BlackArcherStill feel “its a matter of the funds being provided and they will be procured”!?
Has the procurement been scrapped? Even this report is merely one newspaper article and isn’t backed by any authoritative source just yet. So while you’re getting giddy with happiness, the number being quoted is still adequate for the kind of opposition the IAF faces on the western border.
Perhaps you need to worry more about the state of your own nation’s economy. Not everyone gives arms for free or liberal credit.
BlackArcherhttp://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-mod-mulls-downsizing-rafale-contract-1999002
Merde!!!
why merde? If this is what it takes to salvage the contract and make it a little more palatable to the politicians and bean counters who have to approve the bills, then its a prudent approach. The economy is suffering from high inflation and the previous crooks in the UPA govt. have left huge fiscal deficits that will make it hard for the present govt. to approve a mammoth $20 billion contract without other defence deals suffering as a result.
the IAF could look at increasing its Tejas Mk2 numbers to keep up numbers or even hope that if and when the economy looks up in the future years, they’d be able to get additional Rafales from HAL assembly lines, like it has done with the Su-30MKI, Jaguar and Hawk.
BlackArcherSo something similar to what the South Koreans did to get the F-35 instead of the F-15SE..
80 Rafales is still a sizeable number and the IAF may reluctantly have to agree to such a proposal if that is what it takes to get the contract signed. They’ll look to add additional batches of Rafales down the line when HAL will be manufacturing them mostly in-house. Perhaps they could add the remaining 46 as options which would have to be exercised by a given date to get them at the current price..and if the economic situation improves, those options could well be exercised.
BlackArcherwouldnt you agree with him? look how fast they got their Russian birds.
not new builds, those were pulled from existing stocks. Not quite the same situation with the F-16IQs..
had Iraq wanted to get the A-10s, the USAF may have been happy to provide them a couple of squadrons and get them off their hands, but yes the speed with which the Russians supplied the Su-25s is something that the more bureaucractic US system may not have been able to match.
BlackArcherEurofighter prepares Tranche 3A model for AESA upgrade
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Instrumented production aircraft IPA8 was pulled off the final assembly line at Airbus’s Manching site near Munich, Germany on 26 June. The two-seater, which will ultimately be delivered to the German air force, is like other Tranche 3As – in that it has been built with AESA-capable electrical power and liquid cooling systems. The electronically-scanned system requires more power – and generates more heat – than its mechanically-scanned predecessor, the Euroradar Captor-M.
By contrast, single-seat validation aircraft IPA5 is a UK Royal Air Force Tranche 1 version which needs more extensive upgrade work to accommodate the new radar. IPA5 is being modified at BAE Systems’s site at Warton in Lancashire. The aircraft, expected to fly with its AESA radar in the third quarter of this year, will be on display at the Farnborough air show.
According to Eurofighter’s head of future capabilities Laurie Hilditch, the two projects complement each other. With IPA8, Eurofighter will demonstrate its ability to modify any of its newest models, which were designed to accommodate the more capable radar. IPA5 will validate the company’s scheme for modification of its earliest models.
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BlackArcherMaliki now claims that he regrets having ordered 36 F-16s from the US..and that they should’ve sought British, French or Russian fighter jets instead to get air cover for their ground troops, which he claims would have avoided the rout..trying to put pressure on the Americans to expedite F-16 deliveries?
BlackArcherSince I haven’t seen anyone else link this yet.. this is a google translation from a post on the SwAF blog:http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://blogg.forsvarsmakten.se/flygvapenbloggen/2014/06/06/verklighetsnara-taktikutveckling-av-jas-39-i-england-meatball-ur-en-pilots-perspektiv/
Excerps: “The fourth day of samövningen “MEATBALL-14” begins with a review of my opponents. I placed alone in my JAS 39 Gripen against a rote Typhoon from 41 st Test and Evaluation Squadron, equipped with 4 ASRAAM’s (Advanced Short Range Air to Air Missile, heat-seeking missile) and 4 AMRAAM’s (Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile, Radar robot) were. Their only job is to get me out of the sky.
My only chance is to get on my sight as quickly as possible on one of them and fired and then switch targets to try to do the same to the other.
We start out from RAF Coningsby and head to the North Sea and once inside the training area so we split, Typhoon against Griffin. This is it! I turn back towards the race for about 25 miles and locks on the radar. I see that my radar detector indicates anflygande enemies and let my electronic warfare systems systems work effectively to disrupt the opponent’s aircraft radar.
The British are coming out of the clouds over the side and we meet in an approaching speed of over 1100 knots and I let mine countermeasure syringe from the aircraft (simulated by exercise technical reasons) to avoid pålåsning of ASRAAM’s infrared homing device.
Maxsväng against one case, the helmet feels like it’s made of lead. I do not have time, switch turn and finds the other rising vertically to put their energy into height. He stands still in the sky and quickly get an IRIS-T in the company. Turn letters back, after that I went over in the vertical allows me to take an incredibly large angle change back to the first aircraft. That means I lose all energy and I miss now I’m a wing-clipped bird.
Far out in the periphery can I find him, I turn my head out to the max and get in their sights but no tone. Of exercise technical reasons I wear just a robot and it is in this maneuver on the wrong side of the aircraft and homing is shaded by the fuselage. I continue the maneuver in a role with the aircraft inverted and homing then find the target. The battle is over 9 seconds. But we keep in touch for exercise’s sake and in case the robots fail then I must be able to follow up with additional robot shoots and possibly also with automatic cannon. “
in short, the Gripen won the engagement against the Typhoon within 9 seconds of the merge?
BlackArcher[ATTACH=CONFIG]229625[/ATTACH]
Being quick, I counted three 28 probably added (zoom-in on the marked zone).
3×2 = Vodka Shoped 😉
none of the things you’ve marked seem PS’ed..a couple of those red boxes are genuine tail rotors in the pic.
BlackArcherBAe commences upgrade work for KF-16 fighters at Fort Worth facility
BlackArcherIndigenous ASW corvette, INS Kamorta to be commissioned into the Navy by next month end.
India’s first indigenous anti-submarine warfare ship ready
India’s first indigenously-built antisubmarine warfare corvette INS Kamorta is ready to be commissioned into the Indian Navy next month, defence officials said here on Tuesday.
Built by the Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd (GRSE), Kolkata, it will be the first warship armed with an indigenous rocket launcher for anti submarine warfare, they said.
The corvette is readying to sail out from GRSE’s fitting-out jetty in Kolkata to join the Navy’s eastern fleet at Vishakhapatnam in July, officials said.
The sophisticated front line warship with stealth features will also be the first warship armed with the new trainable chaff launcher — Kavach.
With an approximate displacement of 3400 tonnes, it can achieve a maximum speed of 25 knots. It is powered by four indigenously designed 3888KW diesel engines at 1050 rpm and can cover nearly 3,500 nautical miles at 18 knots. The overall length of the ship is 109 meters and is nearly 13 metres wide at its maximum bulge.
With about 90 per cent of the ship being indigenous, it is also capable of deploying a helicopter, adding considerable punch to the ship’s antisubmarine capability.
BlackArcherYes and no. Under the original contract, they would have been kept current by EADS. Then a social democrat came into office as minister for sports and defense. The issue: he was the mind behind the campaign to cancel the contract. Since the contract was watertight, he couldn’t cancel. The next best thing for him was a reduction in numbers, from 18 to 15, and instead of delivery of some T1 (later to be refitted to T2 at the expense of EADS) and some T2 he got all T1, partly used aircraft from Germany. (basically the oldest ones the Luftwaffe had). Now all those were downgraded to a special Austrian standard. Savings: 170 mio Euro the lefty mod could present as “success”.
After some time the Austrians found out, that this new contract signed by the lefty mod left Austria in the cold when it came to software support and spare parts. Their special snowflake aircraft were more expansive to maintain then more capable aircraft of the partner nations. In short: the Austrians had to pay for an update, that brought their aircraft to “normal” T1 standard.
In the end they paid more for less capable, partly used 15 airframes instead of the original 18 new T2 aircraft.
talk about a badly executed contract..the entire Austrian fighter procurement project was a mess. If only Saab had submitted a lower bid, the Austrian Air Force would’ve been far better off, with lower operating costs and definitely more capable jets than the used, downgraded T1 tranche Typhoons.
BlackArcherMKI availibility rates are even worse than I assumed they were. I thought I was being pessimistic when I said 50% then revised to 60% availability. I was actually being optimistic.
And this is the case with a platform that is now mostly built in India with “TOT” whatever that means…
That number being quoted by Ajai Shukla is definitely wrong..there is no way that the IAF wouldn’t have raised a hue and cry if the availability numbers were that low. He seems to have fallen for that “50% fleet grounded due to MC issues” news that was being bandied around, when in fact that was related to just the initial batch of MKIs and even that is on its way to being resolved.
BlackArcherFinally, it appears that India will make serious efforts to export arms
India Can Export Fighter Planes, Missiles, Says Defence Research Chief
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressing on the need for increasing arms exports, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has said India can sell combat aircraft and missiles whose production cost would be “much lower” than some of the weapons sold by countries such as China.
DRDO chief Avinash Chander said that the country needs a “policy mechanism” for exporting weapon systems and the defence research agency has suggested a “single window clearance” for sale of arms to friendly foreign countries in a time-bound manner.
“We have a list of equipment that includes the Light Combat Aircraft ‘Tejas’, ‘Akash’ air defence system, ‘Prahar’ class of missiles and ‘BrahMos’ supersonic cruise missiles along with a number of systems that can be exported,” he said.
“We are discussing the methodology for developing the export potential as well as a policy mechanism for export of weapon systems,” Mr Chander said.
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BlackArcherWhy does this deserve a thread of its own?
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