In recent years a serving Naval chief has gone on record saying “stick to the promise” over Gorshkov, all sorts of rtd officers have picked on Russia over the Su-30 MKI cost increase, the T-90 issues and dodgy behaviour in the past (sending refurbished equipment as new to India and the like).

Pogosyan is a consummate marketing professional, for him to behave in this manner with a partner would be very out of character.

Also, if Russia truly does armtwist India over the PAK-FA, it will be when the IAF inducts it, and issues of some widget or quick purchases to boost numbers come up. The usual cost increase issue, which the IAF has faced and will face from any external vendor, whether Russian, or Western.

The Russians are unlikely to jeopardize the program so early on, when it is yet to reach series production status. If anything, reports suggest Indian concerns have been met, regarding Joint Development giving India a 25% share for its investment, though the Russians were not too happy about it (why would they be, every x% in India, is x% less in Russia).

I agree with you totally.

Which is why I fear about todays report on Livefist about cheapest fighter which meets all parameters being selected.

The MIG 35 has a good chance of ending up the cheapest of the lot, which will again put all eggs in the Russian basket.

Its very unlikely that the MiG-35 will come, hopefully neither will the Gripen. Both really, are paper planes, with more “To do”, than “ready”

The real dark horse is the US, the country, not the platform, because given the N deal, and UPA-MMS in power, there is a desire to gain strategic advantage even where there may be little. Thats the real issue, with the F/A-18 E/F and F-16 sticking it out gamely, because of the political aspect.

The politics are what make it ridiculous.

The IAF would have ranked 3 planes and taken a stand, but IMO, they did not do so for fear of the GOI cancelling the entire contest on grounds of it being too expensive. Their attitude seems to be, give us whatever, we will make it work.

The one silver lining is that we know a lot about all these six platforms if we ever had to face them.

May be we are not going for such an aircraft for MRCA anymore. So MKIs are going to bear the brunt of air superiority.

There are other factors as well.
The problem with MKIs is that they are expensive. It is not just spares, but try seeing the manpower these aircraft take up when you fly them at 250 odd hours per year as we do. Even at the standard 180 Hours figure, the requirements are high.

Plus there is the overreliance on Russia aspect – with the PAKFA/FGFA, we end up being totally stuck to UAC alone. Which means getting ears twisted in costing for items/spares we dont manufacture for economic reasons or suffering supply chain disruptions when a russian firm goes out of business or has an issue.

The MMRCA offers the IAF the ability to maintain deterrence even when there is a bad case scenario

It is indeed officially meant to replace the entire MiG-21 fleet although currently it even matches the specs of IAF’s serving MiG-27, MiG-29 and Jaguars also.

The IAF’s decision to order only a token no. of Tejas Mk.1 (48), whereas keeping the MiG-21s flying till 2025 is the most baffling. What I was saying earlier was that IAF must order more Tejas Mk.1s and start easing out (not not retiring) the MiG fleet. Easing out means, shifting them to less intensive ares like Bangladesh border or South India, where they’ll fly out their last in peace — without an immediate drop in fleet strength for IAF..

If you want more LCA MK1s ask the GOI to increase the IAFs budget to a level where it no longer worries about Capex anymore.

You are not attempting to understand, the IAFs constraints. They are looking at a two front war, the PAF & PLAAF and maintaining air superiority, even if in limited zones, while supporting IA ops. Given the disparity in numbers (including modern 4G platforms) thanks to the PLAAF modernization, the IAF has been forced to look for an expensive MMRCA. The IA, bar armour, has really lagged in modernization, esp tube arty. The less punch they have, the more the IAF has to compensate.

Meanwhile sense has also dawned on the IAFs planners, some at least, that the LCA is shaping up to be a worthwhile addition, and that for the long term, they cannot just afford to keep importing expensive aircraft from abroad. Hence, the LCA is also getting a level of participation which it did not have earlier, from the IAF end.

All said and done, the IAF has many issues, but what they are doing here makes sense.
The LCA MK2 will not be enough to take the fight into the PRC vis a vis the PLAAF as it lacks the payload, range and size to contest heavily defended airspace. But it will be very useful and excel against the other opponent.

And the MMRCA offers the chance for the IAF to get an aircraft which offers an alternative to overreliance on the MKI fleet to contest heavily defended zones, and brings state of the art capabilities, without the running costs of this heavy 4G+ fighter, which are pretty high. Plus India gets fully reliant on Russia to boot.

More MK1 may indeed be ordered but the issue is that logistically, the IAF does not want to maintain two different fighter subtypes. Its a bother, with engine and avionics and subsystem spares being different in several cases.

Teer,

At least India has exercised against Typhoon(although not the same tranche as offered) in the exercise Indradhanush and has engaged the plane.

Downgraded engagements…both sides didnt play their cards openly.

Although not all features are revealed in exercises but at least it has studied it somewhat at close quarters.

Compare this with Rafale which either flew behind us at redflag or busy sniffing rather than demonstrating or merely flew in as a distracting bait and slipped away during recent Garuda exercises. Why would a plane that brags 7-1 ATLC score on blogs be so shy of engagement?

That sniffing stuff was from a guy who didnt even fly at the exercise…simply put he was more into hyperbole than substance…wouldnt rely on his statements alone.

From marketing point of view, when you have things to brag you don’t hide, you demonstrate. So why does it shirk engagement ?

Am reasonably sure the IAF has had detailed access and briefings…these guys flew into India and were out with minimum fuss, compare to the F/A-18E/F publicity. And next Garuda will have Rafales.

Strategic Affairs, afaik is a mag run by Col (rtd.) Gulshan Luthra. While it is slapdash in terms of details occasionally, its still a credible source. However, note the mag mentions what the IAFs choices are but the author did not have details on the final result. The other piece from Times Now is by Srinjoy Chowdhury. All said and done, Srinjoy has a long record of posting a lot of accurate info, many more hits than misses in his newspiece. And he is one of the old generation, with significant articles in print media and a book to his name (fictionalized account of Kargil) and not one of the new “success/controversy at all costs” types like Shiv Aroor

FWIW, I would still go with the TimesNow report, given its Srinjoy. Time will tell, I guess

Teer thanks for the pdf.

No probs, I wish the Rafale guys gave out good presos in english as well as do the EF and Gripen guys. Most of the stuff on it is in articles.

MiG- first thanks for the effort, when busy,

Coming to the statements by JL, I find some of his conclusions to be “stretching it… I mean for instance:

There was no suggestion that these were the only occasions when Red Rafale met Blue Typhoon, nor there any contradiction of the EF GmbH claim that results like these were scored BY BOTH SIDES during the CT phase. This would imply that Red Typhoon had met and beaten Blue Rafale by a similar margin.

Are there records of EF GmbH claiming the above and even so how does the second, follow the former “ie RT beat BR by a “similar margin”- this is an assumption?

Also, if GC didnt say “x” didnt occur, does not mean “x” occurred either..in short, this is dodgy reasoning from JL’s side..

Colonel Grandclaudon said that these were just the results that he gave out – not that they were the only results, nor even that they reflected the general run of Rafale vs Typhoon results. He acknowledged that he “should not have given the results.”

Again dodgy logic in the first statement & quite frankly, the second does not necessarily support the claim either…all GC may have meant was that it was bad form on his part to have revealed “private results” or that he was not authorized to speak more on the topic. And lets look at this one:

In ATLC, fighting on the same side, he said that he would not have said that the Typhoon was ‘far far’ more capable, saying that it was hard to judge when both types carried out their tasks very well. Interestingly, he took issue with the term ‘far far’, rather than with the allegation that Typhoon was more capable in air to air. It seemed to me that he accepted some superiority, but denied the extent of that superiority, and outlined Rafale’s superiority in air to ground missions.

So if a journo asks a pilot “is it not true that EF is far far more capable”? and the pilot replies: “Eh, far, far? What? Not true at all” – does this mean he accepted superiority?

This is semantic nitpicking and clutching at straws IMO, and exactly why we cannot rely on Jon Lake as a credible source when it comes to comparisons.

The information that he has presented above is interesting in itself, where it breaks down is the manner in which he draws inferences in a very sketchy manner.

Even so, thanks for the details, they are quite interesting.