Cant taiwan just buy some F-2’s or Gripens or even a Su-30MKI or something?

Does it have to be a US aircraft?

NEW DELHI: It needed drastic surgery but only first-aid has been rendered. Or, so it seems from the government’s half-hearted steps to revamp Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), whose projects continue to be plagued by huge time and cost overruns.

Defence minister A K Antony on Thursday approved a series of measures which — it was grandiosely proclaimed — will “transform and revitalize” DRDO in both “form and substance”. The measures range from creation of a Defence Technology Commission (DTC) headed by Antony and de-centralization of DRDO’s management to hiving off some of its labs and setting up a commercial arm with seed capital of Rs 2 crore.

The other steps include development of Mark-II versions of the long-delayed Arjun main-battle tanks and Akash surface-to-air missile systems as well as consultation by an “eminent human resource expert” to restructure DRDO and selection of industry partners by evolving “a suitable mechanism”.

But there is scepticism whether all this will actually transform DRDO into a lean and mean organisation capable of delivering cutting-edge weapon systems to the armed forces.

For one, MoD will decentralise DRDO management through creation of seven “technology domain based centres” or clusters of labs — missile systems, aeronautics, armament & combat engineering, electronics & communication, material sciences, naval systems and life sciences.

But there are fears all this will make DRDO even more bureaucratic and top-heavy, especially since each such cluster will be headed by a director-general and his associated paraphernalia.
DRDO, with its 51 labs, currently has one director-general at the helm. After being redesignated as chairman, he will head the DRDO management council consisting of seven DGs, four chief controllers (R&D) and an additional financial advisor at the HQ.

For another, MoD has decided to hive off only three of its 51 labs, two to CSIR and one to ICAR, instead of the dozen or so recommended by the Rama Rao Committee report.The Rama Rao report had stressed DRDO should concentrate only on 8 to 10 ‘critical technologies’ of ‘strategic importance’ instead of also venturing into making juices, mosquito repellents, titanium dental implants and the like.

The creation of DTC is being done to allow DRDO to have a greater say in defence procurements from abroad. Armed forces, however, already feel DRDO often derails armament deals by pledging to develop the systems concerned but does not make good its promises. Defence scientists, on their part, contend the services are often against indigenisation, with foreign arms lobbies always ready to play ball in deriding DRDO.

There is, of course, no getting away from the fact that India needs to develop a robust industrial-military infrastructure, importing as it still does around 70% of its military hardware and software. Incidentally, India has inked defence deals worth a staggering $50 billion since the 1999 Kargil conflict, the overwhelming majority of them with foreign armament firms.
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hmmmm … not suprising..

From Ares Blog :

Gates Says Navy Needs to Ask Itself Hard Questions
Posted by Paul McLeary at 5/4/2010 7:00 AM CDT
blog post photo
SecDef Robert Gates (Pic: USAF)

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made a roomful of Navy officers and Naval industry types choke on their lunch yesterday afternoon at the Air Sea Space convention when he flat out told them that the Navy budget is going to remain flat in the near-term, and that the service has to ask itself “whether the nation can really afford a Navy that relies on $3 [billion] to $6 billion destroyers, $7 billion submarines and $11 billion carriers.”

It was the kind of real talk that Gates has become known for in his tenure as SecDef—and the kind of thing you get the sense that he really enjoys. The Secretary began his talk innocently enough, but when his early remarks are taken in the context of the whole, it was quite the opposite. In summoning the memories of American military innovators like Lt. Gen Victor Krulak, Adm. Chester Nimitz and others, Gates noted that “they had the vision and the insight to see that the world and technology were changing. They understood the implications of these shifts and then pressed ahead in the face of often fierce institutional resistance.”

In other words, the Navy leaders need to put more work into finding ways to keep the force relevant, and at a lower cost. “Mark my words,” Gates said later in the speech, “the Navy and Marine Corps must be willing to reexamine and question basic assumptions in light of evolving technologies, new threats and budget realities.”

The new threats are in part defined by the irregular challenges even potential near-peer enemies would present in a conflict with American naval power. “Our Navy has to be designed for new challenges, new technologies, and new missions,” Gates said, because “potential adversaries are investing in weapons designed to neutralize U.S. advantages – to deny our military freedom of action while potentially threatening America’s primary means of projecting power: our bases, sea and air assets, and the networks that support them.”

Interesting was Gates’ continuing references to the work of theorist Andrew Krepinevich and his work in his book 7 Deadly Scenarios and elsewhere in which he outlines how irregular threats presented by actors from the low end to the high end of the threat spectrum can overcome American precision weapons and big deck naval power.

“The virtual monopoly the U.S. has enjoyed with precision guided weapons is eroding – especially with long-range, accurate anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles that can potentially strike from over the horizon,” Gates warned. “This is a particular concern with aircraft carriers and other large, multi-billion-dollar blue-water surface combatants, where, for example, a Ford-class carrier plus its full complement of the latest aircraft would represent potentially a $15 to $20 billion set of hardware at risk.”

Finally, the SecDef criticized the Navy for its failure to think critically about this threat, and instead offering solutions that consist of “either more of what we already have or modernized versions of pre-existing capabilities. This approach ignores the fact that we face diverse adversaries with finite resources that consequently force them to come at the U.S. in unconventional and innovative ways. The more relevant gap we risk creating is one between the capabilities we are pursuing and those that are actually needed in the real world of tomorrow.”

And just to ensure that the industry representatives in the audience choked on their lunch of beef and fish, he added that “we simply cannot afford to perpetuate a status quo that heaps more and more expensive technologies onto fewer and fewer platforms — thereby risking a situation where some of our greatest capital expenditures go toward weapons and ships that could potentially become wasting assets.”

Gates promised that he will have more to say in a speech he is giving this Saturday. I can’t wait.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3a7194c24e-048b-4279-a448-e981feebb110&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest

Where will the money come from, for this though?

I thought Robert Gates was going around the NAVY circuit telling them to cut down on the high budget items that are not relevant considering some of the asymmetric systems put up by navies with lower budgets

Is there any news on the PAK FA itself ?

The Navy and Industry have just been told the budget is not going to be increased and that the need to look at reducing some of the costs, not sure how this squares up with that recent blunt announcement.

You have to ask what the low of the hi low mix with the PAK FA should be used for?

Its not going to be sent into a heavily protected area with lots of air defence systems.. The PAK FA would be sent in first to sweep the area and reduce threat levels as much as possible before the low of the hi lo mix goes in.

With this in mind and the fact that Russia will not be going around the globe bombing countries thousands of miles away does it really need anything more than the Mig-35?