MRCA News & Dicussions (IV)

[vikramrana_1812]

The Obama visit has complicated matters. India cannot declare that American planes have been "rejected" just before the visit.
It will be diplomatic harakiri .It is just not done.

Once we reject the Russian plane Mig 35 ,then After Obama's visit we can announce the rejection of American planes also.
And then quickly negotiate with RAfale and Eurofighter to announce the winner before June 30 2011.

That date has been tentatively fixed for declaring a winner.

June 30 2011............that means another year......This deal is a failure in the start itself.

 

[neo29]

Shiv Aroor claims that Mig 35 out, says details will be out soon. Lets keep fingers crossed.

 

[Mustang]

never under estimate China...they are stronger, have more missiles and fighter aircrafts..

THE fact is if China attacks India then we WONT BE ABLE TO USE our MKI's because they are going to destroy each and every airbase in INDIA before declaring WAR...... To fight China we dont need MKI's....WE need Deep Striking Missiles Thats IT....otherwise forget it....india wont be able to stand for long if war broke out with CHina....


It is a fact...accept it friends...i am an Indian ..I also hate to accept this but it is truth....

I really appreciate you for keeping your feet on the ground and being realistic.

The chinese clearly have an edge over us. In case of war, They will think of first eliminating our air bases with cruise missiles (difficult to detect) and lauch a full scale attack. I am also not sure how our air force is going to be effective in case of any war with china given the altitude and russian weapons may not perform well in high altitude.

and it would be the land forces of both countries which would go head on and when it comes to artillery the less i speak the better. We all know how the government is prolonging the artillery purchase. Moreover, a part of our forces are based on western border as well.

And then there are people who say that indian army is not the same as in 1962. Such people conviniently forget the fact that even chinese army is not the same as in 1962. In fact they have grown much more than ours, be it in terms of quality or quantity.

Anyone who understates china should wake up and smell the coffee.

 

[Armand2REP]

Shiv Aroor claims that Mig 35 out, says details will be out soon. Lets keep fingers crossed.

Glad Shiv is finally getting on board with the already reported news. He was like, don't listen to Times Now! Now he can confirm it. Gripen and F-16 are out too.

 

[civfanatic]

All this hype about China is really quite annoying.

In a future Sino-India conflict, China will definitely NOT target the subcontinent itself. That would mean a direct assault on Indian sovereignty (as recognized by China) and would automatically give India the right to respond with a nuclear strike in self-defense. The international community would be on India's side in this scenario.

What China WILL do is start a limited war in Arunachal Pradesh, which it does not consider India to have sovereignty over. India is unlikely to start a nuclear war over a disputed territory. Bottom line is that India should focus on improving military infrastructure in the Northeast, improve the efficiency of mountain infantry, and inducting tactical lightweight artillery and AA systems, NOT trying to overpower the PLAAF in every way possible.

 

[luckyy]

I am also not sure how our air force is going to be effective in case of any war with china given the altitude and russian weapons may not perform well in high altitude.
.

so , IAF with russian weapons ......then how will chines air force will perform with duplicate copies of these russian weapons .....

 

[arya]

I really appreciate you for keeping your feet on the ground and being realistic.

The chinese clearly have an edge over us. In case of war, They will think of first eliminating our air bases with cruise missiles (difficult to detect) and lauch a full scale attack. I am also not sure how our air force is going to be effective in case of any war with china given the altitude and russian weapons may not perform well in high altitude.

and it would be the land forces of both countries which would go head on and when it comes to artillery the less i speak the better. We all know how the government is prolonging the artillery purchase. Moreover, a part of our forces are based on western border as well.

And then there are people who say that indian army is not the same as in 1962. Such people conviniently forget the fact that even chinese army is not the same as in 1962. In fact they have grown much more than ours, be it in terms of quality or quantity.

Anyone who understates china should wake up and smell the coffee.

but the problem is that we will not wake up till the last time

govt should support our force and do all the thing which need like

1) artillery govt must buy the best one for our force may be not in large number and why not we make them with DRDO and pvt defence pvt company or joint vent with any other country

2) LCA induct lca as soon as possible

3) road across the border

4) we need airbase outside the India so that at worst condition we can use them now we have just one or two base

5) our missile program is so behind we need to work in the missile field induct agni5 as they get

6)our intelligence agency should try to get maximum info from china which they can get from china

7) we should work with japan Vietnam USA Russia to counter china

8) last our economy should be strong and that is the main point to counter china

we should be ready for any thing i mean anything

 

[neo29]

Stick to mmrca guys ...

IAF currently has Su-30mki, Mig 29's, Mirage 2000 as front line fighters and LCA to be inducted.

Now which among the contenders fits best into this group of fighters???
Gripen is similar to LCA so out
Mig-35=Mig 29 so out
F-16 is single engine like Mirage and LCA so out

EF, Rafale and SH-18 does fit in IAF group.

 

[neo29]

MMRCA BUZZ: MiG-35 Was Never In The Running?

Quick disclaimer: with nothing official on the MMRCA competition available from the Indian government -- at one level, rightly so -- the only available information is hearsay. And I don't think debate about rumours is going to ever affect a professionally managed competition. This is a pot that stirs itself. It could be bang on, it could be totally off. I'm hoping everyone will look at the assertions on their own merit. These are bits of conversations with officers, ex-Chiefs etc over the last few weeks strung together. Ok, let's get down to it.

The overriding sense I get from my sources is this: It is not a question of what chance the MiG-35 has in the MMRCA sweepstakes but whether the MiG-35 ever had a chance in the first place. From the start, it turns out, both the MoD and a controlling section of the IAF have agreed on one crucial thing -- the next aircraft the IAF operated would need to be a truly modern platform that "broke the mould". That was to be the starting point of everything that followed. The IAF's next aircraft needed to be a top-of-the-line aircraft that broke out from the old mould and signalled new things for India in every possible sense: technology, diplomacy, security cooperation, political opportunity, military interoperability, logistical exchange and economics.

As late as mid-2006, a time when there was a breathless guessing game about precisely when the Indian MoD would send out its MMRCA RFP, there were apparently quiet discussions on over whether Moscow could be brought on board and persuaded to stay out of the proposed MMRCA competition. It was suggested that this be made possible through interactions at the highest levels, but first the MoD and IAF needed to figure the feasibility of such a proposal. It is said that the Russian Ambassador to New Delhi at the time was called in for an unofficial discussion on the highly controversial possibility of Russia actually being kept out of the sweepstakes. He was accompanied by Russia's Air Attache. As the IAF expected, the Russian envoy was incredulous. He said there was no way on earth his Russian bosses would ever be persuaded to agree to that. Obviously. A year before, in February 2005, Russia had sent a MiG-29M/M2 MRCA to AeroIndia 05. For AeroIndia 07, MiG pulled out all the stops. A month before that in January 2007 was an important event -- India and Russia finally formalised their joint fifth generation aircraft plan, though actual agreements came later.

In February 2007, the "MiG-35" (actually the MiG-29M2 No. 154, a 17-year-old airframe with blue-painted fins) was officially unveiled to the world at AeroIndia 07 at the IAF's Yelahanka base. Coupled with the bright red and blue thrust-vectored MiG-29OVT, the two aircraft put up a deeply memorable show. But IAF officers who had a chance to check out the aircraft came away very unimpressed. "It is an old aircraft with a few MFDs," one of them said at the time. At the time, it indeed was, but Russia had said it was merely a proof-of-concept platform that would be evolved into a formidable new Fulcrum.

Six months later, on August 28, 2007 -- two days after the MAKS 2007 air show at Zhukovsky (see photo, me and MiG's Stanislav Gorbunov after our sortie) -- the Indian government finally and belatedly issued its long-awaited RFP to six vendors, 211 pages long and delayed ostensibly by the offets and selection model sections. This probably means nothing, but in all MoD and official acquisition council papers concerning the MMRCA competition since the RFP, the MiG-35 is first in the list of six competitors. As a matter of record, the official order of the remaining competitors is Gripen, F-16, F/A-18, Typhoon, Rafale. A senior IAF officer who was part of a delegation to MAKS 2007 met UAC boss Alexei Fedorov on August 22-23, 2007, and is understood to have had a very "frank chat". Fedorov was told that the Indian government was willing to consider the MiG-35, though its chances were slim, considering the three explicit guiding principals of the selection process, and the two unspoken ones (more on these later). Fedorov is understood to have said that the Russian government was fully aware of the "winds of change" in New Delhi, but was confident that MiG would put up a good fight, politically too.

On a political level, it was conveyed to the Russians that the flagship Russian airplane, the Su-30, was being patronized extensively by India (plans were afoot already then to up orders), and that the MiG-35 was hardly a platform the Russian Air Force itself was interested in.

On March 7, 2008, the Indian government, after prolonged cost negotiations, finally concluded a $964.1-million contract to upgrade the IAF's entire fleet of over 60 MiG-29s (the Indian phase of the upgrade began in June this year). Shortly thereafter, on April 28, 2008, RAC-MiG/Rosoboronexport submitted an MMRCA technical bid for the MiG-35/35D to the MoD, offering a Fulcrum with an improved airframe, new generation avionics and an AESA radar, the Phazotron Zhuk-AE.

In October-December 2008, during evaluations of the MMRCA technical bids, two Russian MiG-29s crashed after critical structural failures of their fins, forcing the Russian Air Force to ground its entire fleet shortly thereafter. Coming as the accidents did so soon after the upgrade contract was concluded, the IAF generated a query, routed through the Russian Air Attache, asking for a full brief on the accidents on why the Russians had been forced to ground their entire fleet. In April 2009, Russia responded, saying there were structural faults in the MiG-29 platform, and that the accidents had been caused as a result of structural failure of the aircraft's fin root ribs. Significantly, the Russians conveyed that a specific "repair scheme" would be included in the March 2008 upgrade manifest. The IAF, however, demanded to know what immediate checks needed to be carried out and requested full accident reports. These were provided. The Russians grounding their entire Fulcrum fleet created a huge stir. Sections of the MoD/IAF debated the possibility of manipulating the entire issue to somehow put the MiG-35 out of the reckoning, but nothing whatsoever in the RFP terms would allow it. Also, by this time, the "guiding principles" as expounded by the MoD had begun to echo like a mantra.

The explicit principles -- first, the IAF's operational needs should be fulfilled. Two, the selection process needed to be competitive and transparent, and finally, that the competition would lead to a legacy leap for Indian industrial capabilities. The unspoken principles -- first, the competition should provide robust leverage to India's multifarious 21st Century political aspirations. And second, as previously stated, the competition needs to break old moulds in every sense to create strategic space for other partnerships.

A former IAF chief, who served during a crucial phase of the MMRCA planning, admits that the competition is a political opportunity that incidentally gives the Indian Air Force a chunky stop-gap to tide over legacy jet phase-outs and delays in the Tejas -- not the other way round. "You can argue ad nauseum about sanctioned strength and squadron strength. The fact is the IAF's requirement is not only much simpler, but much smaller too. As long as the pilots get a top-of-the-line airplane, nobody is complaining. Let the politicians do the politics. That is their job," he says, adding, "The IAF's requirements for a fresh batch of medium fighter jets came at a time when our strategic aspirations were in a state of great flux. It will be an enabler in many ways."

In March 2010, around the time the crucial MMRCA field evaluation trials were winding down, the Indian government exercised options and signed up for 29 additional MiG-29K/KUB shipborne fighters for the Navy at a cost of $1.46-billion, taking its total order to 45 planes. In other words, since the time the IAF first approached the government with a requirement for a quick induction of medium fighters (it wanted to quickly contract for 60-70 more Mirage-2000s at he time), the Indian government has pumped approximately $3.5-billion into procuring MiG-29 platforms or platform related services.

The maximum I could squeeze out from informed sources about the MiG-35's performance in the field evaluation trials is that the platform achieved "average compliance". Areas of poor compliance are said to have occured at the Leh leg, avionics exploitation and PGM delivery routines in Russia. The IAF are also said to have been fairly unimpressed with what the Russians had managed to achieve with the aircraft since they first saw it in February 2007. If the MiG-35's performance was average in the trials, they know about it, since the IAF trial team briefed every contending team about their horse's performance after trials concluded.

The Indian government remains utterly unconvinced of Russia's ability to provide any meaningful industrial package to India as a mandatory part of the MMRCA. The India-Russia relationship is anything but new -- it stretches back 47 years. India has learnt much from Russia, and has been provided the opportunity to cookie-cut airplanes through decades. But when it comes to meaningful industrial collaboration, the Indian government feels the Russians are better at selling and license building, rather than true blue industrial cooperation.

"It is not as though they have not had a chance to deepen their relationship with us industrially. Nobody knows the Indian industrial capability better than the Russians. They have exploited our weaknesses to the hilt for over four decades. But even then their industrial base is in tatters. In my opinion, whatever we can ever get from the Russians, we have already got or are soon to get. To expect anything more is unreasonable," says a former IAF Chief. Apparently, the Indian government also doesn't believe the Russians have anything to offer over and above what the Indians are already signing up for -- the fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) will be an ostensibly joint effort.

While the initial MiG-29K deal was too good not to go for (at least in 2004!) and the upgrade was something the IAF could postpone but not sidestep, sources say the government has very low confidence in the industrial health of MiG Corporation, tottering as it apparently is from airframe to airframe. Russia's inability to stick to delivery timeframes, especially for MiG Corp, is another spoiler.

On a final note, the path taken by the MiG-35 so far in the MMRCA competition needs to be seen in the light of the unspoken guiding principles and what the IAF and MoD originally wanted to persuade the Russians about. I've put this post up now, but will be adding more to it over the next couple of days.


http://livefist.blogspot.com/2010/08/mmrca-buzz-mig-35-was-never-in-running.html

 

[luckyy]

the "guiding principles" as expounded by the MoD had begun to echo like a mantra.

The explicit principles -- first, the IAF's operational needs should be fulfilled. Two, the selection process needed to be competitive and transparent,

 

[vikramrana_1812]

MMRCA BUZZ: MiG-35 Was Never In The Running?

Quick disclaimer: with nothing official on the MMRCA competition available from the Indian government -- at one level, rightly so -- the only available information is hearsay. And I don't think debate about rumours is going to ever affect a professionally managed competition. This is a pot that stirs itself. It could be bang on, it could be totally off. I'm hoping everyone will look at the assertions on their own merit. These are bits of conversations with officers, ex-Chiefs etc over the last few weeks strung together. Ok, let's get down to it.

The overriding sense I get from my sources is this: It is not a question of what chance the MiG-35 has in the MMRCA sweepstakes but whether the MiG-35 ever had a chance in the first place. From the start, it turns out, both the MoD and a controlling section of the IAF have agreed on one crucial thing -- the next aircraft the IAF operated would need to be a truly modern platform that "broke the mould". That was to be the starting point of everything that followed. The IAF's next aircraft needed to be a top-of-the-line aircraft that broke out from the old mould and signalled new things for India in every possible sense: technology, diplomacy, security cooperation, political opportunity, military interoperability, logistical exchange and economics.

As late as mid-2006, a time when there was a breathless guessing game about precisely when the Indian MoD would send out its MMRCA RFP, there were apparently quiet discussions on over whether Moscow could be brought on board and persuaded to stay out of the proposed MMRCA competition. It was suggested that this be made possible through interactions at the highest levels, but first the MoD and IAF needed to figure the feasibility of such a proposal. It is said that the Russian Ambassador to New Delhi at the time was called in for an unofficial discussion on the highly controversial possibility of Russia actually being kept out of the sweepstakes. He was accompanied by Russia's Air Attache. As the IAF expected, the Russian envoy was incredulous. He said there was no way on earth his Russian bosses would ever be persuaded to agree to that. Obviously. A year before, in February 2005, Russia had sent a MiG-29M/M2 MRCA to AeroIndia 05. For AeroIndia 07, MiG pulled out all the stops. A month before that in January 2007 was an important event -- India and Russia finally formalised their joint fifth generation aircraft plan, though actual agreements came later.

In February 2007, the "MiG-35" (actually the MiG-29M2 No. 154, a 17-year-old airframe with blue-painted fins) was officially unveiled to the world at AeroIndia 07 at the IAF's Yelahanka base. Coupled with the bright red and blue thrust-vectored MiG-29OVT, the two aircraft put up a deeply memorable show. But IAF officers who had a chance to check out the aircraft came away very unimpressed. "It is an old aircraft with a few MFDs," one of them said at the time. At the time, it indeed was, but Russia had said it was merely a proof-of-concept platform that would be evolved into a formidable new Fulcrum.

Six months later, on August 28, 2007 -- two days after the MAKS 2007 air show at Zhukovsky (see photo, me and MiG's Stanislav Gorbunov after our sortie) -- the Indian government finally and belatedly issued its long-awaited RFP to six vendors, 211 pages long and delayed ostensibly by the offets and selection model sections. This probably means nothing, but in all MoD and official acquisition council papers concerning the MMRCA competition since the RFP, the MiG-35 is first in the list of six competitors. As a matter of record, the official order of the remaining competitors is Gripen, F-16, F/A-18, Typhoon, Rafale. A senior IAF officer who was part of a delegation to MAKS 2007 met UAC boss Alexei Fedorov on August 22-23, 2007, and is understood to have had a very "frank chat". Fedorov was told that the Indian government was willing to consider the MiG-35, though its chances were slim, considering the three explicit guiding principals of the selection process, and the two unspoken ones (more on these later). Fedorov is understood to have said that the Russian government was fully aware of the "winds of change" in New Delhi, but was confident that MiG would put up a good fight, politically too.

On a political level, it was conveyed to the Russians that the flagship Russian airplane, the Su-30, was being patronized extensively by India (plans were afoot already then to up orders), and that the MiG-35 was hardly a platform the Russian Air Force itself was interested in.

On March 7, 2008, the Indian government, after prolonged cost negotiations, finally concluded a $964.1-million contract to upgrade the IAF's entire fleet of over 60 MiG-29s (the Indian phase of the upgrade began in June this year). Shortly thereafter, on April 28, 2008, RAC-MiG/Rosoboronexport submitted an MMRCA technical bid for the MiG-35/35D to the MoD, offering a Fulcrum with an improved airframe, new generation avionics and an AESA radar, the Phazotron Zhuk-AE.

In October-December 2008, during evaluations of the MMRCA technical bids, two Russian MiG-29s crashed after critical structural failures of their fins, forcing the Russian Air Force to ground its entire fleet shortly thereafter. Coming as the accidents did so soon after the upgrade contract was concluded, the IAF generated a query, routed through the Russian Air Attache, asking for a full brief on the accidents on why the Russians had been forced to ground their entire fleet. In April 2009, Russia responded, saying there were structural faults in the MiG-29 platform, and that the accidents had been caused as a result of structural failure of the aircraft's fin root ribs. Significantly, the Russians conveyed that a specific "repair scheme" would be included in the March 2008 upgrade manifest. The IAF, however, demanded to know what immediate checks needed to be carried out and requested full accident reports. These were provided. The Russians grounding their entire Fulcrum fleet created a huge stir. Sections of the MoD/IAF debated the possibility of manipulating the entire issue to somehow put the MiG-35 out of the reckoning, but nothing whatsoever in the RFP terms would allow it. Also, by this time, the "guiding principles" as expounded by the MoD had begun to echo like a mantra.

The explicit principles -- first, the IAF's operational needs should be fulfilled. Two, the selection process needed to be competitive and transparent, and finally, that the competition would lead to a legacy leap for Indian industrial capabilities. The unspoken principles -- first, the competition should provide robust leverage to India's multifarious 21st Century political aspirations. And second, as previously stated, the competition needs to break old moulds in every sense to create strategic space for other partnerships.

A former IAF chief, who served during a crucial phase of the MMRCA planning, admits that the competition is a political opportunity that incidentally gives the Indian Air Force a chunky stop-gap to tide over legacy jet phase-outs and delays in the Tejas -- not the other way round. "You can argue ad nauseum about sanctioned strength and squadron strength. The fact is the IAF's requirement is not only much simpler, but much smaller too. As long as the pilots get a top-of-the-line airplane, nobody is complaining. Let the politicians do the politics. That is their job," he says, adding, "The IAF's requirements for a fresh batch of medium fighter jets came at a time when our strategic aspirations were in a state of great flux. It will be an enabler in many ways."

In March 2010, around the time the crucial MMRCA field evaluation trials were winding down, the Indian government exercised options and signed up for 29 additional MiG-29K/KUB shipborne fighters for the Navy at a cost of $1.46-billion, taking its total order to 45 planes. In other words, since the time the IAF first approached the government with a requirement for a quick induction of medium fighters (it wanted to quickly contract for 60-70 more Mirage-2000s at he time), the Indian government has pumped approximately $3.5-billion into procuring MiG-29 platforms or platform related services.

The maximum I could squeeze out from informed sources about the MiG-35's performance in the field evaluation trials is that the platform achieved "average compliance". Areas of poor compliance are said to have occured at the Leh leg, avionics exploitation and PGM delivery routines in Russia. The IAF are also said to have been fairly unimpressed with what the Russians had managed to achieve with the aircraft since they first saw it in February 2007. If the MiG-35's performance was average in the trials, they know about it, since the IAF trial team briefed every contending team about their horse's performance after trials concluded.

The Indian government remains utterly unconvinced of Russia's ability to provide any meaningful industrial package to India as a mandatory part of the MMRCA. The India-Russia relationship is anything but new -- it stretches back 47 years. India has learnt much from Russia, and has been provided the opportunity to cookie-cut airplanes through decades. But when it comes to meaningful industrial collaboration, the Indian government feels the Russians are better at selling and license building, rather than true blue industrial cooperation.

"It is not as though they have not had a chance to deepen their relationship with us industrially. Nobody knows the Indian industrial capability better than the Russians. They have exploited our weaknesses to the hilt for over four decades. But even then their industrial base is in tatters. In my opinion, whatever we can ever get from the Russians, we have already got or are soon to get. To expect anything more is unreasonable," says a former IAF Chief. Apparently, the Indian government also doesn't believe the Russians have anything to offer over and above what the Indians are already signing up for -- the fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) will be an ostensibly joint effort.

While the initial MiG-29K deal was too good not to go for (at least in 2004!) and the upgrade was something the IAF could postpone but not sidestep, sources say the government has very low confidence in the industrial health of MiG Corporation, tottering as it apparently is from airframe to airframe. Russia's inability to stick to delivery timeframes, especially for MiG Corp, is another spoiler.

On a final note, the path taken by the MiG-35 so far in the MMRCA competition needs to be seen in the light of the unspoken guiding principles and what the IAF and MoD originally wanted to persuade the Russians about. I've put this post up now, but will be adding more to it over the next couple of days.


http://livefist.blogspot.com/2010/08/mmrca-buzz-mig-35-was-never-in-running.html

Although I am feeling proud to say that India has good ties with Russia...but that doesnt mean that we give them an edge in MMRCA deal for the good relationship...MMRCA deal is a business deal...and India should choose the best.. IMO Rafale and Eurofighter are true winners in this deal...3rd F-18SH (technological edge in avionics)....rest are all loosers in some or the other way....

 

[wild goose]

Interesting video, hope its not a repost.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvEDSI1nf3E&feature=related

 

[Armand2REP]

Although I am feeling proud to say that India has good ties with Russia...but that doesnt mean that we give them an edge in MMRCA deal for the good relationship...MMRCA deal is a business deal...and India should choose the best.. IMO Rafale and Eurofighter are true winners in this deal...3rd F-18SH (technological edge in avionics)....rest are all loosers in some or the other way....

It really comes down to what technology the competitors have to offer. India doesn't want legacy tech, they want the future. Russia doesn't offer that and America is too tight to share it. Russia has used India to keep themselves alive for the last 20 years, India has used Russia to get a quantity of arms at low prices. Russia cannot even deliver low prices anymore. Their relevance is quickly drying up.

 

[Mustang]

neo29..MMRA procurement might have china angle in some way or the other in the eyes of MOD and IAF. whatever we have is sufficient to deal with pakistan. Thats not the case with china. So this MMRA procurement might eventually be concluded keeping china in mind.

so , IAF with russian weapons ......then how will chines air force will perform with duplicate copies of these russian weapons .....

You are correct. But the advantages which the chinese PLA has over india in terms of numbers, infrastructure and even quality is supposed to be countered / balanced by our air force. The question is, does it really counter it?. If yes, to what extent?..Trying to answer these questions would eventually lead to number, type and origin of aircraft that would eventually be procured.

And we do need something which indeed performs well at high altitude in the himalayas whether the PLAAF has aircraft with superior performance or not. For them, this may not matter much, but for us it matters.

Moreover, let me very clear that i am not trying to put some sort of fear with regard to china. For it is just math that matters. They are ahead in terms of quality and quantity. And remember that pakistan might be more than willing to open another front in case of any conflict with china.

For me, this deal should eventually be between EF and SH. Though Rafale might be good or even better, politically it may not bring much like the other two.

 

[StealthSniper]

It really comes down to what technology the competitors have to offer. India doesn't want legacy tech, they want the future. Russia doesn't offer that and America is too tight to share it. Russia has used India to keep themselves alive for the last 20 years, India has used Russia to get a quantity of arms at low prices. Russia cannot even deliver low prices anymore. Their relevance is quickly drying up.

Their relevance is not quickly drying up, we have options and we are looking for different opportunities and that is all. Even I think that the Mig-35 is not what India needs, but Russia will always be close to India and until some other country offers us Nuclear or stealth technologies (with no strings attached) then nobody is coming close to India's closest ally which is Russia. We have a 47 year relationship with Russia and India is doing things to benefit it's interest while Russia will do their things to benefit them. So far, we gained far more from Russia then they gained from us and India would be stupid to pull away from Russia and go with America (who alliance with our enemy and make us sign numerous agreements).

 

[neo29]

Their relevance is not quickly drying up, we have options and we are looking for different opportunities and that is all. Even I think that the Mig-35 is not what India needs, but Russia will always be close to India and until some other country offers us Nuclear or stealth technologies (with no strings attached) then nobody is coming close to India's closest ally which is Russia. We have a 47 year relationship with Russia and India is doing things to benefit it's interest while Russia will do their things to benefit them. So far, we gained far more from Russia then they gained from us and India would be stupid to pull away from Russia and go with America (who alliance with our enemy and make us sign numerous agreements).

47 year frienship doesnt mean they sell us dud bombs, costly hardware, no spares and support. Russia thinks India needs us always and we can extract as much as we can from them. The latest case being when India wanted to ink the 5th gen fighter JV but Russia said it was not needed. They just want to sell as everything coz they think we need them most. Lets get practically unlike Soviet union, Russia will not come to help us in any military conflict. Our current deal with them is enough to gain their support in UN for any resolution etc. 10 billion to someone with bad delays, support and a paper plane will be the most foolish decision any establishment may have made.

 

[StealthSniper]

47 year frienship doesnt mean they sell us dud bombs, costly hardware, no spares and support. Russia thinks India needs us always and we can extract as much as we can from them. The latest case being when India wanted to ink the 5th gen fighter JV but Russia said it was not needed. They just want to sell as everything coz they think we need them most. Lets get practically unlike Soviet union, Russia will not come to help us in any military conflict. Our current deal with them is enough to gain their support in UN for any resolution etc. 10 billion to someone with bad delays, support and a paper plane will be the most foolish decision any establishment may have made.

When you sell as much stuff as Russia has sold to India, of course your going to have some issues that are going to crop up. Also you shouldn't be so quick to judge Russia considering we have a ton of issues with our overpriced Scorpene submarines right now and the costly upgrade France is charging for the Mirage 2000 upgrade. Also just wait when we get all the American hardware we bought and then find out we can't use it when or the way we want or how they have to check the equipment every year to see if India has tampered with it (Russia doesn't handicap us like this).

Of course Russia is bad, how dare they sell us highly sensitive technology that gave us a HUGE step forward to AT LEAST have a chance to compete with China or we would be 2 decades behind them right now. We should ignore Russia and go with the Europeans and Americans because they offer us inferior, handicapped, expensive products and also blacklist our indigenous companies so we can never make products that can compete with their equipment.


For me I look at what benefits India, first and foremost, and even if Russia is overstepping a bit, they pretty much saved us a decade or 2 in development time for stealth and nuclear technologies and if they didn't do this, we would have no deterrent for China or even Pakistan for that matter. Trust me, if India keeps things neutral and just keeps everything business related we will be okay, but India will NOT gain from having partnerships with Europe or America, it's a dead end road.

 

[civfanatic]

47 year frienship doesnt mean they sell us dud bombs, costly hardware, no spares and support. Russia thinks India needs us always and we can extract as much as we can from them. The latest case being when India wanted to ink the 5th gen fighter JV but Russia said it was not needed. They just want to sell as everything coz they think we need them most. Lets get practically unlike Soviet union, Russia will not come to help us in any military conflict. Our current deal with them is enough to gain their support in UN for any resolution etc. 10 billion to someone with bad delays, support and a paper plane will be the most foolish decision any establishment may have made.

The relationship between India and Russia is an equal one, unlike that of India and USSR. Russia is no longer a superpower that we can look up to for protection; it is a strategic partner. India no longer needs patronization from another country. The USSR helped us get off our feet, and now we can walk on our own.

It should be noted that the US does not consider any of its allies as equals. Every relationship that the US enters is one in which the US holds the superior position. Now, India's relationship with the US is still in its initial phases, so this isn't very visible yet. But the more deals we sign with the Americans, the more visible their patronizing attitude will become. I'm not saying that we shouldn't cooperate with the US, only that we should be cautious and not become depedent on them (that's what the US wants).

Russia may not offer overt help in a future military conflict, like they did in 1971, but the Americans definitely won't either. We will be by ourselves in the future and I'm fine with that. This is not 1971 when someone can blackmail us so easily. The Indian Armed Forces are capable enough to defend India from any threat, including China. The media and some self-proclaimed defense experts may say otherwise but I have faith in our 1.3 million servicemen (and women).

 

[neo29]

^^^ Stealthsniper and civfanatic

You seem to get a notion that i support US. I dont and am dead against US fighters and any lethal technological hardware where they can arm twist us.

Soviet has helped us a lot. Its Russia that has been taking us for a ride selling expensive hardware without support and spares which has costed us huge in terms of maintenance for years. Not to mention dud bombs which puts our national security at stake.

Yes true we depended on them extensively since we did not have any other option, but Russia did take undue advantage of this and acted as a businessman rather than an ally, by selling us at costly rates and ofcourse with quality not upto the mark.

You say if we did not have hardware from Russia we would be 2 decades behind. Matter of fact we are 2 decades behind coz of Russia coz our babus and generals opted for russian arms and not giving much importance to indigenously made until 10 years back. We still have soviet era hardware in our forces which clearly make us 2 decades behind.

Seems you have forgotten the more recent Gorskhy pricing and Su-30 mki pricing which our foolish establishment accepted coz we have no other alternative. We had even killed Arjun mbt for russian T-90. MMRCA is a opportunity to look beyond Russia. You complain about Scorpene deal but dont know details that it was we who were building it and delaying it so as to increasing costs. Mirage deal we did have option of Israeli upgrade still went for French coz of quality of upgrade. Are these 2 deals strong enough to overshadow all the "taken for ride" deals we did with Russia ??? I dont think so ...

 

[neo29]

India Discussing Offsets With Fighter Bidders

Following the Indian air force's flight evaluation of six Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) candidates, the Indian government is now considering technical offset proposals and beginning discussions with the prospective vendors.

The Lockheed Martin F-16IN, Boeing F/A-18, Dassault Rafale, EADS Eurofighter Typhoon, Saab Gripen and Russian MiG-35 are in the running for the 126-aircraft program.

A European contender was invited to the Indian air force's head office on Aug. 20 to discuss the flight evaluation and has been invited to the defense ministry to present its offset proposal. The vendor's team includes all partners associated with the bid, including the airframe manufacturer, weapons suppliers, avionics and engine makers.

The second part of the proposal — commercial offsets — is expected to be opened by April 2011.

"Those that make it to the downselect will be evaluated on the technical report, compliance with transfer of technology and with offsets," a senior official said.

"Everything depends on the supply chain," an official involved in the flight evaluations said. "The air force is also aware that it requires good management systems and an auto-diagnostic capability."

"India needs to pit the lowest bidder against the second lowest bidder — a practice it tends not to follow — to get the best deal," another official noted. "[There] is no point in deciding on a finalist and beating him further down to size."

Given the challenges of life-cycle costs, India has made it clear that maintenance support will be essential to the offer.

India Discussing Offsets With Fighter Bidders | AVIATION WEEK