Christ, its just a basic air policing mission by a neutral country landlocked by friendly neighbours with almost 100% radar (military and civilian coverage). No need for expensive fast jets, BVR missiles or two seater trainers.

12 Hawks with AIM-9s is all you need. 2-4 for a QRA, rest maintence/training.

Never going to be in a shooting war, never going to deploy abroad, never going to conrtibute to a coalition.

All you need is a basic cover to stop some wacko flying a plane into the next World Economic Forum or flying off with all that hidden WW2 era gold.

I think their population actually got it right with their vote.

:dev2:

India Has No Money To Pay For C-130J Hercules Aircraft: Reports
Source : Our Bureau ~ Dated : Wednesday, May 28, 2014 @ 01:53 PM

India’s financial woes have been so severe that the Ministry of Defense did not have enough money to pay the “first full instalment” of the $1.01 billion deal to buy six additional C-130J Super Hercules aircraft last December, the Times of India reports.

And with several nearly-finalized deals queued for the new government, the MoD has requested a 25% hike in budget. Besides the long-pending $20 billion MMRCA deal, procurements of 22 Apache attack helicopters (around $1.4 billion), 15 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters (around $1 billion), and 145 M-777 ultra-light howitzers ($885 million) will be on defense minister Arun Jaitley’s plate.

According to the interim budget for 2014-15, the defense outlay was set at $37 billion with $22 billion set aside for revenue expenditure while $15 billion for new weapons, sensors and platforms.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to make a decision on a wide range of issues, ranging from recommendations of the Naresh Chandra task force on higher defence reforms to the creation of three new tri-Service commands for space, cyber and special forces, according to the Times of India.

The action plan’s underlying message, however, is that existing funds are proving grossly inadequate to ensure the country’s war machinery is kept fighting fit, the report said. Leave alone the dwindling capital budget for new acquisitions, the defence establishment is “running quite short” of even revenue expenditure to “properly maintain” existing or new weapon systems with sufficient spares.

“The major chunk of the capital outlay is being eaten up by committed liabilities and instalments for earlier acquisitions. This backlog will continue for a few years. It has been made clear that either the budget should be hiked or the new acquisitions should be delayed,” a source was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

Doubt they would send that many pilots just as back seaters. The Chinese had a Major General cordinate it from there end and PAF had an AVM. Seems bizzarre to do that for a 2 plane detachment. That would not even warrant a media report. Anyway, AFM will soon be doing a piece on Shaheen III as Alan Warnes is in country at the moment, so confident it will reveal much more and the true extent of the exercise will be be revealed.

Also, I would not read too much into the planes parked in the background, they just represent the types invloved. I have never seen a large scale DACT exercise where they lined up every single partipating aircraft for a final picture.

The deal went through pretty smoothly. What was bought was crap, but that’s not quite the same issue.

Agreed, makes you think that despite it coming with political strings and not being the most advanced solution, had the IAF gone with the F-18E/F or F-16I, they may well be inducting their first sqd instead of playing games with the French.

The US deals have been pretty much straight off the shelf. Modifications have been non-existent or trivial. One contract is signed, the supplier does it all & delivers it to the appropriate service. If India bought anything from France in the same way, I expect it’d be similarly easy.

The problems arise whenever there’s anything specific to India, any local content, any local assembly, anything customised, or any follow-on needed from the Indian MoD or other state agencies. That applies to all the French deals. Such deals get mired in bureaucratic complications, failure by bureaucrats to process paperwork (e.g. regular spares deliveries not made because the orders for payments haven’t been dealt with), attempts to pass the buck, failure to deliver on time by state firms, and so on.

Dealing with Russia has its own nightmares on top of that.

Fedaykin: indeed. It’s not the only time India has run into problems because it’s blacklisted too many suppliers. I remember reports years ago about problems getting competitive tenders because almost every possible supplier was blacklisted. The problems is obviously with the process, not the suppliers.

I think you also have to add the backhanders that go with European and Russian deals, whilst via FMS these are difficult to ask for.

And it just seems to get worse…their military procurement is on verge of breaking down. Even a simple procurement takes a decade, to say nothing about domestic development.

This reminds me of a story how Finnish army lost Vyborg to Soviets in 1944: artillery battalion requesting shells from a nearby supply depot was denied…because the depot had ran out of correct forms.

I would not say it is on the verge of breakdown. India has signed some deals quickly and efficiently via FMS for items such as C-17s and P-8Is that have been delivered on time (or even before time) and on budget. Compare these to the nightmares India has dealing directly with French and Russian companies.

Shaheen III