Fast forward 2030. (assume the Mudi is still in power)
What Equipment do you still see being imported? No small items the significants ones only.
Me personally.
Transport aircrafts.
Gunzz Thr Russian or Murican ones still.
Tanks the ruski ones.
Small Arms
Specialized drones the israieli ones and some Murian ones as well.
Jets At least one more batch most likely ruski ones.
Everything except transport planes, naval and iaf turbofan engines and the currently operating imported equipments & their spares will be indigenous. Even turbofan engines is likely to be indigenised by 2030 and brought into mass production by 2032. After that, only large transport planes will need imports
Ten Heron were bought in armed configuration.
If you meant the rest 90+ ? They were supposed to be weaponised under project cheetah... Which is running on since 2010 around getting cancelled and revived. That's another IAF never ending saga.
Can you tell me one use of armed heron drones? Which target will it strike?
Don't we have license to produce them ?
I know they are derived from them But I thought they have modified with some tweaks and now it's OFB legit property or licensed produced.
800 RPM is pretty good . What abt AK 630 don't we have license to produce them ?
We also have license for L70 production.
Yes, India has licensed all tanks. In fact any equipment which is being indigenised have ontained full license. Only caveat is that India has to substitute the critical parts by own efforts. T90, BMP, T72 are all licensed and are capable of fully indigenous manufacturing.
BMP doesn't have much armour . Infact we may need to uprate the engine a bit.
We can use T72 engines which are meant for 35ton vehicles. If light tank is 30tom, then the engine will even give additional thrust to climb mountain.
If they really go for VSHORADS type missiles then that would be bit shoddy.
IR guided missiles like VSHORADs would provide fire and forget capability to the system which is a key to counter a saturation attack where you want to waste as little time as possible between engaging two targets. But there's a bit of a problem with IR guided missiles; not all CRAM targets are hot. Things like glide bomb or artillery shell after travelling a long distance in high atmosphere become quite cold. This thing can also be witnessed in Ukraine Russia war where Ukrainian MANPADs are struggling to engage electric UAVs as compared to ICE ones.
The optimum missile for this type of system are semi active radar guided ones. Firstly because of being semi active the cost is bit lower and secondly the onboard radar can simultaneously guide 4-8 missiles to different targets. It also means the radar can redirect missiles in flight to new targets.
Radar based VSHORADS are impractical. The size of radars needed to acquire target will make them bulky and need large electricity supply. Also, Indian NAG ATHM has been tested in all conditions - normal, hot desert and even in cold Ladakh condition to check if it can see targets. DRDO had yo develop higher resolution IIR seeker for cold conditions but eventually it was fully feasible. So, with lower resolution (preferably 240p), IIR seekers can spot targets in cold too.
A question regarding the QRSAM:
Which other missiles provide similiar performance and fulfil the same role as QRSAM?
Spyder from Israel is one such example. No Indian system does what qrsam does. QRSAM is not just shorad but movable and quick reacting one.
Guided artillery rounds are cheaper in comparison to missiles but they can be directed at enemy position more precisely without being intercepted.
Only a few systems like iron done are deployed the world over to counter artillery shells as it's pretty expensive to do so.
India already has Swathi WLS for this. Interception of each round is impossible. Also, guided artillery is similar to rockets but their guidance is not that great
