eagle1Did not knew they actually signed for the F15
Then that makes it 24+12 Rafales+24 Typhoons=60+36 F15 =96 fighters…. for a country slightly bigger than Creta , whose AF is/was composed of 1500 personals top this far.Its completely bonkers.
Reminds Khadafi in the eighties when he went on a massive acquisition spree, so much in fact that the Libyan armed armed forces didnt have the manpower to use the hardware.
They have an option for 36 more rafales on top of that…Crazy.
eagle1It would be nice to have an insight of the F3R and F4, Indian upgrade. Overall I feel that DGA/Dassault/Thales are much more discrete than bebore. What are the new mode added ? where are the report of flight testing the F3R etc…For previous standard much more information was available to the public domain with article, reports, flight tests etc…
eagle150 to 60 “un-priced” items are BELEIVED to have been listed as miscellaneous …this from a media source .This is hardly proof of anything as you seem to think .
Beside, assuming the report to be somewhat accurate (with a big IF ). what items are we talking about , oil…lubricant…the radar…what was the relative amounts 0.0001% , 1% more ? of the deal . Where they nevertheless not included in the offer and or valued as miscellaneous without details. Did this resulted in an increase of the offer . Clearly not.
The MMRCA went on up to the time of assessing the concluded exclusive negotiation by the Indian Gov, The assessment concluded that the outcome under current setup was not sustainable notably due to a 2.7 factor increase on labor as per HAL estimation to produce in India.
If anybody, especially competitors or opposition had any good suspicions , you can bet that they will have engaged in legal actions, as opposed to attempting re-submitting their offer 20% discounted for some or else voicing more than rumors of suspicions.It is a bit odd that for some ,there are no other alternatives that either Dassault has abused 2 governments , and or the system under 2 different governments was either corrupted or else incompetent.
Spot on. First of all as you said the reliability of the report is doubtfull a single article is hardly a proof, and Dassault answered to critics saying that they didn’t change their pricing and that they have strictly adhered to the RFP.
It is doubtfull as it is hard to see how the people in charge of reviewing costs would have completely missed significant costs in the miscellaneous. I mean what were they supposed to do for the year and more they were searching the L1 bidder ? That’s too big to be credible. And if there was a fraud that would not be very hard to spot and open an inquiry. The next Gov would have jumped on the opportunity as would have Eurofighter Gmbh. And even if you believe the report, there is no proof that only Dassault would have forgot these items and not EF Gmbh.
eagle1Regarding Dassault and Indian RFP for MMRCA here is the CEO’s answer to critics :
Confident of signing the much delayed $10 billion contract for Rafale fighter jets with India “soon”, French Defence major Dassault today said its pricing remains the same from day one and it has not wavered from the request for proposal (RPF).
It also said an empowered team has already arrived in India and carried forward the talks as decided by the Defence Ministers of the two countries in December.
“The pricing issue is very clear. Our pricing remains the same from day one of LI (Lowest bidder). So there has been no change on that front,” Dassault Aviation CEO Eric Trappier said.
Asked about claims that Dassault is not willing to stand guarantee for the 108 jets to be made by state-run HAL here, Trappier denied there was any deviation from what the RFP said.
“We are exactly in line with our answer to (Request for Proposal (RFP). This answer led the government of India to select L1 which was Rafale. And we have stuck to the same commitment which is totally in line and compliant with the RFP,” he told PTI here.
eagle1No you certainly have not understood the concept, at all (or you’re pretending not to). Nowhere in my post was the ‘Swiss point of view’ or any such positional perception mentioned.
If the CPFH to India for aircraft B is lower than aircraft A because of lower labour costs, and we’re talking in absolute figures (not whether it ‘feels’ less or more), then GDP per capita is obviously meaningless.
No I get it, but it is just your own little intuitive concept, and there is nothing to actually demonstrate that the lower labour costs in India would make it bearable for the IAF. If you need nearly twice as much manpower to look after an aircraft, over 40 years of ownership and given the number of airframe in the MMRCA competition you can bet the differencial will be significative in absolute value as well for total cost of ownership. And bringing the GDP per capita is still perfectly valid as costs are relative to each country. Just like talking of the added complexity of managing a bigger workforce or the impact on fleet availability are relevant.
“In the end”, the MMRCA contract was scrapped so the re-examination of the L1 status became a moot point.
We’ve already established that the Dassault bid included a large “miscellaneous” uncosted component (which is what led to the L1 dispute). You can blame that on ambiguities in the RFP, but if so that means that there was no standardized method of comparison. And if there was no standardized method of comparison then the L1/L2 positions aren’t genuine. That’s just basic logic.
You did not establish anything, and saying that there was no standardized method of comparison is exagerated, unproven & very unlikely. Unless CNC are complete rookies, you have to come with a method to compare costs and they would use their critical sense to see if there is a distortion between manufacturer. Rafale was not declared L1 out of the hat after such a long process of evaluating costs. You will always be able to raise some questions in such a mamoth task, especially from those with an agenda, but in the end the L1 evaluation has not been invalidated, and nor Dassault nor former Indian defense minister were faces with any charge. MMRCA stalled at a latter stage during exclusive negociation due to the complexity of implementing the contractual frame.
Oh that’s perfectly fine then. But I trust you will not display a hypocritical streak when the same logic i.e. “it was chosen by the govt so it was clearly the best, ‘acts not words’!” is used to justify the superiority of the F-35 over the Rafale.
No that’s different as the rafale was assessed during a comprehensive technical evaluation and was declared L1 after a long assessment. MMRCA was scrapped at a later stage and the final choice of the cancelled MMRCA has not been called into question both technically and on price. Because MMRCA contractual frame was so complex the new Indian authority decided to go the Gov to Gov route to speed up the process. If there were any wrongdoings, Dassault and former Mindef would have been faced with a probe and a fresh bid would have been relaunched. Because the New Indian government was comfortable with rafale selection (and they certainly had a closer look) they could proceed with a direct purchase with France, capitalizing on MMRCA selection.
And how do we know that your assumptions weren’t much more liberal or conservative than your competitor’s?
How are you supposed to accurately calculate the costs in the home market? How do you authenticate the “manufacturer’s own data”? And how can you make the exact same markup on the respective costs in India?
For example, Dassault shares manpower between the Rafale & Falcon lines, the same efficiency may not be transferable to a Rafale-only line. Similarly, the allocating (say) 12 mechanics instead of just 8 mechanics per aircraft may increase the CPFH by 15% for a European air force but only 3% for the IAF.
And how do you know that assumptions would have been more liberal or conservative for one or another competitor and the the CNC would have been plain naive or corrupted ? It is the one who accuse which must bring the evidences, not the other way round. You are implying that Dassault would have cheated or quoted unfair prices but this has never been proven by a court/indian justice/inquiry. If there was something serious Dassault would currently be under scrutiny. There is this naive idea that Dassault would have played its game well within the RFP and that Typhoon Gmbh wouldn’t have tried to do the same…This has never been demonstrated and is just in the mind of people who will never completely accept the outcome.
An apt example of anecdotal evidence.
You were proven wrong but cannot accept it, rafale ease of use was a design driver and is deeply rooted in Dassault’s DNA of producing light, rugged and simple fighters that can be remotely operated and there is nothing anecdotical with it :
France Soir: You have participated directly in the sales negotiations of the Rafale with the Indian authorities. What was your role alongside French engineers, salespeople and politicians?
Gal Palomeros: I play my role as Chief of Staff. The partnership with the Indian army is old. For years, we have been doing exercises with the Indian Air Force (IAF) which uses Mirage 2000, a device very appreciated in its ranks. My role is that this relationship is maintained at the best level, highlighting the qualities of our equipment and those of the training of our pilots.
France Soir: And for the Rafale, more precisely?Gal Palomeros: Show what are the operational qualities of the device, its advantages in terms of availability and maintenance. The availability of the air fleet is the responsibility of the Chief of Staff. It was 95% during Operation Harmattan. In this area, France has set a high bar. To maintain a Rafale permanently, we need seven or eight mechanics. For some of our competitors, it’s almost twice as much. The maintenance cost of the aircraft is therefore reduced. This was one of the essential criteria used in the design of the aircraft.
which is consistent with what Swiss AF chief of staff found in their evaluation :
As the clear winner of the flight evaluation, the Rafale won the battle, but lost the war in Switzerland. The Eurofighter did not emerge with much credit. Gygax told AIN that he did not expect the four-nation jet to score worse than the Rafale in air-to-air roles. Moreover, he added, the unpublished reports on maintenance and training did not rate the Eurofighter any better than the Rafale. “The spares are possibly cheaper because of the large number of aircraft, but it’s a very manpower-intensive aircraft,” he said.
With such a differential, over a 40 year period of ownership and for 126 jets, this must have had an impact in the Indian evaluation on price. It is not the full picture of price obviously, but this must have played an important role. Don’t forget that the detail industrial set-up was discussed during the last phase during exclusive negociation, so to detrmine L1 this must have been a big factor.
eagle1Which is why the L1 status was dodgy. The assumption/projections that went into those financial bid weren’t standardized (whether based on ambiguity in the RFP or creativity on the OEM’s part) leaving a huge amount of the cost left for ‘negotiation’ after the fact.
You have to make assumptions, it is irrealistic to think that costs could be accuratly predicted, espcially when the actual manufacturing set up is negociated AFTER being declared L1. But this is not an issue in itself if assumptions applies to both competitor.
Let’s say that the assumption is to apply a +20% markup on both competitor costs in their home market to estimate the cost of being manufactured in India (perhaps oversimplified but you get the idea). However you can more accuratly measure the cost of ownership with manufacturer own data. You have to make simplification somewhere.
eagle1I’ve understood your point perfectly, you haven’t understood mine or are choosing not to understand it.
GDP per capita is immaterial as is the absolute cost. What matters is the composition of the CPFH. Eg, if labour costs in country Y are a fifth that of country X –
Country X: CPFH – aircraft A: €110 per hour, aircraft B: €100 per hour; where labour costs €40/hr for A and €20/hr for B.
Country Y; CPFH – aircraft A: € 78 per hour, aircraft B: € 84 per hour; where labour costs €8/hr for A and €4/hr for B.
What the impact in terms of levelling the playing field, local production of spares would have had, is also debatable, since we don’t know in what time-frame that indigenization would have taken place (e.g more than half the 126 aircraft were going to be delivered off-the-shelf or merely assembled locally) or what infrastructure would have been employed (the EF, for eg, had the option of relocating equipment to a local Indian partner to reduce capital costs).
I am understanding your rationale but it is simply incorrect. X€ per hour of Indian manpower might not seem expensive from the swiss point of view but that is another story for India. Bringing the GDP per capita or the cost of life is perfactly relevant.
As I’ve proved in previous posts the L1 declaration was dubious because of non-standard assumptions/projections and had been marked for re-examination by the defence minister with the negotiation proceeding on an ad hoc basis.
You did not prove anything, the first L1 has not been called into question in the end. The new Gov had all latitude to put former indian Mindef or Dassault Under scrutiny if any wrongdoings were suspected. That would have been quite a political coup and I am sure they would have jumped on the opportunity if it was the case. When the new Gov took office, they must have had a closer look of the process, some points were raised, but not to the point that a fraud or error would have cancelled the deal. The fact that the rafale choice has been confirmed by the new indian gov is the most important thing. Acts not just words.
Anecdotal.
Incorrect, here is French AF chief of Staff in 2012 point of view in an Interview:
France Soir: You have participated directly in the sales negotiations of the Rafale with the Indian authorities. What was your role alongside French engineers, salespeople and politicians?
Gal Palomeros: I play my role as Chief of Staff. The partnership with the Indian army is old. For years, we have been doing exercises with the Indian Air Force (IAF) which uses Mirage 2000, a device very appreciated in its ranks. My role is that this relationship is maintained at the best level, highlighting the qualities of our equipment and those of the training of our pilots.
France Soir: And for the Rafale, more precisely?
Gal Palomeros: Show what are the operational qualities of the device, its advantages in terms of availability and maintenance. The availability of the air fleet is the responsibility of the Chief of Staff. It was 95% during Operation Harmattan. In this area, France has set a high bar. To maintain a Rafale permanently, we need seven or eight mechanics. For some of our competitors, it’s almost twice as much. The maintenance cost of the aircraft is therefore reduced. This was one of the essential criteria used in the design of the aircraft.
Coming from the Tornado, the Typhoon must have been a significant step forward in terms of serviceability. But Dassault was coming from mirage III, mirage F1, mirage 2000 or Super Etandard often sold to less wealthy countries and French AF having a long use of operating its fleet in remote location in Africa. Light, simple, rugged, deployable. Typhoon main focus was air defense from main land and partner nations did not have this habit of intervening far in Africa.
eagle1How are you still not getting it? Its a very simple concept.
Labour in India is cheaper than in Switzerland but other contributors to the CPFH still remain the same or similar (fuel, consumables, depreciation etc). So an aircraft with higher personnel costs but lower spares costs will be more competitive in the Indian market than in a European one. That’s all.
As far as technical side is concerned, the IAF rated both the EF & Rafale as technically compliant with its requirements. Its possible that its operational benchmarks differed from that of the Swiss (who curiously picked the F-18 over the more popular F-16) or that it tested a different configuration(its testing was conducted two years after the Swiss), but the bottom-line is that they both made the cut and were viable options for an off-the-shelf purchase as well.
No you don’t get it. First man power costs is relative. Like any cost is relative to a country. Indian skilled manpower might not be expensive from a swiss point of view, less so for the Indian taxpayer which is nowhere near the GDP per capita than Switzerland. Secondly spares were to be manufactured in India for MMRCA. India, consistently with the swiss evaluation pointed the rafale as L1/cheaper to operate. Evaluation structure was not the same but the result was similar. Given the difference of design philosophy of the two platforms this is not surprising. Rafale is a lighter, simpler and more rugged design than the Typhoon. Benefiting from Dassault’s long experience of designing light and simple jets and AdlA deployement in remote locations + the ability to withstand the harsh naval environment.
Pick any segment related to aviation or defence and the opportunities in the private sector will still only be a fraction of what’s available to someone doing the same job in Europe, further inflating the wage differential. The IAF has no issues at all with regard to retaining technical staff in the NCO cadre (movement to the pvt sector is usually to the pilots). As far as the industry is concerned, its not uncommon for tradesman in niche areas to be sent abroad (Europe or the Middle East, or sometimes SE Asia) to attend a training course or two.
No matter how you twist it, an aircraft that requires less workforce to maintain is easier to manage and can get airborn again faster as not every tasks can be executed in parallel, many would be itterative. You cannot fight against common sense.
eagle1I’m still not sure what all this extemporising is meant to prove.
The Swiss gent said that the EF had higher manpower costs and likely lower spares costs in the Swiss environment. The cost of manpower is much lower in India than for the West for all levels of skill/education. So the labour component of the CPFH will be relatively much lower, and cost inputs will be dominant. That’s all there is to the manpower argument.
As for the argument about the EF having lower serviceability than its peers (and thus requiring a larger fleet), I still await actual evidence.
Indian Manpower costs is lower but India GDP per capita is nowhere near Switzeralnd. What would look inexpensive to the swiss (Indian workforce costs) is not for the Indian. And then a fighter jet that would need more (skilled) workforce to operate is simply more of a headeache.
What is the amount of effort and money you need to achieve the desired result ? If you need 10 times the workforce compared to another aircraft you might have scored very well but that is much less efficient. The swiss rated the Typhoon lower than the rafale in two chapter of the evaluation : maintenance and training as a whole. The difference was noticeable enough to be raised by swiss air force chief of staff, he was just as surprised as the Typhoon scoring lower in AtA.
As the clear winner of the flight evaluation, the Rafale won the battle, but lost the war in Switzerland. The Eurofighter did not emerge with much credit. Gygax told AIN that he did not expect the four-nation jet to score worse than the Rafale in air-to-air roles. Moreover, he added, the unpublished reports on maintenance and training did not rate the Eurofighter any better than the Rafale. “The spares are possibly cheaper because of the large number of aircraft, but it’s a very manpower-intensive aircraft,” he said.
Trouble is that you’re ‘betting’ without any real knowledge of what the industries dominate the private sector in India and what their actual HR requirements are. There is, for example, unlikely to be a vacant position for an “optical sensor maintenance technician” in the classifieds.
The underlying fact is that skilled workers/technicians with such experience, have greater opportunities in the private sector in Europe (than in India) by virtue of a large & mature aerospace & defence industry. Which further inflates their wage difference with their Indian peers. (The same may not be true for the IT or automobile industry.)
I don’t know about specifically optics, but what about engines, hydrolics, materials, avionics…This type of knwoledge can be of interest in many type of industries. Also generally if you don’t have a big demand in the private sector you don’t have many schools that will train you for that type of jobs so the issue remains. The point is that if you need a bigger workforce it will create other kind of issues beyhond costs.
eagle1And Targo HMS (already integrated)… Nuclear module might have interested the Indians on a side note.
eagle1Le Qatar a levé l’option sur les douze Rafale, d’un montant estimé à 1,1 milliard d’euros, accompagnant les vingt-quatre commandés en avril 2015. Il vient de prendre une autre option pour 36 avions de combat.
En savoir plus sur http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2017/12/07/macron-au-qatar-plus-de-11-milliards-d-euros-de-contrats-en-guise-de-cadeau-de-bienvenue_5226053_3234.html#yzmUaRCvV4ARd6Xs.99
Quatar has just signed for 12 more rafale firm + an option for 36 more. Question is whether this new option for 36 more rafales is on top or in replacement of the Typhoon deal that was to be signed…Or to gain more negociations leverage in case they can not have the deal they want.
Around 92M€ per aircraft but then we don’t no what is included.
eagle1What you’re describing is a long turnaround time leading to low operational availability, with the manpower bit being mostly an ancillary factor and NOT the root cause of the problem.
I have not seen any evidence of this issue and serviceability/availability stats for the RAF are broadly comparable to the AdlA’s. AFAIK the EF’s availability has been excellent during overseas deployments whether in operational roles or in exercises.
Availability rate does not mean much if you don’t understand the effort and money involved. With 10 time the manpower you might reach the same availability rate but it is ten time less efficient. And usually most ressources are drained to support opperations which leads to impressive availability rate while at home the situation is often less rosy. In both cases it doesn’t tell much about the maintainability of the aircraft but rather indicates where ressources are allocated.
You should look at the number of man hour required to maintain the aircraft per hour of flight for instance, the number of flight hours after which you have to put the aircraft to the depot for extensive maintenance, the ease of change of each subsystems etc…That is the only single way to measure. Your rationale does not work.
He may have clarified one of arguments wrt to maintenance but there’s still no evidence to support that contention. Also, it doesn’t contradict my point about lower labour costs in India also applying to skilled manpower.
An aircraft that needs more (skilled) manpower to maintain is simply more difficult and expensive to operate, that is just plain logic.
It is costlier because of the bigger workforce you have to hire, train, and pay with the risk of brain drain from the private sector and that is worth for India as well, even if the workforce is relatively cheaper in comparison. More expensive is more expensive.
Just one example also that goes beyhond costs to show there is a greater stake at risk : I guess that an expert on optical sensor maintenance is a rare ressource in India (like in many other fields), I bet that the private sector would be happy to hire this expert which has gained valuable professional experience on top tier technology. Same goes for avionics, engine etc…You are assuming that this kind of skilled worforce can be quickly replaced while in real life that can be quite a headeache for the IAF. Less work force needed = peace of mind.
Then if you need to perform more maintenance checks, your are anticipating more possible breakdown which will logically lead to higher spares consumption…Which is also logic given the rafale has fixed intakes, fixed fuel probe, fixed radar antenna, and no dedicated airbrake. Simplicity of design is in Dassault DNA as it sold many aircrafts to poorer countries and that the Armée de l’air deploys in remote location in Africa since ages. Light and simple has been one of Dassault’s trademark. Tornado or Typhoon is not of the same design tradition.
You can put it in anyway you want : if you need to put more ressource to get your aircraft airborn it will cause you more trouble in terms of costs and/or availability.
eagle1Mrmalaya, I believe there must be a single source describing maintenance tasks written by the manufacturer. Just like there woud be one documentation for an airliner, let’s say the 777…Recommendations & minimum requirements are the same for AF, Emirates etc…The same applies for your car.
I believe that for any competition it is the data validated by the manufacturer that are taken into account rather than particular practice in a given Air Force.
eagle1There is a slight problem here: downtime. Manpower hours are not something completely de-correlated with the planed activity. If you have more maintenance hours (man hour can not be solved all the time by adding ppl around the airplane – some of the work to be done is iterative and might need full completion of another task to be itself completed).
So by being more labour incentive, the Typhoon might log more downtime, which in turn led to added airframe to complete the same job. Hence the added cost.But then it would be very difficult to make a rational comparison in the absence of info regarding the number for the Rafale.
That’s a good post from Tomcat ViP, I hope he is clearer than I was as you said you had the issue in understanding my English. The idea developed was similar.
eagle1It is the landing distance which is the issue…
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