnerable having given away their position in their first salvo, it brings out the point that the logistics tail could be a liability in a ground based system.

Consider the scenario, the Mi-17 takes off from a base with few rockets on the pylons and reloads inside the cabin, reaches a airspace sector based on the mission, fires the first salvo against the provided NLOS-target info, travels to a nearby makeshift helipad, a reload is done (assuming a vehicle is pre-positioned for such purpose, even a reload vehicle in such case, there is no way to avoid this unless the Mi-17 system is made as a self-contained one) and again reaches the sector fires the next salvo and then reaches back to the base. The airspace sector of the launch area is no where near the frontline to threaten its safety, and due to its mobility the enemy artillery locating radars cannot pinpoint its position to direct counter fire. The exact bang-for-buck matrix of lethality vs. numbers of the rockets can be worked out based on the mission and the frontal reach is quite large with an airborne system.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Bala Vignesh »

Vasu Rayaji,
Each Pinaka rocket weighs almost 300kgs, which entails that a Mi17 will be able to carry only 6 rockets ready to fire and another 8 rockets for reloads which means that a Mi17 can carry only enough rockets for one effective fire mission of a Pinaka launcher. This is done by pulling it out of vital resupply missions which is supposed to be its actual role. So, imo, not a great use of the limited resources at our disposal.
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Re: Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

Post by Pratyush »

^^^

Saar Ji, Why do you want to phyr a 40 Km range rakit phrom a moving helo.
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