quadbikeIndia – also wanted a big batch (i.e., 126) of Mirage 2k, but will have to make do with Typhoons or Rafales
:rolleyes: Poor IAF
quadbikeFrance,Britain or China do not have minimum deterrence against the US or Russia.
They do, deterrence don’t mean anhiliation on a similar scale, it just means inflicting unacceptable damage on the enemy, which far outweighs the benefits militiary success may bring him.
What good is taking over Pakistan if Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta are nuked, losing Manhattan and half a dozen prime cities for U.S.A in a war with China etc.
😉
quadbikeDo you have any clue on how things turn around for good, in your favorite case of privatisation? :rolleyes:
It is two +1 simple thing(s) that are independent of “Private” or “Public” ownership —– accountability & proper management! + a sincere commitment to the work a person is doing and to the organization.
Any institute or organization that have the above in place can never go wrong to the extend of a disaster!
Unfortunately there is only ISRO that I can point out right now who fulfill all the three above.In the case of privatization, if the guys don’t work and give results he will be fired and penalized. Nothing of that sort have been happening in the PSUs. In short no accountability.
Do you want to hear the best case of your efficient privatization? Look no further than the roads India have. What most Indian’s don’t know is the amount that Indians spent on roads annually from their own tax money. Its over Rs.40,000crores annually that is spend on making roads, then doing patch work and then patching up the patch work and then next year the repeat of the process. Have you ever though about why we have to spend so much annually? The reason is there is no accountability. If someone is made accountable for the dirty work he does, the work will be much better,
My personal opinion has always been against privatization of national assets and will remain so. What we need is to have accountability & proper management.
Privatization will bring in accountability ! And don’t compare National Highway contractors to private sector defense undertakings. Like the Americans do a programme will have an allocated budget and one or two of these companies will submit their proposals and the tender would be awarded to the L1, who in turn have to deliver the product in time and satisfactorily, only then will he get further orders.
In PSUs or Departments like India Post, the idiots don’t work because they are getting paid anyway. In a Private sector enterprise if they don’t work hard they know they will be fired, and their families could starve, hence they will work hard. The pay would also be higher ! The Engineers in HAL are getting crappy salaries compared to your Lockheeds and Boeings, they will get higher salaries as per their abilities, they won’t need government pay commissions to increase their salaries.
In all its a win win situation for all. You may come from a Nehruvian Era of Socialism, but I don’t share the view, everything In India is ripe for privatisation but the police, prisons and Armed forces.
quadbike[QUOTE]
Ohh boy….so all of a sudden the spares shortage, poor after sales service of the MiG-29s disappeared? :p
Its 1999 and those issues were addressed by then I think, and it was not as bad as the PAF F 16 fleet.
you should reserve the “unique” for SR-71, which was a special aircraft which needed special suits and other specialties where as MiG-31 was an “ordinary” aircraft with extraordinary capability (that has not yet been matched) which could be operated like any other aircraft and more importantly with the normal flying suits.
MiG-31 was tailored for the Russian needs but is not limited to their needs. Any nation that required such a needs will find these interceptors useful. In India’s case it was and the entry of MiG-31 was a real prospect which unfortunataly did not materialize.
The need for MiG-31 came with the PAFs further planned acquisition of 72 x F-16 and it was widely believed to become their N-delivery platform. Hence a credible threat, which had to be neutralised before it could complete its mission. And there was only one aircraft in existence which could have done the job. That was MiG-31 and thats how the MiG-31 came into the picture.
The question might arise why not the MiG-21/M2K/MiG-29 that was availabe…..but the fact was none of these aircraft had the speed or range of the MiG-31. Moreover, these aircraft had to based close to the Pakistani border and hence prime targets for the SSM. So what the IAF needed was an interceptor which could be based further deep inside the Indian territory and out of reach of the Pakistani SSM…. and equally or more importantly how fast the interceptors could reach the interception point and neutralise the threat!
The Indian response for interception was was a combo of MiG-31 + A-50. The MiG-31 will be based out of the Pakistani SSM and the A-50 was to provide the wide coverage of airspace inside Pakistan. As soon as A-50s detected any possible intrusion (during crisis, for pre-emptive strikes inside India) the MiG-31 would take-off and neutralize the threat before it could cause any serious damage. The MiG-31 could do pure multiple mach numbers continuous and it had an operational radius of 700+Km @Mach 2.8+ which made it a truly valuable asset as an interceptor.
The request to acquire these two asset was put forward to the Soviet but US managed to throw spanner in the plan and their guy in moscow – Gorby – managed to delay/halt the delivery of these systems on American “requests”. After the disbanding of Soviet Union, the plan stayed for getting the combo of MiG-31E & A-50E till around 1994, but the American patriot Yeltsin continued the same policy and the acquisition did not materialize. The twist also came in after Yeltsin came and probably it was the closeness of Sukhoi bosses to Yeltsin that made Russia to finally say that MiG-31 was NO longer on offer to India and that the’ll offer an “equally capable” aircraft. And the Su-30 was offered to the Indian delegation. The important thing to note is that the situation on the ground had also changed as any further F-16 was halted by the US. The rest is History including the hurried advance payment of money for Su-30s in 1996 for “price stabilization”. Probably the only good work that PM P.V Narasihma Rao did was that advance payment to seal the Su-30 deal.
Nice info on India’s flirtation with the MIG 31. Still its a rather limited aircraft tailored for Soviet/Russian needs. May be Indians were too into MIG designs, for example I can’t see MiG 31 being as effective as Su 30 against F 16s.
As an interceptor its role was mainly to target western bombers and act as Mini AWACS, I doubt it would have fared well against F 16s.
quadbike[QUOTE]
Is it me or the author of that article who is discrediting the designers/pilots who have claimed the MiG-29s to be a real good dog-fighter?? His article looks like it was written with the sole purpose of discrediting a magnificent fighter. And its a joke to read on how a Pilot after having 500 hours on MiG-29 still finds it not comparable to the F-16 in response to his stick & pedal inputs. That was the focus of my response. And I quoted the Indian MiG-29 pilots experience with their MiG-29s in a STILL CLASSIFIED combat duet with Mirage-2000. The Indian pilots were using the same kind of stick & pedals but got completely different result than the author of that article. So you tell me, is the MiG-29 dumb or the pilot who did not learn to fly the MiG-29 the dumbo??
Have you read the article ? It gives the MiG credit where its due, in the slow speed regime its a better dog-fighter however F 16 is superior as the speed goes up. As for stick & pedal input the F 16 has HOTAS & has a rather sensitive joystick and FBW, so its natural that a viper pilot will find the Fulcrum sluggish. The F 16 is not the Mirage 2000 so you cannot compare the results.
I can’t say for the Greeks. But IAF bought the Mirage-2000 for air-superiority when the PAF got their F-16s. But then it dawned upon them that M2K was on an equal footing with the F-16 and what they wanted was something which had a clear upper hand against the PAF’s F-16. That is how the MiG-29s came in. To have a definite edge over the PAF’s F-16. IAF got the confirmation of their choice being spot-on when they pitted MiG-29s against the then best Air-Superiority fighter of the IAF, M2k.
Actually the Mirage is not on par with the F 16 it is inferior in a dog fight on many levels. The MIG was purchased because India as per tradition was always given the latest and greatest soviet fighters for peanuts. Yes the Migs bested the Mirages in WVR yay :rolleyes:
NO!
The article of Air Marshal Harish Masand (former Wing Commander of No28 First Supersonics) says the evaluation included the radar & others. In his article he does mentions that the MiG-29s did just fine with their
radar & other sensors against the M2K. But his article was focused mainly on the flight performance. He did say that it was a classified duet and he did not reveal any figures for it. So it is still classified.
I have the article with me, where does he mention about radar, there is no mention about a BVR engagement even.
In case you want to have the full details (if we Indian’s are lucky), we can wait till the upgradation of MiG-29 & M2K is complete. So around 2020 we can send in a request to the MoD to declassify the details of that duet that is with the IAF.
Yes let us wait.
Even the shortlist have the clear indication that it was a political decision & maybe even commisions. They made sure that L1 was not present in the short-list. So that the L2 & L3 can become the L1 & L2. Now siince the MiG-35 is not there, neither EF-2000 nor the Rafale will need to worry a lot about reducing their price considerably as both are almost equal, with Rafale having an advantage.
The MIG 35 is the worst jet in that competition and rightfully it has not made the cut. It had inferior performance compared to all the fighters with respect to payload and range, had a half baked radar and no new generation engine. The L1 should have been the Gripen.
Yes! India would have chosen the Su-30 after the Su-30s roasted the F-15 ar$e over Pokhran :diablo:
In a rather controlled exercise, the Bison also roasted the F 15 so Bisons better than the Eagle indeed.
quadbike[QUOTE]
They simply did not have other option than to go for the upgrade. If Isreali’s had a cheaper upgrade option for the M2K IAF would have looked at it….Now lets look it at a little more closer. The M2K upgrade deal is insanely high compared to the MiG-29 upgrade. No doubt. But will it help the M2K-5 reverse the spanking the MiG-29s of IAF gave the M2Ks in the late 80s??? ….. Dare to put your bet – $2.4billion M2K-5 Vs $980million MiG-29UPG. 😀
And don’t forget the commission of the French and if a thorough check on ex-service officers is done, don’t get surprised from whom they might hav e got commissions from. It most likely have to be from western manufacturers.
I did see a moron asking why no Russian firm is blacklisted in some other forum. The simple reason is Russian defense dealers are not private and they work on their Govt paid salaries. Their company & job is somewhat secured even if they don’t secure a contract which is not the case with private western firms. Their way of doing it is to get the damn deal at any cost. M2K upgrade, C-17, C-130, MMRCA shortlist etc etc will get added to that list in the future :diablo:
quoting your own post from IAF thread
They could have gone for the Israeli deal they did not because they did noit think it would be as good as the French one.
IAF had the chance of getting the Mirage-200-5 in the mid-90s. But they did not! They did not consider it worth when compared to developing the Su-30MKI. There is a lot of talk on how the IAF love the M2K and how the M2K-5 was the actual MMRCA etc. But that is not the real stuff. As said earlier, if IAF wanted they could have bought the fully developed and flying M2K-5, but they did not and instead went to develop the Su-30MKI. When the need for additional multi-role aircraft came in, it was to replenish or more so to add more multi-role aircrafts into the IAF fleet as early as possible with the least cost possible. The only multi-role a/c available at that time which will not add another type (& hence more logistical nightmare) to the IAF was the M2K-5. But the new built M2K-5 cost was too high and so the plan was to get the old M2K from the French stock and to upgrade it to the M2K-5 standard. Few frames were to be converted to dash5 standard by Dassault and the rest were to be converted inhouse. It was beneficial for both IAF & French as IAF would be getting a good multi-role a/c at a decent price where as the French could focus on getting the Rafale to fill in the place of M2K.
From what I know and from what is posted in the IAF thread by far more knowledgeble posters than I, it was the GOI which decided that the MRCA should be a big open tender, and not the M2K buy as the IAF wanted.
Bison does have BVR as well as in WVR advantage over the M2K currently with its R-77 & R-73. Make no doubt on that. The Upgradation might change that in M2K favour. Even the old MiG-29 radar had better raid discrimination compared to the M2K radar and Kopyo is a better unit than the old MiG-29 sets.
WVR I will give you that owing to the superlative performance of the R 73. But BVR really ? in this very thread there was a post of Iraqi Mirage F1s using their Super 530s rather successfully against F 14s, as a missile its one of the better SARH missiles out there.
Regarding the most loved fighter. Its something that is promoted by some guys for reasons best known to them….. Few things that the guys who promote such things should know are –
A pilot loves the aircraft he fly!
For a pilot his aircraft is his LIFE-PARTNER. More so in combat!
A pilot who does not love his aircraft can never fight with it!
Promoted by who Journos or IAF ?
Coming back to the IAF, do you know how many M2K pilots are there at a time in IAF? Or what percentage of M2K make of IAF combat fighter fleet? Yes we all can guess. So there are more pilots who love aircraft other than M2K. But Good pilots admire other aircraft and the bad ones fail to do it. So there will be many who admire the M2K for its beauty and like wise for other aircrafts. Talks of special love of aircraft seems to have originated from a former M2K pilots article.
I think above all its the ease of maintenence and high availability rates along with good performance that made the Mirage a darling within in the IAF. It was the IAFs most technologically advanced fighter till the MKI came along. Don’t brag about the MiGs arguably better radar, because technology is more than that, the Mirage had FBW for example.
Many take the M2K performance at Kargil as the base for IAF loving it over other types. But let me tell you, M2K were not bombing the hills round the clock. In an interview the Southern Air Command had talked very highly of the professionalism of the IAF and how the IAF had operated in the most demanding circumstances. In that interview he did mention little bit about the M2K operations and in that he mentioned the window of opportunity. It was a short 3 hours from 7am to 10am during which the M2K carried out the strikes as per him. I’m recollecting it from what I saw on TV few years back. If you got any doubt on it or have more interests on that interview, you can contact DD for their video archive for the past 5 years. What I remember correctly is that the interview was with the Southern Air Commands chief on the eve of Air Force Day. His name or the year I forgot.
It was the only aircraft which could be fitted with the Litening pod at the time, so the only aircraft that could do precision strikes. The MiG had very limited multi role capability.
Anything translated from Russia to English also depends on the individuals understanding from the translation. Translation are not very accurate.
I
n the case of electronics & avionics Russia did lag but try to understand it little more. Any avionics have got two practical parts to it – Hardware & Software. Soviet Russia lagged in the hardware and in that miniaturization. For instance start from the IC, PCB etc. Due to lack of miniaturization on the base level the final product becomes larger & heavier compared to their western counterparts. The result is that for the same performance level the Russian units were heavier & larger. The good part to it is, when the MiG-21, MiG-29s are upgraded with new avionics, there are more space in the airframe for more fuel or avionics. For instance the MiG-21 added around 500+ liters of additional fuel after the upgradation. Russia have always enjoyed the edge in software and this was due to the shortcoming in hardware miniaturization. Due to the size disadvantage, they focused on better architecture in software and were able to keep up with their counterparts and in cases better results than their western counterparts like the AD missiles etc.
Russian advancements in SAM is a classic case of necessity being the mother of invention, with wast territory and inadequate fighter cover to cover the whole area they needed better SAMs than Europe/America. Given the choice of Airpolicing the entire region and SAMs, most forces would prefer the former.
Let the M2K have its upgrade, till then Bison will enjoy the edge over the M2K.
Slight edge in WVR because of the missile may be.
M2K has longer legs, better performance in a dog-fight, Better A2G capability, More hardpoints, Longer range radar and A2A weapons.
quadbikeMinimum deterrence means nothing.
Nice new theory so china don’t have minimum deterrence wrt USA ?
quadbikeAny ICMB..India makes will be just for show. India has neither the economy or the will to maintain a significant amount of ICMB’s which could be a deciding factor in any disagreement with the US.
There is no unlimited amount of money in India. Make the Agni 5..induct it and move on to something else necessary.
Who wants to match the U.S or Russia or China missile for missile, all we need is a minimum deterrence, If France and Britain can maintain it so can we, the problem is in developing it not maintaining it.
quadbikeYeah India may become chums with Chinese in the next decade and U.S could become a common threat.
quadbikeWhy does India need an ICBM?
It gives India more voice internationally. Ideally we should have mobile canisterised ICBMs & Submarine Launched IRBMs, no country in the world should be outside our missile range, friend or foe. It will give you respect among friends and fear among enemies.
😉
quadbikeAnother distinctive feature is its ‘canisterisation’. Hermetically sealed into an airtight canister that is mounted on a flatbed truck, the missile can be easily transported and fired quickly, by hydraulically raising the canister into the vertical firing position. Made from high-strength maraging steel, the canister must absorb enormous stresses during firing, when a thrust of 300-400 tonnes is generated to eject the 50-tonne missile The canister also provides a hermitically sealed atmosphere, in which the missile is stored safely for years.
Finally something that’s competitive wrt China.
quadbikeI hate it that we are not developing an ICBM, Prolly not to irk the Americans. Still….
quadbikeThe view from the Hind is rather good.
quadbikea rafale carries 4.5t of fuel internally, and can fly for about 2100km with it giving it about 460km/t of fuel range
the F-35B carries 8.3t of fuel internally, and can fly for about 1660km with it giving it about 260km/t of fuel range
How can you compare it to a Rafale ? If you want to compare the Rafale M compare it with F 35 C.
quadbikeYeah, we will see about that. Brazil always is on the verge of economic prosperity.
I’ll believe it when it happens.
Way better than India anyway for all its prosperity India has 30% of its population living in poverty officially it could be as high as 50 if they use proper measurements.
India has more billionaires than Brazil that’s about it 😉
Why do Brazil need all these expensive fighters anyway ? They have no threats
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