tsarkar wrote:
Fig leaves like "I can but cannot" are the first sign of lack of facts/information/knowledge. PLEASE EXPLAIN AND PROVIDE EXAMPLES OF "substantial level of mess up" rather than vague "Army could have done far more".
I could but then again, your shouting in CAPS LOCK and snide remarks "fig leaves etc" do not really give me any incentive to reply...even so I have mentioned the details below.
The MoD can direct IA, and IA on its own initiative is always ready to draft a GSQR for indigenous equipment, provided inhouse capability exists. Just like Scientific Advisor to RM proactively offered to develop WLR, MLRS (Pinaka), etc, for these requirements, DRDO never offered to develop artillery, simply because its most optimistic INTERNAL technology audit showed it lacked ability.
The entire point, which you have missed, is that the Army should not have to sit around waiting for the SA to RM to do something, it should have realized what was happening around its artillery requirements, and proceeded further on its own. Which is what the Navy did a long time back, when it realized sitting around would not work, and it had to take its fate in its own hands when it came to indigenization.
Again, repeated usage of vague "could". "COULD" IS NOT A CREDIBLE EXAMPLE, NOR A TENABLE POINT IN A DEBATE. For example, you or I too "could" have been astronauts like Rakesh Sharma or "could" have been married to Anna Kournikova. "Could" statements are as unrealistic and useless as the ones made just now.
Your resort to caps lock at the drop of a hat, while not even making the barest attempt to understand another person's POV is amazing. While the tempation to respond like for like would be refreshing, lets get to the point:
http://indiannavy.nic.in/t2t2e/trans2em ... design.htm
“When the plans paper for the training of constructors was put up, the Government was very reluctant to approve their post graduate training in Britain. They asked a simple question, 'Does it mean that the training in India would not be as good?' The straight answer for that was 'Because there are no R&D facilities to upgrade our technology in the area of naval architecture, we have no other option.' When I explained what happens to a naval architect who studies abroad as an undergraduate and comes back, and the low level at which his technology will be after 10 years, the Government agreed. I firmly believe that whenever we put our problems fairly and tell the Government 'This will be the end result and it is up to you to take a decision', they tend to take the right decision.
“So the Navy decided to form its own Design Organisation. There was a bid from Mazagon Dock and from the Ministry of Defence Production to take over the Design Organisation. Some senior naval officers asked me, 'Wouldn't you feel more comfortable working in a Public Sector Enterprise?' My answer was simple, 'If the Navy is not directly involved in ship design, its building and its commissioning, we will meet the same fate as a Defence Production Unit, where the hardware is made and the Services are not accepting it, because the Services are not deeply involved right from day one. The Navy's involvement should be right from the Staff Requirement, which should be refined by the Material Branch as regards our own capability. The Staff Branch and the Material Branch should work hand in hand till the design is frozen and then it can be given for production'.
Does the Army have its own design organization yet, which works hand in glove with Indian industry & DPSUs to do all the above? The answer is no. The Indian Army
deputes officers to programs and projects, which then also suffer when there is a change in leadership on account of continuity issues. The Navy set up its own DO, and even fought off attempts from MD and MOD et al to take it over. And that took brass with vision.
Further on, note the relevant details below.
Rear Admiral Baxi, the first Director of WESO and in later years the Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Electronics, recalls:
“There were several organic elements which contributed to the success of the Navy's projects:
First and foremost, amongst the three services, the Indian Navy has shown the greatest determination to be self sufficient and self-reliant. And this was by a genre of people over generations, not merely by one individual.
Secondly, by creating the Directorate General of Naval Design within Naval Headquarters, we got an agency, manned by officers on deputation, responsible for indigenisation, under the direct control of Naval Headquarters, which slowly started to build up complete design and project management skills in-house, within the Navy.[/b]
Thirdly, the Navy started inducting naval constructors in uniform. These uniformed constructors became a highly specialised cadre, capable of handling all aspects of naval architecture, ship design and ship construction.
“On the Mazagon Docks side, the Navy sent some of their best officers and best brains to go into shipbuilding. The best naval technical officers were placed at the disposal of Mazagon Docks to be able to build the ships.
“This total involvement of Naval Headquarters in ship design, ship construction, development, inspection and testing, whereby NHQ was itself the vendor and was also the customer, led to a pragmatic approach by NHQ whenever confronted with compromises in the design process.
“Unfortunately, in the Army and the Air Force, exactly the reverse happened. Because there was the Defence Research Development Organisation and there was the Directorate General of Inspection, most of the time they treated these two organisations as if they were the vendors and the Army Headquarters or the Air Headquarters were the customers. Because they themselves did not have any design or construction responsibility, they tended to treat the designer or Indian industry at that stage at par with their corresponding designer in the world market. In that mindset, if I get a MiG 21 from the world market, I want a MiG 21 from HAL. This was never possible and never feasible. And because there was no involvement on the part of the service, they were not able to succeed.
“Whereas in our case, first of all, progressive indigenisation was done. The goal and ambition were limited. The first Leander was made totally from sub systems imported from Britain. The second Leander had partial indigenisation, in the sense that whatever systems were available within the country or could be developed were utilised. The remaining systems were imported. And so on.
“Then naturally the next corollary was that we re-designed the fifth Leander, the Taragiri, with one Seaking helicopter. Then we went on to the seventh frigate, the Godavari that again was designed by naval officers, with two Seaking helicopters. The Directorate of Combat Policy and Tactics, was the one who actually did the concept designing and asked why can't we have two Seaking helicopters on board? Right from top-level decision makers like DCPT and DNP, down to a Lieutenant in the naval architecture branch, everybody learnt to take technological and professional decisions. A complete, integral, decision-making process built up within the confines of NHQ.
“This is the one and only reason why, other than the Atomic Energy Commission and later on the Space Organisation, Naval Headquarters is the only service in this country which had truly succeeded in indigenisation. If you see the ingredients of Space and Atomic Energy, it is exactly the same story as Naval Headquarters. Space and Atomic Energy had nobody to fall back upon. They were the designers, they were the ones who formulated the concepts, they were the ones who did the designs, they ultimately had to see that their rocket fired and so a large amount of in-house work had to be done in developing systems, sub-systems and concepts in design. These are the three services you can be proud of, who have done true indigenisation namely Naval Headquarters, ISRO, and the Department of Atomic Energy. In my opinion, this is the crux of the matter.
“I have always maintained that nothing succeeds like success. The indigenisation of the propulsion system, the main machinery, the auxiliaries, the switchboards, the cables, the fire control systems, including those that were manufactured by Bharat Electronics under license from Holland, all gave NHQ a lot of confidence. This confidence, of having succeeded with a concept and the feeling that we can do it, led to the design of the Taragiri and the subsequent design of Godavari and then of Project 25 (Khukri class corvettes), Project 16 Alpha (Brahmaputra class frigates) and Project 15 (Delhi class destroyers) and the Navy has never looked back. The ingredients of why NHQ succeeded, which NHQ actually implemented, are not being replicated by many organisations in this country.”
The parallels with developing Indian developed systems viz the topic in question are fairly clear.
All these problems afflicted the program in question I referred to. Based on my indepth recollection, here are some of the problems which afflicted this attempt:
There was no consistent IA interest in a 155mm program. No single ownership or agency from the Army end which could or would lead the program and make it an ARMY Program versus a vendor program or as one officer told "yet another deal to be forced down our throats"
There was no iterative method to improve on what was available while accepting Mk1, as the Navy did -in specific:
"Unfortunately, in the Army and the Air Force, .... Because they themselves did not have any design or construction responsibility, they tended to treat the designer or Indian industry at that stage at par with their corresponding designer in the world market. In that mindset, if I get a MiG 21 from the world market, I want a MiG 21 from HAL. "...which is exactly what killed the program, because once the import option became available, the requirements changed to leading edge, from good enough. There was no strategizing around iterative improvement.
And most importantly, There was no institutional push for a system from an internal organization or a long term plan around it. Ergo, once it died, it was not even resuscitated within a few years.
"Karan M": Till date, the Army's engagement with local industry remains ad hoc and nothing transformative has been done.
Again, sweeping statements and baseless rhetoric. It was the Army insistence on indigenous production of anti tank missiles that led to establishment of BDL for license manufacturing the French SS11 in the late 60s.
The point being mentioned was clearly around the artillery project, not having licensed assembly of missiles way back in the 1960's. If that is "engagement with local industry", talk about "sweeping statements and baseless rhetoric". IAF asking HAL to make R-60s inhouse? IA asking BDL to license manufacture Milan 2's and Konkurs missiles? Are these examples of transformation. They are merely examples of the respective services meeting political compulsions for local sourcing while attempting to get whatever they can.
This is an example of out of the way, service led effort, or at the very least work hand in glove with MOD/DPSU/Pvt whoever:
http://indiannavy.nic.in/t2t2e/Trans2Tr ... roject.htm
Far too many lessons. Look at the manner in which Gearing was manufactured in India at Walchand - a first. The lessons learnt were then transferred to our other efforts. In contrast, the Army effort so far has been mostly around designating requirements and then proceeding to
audit the vendors efforts once prototypes are available with only limited input before as it has no design organization of its own. Its a circular process, pretty much designed to end up with scope creep.
The end result - Arjun saga.
The effort was a non starter because the product offered couldn’t even match the specifications for the 130mm M-46 and failed ARDE INTERNAL technical audit. I was peripherally associated with the project for assessing whether naval guns could be developed in house. Just so that you have an understanding of how things work, whenever a new ship is built, the first question asked is whether a particular equipment for meeting requirements could be sourced within the country.
Sorry, that does not match the details for this project. This project did not fail any ARDE internal audit and nor did it fail any sort of comparison to the M-46. This project was a program in which substantial time and effort was invested to develop a 155mm platform. Perhaps you were involved in a separate program. Eitherways the details dont match up to what you have stated. In this case, the problems are mentioned above. Considerable work was done in drawing up a gun that would be the functional equivalent of a current in service IA system, with a clear demarcation of who would do what, including both private and public industry, and non DPSU public units as well. The plan ended up nowhere once the IA indicated it would prefer a state of the art system, produced through TOT.
In parallel and completely independent, the Scientific Advisor to Raksha Mantri is a part of DAC and can always present its case for “make”. The SA to RM, through all these RFPs, NEVER made a REPRESENTATION to develop a gun. At the same time, they offer Maitri missile at every possible opportunity. They do so because they have the self confidence in the Maitri missile and not for the gun. This speaks volumes about DRDO’s confidence in itself to make a gun
Why should the SA to RM make a presentation to develop the gun, when the entire topic is about why the Army did not approach the DRDO to make one! The entire debate is about WHY the Army ends up waiting for others to react, whereas it should lead and you note that XYZ should have offered!!
Actually Ajai Shukla's recent article mentions enough about confidence and lack of thereof as well, but a key problem was with lack of IA leadership vis a vis taking up such a high value program as well.
HAL's roadmap for successive reductions in vibration were good enough for Army requirements.That’s the point I am trying to make. If a workaround is provided, even if it is not optimum, the forces still induct.
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/20 ... -deal.html
There was a weight penalty associated with the vibration control system. Now weight penalty is important because a Dhruv is supposed to carry a full section + equipment + reserves, however the IA accepted lower performance standards. Secondly, vibration affects soldier’s physiology. However, it was decided that personnel will endure those vibrations over Dhruv mission timeframe. What more could you ask for? Are you willing to put up in a rattling bus for an hour while commuting and then work at full efficiency? And these chaps abseil out into the thick of things!!!
I am aware of the Lords AVC system. It is the latest in a series of iterative improvements to the Dhruv.
Now "rattling" - the rattling in Mi-17s, Mi-8's is bone jarring in comparison. The point was that the non negotiable requirements for the Navy - vibration issues, folding rotors et al, are not necessarily the same for the Army, and the Army does not compromise on those.
Brahmos was initially positioned as a ship bourne Anti Ship Missile and as a Manned Mobile Coastal Battery (MMCB) replacement. Regiment of Artillery officers attended one of the test firings and evinced interest in a land attack missile, and the rest is history. On the other hand, the Navy assessed that MMCB replacement was not high priority, and till date, has not inducted a single Brahmos coastal battery as originally intended. DRDO always thought Brahmos as an anti ship missile, until the Regiment of Artillery officers convinced them of the missile’s potential for land attack.
Arty guys may have definitely provided their input and interest, no doubt. But the Army was kept in the loop for the Brahmos from the beginning. Tri services brass/MOD were made aware of the program early on. The DRDO had long been on the lookout for adding impetus to its missile program via a CM, and decided on ramjet tech. It then chose the Russians because of their expertise around ramjet tech. So its incorrect to state that the Brahmos was developed purely as an AShM and then with a LACM as an afterthought.
http://www.aerospaceindia.org/Journals/ ... %80%9D.pdf
(Note the author).
To summarize, nothing is gained by baseless allegations that “Army could” or “Army didn’t” or “DRDO could” or “DRDO didn’t”. There are constraints faced in decision making and decision makers in both organizations do take the most optimum path. Castigating them serves no purpose.
Hardly "baseless allegations" but merely a pointer to the fact that the Army needs to do much more to meet its own requirements, than waiting for others to take the lead. It has the technological capability and leadership potential to do far more & it should. Pointing to this is not maligning the Army but merely stating what many folks, rtd and otherwise, themselves say.
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