India nears joining Brazil and South Africa for AAM R&D

More news

This was published today at Defense Industry Daily:

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2007/05/south-africa-brazil-to-develop-adarter-sraam/index.php

again, no sign of Indian involvement, like I said. 😎

Regards.

LOL, wilhelm, it looks like you know how to deal with the Indian MOD!!

Jokes apart, I think Denel got caught out by some phenom bad luck…investigative journalism in South Africa blew the claims open..till then, Denel had two sweet deals in its hands..

The T6 turret on the Arjun chassis as the Bhim SPH
Setting up a massive ordnance factory in Bihar state in India

Plus several others were being negotiated…apart from small arms, MPVs and other stuff…

What is really confirmed.

Hello,
I am writing from Brazil. The sure thing (already announced) is that Brazil and South Africa will jointly develop the proposed A-Darter. Brazilian defence ministry already provided 50 million USD amount to start co-development. Indian involvement was never in discussion, other than a general agreement signed by three countries for “future defense cooperation” some years ago. Also, there were not any agreement for development of a MRAAM between SA and Brazil, as far as I know. I was present at last LAAD2007 exposition in Rio de Janeiro, with representatives from India, Mectron (Brazil missile house), CTA (Brazil Air Force research agency) and Denel (SA missile house) and there was not any notice on a ramjet MRAAM cooperative development. To finalize, only to general knowledge, the following is a photo of a model of a proposed AAM-1B Piranha upgrade, for use until the arrival of the A-Darter (expected to 2012~2015). This AAM-1B would be available in 2 to 3 years timeframe, if funding is granted.
Regards.

Indeed Nick… and there are plenty of systems South Africa could benefit from India, ALH and possibly LCA. I also believe that South Africa would benefit in the Naval arena with closer links to Indian shipbuilders. Either way, from a geopolitical viewpoint, such co-operation between Brazil, India and South Africa makes perfect sense, with each country benefitting from the others expertise, but without constricting “moral” double standards being applied.

On the Denel blacklisting issue. I believe it has to do with favouritism and corruption. We all know that the arms industry is very corrupt, wherever in the world you go. In fact, I believe that an arms deal without corruption of some sort is almost impossible these days! Perhaps Denels bribe was insultingly low…:diablo:

talking of the Denel alligations, there may be an interesting parallel development where Soltam of Israel may have been involved in kickbacks as well..need to see how the MoD deals with that issue considering that its an Israeli firm..

Well said swerve…

Also don’t forget that there are movements between India, Brazil and South Africa to forge a closer working relationship as premier emerging market world states and to co-operate more closely on defence technology matters so as to develop their defence industries and not be beholden to any particular “camp” once it comes down to sovereign decisions.

Well I sure hope so mate. The decision to blacklist denel and then promptly call a halt to codevelopment with south africa was one of the usual bolt the gate after the horse bolted kind of stupid decisions, Indian MOD is famous for.

Theres a lot India and south africa could work together for, armour, arty and PGMs- Ingwe and Mokhopa look formidable systems, and the LRAAM, A Darter and Umkhonto would be good additions to Indias services.

Swerve, fair point- but I know the tossers articles (grubby fingers! ha- well said!) and they can be roughly divided into three types:

– Stuff on indian kit article appears during an airshow, rational no pie in the sky BS, and which can be corroborated by other sources…barely 4-5% of his articles are like these
– Stuff on indian kit copy pasted from other sources…accurate, but presented bombastically…”as this author reported?”…again some 4-5%..
– Remaining 90% is full of :India is colloborating with Ulan Bator to develop a new fission weapon which will be carried by HAL Jaguars equipped with Kazakhstani anti Borat missiles. These stealth anti Borat missiles will have seekers supplied by Thales (see Force, December 2006)

So amongst all the BS, its very very hard to have the patience to make out the “truth”. Its a case of the boy who cried wolf. 🙁

Well said swerve…

Also don’t forget that there are movements between India, Brazil and South Africa to forge a closer working relationship as premier emerging market world states and to co-operate more closely on defence technology matters so as to develop their defence industries and not be beholden to any particular “camp” once it comes down to sovereign decisions.

Nick,

we have to be careful in dismissing everything Sengupta writes. When assessing the credibility of a story his grubby fingers have touched, we have to determine whether it originated with him, or whether he has copied it from someone else. In the latter case, his copying of it does not affect its credibility.

I was once chairing a meeting when a complete tosser, known for talking nonsense, started talking. He & was almost shouted down until I intervened. He was actually talking complete sense (& I knew from personal information that what he said was right), & it deserved to be heard. Sadly, most people present automatically dismissed it because of the source, & once he’d said it, anyone who backed him up damaged their own credibility in the eyes of most of those present. That was wrong, & stupid, & I fear you may fall into the same trap with Sengupta, dismissing any story you have heard reported by him without examining its original source & attempting to assess its merits.

Nick, fair points. I have read the original article and there are some interesting similarities. I’m certainly open to the possibility that much of this story may be little more than inaccurate and sensationalist reporting. It’s happened before (see Zimbabwe’s supposed FC-1 fighters as an example).

But my position has been to stake a middle ground between the opposing ideas that this is either a certainty and will be a definite success or that it’s a completely bogus story with no basis in fact. I don’t think either approach is the best one to take, especially considering what little information we have now. What I’m saying, therefore, is that this deal is uncertain, perhaps even unlikely, but it is nevertheless plausible.

Only time will tell if the story truly has any merit. But whatever the case may be, what we know for certain is that South Africa has a new BVR program based on fairly advanced technology, and it’s actively courting both India and Brazil to be partners. This could possibly lead to something.

lol curious, ramjet Astra I’m hearing first time…

See, There has been nothing nada reported in any DRDO publications or MOD report on a JV.

So if anything happens I’m inclined to believe after “astra gets tested in LCA”.

Russian JV is with K172 ultra long range AAM, god knows the status.
Israeli JV, and Astra with ramjet? noppers.

there is nothing we can do other than sit and watch.
For all we know India is making only one MR-AAM right now.

IIRC, FORCE has also reported that india and israel are working together on ramjet variant of astra.

There were earlier reports on various forums of india and russia working together on ramjet version of r77

there speculation in media that india is interested in meteor

Nowdays there are main streams of guesswork – India and israel working together for python 5, astra and ramjet astra

second – india and europe (MBDA-Eads) working together for astra and buy or asraam and meteror, mica

this news is third stream of speculation

russian news is fourth

IMPI

PM me your email and I will send you Senguptas article which Isby has relied upon and been caught on the wrong foot. It uses the same text, and same claims and given its Sengupta…bye bye hopes of this being true. 🙁

Repeat..

This also proves that the 120km ramjet LRAAM is not BS dreamt up by Sengupta, but a real project.

You really dont know Sengupta do you? :p
Its entirely possible that he read the original Janes report linked by you, with the image, and promptly copy pasted India in it as a done deal and made up the range, and some salacious claims.

And if that’s true, there’s no reason why the rest of the story isn’t true as well, especially as it’s unlikely that Jane’s would permit itself to get duped that easily. There’s more substance to this story than you’re willing to admit.

Ha!! Janes reports on India are pathetic. Beyond pathetic in fact. Its local correspondents, Rahul Bedi is so pathetic that I wouldnt wipe my @ss with his reports, coz I’d get a rash. 🙁

And David Isby – isnt he a new addition to Janes and a guy who used to run a yahoo armstrade group? If so, and he is the same guy, he used to rely mostly on collating news reports from across the world, and make sense of them.
And Senguptas work is carried on Lexis Nexis, and FBIS and all the usual wires. Its easy to get conned by that POS, unless you know he is a POS.

Dear Impi,

Brazil and South Africa may indeed be interested in developing a ramjet AAM. Or a 120km one. They may have even talked about it. And SAfrica has had programs as well to develop ramjet technology.

What I question is whether such a program has been launched, with India in it.

Sengupta says yes, and ties it in with copy pasted rubbish from different reports. So you understand?

You simply dont know Sengupta. I and other Indians do. And so does Pit. Ask him about how golden his words are. :diablo:

The only time he can be relied upon is when he visits an arms expo and talks to scientists and developers. In this case, its not that, and its pure make believe bunkum Bullsh!t.

I would surely love it if India were to make such a missile with south africa and brazil.

But it isnt.

Not least of which is because DENEL is currently blacklisted in India for bribery allegations. 🙁 :rolleyes:

The report is possibly taken from The Force’s Prasun Senguptas (Indias Karlo Kopp) vivid imagination, I would take it as a grain of salt till something makes sense.

Indias Astra programme has first priority! It will have K/KU band active radar seeker and passive datalinks.

Don’t be so cruel with Carlo Joey!, he could have some nice imagination regarding paranoic Panda expansionism towards Kangaroo’s homeland, but the guy at least have some glimpse of what he talks about (his 80s-90s articles on technical subjects are rather good)…

Sengputa through is anything but serious, informative or…genuine.:p

Denel was blacklisted fairly recently and the ban is still in place, which would present some difficulty in the case of a joint missile development venture. Though that said, from what I’ve heard very little solid evidence was found to justify the blacklisting, so removing it from the list might be easier than it seems.

Look, I agree with anybody who says that this agreement may not come about. The original report itself stopped short of saying the agreement was a certainty, saying only that it was ‘close’, and in my first post I said we should take it with a pinch of salt. Considering past missile development efforts, it’s actually more likely that the agreement (if indeed one is to be signed) will fall apart before the first LRAAM ever enters service. If, in fact, it ever does enter service; the history books are replete with still-born missiles as well.

But what I didn’t agree with was the assumption (made by Nick_76) that the entire story originated with Sengupta and that therefore everything about it, including the existence of the LRAAM project, is a lie. This is clearly not true, the LRAAM project existed and was fairly advanced before the SAAF pulled the plug, and Denel’s cryptic comments do point towards its revival. And such a co-operation agreement is plausible, as Brazil and South Africa are already jointly developing the A-Darter while actively encouraging India, the third member of the IBSA partnership, to get directly involved.

That’s all I’m saying: It’s plausible, yet not certain.

Combine all this with the knowledge that India, Brazil and SA are members of the IBSA multilateral forum and that both Brazil and South Africa are heavily pushing India to become involved with their joint missile development; and this story becomes plausible. After all, if it’s true the LRAAM would provide a level of capability far in excess of the Astra, so it would complement rather than replace it.

This also proves that the 120km ramjet LRAAM is not BS dreamt up by Sengupta, but a real project. And if that’s true, there’s no reason why the rest of the story isn’t true as well, especially as it’s unlikely that Jane’s would permit itself to get duped that easily. There’s more substance to this story than you’re willing to admit.

No one is doubting this will be a great project and will complement Astra as you said, but however Wasnt Denel blacklisted in 90’s for some gun issue?

Have that issue been resolved?
Another way to get around this maybe three countries will make a seperate venture company to make/manufacture and market it like Brahmos?

Whatever I’m excited and all for it, lets see if we see anything concrete report from this side and importantly by when.

Let’s back up a second here and examine what exactly we know and what we don’t know, so we can separate fact from fiction:

Most importantly, the LRAAM project definitely existed. In 1995 Kentron (now Denel Dynamics) displayed a full-scale mockup of the missile, which was powered by a solid-fuel ramjet engine with four intakes. At the time, the missile (also known as the S-Darter) was trumpeted as a missile with 100km+ range and Kentron briefly considered entering it into the British BVRAAM competition (which resulted in the Meteor) before pulling out when it realised the politics involved meant it had no chance of winning.

By this stage, the missile’s solid-fuel ramjet engine (developed by Somchem) had undergone several successful tests and further development looked promising. But from the mid-1990s onwards the SAAF experienced a dire funding crisis and the missile was presumably cancelled. In an attempt to keep the project alive, Kentron offered a variant of the missile to Pakistan, but this deal was not completed before the SA government imposed an arms embargo on the country after Musharraf’s coup.

But in January this year, Denel announced that it was developing a new long-range BVRAAM for the South African Air Force, which would use components from the Umkhonto SAM and technology from the S-Darter (LRAAM) and T-Darter. When asked whether this included the Somchem ramjet engine fitted to the latter missiles, a Denel representative said only: “range is always important”. That doesn’t sound like much of a denial to me.

Now it’s possible that Denel is indeed talking about a 60km non-ramjet missile (as one comment suggests), but this doesn’t quite make sense. Not only is the existing R-Darter already capable of that range (needing only a datalink to achieve it), but the proposed missile is to be based on the Umkhonto’s 180mm-diameter fuselage. Considering that the LRAAM was also built upon the same 180mm fuselage (in this case the Umkhonto’s tech demonstrator, the SAHV-IR), this does suggest a more LRAAM-style ramjet missile than something based on the 160mm R-Darter.

Combine all this with the knowledge that India, Brazil and SA are members of the IBSA multilateral forum and that both Brazil and South Africa are heavily pushing India to become involved with their joint missile development; and this story becomes plausible. After all, if it’s true the LRAAM would provide a level of capability far in excess of the Astra, so it would complement rather than replace it.

This also proves that the 120km ramjet LRAAM is not BS dreamt up by Sengupta, but a real project. And if that’s true, there’s no reason why the rest of the story isn’t true as well, especially as it’s unlikely that Jane’s would permit itself to get duped that easily. There’s more substance to this story than you’re willing to admit.