DovinRThe strategic air command adds to the detterence which the artillery corps will not. The problem is with respect to China, India is gambling too much on a limited border war. The best way to keep a bigger more powerful neighbour in check is to have the strategic capability to deliver a real blow to its commerical/economic heartlands so that even thought it may win the war at the end of the day, the price to pay will be too much to consider it.
The Pakistanis unfortunatley have learnt this lesson very well.
In this day and age (not WWII days) strategic bombers require a certain amount of control over enemy air space. If indian bombers can reach beijing without being shot down, we have already won the war.
The only way pakistanis will be able to hit indian commercial centers except perhaps for one unexpected blow at the very beginning is if they send in terrorists with suitcase nukes.
Just having some aircraft that can fly far is hardly enough.
DovinRTeer, Great post, very informative.
wonder if its possible to put an ability to detect and take automatic counter measures against a SAM on a cruise missile.
DovinRIt’s just that for some reasons that a lot of people in the Balkans seem to have little better to do than to foster such ideas. Now i can’t blame Albania since they have stopped their bunker-building-therapy, but for the rest? Please…
It did take eupore two world (european) wars and how many hundred million people dead, and whole countries devastated to finally learn to live with each other.
I think so far the Balkans are doing a lot better. Nothing can compare with the way Europe tried to solve their issues.
I do admire the civil society Europe has built up since WWII, a enviable example for all world. But people do forget what it took for such civility to finally take root.
People in every part of the world has such lessons to learn before they find peace, hopefully those lessons will be less costly, given we have Europe’s history to learn from.
DovinRNeo-conservatism is rooted with Strauss and Kristol, both are of Jewish heritage, and many who follow its philosophy tend to be Jewish and are in this administation. Like wise, the media too (which Americans say, is liberal), which Ben Stein agrees with.
I think the theory is that Jews are the biggest players in the financial sector in US and thus have immense behind the scenes power in US. Not too far fetched, esp given the history of Israel right from how they were supported by USA to get an independent country.
These days though, that influence seem to be waning a bit.
DovinRisn’t turkey sort of an islamic leaning country ? They are very enthusiastic in their support of Pakistan for eg:.
Can’t imagine Israel giving nukes to Turkey, they might as well drop it on tel aviv themselves…
DovinRWhat if this guy was al qaeda and had a suicide belt ???
US gives such a hard time to other countries about air safety, and now they have let this happen!!!
For all you know this was a trial run…
DovinRIts an old discussion in many forums, but if your own country won’t buy from you, how would DRDO get the chance to go up the value chain ? This used to happen in software too, even now but a little less. Indian enterprises won’t buy indian products because they are not as shiny. Eventually a US company would buy out the indian IP rights, put some shine and brand and sell it to indian companies at 4 times the original cost.
I can see PAK-FA arrangement with Russia can be good for india, but not at the cost of killing our own development efforts. The military has to be told that X percent of their budget can only be used to buy indigenous systems, whether they like it nor not.
DovinRA pinaka system carries 12 rockets I believe each carrying a 200Kg warhead with a range of 40kms (? going by my ageing memory now). This system costs the Indian Army $1,000,000 I presume? maybe even less. It is just as mobile as a brahmos unit but can take out a much larger area.
Pinaka carries a 100kg war head. 1 brahmos is roughly equal to 2 Pinakas in capacity. Pinaka has an accuracy of 1-2% of range. For 40Kms, this is roughly a CEP of 400 – 800 meters. So you need a full salvo to take out a whole area. Brahmos has pin point accuracy. It also has a range of 300 Kms.
So would not 2-3 brahmos strikes right on target be equal in effect to a whole Pinaka salvo, but from so far away that enemy can’t easily counter attack ?
Would there be a need to do at a range of 300 kms what Pinaka can do at 40kms, without involving BMs or Aircraft, both of which are, I feel, 1 notch up the escalatory ladder, beyond a border war.
Again, its just a fantasy scenario, but one that is only a little far fetched ?
DovinRmoving tank units can’t be attacked by brahmos.
How does it attack ships then ? Is it because ships are larger ? I’d guess the top speed of both ships and tanks would be similar. Or is it the height from ground ?
M107 arty shell weighs about 50 kgs and has 2000 fragments. 4 such shells (for eg) can go into a brahmos, producing 8 – 10,000 fragments.
Is it even theoretically possible to use brahmos to hit an enemy camp site with such a war head. If aimed very precisely (unlike howitzer shells which take many attempts and have to be a lot closer) could practically mission-kill that unit even if many survive.
Its like 4 shells landing at the same time right in the middle of your camp.
Pure fiction ?
DovinRNow since the Kaveri is overweight by around 100 kgs, it is not able to develop the requisite 85 kN thrust.
Isn’t the thrust of the engine dependent on velocity, temp etc of the escaping gases ? Does the weight of the engine itself have anything to do with it ?
I can see that having 100 kg extra to the empty weight of the plane can restrict performance, but the thrust of the engine should not be affected ??
Also, on an aircraft that weighs tons, will 100 kg make a significant enough difference as to not use it as a first version ?
May be something else is going on with Kaveri, like the engine life or MTBF or something ?
DovinRThere is enough reach in the artillary units of the northen neigbour to stand well back and take shots at valuable targets (airfields, airdefense units artillary pieces, Brahmos launch sites if they can find them) in India, and sure we should work to find the same reach but the Brahmos does not give us that.
Assuming the range of Brahmos is 300 kms as claimed, how can chinese artillery reach 300 kms into india ?? Can it ?
I admit this is a flight of fancy, but my idea was that you can keep brahmos out of range of chinese arty and if we have large numbers, then hit the attacking chinese formations including artillery and tank units with brahmos which cannot be countered by WLRs or otherwise. Unlike howitzers or MBRLs, there is little time to become aware of the attack and move away or take counter measures against brahmos.
Chinese will have to use either their own CMs or BMs, or ariel bombing, which would take the war up a notch beyond a quick land grab.
I guess the cost will be prohibitive and it can probably be spent more wisely, but still, wouldn’t it be nice to have an option like this ? Sometimes doing something unconventional could catch an (stronger) enemy by surprise. Otherwise it becomes a numbers game where China will have the upper-hand at least for 20-25 years more.
Anyway, just some arm chair musings. So if you don’t like it, that’s ok.
DovinRHaving said all that, not using cell/mobile phones in aircraft has more to do with operational issues of mobile networks than aircraft safety. The cell companies asked FAA to ban it to avoid networks going crazy in the early days when so many flights with people using cell phones that could ‘see’ dozens – may be even a hundred+, cell sites at the same time.
Personally I get a little irked at how people including aircrew treat this as if the plane will fall out of the air or something. I obey mostly because of the law and its a good thing to stop people chatting on mobiles due to the nuisance value.
But there is no reason whatsoever to stop people from using mobiles when the plane is still on ground, until take off on immediately upon landing.
DovinRI dont understand what you are getting at..
Well, I assume that missiles like brahmos are usually deployed only against very specific high value targets based on the progress of the war scenario to effect a major bang for the buck. Unlike regular artillery, including MBRLs, which can be used for massed fire power, Brahmos will be used in a very surgical role.
Now, if we splurge on brahmos, because of its cutting edge lethality as compared to other systems in existence, then we can use brahmos in larger numbers, choosing to hit targets that would otherwise be left for bofors or pinaka etc.
While this may be financially unwise, it could give a major shock and awe to the enemy at the front line as they will be unprepared for a mass attack by such a precision high speed weapon system like brahmos.
When faced with an enemy like China, who has overwhelming numbers and (IMO) ruthlessness on the human and other costs to their own citizens, something like a brahmos mass attack could be our ace in the sleeve to bring their first thrust to a sudden stop, giving us and the world time to make counter plans.
All the above is assuming India’s next real war will be against a surprise attack by China aiming to grab land in Arunachal/Sikkim and then negotiate a truce thus changing the border forever.
DovinRSure. There’s still a big problem because there’s a pretty wide frontal angle from where the engine blades can be seen.
Not an expert on fighter engines, from from my old FM book, one of the ways to heat up air and compress it to get it ready for the engine is to reduce the cross section of the duct. This does not necessarily have to be symmetric.
Are we sure that there isn’t a bump in the duct that hides the turbine blades also used to reduce duct cross section ?
Of course this is pure guess work, but none of us have the real details anyway. Its difficult to imagine that when designing a new fighter from scratch, Russia would not consider this aspect of stealth which is probably the easiest to take care of.
DovinRdon’t high resolution satellites have small footprints ? A fast moving object may keep moving out of the ‘field of vision’ too fast to track. Just conjecture. I was trying to compare using a high resolution binoculars to track birds. The higher the magnification, the more difficult to keep track.
You may need some on board image processing such that you simply aim a satellite at an airfield. Anytime one (or a set) of aircraft takes off, the satellite sees the movement and automatically tracks it by changing its attitude (or whatever) to track the birds.
Possible ???
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