Nick_76self escorting fighter is a good thing in concept, but in reality when facing a capable foe, you need dedicated escorts. a bomb truck with full a2g load is not going to maneuver as freely or take on a2a targets with the same effectiveness an escort can do. but what does work is multirole, the same squadron can send two detachments, one for strike, and the other its escort, and simplifying planning and logistics greatly.
the only self escorting fighter, i can think of, vs a well equipped adversary, is the f-22 raptor with a few sdbs and a2a armament. the rest, whether f-16s or f-15s will face the same problem.
Nick_76First of all it was a rough guess to work with.
Second, if you will run an 18 aircraft sqdn for some time you are in need of some spares at least. Related to flying hours a part of your inventory will get lost through accidents, when another part is out of service for depot-level inst. or upgrade work f.e..
the average number of aircraft on the flightline will be 15 @ 80% serviceability for the new numbers (the aim will be to hit 90% and more but lets be conservative), and it will dip to 60% for the old types. so what normally happens is that as aircraft retire, the remainign squadrons receive more airframes and even spares from the retiring ones, allowing for 70% readiness rates and even more.
Even with a good readiness-rate of 80% and the full nominal 18 you are down to 14 serviceable at the start and that number is dropping over the years.
it doesnt work that way because the number of squadrons doesnt remain constant. the iaf will prefer a fully ops ready unit, instead of multiple understrength ones which arent. the over strength ops ready unit is then split into detachments and posted as required, across different afb. this is usually the practise in wartime as well.
The 39.5 sqdn AF is a myth and can never be fullfilled the intended procurement numbers in mind.
dont know what you are talking about! 39.5 is the sanctioned number which was achieved in the 80’s, was maintained for over a decade and a half, and only went down because of the indian economic troubles and later, the delay in quickly purchasing the mirage 2000-v mk2 (which the iaf proposed to tide over the before issue) which became this mrca contest. its a moot point, whether more than 39.5 will be cleared, but this is the minimum force strength india will aim for.
Wishfull thinking aside. Maybe most Indians have not realised, that the lionsshare of military spending is eaten-up by the atomar forces and the related development. If warheads or missiles, all that expensive items have a limited lifetime and have to be replaced after some years, depending on quality (modular designs) and safety standards. That impact is not felt at first, when building up numbers, but after a while that kicks in. Fielding more fighters than necessary is a waste of money at all.
sorry, but you are still thinking in european terms where cost effectiveness and shrinking forces are a way of life and justifications keep coming up. india today faces pakistan and china, neither of which are reducing the numbers that count, in terms of modern fighters. in fact, as far as china is concerned, tis af is stronger than it ever was.
in india, despite economic troubles, and all sorts of issues, india has maintained a multi fleet force of upto 39.5 squadrons combat, 30 sam squadrons. the nuclear missiles are going to the army, and the af is just getting a few prithvi squadrons for conventional strike. and the goi is thinking of raising an entire new division for the army vs the prc. the last raising was for the rashtriya rifles, an all new coin force, and that went upto 36 battalions and counting. the point is that even manpower raisings are cleared by the goi when required and that the need hasnt decreased in india.
if anything, indias security needs have ballooned.
Maybe you have the infos?
Does India built/assemble 24 MKIs per year right now?
Does India built 24 Tejas per year right now or in 2009?
I see India buy 126 MiG-35 in 2008, with deliveries starting of 24 per year from 2009.
So in five years from now we have the following force of ? that.
The PAKFA issue aside, which still has to fly as prototype at all.
i dont see the point of these averaged numbers at all. lets leave the pak-fa aside.
first, the mig-27s are going to remain for next 5-10 yrs, with 2 squadrons split amongst them as formation leaders and being the last to leave, and ditto the 5 sq jaguars – darin 2 have strike avionics comparable to whats on the mki. the 3 mirage 2000 sq are going to be upgraded and ditto the 3 mig 29s sq. so whats left?
the numbers leaving service- thats >140 mig 21/23 to begin with, as i posted above. you have the mrca coming in for those.
then the mig-27s will be going away, 3 squadrons to begin with- but you have mkis coming in. then you have the oldest jags going away, again- mkis.
125 bisons and some of the older mig-29s- you have the lca. the timelines have been posted before. eg the iaf aims for all 230 mkis in service by 2014/15, the lca will begin induction (ioc) from 2010-12, with a squadron/per year ramping up, the mrca production rates will be determined once the process is cleared.
point is this is not going to be a simple : 200 aircraft retire, 200 aircraft are inducted overnight business. retirals are going to be staggered and sometimes more so, to allow new raisings to be formed and created. and the upgrades being conducted to the mig-27, jaguar, mirage and mig-29 fleets allow them to be viable for a long time. they are unlikely to be phased out untill the last mrca comes in.
i would also point out that current deployments are meant to overcome the deficiencies of the mig-21, in particular its short radius of action. with the mrca and ifr equipped lca, more bases in the iaf’s swac and sac are going to be brought upto combat deployments.
Nick_76coming to which aircraft will the mrca replace to begin with, thats a no brainer:
Type :Sqn Est: Sqn Nos: Total No of Units: Est Combat, Est Trainers
MiG-23 BN: 16 + 2 UMs(23): 221 :1 : 16, 2
MiG-21 M/MF: 16 + 2 Us: 17,: 35 ‘A’, 37,101,108,: 4.5: 72, 9
MiG-21FL 16 + 2 Us MOFTU A, MOFTU B, OCU 3 48 6
Thats your 126 MRCA right there
also, anyone notice that only 40 mig-27s (2 sq worth out of 5 total) have been earmarked for upgrade, to me this tells that the original plan for full fleet upgrade is being given the go by, as new aircraft are coming. in contrast, almost all the jags are receiveing upgrades and the new builds are all DARIN -II.
for a good overview of iaf numbers, i suggest:
Nick_76All together now, Off set, Typhoon, MMRCA.;)
nah, this is separate. this is because the iaf shot down hal’s plans for an ajt equivalent. so hal is thinking of joining in. besides there are bound to be more hawk orders or perhaps even some lca derivative, the present 66 aircraft are very insufficient for the iaf needs.
Nick_76They could just buy 20 odd M2k-5s, buy additional 20-40 MiG 29SMT,
no additional aircraft being purchased. iaf planners looked at these options, but somehow it didnt work out- costs and ttl were an issue i guess, not to mention bureaucracy.
upgrade existing M2ks, get 150 LCAs and invest in MCA, JVs on Ks-172, R77Ms and perhaps even push a fleetwide datalink & towed decoy program for that kind of $$$$s. What a bloody:mad: waste!
apart from the mca, all the above are well underway (nobody will talk about ks-172 one way or the other so lets forget that) but datalink and towed decoy prjcts exist
Nick_76Nick, I make that 5 different types. How many other airforces around the world are planning to operate so many types in future?
vikas, the iaf “officially” wants to concentrate on 3 types. mki, mrca and lca. but then it itself went for the pak-fa. and there will obviously be a push for the mca. my take on things is that 5 types for the iaf is no biggie- they have faced far worse with far lesser budget and done ok.
just to give an idea in the late 90’s we had:
su-30 k’s (2 squadrons), mig 21 fl, mf, bis, um, (~50% of the iaf) mig 23 um/bn (3 squadrons) , mig 27 (5 sq), jaguar is/ ib (4 sq), canberra (1 flight), mig-25(1 flight), mig 29 a/b (3 sq), mirage 2000 h/th (2 sq)
now lets drill down to the 3 fighter type plan:
we’d be left with su-30 mki’s (12 squadrons), mrca ( 6-8 squadrons), lca (6-8 squadrons)- that still leaves, 11.5 squadron shortfall. see in the meantime, we ‘dhave jaguars, mig-27s, mirage 2000s and mig-29s making up these 11.5 squadrons..but who replaces them. now, assuming that we took 6 lca squadrons and 6 mrca ones . taking the lower limits, we have 24 squadrons. add another 6 of hawks + lifts or purely hawks (today we’ll have 3). that still leaves 9.5 squadrons.
i’d say around 5 squadrons of pak-fa and mca each are sustainable. and these can continue to come in, as the oldest mkis are withdrawn.
the 39.5 squadron plan is for combat units alone and was raised post 62. uav’s, force multipliers are separate.
similarly, the iaf has 30 sam squadrons equipped with pechoras to bypass the limit on combat squadrons at the time. but now, it will end up becoming a mix of akash, barak-ng and the new aad/ abm system. the osa-ak- 8 “flights” might end up being a mix of spyder and drdo maitri, or maitri alone, since the spyder deal is cancelled.
Nick_76Inda does not have the money to do so.
12*20= 240 MKI and
6*20= 120 Ica is an inbalance of a high-low-mix and of little use in general.
Adding 6*20 = 120 Mrca is just a cover-up of the Ica desaster so far and the delays in the MKI introduction.
Inda has to decide, to bring the first two types into good working order and the related update work and still have some money for the future PAKFA or to drop the Ica and go for the Mrca.
echo muns.. were you on the high side when you made the post, because it makes no sense whatsoever by your usual standards. anyways a happy new year to you.
with current purchases, the iaf is barely hitting around ~70% of its allocated spend viz the 39.5 squadron limit. money is not a problem spending it within the allocated time is.
lets see how many assumptions you made in the post and address them.
first, the average size of a squadron is 18.
the number of lca’s that are being taken is 120 -220, depending on what the IAF takes, apart from the navy. the 126 mrca dear sens, had little to do with the “cover up of the lca disaster” as you so put it. they had everything to do with the retiring mig-23’s and replace them with a much better multirole aircraft. they wanted 126 mirage 2000-5’s and even the number has remained the same. of course, every induction covers/hedges risk in any delay elsewhere and the job of the ready mirage purchase (developed aircraft) was to hedge against mki delay and lca delay as well as replace the fighters.
coming to what india must and should do..there really is no “must and should”-because india usually tries for solutions that fit its needs, the lca is a cheap and good enough solution to deal with pak w/ the mrca while the mki mrca mix is meant for taking the fight to china.
The Pak-fa is just work on the future and so is the mca.
in fact there is a proposal to even increase the iaf from the present 39.5 squadron limit provided timing and funds both work out. thats where more inexpensive platforms like the lca come in.
but even reaching the 39.5 squadron limit will require the lca. today, we are already at 32 squadrons, even including second line aircraft at moftu (which will ultimately go to reserves, the remaining squadrons and be retired in favour of hawks. without the lca, there are no numbers.
Nick_76exactly, 5th generation SRAAMs + HMD negates quite a bit of the advantages of TVC.
there is another side to the story, tvc + 5g aam + hmd ends up creating a fighter which is heck to deal with in wvr. add 2 pilots to the mix ie extra set of eyeballs and this is not something you want to tangle with, unless you must.
Nick_76I dispute your assertion that Japanese food is like Chinese. Have you visited both countries & eaten there? BTW, having eaten in Chinese restaurants in Japan, I’ve noticed how they change the food to suit local tastes there, like the Chinese restaurants I’ve eaten in elsewhere.
same thing happens everywhere. indian chinese is nowhere close to the real thing since it has been heavily modified to suit the indian palate. indian people i know who visit china thinking they’ll have an easy time since they love chinese food, discover that they really cant handle original chinese food. i bet the same thing happens to many other nationalities when they try original food as compared to suitably modified localized fare
Nick_76you cut off israel, and you will have support to russia over chechnya as a problem. cut off chechnya and then you’ll have kashmir. then thats done, you’ll have thailand …it never ends. draw a line in the sand, and defend it, dont keep running away, it wont work.
Nick_76dudes, all this stuff about comparing what the iaf wants to other countries is absolute timepass
having discussed this extensively with iaf people the basics are thus: the iaf needs a mix of heavy, medium and light fighter for ITS needs. period. its easy to state different categories but the iaf has detailed estimates of cost of operation broken between heavy and medium and light fighters and knows what it wants. the mki is a superb platform but using it as the bulk fighter will burn a hole in any forces pocket. similarly, the lca is a cheaper to use platform in terms of operational expenses but while the lca has potential to be an excellent light fighter and while it has already kick started a comatose indian aviation industry, it has a decade to go before the iaf will declare it mature. thats with ioc, foc and some 3-4 years in service. and even then, there will be upgrades, changes and what have you. so the iaf needs another fighter in between as well and thats the mrca.
so ankush21 is absolutely right in his statements about what the iaf wants. ultimately, we’ll see some 12 mki squadrons, 6-7 squadrons of the lca, plus a few additional for lift, navy or whatever, and some 6-8 squadrons of mrcas. these will be followed by pak-fas and hopefully, a few mca squadrons over time as well.
theres a huge potential in terms of uavs and sensors as well, and thankfully local industry is already working on it. from uavs to awacs, and in future mini-jstars equivalents with gmti and similar stuff.
Nick_76BTW, your ideas are nothing but a ultraright Nazi ideology, only aimed against Arabs instead of Jews.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin’s_law
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
Godwin’s law is often cited in online discussions as a caution against the use of inflammatory rhetoric or exaggerated comparisons, especially fallacious arguments of the reductio ad Hitlerum form.
Nick_76Sean- one thing that I find slightly confusing, is that while there seems to be a great awareness of the age/unreliabilty of many of the US supplied AAM’s (AIM-54,ect), the equally old HAWK missiles still seem to have a starring role in the Iranian AD network.
I find this slightly confusing, since the ground based missiles can be replaced/augmented by different types with relative ease, as compared to the integration issues of a AAM?
Matt
money and technology..its all about that. the only option for iran bar russia whose SAM systems are not exactly cheap, is china, with ks-1a and hq-9s. and against the US those sam systems are so much junk, so whats the point?
Nick_76Yeah because in a BVR fight the TVC equipped fighter will fly around cirles at 300 kts. :diablo: TVC won’t help you much at supersonic speeds.
that has to be one of the most weird statements I have read, and its surprising coming from you who should know better. bvr fights dont always take place at supersonic speeds, in fact many times you dont want high speed if your enemy is coming towards you and you want to retain distance separation and your missile armament can already make the distance without any speed boost. the entire point of bvr is to set up traps including making hostile moves which are to provoke the opponent into making a rash decision to commit to engagement where you are waiting for him. in fact, a large number of engagements occur at a range of subsonic speeds where tvc is still useful. and in practise, pilots have seen that tvc allows for rapid changes in direction and allows for optimum controllability. at supersonic speeds, the mkis present configuration/ fbw allows for greater controllability than the earlier k as well. this belief that tvc is only useful at low speeds is a myth, in actual exercises as done by the iaf, it has been used effectively time and again in a variety of conditions.
Nick_76See, as we have discussed earlier, production of PAK-FA has already commenced, even while India is only negotiating and has not yet entered the programme. The airframe and avionics have thus been finalized as per Russian ASRs, and again confirmed by officials from Sukhoi and Russian govt. The Indian version will only be allowed to be modified (as per previous news reports) by Russia.
nope, there is no clear final avionics version of the pak-fa yet, either indian or russian. even russia is still evaluating competing proposals to fit onto the pak-fa according to what the iaf has been told.
From the above, it is thus clearly a purchase agreement as in a JV the need to purchase units does not arise.
of course it does, otherwise how will the jv break even? some value has to be shown.
As per previous news reports quoting Rusian officials, PAK-FA will have Russian avionics for Russian Air Force, whereas India can be given privilege to
localize the avionics. For this purpose, the Russian interfaces will be required such as those for the radar, ECM etc. India is paying for these interfaces and the rights to use them.
u have to understand how avionics are designed and work. there are no russian interfaces or indian interfaces in todays world and russia is not going to put 3 interfaces where 1 will do – what a waste of space and volume. most interfaces now are industry standard vxi, vme and similar ones. india will work with russia to put its systems in, and these will have to be designed in from beginning. because just putting in some dabba/box is not possible, weight, volume, emi/emc all need to be considered, not to mention performance specifications. if indian items prove better than what russian ones do, they might become the common standard like in bars which has indian rc12.
Such is not the case when foreign hardware is being procured. IAF has expressed interest in 40 additional Su-30 MKIs, joint-venture in MTA, sent RFP for MiG-35 and yet it is negotiating for the purchase of the PAK-FA.
one, u and i both know the iaf has always been import crazy because they havent invested as much blood and sweat into local devept as they shud have. but apart from that, each of the cases above has logic to it: 40 mkis because thats what our infra can handle and we were desparate for new inductions w/o calling for new tenders (these are follow on deal), jv in mta is good for us because we are involved, instead of jv if iaf had asked for say new c-130s and the mig-35 etc is just the mrca deal. the mrca concept which has been around in one form or the other for 20 years in the iaf and they periodically dust the files off and push for it. pak-fa is more of a jv as well.
Besides, completion of Tejas is now tasked with HAL and not entirely with ADA.
so what, in fact, even hal is going to find it a challenge to get the lca up and ready in time. if u speak to lca test people lca getting to service is “just matter of time” but its also got lot of things to do and achieve. iaf wants a mix of proven and new technology at any given time. by the time the mrca is done, most of the competitors (except gripen ng, and mig-35) will have existed in one form or the other and most problems worked out. the mki will also have matured. and the lca can be managed even with a serviceability of 60% (common to most new types). however if u depend only on mki and lca, the usual ramp up of lca availability will affect combat ability. every iaf commanders basic job is to ensure >80% of fleet on flightline. in reality however it will vary depending on whether u have 21-fl or 21-mf or mirage 2000.
the mistake ur making is not looking at the combat value the pak-fa can bring and the strategic aspects of it. if india hadnt signed this up, it could have gone to china. given enough sweetener and access to best russia has, china may have well said ok, lets do this plus our own local program. they have the money. even if they didnt, pak-fa will give iaf unquestioned air superiority over forces like the paf and perhaps even plaaf, at least local. thats good enough for me. as long as we get source codes and weaposn codes for pak-fa and full rights to play with the design.
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