venkat_kv wrote:Allow me to digress a bit. As you and many more have remarked the Defense Minister or even the babu folks in the mod have very little domain knowledge. Even if someone from the forces are appointed they will not have complete domain knowledge of the sister forces either. i would think that even if an army man from infantry were to be made defense minister he may not know the nitty gritty details of armoured or engineers apart from whatever interaction the individual has with other people. So for him to know what kind of helicopters that IAF needs for transportation or subsystems Navy submarines needs will be quite hard (the person who can do that will be far and few in between who can read between lines and estimate how working of the ministry affect acquisitions which again will not need knowledge of technical details than more than a reading of people and getting things done.
I agree on that point Sir. An army man will have little domain knowledge of the air force or the navy. So appointing someone like General VK Singh as Defence Minister will have negligible effect.
However the rot goes deep in the armed forces. A number of the senior leadership in the army, navy and air force are reading brochures of foreign maal and wishing for X from this nation and Y from that nation. So while the Govt has set Atmanirbhar Bharat as the goal, the services are not modeling their acquisitions with that as the primary aim. On the MRFA saga itself, I will illustrate that example.
* There is a contest to acquire 114 MRFA. Has the IAF ever sat down with the MoD and costed this acquisition? Is it financially affordable? Or is this going to end up like MMRCA 1.0 in where the IAF did the technical trials and then handed over the costing issues to the MoD? So is the excuse going to be something like....
that is their headache and not our problem.
* I am not against the MRFA - in principle - but what are the plans to acquire additional Tejas Mk1As and Tejas Mk2s? That is what I want to know. I don't want to read
khayali pulao talk of we-are-committing-to-the-AMCA, but give me a firm number (orders) of Tejas Mk2s and additional Tejas Mk1As. While additional MRFAs are necessary, what is going on with the Super Sukhoi upgrade? Improving the serviceability/numbers of the present fleet? Tankers? AEW/AWACS? Is everything on hold in search of the unobtanium 114 MRFA program?
* The timeline to complete all 114 MRFA will continue well into the next decade. So the IAF will be inducting fourth generation combat aircraft in the 2030s. But all things considered, non VLO platforms will still have significant utility in the future. My only hope is that the IAF applies that same yardstick to the Tejas Mk2 as well.
* The IAF has gone on record - from none other than the Air Chief himself - in stating that they will not hit 42 squadrons this decade. But yet the IAF will order only 83 Mk1As, when the previous iteration (Mk1) of this aircraft has exceeded the MiG-21 Bison, the Jaguar and the Mirage 2000 in capability? Ordering another 2 - 4 more Tejas Mk1A units really is going to cripple the IAF? Committing to a large order (minimum 100) of the Tejas Mk2 now, will derail the IAF's combat capability? With the acute squadron shortage and with experienced Bison pilots (the IAF lost three of them in 2021!) losing their lives, why is the Mk1A order only at 83 aircraft?
* I honestly do not know the answers to these questions and so I sincerely ask 1) how many IAF officers (ground and air crew) are partnering with HAL to ensure timely delivery of the Mk1A order and 2) how many IAF officers (ground and air crew) are working with ADA in the development of the Tejas Mk2? After all, with the goal of promoting Atmanirbhar Bharat...the IAF should leave no stones unturned.
* Has the Raksha Mantri or anyone in the MoD ever sat down with the IAF and asked them, are there any bottlenecks to acquiring any more Mk1A units? Has the Raksha Mantri or anyone in the MoD enquired with the IAF on what their long term plans are with regards to the Tejas Mk2 and the AMCA? Has the Raksha Mantri or anyone in the MoD ever asked the IAF what is going on with the Super Sukhoi upgrade, additional Netra Mk1s, ordering additional batches of Astra Mk1s, committing to a large order of Light Combat Helicopters, etc, etc, etc. These are all programs to further Atmanirbhar Bharat. One does not have to be a domain expert to ask these questions.
* If the IAF replies in the negative to these programs, then what are the remedial measures that have to be taken to ensure that these programs take off (in the figurative sense)? Once again, one does not have to be a domain expert to make such recommendations. After all, is not the end goal Atmanirbhar Bharat? Some of the stalwarts as Defence Ministers we have had in the past are the likes of AK Antony (who was well known for only defending the furniture at the Defence Ministry) and Mulayam Singh Yadav. To our beloved politicians, Defence Ministry is like any other Central Govt Ministry i.e. Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying. Same Thing Onlee!
The services are fully aware of this tamasha and are gaming the system to create a perpetual fountain of import. After 114 MRFA is acquired, then the IAF will launch another acquisition program called MRFGFA (Multi-Role Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft) to acquire over a hundred phoren 5.5+ generation combat aircraft, as the AMCA is not good enough. But then how can it be good enough, because you killed the foundation of the AMCA by hobbling the Mk1A and the Mk2 variants of the Tejas program. And that comedy show will go on for another 20+ years, just like the current one.
The IAF is well aware that these OEMs are not going to give you a GaN fab or Engine Technology, but yet they will whole heartedly recommend acquiring a phoren fighter, because that is the path of least resistance. It is a complete 100% ready made, off the shelf solution. Why invest time, energy and money in developing your own platform...when you can just buy one? And if you have a clueless Defence Minister (which most are), then it makes the task of importing that much easier. When the Project 75 contest was signed (the program to acquire six Scorpene Class SSKs), it was claimed by the then Govt and even the Navy, that there is transfer of technology. Now there is a contest for Project 75I (another six SSKs!) and the Navy is saying that we will get transfer of technology again. So what happened to the ToT from Project 75?
So how to solve this impasse? That solution (which is not easy) lies with the Raksha Mantri. But it has to get done. And the Govt has to be ruthless in this. Whoever does not comply with Atmanirbhar Bharat, their resignation needs to be demanded and acquired. If they are not whole heartedly sincere behind the goals of the Government, then why are they in the Government? But I am well aware that it is easy for me to say this, because vote bank politics factors into every decision in Government. This is an issue that is systemic across political parties in India. Just the nature of the political beast in India. But someone has to bell this cat, otherwise we will be forever importing onlee.
venkat_kv wrote:Coming to the IAF chief, I don't know about the inner thinking but as of now the MK1A and MK2 versions of Tejas are paper planes. (Before the BRF jingoes jump on me, my only reasoning is they are yet to fly). Hopefully in this year MK1A will graduate to a real plane with a prototype flying and in a year to two years you will have MK2 flying and these need to be pursued with dogged determination irrespective of any acquisitions. I will at the very least hold my opinion of the IAF chief untill the end of this year when MK1A "prototype" comes online and MK2 will hopefully solidify a bit more.
I don't know about this Air Chief's inner thinking as well. And while he is silent on the Mk2, there is another group that is eerily silent. Not a single reporter - NOT ONE - has ever asked this Air Chief about the Tejas Mk2. Ever since he became the Air Chief, he talks about Mk1A and then jumps to AMCA. And these reporters gullibly swallow that as gospel truth and move on to the next question. It is like they have all got collective amnesia. How deep is the rot?
venkat_kv wrote:Coming to current defense minister Shri Rajnath Singh Ji, i see two issues -
1. one the current administration prefers to resolve the issue silently - it ties down with what Suraj wrote in a Swarajaya article that govt prioritizes order and prefers to bring the change with order unlike our Congoons and Leftist goons with pseudo leftist Aapis who prefer anarchy. So work always get done silently without many big announcements on how they plan to do things.
2. There are many issues for the defense ministry/defense personnel that also needs the minister to focus, we don't have just one issue of planes for airforce that needs attention. You take a topic and it has issues when this govt took over - pensions, bullet proof jackets, helmets, obsolete weaponry, newer acquisitions lack of spares covering all the services, newer acquisitions that i can think right now. If we step into each services we have shortage of basic rifles, tanks, armored vehicles, transport helicopters, attack choppers spares for existing systems. So there is always an issue to solve than getting bogged down or stopping at one issue itself.
Playing coy and silent on Atmanirbhar Bharat is really not an effective strategy Sir. If things are happening behind the curtains and the Govt is not revealing her hand, then they are shooting themselves in the foot.
No one is asking for the maximum range of a scaled up Uttam AESA on a Super Sukhoi. But the average citizen should know that the Super Sukhoi contains a great deal - if not all - of kit that is sourced from within the country. No one is asking for the actual maximum range of the Astra Mk1 (or the in development Mk2 variant) BVRAAM, but the aam admi must be made aware that large orders are being placed of this missile and will replace all the older Russian and Western BVRAAMs currently in service.
If this government believes in Atmanirbhar Bharat, then orders for additional Netra Mk1s, Light Combat Helicopters, Tejas Mk1As, Tejas Mk2s, Astra Mk1/Mk2, etc must be publicly advertised at every opportunity. Or is one to assume that Atmanirbhar Bharat was only brought out, just to secure another vote bank?