chetak wrote:
I meant to say start with the small and manageable items first.
Develop customer confidence and then move upwards.
Chetak Ji
This was how DRDO was working, when periodic reviews indicated that DRDO was spreading itself too thin and a political decision was taken for DRDO to concentrate on strategic items and those technologies that were (then) denied to India.
I dont have references handy to point them out to you, but I believe this was around when Rajiv Gandhi was PM and Arun Singh (?) was minister of state for defense.
Starting with big ticket items, raising national expectations sky high and then ending with messy failure is not the way.
Please define failure. If necessary, go into specifics of big ticket programs (
not items) like Arjun, LCA, missiles etc.
In my books, failure of an item to be inducted in the armed forces means that a project has not met all of its goals, whether it has met substantial goals or not is a matter that is specific to each item under consideration.
In each case, you will realize that while some items have not been inducted into the armed forces, its only because they have a ready option of going for foreign maal.. If this maal is withdrawn from India, because Indian goals are not aligned with those of the powers that sell those items to us, courtesy DRDO, we would still have a usable tank available. Same with an (underpowered?) LCA.
Another thing to consider is, many weapon systems become available to us, only when they have already been developed indigenously. Read the frontline link above detailing how specific magnesium alloys became available to us once DRDO developed them indigenously.
Blaming everyone else but never stopping to introspect seems to be DRDO's single point agenda.
If DRDO is doing any blaming, I am yet to hear it. They have complained about Arjun and its well justified, IMO. Same with Akash, when IAF says you havent demostrated low level intercept capability, they had a very good reason - an exacerbated multipath problem does not allow low level intercepts over the sea and they would demonstrate it on land.
The forces should be free to choose what they consider best suited for their own operations, not what some scientist thinks that they should have.
Its a political decision, not up to Generals and Colonels and for good reason.
If the scientists feel so strongly, let them raise a DRDO brigade of fighting scientists and equip it with all the DRDO designed weapons, and deploy in COIN and border control. They are certainly battle hardened from all that infighting anyway!
Thats ridiculous. Since you feel so strongly about defense related R&D, why dont you pitch yourself into research? Please dont belittle our scientists like this. They started developing missiles, aircrafts and tanks in 1980s. At that time, we made 3 types of cars (fiat, 118NE & ambassador) all knock offs of obsolete foreign stuff, 3 types of motorcycles (Rajdoot, Yezdi & bullet - once again, all knock offs), 3 types of scooters (Bajaj, LML & Vespa - all knockoffs of different Vespa models)..
From this kind of an industrial base, they set off to make these big ticket items.. Tanks, fighter planes, submarines, missiles - and they have reached their goals substantially.
Enough of needless bleeding by johnnies being experimented upon. There is not much difference between a DRDO veto or a substandard DRDO product. The end result is the same.
When the DRDO can take up major projects without much consultations with customers, why can it not take up lighter BPJs or whatever without being prompted? Don't they read the papers? And when was money ever a hindrance for DRDO?
Sure.. lighter BPJs. One thing. Is there any thing else? Have there been reports about INSAS jamming in the field, costing lives? BFSRs failing? WLR not working?
If money was ever not a hindrance, I am not aware of it
Until one day, incognito, the chief designer landed up on board the vessel and while talking to an old salt, he casually enquired about the human engineering aspects of the ship.
The answer was revealing and it considerably altered the approach of the Naval design staff.
" Pata nahi saab, kaun chuth*** isko banaya."
heh.. yeah. happens with all engineering projs.. thats why you have iPhone & Windows Mobile in this world.
As for Geo Strategic goals, do we really have any?
Even if we havent, these are to be decided by the Govt. How can you lay the blame for this on DRDO?
To have a industrial complex, its necessary to have a reasonably good product first. Good as defined by the user and not the prejudiced and motivated designer.
IMO, its putting the cart before the horse.. Today, India can develop composites, alloys for different applications, radars, missiles.. Where would India be if not for DRDO?
DRDO may not be without its faults, but such vehement & broad criticism is hardly the way to rectify them.