There is one problem: why would you have to negotiate to get proper support? That should be the logical follow up to any buy.

I meant better support for previously ordered aircraft. It should not have been an issue but contracts with Russia tend to be … bumpy (to put it mildly). Plus the Indian MoD isn’t the most capable negotiator, case in point: omission of the MRO facility creation from the primary Su-30 contract.

In any case, its possible that serviceability issues can be/are being addressed without unusual UAC/Sukhoi support (MRO facility is already up and running), but additional Sukhoi orders would still have given some leverage to the MoD, for whatever it was worth.

Something had to be done by the PM and DM to basically give the IAF new combat aircraft. the only other viable option was more Su-30MKIs and that meant another order for direct supplies from Irkut, not from HAL, which is already stretching to deliver 16 MKIs per year. And Irkut itself is already supplying Su-30SMs to Russia, so its not like their assembly lines are idle either, so it wouldn’t mean immediate deliveries either. Plus, Russia needs to focus on resolving the in-service spares and maintenance issues for the already massive 200+ Su-30MKI fleet. There was no need to reward them with another 40 Su-30MKI order.

The IAPO line had at least as much elasticity as Dassault’s Merignac line in terms of committed orders. Also there’s no reason for an order of extra Sukhois to take the focus off addressing in-service issues with the Su-30MKIs. In fact, they could have used the prospect of supplementary orders to negotiate a deal on improving after-sales support from UAC/IAPO.

So what would India gain by ordering more Su-30MKIs directly from Russia then? Nothing, other than saving on infrastructure and training costs that are associated with a new type’s intro into service. But remember that one of the primary aims of the MRCA was to end dependence on a single country for all your fast jet needs, and so more Su-30MKIs were not an ideal option, in fact that would be the last ditch option. And the Rafale had comprehensively won the evaluations carried out by the IAF, so they really weren’t talking about pushing a hog into service just because it was Western. This whole line of questioning by some fellows here, on why Rafales were ordered, is absurd and mostly related to all these fantastic scenarios of strategic gains and what not..

Even if go by the principle of diversification, fact is the Rafale’s L1 position was specific to the MMRCA process which has been abandoned. Ideally, they should have opened parallel negotiations with EF (which also cleared the IAF’s evaluations) & LM. If nothing else, that would at least squeeze the Rafale’s cost down. As things stand this deal clearly appears a product of political grandstanding and still well short of the value that the Indian MoD ought to be putting on its dollar/rupee (regardless of mismanagement by previous administrations).

I am not criticising the EOTS here. The fact that it has a wide FOV is good indeed ( even though it is not a pure air to air IRST ).

We’re talking WVR or near-WVR. ‘Pure air to air IRST’ is irrelevant.

I never said that the missile’s seeker should scan the entire FOV. I say that the DAS will tell the pilot in which direction the threat is coming from, and the missile’s seeker will be cued to the DAS while it is on the rail.

There’s no reason why the missile’s seeker must be cued while its on the rail.

This way the pilot can either immediately shoot if the threat is in the forward hemisphere, or make a quick turn to expose the missile’s seeker. It would happen very quickly because the missile’s seeker is already cued to the DAS.

The missile can turn tighter than any aircraft. Instead of turning the aircraft, you let missile turn and lock on.

At least in that case you’re sure that the missile will achieve lock on, because there is no distance/velocity issue. It is in LOAL mode that it gets awkward, because of course the DAS and the missile are not looking from the same spot.

The aircraft and missile are connected by a two-way datalink. Spatial awareness is not an issue any more than it is for two fighters sharing a Link 16 connection.

The LOAL is a good capability to extend the effective range of the missile or to get off boresight shots with reliable targetting informations, which is not the case with a DAS like system.

The missile has an excellent IIR seeker and cues from the DAS, which is a lot more effective and reliable than a plain vanilla HMS.

How can this have no bearing on resolution lol? The sensor scans 120 degrees, which is a a huge volume, how can you expect to get a decent resolution with that? Originally the system was a missile launch detector, it is NOT an IRST.

The presence or absence of an optical zoom has zero bearing on the DAS’ native resolution. Where required the pilot can digitally magnify DAS imagery.

Why don’t you go ahead and define ‘decent’ resolution and then contrast the figures with the actual (indecent) resolution. ‘Originally’ =/= ‘Currently’

Most air forces will use the F-35 as their primary fighter, and the USAF will in the end have a limited number of F-22s. Not making sure ( with enough missile tests ) that it would be a competent dogfighter with very good off boresight capability was a bad idea.

Neither did you, given the fact that this DAS/LOAL capability has never been tested before.

Both the LOAL & DAS have been tested. And even in a very primitive form where it provides no mid-course updates to missile and does not track surrounding aircraft, the DAS is still far better than any HMS by virtue conferring 360 deg visibility to the pilot even in inclement weather.

Of course the missile can only lock on the target in the forward hemisphere, but if it does so, its probability of kill is quite high. With a DAS guided shot, it is not sure that it will acquire the target within one second after launch during a hard pull, when it doesn’t even know where the target is exactly.

The EOTS tracks all targets in the frontal hemisphere a lot more effectively than the best missile seeker. And any pilot turning hard, where enemy aircraft can emerge at any aspect, will not want the limitation of cockpit visibility or missile FoV. (BTW not all missiles can scan 90 deg off-boresight. Eg – MICA-IR.)

The DAS/HMD would have been nice to have capabilities even with the ability to lock on before launch.

If it turns out that the target is behind the F-35, the pilot could have done a high alpha turn to get a quick HOBS shot, or even the DAS could have been used to get a shot in LOAL mode, but with a lower pk.

There’s a reason they put a two-way datalink on the Aim-9X Blk2. LOBL or LOAL, makes no difference to its pk. If the target is behind the F-35, he doesn’t need to pull a high alpha turn, he can launch irrespective of aspect or speed, and the missile will be guided both by the DAS and by its HOBS seeker, meshing together for a high pk.

The DAS is not an an IRST, it doesn’t have the ability to focus on a target. So its resolution will obviously be poor. To have an accurate speed, you need very accurate position data to be able to calculate the velocity vector. You won’t get that with that kind of sensor.

The DAS is an IRST. By definition. And while its not equipped with an optical zoom function, that has no bearing on its native resolution.

The JSF was not designed as a pure fighter, and was meant to be cheap. So they skipped the side bays and found this half-ass solution with a distributed aperture system.

– The last aircraft designed as a ‘pure fighter’ was decades ago.
– It’ll match the Eurocanards at FRP which is cheap enough for most operators.
– Half assed solution is what any F-35 pilot will call an HMS dependent dogfighter. Line up your aircraft with your target or you’re sunk. (And then hope and pray the missile does the job without help.)

Time will tell if it really works.

Sounds like you didn’t wait for ‘time’ before making up your mind.

Who cares about ALA when there is Apache. The real question is can Rafale handle Kh-31?

Apache? SCALP-EG or ASMP-A yes, but hardly the Apache which is successor to the Durandal. With diminishing numbers of ordered Rafale on one hand, and crashing Franco-Russian relations on the other, its likely that the Kh-31 integration will fall through.

Dassault doesn’t build their own tooling any more than Lockmart. There are vendors that specialize in this. The tooling is not the problem with the price.

I know that which is why you’ll notice I said – supplied through Dassault. The fixed costs for production in France have already been amortized.

Also, its not just the tooling for the assembly line that’s contributes to the cost, its the entire supply chain servicing the Rafale project. For many of the contractors involved the Rafale is a ‘side-show’ that piggybacks off their primary business (be it supplying to Airbus, Alstrom or Areva). For local production in India, at minimum, the units involved in the production of spares have to be entirely replicated, often from scratch, without significant diversification for greater economies of scale. Plus, there’s a very significant overhead involved when it comes to parts sourced from the OEM. Point is, the manpower costs are far from the primary driver of the costs incurred in licensed production.

One detail that appear to be left out, in all that frenzy, is the HAL’s manpower ratio of 2.7 to 1, reported initially by Vishal Taphar, who seem to be the source of the news (link https://twitter.com/thaparvishal)
That is sure to be an ice cold, shower for anybody. Also very concerning ..

Given the labour costs in India, it may in fact be a cheaper proposition. The problem isn’t labour or efficiency, its quite simply the massive investment in infrastructure required to replicate the Rafale’s production chain in France.