ADA Tejas Mark-II/Medium Weight Fighter

[Tang]

Wouldn't be advisable to partner with another country to co-produce the Mk.2 if there are budget problems?

I don't think Mk2 has any budget problem or otherwise, though I think India is open to Co-produce this jet with friendly countries.

 

[MonaLazy]

partner with another country

Which country will shoulder the risk of a 4++ gen medium weight platform coming into service later this decade when Europeans (Rafale, Eurofighter, Gripen), Americans (F-16, F-18), Russians (Mig-35) and even Chinese (J-10, FC-1) now have proven/in-service offerings? If they want it they will buy from this bouquet- like Bangladesh.

Around the same time US has planned to induct their 6th gen fighter (already flying) into service.

Both the risk & reward for seeing MWF become reality is with the people of this country. We have come a long way. Here is some context..

& a nostalgia video with a much younger then Gp Capt Bhadauria..

We need to only trust our scientists, make more money & pay more taxes to ensure enough funds for such national projects.

 

[Lonewolf]

Weare blackpilled here after , acm badhuria confirmed that they will procure mk 2 ,indeed it is their choice plane , maybe saurav jha is blackpilled too , but still relevance of acm is higher or not .

Wait for it to take FF ie 2023 , trials could be shorter as a lot of tech is already tested in Tejas ,it would be validation . Neither we are doing childish habit this time that we will test it when our own parts are available , it's metal cutting took place before schedule to take care of covid delays , nothing sort of big issue is there except a explosive comment.


@Roland55 budget is not issue ,our bureaucracy delays everything as much as possible till they get a boot on ass ,just this issue

 

[Trololo]

Can someone knowledgeable please tell us in detail how IAS controls military procurement in this country? I am looking for a very analytical answer. Think of military procurement in India as a flowchart, and point out in that chart where IAS sits on each piece of the puzzle and to what degree he can influence that piece.

 

[vishnugupt]

Can someone knowledgeable please tell us in detail how IAS controls military procurement in this country? I am looking for a very analytical answer. Think of military procurement in India as a flowchart, and point out in that chart where IAS sits on each piece of the puzzle and to what degree he can influence that piece.

Though I am not a fan of IAS because in civil administration the bureaucracy is the reason for India's slow growth as pointed out by many thinkers including former President Pranab Mukherjee.

But in the matter of defense, this is a pure myth or long-standing lie. would anyone agree to believe that these IAS hold more power than a four-star general?? could anyone even imagine that CDS Rawat's request denied by an IAS babu?? These generals phone contains contact numbers right from the President to PM to DM. A babu who can be dismissed on MLAs MPs request will dare to oppose these mighty Generals? Can someone point out a deal which derailed by a Babu? None.

Usually, the IAS role comes in the final phase of a deal for Approval, arranging money, signing a deal. We hear approval of a deal on daily basis even MMRCA 2 is still going on but Military demands often exceed the prescribed budget for that year so they don't get approval from the finance ministry. Few deals have geopolitics implications like IAF always ready to buy American jets but GOI believes the USA is not a reliable partner due to their blackmailing habit.

In another word, Military need to prioritize their need and work within the defense budget so we can avoid 27 Feb 2019 type of embarrassment where IAF forget to buy SDR and EW Jamming pod for jets because they were busy in kickback deals for last 20 years.

By the way, foreign defence deals are often complex, for India it's even messier like Middle East geopolitics

 

[IndianHawk]

Where's the money?

In any case this 40 squadrons size is a mirage (pun intended) the IAF is chasing. Even 6 sqns of Tejas where each fighter is 1.5-2x capable (multi-role, deadlier weaponry, more range with IFR, more loiter time with OBOGS) than the Migs it replaces- then you have inducted 9-12 sqns at previous capability. Why are we doing a one for one replacement comparison?

IMO it's either the Mk2 or MRFA- not both, because money. So while the IAF may want the more capable/mature/proven Rafale, secretly hoping ADA/HAL deliver the goods with an ASQR compliant desi Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft (MWF = DMMRCA) IAF wanted since the 2000s.

As for meeting real and present threats. India, China & Pak are nuclear- so no giant aircraft armadas, reminiscent of scenes from world wars, may take on each other. Any action will be similar to one-off bombing/skirmish like Feb 19 incidents. Even if you have only limited aircraft with a decisive edge over the enemy- you will win the day.

Iaf capex is already at 6 billion USD per year and growing every year. From 2025 -2035 iaf capex will be about 10 billion USD per year on average which is 100 billion dollars easily till 2035. ( These are conservative estimate).

Lca mk2 costs 70 million per jet for 200 jets == 14billion + 1 billion r&d + 2 billion base and weapons.
17 billions at most.

Rafale F4. 36 more at 6 billion + another 36 at 6 billion + 1 billion more for bases . 13 billion USD .
Even if 36 more are bought in 4 th batch still under 20 billion USD.

Amca development 2 billion dollars till 2030 for mk1 and then 2 billion more in next decade for mk2.
40 amca mk1 procurement each at 150 million = 6 billion USD.

All total under 60 billion USD .

Su30mki upgrade 25million each ( could be as low as 20 million if engine is not changed). 272*25 == 6.8 billion.

Rest all the money almost 33 billion USD for awacs , sams , tankers , transportation etc.

And the capex will keep growing with the economy.

 

[IndianHawk]

Bro let’s play with just no.
My Assumption. Yours Assumption
su30mki- 272 272
tejas - 123 123
MMRCA- 36 (F4)*. 110
mk2 - 170. 170
amca - 120. 120
rafale - 36. 36

———————————————————
total - 721 + 36*. 831

not even counting more su30 & mig29 being procured!
roughly taking 18 fighters per squadron that be 40.
and in media there is a talk about 2 more squadrons of rafale f4 standard
thus, making the magical figure of 42 possible.
please don’t say we will go for 48 squadrons as 42 is an old estimate!(though i wish it was possible)
&
one more thing as rightly said by @MonaLazy !
think about it, the govt delaying 15000cr/$1 billion funding for their most anticipated fighter AMCA
From where will they be arranging 15-20billion??
with that same amount Indian govt. can complete both their mk2 & AMCA a total of 300 fighters!!
End of the day it all comes down to money...

Not everything has to be paid at once . Amca funding is only delayed by few months due to corona situation.

Let's say we purchase 72 more rafales for a total of 108. Then those 72 Rafale will be delivered in 3+4 == 7 years if orders for all 72 are placed today.

But we no order placing might itself take 2 years so 9 years at the very least.

Cost for another 36 will be under 6 billion as bases are ready and india specific changes already done and paid for.

For 36 more bases will need to build so 1 billion more may be required .

Putting total cost at 13 billion USD . Inflation might make it 14 billion USD by the time of last payment.

14 billion USD in 9-10 years== 1400 million usd per year to be paid. Iaf capex is already 6 billion per year and will grow to 10 billion per year in second half of this decade. 1400 million (1.4billion) out of which is easily manageble .

 

[IndianHawk]

Wouldn't be advisable to partner with another country to co-produce the Mk.2 if there are budget problems?

Mk2 is rather cheap . Total program cost could only be around 15-16 billion USD over next 13-14 years for 200 jets.
No budget issue there.

 

[MirageBlue]

The country set out to build a fast jet design and production capability late in the 20th century, decades ago. It is the 2020's now and there are various projects underway.

I find this idea of declining to expand production capacity above 16 aircraft a year, well, plain dumb. Mk2 cannot start being assembled until the couple of buildings used to create an Indian military fast jet industry are available because they are being used for Mk1A production? Come on, now! Let's just imagine that the unthinkable happens and Mk1A production is behind schedule. What happens then? Mk2 is delayed even before production is started, so some very costly foreign fighters are bought to make up for the shortfall in Mk2 deliveries (which possibly cannibalises the number of Mk2's to be produced). I hazard that the extra cost of doing that far outweighs the 'savings' made by trying to run production sequentially through just two FAL's.

I would love to see a little more common sense financial commitment to getting the Indian fighter jet industry off the ground! Having the capacity - if all goes well - to produce one squadron's worth of aircraft a year is not enough.

The problem remains the order numbers. 16 fighters per year is the number that is arrived at most likely keeping in mind the most optimum number per year when HAL has about 83 fighters to deliver. The current assembly line can produce 8 fighters per year and is being scaled up to go to 16 when the Mk1A assembly starts.

If you want more than 16 to be built per year, the number of years that the assembly line is active drops (currently 83 fighters will be delivered in approximately 5-6 years) , which means that you have to invest more money in buying more tools/jigs/fixtures etc to build more than 16 fighters per year. That drives up the per unit cost of the Tejas Mk1A since the GoI has to spend that money for HAL to buy more of the infrastructure required for the assembly line.

HAL has stated that they will have (or rather will work towards building) the capacity to build more fighters if required, since the forward fuselage (Dynamatics), center fuselage (VEM) and aft fuselage (Alpha Tocol) modules plus wings (L&T) are now being sourced from private suppliers. The private suppliers would love to have more work on hands, if they're given adequate time to scale up and have adequate orders to justify the investment in more jigs/tools/fixtures, etc.

If an export order appears (very unlikely IMO) then there is a business case to justify expanding production to 20-24 fighters per year. I would personally have hoped that at least 20 per year were built given the urgency for the IAF, but 16 per year is still greater than the number of Su-30MKIs that were built per year at HAL in any calendar year. It will add 1 Tejas Mk1A squadron per year to the IAF orbat.

And realistically, the Tejas Mk2 needs at least 5-6 years to get to FOC. It's an evolution of the Mk1A but still features plenty of new technologies, systems and weapons loads that will require thorough validation across the entire envelope.

For comparisons sake, what was the most economical number of Rafales being built till it started getting this huge surge of export orders? 10-12 per year?

What is the number of Gripen E/Fs being planned to be produced for the current order backlog of 96 fighters? Saab will want to pull the assembly line for as long as possible for various reasons, including economic and having an active line to be able to offer Gripen Es for export competitions.

 

[MirageBlue]

Aero India is an event where all the babus in black coat come to entice the younger defense enthusiast. Meanwhile the old and experienced enthusiast know the drill. Some are excited just based on scaled model, numbers and graphics in pdf documents thats where HAL has improved. In the background, hal has just begun the tenders so forget that we'll get 1st 1:1 model by end of 2021.

Remember MK2 was conceptualized a decade ago when I was in college and then people used to coin figures like 250 LCA will be mfged by 2025, 200 MK2s will come by 2030,etc. Simply putting HAL/ADA stays the same only they hired new PR guys who knows how to keep the excitement level high on forums. On ground things are not moving according to the set deadlines.

Who told you that there's gonna be a 1:1 model (what does that mean anyway?) by end of 2021.

They were going to roll-out a fully functional prototype by August 2022. Add Covid delays and you'll get a few months delay to this timeline, but this thing is happening. ADA and HAL know fully well just how important it is to manage the timeline with the Mk2 program.

You can be skeptical, it's your choice, but without having ANY idea about just how complex this whole engineering program is, I would rather not see people rubbishing it out of sheer ignorance.

 

[MirageBlue]

Wouldn't be advisable to partner with another country to co-produce the Mk.2 if there are budget problems?

The issue here isn't so much about the budget to develop the type than about timelines and the IAF's rather complex requirements that muddy the waters. The Tejas Mk2 will be developed and flight tested, but if the IAF views it as being a threat to their beloved MRFA files (since they're only files as of now) then they will fight it tooth and nail.

the IAF does not want to lose it's hedge in the form of the MRFA for 114 fighters. It is the IAF's fallback option (or rather it's primary option since 2003) in case indigenous programs fail to deliver.

 

[SARTHAK]

Is this why IAF chief said the procurement of MK-2 depends on AMCA ?

he never said it the way it is spread in the news watch original interveiw

 

[Ar.gaurav28]

Not everything has to be paid at once . Amca funding is only delayed by few months due to corona situation.

Let's say we purchase 72 more rafales for a total of 108. Then those 72 Rafale will be delivered in 3+4 == 7 years if orders for all 72 are placed today.

But we no order placing might itself take 2 years so 9 years at the very least.

Cost for another 36 will be under 6 billion as bases are ready and india specific changes already done and paid for.

For 36 more bases will need to build so 1 billion more may be required .

Putting total cost at 13 billion USD . Inflation might make it 14 billion USD by the time of last payment.

14 billion USD in 9-10 years== 1400 million usd per year to be paid. Iaf capex is already 6 billion per year and will grow to 10 billion per year in second half of this decade. 1400 million (1.4billion) out of which is easily manageble .

last time i checked it was 39000cr/$5.3billion in which they aren’t just supposed to buy fighters but other weapons systems,drones,parts for current operational fleet.
I hope you do know per hour fight cost so as the fleet grows bigger it will also put a strain on the defence budget!

About 9years in payments bro...its Dassault we are talking about not HAL they wouldn’t take that long to deliver thus payments will be cleared in 5years & yeah you have to pay in advance!
&
about procurement fund reaching 10billion, not gonna happen until we clear $6trillion in gdp or we are at war! China is 5times our economy but spends 3times ours we are already at a stretch...

in upper comment you mentioned about spending $100billion over 10years
which doesn’t include different types of drones, trainer aircraft, the hal’s cat warrior,etc the list goes on !!

Indian population isn’t nationalist at all like China or Russia, if the government even just say about spending this much money 2024 game over for the govt!
people are still protesting for new farm laws even without reading them once!

Thus,safe approach will still be 38 squadrons with mmrca or 42 squadrons with mk2 !!
less money, no hype, every sect content & we have the deterrence the bigger reason we won’t invest too much, as we always are defensive not offensive!

 

[Bleh]

Sheer brilliance by Kuntal.. Perfect work on the complicated landing-gears modifications from LCA to MWF!

 

[Starlight]

The new hypersonic drones and hypersonic vehicles being procured is what the IAF should be honing on in the next three decades. Remember, we are now looking at a Space force brain stormed and quickly forming at and among the intra-defence personnel for a future Space Force in defence for India. The future is fast upgrades and future carving technology.

 

[FalconSlayers]

The new hypersonic drones and hypersonic vehicles being procured is what the IAF should be honing on in the next three decades, remember we are now looking at a Space force brain stormed and is quickly forming among the personnel for a future Space Force in defence. The future is fast upgrades and future carving technology.

ISRO is working on a lot of tech, we can if possible upsize our Ghatak UCAV to an unmanned bomber.

 

[Starlight]

ISRO is working on a lot of tech, we can if possible upsize our Ghatak UCAV to an unmanned bomber.

Yes and I want a dedicated India Space Force to stop the new age jihadis who are loaded these days. As you know, civilians can easily go to a space port in orbit, built by them for personal reasons. Which means a defence force for space has to be urgently formed like the United States.

 

[FalconSlayers]

Yes and I want a dedicated India Space Force to stop the new age jihadis who are loaded these days. As even civilians can easily go to a space port in orbit, built by them for personal reasons. Which means a defence force for space has to be urgently formed like the United States.

I first want a dedicated Indian Marine Corps. on the lines of USMC as the 4th branch of the Indian Armed Forces.

 

[SavageKing456]

The new hypersonic drones and hypersonic vehicles being procured is what the IAF should be honing on in the next three decades. Remember, we are now looking at a Space force brain stormed and quickly forming at and among the intra-defence personnel for a future Space Force in defence for India. The future is fast upgrades and future carving technology.

Wait for new test of HSTDV
That would decide how soon we would venture in hypersonic missles and possibly aircrafts

 

[IndianHawk]

last time i checked it was 39000cr/$5.3billion in which they aren’t just supposed to buy fighters but other weapons systems,drones,parts for current operational fleet.
I hope you do know per hour fight cost so as the fleet grows bigger it will also put a strain on the defence budget!

About 9years in payments bro...its Dassault we are talking about not HAL they wouldn’t take that long to deliver thus payments will be cleared in 5years & yeah you have to pay in advance!
&
about procurement fund reaching 10billion, not gonna happen until we clear $6trillion in gdp or we are at war! China is 5times our economy but spends 3times ours we are already at a stretch...

in upper comment you mentioned about spending $100billion over 10years
which doesn’t include different types of drones, trainer aircraft, the hal’s cat warrior,etc the list goes on !!

Indian population isn’t nationalist at all like China or Russia, if the government even just say about spending this much money 2024 game over for the govt!
people are still protesting for new farm laws even without reading them once!

Thus,safe approach will still be 38 squadrons with mmrca or 42 squadrons with mk2 !!
less money, no hype, every sect content & we have the deterrence the bigger reason we won’t invest too much, as we always are defensive not offensive!

Flying cost is part of opex not capex. My entire post is about capex not opex . So you have misunderstood entire post.

5.3 billion figure doesn't include what was spend over the budget. Almost 25000 crore (3.5 billion USD ) was extra budgetary spend last year out of which iaf git decent share to purchase more air to air missile.

Most of capex burden remain fighter jets , awacs tankers , drones are much cheaper in comparison.

As more and more things indigenously built and bought they will be much cheaper and we will be able to buy more for less. For example Astra mk1 costs half as much as comparable foreign missile. So you could buy double the number with same amount of money.

This year armed forces capex grew 18 %.
If you just take 10 % capex growth per year for iaf than it will double in just 6 year from 6 billion ( effective with extra budgetary spend) to 12 billion usd and then will grow further from there on.

Yet I have only considered 10 billion per year average which is very conservative estimate. The actual budget will be much much higher.