Indian defence industry exports watch

[youngindian]

Sunday, Apr 04, 2010


New Delhi: Oman has become the first country in West Asia to place an order for guns with India.

According to senior officials, “INSAS gun from the Ordnance Factor Board is currently undergoing trials for the Oman army.”

This is not the first time that Oman is planning to procure defence equipment from India. Infact, state-owned Goa Shipyard Ltd (GSL) is set to foray into global market with special focus on the Gulf region.

GSL has been working on various projects to provide offshore patrol vessels to the Indian Navy and Coast Guard and is also looking forward to provide fast interceptor boats to the ministry of home affair.

Sources in the government indicated that GSL has delivered to three tugboats to Oman. “The Sultanate of Oman has expressed its keenness to buy more boats from GSL, however, due to overflow of orders that has been put on hold for the time being.”

GSL had participated in the Doha exhibition last year and it received positive response, especially from countries like Bahrain and UAE. “The officials of the Oman have visited the Indian shipyard and were impressed by the level of expertise, and suggested improvements to the ship designs,” said officials.

GSL will be undergoing modernisation to give a boost to their ship construction capability.


http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Oman-places-order-for-weapons-from-India/599647/

 

[Agantrope]

OMG!!! Oman is that bad country or IA's infection is in too level for Rejected INSAS?

 

[SATISH]

If the order goes to INSAS then it will be a slap on IA's face.....

 

[NSG_Blackcats]

After Arjun fiasco this is another one in the making. But if INSAS is selected by Oman Army it will be great for DRDO. They can supply arms to other parts of the world.

 

[Yusuf]

Insas is not a bad rifle. Its just made out to be. My friend is in the army. He doesn't find it bad at all. I am not going to start on Insas here.

Oman is buying the rifle for its army expected to fight a war, not counter insurgency where the Insas is reportedly out of favor. The rifle has done well otherwise.

Also Goa Shipyard is doing pretty well. I think it will get more orders from other countries. India has to look to sell weapons in the international market. Dhruv has proven it can compete with the best. We have brahmos. We can even sell the Arjun to countries looking for an MBT as its a pretty capable tank even if its not adopted by the IA.

If india can start adding capacity to its dockyards, we can start exporting warships too. India has some good stuff made at very reasonable cost. Right now we don't even have enough to meet our own requirement but the govt has to look into this matter and expand facilities not only for own use but also for export. There is a lot of money to be earned in the international arms bazaar.

 

[JAISWAL]

OMG now what will IA do as its rejected INSAS rifals might get selected by foregion army
So this may proof that drdo are not that bad
And that is just bad mouth publicity for geting firangi saaman
Hun. . . .;;;;;;;;

 

[Sridhar]

“INSAS gun from the Ordnance Factor Board is currently undergoing trials for the Oman army.”

 

[Dark_Prince]

Good, atleast Our Ordinance factories will get some investments realizing the International Potential for India in arms market!

 

[JAISWAL]

Any new update or detail on what other type wapons are there in trial.
Thanks.

 

[Blitz]

As we all know defence market is a big market and lots of hard cash flowing round in the coming decade the money will get bigger and bigger where is india placed in this market do you think, how much potential for export do we actually have ?
what are the PR group doing on this todays world is more PR oriented than ever

china already as a big potential and is on the path , pakistan being a big customer , what countries could india look to export some of its products,does india have the capacity to export and provide service to indian needs at the same time?
many questions pop up even pakistan now and then talks about exporting some of its stuff , we need to know more on what indian defence establishments are thinking , what private players are doing

waiting to hear all the views

 

[Yusuf]

Actually india has great potential already but sadly no one in the MoD is working overdrive to tap the potential.

All the targets are obviously third world/developing nations,

Let us start with the basics. Guns. Insas. Combat proven. Already sold to nepal. Under consideration by Oman.

Dhruv. Proven platform. Already in the indian forces and equador. Israel is impressed with it too. More latin american and other developing countries can be tapped.

Arjun. Chastised in india it is a potential winner for the DRDO in the international market. Other countries probably dont have "logistics" problems as IA and can adopt the tank.

8rahmos. Can be sold selectively to countries who wont pass on tech to china. Highly successful weapon system already in operation with indian forces.

Akash SAM, finally its cleared and can be sold to interested parties.

Nag, once ready is up there as an ATGM.

LCH, once ready will be a potential winner as its sibling is already a success.

The biggest of them all is the LCA Tejas. Will face direct competition from JF 17, but i think will beat it in international tender.

 

[Yusuf]

Just forgot that india has its own weapon locating radar and also the proven rajendra radar.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

PAK-FA will also be exported but the terms with the Russians are not known??

 

[gogbot]

Come on now , no jokes.

Competition from JF-17 , that upgraded mig-21 has no where near the capabilities as the LCA-mk 2 . And is overpowered by the underpowered MK-1 alone.

JF-17's only sale point is price , and i doubt that china would sell the JF-17 in competition with the J-10 . Only reason to buy the Jf-17 is price if it cant compete with the J-10 it cant compete with LCA.
Pak needs China to market, and China wants to market J-10 more than JF-17 , Pak does nt have control of engines, so it has to get them from China that gets them from Russia.
Who in their right mind would Buy from Pak when Pak cant guarantee engines. Only China can sell the plane , and china would much rather sell the J-10. its market potential is severely hindered

LCA-mk2 is direct competition to the Grphen NG , if you ever examined the specs of both they are nearly identical. But given the LCA's cheaper price , it may edge out and provide competition to the MIg-29 and F-16 as well.The Upgraded J-10 will be serious competition.

But the main problem with this outlook is that, weapons are where India will loose out.
pitching the LCA is not good enough on its own, you have to take to consideration the weapons that come with

 

[Agantrope]

Everyone forgotten as the most important scope of the export, ie the Brahmos. Crippled version of the brahmos cost around $1.5M. It is planned that 1000 brahmos that are to be sold to the friendly nations.

Reg Tejas Mk2 i would tell it is not a direct competitor for the gripen, It is better than tejas to tell. But for the given cost always tejas beats the gripen hands down. but i fear that if it is with the GE414, a limited scope export is possible.

INSAS also can provide some foreign currency from the african countries as it is cheap that other contemporary ARs.

Nag already obtained some foreign order. Aakash has been cleared for the foreign sale.

When the BMD is matued it can be also put forth for the sales to the countries like singapore and other small nations.

 

[bengalraider]

Hate to be on the wrong foot here but who are we kidding! India a defence exporter i mean c'mon the OFB with it's bloated bureaucracy actually plans to export !sorry not happening until the DPSU's get their act together. once they do we have alot of smaller ticket items that can be more if not as profitable . i'm talking about BPV'S , grenades,bullets,shells etc. we can breakdown the potential for defence exports into three main points.

1)Sales- do we have a coordinated sales response like the russian rosoboronexport? do we know how to shock and awe the customer like the folks from EADS? can we go the extra mile to provide a potential customer with service and attention that makes him feel like a king? are our defence production czars actually prepared to make the sacrifices that are reuired to be better than the competition?the answer to all the above is NO! we have a DPSU setup that has a captive billion $ market in the Indian military, they are so used to this captive system that they simply in most cases do not see the need for exports, tell me why would you look for exports knowing well beforehand that you have already met your sales targets beforehand! you would not, it is human tendency to be complacent and the entire setup in these firms has become complacent.We need a new and energetic sales effort maybe based on the success of the ANTRIX corporation that is required before we can even think of selling anything.

Production-Do we have the spare capacity? can we maintain quality?can we maintain time shedules? the answer to all these questions is iffy! we have a massive and bloated Military-industrial setup that certainly can produce more than what is requiredie it has massive installed capacity, but the installed human capacity is lacking, we have seen the quality issues the IA has already faced with the INSAS,BPV's and numerous other items our domestic consumer forgives us oversights in quality as it has no choice to do anything otherwise, a foreign customer shall not be bound by similar obligations.We are lacking in installed capacity as far as big ticket items such as missiles and ships are concerned and i do not forsee any exports in these items until internal requirements can be satisfied.

Service-We were woefully slow to react in ecuador, we may not get the same chance again. Service is often the biggest challenge faced by established players like Lockheed and rosoboronexport when dealing with clients , each complaint has to be accorded importance and the client must be satisfied before any problem escalates to unmanageable levels.Service deadlines are more critical than delivery deadlines because in the latter the client does not have an inoperative plane sitting on the runway. we need to build a service team that is upto the task and back it up with solid unrelenting support(we had a great team in ecuador that did not get support from home). a strong enough sales and service netwrok can do wonders for exports and that i believe is where we should concentrate.

in closing i would like to state that when we do start exporting i forsee small ticket items such as Bullet-proof vests and hand-grenades becoming a far better selling item than the brahmos.

 

[Yusuf]

BR, the drdo and MoD has to take a leaf out of ISRO. The Antrix Corp is doing a fabulous job. Yes we have the bullets and stuff, but we also have all the other systems i mentioned that can be sold if the relevant authorities get their ac together.

 

[anoop_mig25]

Come on now , no jokes.

Competition from JF-17 , that upgraded mig-21 has no where near the capabilities as the LCA-mk 2 . And is overpowered by the underpowered MK-1 alone.

JF-17's only sale point is price , and i doubt that china would sell the JF-17 in competition with the J-10 . Only reason to buy the Jf-17 is price if it cant compete with the J-10 it cant compete with LCA.
Pak needs China to market, and China wants to market J-10 more than JF-17 , Pak does nt have control of engines, so it has to get them from China that gets them from Russia.
Who in their right mind would Buy from Pak when Pak cant guarantee engines. Only China can sell the plane , and china would much rather sell the J-10. its market potential is severely hindered

LCA-mk2 is direct competition to the Grphen NG , if you ever examined the specs of both they are nearly identical. But given the LCA's cheaper price , it may edge out and provide competition to the MIg-29 and F-16 as well.The Upgraded J-10 will be serious competition.

But the main problem with this outlook is that, weapons are where India will loose out.
pitching the LCA is not good enough on its own, you have to take to consideration the weapons that come with

i would only say never to under-estimate our enemy

 

[youngindian]

Oman army all set to use India's INSAS rifles

Kolkata, April 22, 2010

Assault rifle INSAS (Indian Small Arms System), built by the state-run Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), will soon be used by the Royal Oman Army.

The indigenously built rifle was sent to Muscat in March and is currently undergoing trial for the Oman army.

"Oman has informed us that the rifles have successfully passed the trial run. INSAS will, in all likelihood, be the standard assault rifle of the Royal Oman Army," said an OFB deputy director-rank official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

The rifles were subjected to endurance tests for extreme desert temperatures and sandstorms and performed well in both conditions, sources in OFB and Ministry of Defence told Hindustan Times.

Developed in OFB'S Ishapore factory, 45 km north of Kolkata, in 1998, it has three variants — an assault rifle, a light machine gun and a carbine.

India will be supplying the 5.56 mm assault rifle to Oman.

The weapon has been sent as part of the India-Oman comprehensive defence agreement of 2003.

"If a deal is struck with Oman, the quantity and size of the deal will not be made public," said Major General V.K. Narula, additional director general (public relations) of the Indian Army.

Equipped with 20 or 30-round transparent magazines, the rifle has an effective range of 450 metres. The loaded weapon weighs around four kilograms.

INSAS is currently the standard infantry weapon of the Indian armed forces.

In 1999, it served the army against Pakistan in the Kargil confrontation.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/rssfe...use-India-s-INSAS-rifles/Article1-534688.aspx

 

[F-14]

I am not suprised during the RAJ period India supplied Oman all her defense needs