Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

aksha

Captain
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During my visit to
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last week (due disclosure: at the invitation of Rostec, the umbrella agency that oversees Russia's high-technology industry), I was struck by the changes from the days of the Soviet Union, as also by important similarities. The drab, socialist
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of yore has been replaced by a glittering city, peopled by purposeful men in sharp suits and chic women in impossibly high heels. The double-headed eagle of Tsarist Russia (itself drawn from the Byzantine Empire) is clawing itself back into prominence, replacing the hammer and sickle at prominent places, most notably the Kremlin. Even so, Russia is discernibly stressed by rock-bottom global oil prices, compounded by western sanctions imposed after the intervention in Ukraine and the annexation of the Crimea. Nowhere is the strain more evident than in the
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industry. Moscow can no longer afford an ambitious $650-million defence modernisation plan, particularly since -unlike western defence industries that remain commercially viable by producing both weaponry and civilian products - Russia's
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serves only military buyers. Boeing and Airbus derive 80 per cent of their revenue from commercially successful civil airliners; in contrast, Sukhoi is struggling to sell its Superjet 100 outside Russia.

What does this mean for New Delhi, and what options does this create for India? In the decade after 1989, as Russia's military spending plummeted to one-thirtieth the 1989 figure, three-quarters of the Soviet Union's famed military design bureaus went kaput, putting a million Russian scientists on the streets. With Russian soldiers begging in uniform on Moscow's streets, the bankrupt state cancelled 1,149 individual R&D projects. Beijing swooped in, hiring hundreds of scientists who catalysed the birth of China's now formidable defence industry. New Delhi, in contrast, provided Moscow life support, ordering a generation of weaponry, including
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and MiG-29K fighters, T-90 tanks,
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and other procurements too numerous to recount.


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learnt hard lessons from those purchases, many involving transfer of technology to build Russian weaponry in India. Technology sometimes remained undelivered (e.g. the T-90 tank), and India could not enforce flawed contracts drawn up by ill-qualified lawyers and bureaucrats. Spare parts, suddenly manufactured not in the
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but in successor countries, became New Delhi's problem. India had bought equipment without providing for maintenance,
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(MRO) and
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(MLU), even though, over the multi-decade service lifespan of a military platform,
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and
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tots up to four-eight times the acquisition cost. Consequently, we are still sending Kilo-class submarines to Russia for overhaul.


So should New Delhi turn away from a Russia in economic distress, or do there remain opportunities for us? Unlike in the 1990s, India has many more alternatives: the United States is today eager to bolster India as an emerging counter-balance to China. US Ambassador Richard Verma, at a recent speech in Delhi endorsed India as a "leading power" instead of a "balancing power". Moscow's arms prices, once well below western norms, have risen significantly, making Russian weaponry only slightly cheaper than European and American arms. This advantage, many say, is negated by lower Russian serviceability rates.

Even so, the answer can only be "Stay tuned to Moscow!" Although details remain outside the public eye, Russia assists India with technologies that the western bloc is unwilling to. One example is nuclear powered submarines. From 1988 to 1991, the Soviet Union leased India the nuclear powered attack submarine, INS Chakra, and helped create the building blocks, including design assistance, that has evolved into a successful Indian nuclear submarine, INS Arihant. Since 2012, a second Russian nuclear attack submarine (SSN) has been with the Indian Navy on a 10-year lease. India hopes to develop a line of SSNs and Russian assistance could be crucial. Well-informed US scholar Ashley Tellis says Washington would not even consider sharing SSN technology with anyone.

In fact, the US, the global emperor of defence technology, has opened the technology door to India only a crack. Over the past five years, over-the-counter sales to India of $10 billion worth of US defence equipment makes for happy reading in Washington. Far less impressive, though, has been progress in the Defence Trade and Technology Initiative that seeks to transform the "buyer-seller relationship" into a more equal one based on co-development and co-production of military platforms. A "joint working group" on aircraft carrier technology and on co-developing jet engines has reported no progress. Like French company Snecma earlier, US engine-makers are reluctant to share the costly technologies for materials that go into jet engines' "combustion chamber", which must withstand temperatures of up to 2,100° Celsius. In contrast, Moscow has recently offered to co-develop with India a highly advanced engine for the "fifth generation fighter aircraft". Russian co-development would not only provide the Defence R&D Organisation a much-needed breakthrough, but allow New Delhi to signal that it has multiple options. Cultivating Moscow has not just intrinsic benefits; it also induces Paris and Washington not to drag their feet.

Another reason to service the Moscow connection is to prevent a catastrophic Russian turn towards Beijing and Islamabad. Russia's experience with China in the 1990s, when Beijing apparently modified the Sukhoi-27 fighter into the "indigenous" J-11B, makes Moscow extremely wary of arms sales to China. But lured by China's massive market size and with few other options, Russia may well yield to China. It would be useful to let Moscow know New Delhi remains a buyer.

Servicing the Moscow connection would allow New Delhi to develop a structured
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for defence acquisition. Such a defence procurement policy flows naturally from a multi-aligned foreign policy, in which each of India's external relationships is leveraged by the combined weight of all the others.

The mistakes of the 1990s and early 2000s must be guarded against. India's aim for every acquisition must be clear and spelt out unmistakably: first, obtaining the crucial technologies for life-cycle support, including MRO, so that India's military is assured of service support and industry can benefit from follow-on service contracts that are worth four-eight times the purchase price. Second, a contract cannot be awarded just on the basis of L-1 (lowest price); instead, a key determinant must be the technology the vendor is willing to transfer. Such an approach to acquisition would require political courage in the ministry and the expertise to evaluate technology in various forms.

Over the years, global arms vendors, together with New Delhi, have developed a bizarre ritual in which they ceremonially stone the "buyer-seller relationship" devil, and then walk back to the table and sign some more purchase contracts. Changing this would require a new mindset within the government, and as many players as possible on the board, including Moscow.
 

aksha

Captain
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The Defence Acquisition Council on Tuesday gave the go ahead to further negotiations for purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France talks for which had got stalled, reviving hopes of the deal going through.

The defence ministry's top acquisition council, which met here this evening under the chairmanship of Defence Minister
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, also cleared a Rs 6,966 crore deal for the purchase of 48 Mi17-V5 helicopters from Russia. The hardy, medium-lift choppers have been a huge asset for the air force.


Approval was also granted for the purchase of seven additional squadrons of Akash missiles for the air force and eight Chetak helicopters for the navy.



However, the DAC did not take a decision on the navy's proposal to acquire over 100 utility helicopters. Neither did it take a decision on going ahead with P75I submarine tenders worth over Rs 60,000 crore.

"The negotiating committee apprised the DAC about the progress made so far. The DAC asked it to go ahead and proceed," defence ministry sources said about what transpired at the meeting with regard to Rafale aircraft.

Defence sources said this means that the deadlock has been broken. India's insistence on 50 per cent off-set clause, tweaking of weaponry technology and plans to set up two bases for Rafale fighter jets were some of the issues which had cropped up during the recent talks that began after Prime Minister
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announced the decision to acquire 36 Rafales during his trip to France in April.

If things proceed smoothly, a government-to-government agreement between India and France could be signed soon, paving the way for the final contract for the purchase of the fighter jets.

Meanwhile, the trip of French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who was expected to arrive tonight, has been delayed. Though defence ministry officials were tight-lipped about the reason for deferment of the visit, sources said he would arrive soon.
 

aksha

Captain
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The US Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded Raytheon a USD29.75 million contract that includes the delivery of Mk 54 Mod 0 Lightweight Torpedo (LWT) kits to the Indian Navy.

The contract, which was announced on 31 August, covers the manufacture and delivery (plus engineering and repair services for the upgrades) of 100 LWT kits for the US Navy (USN) and 68 LWT kits for India, Turkey and Australia under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme. The breakdown of FMS numbers was not disclosed.

Deliveries are expected to be completed by 30 September 2017.

The 230 kg, 2.59 m long Mk 54 Mod 0 is an anti-submarine torpedo used for littoral scenarios (including operation in both shallow and deep water environmental conditions). It can be launched from surface ships, submarines, helicopters, and aircraft and is interoperable with existing Mk 46 and Mk 50 launch platforms.
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
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Call me old fashioned, but shouldn't all these talks and detailed contractual negotiations have been hammered out and agreed upon before they signed the contract?

I would have expected India to issue a basic contract, whereby it was spelled out in excruciating detail all the basic requirements of that contract (much of which seems to be the stumbling blocks now) covering things like ToT, offsetting, local content and responsibilities and liabilities everyone assumes etc.

If you do not agree to all of those terms and conditions, don't even bother submitting an offer and save everyone a lot of time and money.

If you want your plane to even be evaluated, you need to agree and sign that part of the contract, which will then carry over into the final contract.

The other major details like price, delivery date, weapons and training packages should also all have been agreed upon and locked down before the deal was signed.

All of this should have been done while all the contenders were in contention, as that is the best (and probably only) way to keep the sellers honest by giving the buyer the leverage of choosing someone else if one seller refuses to play ball.

By awarding the contract to the Rafale and only then seeming to start the real work of negotiating the contract, India has surrendered needlessly almost all of its leverage, and the only card it has left to play is to threaten to scrap the whole thing, which is what it seems to be done.

But that is a dangerous gambit, as threats could easily turn into reality, and then that's years and who knows how many millions down the drain.
 

Air Force Brat

Brigadier
Super Moderator
Call me old fashioned, but shouldn't all these talks and detailed contractual negotiations have been hammered out and agreed upon before they signed the contract?

I would have expected India to issue a basic contract, whereby it was spelled out in excruciating detail all the basic requirements of that contract (much of which seems to be the stumbling blocks now) covering things like ToT, offsetting, local content and responsibilities and liabilities everyone assumes etc.

If you do not agree to all of those terms and conditions, don't even bother submitting an offer and save everyone a lot of time and money.

If you want your plane to even be evaluated, you need to agree and sign that part of the contract, which will then carry over into the final contract.

The other major details like price, delivery date, weapons and training packages should also all have been agreed upon and locked down before the deal was signed.

All of this should have been done while all the contenders were in contention, as that is the best (and probably only) way to keep the sellers honest by giving the buyer the leverage of choosing someone else if one seller refuses to play ball.

By awarding the contract to the Rafale and only then seeming to start the real work of negotiating the contract, India has surrendered needlessly almost all of its leverage, and the only card it has left to play is to threaten to scrap the whole thing, which is what it seems to be done.

But that is a dangerous gambit, as threats could easily turn into reality, and then that's years and who knows how many millions down the drain.

India's insistence that Dassault assume liabilities for HAL's production aircraft was the clinker, and Dassault is right to refuse to accept someone else liabilities. It simply is not done, unless you were making so much money that the loss would be negligible, and that is simply not the case here?

The Indian Govt's insistence is based on their own concern that HAL may not be able to deliver, and their insistence that the bulk of production be accomplished by an Indian manufacturer, you can't have your cake and eat it too?? It is extremely "obtuse" to set up a circumstance such as this, and then try to play the victim card?

They need those Rafael's, the MKIs are often unavailable, and that is a situation that you Do NOT want to be in, so a more reliable piece of equipment is a very smart purchase. Those 36 Rafael's will also boost morale, so it is wrong to blame the IAF as well, the IAF want an aircraft they can count on, not work on?
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
India's insistence that Dassault assume liabilities for HAL's production aircraft was the clinker, and Dassault is right to refuse to accept someone else liabilities. It simply is not done, unless you were making so much money that the loss would be negligible, and that is simply not the case here?

The Indian Govt's insistence is based on their own concern that HAL may not be able to deliver, and their insistence that the bulk of production be accomplished by an Indian manufacturer, you can't have your cake and eat it too?? It is extremely "obtuse" to set up a circumstance such as this, and then try to play the victim card?

They need those Rafael's, the MKIs are often unavailable, and that is a situation that you Do NOT want to be in, so a more reliable piece of equipment is a very smart purchase. Those 36 Rafael's will also boost morale, so it is wrong to blame the IAF as well, the IAF want an aircraft they can count on, not work on?

Agreed that trying to make Dassault liable for HAL's screw-ups is totally never going to happen, and is a bit of a nonsensical insistence.

It is also the entirely wrong solution to the problem of poor reliability from HAL, as if anything, such a blank cheque would almost certainly make HAL worse, not better, as it would effectively remove any incentive for HAL to get their act together, since they know someone else will be left holding the bag at the end of it.

Had that clause been made clear from the start, I doubt anyone would have showed up to apply for the tender.

In a way, Dassault is more of a victim of the Indian government's political games and whimsical choices rather than the other way around as I have often seen it trying to be portrayed.

The only way I can see what the Indian government insist work is if Dassault bought out HAL.

Maybe the French should try that, it would also solve their offsetting dispute as well potentially. Although I somehow doubt that is what the Indian government had in mind when they made that silly demand. :D
 

aksha

Captain
my source Saurav Jha paid a visit to the DRDO labs he brought some pics with him

and a few titbits of info.
And here's what I am sure a lot of you have wanted to see. Behold
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's 100 kW Aditya Gas Dynamic Laser.

The Aditya Gas Dynamic Laser is a tech demonstrator and a building block. Of course it can be used for certain strategic purposes.

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Here's a vehicle mounted laser dazzler developed by
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As far as older tech is concerned, India has already developed 100 kW class multi-mode gas dynamic lasers & 20 kW single mode COIL.

What you get after combining three 20 W fiber laser beams.Courtesy
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y1Lpoqo.png
 

aksha

Captain
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Indian Navy fleet left Iran to India after holding joint naval exercise with Iranian Sabalan and Alborz destroyers.
On the sidelines of Iran-India’s joint naval maneuver, the Indian flotilla commander Rama Krishnan said that, “Indo-Iranian culture dates back to more than three thousand years, which is a sign of economic and cultural commonalities between the two countries.

Krishnan further pointed to reliance of Indian’s future on the sea and added that, Iran and India are inherently naval powers; therefore, joint cooperation between Iran and India can guarantee the security of the region.

Noting that the world is changing and people are gaining a more prominent role in the world’s policies, Commander of Iran's First Naval Zone Rear Admiral Amir Hossein Azad asserted in the ceremony that, “in the past, governments would concur other nations based on their own secular interests and benefits; however, India’s history is a good example because great figures like Gandhi and other influential political figures as well as people proved that people decide on the fate of their country."

“More than half of the world’s population lives on the northern and eastern sides of the Indian Ocean and 75 percent of the world’s energy resides in the northern Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf; we believe that the two great nations of Iran and India, as in the past could cooperate to the economic benefit of the people in this region so that they will be relieved," he said.

Yesterday, the Indian Navy fleet carried out joint maritime exercises with the Iranian Sabalan and Alborz destroyers and the Hindi flotilla left Iran to India after the training.
 

aksha

Captain
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A senior technician of Sukhoi division of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Arun Kumar Pradhan, was arrested on Sunday on charges of stealing parts of the fighter aircraft, Sukhoi, from the factory premises at Sunabeda in Koraput district. He was produced in SDJM Court which remanded him in judicial custody.

Sources said HAL security personnel at the main gate caught Pradhan in possession of expensive blades of the aero engine of Sukhoi. Pradhan was later handed over to Sunabeda police.

During investigation, police seized over 198 Sukhoi aero engine blades and other parts from Pradhan’s residence at Semiliguda. During interrogation, police came to know that Pradhan, who has a workshop at Semiliguda, used to supply the blades to a private company.

How could the components meant for Defence sector and manufactured secretly by the company be stolen despite strict surveillance within and outside the HAL premises has baffled the probing team.

Suspecting involvement of top officials in the loot, police have rounded up five senior officers of HAL and are quizzing them. The police have also asked for documents related to supply of blades for Sukhoi and other components from HAL authorities.

Koraput SP CS Meena said, “We have already sought more information from HAL to establish as to how the man could steal the blades and make those outside the factory premises for the aero engines.”

As HAL has its own security, district police have no control over the security of the Defence unit. HAL authority is also looking into the internal and external security of the factory with the help of Defence personnel.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Indian P-8I (
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) with a new
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any guesses?

PDlfuei.jpg
The aircraft in question was photographed during a test flight at Boeing Field in Seattle by a well known aviation photographer named Josh Kaiser, as shown in the photos. it is a test flight of an aircraft that will be delivered to India..

It is some kind of antenna farm and housing. I suppose it could be some kind of SIGINT/ELINT Pod, or some kind of Comm Pod (like BACN for example), but I do not know.

It will be interesting to see if this is a new Indian requirement or not.

Here's another pic:

n782ds-01.jpg
 
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