Bharat Rakshak

rama

Hmmm, the Dawood angle is brought in as well now. http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_556746,00050002.htm FWIW This is bylined AFP, i.e. not DDM stuff. So jihadism, terrorirm - both J&K & Mumbai blasts kinds, proliferation, plain old gangsterism, and the Paki military establishment are al...

rama

Dan Sneider of San Jose says it well: Pakistan's nuclear deals have been an open secret. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/columnists/daniel_sneider/7849216.htm Pretty important point to make since the "Mushy in tears" nonsense we've read tries to potray a picture of a huge s...

rama

The Al Zarrar upgrade does include a 700 HP engine too. The upgrade $ is on top of the AL Khalids that they plan to manufacture to replace the M47/48's, which would also be in the few hundreds. Interesting that India has concluded that upgrading 1000 T-72's was not affordable.

rama

Not to say that there is nothing wring with the Swati, but the CAG report is hardly damning. It is a typical head-in-the-sand bean-counter set of whines. Specifically:* Didnt take approvals of some committee, and price wasnt finalized.- Procedural omission, and there are procedures galore in I...

rama

How can the number of tanks be indicative of their desires. 320 tanks (also incidentally the number IA is ordering) can make a new division or OTOH it can make/reequip 2 or 3 independent brigades(admittedly 3 is a stretch).While one brand new division out of this new hardware has it's merit - don...

rama

Having nothing to contribute myself to this excellent thread, I did what any self-respecting mouse-clicking armchair general would do. I put Google to work on this problem. Utterly mundane excercise, as you can guess (briefly: half a dozen Paki sites say *two* armoured divisions). Except for this sn...

rama

To be fair on the Arjun debacle - the development was started when Pakistan had access to/ desire for western systems. When Arjun was being conceived, it had to be developed with the possibility of facing tanks like the M1. That did not happen, and it is very clear now what IA's opponents may look l...

rama

Oh, and the AlKhalid or the T80UD have combat records? Or -if needed- it is impossible for up-engining to be done later?The IA - clearly - has some $ constraints and logistical concerns in mind in addition to buying MBTs. So they have to go for "good enough" - not the best money can buy...

rama

Prakash, You may have to do better than "I dont believe that site". On tanknet Mr Fofanov has a fairly good rep - as far as I can see. Besides, on the armoring, BR has archived the armor thread and it was Paul Lakowski who provided hard data that backs up the claim. <A HREF="ht...

rama

According to Vassily Fofanov's site the Indian T-90S has the original engine replaced with a new 1000hp V-92S2 diesel, rather than the 840hp original engine. I.e. it's P/W ratio is something like 21.7. According to him the T-80U also has a 1000 hp diesel. <A HREF="http://members.dencity.com...

rama

IA merely seems to have de-emphasized MBT's, not totally junked them. More specifically, they have shied from making too many $ investments in them - specifically Arjun. PA has the momentum on MBT's right now, but that *has* to be recognized as a temporary situation. A few years ago the situation wa...

rama

Muddur, Nitin was talking specifically about IAF's superiority in CAS and it is hard to argue that he is mistaken. Look at PAF's strike platforms: Mirage III/V's are notorious for mediocre low altitude/low speed handling and A-5's are being retired and in any case had the endurance x loadout of ...

rama

I dont think - by any means - that the Vijayanta's are our numerically largest content of the MBT fleet. This may have been the case 15 years ago, but now T-72's are the backbone.On upgrades: it is a question of $ and the judgement of where is the best expenditure of it. India has prototyped ...

rama

I wish we had done the same to the Mig-AT four or five years ago! From all accounts it seems like a decent AJT candidate with only uncertanities about a market.IAF can fix that and HAL can get some more of those $'s circulating in the Indian economy.

rama

Shiv, HJT may be AJT: Informed speculation on your part or expression of hope or what? While it can be argued that some of the early AJT curriculum may be fulfilled on an IJT and hence reduce the number of AJTs etc - doesnt it appear that they are two distinct classes of aircraft. (If nothing ...

rama

Peeyosh, Just taking a wild guess at this specifically for HJT-36:- News reports talked of a Rs 180 crore *grant* for the development of HJT-36 from the central government. The wording would suggest that these R&D costs are not to be calculated in the unit cost. Also note that the ...

rama

Amitabh, I dont know about the article clearing up the pricing. It dates to when HAL made the proposal, i.e. the HJT-36 cost structure may or may not have changed, hopefully not significantly. OTOH it was the only article I could find, and it did directly quote the MD of HAL on HJT-36 pricing. I ...

rama

Su-30MKI's @ $30 million are a good deal. That will make the 200 odd pieces affordable. However, LCA even @ $22 million is a good complement to the Su30MKI if it's operational costs are significantly lower. Fuel consumption as one example, is surely in the LCA's favor seeing that it has about a thir...

rama

Is $15 million for HJT-36 a typo?It better be, since the K-8 was said to cost about $3.5 million and HJT-36 is pretty much in the same class.Or am I smoking something?p.s. Found this, it says HJT-36 to cost Rs 19 crore which sounds more like it. Sinc ethis report HJT-36 has picked up some p...

rama

Interesting report here: <A HREF="http://www.ifpa.org/pdfs/CM2000/CM_Report.pdf" TARGET=_blank>www.ifpa.org/pdfs/CM2000/CM_Report.pdf</A> It talks about India having tested an indigenous turbofan engine within the Lakshya family. I guess Brhamos must be the Coral program that this r...

rama

What about using Lakshya's engine in cruise missiles?? The PTAE-7 is indigenous, tested for a while: <A HREF="http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2001/01/24/stories/0224000y.htm" TARGET=_blank>http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2001/01/24/stories/0224000y.htm</A> "The PTAE-7 d...

rama

The "korabelnyi" version of the Mig-29 was a *prototype* which reflected the Fulcrum as developed at that point of time. Combat aircraft are highly customized pieces of equipment, not standard models like automobiles. So any new Fulcrum customer - least of all IN - would be daft to not to ...

rama

A very interesting write-up on the Mig29 SMT upgrade, the enclosed para removes any doubt on which Mig-29 IN would be getting. (Considering that the "original" Mig-29K was but a prototype, IN would be daft to get anything but the 9-17K) <A HREF="http://www.aeronautics.ru/ruaf7.htm...

rama

The Times and Hindu reports are mis- interpretations / misreprepesentations of genuine statements.In all probability IAF will get it's hands on a couple of LCAs for independent user trials in six years. "Production" of LCA will start next year in the sense that assembly of a prototype v...

rama

One other really interesting tidbit from the interview with Dr Harinarayana (NOT Hariharan): He says the LCA is actually a little better than the Gripen, and bases this on thrust/weight considerations. The F404 on the Gripen has something like 20-25% lower thrust than the Kaveri and the Gripen is sl...

rama

Shailesh, South Africa has already ordered the Gripen about a year ago. Thailand has been flying F-16s for a while. So neither are potential LCA customers. Indonesia is so spread out it needs fighters with long legs - not particularly the LCA's forte.So Vietnam, Iran and Nigeria may be our bes...

rama

Folks, A couple of old but interesting articles behind the *lot* of work that has gone on behind the LCA. It is much more than just a plane.CAIR developed a robot for NDT inspection of LCA's wings: <A HREF="http://www.hindubusinessline.com/1999/11/17/stories/041767bg.htm" TARGET=_bl...

rama

Arun, Seek and ye shall find! We can do better than find the SFC for the F404. How about the SFC for the Kaveri! At: <A HREF="http://www.drdo.org/pub/aug2000/Kaveri.htm" TARGET=_blank>http://www.drdo.org/pub/aug2000/Kaveri.htm</A> The other bit of info - which I have seen elsewh...

rama

No, the nominal take off weight is 8500 kgs with internal fuel and a set of armaments. Max TOW is higher and empty weight is lower (~5500 kgs). So even with a nominal weapons load and an engine with modest thrust, the LCA has a very good thrust/weight ratio.That's why there's so many composites.

rama

No they didnt take 32 years. EconTimes picked up this drivel from BBC. Rahul Bedi, & I do not know what his problem is, put out the blatantly incorrect statement in one of his BBC reports today to accompany and diss the first flight of the LCA. The guy is making a fool of himself with his obsess...

rama

Many posts ago people have quoted reliable sources that said that the nosewheel of the LCA did get airborne and so to that extent secret unpublicised tests have already taken place under the heading of high speed taxi trials. And we have been hearing about taxi trials for over a year now.More ser...

rama

The multimode radar intended to go into the LCA is definitely an Indian design and has been tested on Mig21 and HS748 testbeds in flight according to news reports from a couple of years ago. It is a conventional mechanically scanned pulse doppler radar, and not a phased array like the Phazotron Zhuk...

rama

Arun_S, Got it now! Re-using engine cores is fairly common practice - there are instances of commercial aircraft turbofans "derived" from succesful combat aircraft engines. But got to wonder - won't it be simpler to scale up the LCA to fit the engine - the French have done this a cou...

rama

Here's some on the GE F404-F2 which the LCA uses on TD-1/2/PV-1: _____________________________ Specifications: F404-GE-402Thrust (lb) 17,700 Airflow (lb/sec) 146 Weight (lb) 2,282 Maximum Diameter (in) 35 Pressure Ratio 26 to 1 _____________________________Taken from: <A H...

rama

Nandai, The Kaveri is in the thrust class of the GE F404 or the Turbomeca M88 and so posting those figures may help if you have acess to them. Kaveri is still in development and so figures may be hard to come by....

rama

The Kaveri has a thrust of 19,000 lbs (with afterburners) while the Al-31 is 27,000 *plus* so there is a mismatch! (likely to manifest itself in many ways such as size and inlet opening requirements). Other engines in the IAF inventory are more closer - such as the M53 of the Mirage2K (at 21,500 lbs...

rama

So, what will be the IAF buying over the next 5 years if the Su-30MKI is not available? Mirage2000's perhaps, if the price is right. More Jaguars may make sense as well - the line is still open. More Mig-29SMTs along with IN's order? More combat variants of the AJT?My personal wildcard entry i...

rama

Div, To add to your list: There's been a lot of talk of HAL license manufacturing Su-30's. If that comes to pass, may be we can look forward to 5 squadrons of Su-30MKs. (+40).Also worth considering is that HAL is certain to license manufacture whichever AJT (Hawk) is chosen and deploying a co...

rama

The best use IMHO for IAF Mig-21's is to wire them up as auto/remote piloted drones. When war breaks out fly out dozens of these unmanned drones on diversionary one-way sorties to rustle up the PAF interceptors - who will not be able to tell them from the real things- and thus get them out of the wa...

rama

Kanak, What are you using as the source for your price estimates? Prices for combat jets have shot up a lot in the 90s and $11 million for a Mig-29A seems very cheap as does $26 million for Mirage 2000s. The Pakis in 1994 almost signed a deal with France that priced them well over twice that fig...

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