Defence Ministry promises more orders for Hindustan Shipyard

Hindustan Shipyard Ltd here, which from this year is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Defence, will be provided additional funds for modernisation, and a financial restructuring package is also on the anvil, according to Mr R. K Singh, Secretary of Defence Production. It will also more get more work orders on nomination basis.

He made the promises at HSL when he came here recently to participate in the inauguration of a patrol vessel, Rani Durgavati, built by the Shipyard for the Indian Coast Guard.

Mr Singh said the Ministry of Defence had great plans for HSL.

“We are aware in the Ministry of the great history of this shipyard and the great difficulties it is passing through at present, in spite of having a highly skilled workforce and a great potential. We have plans to release additional funds for modernisation of the shipyard. We have also prepared a financial restructuring package and sent it for the approval of the Finance Ministry. We will ensure that enough work orders flow in on nomination basis to keep HSL fully engaged. We will make use of the shipyard and great things are in store for it. Its turnover will take a quantum jump,” he promised.

However, he told HSL workers and staff that the industry was in a competitive phase and there was opposition to giving orders on a nomination basis. Therefore, it was necessary for them to stick to delivery schedules and maintain the highest standards. They should gear themselves up for the challenge.

Earlier, Commodore Naresh Kumar, Chairman and Managing Director, said HSL was ready for all challenges and wanted more orders from the Indian Navy, the Coast Guard and other defence establishments.

“We can build warships, submarines and frigates. We have the skills and infrastructure here to build such vessels. We want the support of the Ministry to take the shipyard to great heights,” he said. He said HSL had so far delivered 163 vessels (including 11 wellhead platforms) and it had 12 ships on hand. It had carried out repairs to 2,000 ships. It also carried out repairs to submarines. The biggest bulk carrier (53,000 dwt) built in the country was delivered to the Chennai-based Goodearth Maritime Ltd last month.

Mr Kumar said HSL would complete the orders on hand quickly, and in accordance with schedules, and it would expect a steady flow of orders from the Ministry of Defence-related organisations. “We want the placement of orders now as a mobilisation period of at least a year is required to get ourselves ready to execute them. We must get the steel and other materials. We want the Ministry to ensure the work orders,” he pleaded.

The estimated turnover of HSL for 2009-10 was in the range of Rs 600-650 crore, he said. However, it had not been finalised yet.

Source

To meet demand, Navy for PPP model to build ships

In a bid to bridge the gap between demand and supply of naval ships, the Indian Navy is now deliberating upon speeding up the process of using Public Private Partnership (PPP) and forming a joint-venture with a modern and well-equipped private shipyard to meet the country’s naval requirements. The matter is being discussed in the ongoing Naval Commanders Conference that began on May 18.

The Navy, as per projected estimates, plans to increase its force level to 150-160 ships by 2022. Given its current fleet strength and the likely decommissioning of some older ships, on an average, it will require seven new ships annually.

However, given the past track record of Defence PSUs, MDL and GRSE, concerns are being raised about the manufacturing capabilities of these units to deliver Destroyers, Stealth Frigates and Submarines in time.

“The only way out to speed up the process will be to use the PPP model and form a JV with a private shipyard, which has modern infrastructure and adequate production capacities to meet the country’s requirements,” states a note being discussed in the conference.

Source

Globemaster will be flown to India for trials in June

The Indian Air Force’s quest to acquire a tactical heavy lift transport aircraft from the United States will get under way with user trials scheduled for next month in India.

In the last week of April, the U.S. Department of Defense notified Congress of a letter of request from the Indian government for acquiring 10 of Boeing Globemaster III.

Briefing a group of correspondents at its facility here, company representatives said the aircraft, to be taken on lease from the U.S. Air Force, would be flown to India by June 21.

“Unlike many other countries that have brought these aircraft, the Government of India insists on trials, and we will be there in June,” Tommy Dunehew, vice-president, Business Development, Boeing, told The Hindu.

The trials would be one part of a possible $5.8-billion deal, negotiations for which will begin only after Congress approves the sale. The product Boeing offers is the latest Block 18 aircraft, and much will depend on the configuration the IAF will want.

It is for India to decide whether it wants to join the worldwide virtual fleet Boeing has set up with other countries — Australia, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, the UAE and the European Union consortium of 12 nations — that have bought these planes.

The IAF plans to base these tactical aircraft at Agra. They can carry 73,616 kg of payload and can be operated by a crew of just three (two in the cockpit and one loadmaster).

Delivery will begin 24 months after the contract is signed. At present, Boeing is producing one plane every three-and-a-half weeks, or up to 15 a year. Its current order book, including some 30-odd pieces for the U.S. Air Force, will run on till 2011. However, should India order these planes, the schedules will be negotiated, Mr. Dunehew said.

It is being deployed for disaster relief operations in various parts of the world. The U.S. Air Force has transported a brigade of men, tonnes of equipment and 400 vehicles over five nights, flying 17 shifts, he said, explaining the ability of the workhorse.

The plane can carry 188 passengers, has reverse thrust engines for short turnaround and equipped with missile warning system with flares to disengage the incoming missiles.

Source

Indian Cabinet torn over sending fighter planes after the Maoist rebels

India faces a dilemma as it considers whether to deploy the air force against homegrown Maoist rebels after their latest bloody attack yesterday, this time on civilians as well as security forces.

P. Chidambaram, the hawkish Home Minister, believes that air power is essential to defeat the Maoists — also known as Naxalites — who have been fighting since 1967 and are now considered a greater threat than Jihadist groups.

The chief ministers of all of the worst-affected states also want air support against the rebels, who have a presence in 20 of India’s 28 states and control a corridor of jungle from the east coast to the Nepalese border.

Most security officials and experts agree, saying that Operation Green Hunt — an unprecedented nationwide campaign launched last year with about 58,000 federal paramilitary troops — is doomed to failure otherwise.

They cite yesterday’s landmine attack, which killed 35 police and civilians on a bus in the central state of Chhattisgarh, and another ambush that killed 75 paramilitary police in the same area last month.

Yet Mr Chidambaram, for all his many talents, seems unable to convince his colleagues in the Cabinet, and the upper echelons of the ruling Congress party, including, it seems, the party leader, Sonia Gandhi.

He made that clear today in several television interviews, where he explained that he had been given “a limited mandate” to tackle the Maoists and was pushing for his remit to be expanded.

The main issue seems to be his colleagues’ reluctance to deploy the armed forces against their own people in such a vast area — effectively admitting that there is a civil war raging across a third of Indian territory.

Even if the air force is limited to surveillance and logistics, as Mr Chidambaram suggests, they fear that it will soon end up carrying out airstrikes on the Naxalites, especially if its jets come under attack.

They rightly worry about civilian casualties — not least because the air force is designed more for carpet bombing Pakistan than carrying out surgical strikes on tiny rebel encampments in the jungle.

They also worry that they would have to extend the unpopular Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which protects the armed forces from prosecution in Kashmir and the northeast, to much of the rest of the country.

There are, however, deeper reasons for their intransigence, chiefly a desire to appear pro-poor before local elections and an instinctive sympathy for left-wing politics which dates back to Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister.

Mr Chidambaram’s strong-armed approach has come under increasing criticism in the past few months from a lobby of left-leaning intellectuals and artists, including the writer Arundhati Roy.

They say that the government should call off Operation Green Hunt and address the poor governance, corruption and poverty that drive landless labourers and poor farmers to join the Naxalites.

Mrs Gandhi added her voice to that lobby last week when she wrote an article in the Congress party journal calling for the Government to tackle the “root causes” of the conflict.

It was as close to outright criticism of Mr Chidambaram that she has ever come.

When the Cabinet discusses the issue this week, Mr Chidambaram will argue that the problem is indeed rooted in poor governance, corruption and poverty but those are problems that will take decades to resolve. The short and medium-term priority, he will say, is to prevent the Maoists from killing more police and civilians.

The idea of the Indian Air Force flying missions against its own people is
understandably repellent, and should be considered only as a last resort, but after ignoring the Maoist threat for so long the Government may not have any choice.

Source

COLUMN: M-MRCA, A Difficult Choice For The IAF

By Air Commodore (Retd) Ramesh Phadke

The trial phase of the proposed purchase of the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) is nearing completion. Last heard, the Swedish JAS-39 Gripen was not able to take part as the company had brought a different (older?) model for trials supposedly because the new Next Generation model proposed for India was undergoing some trials in Sweden. Whatever the truth, the competition is heating up.

What should be the criteria for the final choice? The IAF strength has dwindled to some 30 squadrons in the last few years. But the effect has been mitigated to some extent by the induction of the Su-30, which, with its multi-role capability, long range and highly advanced avionics and armament suite, is far more capable than the phased out fighters such as the MiG-25, MiG-23 (MF/BN), MiG-21 and some others. In any case the Su-30, Mirage-2000, MiG-29 and Jaguar combination have proved themselves in many joint exercises with the air forces of Singapore, the UK and US. Does it then mean that simply getting more Su-30s, and according to the Air Chief, some 150 more are being ordered, would make up the shortfall?

The Su-30 is a very large and heavy twin-engined fighter in the 30 ton class (empty weight: 18,400 kg, loaded weight: 24,900 kg, and maximum take-off weight: 38,000 kg), two engines of 131 kN max after burner thrust each) which gives a thrust to weight ratio at loaded weight of 1.07 and 1.15 with 50 per cent fuel. Its price is reportedly in the US$ 34-53 million range. That is not something to be scoffed at. Given such sterling qualities and a long, if at times uneven relationship with its manufacturer, Russia, why is the IAF looking for another fighter?

The main reasons could be to diversify the sources of foreign supply, access Western technologies, work out mutually beneficial Joint Venture (JV) deals and perhaps leverage the buy for larger foreign policy goals. Given the rapidly changing regional geopolitical scenario, the last factor seems critically important. Having set the background straight, let us now look at the six contenders for the MMRCA competition.

All six contenders are equipped with state-of-the-art avionics and AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) airborne radar with only marginal differences in performance. There is also little difference in their armament carrying capacity and, where needed, such changes/modifications should be possible.

The French Dassault Rafale, the European Consortium Eurofighter Typhoon and the American Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet are all twin-engined fighters in the 25-30 ton class. All of them are reportedly very expensive, with reported prices ranging from Euro 48 million for the Rafale to Euro 88 million for the Eurofighter and US$ 58 million for the Super Hornet. Admittedly, these are only notional figures and no vendor/buyer is likely to divulge the real/actual price and the services, equipment, spares/maintenance support that it might include. Would the IAF want to purchase such ‘heavy duty’ and expensive (?) aircraft?

The MiG-35 is a further development of the MiG-29K version that the Indian Navy is now inducting. It was first unveiled at Aero India Show-2007 at Bangalore. While it no doubt has some extra wing area (8-10 per cent?), smokeless (?) and supposedly the latest version of the RD-33 engine fitted in the MiG-29, the Phazotron Zhuk AE- AESA radar with additional provision for the ground attack role, LCD Multi Function Displays (MFD) and possibly the option to fit Western avionics if needed, it is not exactly a proven design nor are its life cycle costs known. Its official price is not known but going by our past experience it is likely to be low.

That leaves us with the F-16 IN Super Viper (F-16 E/F Block 60) described by Lockheed Martin as, “the most advanced and capable F-16 ever,” and the JAS-39 NG Gripen. Both these are relatively lighter aircraft at a maximum all up weight of just 16,000 kg and yet each carries an external/armament load of around 8,000 kg. They are highly manoeuvrable multi-role fighters.

The F-16 has been around for nearly 40 years but it still commands respect among the experts. It is combat proven, has operated in all parts of the world in very demanding conditions and like the freak if admirable design of the venerable MiG-21 and DC-3 Dakota, is destined to be remembered as the best multi-role fighter ever. It comes with conformal external fuel tanks to reduce drag, and the GE F110-132A engine giving a maximum afterburning thrust of 143 kN. About 4400 F-16s have been sold to 25 countries so far. The aircraft has a total accumulated flight time of some 4.5 million hours and hence the Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) is likely to be very high. Snags and technical problems are likely to be more predictable. It should also help reduce life cycle costs to a large extent. The Saab JAS -39 Gripen is also reportedly as good. It is relatively new on the scene and has an American GE F 414G engine, which means that Sweden would have to get US permission before it is sold to India.

The issue of access to technology and how each vendor fulfils the ‘offset’ commitment is not yet known, but it is reasonable to assume that no country is likely to transfer the latest technologies without necessary safeguards and confidentiality/end-user agreements. The main issue, therefore, is one of continued reliable spares and maintenance support throughout the projected life of at least 30-40 years. Would Lockheed Martin keep the F-16 line open that long? Another sticking point may be that Pakistan also flies the same fighter. But then the Chinese air force (PLAAF) also flies the Su-30 in fairly large numbers and is likely to use them for another 30-40 years and that did not deter India from buying it in 1996. The Gripen has been offered at reduced cost to Bulgaria, so some further bargaining might be possible. The F-16 could also cost India less if the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) route is followed but one cannot predict how the Obama administration would handle the deal and, who knows, Lockheed Martin might even transfer the entire production line to India as was once promised in the case of another American fighter the F-5.

There was some talk of the contract being split between two vendors and a separate tender for the AESA radar. This, in my opinion, might have been conjectured to meet the Tejas LCS radar requirements. India is already committed to buying six C-130J, 10 C-17 Globemaster heavy lift aircraft and other equipment from the US and hence it might become somewhat easy to buy additional GE 404 or more powerful engines for the indigenous LCA.

In the final analysis, it seems that the political factor is likely to influence the choice of the MMRCA more heavily than just the performance parameters. As an old fighter pilot, however, I would always pitch for a light, easily manoeuvrable, agile and relatively inexpensive fighter that delivers every time, generates high sortie rates and is easy to maintain and train on a day to day peace time schedule. What counts in war is the number of fighters one can launch every hour, every day, day after day, with full confidence and ease of operation.

Source

So Gripen will be offered with the ASRAAM and Meteor ?