Such things from senior posters influencing newbies and causing needless angst and thereby a negative narrative and hostility towards our own forces !
It's unacceptable.
Just in case, you didn't get it from my post on this thread or others, I don't agree with posters like you or rohitvats who claim that army can do nothing wrong and the organisation itself deserves no blame for current mess in arms procurement.
I also don't agree with other spectrum of posters like gyan who who everything but actual gyan and blame armed forces and everything else.
This is a complex issue with multiple stakeholders, long stories and different issues in different projects.
India's armed forces do not exist for India's MIC.
India's MIC exists for the forces.
Very true. But strong armed forces can't exist without a local MIC either. Don't just post one side of argument to win meaningless discussions of interwebs.
Please quantify your statement with the exact month/months where weapon specs were changed.
Will you be willing to do the same ? Just on top of my head, I can list the following incidents. There are many others, but will take some time to dig up:
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar talking on the sideline of India today conclave 2015 said that he was not happy with Armed forces repeatedly changing requirements in the weapons systems currently been developed by various Public sector units, he also said that he has ensured that no more last minutes changes will be entertained hence forth once staff requirement has been defined . Parrikar also said sometimes
General Staff Qualitative Requirement (GSQR) laid down by Armed forces in the weapons systems to be developed in India seems like right out of ” Marvel comic Movies “, clearly hinting that Technologies requested in Indigenous weapons systems sometimes purely is absurd and not realistic in nature . with Former Army chief Bikram Singh sitting next to him hints were clearly pointed towards Indian army . Repeated changes in GSQR and unrealistic technology requested in the short time frame has been criticised by DRDO in past and many key projects like Arjun main battle tanks and LCA Tejas have seen delays due to repeated changes asked almost every time at last minute when weapons system is all set for production or enter user trials. Indian Defense analytics for long have criticized Indian military planners of drafting unrealistic General Staff Qualitative Requirement (GSQR) for local weapons systems, some have even had gone on to say that sometimes GSQR framed was heavily influenced by different military brochures of International defence manufacturers .
idrw.org . Read more at India No 1 Defence News Website
http://idrw.org/parrikar-takes-dig-at-a ... s-systems/ . .
Ab bolo, Parrikar uncle corrupt hain, like Kejru does,
Or maybe Parrirkar is abusing armed forces on BRF too.
http://www.defencereviewasia.com/articl ... -MBT-Arjun
Eight years after the project was sanctioned, the Army in 1982 changed its GSQR, requiring a fresh design to enable Arjun to perform as “a futuristic battle tank with advanced features”. The prototypes developed as per 1982 GSQR were however not up to army’s expectation, leading to further revision of GSQR in 1985. In consonance with the new GSQR, a consensus was arrived at in May 1987 by DRDO and the Army, under which the 12 MK-I prototypes based on imported propulsion units and seven MK-II prototypes with indigenous propulsion units were to be delivered for trial by June 1987 and June 1990, respectively. At the same time it was also envisaged that 23 MK-I pre production series (PPS) tanks would be delivered by the end of 1988 and the bulk production would start from 1990 onwards.
Between November 2007 and August 2008, it put two tanks of LSP to Accelerated Usage Cum Reliability Trials (AUCRT), covering more than 8000 km and 800 rounds of firing in each tank. (AUCRT is done primarily to assess the spare requirement for the entire life and the reliability of the tank). As brought by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence in April 2008, the tanks ‘performed poorly’ and encountered ‘four engine failures’. The problems noticed during AUCRT were though reportedly “solved immediately”, the Army wanted third party audit and certification by an internationally reputed manufacturer and a comparative trial with T-90 tanks. As per the MoD, the third party audit “confirmed that the MBT Arjun is an excellent tank with very good mobility and fire power characteristics suitable for the Indian desert”. The audit however provided some ‘inputs’ related to quality auditing, production and calibration procedures for further enhancing the performance of the tank.
Post-AUCRT, the Army put Arjun in a comparative trial with T-90 tanks from late 2009 to early 2010. Although an official declaration of the results was still awaiting as this issue went to press, the Indian media has given a verdict in favour of Arjun, noting that it “outperformed T-90 on every crucial parameter”.
https://iadnews.in/2017/03/arjun-series ... e-enemies/
By 2005, CVRDE and DRDO were confident that Arjun had successfully met army’s requirement and called for comparative trails with army’s favoured T-90 and T-72 tanks to prove Arjun’s might. This demand was met only in 2010, when a squadron each of Arjun and T-90 tanks were pitted against each other. True to the developer’s words, Arjun emerged victorious and army’s DGMF was squared in to opt for higher numbers.
With Arjun’s performance having decimated all reservations, the army decided to order an additional 124 Arjun tanks, but with rider conditions. The army raised a requirement with CVRDE for a more advanced and potent variant of Arjun. At least 15 major and 78 minor improvements were deemed necessary by DGMF to make Arjun, a true frontline MBT.
Did their best to scuttle local project in internal reports, but downhill skiing when 3rd party proves them wrong. just like aap wins every election in internal surveys and loses in actual polling.
Army also came up with broken torsion bars for Arjun tank a few years later.
The CVRDE put in a huge effort to heat-harden its electronics, which is something that bears fruit today. While the T-90 is now looking for air-conditioners, the post-2005 electronics in the Arjun can function flawlessly through 60 degrees.
In summer 2006, stringent firing trials by 43 Armoured Regiment established --- in the words of the army’s own trial team --- that the "accuracy and consistency of the Arjun tank was proved beyond doubt".
Later that year, the MoD stated to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Defence that, "Arjun's firing accuracy is far superior to the other two tanks."
In summer 2007, when the army was being pressured to conduct comparative trials, the DGMF raised another objection: the Arjun should be able to drive for 20 minutes in six feet of water. By the end of 2007, the CVRDE managed that as well.
In the Accelerated Usage cum Reliability Trials (AUCRT), which was held in five phases over the first half of this year, the Arjun had problems in the transmission system (not the MTU engine as widely reported, but the Renk transmission) during the first three phases. Engineers from Renk GMbH, Germany came and fixed that and in the last two phases, which were the really tough, heavy desert, hot weather phases, the Arjun performed flawlessly.
The process of turning the corner has been a slow one, but it symbolises exactly why one should go for an Indian tank: each drawback was analysed by our engineers, fixed according to the users’ instructions, and then delivered back to the users without charging them a penny. Contrast that with the problems with the T-90’s electronics. Nobody is fixing that problem; instead, the Russians are trying to sell us air-conditioners. Added expense, and an inefficient solution compared to heat-hardening the electronics, the way the CVRDE did.
But the DGMF was quick to strike back. Barely three months after that report, the commanding officer of 43 Armoured Regiment, Colonel D Thakur, was confronted by then DGMF, Lt Gen DS Shekhawat. Several eyewitnesses have described to me how Colonel Thakur was upbraided by Lt Gen Shekhawat for “not conducting the trials properly”. Fortunately for Colonel Thakur, his brigade commander, Brigadier Chandra Mukesh, intervened and argued strongly that the trials had been conducted in accordance with procedure.
Now are you going to come up with muh army, muh haanar ? Everyone who doesn't do sashtaang pranaams to armed forces is a traitor or an idiot ?
The Indian Army wants the DRDO to fully redesign the Arjun Mk.II’s hull and turret structures and use newer materials to replace the conventional structure, in an effort to ‘achieve a reasonable reduction in weight, without removing any of the major improvements’. The Arjun Mk.II currently weighs 68.6 tons — a full six tons over the MK.I, owning entirely to the 73 improvements the Army demanded on the newer tank. The Army has stated, in no uncertain terms, that the 68.6 ton weight of the Arjun Mk.II is too much for ‘seamless application in semi-developed and developed sectors of the Western Front’.
We all know what were these requirements and the corresponding results and how weight excuse people reacted.
Another very idiotic argument is cheaper cost of T-90. Ofcourse you moron (not you nirav, just posters who bring it up) , a tank ordered in thousands will be much cheaper than 124.
How cheap is T-90 and why it is cheap ? Because it lacks proper armour protection, ari-conditioning, proper targeting system , weak propulsion and is actually more likely to get stuck on soft ground. Is this a logic which you and other fanboys are trying to protect ?
Any serious answer for what brilliant logic army used to call for multi-barrel rifles and how many such weapons exist in real world ?
https://www.livefistdefence.com/2007/04 ... lking.html
The 14th report of the Balasaheb Vikhe Patil-headed parliamentary standing committee on defence has vindicated THE WEEK’s reports (Feb. 19, 2006 and February 18, 2007) that the services are as much to blame for Defence Research and Development Organisation’s project delay. The committee has noted that many of DRDO’s difficulties are caused by the changing of the qualitative requirements (QR) by the services midstream, and the long and extended trials by them. Said a DRDO scientist to THE WEEK: “When it comes to imported systems, the services are willing to dilute their QR if the supplier can bring down the price. Why can’t they extend the same concession to systems developed by our own scientists?”
Parliamentary standing committee report
The Committee note the difficulties being faced by the DRDO while
interacting with the user. Some of these difficulties are changing of
GSQR midstream, long and extended trials which results in final
placement of orders after very long time. The Committee also note
that an indigenously developed product is subject to prolonged
exhaustive trials and evaluation, whereas imported products are not
subjected to the same evaluation but are readily accepted, whereas
performance of indigenously developed product are equally good as
the imported one. The Committee, therefore, recommend that users
should promote the indigenously developed defence items in preference
to the imported ones and there should not be major changes in GSQRs.
DRDO should also follow concurrent engineering for development of
the products on a case-to-case basis according to the circumstances or
even they can have outsourcing to avoid the embarrassment and delay
in production at all level. From day one users and manufacturers
should be involved from top policy making decision to all other level.
The Committee note that the involvement of the users with DRDO/
Private industry is very limited. Due to this, the final products lack
the facilities and qualities as per technical and the requirement of the
user. The Committee as recommended in their Ninth and Eleventh
Reports of the Committee (14th Lok Sabha) further recommend that
representative selected by the user, for a specific project should have
adequate knowledge of the product to be produced and he must be
involved at the conceptualization stage of the project on a permanent
basis so that defects, if any may be rectified during production stage
itself and delivery of the product to the user may not get delayed for
a long time. In case, the user does not suggest corrective measures/
improvement whereas necessary and the product is not developed as
per GSQR, then the accountability may also be fixed on them in this
regard. The Committee also desire that there should be compulsory
financial participation of the users in the projects so as to increase
user involvemen
The Committee note that scores of projects with DRDO were
plagued by time and cost overruns and several projects were short
closed due to change in the GSQR by the user or due to technological
obsolescence. Some of the projects are showing significant time and
cost overrun. The Committee are of the view that the delays in
development of weapon systems, MBT Arjun, LCA II, Samvahak,
Samyukta, Sangraha, Integrated Guide Missile Development Programme
i.e. Prithvi, Akash, Trishul, Nag and Agni, Kaveri Engine for LCA etc.
not only has caused significant loss of revenue but also delayed the
timely procurement of weapon systems from foreign sources that were
27
needed to keep the forces fighting fit and modernised. The delays
cause suspicion on the capability of DRDO in the eyes of the users,
the common man and intelligentsia. The Committee do understand
that not every equipment can be developed by DRDO. The Committee,
however, desire that prior to taking a decision on the development of
a weapon system, DRDO should sharpen its foresight, whether it could
develop it within a fixed time frame and with available financial and
technical resources or not.
The Committee feel that DRDO should lay more stress on the
Project Management as in the Western industrialized countries, where
the R&D agencies only design and develop armaments technologies
and the military, as the user agency, has the highest stakes in such
weapon development projects, because it contributes directly to their
operational capabilities.
The development of Main Battle Tank was started in Aug. 1972 as
per GSQR 326 at a cost of Rs. 15.50 crore. The GSQR was revised a
number of times and the final GSQR 467 for MBT Arjun was issued
in Nov. 1985 incorporating a number of technological and operational
changes. The total cost of the project was revised to Rs. 280.00 crore
and the project finally was closed in March 1995 with a total
expenditure of Rs. 305.60 crore with delivery of 12 nos. of prototypes
and 15 nos. of Pre-Production Series of Arjun tanks. These tanks
underwent extensive field evaluation with the Army wherein
approximately 70,000 km. of mobility trials and 7000 rounds of main
armament were fired. The equipment was approved by Army and an
indent of 124 nos. of MBT Arjun was placed on Heavy Vehicle Factory/
Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) in March 2000. DRDO, in association
with DGQA and OFB, is fully involved in streamlining the bulk
production and early delivery of tanks to Army. All quality assurance
issues have been duly addressed and production is taking place as
per the production schedule finalized during the meeting of 5th Steering
Committee on Production of MBT Arjun.
http://164.100.47.134/lsscommittee/Defe ... nce_25.pdf
http://ajaishukla.blogspot.in/2013/04/h ... ength.html
The army and the IAF have inexplicably rejected incremental improvement. The army continues to oppose the Arjun tank, apparently willing to countenance nothing less than a perfect fighting machine. Ironically, it is willing to use the outdated T-72, even though the Arjun has outperformed the more modern T-90 tank in comparative trials. Every major army employs "spiral development" of weaponry, accepting into operational service a "Mark I" product, using it and providing feedback that allows the scientists to develop it into a Mark II. The Israeli Merkava tank is currently being developed into a Mark IV.
The committee has listed several instances of the services’ changing QR midstream, leading to delay in projects. The Army asked DRDO in September 2000 to develop an air-defence gun system for Rs 17.7 crore. Four months later, the vice-chief reported that the existing L-70 and ZU guns could be upgraded to a level superior to what the Army had asked it to develop. The new QR, issued in May 2001, was so different from the earlier one that DRDO had to short-close the programme after spending Rs 14.5 lakh.
In 1994, the IAF asked DRDO to develop an emergency floatation system for Mi-8 helicopters for Rs 75 lakh, when IAF was negotiating with FPT of the UK. As FPT could not meet the air-worthiness requirement, the system was imported from Kazan in Russia, and the indigenous development programme foreclosed after spending Rs 48 lakh. To DRDO’s credit, instead of throwing away the already-developed technologies, it employed them in the indigenous Advanced Light Helicopter.
In 1993, the IAF asked DRDO to develop a mobile balloon barrage system for Rs 45.99 lakh. By March 1998, DRDO was ready with the system. One and a half years later, the IAF reported that it no longer needed the system, as it was based on the 1980s operational philosophy.
I still can't make any head or tail of Nag project or are they even interested in it at all. Army wants Nag to hit targets behind LOS and at 45 degrees heat which no other missile can. I know Nag is not man-portable, don't bother typing that. During the failed trials, missile was tested at extreme temperature conditions and at edges of it's operational range. Was it a surprise it failed. Did they refuse to buy Knkurs or Milans after such testing or even made them undergo testing like this ?
I can't find the source right now, but when Bofors guns were selected the army officers who went to evaluate the system didn't even properly attend the trials. There were 2-3 other guns who were much better in printed specifications atleast but they were rejected. One of the officers who was actually on the evaluating team wrote that article a few years back and I remember sharing it here. TLDR was something like Bofors trials were rigged, testing was not done properly and deal was just pushed through with active collusion of army officers.
And ofcourse, how could I forget Tejas the famous 3-legged Cheetah. If you haven't done so already, pickup The Tejas Story by AM Philip Rajkumar and read how servicemen like him attached to defence development projects like Tejas and others were not considered for promotions.
He even had to convince one Air CHief to actually attend a major flight event, because the Air Chief didn't want IAF to be associated with the plane being developed in India.
https://bharatkarnad.com/2017/02/17/the ... -of-tejas/
The reason adduced for this sorry state of affairs by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute is that the Indian defence industry has ‘largely failed to produce competitive indigenously- designed weapons’—a view the Indian military heartily endorses. But why is this so? Principally because the armed services obstruct indigenous arms projects from succeeding. The Tejas programme has progressed in fits and starts, and been delayed interminably, in the main, for two reasons. One, the Air Staff Requirements were changed numerous times on the plea of the IAF wanting an up-to-date plane. Thus, re-design and structural alterations became necessary, for example, when the IAF demanded installation of a refuelling probe after prototypes had already been built. It imposed significant time and cost penalties and hurt the delivery deadline. Two, the IAF insisted on a ‘finished product’ with all weapons trials and fitments completed and Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) and Final Operational Clearance (FOC) secured, before accepting it.
This is contrary to the procedure followed by all other major air forces. In the US, its newest joint strike fighter, the F-35, first entered squadron service with the US Air Force and the US Marines with technical refinements, structural modifications, and proper weapons and avionics integration being carried out on the basis of continuous feedback from frontline pilots after the plane’s induction. Some serious problems with the F-35, such as with the zero- zero ejection seat system, helmet-mounted sensors, avionics, and the F-135 power plant, are all being corrected even as the aircraft is flying around. This rigmarole is called ‘concurrency’, meaning induction and capability improvements happening simultaneously after the user-service has taken charge of the combat plane
The truly dastardly aspect is that the standard applied by the IAF to the LCA does not apply to imported aircraft. Thus, the Mirage 2000 inducted in 1985 flew unarmed for the next three years because the contracted weapons had not been delivered. It was political prompting alone that hastened the formation of the so-far-only-Tejas unit in the Air Force, the 45 Squadron with only a handful of LCAs, based in Sulur, Andhra Pradesh.
When LCA finally gets closed to mass production and subsequent induction, this is waht IAF comes up with:
http://ajaishukla.blogspot.in/2015/07/w ... p-all.html
IAF chief, Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne, stated: “The final goal for all of us is not just the LCA Mark I, but the LCA Mark II. While our air warriors are fully geared up to induct and operationalise the two Mark I squadrons, IAF keenly looks forward to induction of four squadrons of LCA Mark II as the final version in its projected force structure.”
Seriously, I find this obsession to defend army very idiotic when there are so many evidennces to the contrary. A former air-chief is under probe for AW chopper scam. A serving army chief was pushed out of army and slandered when he disclosed the attempts to bribe him. Even when you see smaller scale corruption and gross incompetence people involved with armed forces so often, it becomes hard to take such fnaboyism infused arguments seriously.