[Here I am posting an article by an American author (Name at the end). The article contains very negative analysis (with very little positive analysis) of Indian capabilities as a fighter jet producer. I shall say that he is mocking. The author has presented same hawkish view on Tejas fighter too under the light-weight component, but I have given the medium part only. Strong heart needed to read. About: Rafale and thereafter AMCA. Are you agreed with his views?]
T H E M E D I U M - W E I G H T C O M P O N E N T
THE RAFALE
Such a conclusion naturally refocuses attention on the Indian government’s prospective
decision in regard to filling out the medium segment of its air arm. The Indian Air Force
(IAF), at least in its recent history, had no medium-weight combatants; its diverse fighter
assets were clumped mostly at the lightweight end, with the Su-30MKI the sole representative
at the heavy end of the spectrum. With the reformulation of the Medium Multirole
Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) requirement—born out of the original effort to expand the
lightweight Mirage 2000 force—the IAF began to review a series of twin-engine fourth generation-
plus aircraft such as the Rafale, the Typhoon, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, and
the MiG-35 as well as lighter single-engine fourth-generation-plus fighters such as the F-16
and the JAS-39 Gripen. (The F-16 comes in just barely past the medium-weight mark, and
the Gripen definitively subsists as a lightweight combatant even in its heavier NG guise.)
Given the evolving force ratios involving China and Pakistan, the IAF initially sought to
acquire 126 aircraft under the aegis of its MMRCA competition, while holding out hope
for 74 more aircraft later. The resulting purchase would have sufficed to equip close to
ten squadrons with advanced fourth-generation-plus aircraft, whose distinguishing characteristics
include high agility, reduced radar signatures, active electronically scanned array
(AESA) radars, sensor fusion, high-capacity and secure data links, enhanced defensive avionics
suites, and advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground weaponry. A single large acquisition of this kind held the promise of simplifying the IAF’s logistics and maintenance, allowing
the force to focus on a single platform, rather than creating the congeries of aircraft that
exist, for example, in its lightweight segment. With such ambitions, the IAF conducted a
lengthy and detailed evaluation of six candidates before selecting the Rafale, with the Typhoon
as a backup in case the contract with Dassault Aviation could not be concluded for
any reason.
The selection of the Rafale as the winner of the MMRCA competition confirmed the suspicion
of several well-placed Indian observers that the IAF in the end picked the aircraft
it wanted in the first place: a French fighter as the preferred Western counterpart to its
Russian aircraft, given the service’s long and ultimately happy experience with the Mirage
2000.46 Whether this conjecture is in fact true is hard to judge from the outside, but the IAF
did conduct an elaborate contest among the contenders before short-listing its final choices.
Unfortunately for the Indian air arm, however, the competition collapsed because, after
long and frustrating negotiations between the Indian and French governments as well as
between the IAF and Dassault Aviation, the Modi government aborted the original tender
and settled for an off-the-shelf purchase of just 36 aircraft as a consolation prize for Paris,
while declaring its intention to continue searching for an additional 90 aircraft on more
favorable terms.
The Rafale debacle, ultimately, occurred because the aircraft’s extraordinarily high unit and
life-cycle costs made it impossible for the Indian government to follow through on its original
intent to purchase the entire complement of 126 aircraft. But the seeds of the problem
lay in the two-step Indian acquisition procedure itself: requiring the IAF to first choose an
airplane that met its technical standards without any formal information about costs, and
then selecting the lowest-priced competitor—based on costs, technology transfer offers,
and offset proposals—from only among those that survived the first-stage triage. In doing
so, the Indian government and its air arm could neither judge the total expected costs of
their selection against all the other rivals a priori nor assess whether their differences in marginal
price were worth the trade-offs in technology and performance. It is not surprising,
therefore, that when the price data for the Rafale were finally revealed, sticker shock set in
as the total cost proved much larger than the IAF or the Indian government could afford.
Confronted by this fact, the then defense minister, A. K. Antony, apparently tried to revisit
the methodology that resulted in the Rafale’s selection in the first place—after cost negotiations
had already begun. That was the clearest indication of both a flawed procedure and a
political attempt at second-guessing the IAF’s technical judgment. But no exit from the impasse
could be found. Other complications also unhelpfully intervened: Dassault Aviation
balked at plowing back 50 percent of the total costs as direct offsets, assuming the risks of
co-production with Indian public sector partners, and transferring technology at the levels
demanded by India—all requirements stated in the IAF’s original request for proposals.
None of this should have come as a revelation. Information about the Rafale’s high unit
costs was freely available in the trade literature. And common sense at any rate should have
suggested that amortizing the huge development expenditures—running into many billions
of dollars—of a sophisticated fighter such as the Rafale over a very small number of
platforms would have driven up the unit costs tremendously. Because Dassault Aviation is
a relatively small original equipment manufacturer in the global fighter market, the unit
costs of its aircraft are on average much higher than, for example, those of its American
competitors with their larger production runs. Higher unit costs usually imply fewer sales;
fewer sales imply less revenue; and less revenue, in turn, implies a greater unwillingness to
part with the already modest profits by accepting higher offset obligations, assuming greater
product liability, and transferring maximal technology.
The IAF, obviously, should have known all this before the MMRCA competition was initiated.
But its desire for the latest and most aerodynamically agile airplane of known pedigree,
combined with the Indian government’s two-stage procurement procedure, permitted
the service to downselect the two most expensive contestants at a time when cheaper alternatives
would have enabled it to buy multirole fighters that were just as good, while saving
resources to enable the transition to a fifth-generation combat force.
In any event, the IAF unfortunately will soon have to cope with the challenge of integrating
another small contingent of 36 Rafales in what is already an overdiversified fighter
force, one that now includes a medium-weight segment in addition to the lightweight and
heavyweight components acquired previously. Make no mistake: the Rafale is a superb multirole
fighter that is still in the early stages of what will be a long, thirty-year operational life.
Although it lacks an AESA radar and its MICA-series (the French acronym for interception,
combat, and self-defense missile) air-to-air missiles are most capable at shorter ranges
compared with similar U.S. and Chinese weaponry, these limitations will be rectified at some
point. The French Air Force and French Navy, for example, are beginning to field a new AESA
radar, the RBE2, on their Rafales, and it is likely that the Indian aircraft also will be equipped
with a variant of this system.
Mitigating the Rafale’s heavy maintenance burdens will be more challenging, but Dassault
Aviation historically has always come through where spare parts and depot-level support are
concerned, albeit at a high price. The enormous costs of support seem to be preventing the
Indo-French negotiations for the 36 aircraft from coming to closure, and while it is likely that
the impediments will eventually be resolved, nothing will change the fundamental realities
about the Rafale’s high unit and life-cycle costs.
This fact notwithstanding, when the envisaged upgrades are completed, the Rafale, an
already impressive combat aircraft, will become even more imposing in its F3R variant,
thanks to its superb sensor fusion and targeting capabilities, formidable defensive avionics,
highly effective swing-role performance, and reduced radar signatures. Beyond the nagging
doubts about whether Dassault Aviation can quickly deliver the 36 aircraft contracted
because of the limitations in its manufacturing capacity, the Rafale’s biggest handicap obviously
is its horrendous break-the-bank price.
Recent information suggests that the aircraft’s unit costs have been negotiated to around
$220 million, a reduction from the earlier price tag of approximately $300 million that
killed the original MMRCA program, but still high nonetheless. The most authoritative
information available in the Indian press indicates that the total program costs of procuring
36 Rafales will be about $9 billion—close to one-fourth of India’s 2015–2016 defense
budget. If the Modi government’s earlier allocation of $4.7 billion for the aircraft alone is
any indication, the unit flyaway costs of the Rafale would still be remarkably high: about
$131 million per aircraft in comparison to, for example, about $75 million apiece for a U.S.
F/A-18E/F Super Hornet in 2014.55 With support and other costs thrown in, the Rafale
ends up closer to $250 million each.
ALTERNATIVES BEYOND THE RAFALE
Despite these sobering numbers, it would be a blessing if, deus ex machina, the IAF could
somehow lay its hands on 90 more Rafales, because such an addition would mitigate its
problems of a diverse inventory while at the same time increasing its combat capabilities
considerably. Unfortunately because of the costs involved, this option appears unavailing.
And the government of India, at any rate, has cast its net wide, seeking to procure the remaining
90 fighters from among any of the original contestants in the MMRCA competition.
By all accounts, the Indian defense minister seems to believe that all these rival aircraft
are more or less comparable in capability, and hence he is focused on an acquisition that
prioritizes low unit and life-cycle costs, transfer of technology, and above all the Make in
India program. In fact, the cheapest airplanes that can be co-produced in India appear to
be the object of the current search because these twin objectives simultaneously satisfy the
nation’s budgetary constraints and its industrial policy goals.
While the IAF is sympathetic to these objectives, it understandably has other interests as
well: it still seeks the best multirole aircraft that the treasury can afford, but above all it
wants the impending acquisition to support the indigenous development of the Advanced
Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), a stealth fighter that the service hopes will become the
medium-weight mainstay of the IAF beyond 2025.
Satisfying these criteria will take the Indian Ministry of Defense over the terrain already
plowed during the MMRCA competition. The MiG-35 would still be a poor choice because
the IAF is adamant—and for good reason—that it needs a new line of Western equipment
as a technological hedge, given the prevailing dominance of Russian fighters in the
IAF. Furthermore, only Western aircraft can provide the IAF with the advanced counters
required to cope with the Russian platforms, sensors, and weapons now appearing in the air
forces of its adversaries.
The Typhoon would obviously meet this criterion, but its high unit costs place it in the
same unfavorable position as the Rafale. What is equally problematic is that the Typhoon,
although impressive for its acceleration, supersonic maneuverability, and high top speed,
now lags behind the Rafale where new sensors and the diversity of weapons carried are
concerned. This failure to maintain its originally intended schedule of improvements is
partly due to its poor sales record abroad, its divided governmental sponsors and service
customers, and the competition posed by the F-35, which has also been sought by many of
the same European air forces now flying the Typhoon. Finally, the Eurofighter consortium
that makes the Typhoon has no experience in developing fifth-generation stealth aircraft
and, consequently, its value to the IAF’s AMCA program is minimal.
That leaves the Gripen NG, the F-16IN, and the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet as possibilities,
and each has different strengths and weaknesses. The Gripen NG will be an impressive aircraft
when operational, but even when it becomes mature technologically, it would remain
a lightweight rather than medium-weight fighter. This is not necessarily a disadvantage,
because the F-16IN is similar in this respect. The F-16IN is actually two aircraft in one,
depending on its configuration. Without conformal fuel tanks, it remains one of the most
agile air combat aircraft ever built, and its primary sensors and weapons outclass even those
of the Gripen today. It will likely be cheaper than the Gripen, and although the version
offered to India is far superior to that operated by Pakistan, the IAF still has reservations
about acquiring an airplane that is in Islamabad’s inventory. Nonetheless, the manufacturer,
Lockheed Martin, is committed to transferring the entire F-16 production line to India if
the aircraft is selected for procurement. This provision makes the F-16IN extremely attractive
as a project for the Make in India program—an offer that rivals Saab’s in this respect.
Beyond that, the prospect of helping to service the thousands of F-16s still operational
worldwide would instantly make India pivotal to the global aviation supply chain, while
ironically putting it in the odd position of possibly having to support future aircraft sales
to its rival, Pakistan.
Boeing’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, in contrast to the Gripen NG and the F-16IN, is a twinengine,
medium-weight aircraft and a formidable strike fighter whose greatest strengths lie in the
surface attack and beyond-visual-range air-to-air missions. Because the Super Hornet
will continue to equip the U.S. Navy’s carrier air wings until at least 2035, it is unlikely
that Boeing’s co-production offers for this aircraft would match those of Lockheed Martin’s
F-16IN for reasons relating to both corporate strategy and U.S. governmental restrictions.
Even so, any manufacturing related to the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet in India would create
new opportunities to build a network of secondary and tertiary suppliers, thus increasing
India’s integration into the international aerospace industry while simultaneously enlarging
its industrial base. The fact that the Super Hornet’s costs are likely to be comparable to the
Gripen NG should only make it more attractive to India’s Defense Ministry from a financial
point of view. And, finally, selecting the Super Hornet offers a further benefit: it opens the
door to the Indian Navy acquiring and operating the same aircraft on its next-generation
large-deck aircraft carriers.
All three aircraft, then, would satisfy India’s cost constraints; all three are highly capable
multirole fighters; all would surpass the IAF’s expectations for advanced technology to
counter its rivals; all will continue to enjoy growth potential, at least where their avionics
and weapons complements are concerned; and all three can also be manufactured in India,
with Saab and Lockheed Martin likely being more flexible than Boeing on this score. Only
the two U.S. primes, however, have a clear edge where the rapid production of the fighters
is concerned—an issue that should be of importance to the IAF but is perhaps not of equal
urgency to the government of India.60 As far as program costs and operational effectiveness
are concerned, therefore, any of these three fighters would fit the bill, though if the Gripen
NG is selected, the Indian government would in effect be jettisoning the medium-weight
component of its air force in favor of a functional mix of mainly light and heavy aircraft.
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AND THE AMCA PROGRAM
Irrespective of the finalist chosen, then, the big imponderable remains technology transfer.
If the Indian government and the IAF expect that co-production in India will automatically
translate into a “full” divestiture of critical technologies in materials, sensors, weaponry, or
software code—as opposed to production line capacities—they are likely to be disappointed.
The same goes for expectations of assistance in regard to stealth technology. Of the three
original equipment manufacturers under consideration, Lockheed Martin, having been the
prime contractor for both the F-22 and the F-35, possesses the deepest experience where
comprehensive fifth-generation fighter aircraft design is concerned. Boeing also plays in
this game, as demonstrated by its collaboration with Lockheed Martin on the F-22 and its
experience in designing Joint Strike Fighter prototypes. Saab comes in a poor third where
stealth is concerned: although the Gripen NG will have extensive radar cross-section reduction
treatments, no European manufacturer has the capacity to design a sophisticated fifthgeneration
fighter with organic stealth capabilities.
If it is therefore assumed that the Lockheed Martin proposal has an edge at least where
future support for the IAF’s AMCA program is concerned, Indian decisionmakers should
think again. Despite Lockheed Martin’s ample experience in designing and manufacturing
stealth fighters, this expertise is tightly controlled by the U.S. government. Any assistance
from an American company for the AMCA effort will therefore have to be negotiated subsequently
by the two governments, and the record thus far has not been promising.
The South Korean KF-X program is a great case in point: The Republic of Korea, a close
ally of the United States, set out in 2002 to build its own stealth fighter, similar to what
India proposes to do through its AMCA program. Lockheed Martin was expected to support
this endeavor as part of a package deal that involved the South Korean purchase of 40
F-35 Lightning stealth fighters. Although the company agreed to provide assistance within
the limits of its commercial interests, the U.S. government has refused to transfer four critical
technologies—the AESA radar, electronic-warfare systems, infrared search and tracking
capabilities, and targeting pods. And it is still unclear whether Washington will permit
integration of the 21 other technologies approved for transfer with the South Korean, European,
or Israeli alternatives now being considered.
If it is therefore assumed that the Lockheed Martin proposal has an edge at least where
future support for the IAF’s AMCA program is concerned, Indian decisionmakers should
think again. Despite Lockheed Martin’s ample experience in designing and manufacturing
stealth fighters, this expertise is tightly controlled by the U.S. government. Any assistance
from an American company for the AMCA effort will therefore have to be negotiated subsequently
by the two governments, and the record thus far has not been promising.
The South Korean KF-X program is a great case in point: The Republic of Korea, a close
ally of the United States, set out in 2002 to build its own stealth fighter, similar to what
India proposes to do through its AMCA program. Lockheed Martin was expected to support
this endeavor as part of a package deal that involved the South Korean purchase of 40
F-35 Lightning stealth fighters. Although the company agreed to provide assistance within
the limits of its commercial interests, the U.S. government has refused to transfer four critical
technologies—the AESA radar, electronic-warfare systems, infrared search and tracking
capabilities, and targeting pods. And it is still unclear whether Washington will permit
integration of the 21 other technologies approved for transfer with the South Korean, European,
or Israeli alternatives now being considered.62
The moral of the story should be clear: stealth technology remains among the most tightly
controlled American capabilities because of both the clear combat edge it provides and the
huge U.S. lead in this area. Any expectation that the AMCA program would therefore be
able to access American expertise merely because India purchased the F-16IN earlier would
prove to be unfounded. This does not constitute an argument against the purchase of the F-
16IN, which is a formidable combat aircraft available at a great price and that would make
India a significant player in the international aviation market. But it does require the IAF,
and the Indian government more generally, to think carefully about the character of the
AMCA program—because the alternatives here are fraught.
Clearly, the IAF needs a stealthy fifth-generation follow-on fighter if it is to cope successfully
with the Chinese J-20 and J-31, at least one of which is poised to enter the People’s
Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) early in the next decade. The Indian effort at cooperating
with Russia to develop a heavy stealth platform, the PAK-FA (Perspektivny Aviatsionny
Kompleks Frontovoy Aviatsii), is in trouble and hence the need for the AMCA, a
medium-weight alternative, becomes more urgent. The AMCA would have been essential
even if the PAK-FA program had proceeded swimmingly because the steady shift toward
fifth-generation combatants implies that the IAF would eventually need stealth fighters in
both weight classes. The imperative of not simply having a large enough air force but, more
important, possessing an air arm with the largest proportion of sophisticated aircraft makes
the case for a second stealthy fighter more compelling. But the Russian experience thus far
should reinforce the point that all foreign manufacturers, not just American, would be very
loath to part with their stealth technologies, at least for the foreseeable future and not until
more revolutionary cloaking capabilities, such as free space plasma, become fully mature.
Although India has boldly displayed models of a future AMCA design that includes a highly
shaped fuselage and planform, the country’s capacity to build a fifth-generation fighter
indigenously from scratch is actually nonexistent. India has, no doubt, been developing
bits and pieces of stealth-related technology, pursuing research in areas such as low probability
of intercept radars, radar absorbent coatings, canopy treatments, conformal antennas,
and engine masking, but Indian aircraft designers are still not capable of producing those
organic stealth designs that integrate highly shaped airframes, enclosed engines, embedded
sensors, internal weapons, and low-emission radars in a unified package. India’s choices,
then, consist of attempting to develop such capabilities domestically, with foreign assistance
whenever possible, or simply purchasing complete stealth fighters from any willing sellers.
Russia has already agreed to sell the PAK-FA to India, and the United States is open to entertaining
Indian requests for the F-35, but neither country is likely to help India to develop
indigenous stealth technologies—any protestations to the contrary notwithstanding—for
understandable national security reasons.
Consequently, the IAF is faced with the choice of accepting an indigenous product that is
likely to be inferior in combat capability or purchasing a cutting-edge stealth fighter that
will advantage it in conflict but will provide few benefits in terms of technology transfer and
could come with significant technology security protection obligations. If India chose the
latter route, the U.S. F-35 would be a perfect fit for the AMCA requirement: the unit costs
of the aircraft have already come down to somewhere in the region of $100 million apiece,
rivaling the Rafale, and the U.S. Air Force variant in the eighth low-rate initial production
lot is targeted at $95 million each. The F-35’s stealth, sensors, and weapons are unmatched
in the air-to-ground role for which it is optimized, and its extremely low frontal signatures
give it immense advantages in the air-to-air role as well. Finally, the aircraft’s overall worth
seems to be confirmed by the international aviation market, since F-35s are expected to
constitute more than 60 percent of all the new Western combat aircraft sold during 2016–
2020—a trend that is likely to persist as the aircraft is further upgraded over time.
None of this may prove to be sufficiently persuasive to the IAF or to the government of India,
given their deep-rooted desire for an indigenously produced follow-on medium-weight
stealth fighter. But that only deepens the old dilemma confronting the air service: how does
it balance the national (and sometimes its own) demand for self-sufficiency with its imperative
for operational superiority over its adversaries? If the inclination to produce a stealthy
AMCA indigenously wins out, India would enjoy some technology gains overall, but the
end product is likely to resemble a Tejas redux.
Successfully building a stealth fighter requires an enormous depth of research and design
expertise—not to mention excellence—in diverse areas, such as materials, electronics, and
engine technology. It also entails possessing deep experience in systems integration, a capability
developed only though the clear and uninterrupted progression of ever more complex
aircraft production programs, in addition to nurturing highly specialized capabilities in the
specific technology areas required to produce a platform that synergizes very low observable
stealth with advanced fighter performance. And it imposes extraordinary demands on
manufacturing capability because stealth aircraft are fabricated to incredibly tight tolerances
in the face of finicky materials and difficult geometries, not to mention the high maintenance
demands that inevitably follow.
India’s record on all these counts is not impressive—and that is putting it charitably. Consequently,
the expectations entertained in the Indian defense research and development
establishment about its ability to produce not simply a stealth combatant but one that can
overwhelm comparable adversaries in combat are likely to fall terribly short, with disastrous
consequences for the air force. If, after all the effort and investment, India finally manages
to produce indigenously nothing more than an expensive but substandard stealth fighter,
the national gains in technology progression will not have been worth the cost in potential losses
of lives and material in combat. Given these realities, the Indian government ought to consider
carefully the strategy underlying its AMCA program. It should start by honestly assessing what
any foreign partnership might provide in support of its goal of building an advanced stealthy platform.
Then it must consider whether the IAF—and the nation at large—is better served by the
outright purchase of a capable combatant or yet another Sisyphean effort at producing an
anemic simulacrum at home.
Pretending that the advent of counterstealth capabilities would free the Indian government
from making a choice here is not tenable either. For starters, it is simply not clear whether the
current efforts at detecting stealth aircraft will succeed. Even if they only progress, it implies that
the competition between stealth aircraft and counterstealth capabilities will further intensify,
leaving nonstealthy combat aircraft at a distinct disadvantage when facing stealthy
adversaries. Consequently, the IAF will have to move toward acquiring stealth fighters at some
point—especially as the Chinese J-20 begins to enter the PLAAF in substantial numbers—with the
only question being whether India acquires superior counterparts from a foreign source or settles
for inferior combatants developed indigenously.
Author: Ashley J. Tellis
Source Article: TROUBLES, THEY COME IN BATTALIONS
Subject/About: The Manifold Travails of the Indian Air Force
© 2016 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
