And if the US removed its forces from westpac, china would gladly oblige too… etc etc.

My point was that India isn’t exactly better of than china in gdp per capita, education, health etc. Musashi was using that as a reason for why china shouldn’t be spending “so much” on a modern defence force therefore the same logic should be applied to India.

Your so called point is totally out of place because this is not a thread about India (which Musashi points out) and second, India is a status quo power and poses no expansionist threat to the PRC. India has no allied requirements to defend Japan or Taiwan or the like, either (which also brings up the point why would the US intervene unless these nations were threatened). If you attempt to make a point, make them using the correct examples.

In the PRC – India case, it is the PRC investment in military infrastructure which is forcing India to react. Whether it be raising new divisions in the north-east, or modernizing new AFB or even focusing on its Navy. Its rather ironic. The PRC is the one leading the arms race, and then you turn around & claim that because India is spending, its all ok.

Its rather funny to use India as an example to justify the PRCs spending when it is the PRC’s spending which is making India react in modernizing its military when it would rather spend on social needs, which also have a direct political benefit. Google up NREGA.

When India can’t make a gas turbine it shouldn’t be picky with who it partners to get the know how to atleast get onto the ladder.

Given the billion + dollars to be invested in such a program, India better be picky. It will be funded from the tax rupees of many Indian citizens and it should be invested as well as can be, not to just “get onto the ladder”.

Well depends on what the french are bringing to the table (regardless of what they are capable of) and what price they expect. As one of the objectives of the JV, Indians were to develop the low pressure stage and french were to develop the high pressure stage of the new engine. Since it has been dragging on for the past few years, i believe neither side has reached an understanding for the work share and the extant of JV.

Also money. Safran has made it clear that if India is serious about turbofan work, it has to invest heavily and consistently. Not Tejas style, at least till FSED, drip feed, prove, then release more funds etc. The JV is not going to be cheap

Frankly, as far as a missile artillery role is concerned, Prithvi is a dated missile and is due for replacement.

See, being a large ballistic missile with a 1-ton payload, simply using it has a signifcantly greater chance of provoking a nuclear retailiation, whatever warhead it was armed with.

look you are not making sense because there is no given reason a 1-ton warhead will provoke a retaliation whereas a 500 kg one will not. Nukes are not going to be used just because the prithvi is more effective, thats akin to saying a single Su-30 sortie with 4T of bombs will provoke a nuclear retaliation, say what? if the opponent is stupid enough to launch a strike merely because it sees prithvis coming its way, it will pay the price in terms of a retaliation. prithvis will be used predominantly against a variety of targets eg PAF AFB, PA C3I nodes, including hardened targets for which a variety of warheads have been developed, which are very effective. i can post more details available publicly but its regarded as a work horse missile.

A smaller precision-strike weapon like Prahaar serves better in the artillery role. And with the larger, longer-ranged Shaurya the Prithvi is already redundant anyway.

what you dont get is the prithvi with its larger warhead offers more options against more targets. and by virtue of its large inventory and production facilities is more cost effective, at least for the near future.
unless you have exact figures of CEP for the prahar claiming it to be a precision strike weapon (as versus a more effective area weapon, there is a difference) is pointless. long range missiles are not precision strike weapons, unless you put the cost in with expensive terminal guidance. that reduces the flexibility of their employment.

the USP of prithvi, now prahar is they are missiles that can be mass manufactured at reasonable cost and deployed, used in number.

Toan,

Good estimate, but like you yourself noted there is a shortfall versus the 42 squadron requirement, the shortfall may mean more LCA ordered as well as MMRCA numbers at 189-200.

A couple of corrections, the UPG MiG-27 are just 40, rest have not been upgraded, without engine upgrades, they will all be retired by 2020-2025, for sure

The Jaguars may stick around for another fifteen years. There were four standards, NAVWASS, DARIN, DARINs 2 and 3. DARIN 3. DARIN will be upgraded to DARIN-3 now. Around 2-3 squadrons. The DARIN-2 upgrade was applied to around 77 planes (including ~40 navwass and 37 new planes which were the last production batch).

DARIN-3 is an evolution of DARIN-2, and with engine upgrades for around 125 Jaguars mentioned, the DARIN-1 planes come in around 48 aircraft.

I dont know why media has been saying 68 planes.

IAF’s Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal P V Naik told India Strategic defence magazine in an interview that the Jaguars needed urgent upgrades. Since there was still considerable life left in the airframes and systems, it was necessary to go ahead with the process as fast as possible.

IAF had actually issued a Request for Proposals (RfP), or tender, in November 2010 to Rolls-Royce, which had provided the Adour 102 engines when the aircraft were acquired beginning 1978 from the then British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), and the US Honeywell, which says it has offered to supply ‘more powerful engines at competitive rates.’

Rolls-Royce however opted out recently, and faced with the single vendor situation, the Ministry of Defence cancelled the RfP.

Air Chief Marshal Naik said that the government had now decided to process the case on the ‘single vendor’ basis keeping in view what is available, and most suited, and negotiate with the selected manufacturer.

IAF has nearly 125 twin-engine Jaguars, dubbed as Deep Penetration Strike Aircraft (DPSA) for ground attack role, when the deal was initially signed. The aircraft can carry nuclear weapons.
……………

Upgrades of the IAF Jaguars would also include modernisation of avionics, sensors for night operations, and integration of helmet mounted sights for the pilots.

The deal for new engines, 250-plus, inclusive of spares, should be worth more than $ 2 billion.
………….

The F-125IN vs Adour comparison:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B-Fs98BOHNP1YzdiMjU0ZjMtNGFkYi00YjFlLTg0OGItMzU1Y2Q2YzNiNWYz&hl=en_US

The US engine is the better choice, in terms of performance.

DARIN-2
http://osmaniac.blogspot.com/2005/10/hal-jaguar-darin-ii-specifications.html

what i know, mind you public information, nothing hush hush, is not that different but it kind of differs and also agrees with what you have.

basically, two things – one, india has asked key suppliers not to give it items which its rivals are receiving or give it something superior which they will not get, whenever possible. at the very least customized differently. that applies to the mirage upgrade as well as the scorpenes. for the latter, what the scorpenes have in terms of some systems is not available to the rival.

second is, india has in the past heavily diplomatically lobbied the respective governments supplying items to aforesaid country as well, this applies to deals like the JF-17 as well. this will not necessarily be the domain of the IAF, but of the govt of india and its diplomatic attache.

so the IAF may not have been involved in asking the french not to sell xyz items, but that does not mean Govt of india will not do it.

Next, coming to the jf-17. this is from a series of IAF personnel again, speaking publicly and in a frank interaction.

per their evaluation jf-17 gets the PAF the multirole capability the IAF would have got in terms of avionics viz an upgraded mig-21 bison, but the airframe is superior in that it has better range and payload. this was by a senior IAF person who was fairly clued into the program. he based it on an evaluation of the platform and its avionics, including at the time both french & chinese systems. (but this was before the MAR-1 deal was announced, but it wont significantly change the comparison). not a slam, because the bison is regarded as a useful asset by the IAF. it has rvv-ae, r-73e with HMCS, ew, kab-500 capability and offers a cost effective multirole capability.

in his & several other officers opinion, the jf-17’s greatest contribution to the PAF is it builds up numbers, and is better than the f-7 series (which per IAF eval is a point defence asset, as it has limitations in range, payload) and since its airframe is newer than the mirage series in pak service, its a plus. apparently the mirage series, because of airframe lives are carefully husbanded assets, especially the ones with modernized avionics. the jf-17 since it is a newer asset, gives the paf more leeway.

what the IAF was really watching, as far as the paf was concerned, was the strike capability of the f-16 fleet. with cfts, they could get great range despite a decent payload. to address this they boosted their modernisation of the AD network with new radars and sensors.

if not for pak-US political issues, a strong F-16 fleet could give the PAF very useful capabilities – the iaf had thought earlier, PAF would probably bring its fleet to around 5 squadrons plus, at 100 planes. of course, economic issues have prevented that from happening so far.

the avionics, range, payload combination make them excellent strike assets while useful in air to air. there were other things the IAF was looking at, but probably best not discussed in this thread.

ainspiron,

to add, what was the “PAF opinion about JF-17 avionics” and which avionics were these, the French upgrade or the Chinese one?

After the success of the Sudarshan LGB (and orders placed), more emphasis on PGMs

DRDO July 11 http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/pub/nl/2011/nl_july.pdf

ARDE

Inauguration of PGM -Electronics
Centre and HILS-facility at ARDE
The Precision Guided Munition (PGM)-Electronics
Centre and HILS-Facility at Armament Research
and Development Establishment (ARDE), Pune,
was inaugurated on 06 June 2011 by Shri Anil M
Datar, OS and Director, ARDE, Pune. This Centre
has three parts, viz., control electronics, guided
sensors and hardware-in-the-loop simulation (HILS).
The facilities available at this Centre are inertial test
setup, precision acceleration test setup, three-axes
flight motor simulator, two-axes linear trial motion
simulator, GPS simulator, and electronic integration
facility for PGM. This Centre will be specialised in
electronics for PGMs.
Shri Anil M Datar, OS and Director, ARDE inaugurating the Facility.

Also, confirming the MPR (Medium Power Radar) is in an advanced stage of development.

LRDE, (DRDO radar lab)

Vice Admiral Satish Soni, AVSM, NM,
OSD to CNS, on 02 June 2011
Vice Adm Satish Soni evincing keen interest on MPR
proto array.

The PDF has a picture of the Radar backend, processing and RF hardware.

Also, DRDOs Aslesha 3D Low Level Lightweight radar has cleared trials for IAF. Apart from surveillance orders, will be interesting to see if a variant, mast mounted, is used for the SRSAM being developed with MBDA, same as ELTA 2160 is used for SpyDer

http://www.bel-india.com/index.aspx?q=&sectionid=441