Actually the Tejas’ weapons have already been selected. They are Derby & Python 5.

Who suggested standardising on R-77?

Enjoy your colonial status. I’m sure your new overlords will only require a moderate degree of public humiliation of your president & ministers when they pay tribute.

It sounds to me as if Manmohan Singh should be shot for treason. Why aren’t you out in the streets protesting? Do you want to be lackeys? It sounds like it. Have you no pride?

Then what missile do you suggest. The Astra which is not ready yet. The Meteor which the Russians may not let us integrate on their platforms. As long as India operate a mixed bag of Russian and western types, Missile standardization will be a pipe dream.

The leaks were only out today, published on a national daily The Hindu. India has more pressing issues than the direction of foreign policy to protest against.

India will never be totally in the American camp militarily because of its close relation with Russia.

Such strong words coming from you belonging to a country which basically follows Americans to most wars they fight and is fine with being their junior partner.

Its sad when some one wants to ally with U.S its bad and independence is lost, when we were in bed with Soviets and calling people like Stalin “great lover of peace”, no one really cared.

sounds all good, integrating your own weapons and all. I am going to comment on the technical side.

To do it yourself you still need support/ help from aircraft OEMs (unless you are willing to re-do the entire spectrum of developmental testing/engineering data yourself)
there is no way around it.

example: let’s say the simple task of mounting your own AAMs to wing tips of a future F-16Is.
well first I would imagine you need to stick in wind tunnel and model the config in CFD to support your analysis models so to make sure your AAM’s configuratsion don’t cause an aeroelastic event to rip your wing tips off at some particular flight condition, to even attempt to do the analysis/test you need precise structure models of the aircraft, which LM would have to provide you with in exchange with a huge check… IF they would even entertain the idea.

and that’s just one of many things that needs to be done. before anyone even thinks about bolt that missile onto the tips.

yeah Israel and Japan went through these type of things, either paid up for OEM to do or do it themselves with lots of help from OEMS. there is no way around it.

gurhhh… sounds like a never ending money pit for india.

The above is true with every single MRCA. 😉

Oh dear. When will you give up this silo thinking? You don’t want weapon A for aircraft B, you want, as far as possible, every weapon to be qualified on every aircraft. Ideally, you should have one BVR AAM & one WVR AAM, for example. Keeping stocks of different weapons for different aircraft puts up costs (bang goes the ‘cheaper weapons’ argument) & reduces operational flexibility, thus reducing military effectiveness.

It’s baffling that the IAF refuses to take account of that. Together with the proliferation of types, it suggests a blindness to the importance of logistics.

Do you want India to be in the same position as Israel, a privileged pet? “Ally” is not the right word. What about India’s ambitions? Do you aspire for your country to be a lapdog?

Remember that the UK, which has a much closer military relationship to the USA than India is ever likely to have, encounters difficulties at times. We were offered integration of our weapons onto F-35 by Lockheed Martin, in the USA, at a price set by LM.

1. Its already happening, the Russians are not interested in integrating their weapons to other aircraft and vice versa. This is India’s most trusted ally. They would not even help us integrate R 73 with Tejas. This is perhaps the reason why India chose Derby as the Tejas MRAAM.

2. India already has a diverse weapons mix. R 77 on MIG 29/su 30. Super 530 and in future MICA for the Mirage 2000. Unless you buy the Rafale or MiG 35 you will certainly add another type of AAM to the fleet. Any advantage of common AAM is negated by the price of integrating the R 77 (Indias primary BVR weapon) with any of the Euro/American types.

3. Not Just Israel Japan could integrate their own AAMs as well. India don’t need to be a pet to do it. In fact India will probably seek assurance of integration from all AC manufacturers regarding the same for the MRCA.

4. Well that happens always when money is involved, for example Russians are playing hardball and asking for a lot of money to integrate the Brahmos a Ruso-Indian missile with Su 30 MKI a Russian fighter. Such things will always happen unless one relies on ones own industry.

Who’s more committed? Germany, with no other type planned, or the USN, with a new type already on order? Ditto Spain, with no plans for anything else small numbers of F-35B for naval use only, & the other two are committed to the EF as their primary air-air platform for the foreseeable future.

“American weapons cheaper” is an assumption, not a fact. Compare, for example, JASSM with Storm Shadow. Looking at actual procurement costs, rather than the hopelessly optimistic projections, one finds that JASSM has cost a few times as much to develop, & unit production cost is slightly higher, making per unit programme cost significantly greater.

Also, unit cost isn’t what matters. Cost/effectiveness is.

Not spending on R&D is fine, if you want to be US auxiliaries forever, dependent on the USA for supply of all your air-launched weapons, all the systems. Enjoy negotiating with the yanks to integrate your weapons (“Give us all your secrets & we’ll get Boeing & Raytheon to do it. What? Why’s that a problem?”)

Who uses their platforms more often. And what use ? That is also the key the Germans and Spaniards may only have the Typhoon but they don’t consider ground pounding a priority and Europe bar the UK and France kinda shies away from most conflicts.

The American fighters have more weapons integrated including several European types, you are talking about specific weapons such as the SCALP & JASSM, the latter prolly won’t be offer to India anyway. Lets compare the price of AMRAAM with MICA, the more variety of cheaper A2G munitions available for American types etc.

Exactly the Super Hornet is cheaper to acquire and is not that more expensive than the bigger Euro Canards to maintain either. It also brings Superior strike capability compared to the Typhoon, which has good A2A capability made redundant by the fact that India already has the MKI which is going to upgraded soon.

India has enough platforms (MKI, FGFA, AMCA, LCA) to integrate its own weapons. Also the Americans are not bad when you are allied to them. They let the Israelis integrate the derby, I am sure they will let us integrate the Astra if needed.

IMO the Super Hornet has its own USPs perhaps more than any other fighter in the competition bar the Gripen.

Things are better than what it was my friend. It will take some time yes but it can be done. Whether it will be depends on the will power of the west.

So.. It doesn’t matter in which democracy stability(total Corupcy) it is, as long it is bombed into democracy

It has a flawlessly working democracy, violence has gone down after the surge. Iraq is a success story.

LOL. Pls try again, and with more suggar pls.

Talk to Afghan women who can now go to school and contest in elections. To Children. Yes some tribes may disagree with all that but there is right and wrong in this world, and you cannot do wrong and say its your culture, that will need to be corrected. Afghanistan will be a success story one day, Americans have already said they are not leaving by 2014.

Yes one that worked, but impossible to compair with the arab culture and way of life..

Before the British were here in India we practiced Sati among other things, Culture is no excuse for human right violations, it will work if given a chance as seen in Iraq, as seen in other countries which have rebellions now, democracy and democratic protests are not Arab ideas, but the Arabs are already embracing it, sometimes with western help sometimes on their own.

Thx G Bush, next time pls keep them inside your head.

From Wilson to FDR to Kennedy and Blair all support it. Its knowing the difference from right and wrong and doing the right thing when you have the power. Humanitarian crisis & Human Right Violations > international law.