MoD: Defence Procurement Policies Issues and Discussions

[mody]

Mody please write it as an article and can get it published!

Thanks for the encouragement Ramana Garu. Do you have any contacts at Swarajya magazine or any other similar platforms?

[kit]

PART – II Problems in the current MIC setup in India.


There are perhaps many more issues that I might have left out. Others can help and contribute.

Good write up., DRDO needs to move from production to the role of DARPA ?..

A discussion around this would be worthwhile as India needs to move on from state-of-the-art tech in niche areas like missiles and radars to bleeding edge

Would the startup and incubator support for new tech be sufficient? How is this at the ground level?

Development is one., mass production is another ., India might have scale of economies that a lot of other countries don't., so why are we lagging here ?

[mody]

PART – II Problems in the current MIC setup in India.


There are perhaps many more issues that I might have left out. Others can help and contribute.

Good write up., DRDO needs to move from production to the role of DARPA ?..

A discussion around this would be worthwhile as India needs to move on from state-of-the-art tech in niche areas like missiles and radars to bleeding edge

Would the startup and incubator support for new tech be sufficient? How is this at the ground level?

Development is one., mass production is another ., India might have scale of economies that a lot of other countries don't., so why are we lagging here ?

DRDO cannot completely function as DARPA, as currently it also develops a lot of currently needed weapons systems and indigenous alternatives to existing foreign systems.
There are some labs in DRDO that work on bleeding edge or exploratory stuff, like directed energy weapons etc.
Currently DRDO is a very big organization, which is kind of like a combination of R&D division of defense companies of other countries, along with a DARPA type role. Please note, that currently in India, most of the defense PSU's have a very small R&D role and rarely ever develop a new product in house on their own. It is always been ToT screwdrivergiri, followed by some research and development towards indegenizing some of the parts and then later towards improving the original imported designs.
Hence, what is needed is for DRDO to choose a production cum development partner or multiple partners, depending on the size and scope of the project and the level of expertise of the private or public sector partner companies. This has to be done fairly early, once DRDO is confident, it has the basic technologies in place, to move to the prototype stage.
This is the model they have adopted for the ATAGS.

For missile projects, BEL and BDL are chosen fairly early for fabricating the prototype for testing, but I don't think they play a very active part in the development itself. For most other projects upto now, it has always been that a production agency is chosen after the development is complete and then sort of ToT takes place from the respective DRDO lab to the production company. Uptill a few years ago, this was also always a defense PSU or ordinance factory. The results of these were not always satisfactory. Not simply because the PSU's or the OFBs were bad (though in many cases thats where the fault lay), but also in this fundamental structure. If the production partner is part of the development right from the beginning then they can also provide feedback about how feasible some of the design choices are, when considered from the mass production angle.

As an example, in my own company, we had a large listed company as a customer. They had made a machine for the cotton agricultural sector and were using an electromagnetic clutch from my company. All the prototypes and testing was perfect and the pilot batches of their machines also functioned perfectly well. They went ahead and placed an order for 8,000 clutches with us (our largest single order, ever). However, after supplying about 500 nos, they cancelled the order, as when they went for mass production of their machine, they simply could not meet the tolerances required for using our clutch. they had to go back to the drawing board, eliminate the clutch and use multiple small geared motors instead. The order for us was cancelled (about 2,000 nos in various stages of production, had to be used for various other customers of raw material salvaged in some other way, over the next 5 years). in the end I simply glad that they paid for the 500 nos already supplied to them, after a delay of about 2-3 months.

[ramana]

Mody please write it as an article and can get it published!

Thanks for the encouragement Ramana Garu. Do you have any contacts at Swarajya magazine or any other similar platforms?

The founders are BRF!

Write it and when ready ping me.

[ramana]

Yes DARPA type work is subset of DRDO.

And is good for India.

[fanne]

Can I ask questions on submarine.

1. Did we get HDW submarine ToT (just like Bofors?)?
2. South Korea got the same sub and ToT 10 years after us and they developed further on it and now handing us a derivative of that.
3. They have of course all round improved it, and added LIon battery, Ballistic missile launcher and AIP to it (we have none of this either from HDW or Scropoene ToT).
4. We have Scorpene ToT (supposedly not great ToT, screwdriver giri, but HDW was some real ToT, at least it was for S. Korea).
5. We have AIP from DRDO, we have ballistic missile launcher tech from Arihant class of ships, Lion battery, we are developing something or buy that tech from sk or Japan
6. Why cant we have the next sub our own? Why beg anyone. Yes it will take time, but it will always take time. Can we buy some subs (refurbished or new Kilos, or additional Scorpenes?) in the interim and work on our new sub only? In-house design? How many ToTs we have to get before we are ready to do it ourselves?

[fanne]

From 1 to 2 in India it is done through limited series production - LSP for LCA, LCH,LUH,ATAGS, Dhanush, Astra. The initial order of 12 or 50 units are exactly that, and a right way to do things. Navy does by project XXA, XXB etc.

[fanne]

enquoob?

[kit]

Can I ask questions on submarine.

1. Did we get HDW submarine ToT (just like Bofors?)?
2. South Korea got the same sub and ToT 10 years after us and they developed further on it and now handing us a derivative of that.
3. They have of course all round improved it, and added LIon battery, Ballistic missile launcher and AIP to it (we have none of this either from HDW or Scropoene ToT).
4. We have Scorpene ToT (supposedly not great ToT, screwdriver giri, but HDW was some real ToT, at least it was for S. Korea).
5. We have AIP from DRDO, we have ballistic missile launcher tech from Arihant class of ships, Lion battery, we are developing something or buy that tech from sk or Japan
6. Why cant we have the next sub our own? Why beg anyone. Yes it will take time, but it will always take time. Can we buy some subs (refurbished or new Kilos, or additional Scorpenes?) in the interim and work on our new sub only? In-house design? How many ToTs we have to get before we are ready to do it ourselves?

my guess is TOT is ability to build from components that would be imported., so essentially screwdriver tech. There is the know-how., but no know why which comes with having an industrial base capable of doing this. The South Koreans had that., so was able to build on and improve on it.(Having said that I think apart from a key niche tech of sub building, India is now in a similar position). The Bofors saga was also similar, i suspect the ability to indigenise was also there but was not done for some "other" reasons.

Just wait for the indigenous sub design to complete, everyone from Unkle to Japan will be eager to sell their greatest and latest

[ramana]

Also, HDW got allegations of bribes and immediately like Bofors became toxic. So the politicians despite the bribe receivers being in India the bribe givers became verboten and taboo. The follow on order was canceled and the ship-building skills were allowed to whither away.

The HDW bribes were not even probed.
All your questions from 2 to 6 have the same answer. Need a naval expansion plan which was lacking due to the economy in the doldrums since the 1990s.
Its being addressed now.

[fanne]

But like Bofors do we have the blueprints? We may not have the know-why, but if we know the know-how at least we have a starting point. Scorpene should be a later design, but supposedly with lesser know-how (also called some shade of ToT). We can use either as the base, have provision for AIP, Plug for firing missiles and LI battery. How will we scale the engine? Who will provide that?
It is said that margins for subs buoyancy is in the range of 5%, you get that wrong and sub is dead. Regardless, we can have our own design or this time have real ToT- I.e. Know how (and if possible know-why) to make everything in-house if we go ahead with the foreign vendor.

[ramana]

fanne, Did you read how Bofors blueprints got to develop Dhanush?
They had a team to OFB, Artillery to study the blueprints of each and every part to understand what was its role and then designed the Dhanush with improvements. And had the team reporting to the Lt Gen Artillery. Who after retirement is at IITM trying to still push for it.

Now which admiral wants to push for HDW when IN has moved on to Scorpene and L&T is cranking out one every 18 months?
Yes SoKo had the foresight and an industrial base. Its chaebol/tycoons can bribe the politicians.
In India, the tycoons get bribed from abroad.
Let us move on.

[YashG]

Is it just me or others also on this forum observe that equipment induction in Indian armed forces has become very slow. All of a sudden a whole lot of systems that are developed and should be inducted are just waiting to be inducted.

Is the fact that inspite of procurement budgets being allocated, all of them are not being actively spent by MoD perhaps on cue with finmin due to spends in other areas.

[bala]

Biggest Push for Make in India I Indian Plan for Defence Manufacturing I Air Marshal GS Bedi I Aadi



Hope what the Air Marshal is saying becomes a reality. Indian defence manufacturing is highly needed and make in India is a must. There is enormous talent to be tapped within the nation, instead of working for foreign/videshi entities MOD should be bettering the armed forces weapons/equipment, India must be on the path of bettering its own. Co-opting academia in the country would make eminent sense. New and novel ideas must be encouraged.