True the GOI of the day will make a decision, favourites apart but the bean counter are omni present.

Lets say if it ends between Mig-35 and Rafale , there will be questions like ok Rafale is great but isnt the MKI have similar capabilities , how can you justify the cost for Rafale then ?

What about new BRD to be build how much will it cost ? How much will it cost for Rafale and Mig-35

What about Weapons , how much it will cost for both , will Rafale weapons have commanality , ok if IAF say Mirages have similar weapons , then Mig-35 weapons will have commanility with MKI , Mig-29 , Mig-29K last but not the least Bison.

What percentage of Technology each party is willing to transfer , how much these tech cost.

What about sanction will France sanction , will Russia sanction.

What will be the operating cost of Rafale , what will be that of Mig-35.

Tons of similar question and all will be on paper.

The Government of the day cannot make a decision but isolation , all question from Technology to Finance will come into play.

Yeah yeah, but these things can be and are massaged to incorporate factors which can be subjective depending on one’s POV (as we see from the arguement here).

The Scorpene deal is a perfect example where so called beancounting fell flat versus the needs of “national security”.

The ultimate beancounters, the CAG always arrive after the fact, and are always crying irrespective of whether the decision was right or wrong.

So you can expect that as well. 😀

And its not like Russia or France are enemy country neither is US so any decision will have its political consequences , specially if its a contest between Russia , US and France.

Well Good Luck to the people who take such decision 🙂

Good luck indeed, I am sure some if not all of the MRCA money will flow to the pockets of assorted people who will promptly assure their respective company they swung the deal.

And its tax free too. Nice, eh?

Teer , Please understand that I am not opposed to buying from US though it would be 3rd on my list after Europe ,Russia toping the two

But I think deal like P-8I and C-130J are excellent buy specially the former , and we should double the order for P-8I

But my opposition is more specific to MMRCA , I am favouring the Mig-35 not because its Russian , but more on cost and rationalision grounds where a good enough aircraft is what we need to boost squadron strength and not the best out there.

My point is there is not much to gain from small tactical advantage in Electronics/Sensor suite at phenomenal cost when there is an overwhelming logistics , weapons and rationalisation advantage to get at resonable cost.

Austin,

Ok, even I want Europe to be #1. That apart,

Based on discussion – I havent seen a single guy from the user side plump for the MiG-35 on the grounds you describe.

They are mostly interested in performance (which includes weapons etc it has) , reliability (of supplies etc – timely delivery for high serviceability), and how user friendly the aircraft is – namely, how it processes the data and provides it.

So they are probably – I would say certainly- working to a definite sense of requirements which none of us on the internet can quantify.

Finally AHQ will submit a shortlist to the MOD, and the final decision will be made with politics involved.

That is what I am saying.

In other words, no matter how much you like the MiG-35 & I prefer the Rafale etc, the decision will be swung by the UPA Govt. & unless there is a massive upset, ie a disqualified or low in the rankings proposal is acquired by the MOD (eg as in the Bofors case)…the IAF will keep quiet and accept whatever it gets.

Whatever it gets, if it is not good enough, you will have silent follow on contracts signed with the acquiscence of the Govt to bump up the performance. And then CAG will come in 2017 and yell that the fighter price went up by 30%…:D

This is the reality, I am afraid.

The P-8I deal is being touted as an example that GOI has decided to go in a big way , thats far from correct.

Please remember the Tu-142M was facing issue with Technology obsolesce and high cost involved with logistics and spares.

The P-8I overcame both the above mentioned factor , because it is based on a civilian commercial aircraft which makes maintaining and logistics far easier than having a specalised aircraft like Tu-142 ,the risk is calculated and minimal in the deal.

Ripping off the Tu-142 and adding P-8I does is not a logistics problem , it is small in number and operate from specialised airbases , compared to Fighter aircraft which will be in numbers and needs to operated from any base and logistics is a major criteria.

Not to mention that Tu-142 will continue to serve till 2015-16 which was mentioned by a Senior Naval officer in a interview to Force.

Austin,

Irrespective of how you try to portray this, the reality is that the GOI has decided to put BIG MONEY on a US aircraft despite having an European alternative. Civilian commercial aircraft & all that fluff apart, its mission avionics system is going to be supplied by Uncle Sam. Its logistics & other costs will be substantial and a nice money churner for Boeing & others.

A chopper tender has been cancelled to accomodate a US submission on grounds of corruption, point is that the US companies are clear competitors in the revised tender. Another tender was refloated to accomodate another US product since the service/s preferred it. These will be deployed here, there, everywhere & clearly that line of arguement of a single base falls flat again.

Now Aegis is in discussion with the IN, and in the coming years you can expect a lot more stuff from Uncle Sam to flow to India.

So whether you (or I) like it or not, the UPA Govt. has already made the decision to buy American with the MOD clearing these deals. This is the reality. And once one GOI makes that call, others rarely, if ever, cancel the previous Govt’s decisions. Its a fait accompli.

Now one thing to make you happy after giving this depressing bit of info – Its certain that ALL TOT etc offered for the US fighters etc by Raytheon, NG etc is subject to realisation by USG guarantee.

In other words, the USG decides what is exportable and what is not. Given the kind of stuff we have seen even with minor issues like the recent ship/engine controversy and Boeing backing out of the LCA, your wishes may come true after all & we may not buy American if a big fuss is raised.

That is if politics does not swing even that.

Lets see.

Even if the pastel can’t do it as well, they did have a podded version sometime back (L080?). They also have the Khbiny system on the Su-34, which is supposed to do the passive detection/ranging bit. Also why I mentioned the SA Avitronics ELS, it has been integrated on the Su-30MKM by the RMAF, certainly the 35 can get it. Not such a big deal.

Are you kidding or you didnt understand? Again – Bearing is not such a big deal, ranging is – it requires a much larger fit both in terms of antenna farm & the specialized hardware & software to deal with it, eg interferometry and the like.
Where is the evidence that the Avitronics ELS can do this?
FYI, the Avitronics ELS is also not the best available currently either – which is why the IAF is going for the R118.

Not very convincing imho. How long can it stay undetected? At what range? Against what particular S-300 version? Lots of questions. Key word here as you point out is theoretical. I am sure the russkis can provide something better since they built the bloody system.

I’d rather take their technical word against beliefs anyday.
Fact is their Falcon Edge system is very competitive even today, a decade after it was conceived & it was in effect conceived to counter the SA-10 series SAMs.
If you are sure the Russkies can provide something better- where is the evidence? Heck, even the MiG-35 has an Elettronica Jammer, and not a Russian pod or internal fit.
Fact is Russia IS lagging in miniaturized EW fits able to handle multi targets with high ERP. Its an issue that wont go away till they too start leveraging COTS like the ROW does and to the same degree. It simply does not make economic sense to invest billions in own manufacturing facilities & then catch up.

“best there is”? You do know that the 35 can actually take on the raptor don’t you? I can even show you vids where they say it can be done thanks to its latest sensor suite. 😀

Are you kidding or did you deliberately choose to overlook the “(blah blah..)” etc which I used to show it was marketing BUT point out the fact, that the system is stated to be better than its other peers available for the F-16 platform. Nothing less, nothing more. If ACES were not as good as the Falcon edge, and yet they made the claim, they would be called on it.

The russkies have JDAM equivalents. India is producing its own paveway kit I thought. (btw, can the IAF integrate indigenous weapons to the american platforms? Astra? Sudarshan? Haven’t seen any indication to the effect). I like the Klub and the like because I think of the MRCA as a bulwark against china and not pakistan. There is no way they are going to get close enough to JDAM range in an mrca VS a bloody S-300/HQ9 site – perhaps with bucket load of growlers – but the best chance against multilayered S-300 types is longer ranged missile unless you are VLO. For 4.5 gen types these missiles would mean not entering dangerous zones and avoiding loss. JMT

Those so called JDAM equivalents have not entered any sort of series production.
India is yet to license manufacture the Paveway.
And if India does get the Klub, how many do you think will it be able to afford versus China and air launched to boot?
Clearly, the Klub, is not the answer, in terms of size or cost effectiveness.
I’d prefer the Delilah, ITALD combo from IAI.

No abuse mate, just credibility. No one else claims such achievements from similar sized arrays – 50% understandable. 100% – questionable. But then I am not saying its impossible either.

Its clearly a function of design. Most similar sized arrays being marketed are restricted by legacy power generation and backends – the APG-80 clearly did not suffer from this, as it got an entire ECS, power generation system and a new radar architecture! Not an AESA fitted out to legacy backends with limited processing and exciter LRUs.

What data? The only solid thing to go by is size of the array and that is considerably restricted by the size of the teen’s nose.

You are kidding right? How is this “solid”. What matters is the emitted power per module AND the number of modules, not just the latter.
And second, have you seen the gain or all the other details available, including SP efficacy to determine this range is or is not possible?
The Teens nose is not that much lesser than the MiG-29s et al iirc, complicated shape apart, and you are willing to believe MiGs AESA claims of similar ranges now and unable to believe the same for an APG-80..

So what? Remember Vishnu Som under similar circumstances in the MiG-35? He definitely found the SAR imagery generated by the zhuk well ahead of the blk 50. And that was just the first proto.

Hello, he flew a Block 50 with a V7 at the most. The latest is the V9 which adds a high definition SAR mode with IMU in the radar, and the APG-80 is very competitive versus the V9. The details matter, and the reality is that you have a clear source of the IAF asking for raid assessment in the ZhukME for the UPG now – which only goes to show how far the radar house is lagging versus NIIP or even its western peers.

I’ve read this one before. Thats about 120km for 1msq. I’d say about 140 odd km for a 3sqm, the Zhuk-A does that with a 680 trm set.

Thats 119 miles for a 5 Sq Mtr target, and translates into ~ 222 Km using NM or ~191 Km using standard miles. The Zhuk achieves its claimed ranges versus a 5 Sq Mtr target, and the full 1000 TRM module version aims for APG-80 performance (200 Km versus a 5QMtr target) …one day.

Again, miles. Where does it say nautical miles?

Most US Aviation articles reference Nm. You’ll find knots (for speed) also used commonly. However, check the above, its not much of a difference.

Btw, this link puts it @ 130km for fighter sized targets, and 275km for bomber
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Articles/PG/PGSA.htm

This link is heavily garbled and mixes up ranges, does not give sources and does not even classify ranges obtained versus target RCS.

I would’nt waste a minute on it, a lot of the ranges given there are clearly wrong and the author has taken the easy & wrong way out by just trying to sort ranges by fighter and bomber, when there is no standard reference for this.
Eg Phaza uses 5Sq Mtr for most of its “fighter” declarations. The US moved to 1Sq Mtr quite some time back…

However, even going by nautical miles. Lets see what we get – 3 X current USAF f-16 (i.e. blk 50, apg-68v5) = 120-140km for 1sqm target? The V9 gives about 100km based on your last post for a 5 sqm target. It is reported to have 30% more on the V5 giving the latter about 70km for 5msq target, about 40km for a 1msq target. The Apg-80 then would have a range 3 times that or about 120-140km at the very most for 1sqm target. The Zhuk A does 3sqm @ 130-140km as of 2005. Once the full set goes active with another 400 TRMs, the range is sure to cross the Apg-80.

The range calculations are straightforward:

Thats 119 miles for a 5 Sq Mtr target, and translates into ~ 222 Km using NMI or ~191 Km using standard miles. The Zhuk achieves its claimed ranges versus a 5 Sq Mtr target, and the full 1000 TRM module version aims for APG-80 performance (200 Km versus a 5QMtr target) …one day.

The Zhuk AE btw does Zhuk ME level of performance as of 2004-05.

These are of course raw ranges in long range search, against closing targets, at altitude, usual caveats versus scan angles, search times etc apply to all equivalent systems.

Point is, sooner or later this difference is not going to exist since the F-16blk 60 is not being upgraded for the USAF. The fulcrum, otoh, can keep on getting upgrades using TRMS from wherever. Its prod model is set to have 1064-1100 TRM – giving well over 200km for 3-5 sqm according to mfrs.

Point is, the MiG-35 has no guarantee of receiving any upgrades either going by your line of thought, since it will only be in service in India. OTOH, the APG series is constantly evolving in the US with newer TRMs.

Fair enough. What about cooling? More power, more heat.

The APG-80 employs a customised ECS with liquid cooling.

Thats going to be the case almost in case of any new fighter – teething issues will be there. And thats just it with the fulcrum/gripen, lets be fair. Also, no MRCA will come completely off the shelf, a degree of customization is quite likely – thats a common cost – why single out the fulcrum?

Teething issues will be more substantial with a raw fighter as compared to more mature in service types like the EF, Rafale, Fseries which would have been in service for around 5-7 years minimum by 2012.
A degree of customization is different from MANY DEGREES of customization, I trust you understand.

act is MTOW for the 35 just keeps increasing – a good sign imho. Btw, who knows the exact weights on an MKI, Tiffy or Rafale or hell even an F-15?

MTOW increase is a good sign only if the baseline weight is kept constant.
And the exact weights of a MKI are known – HAL had declared the details a year or so back.

Doesn’t matter, this was an area they were considered “behind” in. They caught up and perhaps even ventured ahead in some ways. The Zhuk A was sure a surprise, the 360 degree LWS/MAWS and downward OLS also seem competitive! Just shows that for the next iteration the fulcrum will not be at any disadvantage. In some technical parameters, even ahead of the other exhorbitant a/c. (IRST/TVC for ex.).

Where have they caught up?

Does the new NIIPP OLS have the range, performance of the Pirate? It doesnt. Can it do kinematic ranging? Can it track as many targets? The LWS/MAWS is no big deal, equal solutions are available OTS from European vendors. The downward OLS is good but performance wise, behind a high performance Litening3 or SNIPER.

So what? Hardly an issue, all the more reason to go with it considering its low costs and the expertise india seems to have achieved in EW systems.

It just proves your first claim of Russia having similar systems wrong, and secondly, an integrated IEWS is better instead of trying to go this way.

Perhaps. And then again, may be they dropped the israeli idea cause they thought they could do better!USS.

Doubt it, given where Elta is in terms of AESAs and where Phazatron is.

Hyperbole in the article apart, I think disguised FACs etc could pose a significant threat.

http://www.rense.com/general64/fore.htm

Not all of the details about how Force Red accomplished this have been revealed. The Pentagon managed to keep much of the story out of the press. But a thoroughly disgruntled Van Riper himself leaked enough to the Army Times that it’s possible to get at a sense of how a much weaker force outfoxed and defeated the world’s lone remaining Superpower.1

The Worst US Naval Disaster Since Pearl Harbor

The war game was described as “free play,” meaning that both sides were unconstrained, free to pursue any tactic in the book of war in the service of victory. As Gen. Kernan put it: “The OPFOR (Force Red) has the ability to win here.” Much of the action was computer-generated. But representative military units in the field also acted out the various moves and countermoves. The comparison to a chess match is not inaccurate. The vastly superior US armada consisted of the standard carrier battle group with its full supporting cast of ships and planes. Van Riper had at his disposal a much weaker flotilla of smaller vessels, many of them civilian craft, and numerous assets typical of a Third World country.

But Van Riper made the most of weakness. Instead of trying to compete directly with Force Blue, he utilized ingenious low-tech alternatives. Crucially, he prevented the stronger US force from eavesdropping on his communications by foregoing the use of radio transmissions. Van Riper relied on couriers instead to stay in touch with his field officers. He also employed novel tactics such as coded signals broadcast from the minarets of mosques during the Muslim call to prayer, a tactic weirdly reminiscent of Paul Revere and the shot heard round the world. At every turn, the wily Van Riper did the unexpected. And in the process he managed to achieve an asymmetric advantage: the new buzzword in military parlance.

Astutely and very covertly, Van Riper armed his civilian marine craft and deployed them near the US fleet, which never expected an attack from small pleasure boats. Faced with a blunt US ultimatum to surrender, Force Red suddenly went on the offensive: and achieved complete tactical surprise. Force Red’s prop-driven aircraft suddenly were swarming around the US warships, making Kamikaze dives. Some of the pleasure boats made suicide attacks. Others fired Silkworm cruise missiles from close range, and sunk a carrier, the largest ship in the US fleet, along with two helicopter-carriers loaded with marines. The sudden strike was reminiscent of the Al Qaeda sneak attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Yet, the Navy was unprepared. When it was over, most of the US fleet had been destroyed. Sixteen US warships lay on the bottom, and the rest were in disarray. Thousands of American sailors were dead, dying, or wounded.

If the games had been real, it would have been the worst US naval defeat since Pearl Harbor.

http://www.slate.com/id/2080814/

Officially, the war game was a great success; the theories were proven sound. However, on Aug. 12, as the game was winding to a close, a retired three-star U.S. Marine Corps general named Paul Van Riper wrote an e-mail to some of his friends, casting grave doubt on this conclusion.

Pentagon war games pit “Red Force” (simulating the enemy) against “Blue Force” (the United States). In this war game, as in many war games over the years, Van Riper played the Red Force commander. In his e-mail (which was promptly leaked to the Army Times then picked up, though in much less detail, by the Guardian and the Washington Post), Van Riper complained about Millennium Challenge 02, writing that, “Instead of a free-play, two-sided game … it simply became a scripted exercise.” The conduct of the game did not allow “for the concepts of rapid decisive operations, effects-based operations, or operational net assessment to be properly assessed. … It was in actuality an exercise that was almost entirely scripted to ensure a Blue ‘win.’ “

For instance—and here is where he displayed prescience—Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to Red troops, thereby eluding Blue’s super-sophisticated eavesdropping technology. He maneuvered Red forces constantly. At one point in the game, when Blue’s fleet entered the Persian Gulf, he sank some of the ships with suicide-bombers in speed boats. (At that point, the managers stopped the game, “refloated” the Blue fleet, and resumed play.) Robert Oakley, a retired U.S. ambassador who played the Red civilian leader, told the Army Times that Van Riper was “out-thinking” Blue Force from the first day of the exercise.

Yet, Van Riper said in his e-mail, the game’s managers remanded some of his moves as improper and simply blocked others from being carried out. According to the Army Times summary, “Exercise officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against Blue, and on several occasions directed [Red Force] not to use certain weapons systems against Blue. It even ordered him to reveal the location of Red units.”

Savion,

There is some truth to the matter that in some cases, India finds Israel to a better alternative for codevelopment and that Russia may not meet its needs. Even in the Brahmos and MKI, India substituted some own systems since they found them performance wise, to be better than what Russia had.

But its not necessary that the same analogy can be extended to the R-77 purchase, which is entirely a different matter.

If such were indeed the case, then India would not cooperate with Russia on airborne (planar array radar components) – it has, nor would it use a Russian seeker for its local Astra missile project (it has). And the R-77 deliveries are still continuing and have not been replaced by any Israeli alternative (such as the Derby). So in the case of the R-77, it seems to be a good piece of equipment.

I have had occasion to discuss these issues with the guys leading these/similar projects, and the basic point is that India/DRDO will work with any vendor provided the specific conditions for that particular project are met (technology should be cutting edge, cost, true joint development) & of course, provided political issues dont arise (eg our land systems joint development with Denel could have led to many things, but it fell through because of allegations of corruption). And of course, the “other side” should see some business/strategic sense as well to be involved in a JV. In this case, Indian & Israeli funding/tech opens a new product line for IAI & brings associated systems/radars etc to market.

So as you can see there are many factors, not just one. Russia may simply not find it useful to work on a Barak class SAM when they already have BUKs, and then S-300s and now S-400’s. India on the other hand may prefer a Barak and gradually build it up to a longer range AD system.

That brings us to why India went to Israel for these ?? Just for seeker and Data Link???

If so, How much trust/lackof do IAF has in R-77???

India’s developing the entire missile with the Israelis, that means the entire missile development value chain, from designing sensors, to software, to setting up the production facilities. It will be in all probability, very similar to the Brahmos model but with more local content.

The Barak is a complete SAM system, not just the missile and will have special systems developed for it, including the radars.

The R-77, trust seems to be there- check SIPRI, the IAF has ordered 1600 rounds of the R-77.

Scooter, you say that the LCA will be obsolete by the time it enters service..obsolete against what ? the F-7PGs and 6th generation JF-17s of the PAF ? :diablo: or the 7th generation J-10s ?

you have been reminded time and again that the avionics of the LCA are/will be as good and better than that of the equivalent avionics on the Su-30MKI (which itself uses avionics that originally were developed for the LCA program) when it reaches FOC..its internal EW (Mayawi), its indigenous RWR, its radar, its weapons, et. al.

then again, India could easily source any equipment it wanted from Israel, France, or even indigenously, to equip the LCA. there is an indigenous AESA program going on as well, apart from the one that is producing the indigenous AEWACS on the EMB-145 platform. the fighter AESA should hopefully have results by the time the LCA Mk.2 is ready. till then, the Elta 2032 (which is believed to be better than the APG-68(V)9 of the Block 50 F-16s) should be more than adequate for the kinds of threats the IAF has to tackle. and if the indigenous AESA is not good enough, then a foreign source would always be open. anyhow, the IAF will ensure that the LCA will remain current under any circumstance.

and even then, the LCA Mk.1 need not be the cutting edge of the IAF. that role can be taken by the Su-30MKI and by 2014, the IAF should have 229 of these in service (subtracting one lost and if no more are lost), alongwith all its 66 upgraded multi-role MiG-29UPGs and (if they ever get upgraded) 51Mirage-2000-5s.

The funny part is that the CURRENT avionics suite- uh huh, the one to be replaced on the MK2, is ALREADY outperforming several of its peers in the threat perception.

The MMR hybrid (with the ELTA 2032 A2G DSP) has been tracking (note tracking) “certain” targets consistently at 120 km. The OAC & the mission avionics are easily superior to whatever exist on the MKI et al currently.

The RWR is the R118 variant, which is to be found on the latest MKIs. For a jammer, they already have the Elta 8222 SPJ AND the DARE Tusker pod integrated on the MiG-27’s.

The HMDS has also been integrated on the LCA Mk1 – so far other IAF aircraft with a HMDS (note not, HMCS) – NONE.
….

But there is a logic to it, as well as the insistence by the IAF that all new fighters should have long range AESAs. And it has a lot to do with financial prudence vis a vis our limited airborne surveillance options (~6/9/12 AWACS..)…the / representing the options to be exercised.

Our needs are far more & are being met via this and some other interesting acquisitions.