amit boss, the question is what would be the price even after negotiations ?
1) Finding the money is not a problem, it's obvious that all wings of the armed forces have sufficient money for all the toys they want. We are not getting the stuff we really need, like the 155mm artillery pieces not because of a lack of money but due to other factors which are OT here.
finding the money is certainly not a problem but a country with still many people below poverty line has no excuse not to get the biggest bang for the buck.
Also would an alternative supplier be able to supply the kind of things this deal seems to include including the counter-measures mentioned and that too at a considerably cheaper price?
easily. there is nothing earth shattering about either system. similar systems are either on board serving IAF aircraft(counter-measure dispensers)
**** or slated for under-development projects (MAWS). a MAWS specifically for transport aircrafts is also under development in India. 3rd party sources are also available.
Do note that in case of the IAF acquisition we hear nothing about what is arguably the most advanced defensive feature of C-17, the DIRCM. that too however is available elsewhere, the HAL LCH for example features a DIRCM(I don't know whether developed in-house, JV or off the shelf) although for larger aircraft the systems are somewhat different.
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2) I guess we can all agree that the Indian armed forces need a heavy lift capacity and the Il-76 with the IAF are reaching the end of their service life.
not too sure of that, the Il-76 was inducted in mid 80's, 25 years is hardly long enough to confidently write-off a transport. with some refurbishment and re-engineing they should keep at it for quite some time. just like how the An-32's (which have been flogged much more) are being upgraded.
unless of course spares supply is a problem and maintenance is a headache. in that case all of this is moot.
3) Now we've looked at the various alternatives to the C17s, the A400 at 37 tons is too small and the programme is still not mature. The An124 is just a fanboy fantasy and does not meet requirements, other than having a huge belly. That leaves us with upgraded Il-76. Now this sounds interesting and I've followed the technical discussions here with interest. Now without going into the technical merits of configuring a Il-76 into a wide body capable of carrying an Arjun - (I know the argument that airlifting a tank is just 1 per cent of requirement, but if we're going to buy something that will serve us till at least 2040 then simple logic dictates that we go for the upper limit of our requirements, na?)
I beg to disagree, carrying tanks is a primary requirement. even fighting in a war is less than 1% of what the IAF actually does, doesn't mean it is not a priority.
serving as an air bridge is only one of the functions of a heavy-lift, IA is also seriously looking at rapid reaction formations and airmobile armoured formations are usually an integral part of these. more on this later.
What would be per unit cost (that is a comparable figure to the $580 million) for such a new Il-76 which for all practical purposes would be a new aircraft?
there are two points here, one is widening of cargo compt and the other is general upgradation of avionics, engines etc. only the former is what we are discussing here, the later is part of the Il-476 program and some of the features are
already part of existing IL-76 aircrafts, our phalcons for example.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... il-476.htm
so the aircraft that we could want is not exactly a pie in the sky. as of now, we don't know what this would have cost and I doubt we ever will.
given that the basic price of upgraded IL-76 still hovers around $ 50 m, I seriously doubt overall costs(and not just the price of airframe, everything else is billed separately
) of even a modified Il-76 would have crossed $ 150 m, if that. that's still around a fourth of the price of C-17.
This cost would have to factor in the R&D cost, technical studies, materials etc. and has to, from India's POV, be amortized over 10 aircraft (do note we all agree in the C17's case 10++ is likely to be cheaper than $580m).
that is precisely where the doubts start to creep in. back in the 80's, when India and IAF were FAR less ambitious, they got 15-17 IL-76(2 went to ARC I believe). now in the 21st century, when even a substrength airmobile amroured regiment would require around
40 heavy-lifts to be moved by air, we are buying a
pathetic ten ??
that is precisely what conveys to me that we are not being able to afford any more, while on the flip side we get a worse deal if we buy smaller numbers, a really no-win situation.
4) Finally I think we need to note that if we do fund the now moribund Ilyushin design bureau to build such an aircraft, we are practically gifting for free a new capability to the Russians. I don't really think all this funding will translate into HAL developing the capability to build a world class heavy lifter. The Su-30 MKI is a totally different bird from the plain vanilla Su-27 and was built with money supplied by India. Did that give HAL the capability of building a Su-30 type aircraft, expecting that specific aircraft and that too under licence production? It however, did give the Russians, the ability to supply variants to the MKI to other airforces like Malaysia.
err, it is naive to think that ilyushin does not have this capability at the moment or that it will simply roll over and die in a segment that it is a world leader in.
the IL-476 will be developed whether we fund it or not. question is could we have spent some money and funded an IL-76 we want ? we didn't even need to fund the whole development.
I'll be happy if we get
something for HAL etc(making wings for example) and a cheaper aircraft that IAF can buy in numbers rather than spending a fortune for a pitiful 10 aircraft and nothing else. surely you agree that something is better than nothing ?
I don't want to go down the 'donate to russia' discussion route, but if that's the line you want, it is still better than funding pakistan's next set of F-16's or even F-35's isn't it ?
Can India sell a Indian built Su-30 MKI type aircraft to a third country? Would the same restrictions apply to a "wide-body" Il-76 that we may build in India with Russian help?
no, because it's not our IP and neither did we fund everything on it. much of the MKI is based on the experimental Su-37 project. for the items that are designed in India, we do have the rights and when MKI variants are sold, these items are sourced from India. even with whatever we funded the MKI still came at $40m apiece, that's half the cost of any comparable aircraft with a capability that was unmatched till the F-22 came into service. that justified the funding manytimes over AFA we were concerned.
nor am I proposing to completely fund a new IL-76 project. the project already exists, perhaps we could have helped expand it and got an affordable heavy lifter out of it.
5) And finally, even if we could build up such a capability in HAL does it make sense (in terms of the effort)? How many of these birds would we need?
40 is a number I would look at. it didn't have to be full scale production at HAL btw.
BEML(tatra) , volvo(hoskote), ashok leyland(hosur) are all there to provide help on logisitcal tail vehicles.
5.8 billion is WAAY too high as a consolation prize, that's more than 50% of the MRCA contract and more than our entire su-30mki deal till date.
