Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

[aksha]

Dassault Insists on Latest Rafale Version for India, Doubles the Price

Dassault has offered the latest version of the Rafale fighter, the F3R for nearly double the price of the F3 version it originally bid with in the Indian fighter aircraft competition.

The company is reportedy insisting that India take the latest version as the French company is upgrading aircraft in the French Air Force to the F3R version and all future aircraft manufactured will be of the latest version.

After it was declared the lowest bidder in the Medium Multi Role Fighter Aircraft (MMRCA) competition, the French manufacturer upped the price from about US$ 65 million a unit to US$120 million a unit in mid-2014. The price hike is one of the main bones of contention which is delaying the deal.

The reason for the hike is that the F3R version launched in 2014 incorporates major software changes that will complement the Thales RBE2 active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar and allow the aircraft to deploy the MBDA Meteor Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile, along with improvements to the aircraft's Thales SPECTRA self-defence system and Mode-5/Mode-S-compatible Identification Friend or Foe interrogator/transponder.

Offering a different configuration aircraft at a higher price is in violation of the original Request for Proposal (RFP). Perhaps it is for this reason that an Indian news agency quoted an unnamed Indian official on January 4 as saying that Rafale has been told, “stick to the RFP”. India is insisting that Dassault cannot renege on the RFP clauses, the report said.

An Indian defence analyst Bharat Karnad writing in the Indian Express newspaper commented on reasons for the price hike that Dassault sought to replace the Rafale originally offered with the “slightly better” F3R version, promised a mid-life upgrade to incorporate the AESA radar and suggested India’s future fifth and sixth generation combat aircraft needs be met by the “F4R” and “F5R” configurations now on the drawing board.

However, Dassault may be justified to an extent, in asking for a higher price as the Indian Defence Procurement Procedure demands price freeze for a two year period after bidding. Beyond that it does not specify if the hike has to be of a certain percentage. Since Dassault was declared the lowest bidder in 2012, the Indian Rupee has devalued about 10% against the Euro and the cost in Euro terms has gone up for Dassault. All this will impact the final price.

A source familiar with international defence deals told defenseworld.net that developing newer versions of aircraft is a normal activity. With every enhancement, comes a new price tag. The Americans, Europeans and even the Russians do it. Even if India had selected the Eurofighter, it would have been faced with a similar situation. “The real problem is that India should have quickly wrapped up the deal after selecting the lowest bidder", he said.

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[aksha]

why the EW suit for tejas was delayed for a long time

After eight years of research and postponement, India’s first indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA) Tejas, positioned at HAL Bangalore, has finally been fitted with electronic warfare (EW) systems.

Now, new test flights will happen with electronic warfare anytime during November or beginning of December. The 2,348 test flights of the LCA so far have not had electronic warfare. The new test flights will bring in new data and information for further development of the aircraft and the electronic systems.

Sources in the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) told Deccan Herald that the LCA Prototype Vehicle-1 (PV-1) has now been fitted with a radar-warning receiver, a radar-warning jammer, laser warner, missile-approach warner, emitter, and a flare dispenser. The systems are now undergoing ground trials with aeronautical engineers simulating multiple threats to the aircraft and then examining its response.

The results of the ground trials will help fine-tune the electronic systems for the actual test flights. The ground trials will take about a fortnight or a month. So, test flights will be held in mid-November or December.

Engineers and scientists working on the project say the radar receivers and jammers will track enemy signals from air and ground, while the emitter will watch out for missile launches from ground. Systems to track missiles from air and enemy aircraft will also be part of the LCA. The entire system has been developed by both Indian and Israeli engineers and scientists.


The fitment of the electronic systems has an interesting history. For almost eight years, a section of the aeronautical community has been resisting its fitment, anxious that the add-ons may cause a first crash, which has never happened so far in the LCA’s test-flight history. They have been very keen on securing the operational clearance, initial as well as final from the Indian Air Force, even if the LCA did not have the electronic system.

Their reasoning was that once the IAF certified it as operationally worthy, they would have a successful product to showcase to the world. Also, the LCA has had a perfect record of test flights and no one wished to risk an add-on on the LCA that had not been tried. The idea was to defend the ‘zero crash’ record.
This was made known sometimes explicitly to engineers and scientists working on the electronic systems, who, however, had been pressing for very long that the systems ought to be fitted and trials conducted to be able to fine-tune them. This difference of perception on the LCA persisted for long, and one consequence was, no vehicle or version of the LCA was identified for many years to fit the equipment. This caused delay of over five years in launching the electronic systems on the LCA and to questioning of the very purpose and objective of building the systems.

After haggling for over eight years, it has been finally decided to instal the electronic systems on the LCA prototype Version-1. But there’s a catch here. The PV-1 has not flown for very long and has been parked in the hangar with later versions of the LCA undertaking the test flights. The PV-1, which began flights in around 2001-02, has completed 242 test flights after which it has been grounded. Now, there is a bit of anxiety about how an aircraft that has not done flights for long will perform with the new electronic warfare systems.

The confidence, however, is that the aircraft may perform well because its health has been under check almost daily and every department concerned will certify that all parts of the aircraft are flight-worthy. Without this certification, the PV-1 will not be allowed to fly. But once it passes the certification, the LCA PV-1 will become the first vehicle to fly with electronic warfare systems.

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[tphuang]

Dassault Insists on Latest Rafale Version for India, Doubles the Price

not sure about anything else, but currency complaints are complete baloney. The Russians have tried it too for years when currency swings went against them. If they are really concerned about currency moves, they can ask for contract to be signed in euro. Or they could hedge currency risk by buying future contracts. If you agreed to it on the RFP, you should not violate the agreement outside of some inflation based increased.

 

[Jeff Head]

Dassault Insists on Latest Rafale Version for India, Doubles the Price

Dassault has offered the latest version of the Rafale fighter, the F3R for nearly double the price of the F3 version it originally bid with in the Indian fighter aircraft competition.

The company is reportedly insisting that India take the latest version as the French company is upgrading aircraft in the French Air Force to the F3R version and all future aircraft manufactured will be of the latest version.

Is France trying to submarine their own Rafael deal?

I can think of very few other actions the French could take that would harm their own offering more. Doubling the cost and then insisting that the Indians accept the version that will do so seems self-defeating to me.

 

[Brumby]

th

Dassault Insists on Latest Rafale Version for India, Doubles the Price

not sure about anything else, but currency complaints are complete baloney. The Russians have tried it too for years when currency swings went against them. If they are really concerned about currency moves, they can ask for contract to be signed in euro. Or they could hedge currency risk by buying future contracts. If you agreed to it on the RFP, you should not violate the agreement outside of some inflation based increased.

There is some basis with the cost increase driven by currency fluctuation. I understand the bid term was specifically denominated in Euro and the rate was frozen from that time. Since then, the Indian Rupee has depreciated around 35 % against the Euro but that still doesn't fully explain for the doubling. As to futures, it can cut both ways and in this case it doesn't look like India hedged its risk.

 

[aksha]

INDIA TO RAMP UP AMPHIBIOUS CAPABILITIES WITH FOUR WARSHIPS

India is on its way to indigenously build four warships, which will be the biggest-ever made in the country other than the under-construction 40,000 tonne sea-borne aircraft carrier the INS Vikrant. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) had re-issued a request for proposal (RFP) to Indian private sector shipyards in September to build four amphibious assault ships, also called the Landing Platform Docks (LPD) in naval parlance. Each of these will approximately cost Rs 6,000 crore and are expected to deliver over the next 10 years.

Each of these ships will be anything between 35,000 and 40,000 tonnes. The Indian shipyards have been asked to locate their own foreign collaborator. “The bids have come in,” a source in the Navy said. The RFP was sent to ABG, Larsen & Toubro (L&T), and Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering.

The successful private shipyard and its foreign collaborator will be given order for two such ships and the two others will be made by the MoD-owned Hindustan Shipyard Limited, Visakhapatnam, at the same price being paid to the private builder.

This signals an important change in the long-term strategic plan as this will be huge jump over the existing capability of launching offensive sea-borne. The LPDs are essentially the first step towards increasing capability to launch “out-of-country operations”.

The LPDs are essentially a modern-day sea-based version of the Roman epic “Trojan horse”. Each carries, in its huge lower deck, hundreds of Indian Army troops with tanks, vehicles and cargo. Such a ship can deliver men and equipment near a sea beach and does not need a berthing dock, hence providing the option for landing thousands of troops near a spot chosen to attack.

The size of the LPDs indicates the Indian Navy’s growing amphibious warfare capacity. As of now, the biggest such variety of vessel is INS Jalashwa, a 16,900 tonne ship. Another five warships classified as Landing ship tank large (LST-L) are some 5,600 tonnes each, another four ships are just 1,100 tonnes and lastly the smallest are 650 tonnes and six of these are in service.

Forces that move across sea are referred to as “amphibious task force”. At present, India has the capability to move a Brigade, some 5,000 men, using the lone LPD, INS Jalashwa, along with a fleet of five smaller 5,600-tonne (LST-Ls) each of which can carry 10 tanks, 11 combat trucks and 500 troops.

Each of the new LPDs will have three times the capacity and have multi-role helicopters, including heavy lift helicopters to provide even greater flexibility.

Foreign shipbuilders offering such ships include DCNS of France, Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, Fincantieri of Italy, South Korea’s Hanjin Heavy Industries & Constructions Co and Navantia of Spain.

India has sought a vessel of 213 metre, endurance at sea for 45 days, the vessel must be able to house combat vehicles (including main battle tanks, infantry combat vehicles and heavy trucks on one or more vehicle deck), and the vessel should be able to undertake all-weather operations involving heavy lift helicopters of up to 35 tonne.

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[aksha]

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'Rafale deal not certain but problems can be sorted out,'

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tells Karan Thapar on

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@ 8pm.

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[aksha]

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Tejas LCA is to be equipped with an EW suite developed by DRDO's Defense Avionics Research Establishment (DARE) in collaboration with Israel.

The EW suite contains radar illumination, laser illumination and missile-lock warnings, a radar jammer and a flare dispenser.

The suite is capable of dealing with multiple simultaneous threats from air or ground.

Radar Warning and Jammer Suite (RWJS)
The EW suite centerpiece is an integrated Radar Warning and Jammer Suite (RWJS) that can detect when the aircraft is being illuminated by enemy radar, determine the type of radar (ground based or airborne) and its operating mode (track-while-scan, lock-on); alert the pilot and facilitate neutralization of any radar guided surface-to-air or air-to-air missile threat through Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) based signal jamming.

Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) is an electronic method for digitally capturing and coherently re-transmitting RF signal such that the transmitting radar cannot distinguish it from other returns that it receives and processes as targets.

The re-transmitted signal can be tweaked to create false range targets both behind (reactive jamming) and ahead of (predictive jamming) the target intended for protection. Slight variations in frequency can be made to create Doppler (velocity) errors in the victim receiver as well. DRFM can also be used to create distorted phase-fronts at the victim receive antenna which is essential for countering monopulse radar angular measurement techniques. [via Wikipedia]

The DARE RWJS provides 360-deg coverage.

Previous generation fighters, like IAF Jaguars, are equipped with just a Radar Warning Receiver (RWR), which could only alert the pilot to hostile radio frequency emissions, but not jam them.

If the DARE EW Suite clears its currently underway (January 2015) trials, Tejas would become the first Indian fighter aircraft to be fitted with a Radar Warner and Jammer equipment.

The DARE RWJS is similar to ELT/568(V)2 developed by Italy's Elettronica S.p.A. and EL/L-8247/8 developed by Israel's ELTA.

Typically a RWJS can be integrated with any airborne platform’s avionics, including Chaff and Flares Dispenser, Missile Warning System, Laser Warning System, Towed RF Decoy and Multi-Function Display. It is flight-line re-programmable. Using PC-based equipment and user-friendly human-machine interface, threats and jamming EW techniques may be easily updated.
RWJS Functioning
Typically RWJS functions as follows:


The RF signals received via the receiving Antennas are amplified by Front-End Amplifiers and fed to the advanced Channelized Receiver in the Central Unit.
The Receiver measures all the RF signals parameters such as PRF, PRI, PW, direction etc., building pulse descriptors that are fed to the Central Processor.
The Central Processor extracts the threats according to priority and level of lethality and provides the situation awareness to the pilot via the Multi-Function display.
Upon detection of a lethal threat, the Central Processor activates the Jammer, selecting the appropriate EW technique for each threat. The jammer is capable of responding simultaneously to several threats by implementing Power Management techniques.

EW Suite Development Progress
The suite was test flown for the first time on Tejas PV1 on January 10, 2015 at HAL airport in Bengaluru. According to a DRDO press release "the equipment was noted to be detecting Radar signals operating in and around the flight path."

Over the coming few months, ADA and DARE will be scheduling further sorties to evaluate the system in various signal scenarios.

An EW system developed by DARE for MiG-29 UPG reportedly was rejected by the IAF due to performance shortfalls.

The suite was earlier tested on the ground using simulation. Airborne testing on PV-1 was initially expected to start in November 2013 or early December 2013.

In October 2013, Deccan Herald reported that DRDO has fitted the EW suite on LCA PV-1.

PV-1 had been on the ground since 2001-02, having flown 242 test flights till then. According to MoD's annual report for 2013-14, Ground Acceptance Test (GAT) has been completed.

 

[aksha]

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[aksha]