Surya wrote:support etc does not suffer because of where the plant is as much as the rest of the supply chain.
we could not get spares forget whole aircraft
you can move the assembly plant but how smooth is the supply chain??
that will be the thing to watch
True.
In fact, "Supply Chain" includes things like banking systems (especially inter-national), just-in-time (nobody wants to invest too much into spares that sit idle, or are not there when really wanted), cost of transportation (in the West they have options) and the like.
The latest is fraud detection. Recall a year or so ago reports about fraudulent parts in air crafts?
Then there is the "I am happy" (UPS ad on TV), where the recipient could move and has the option to have the "part" redirected to the current address. Ships, planes move all the time and this feature is very handy.
The issue with Russia is that they have had a need for such a system, but never could justify it. There is a recent article that states that the demand for Russian products will shift from foreign clients to Russian armed forces (which did not generate enough demand all these years). Once this demand is generated we should see their SC improving. But that itself should take 15-20 years.
The US by its size of its armed forces and their distribution demands a great SC - just the nature of the beast.
Indian armed forces will not be able to survive without a great SC, if they want to be a "modern" force (which they do). Supply Chain is a huge component of life cycle costs too. So saying that the base cost of a plane is L1 is not enough - as we witnessed in the IAF tanker decision.