You are absolutely right..
But those things are existing and has recurring costs ... Nirbhaya or No Nibhaya..
But Nirbhaya will necessitate creation of its own system anew. Meshing it with ships submarines, aircrafts. TELs besides the cost I mentioned earlier....
My effort was basically to point out that economics will also go into consideration in the numbers and decisions to deploy a system...
What command centers or vital areas are Indians looking to target inside Pakistan which are at a range of 1000 km or beyond.
Most of their communication arteries, are within 50 -100 km range from the border and Nirbhaya can not fire less than say 500 km which is its minimum range.. Nirbhaya thus would be fit to engage targets in Pakistan. You may say that India will fire it from Bombay. However that is how things are not done and everything entails cost.
Yes Nirbhaya would be best suited to strike targets in Tibet.
The main role of Nirbhay will be to target air and missile defence radars of China in Tibet.
A possible role in targeting of remote Baluchistan nuclear installations of Pakistan I suppose is also there.
Also sea/submarine launched version would be crucial to enhance the credibility of our nuclear deterrance since the IRBM are vulnerable to Chinese ABM systems and the Agni IRBMs are insufficiently tested for reliability.
The main purpose of deploying this system would be to lend credibility to a situation of Mutually Assured Destruction. Currently there is parity with Pakistan (their IRBM and Babur are on par if not superior) but Chinese are not adequately and credibly deterred due to the long flight time over a Tibet which they dont care if we nuke (they might actually welcome it - getting rid of Tibetans and Indians in one go !) and their Anti Ballistic missile systems
Consider 350 kg bomb being delivered by an aircraft against 3050 Kg explosive being delivered by Nirbhaya...
It may seem that Nirbhaya is more economical but come to think of the low grade and no so expensive aircrafts and no dearth of men (pilots ) India has .. aircrafts delivery comes to much cheaper...
No dearth of pilots?
A pilot is more valuable than the plane he flies. Nor are pilots so easy to train if we only think of him as an expendable economic cost - abhorrent though it sounds.
Of course we must have cruise missiles and drones - instead of asking our pilots to do what is better done with drones and cruise missiles.
The price for per unit Tomahawk I quoted from the source is 1999 price... ok , now it is clearly 2014...
Secondly that is US price and for India multiply that three times...
All DRDO product like Arjun are more expensive than imported ones...
Moreover , Nirbhay unit price is not the only thing..
What about the price of submarine or ship from where it is launched..
What is the price of the satellite which monitors and guides it..
What is the price of support system required for It.. communications , damage assessment etc..
What is the price of the logistics..
What is the price of Command and control...
Be realistic rather than telling me to learn mathematics...
Nirbhay would be far far cheaper than Tomahawks.
If you are considering overall cost of everything.. then operating a figter jet Entails .. Airports , Pilot training, Support infrastructure , obviously navigation aids, sir traffic controllor .. then its apples to apples.. wven then i belive Nirbhay wins on costs and delivers more stealth , manovarability of launch location and more
True. And Nirbhay is difficult to detect than aircrafts
I would think Nirbhay may have to be built in thousands. If it is to be put on major warships, and given to major army formations, the number has to be quite large. A dedicated factory churning it out at the rate of 100+ per year is the best way.
This is the time to start building the factory.
Factory yes but not in thousands - but yes, enough to export (in secret and with US concurrence) and earn back what we spent - making the cost zero if not in surplus.
The unit cost of Tomahawak is t: Approximately $569,000 (FY99 $).
Now multiply that by 60 = 34140000 or say one unit cost is approximately Rs 3.5 Crores
For 1000 pieces it would Rs 35 000 crores...
Even US does not have that kind of numbers.
the total programme cost for US has been _ Total program cost: $US 11,210,000,000
Indian Rupees = 672600000000
I can not even count the zeroes....
India will have to plunder US federal bank for that kind of money.
Yes, China can outspend us. Increasing GDP is first priority.
Exporting Brahmos is a good way to fund Nirbhay since Brahmos is short range and so less likely to fall foul of proliferation laws.
Pak's Babur and Ra'ad capability is already over-matched by India in terms of Brahmos on every performance parameters and numbers as well.
I disagree. The point is that our Brahmos has been neutralised by China by transferring this tech to Pakistan. All our installations for 500 Km from the border are under Pakistani attack using Babur and Raad. What Brahmos is doing even Prithvi was doing for us - because prithvi is small and easy to hide and has some of the features offerred by Brahmos in terms of survivability against first attack - does that mean we should not have Brahmos? Of course we must have both Prithvo Prahar AND Brahmos AND Nirbhay
How do the ranges of Babur and BrahMos compare?
Raad is air launched and so can be released anywhere along the border to penetrate 5-700 Km into our country.
Babur is >700 Km vs original Brahmos 300 Km. (We can boost the range of Brahmos to same as Babur - but dont really need to)
US navy has an arsenal of 4000+ Tomahawks of different configurations.
"1000s of Nirbhay" might be a certainty within the next decade and a half.
It can be safely assumed that the price of each Nirbhay would be 1/4-1/3 of each tomahawk.
Even less than 1/4th.
Range in absolute numbers doesn't matter.
What matters is that:
Brahmos fired from Indian soil can rain down on 85%-90% of Pakistan
Babur fired from Paki soil can rain down on <20% of India
And within 5-7yrs, Babur/Ra'ad would also have to contend with Indian CMD (50-60km altitude long endurance un-tethered autonomous solar aerostat sensors, LEO satellites, supported by QR-SAM and AAD interceptors).
Despite that, almost all our forward bases are within striking distance of Babur and we have to counter this capability - we have to expend money while Pakistan gets it for free.
But where is the bloody money ??
Just go to wikki on Tomahawk .. us has not fired more than 800 Tomahawak in last 15 years in all sorts of Wars..
Considering the rate of production whay should they have more than 1000 in their store ? Are they spendthrifts ??
And where will India use 100 Nirbhayay.. say within six months that they need that kind of stocks...
For Pakistan about 30 of those suffice...
Add 200 ods for Chinese targets... why 1000 in stock ??
These numbers must be derived from requirements....
And Finally .. Those more than 1000 tomahawks of the USA have not given them much of success anywhere so far ranging from Libya, Sudan to Afghanistan or Iraq...
No. Nirbhay in good numbers is essential to counter the sophisticated Radars of China n Tibet.
Since our forward bases are under Pakistan attack range - so for Pakistan also we need deep south (and ship) based Nirbhay bases - why should any country rely only on a single system? Whether we like it or not we are in an arms race and the moment we falter and fail to match our adversary they will attack us thinking we cannot counter.
