Maybe the U-214 will join the IN in future to 😉 or is that wishful thinking? What everyone is waiting for I think is a home grown sub.

Oh sure now u guys can come and make comments in the India thread but this thread is closed for others is it?

Anyway my only intention was to say good that the PAF is getting F-16. No one wants an arms race but sometimes only a kick gets the Indian govt working to speed up procurement of equipment for their armed forces and keeps reminding them not to trust Uncle Sam to much.

Is the F-18 really superior to the F-16? Y not offer India the F-15 since they r looking for a strike aircraft. In my opinion the biggest plus for India in this F-16 for Pakistan deal is the supply of nuclear technology for civilian use. If this is true it will have far reaching consequences. This means that India is welcomed into the nuclear club.
A few dozen F-16’s for Pakistan is no big deal. As many aircraft that Pakistan gets , India can buy double the amount from a variety of vendors. No way is India going to let the Pak’s have superiority over them in the quality of aircraft.

Maybe now the Indian’s will seriously start looking at the Rafale 😉

As they say a strong eny makes one stronger 😛

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FL03Df04.html

South Asia

A US offer Delhi can’t refuse
By Siddharth Srivastava

NEW DELHI – US President George W Bush’s first tenure was good for India, and Bush II promises to be even better, with the United States formally offering a range of military hardware, including an anti-missile radar system and maritime spy planes, to India. The offer includes the much-touted Patriot anti-missile defense system that tackles aircraft and also tactical and cruise missiles, C-130 stretched medium-lift transport aircraft, P-3C Orion maritime surveillance planes, and even F-16 fighters. The US has also offered Perry-class frigates and Sea Hawk helicopters, while special-operations forces will be looking at chemical and biological protection equipment.

According to reports in the Indian media and independently confirmed by Asia Times Online, Indian Ambassador to the US Ranendra “Ronen” Sen was in New Delhi last week and discussed the US offer – as well as a proposed US arms deal with Pakistan – with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Sen also met with the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson, Sonia Gandhi. The hardware offer will be discussed further when US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld comes to New Delhi next week (the highest ranking official since Bush’s election victory last month to visit the subcontinent) and will also travel to Pakistan.

The US offer to sell military hardware – including the Patriot missile system – to India comes with a much deeper strategic message. India has a constant gripe against the United States’ arming of Pakistan, with the ostensible reason of taking on al-Qaeda terrorists and patrolling the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. India fears that a militarily strong Pakistan in the wake of US sanctions against the supply of similar weapons to India is a threat to its own security. Last month the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which handles all government-to-government military sales, informed the US Congress of a weapons package for Pakistan. It includes TOW anti-tank missiles, Phalanx shipborne guns and P-3C Orion long-range maritime-patrol strike aircraft at a total cost of US$971 million.

The news came as a bit of a shock to India, with Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran conveying India’s apprehension over the proposed sale to incoming US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. What was particularly galling was the fact that the Indian navy had been in negotiation for over three years for the purchase of 12 P-3C Orions to bolster reconnaissance capabilities. India instead was offered older hand-me-down P-3B models, which it turned down.

With the latest US offer, comparing the Indian military acquisition to Pakistan’s would be redundant: if the Patriot deal goes through, it will provide the necessary strategic depth to India’s defense arsenal, making it significantly different from that of either China or Pakistan. The US offer to sell P-3C Orion naval reconnaissance aircraft is also an upgraded one with the version being offered to India the “P-3C plus”, equipped with the latest avionics and equipment systems. US officials describe it as a “maritime patrol aircraft with offensive capability”, more advanced that what Pakistan will have at its disposal. Indeed, the US proposal comes during a period when India has been warming up to the Bush administration second term as well as an unprecedented level of US-India military ties over the past couple of years. Importantly, this break from the past, wherein the US has been reluctant to supply arms to India, comes when Rice is set to take over the State Department.

However, analysts here also warn against going all the way with the US. According to defense expert Bharat Karnad, “US arms supply policies are extremely fickle and hostage to not just the White House but also a number of committees and subcommittees in the US Congress, any of which could insert a rider to an Appropriations Bill negating at well a deal cut by the executive.” There is truth in this caution; in the past the Indian navy’s entire Sea King helicopter fleet – with US components – was grounded in the face of US sanctions.

But in the current context and by all accounts, the Indian government wants to move quickly on the United States’ offer. According to a detailed report that appeared in the Indian Express, the UPA government wants Raytheon, which manufactures the Patriot system, to give a presentation; it is likely that India will accept the offer of the 30J-30 Hercules aircraft, the only medium-lift plane in its class that carries tanks and troops to battle; on the F-16 planes also offered to Pakistan, the paper said the UPA government was not likely to be interested as India already has Russian Su-30 MKIs and French Mirage 2000s. The P-3C Orion aircraft is expected to be picked up, as the Indian navy is keen to have a long-range maritime surveillance platform, with anti-submarine capabilities. It is understood that F-16 manufacturer Lockheed Martin approached the Indian Embassy in Washington with an offer after New Delhi objected to F-16 sales to Pakistan. Lockheed Martin’s representatives said India was cleared by the Pentagon for the supply of F-16s, the P-3C Orion and C-130J-30 stretched Hercules transport aircraft.

Indeed, the latest India-US entente is a culmination of the two critical components through which India is being perceived by the Bush II regime. One is purely business, with India expected to tread the path of a reciprocal partner in other purchases such as the augmenting of Air India’s passenger aircraft, which is being keenly watched in Boeing headquarters in Seattle. It is also likely that India will pitch for the Arrow missile defense system, which is a joint US-Israel effort. India has already purchased the Green Pine radar system and the Phalcon early-warning aircraft from Israel. Between the Israeli offer and the US, India is likely to bend the Washington way because of the long-term political and strategic implications attached to the purchase.

The second reason is the role that the US expects India to play in the international security structure, once US Secretary of State Colin Powell is out of the picture and Rice takes command of the foreign office. Rumsfeld, Vice President **** Cheney and Rice have never been comfortable with Powell’s even hand to China with the intention of engaging the Asian giant in trade and security matters. Powell’s China-centric Asian approach has never gone down well with the neo-conservatives who control the Bush administration. The neo-cons prefer India to act as an effective check on the military and economic might of China. Rice has also never been comfortable with Powell’s mollycoddling of Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf. Under Rice, Musharraf (who is on his way to Washington to meet with Bush) will continue to be very important to the US, but not at the cost of relations with India. With Powell out of the way, the path is clear and the arms offer is the first real indication of a more proactive India policy under Rice.

Russia, meanwhile, is far from impressed with the deal. On Tuesday, officials told Delhi that Moscow would no longer transfer any high-technology defense system to India without a pact to protect intellectual property rights, and said India’s bid to buy the United States’ Patriot anti-missile system would not work on Russian-supplied platforms.

“If India will not fully honor our interests, then there is no need to attach strings, conditions and demands from Russia not to trade [in arms] with Pakistan,” an unnamed Russian Defense Ministry source was quoted as saying by the state-run RIA Novosti agency, ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India.

Pointing out that currently, at the request of India, Moscow is not cooperating with Islamabad in the defense sector, the official said that if India does not keep Russia’s interests in mind, military ties with Pakistan can be resumed.

Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist.

Will the hawkeye be able to operate off the Gorshkov and the ADS?

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NEWS/newsrf.php?newsid=1043

US firm pitches its early warning system for India

SHIV AROOR

Posted online: Friday, January 28, 2005 at 0145 hours IST

NEW DELHI, JANUARY 27: US Defence firm Northrop Grumman Corp has put on offer its E-2C Hawkeye Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) for India. The company will be pitching the Hawkeye at Aero India 2005, which begins February 9 in Bangalore.

‘‘Northrop Grumman is proposing its E-2C Hawkeye and other network-centric warfare capabilities to meet India’s airborne early warning aircraft and battle management requirement. We will be explaining our solution at the upcoming Aero India show in Bangalore next month,’’ the company’s eastern region spokesperson John A. Vosilla told The Indian Express over e-mail. The E-2C Hawkeye costs over $51 million per unit.

On December 21 last year, Northrop Grumman’s chief engineer Mark Kassner had made a presentation on the system to Navy Chief Admiral Arun Prakash at a presentation, Network Solutions for Battlefield Management: Command and Control. The Navy is currently in the process of chalking out its need for an integrated communications system.

Northrop Grumman’s Manager (international business development) Tom C. Trudell also made a presentation on cyber-warfare integration networks to the Navy last month.

In war-time, AWACS are used to identify multiple targets and guide airborne fighters to engage them. Apart from the US Navy, the Hawkeye is operated by the defence forces of Israel, Japan, Egypt, Singapore, France and Taiwan.

India currently does not have AWACS capabilities, though six Israeli Phalcon AWACS — to be mounted on the Ilyushin-76 platform — are in the pipeline for the IAF, and DRDO’s Centre for Airborne Systems (CABS) is developing an indigenous airborne early warning system after the project was revived last year by the Cabinet Committee on Security.

Mean Machine

• The E-2C Hawkeye, with its 24-ft diameter radar dome, is an all-weather, real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance turboprop aircraft. With a crew of five (two pilots and three system operators), the Hawkeye has a range of 1,300 miles, and a top speed of about 390 mph. It is built to track upto 600 targets and control 40 airborne intercepts in a six million cubic mile envelope, and has been the primary early warning system of the US Navy’s carrier battle group for over three decades. The US Navy has used the Hawkeye to guide its carrier-borne F/A-18 Hornets and F-15 Tomcats in operations that include Libya and the Persian Gulf. — ENS

Do we need another Balkan ?