A quick IAF comparative inventory check as the region is stirring once more.
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Made by @somePLAOSINT
They should definitely watermark these images somehow.
Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
What's the total inventory as that chart is only procurement after 2019?
Lethe
Captain
That's kind of the problem: Indian officials tend to expect bribes, and the French are all too happy to offer them.
Inevitably, such a dynamic cultivates a dysfunctional environment where the powers that be are more interested in collecting rents than achieving milestones.
Not sure if a Franco-Indian fighter JV will go as poorly as the Sukhoi/HAL FGFA shitshow, but history does tend to repeat itself!
No doubt corruption is a major feature of Indian arms procurement, and it would not be at all surprising to find that this extends to the procurement of French armaments. Nonetheless, I think that most Indian procurements can be explained more productively by the interplay between internal and external political considerations, capabilities, risks, costs, and the sclerotic nature of the relevant institutional processes. Ultimately, as with the Indo-Russian relationship, the Indo-French defence-industrial relationship persists because it benefits both parties.
The notion of FCAS for India is an interesting theoretical exercise, but is just that. The comparison with FGFA is quite apt, because any joint development program with France would run into the same basic problems: it would require a high level of funding from the Indian state, which would reasonably be seen as drawing funds away from existing indigenous projects and institutions, while undoubtedly falling short in terms of technology transfer and domestic industry development. To put it another way, one prerequisite for India to even be interested in buying into FCAS at the developmental stage is a complete lack of faith from IAF to MoD extending to very top of GoI in the LCA/AMCA pathway and the institutions ADA/HAL/GTRE etc. that are tasked with bringing those platforms to fruition. That condition does not exist, and there are strong political incentives to simply kick the can down the road. Hypothetically, if FCAS were to enter the Indian imagination, it would be in the mid-2030s amidst incontrovertible evidence of failure of existing development pathways.
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2031. Bit late is it?
Lethe
Captain
Deliveries will commence from 2028. Dassault has limited production capacity and now a considerable order backlog. Export markets all but ignored Rafale for the first 10-15 years of its existence and production was cut back to the minimum required to maintain the viability of the supply chain. Yet in more recent years the orders have piled in from India, Egypt, UAE, Qatar, Greece, Croatia, Serbia, Indonesia. Production is being scaled up but takes time (and can only begin following the certainty of orders). From a minimum production rate of 11 aircraft per year in the early 2010s, 13 aircraft were delivered in 2023, 21 in 2024, and the target for 2025 is 25 aircraft. The is to scale to >40 aircraft per year in coming years. In some case airframes are being taken from French service and production slots previously allocated to FASF being redirected to export markets. As article outlines, it is a good problem to have but still a problem. Folks at Dassault and elsewhere in Paris might reasonably be wondering why these customers did not form an orderly queue commencing a decade earlier....
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Maybe because, until recently, it wasn't a very desirable aircraft in terms of overall capabilities relative to the high cost it entails? Its engines are somewhat underpowered, and they could've done a better job with the radome size (this was even more so important before the GaAs Radar integration!). However, it can haul outsized payloads, including a wider selection of them, which is admittedly a decent advantage compared to the Typhoon.
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It was also unproven, and the fact that its first export deal came after its operational debut in Libya speaks volumes. This was partially politically motivated too, since the military dictator Sisi wanted to secure France's support after overthrowing Egypt's first democratically elected president
Rafale is (mostly!) ITAR free and France doesn't care about your undemocratic actions, human rights violations or crimes against humanity unless you're perceived as a peer rival.
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While the IN may be pressed for time, it may also be beneficial to use a more-available interim in the meantime (MiG-29Ks) and divert much of the funding to the TEDBF program instead. The TEDBF program, if successful, would not only provide the IN/IAF with a Rafale-class fighter but also significantly leapfrog India's defense aviation industry in terms of technology and self-sufficiency.
The IAF/IN seems to have a problem with satisfying requirements with off-the-shelf solutions at the expense of long-term development. This current cycle would have the IAF/IN continue purchasing near-term equipment that will lose their technological edge in the coming years while their indigenous programs (AMCA/TEDBD/ORCA) continue to be placed on the backburner.
Nope. Planes may be late, but bribe is early, as usual.
Not sure how many bribes were paid in advance, but given the amount of time between now and delivery, further corruption will certainly be in order to prevent the deal from being cancelled as Indian bureaucrats overseeing the program exit and enter office.
Regardless, at $7.4 billion USD for 26 airframes or ~$285 million USD per airframe, pork is certainly being generously doughed out at "all levels of leadership." There's no other way for any of these numbers to make sense.
Will the outcome of perhaps convince the Indian authorities of the need to expedite and/or enlarge their order of Dassault Rafales?
Though likewise, should the IAF's extant Rafales perform poorly, will this new order get scrapped for something else?!