Rakesh wrote:The IAF cannot replace 272 Su-30s with F-15s (or any plane for that matter) overnight. By the time those planes come and pilots are trained, the war will be over.
I know, that is why I said "longer term".
Rakesh wrote:The IAF cannot replace 272 Su-30s with F-15s (or any plane for that matter) overnight. By the time those planes come and pilots are trained, the war will be over.
Cain Marko wrote:khan wrote:[some 200 odd F-15's inducted instead of those SU-30's.
Uhh why exactly? Or have you never heard of Cope India?
Rakesh wrote:Define longer term
Rakesh wrote:Cain Marko wrote:Uhh why exactly? Or have you never heard of cope India?
Rakesh wrote:You said ---> "Right now, it would be really nice to have a plane load of the latest AAMRAAM missiles on the way and some 200 odd F-15's inducted instead of those SU-30's with uncertain BVR missiles."
Kindly define longer term and right now
khan wrote:Longer term, all of your favorite Russian kit needs to be retired & replaced with either Desi maal or American maal - right now, it would be really nice to have a plane load of the latest AAMRAAM missiles on the way and some 200 odd F-15's inducted instead of those SU-30's with uncertain BVR missiles.
khan wrote:From the day this conflict ends to the day China isn't a threat anymore. It will take time (perhaps decades) to make the transition, but it makes no sense to base the entire defense infrastructure on Russian maal when you aren't assured emergency weapons when you need them.
khan wrote:At Cope India I don't think either side exposed their entire capability - and this is not about just one military exercise. This is about access to an ecosystem. If the Indian military were based on US equipment (instead of Russian - who aren't reliable allies here), India would be able to sustain a long drawn out war with the Chinese, the supply of weapons and munitions would be virtually bottomless.
It is obviously nice and important to have a domestic MIC - but from the perspective of sustaining a war, it is nice to have allies and I think as a matter of policy, India should make sure even if 100% indigenization is possible, say 30% of the kit be sourced from Western allies, so that supply pipeline is available.
khan wrote:"Longer Term" = 3-10 years after this is over
"right now, it would" = If this situation were to reoccur (which it will knowing the Chinese), it would be very nice to have a virtually unlimited supply of the best munitions in the world.
khan wrote:At Cope India I don't think either side exposed their entire capability - and this is not about just one military exercise. This is about access to an ecosystem. If the Indian military were based on US equipment (instead of Russian - who aren't reliable allies here), India would be able to sustain a long drawn out war with the Chinese, the supply of weapons and munitions would be virtually bottomless.
.
There will be no long drawn out war with either China or for that matter, even Pakistan. This is not 1948, 1962, 1965, 1971 or even 1999. Today's wars will be quick and fast and the outcome will be known within 48 - 72 hours. It is just the nature of warfare today. The endless supply of weapons and munitions is a moot point in this context. After the first serious full scale conflict, the result will be there for everyone to see. Economically as well, endless full blown conflict is not sustainable.
Cain Marko wrote:So if both sides were nanga in CI why were the teens the only ones looking like that? Hainji? Mki came out looking fully dressed with 3 piece suit. Bilkul dhularaja!
Cain Marko wrote:As far as eco system goes, this has its own problems and can be quite detrimental to indigenous programs.
Cain Marko wrote:If an American fighter has to be bought, it should be a stealth bird as a pure silver bullet force. That's it. Otherwise the rafale continues to be the best 4 gen platform.
Cain Marko wrote:As far as long drawn out wars are concerned, a russki, French and Israeli combo has worked in the past quite effectively. The only problems came after fsu broke up and upa negligence in the last decade. But this has been rectified to some extent since the current admin took over. The idea that US is a more reliable war partner is simplistic. If India doesn't have money to pay, the supplies won't happen. If India conducts an independent fp, supplies might be restricted. These are serious issues that need to be sorted out before India can just up end it's traditional defence relationships.
Suggesting that the MKI is some piece of scrap compared to fetishised uber teens is ridiculous and disses the genius of the people who helped create such an amazing fighter and those who fly it so effectively.
khan wrote:#2. Will the Russians who are "neutral" even sell India anything in this type of crisis with China? If open hostilities break out, will the Russians supply (say) more R-77 missiles?
khan wrote:Rakesh - yes I agree. Decades have passed since the last IAF fighter purchase (bar Rafale - which is also a decades old decision), but point is - if we had to do this again, one big factor that should be considered is compatibility with the enormous amount of NATO standard ordinance out there. I am happy to see to see India choose the Apache helicopter - with has battle tested hellfire missiles among other things that can be ordered by the planeload (from US Armed forces stock if necessary) for contingencies like these. Similarly, I am also happy to see M777 howitzers - with precision Excalibur ammunition (which hopefully is currently being ordered by the planeload) and will make a difference in the current conflagration. All this is in addition to the transport & surveillance aircraft you mentioned.
khan wrote:IMO this is a very dangerous assumption. Once conflict starts, it is very hard to stop. If IA does something & wins, will Xi sit there & lick his wounds or will he escalate further and try to salvage some H&D? Who knows how far this is going to go & how long this is going to last. But one thing is for sure, if India used Western ordinance - running out of AAM's or running out of missiles would not be an issue - there would be many able & willing allies willing to help India out (even out of their own stocks).
khan wrote:You are missing the forest for the trees here. This isn't about one exercise or Aircraft X better than Aircraft Y. This is about access to war stores for a conflict that could last months & having (say) R-77 as your primary BVR AAM is not smart when you are not assured a supply of them when you need them.
khan wrote:#1. the US has much deeper pockets than anyone else & they have an interest in helping India defend against China. If the balloon goes up, I am sure they will have no problems making very long-term loans to supply India with what is needed to make sure India comes up on top. The 10 year Treasury bill has an effective interest rate of 0.66% per-annum last I checked a few days ago, 30-year rate is less than 4% per-annum - it will not cost them anything to do this - these are market rates, all they have to do is assume the credit risk, which they already do for other types of sales via instruments like the Exim bank.
#2. Will the Russians who are "neutral" even sell India anything in this type of crisis with China? If open hostilities break out, will the Russians supply (say) more R-77 missiles?
#3. I am not knocking SU-30 or any pilot flying them, I am just pointing out the deficiencies in the Russian eco-system. It has nothing to do with the plane. You have eco-system (a) you can get virtually unlimited war supplies, on very competitive rates, from a very motivated ally with whom you have a shared enemy or (b) the Russian eco-system - who apart from being routinely unable to fulfill their contract obligations might not even want to supply anything when supplies are needed most.
khan wrote:Hope this makes sense. I am not attacking anything or anyone, I am just trying to make the point, that India might want to transition off the Russian ecosystem as soon as possible.
brar_w wrote:so this is a multi-decade competition and the only way to keep a competition from becoming a conflict is to have a strong domestic capability and conventional deterrence that it affords.
Rakesh wrote:khan: read this twitter feed from Askhay Kapoor. Eye Opening....
https://twitter.com/Ak5985965/status/12 ... 45442?s=20
brar_w
You don't deter conflict by having an elaborate, geopolitics dependent, foreign supply train. The US maintains conventional deterrence against a China or Russia because both know of its military capability specifically the ability to focus a tremendous amount of resources in short order. No other nation has an 'active' fighter production base delivering close to 200 aircraft a year and the same can be said of munitions (50,000+ PGM's annual production), airlift, refueling, logistics, missiles, networks, BMD and space capability.
...
khan wrote:I don't value these force comparisons very much because they are often incomplete & can be overcome by tactics. For eg. that thread doesn't talk about S-400, which could cause severe issues over Tibet (and more than compensate for their deficient air-force based out of Tibet), similarly the tweet thread talks about a lack of AWACS (which is a very serious issue), but its quite possible that P8-I's might be "good enough" (and might be currently used as a sort of AWACS) until full blown "flying chapati" is developed. So, people can make these force comparisons, and I could make counterpoints (like talk about the artillery deficit on our side) - but everything can be overcome by tactics.
khan wrote:Your point about Rafale vs F-15X holds for now, but the Chinese will eventually catch up. The advantage of say F-15X over Rafale would be, just because of the size of the installed base, the fact that it is a NATO standard platform, it is pretty much guaranteed to be able to shoot the next 3-4 AMRAAM versions, whereas the next version of the Meteor might never even produced.
khan wrote:Brar made some points about deterring China & you made a point about length of war - to me ultimately, it comes down to making choices that give you maximum flexibility.
If the war turns into a months long slog - isn't it nice to have a motivated ally like the US who can supply planeloads of excalibur shells? This is not about deterring China or putting some arbitrary length on a conflict - to me this is about making choices that give maximum flexibility once deterrence fails.
khan wrote:Last week, this time all of us were expecting a smooth de-escelation & were beating down hard on our more hawkish members (banned at least one of them) - but we were wrong. Similarly, what if we are wrong about our assumption about a 1 week war? What if we are underestimating their resolve? It would be nice to have that flexibility to plug into that NATO ecosystem.
Bolton described a conversation between the two world leaders at the June 2019 G-20 meeting in Osaka, Japan, where Trump told Xi that Midwestern farmers were key to his reelection in November 2020. Trump urged Xi to buoy his political fortunes by buying American agricultural products, linking a promise to waive some tariffs on China in exchange. Trump "stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome," Bolton wrote.
Bolton also says that it's hard for him to think of a single decision Trump made during his stint at the White House "that wasn't driven by reelection calculations."
Rakesh wrote:Imagine what will happen if the Govt actually circumvented the MMRCA process and went in for an immediate deal with any nation for a new fighter type? The only exception to this is acquiring fighters presently in service i.e. like the 21 MiG-29s from Russia or additional Su-30MKIs or the IAF examining ex-French Air Force Mirage 2000 air frames.
basant wrote:Source: TwitterFrontalAssault
@FrontalAssault1
Big Breaking: India to buy 12 Sukhoi and 21 MiG-29 under emergency purchase from Russia.
5:03 PM · Jun 18, 2020·Twitter for Android
Rakesh wrote:Imagine what will happen if the Govt actually circumvented the MMRCA process and went in for an immediate deal with any nation for a new fighter type? The only exception to this is acquiring fighters presently in service i.e. like the 21 MiG-29s from Russia or additional Su-30MKIs or the IAF examining ex-French Air Force Mirage 2000 air frames..... I expect shopping for additional Mirage 2000s to happen as well. No 9 Wolfpacks Sqn is long overdue to become full strength.
khan wrote:
Three of things about this:
#1. the US has much deeper pockets than anyone else & they have an interest in helping India defend against China. If the balloon goes up, I am sure they will have no problems making very long-term loans to supply India with what is needed to make sure India comes up on top. The 10 year Treasury bill has an effective interest rate of 0.66% per-annum last I checked a few days ago, 30-year rate is less than 4% per-annum - it will not cost them anything to do this - these are market rates, all they have to do is assume the credit risk, which they already do for other types of sales via instruments like the Exim bank.
#2. Will the Russians who are "neutral" even sell India anything in this type of crisis with China? If open hostilities break out, will the Russians supply (say) more R-77 missiles?
#3. I am not knocking SU-30 or any pilot flying them, I am just pointing out the deficiencies in the Russian eco-system. It has nothing to do with the plane. You have eco-system (a) you can get virtually unlimited war supplies, on very competitive rates, from a very motivated ally with whom you have a shared enemy or (b) the Russian eco-system - who apart from being routinely unable to fulfill their contract obligations might not even want to supply anything when supplies are needed most.
Hope this makes sense. I am not attacking anything or anyone, I am just trying to make the point, that India might want to transition off the Russian ecosystem as soon as possible.
Cain Marko wrote:Rakesh wrote:Imagine what will happen if the Govt actually circumvented the MMRCA process and went in for an immediate deal with any nation for a new fighter type? The only exception to this is acquiring fighters presently in service i.e. like the 21 MiG-29s from Russia or additional Su-30MKIs or the IAF examining ex-French Air Force Mirage 2000 air frames..... I expect shopping for additional Mirage 2000s to happen as well. No 9 Wolfpacks Sqn is long overdue to become full strength.
Admiralji, I find m2k purchases unlikely for a couple of reasons unless you've caught a whiff of something in the air:
1. IAF has shown no movement in this direction recently.. Maybe because nothing is available. The only possibility is Taiwan and UAE? How much life is left in their airframes. Note that the 29s being picked up have seen zero airtime. Still in assembly line condition iirc.
2. Very expensive frames to get them upgraded. Rather spend time and effort on rafale perhaps.
3. A2A at least, the IAF seems to want birds with longer sticks. The Mica/rdy combo will not allow them much advantage.
..They have great depth in metallurgy IP. In this interview he talks at the end about his dream of building a jet engine for Indian military aircraft and he is realistic enough to state that it will require a consortium to build. Their products are good enough that components are sold to Rolls Royce for their jet engines..
srai wrote:Qatar has 12 Mirage-2000 being replaced by Rafale, F-15 and Eurofighter.
Brazil also has 12 Mirage-2000 being replaced by Gripen-E.
France will have quite a few as Rafales replace Mirages. In fact, France donated a Mirage-2000 for UPG for the one that was lost in an accident.
...
Speaking to Livefist, HAL chairman R. Madhavan said, “The Indian Air Force will now have to make a RFI/RFQ (request for information/quotation) which meets both single and twin engine varieties. It will be very difficult to formulate an SQR (staff qualitative requirement) which covers both. So we have to wait and see how the IAF plays it, how they want their aircraft to be defined. Based on that, we will submit our quote.“
...
Despite warning signs, the M-MRCA had seemed like a highly structured selection process that would defeat the obvious challenges of evaluating totally disparate fighter types. Former IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Pradeep Naik had even openly suggested patenting the M-MRCA evaluation process to license it to other countries looking to buy jets. In the end, the contest stalled, crashed and burned, was hauled over the coals by India’s national auditor, and resulted in India signing up for 36 of the winning jet, the Rafale, in 2016, over a decade after the M-MRCA program began.
...
Manish_Sharma wrote:TWITTER
@SJha1618
If the MiG-35 ends up being license-produced under the 114 MRFA tender, then you can be rest assured who the 'Old Russia', 'New Russia' & 'Only Russia' for India is.
https://twitter.com/SJha1618/status/127 ... 65856?s=19
Rakesh wrote:If this article below is true, the Russians likely offered this to Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh when he visited Russia last week.
Why Russia’s offer to build its elite Su-35 fighters in India could be very tempting for Delhi
https://www.defenceaviationpost.com/202 ... for-delhi/
It is the only fighter in the contest confirmed to be able to deploy hypersonic air to air missiles, and alongside the MiG-35 is the only fighter expected to deploy APAA guided missiles.
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