uddu wrote: ↑19 Feb 2026 07:23...
Read every word below. Worth its weight in gold. I am providing the source link, in case you are looking for reference. I however edited the tweets for easier reading. He uses a lot of acronyms, that many may not understand...so I expanded on them.
P.S. He pulls up even the Rafale deal
But one of the key takeaways is that the lack of our low bypass turbofan has crippled our entire homegrown fighter program. The chickens have come home to roost.
https://x.com/hindookissinger/status/20 ... 11394?s=20 --->
I give up, not gonna lie. Will deactivate this account. But before I go this post will be up for a while. The Modi administration has completely crippled military readiness. Everyone knows about the air force because it is the most crippled out of the 3 arms of the military. But it's not the only one.
But let's summarise what went wrong with the IAF. Historically, India has always been an importer of military aircraft. HAL has always been less of a "manufacturer" and more of an "assembler". This did change briefly with the HF-24 Marut, but we were back to importing military aircraft and abandoning the successor of HF-24 that was HF-73. Anyways, after two decades of work starting from the 1980s, involving HAL and ADA (Aeronautical Development Agency), the LCA (Light Combat Aircraft) code name "Tejas" took flight in 2001.
During this time, we also had hundreds of MiG-21s, MiG-23s, and MiG-27s. These were old but still usable jets in 2001. The future of the Indian Air Force hinged on the LCA being a replacement for MiG-21, Su-30 "MKI"s (more on this later), the Rafale and the HAL FGFA. Now, LCA was originally supposed to be flown with the Kaveri engine. Kaveri underwent a few development cycles and while it could deliver 49 kN of non-afterburner thrust, it maxed out at 78 kN AB thrust. The expectation was 52 kN and 83 kN. And it was heavier, so poor TWR.
Any sane country would have aggressively funded research in material sciences, aerospace, set up new labs, etc. to match up this deficit but since we have chaman chutiyas in power, in 2008, it was decided to "de-link" Kaveri from the LCA programme and rely on existing GE-F404. The delay in LCA was of no concern to the IAF because the MiGs still had a decade and a half of juice left, the Su-30MKIs were being inducted, there were still plenty of aircraft around. Besides, PLAAF was still testing out their J-10A/B; which were nothing to write home about. The IAF had this plan for the future:
1. 126 Rafales ("MMRCA")
2. 214 HAL FGFA (joint Indo-Russian project, this eventually became the "Su-57")
3. Tejas Mk2 (a modification of the Tejas Mk1)
If you were an aviation geek in India in 2013, you were mostly looking to this. Now here's a sequence of events:
* 2009: 163 MiG-23s retired.
* 2014: Kaveri programme is abandoned.
* 2016: Rafale order reduced to 36 from 126.
* 2017: 150 MiG-27s retired.
* 2018: India exits FGFA.
* 2019: HAL shuts down production of Su-30MKI despite recommending more orders.
Let's divert for a moment to talk about the Su-30MKI. The Su-30MKI is the "Modernized, Commercialised, Indianized" variant of the Su30 (that's what the MKI stands for in Russian). This was a significant deal for India because it came with decent transfer-of-technology. It is technically a myth that India does not make jet engines...it does. HAL primarily makes two modern fighter jet engines: these are the AL-31FP (used in the MKI) and the RD-33MK (used in the MiG-29). But it is not without caveat. Russians wouldn't give their crown jewel. HAL has to agree to import some sub components such as (but not limited to) certain alloys, high precision and high temperature components, and some methods involved in the process such as processing of superalloys and heat treatment cycles are Russian intellectual property. Despite this, the agreement has allowed India to manufacture these jet engines, and even right now, HAL Koraput is rolling out these engines. Yes! Right now! Despite sanctions and Russia being crippled, they're able to supply the various sub components. For the simple reason in supply chain theory: that the production rate of sub components is generally much higher than that of the engines.
Now, here's another interesting thing: the Chinese used AL-31FN (not -FP) to test out their J-10, J-16 and J-20 fighter jets. So any person who is able to connect 2 dots can see where we're going: Why didn't we use the AL-31FP as the test bed for our prospective fighter programme? The typical answer to this is that Russian engines are poor quality etc., but then the Chinese did use them? The answer is that we will never know. Instead, we opted to center our fighter jet programmes around:
* F404-IN20
* F414-INS6
Both of these are engines produced by the American company, General Electric. The F-404 engines were to be directly imported from the US. But the F-414 engines were to be given under a "Transfer of Technology" agreement to India. Except, there's just one problem. Why should the United States - give India - a traditionally Russian ally, anything like this? The Modi administration linked the Tejas Mk2 and the AMCA programmes to the F-414 ToT. This meant that unless the F-414 ToT was finalized, there would be no funding of the Mk2 or the AMCA. And guess what? The F-414 ToT is not finalized till now. So starting from 2018, when we withdraw from FGFA, 2019 when we stopped producing the Su-30MKI, and then the clock on the MiG-21s finally ran out: they had to be retired by 2025.
They finally realised what went wrong and decided to order the 83 LCA Mk1A in 2021. But here's the problem: GE had shut down the F-404IN20 line back in 2016, and there were no orders made. Keeping an engine line alive is costly and especially for a variant which is not ordered, it is standard practice to shut it down. Combined with the pandemic, this added a delay of 3-4 years to the delivery schedule. But what's more disturbing, is that the US seems to be using this engine supply as a choke point. Navarro threatened in his article, to withdraw jet engine supplies to India. That's because the Americans know they've us by the balls. All our current and prospective fighter programmes...
* LCA i.e. Mk1, Mk1A
* MWF Tejas Mk2
* AMCA
* HLFT-42
* TEDBF
...are built around US F-414 engines. And whose transfer agreement hasn't even materialized. The IAF fighter strength has depleted far below the requirements. The only difference now is, the PLAAF is much bigger and much stronger. While IAF was sitting on pptx files and merely entering and exiting programmes and redefining ASQRs, the PLAAF began mass induction of the J-10. The PLAAF has a combined force of 607 J-10s. This alone is enough to counter all of IAF fleet (which is around 550). Did the PLAAF stop there? No. Just like India got the Su-30MKI from Russia, the PLAAF got the Su-27 with workshare transfer which they called the J-11. The Chinese inducted close to 440 J-11s (India inducted around 272 Su-30MKIs).
Now taking the knowledge from the J-11, the Chinese constructed a modernized Flanker, some sort of a "SuperFlanker". Composite material airframe, AESA radar, long range A2A missiles. It's the best Flanker today by far - meet J-16, 450 in service. And finally to top it off, we get the J-20, the 5th generation Chinese fighter, with around 350-400 built. And then the J-35...with 60-100 built. The Chinese are now rolling off fighter jets like how humans were coming in out of Krishna's Vishwaroopa. Like an endless stream. On home front, the situation was understandably getting bleak.
But Indian leadership has already given up against China. We don't like to say this but we have. They have an almost unsurmountable lead. It's actually f***ing over. The real bamboo-in-the-ass moment then came when Turkey flew their TF-X KAAN. Their 4.5G - 5G fighter jet. That's when it appears to have struck very hard that even not-so-great powers could fly potentially stealth air frames. So they finally, released the funds for AMCA in 2023. The combined future of our prospective programmes:
* LCA Mk1A - Engine supply crippled.
* LCA Mk2 - Engine supply uncertain.
* AMCA - Engine supply uncertain.
* TEDBF - Design phase.
* HLFT-42 - Design phase.
Except Mk1A, none of the aircraft have even been rolled out or flown. It generally takes at least 6 - 7 years from first flight to induction. Longer in our case for the inefficiencies we have as a country, people, whatever. The KF-21 (Korean 4.5G - 5G fighter) took its first flight in 2022 & it is still not inducted in the Korean Air Force. Aircraft are not a joke and building, iterating, certifying & testing them takes time. The introduction date is March 2026. Took 4 years in Korean case (highly optimistic). What is excruciatingly more painful is that there now seems to be a total give up on any indigenous production capacity at all. They're importing missiles that we already have built at home!
War is always about attrition. What happens we run out of missiles during a war?
On top of this, there are Indian programmes all stuck in funding. These include:
* Super Sukhoi upgrade (necessary upgrade to modernize our MKI fleet, which are all rotting as we speak)
* Ghatak/CATS, flying wingman drones, no funding for prototype or interest from MoD.
Ultimately, Modi is responsible. This administration has ironically enough crippled the scientific and engineering institutions of the country via various ways. When it comes to production, you have to understand that supply lines must keep running. You cannot stop producing jets just because you finished the order. Understand what a fighter production looks like, welders, machinists, electricians, mechanics and several other skilled people work on a fighter jet before it rolls out of the production line. These people are humans and will retire or leave for greener pastures. If you stop fighter jet production, the ones who will take their place will have no experience. This is why when China was rolling out the J-10, they continued producing J-8s...even if they were outdated!
This is why the debate around whether India should buy LCA or not is so nonsensical! LCA and Su-30MKI are the only fighter jets we can product today! Of course, we should keep ordering them until we get better options! And the sheer fact that our squadron strength is depleting and we had an air force that flew MiG-21s well beyond their welcome, an LCA is far better than a MiG-21. Why are the LCA and Su-30MKI so important? Because these two remain the only fighter jets where we have full (in case of LCA) and partial (in case of Su-30MKI) access.
This means that any weapon or drone we make today can be readily integrated with these two fighter jets. Ultimately, a fighter jet is a weapons platform. The weapon matters as much as the jet. A fighter jet without A2A missiles, A2G bombs, flying wingman, is useless. When you import a fighter like the Rafale, few manufacturers would want to give you access to put your weapons on because they have weapons to sell you too. Why would the French allow Astra Mk2/Mk3 on the Rafale when they can sell you Meteor? Why allow Ghatak when they can sell you their upcoming wingman drone.
You see why this is bad? You're getting siphoned into a subscription model except the cost is national defense. What guarantee do the French provide that during a conflict with China, they would ensure supplies to India? Why would France want to get involved in a Sino-Indian War and ruin ties with China, the second largest economy in the world? There is no guarantee of supplies from even potentially friendly states during a war. Unless something like NATO Article 5 binds a country to another to fight, arm, supply, etc., all these weapons imports are introducing external dependency with no guarantee.
Finally, just look at the size of these deals. $36 billion for 114 fighter jets that can all be potentially shot down by a conventional Chinese fighter which the Chinese can just dump on Pakistan for free. Billions of the country's FOREX is going abroad in arms import. We have been the largest arms importer on the planet for the last 20 years ago.
The thing is that military equipment exports is a niche only a few countries specialize in, considering our size and needs we should be one of them. We export military equipment, like artillery, armoured vehicles, & even small arms now. But our manufacturers never get orders from our own armed forces. How can they survive and compete against others who are subsidized by their country's governments & army? Military industrial complex (MIC) is a massive employer. Hundreds of thousands...no millions, can be employed in fighter jet manufacturing, shipbuilding, drone production, small arms manufacturing.
MIC can:
* reduce FOREX outflow
* increase FOREX inflow
* generate mass employment
* secure the country
Literally how can something be so good that it can fix nearly every single issue? And yet our leaders are chaman chutiyas who can't see it. Congratulations, if you managed to make it till the end of my rant you have been patient.
But it's over and I cannot let my cortisol spike daily because we're being led by retards.
