Rakesh wrote:Blue laser based submarine communication system
https://twitter.com/sjha1618/status/902513262779973634
Apart from the fact that the laser colour will be blue, what is this?
ramana wrote:2016-2017 Parliament committee report on OFB functioning Issued March 2017...
Many infrastructure projects to be completed in 2017. Lots of monitoring by even Parliament.
Maj. Gen Khanduri is going gang busters.
LINK
"‘OFB has taken up in-house R&D projects for Indigenous Design and Development of Futuristic Infantry Combat Vehicle (FICV), Air Defence Gun, Electronic Fuze, 7.62x51 mm Assault Rifle, 155/52mm MGS, Dhanush SP Gun etc. "
The value of indigenisation vis-a-vis value of supplies for the last three years is as under:
2013-14 11123 9438 84.85%
2014-15 11364 10347 91.10%
2015-16 13047 11391 87.30%
‘OFB supplies ammunition to Indian Army duly inspected by Quality Control department of factory as well as DGQA (2nd Party Inspection Agency). The following tests are carried for a batch of ammunition production to ensure quality:
All input materials are tested in designated laboratories. 100% dimensional checking is done by factory
Sampling dimensional checking is done by DGQA
On an average, 21 lab tests are conducted by factory and DGQA
On an average, 4% rounds are fired by DGQA as part of dynamic firing
The ammunition batch is accepted and issued to Army only after it passes all the above tests. However, in spite of maintaining stringent checks of quality, during bulk exploitation of above ammunition by user, some defects/accidents are observed sometime. Important reasons for the defect in performance of ammunition are: Manufacturing deficiencies
Improper handling and storage of ammunition in ammunition depots
Improper maintenance of weapon system in weapon depots
Improper handling of ammunition and weapons during firing
In addition to above, reliability of design always remains an issue.
Responsibility of OFB is to manufacturing and up to dispatching of ammunition to Army and responsibility of storage, handling, maintenance of ammunitions lies with the Army which are equally responsible for defects/accidents.
Unlike other products, ammunition is single-use item. For this reason, 100% inspection including dynamic proof cannot be carried out. A principle of Statistical Quality Control (SQC) is employed for final acceptance of ammunition. SQC is inherently associated with both Producer’s risk and Customer’s risk. Hence such problems may surface during the process of exploitation.
System of accelerated exploitation of ammunition has been introduced for last two years, to have early feedback on performance of Ammunition. As per reports received on accelerated exploitation from Army, the performance of the ammunition has been found to be satisfactory.’
Unless there is a conscious attempt at building organic capability for design and development within the armed forces, the problems that have plagued defence manufacturing in India will persist
In the aftermath of the 1971 war, the navy decided to develop a new class of frigates with enhanced anti-submarine warfare capabilities and advanced missiles and radars provided by the Soviet Union. The initial naval staff requirements for the frigates were drawn up in 1974. Nine years later, the INS Godavari was commissioned—delivered on schedule and in line with the Navy’s requirements by the Mazagon Docks. To put this in perspective, it is worth recalling that the army and the air force also embarked on two major efforts at indigenous development during the period 1972-82. However, the Main Battle Tank (MBT) and the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) took over three decades and still fell short of the requirements of the army and the air force.
A key factor accounting for these widely different outcomes was the presence in the navy of a small team of designers. As Mohan Ram recalls in his book, the human and technical resources available to them were limited and challenges of designing the ship were many. The most critical of these was the power plant needed to obtain a higher speed in a bigger ship. The navy’s existing frigates used steam propulsion, though gas propulsion was emerging as the cutting-edge technology. The Directorate of Naval Design (DND) advocated continuing with steam to ensure that the design challenges were kept manageable and came up with a brilliant solution to ensure that the top speed of the ship remained the same even if fuel consumption was higher. The navy’s engineering branch, however, pushed for a shift to gas propulsion. Following an intense debate, the naval staff decided to go with the DND’s plan. Thereafter the DND worked closely with the Mazagon Docks (the DPSU in charge of production) to ensure timely delivery of the frigates.
The successful completion of this project underscored the importance of the navy’s organic capability for design. This capability had been built systematically from 1951 onwards. In 1957, the navy began to recruit naval architects from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and sending them to Britain for a two-year “Long Naval Architecture Course”. These officers became the nucleus of the DND.
By contrast the army and the air force did not build up a cadre of in-house design specialists. From the outset, the army relied on the ordnance factories and later the DRDO to perform these functions. The air force had some rudimentary capability in the early years, but gave up its designers to the DPSUs. The consequences were evident in the MBT and LCA projects. For one thing, while the navy adopted an approach of gradualism in developing the Godavari-class frigates, the army and air force sought to leapfrog to the frontiers of military technology with the MBT and LCA. If these services went along with the DRDO’s ambitious plans, it was because they had no institutional capacity to understand the technological challenges involved.
For another, the lack of such capacity directly contributed to the inordinate delay in both these projects. In the absence of a design interface between the users and developers, it proved exceedingly difficult to reconcile their competing views and imperatives of the users and the designers. Indeed, in both projects the absence of design capability within the services meant that they were seriously involved in the projects only after the prototypes had been rolled out by the DRDO and DPSUs. Thereafter too their ability to translate their operational requirements into design hobbled the projects.
To be sure, the DRDO and the DPSUs have to take the bulk of the blame for being over-ambitious in conception and extraordinarily tardy in delivery. But the army and air force contributed to these. The government can supplant the DRDO and DPSUs by bringing in private entities, but unless it consciously attempts to build organic capability for design and development within the services, the problems that plagued the MBT and LCA might persist.
Srinath Raghavan is senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.
Karan M wrote:Its a question of attitude. No amount of investment can help an organization which is held hostage by antiquated GOI policies and a completely unionized set up. Which OFB manager will buck the system? Please review the CAG reports. Its a saga of mismanagement. Expensive equipment lies wasting because it has either been procured for the wrong purpose or was never installed or was defective and OFB did not bother rectify. The amount of wastage in ammunition manufacture is dismaying, there is literally no ammunition they have not screwed up in collosal amounts.
125mm tank ammo to firearms - all is wasted. Every year OFB literally does an Air India to the MOD budget. Its unbelievable how long OFB set up has remained like this.
In turn, successful DPSU or Indian achievements get completely wasted. INSAS is a famous example. A private firm like Tata SED would have worked with DRDO to gradually make the rifle world class. OFB simply could not
Hyderabad: The Telangana government is mulling to set up an exclusive incubator for startups working in defence sector, said state IT and Industries Minister K T Rama Rao said here on Thursday.
"We have series of discussions with the Scientific Advisor to Raksha Mantri (Defence Minister) and with the support of Centre we will be launching a Defence Electronics and Defence focused incubator in Hyderabad," Rama Rao said in his inaugural address of "Deftronics-2017", a two-day conclave of defence and aerospace electronics industry.
"I think it would be an important initiative and a step forward in ensuring the completely leverage our indigenous capabilities of our youngsters who wanted to come out with more and more success stories out of India," the Minister added.
He also said under the state's "Innovation Policy", the government is planning to develop a million square feet work space to accommodate startups across different sectors.
"Possibly we are going to launch the worlds' largest incubator by next year. This would be a 3.5 lakh sq ft area facility accommodating 1,000 startups all at one roof," he added.
He said the capital Hyderabad is shaping up as a hub for aerospace and defence manufacturing and there are number of MSMEs working in these sectors.
"We are as a state eyeing almost 7.5 million of electronic products (manufacturing) by 2020. This is an ambitious target in the next three years. I do believe that we are well poised. We also hope attract almost USD 3 billion investments in the electronic system design and manufacturing (ESDM) space by 2020," added KTR.
Earlier during the inaugural session, Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister G Satheesh Reddy said 80 per cent of the components being used in Akash Missile are manufactured by private companies.
A representative of India Electronics and Semiconductor Association said that the defence electronics trade is expected touch USD 80 billion from the current levels of USD 20 billion.
Vips wrote:Firing just 13 babus is not going to solve any problem. Just Privatize the OFB and all DPSU's to have a thriving Indian MIC. Till it is done it is just criminal wastage of national resources.
ramana wrote:Folks please download and read this report. It clears up lot of anxieties about OFB, DRDO and DGQA.....ramana wrote:2016-2017 Parliament committee report on OFB functioning Issued March 2017...
Many infrastructure projects to be completed in 2017. Lots of monitoring by even Parliament.
Maj. Gen Khanduri is going gang busters.
LINK
Kakarat wrote:An Interesting initiative for Aerospace development in India
MISSION aerofi (Mission Aerospace Foundation of India)
They have also put a requirement for a chief designer for design and development of a light business jet
Zynda wrote:^^+1. Just checked their website. Latest news article seems to be from 2015. Not much seems to be happening off lately...not sure how recent that job opening post is. But will investigate further...
Cosmo_R wrote:This struck me as interesting in the context of MII
http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/return-p ... ok-1748359
"Maj. Tango would be armed with his M4A1 5.56-mm carbine, the rest of the assault team with a mix of M4A1s and standard-issue Israeli Tavor TAR-21 assault rifles, Instalaza C90 disposable grenade launchers and Galil sniper rifles. Batteries on night-vision equipment were checked and other devices were charged too," the book states.
Are these made in India? I hope so. If not, we've got a long way to go to make things.