LokeLO, I think GF tries to say that he believes you are BS! (no pun intended).
Happy new year to all!
LokeThis rumor was reported some weeks ago, however now it is coming back again… I wonder why?
It will be interesting to see Mig-35 try to buy the Indian air force…
LokeDassault promise full ToT as well and the implementation is easier when you have to deal with one country as marketed by Dassault.
Right, that’s why UAE was so happy with the way the required Rafale upgrades were handled…. :rolleyes:
LokeOne issue with your prediction Loke : there isn’t many thing left to share when there is already four partners…What will India manufacture as part of the consortium ? Half of a wing ? There is more room for partnership or whatever style of cooperation with the rafale. This proposed partnership sounds more than a way of sharing the costs that Typhoon partner nations are unwilling/unable to pay.
So one should not be so impressed with this kind of declarations.
As for ToT I have to disagree : with one nation ToT is easier and more straightforward.
Where the rafale can lose is on the collateral offsets : those not directly linked to the fighter itself like the opening of a R&D center, a maintenance center for civil aviation etc….This is Typhoon Gmbh best card to play thanks to EADS and BAE that have a large portfolio of activities.
Well a large number of Typhoons are left to be manufactured… However I think that is just a distraction from the really important thing, which is the “value” of the transferred technology. Becoming a full partner they will get access to more valuable technology than by merely being a Rafale customer.
LokeLokes 1st prediction for 2012:
Eurofighter will win the MMRCA.
Reason: The leaks so far indicate that Rafale is just marginally cheaper, thus other factors come into play, in particular ToT and industrial offsets.
By offering India to become a full-fledged 5th partner in the project, Typhoon will win the ToT part; in addition, given the desperation of Eurofighter countries to bag this deal, the offsets part will also be no less impressive.
France can probably also offer a nice offset deal but will lose out on ToT.
Lokes 2nd prediction for 2012: The initial number of MMRCA will be reduced due to “the world economy” and the high cost of the chosen a/c…
LokeAstute is, by her CO’s superlatives, top class. Simply, if more budget is found, more hulls are needed. If not, with subs, I’ll take unit quality over absolute quantity every day of the week.
Astute class is impressive!
However considering the large number of cruise missiles used in e.g. Libya, would the Astute not benefit from a slightly large missile carrying capacity?
LokeThe falling rupee and the defence ministry’s (MoD’s) tardiness could cost India an extra Rs 15,000 crore for its planned purchase of 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA). On 31st October 2010, three months after the Indian Air Force submitted its flight trial report to the MoD (i.e. roughly the time needed for evaluating the price bids; negotiating a final cost; and awarding the contract) the rupee reached its high-water mark of Rs 43.71 to the dollar. Had the MoD signed the MMRCA contract then, the anticipated bid price of $15 billion would have amounted to Rs 65,565 crore. An extra Rs 1,311 crore for the 2% cost of hedging the forex risk would have taken the tab to Rs 66,876 crore.
Today, at about Rs 53 to the dollar, that $15 billion bid translates into Rs 79,500 crore. The two per cent cost of forex hedging is Rs 1,590 crore, taking the bill to Rs 81,090 crore, Rs 15,525 crore more than last October. The MoD is set to pay almost twice the Rs 42,000 crore that was budgeted for the MMRCA.
If the MoD does not hedge the forex risk, and the dollar hits Rs 58, the MMRCA cost would rise further to a mind-boggling Rs 87,000 crore
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/rupee-fall-jacksindias-arms-purchase-bill-/459638/
I am a bit confused — why does the journalist talk about the US dollar and not the euro? I thought both Rafale and Typhoon are sold in Euros not US Dollars?
How does the rupee develop compared to the Euro?
LokeThey thought they could do the same job with less aircrafts for approx the same amount of money.
Could you please link to a source stating this? Or is this something you assume?
LokeDon’t be ridiculous…Do you think Swiss air force would recommend the best aircraft (rafale) but knew they can’t afford enough of them to do the job ? Just think a second ! They had well enough money allocated/voted to buy the rafale or typhoon. In terms of performance vs costs rafale was rated n°1 and it could do the job better with fewer aircraft than with the gripen.
The reason for gripen is political when both France and Germany are pressuring switzerland over its bank system and issues related to tax fraud. Buying swedish was more politically acceptable as it is also a somewhat neutral country.
You are just speculating…
Perhaps the AF wanted the Rafale, however it could be that the MOD prefered the Gripen since it frees up budget money that can be better utilized elsewhere:
While not questioning the capabilities of the other two aircraft, Maurer pointed out that the extra cost would have left less room for manoeuvre in the overall defence budget, which has also to cover the operation of an army of 100,000 and the upgrade of equipment.
Defence consists of more than just air planes you know… although pilots tend to forget that, people higher up tend to not forget it… 😉
LokeOn your question as to why I came here?
The interesting question though is not why you came here but why you decided to hang around? Perhaps you don’t know yourself, so let me tell you:
defencetalk is boooring. It’s full of Serious and Important people discussing Serious and Important Things in a Serious tone. In addition, not much is happening over there. Even in the most active threads there can be hours or even days between postings! It’s like … ahem, a military academy or something.
Whereas here it’s completely different; lot’s of action, its more light tone, people are even making jokes (most of them terribly poor) and, well, it’s just more fun! This place is more like, well, a pub Saturday evening with lots of people and lots of action (and yes very high noise level) but it’s definitely a more fun place to be in.
Am I right or am I right? 🙂
LokeI find it very interesting to note the Eurofighter’s response to Switzerland…
In particular in contrast to how the French responded.
I read somewhere else that Typhoon may well have been cheaper than Rafale in Switzerland (at least in one of their offers) since second hands (T1 or T2?) were offered. Perhaps that also explains why Typhoon in the leaked tables on a2a capabilities seemed to perform worse than Rafale.
Why don’t Eurofighter complaint about the results in Switzerland?
Perhaps it is a cultural thing?
Edit: Oops, sorry for mentioning the T. in this thread… I honestly believed I was in the Switzerland thread… apologies.
Lokethe RAAF price as confirmed to Govt not 4 weeks ago is $68m per artefact as per our schedule. That includes contingency which is what AustGov factored in and what the US did not.
Every briefing I’ve attended (which is a boxflogger free zone) has been consistent.
Believe me, under the current Govt, they have been ruthless and pulled $20b from our budgets in advance, so if they could recoup they would.
JSF is not on the watch list of programs at risk in Australia, and the quarterly meetings about force integration and development for JSF aren’t resulting in senior officers throwing their arms up in the air and looking for a way out.
some of the rubbish that still gets thrown around as fact in the open media is just not reflecting what the warfighters are seeing and hearing – and they actually do give a squat more than some others pretend to be.
This has become an idealogical debate more than a capability and requirement debate.
But there is still a lot of testing left? If more issues are identified further delays could be introduced. And if it’s delayed “too much” people need to start looking at alternative interim solutions which one way or another will drive up costs.
Norway recently bought new wings for a batch of F-16 to keep them flying longer, presumably to avoid issues with F-35 delays.
Seems Aust. did the right move to get the SH as a stop-gap.
LokeActuall, Norway are to upgrade some 24 remaining F-16 eith new wings now.;)
When this is done, all(48?) our F-16 will have changed the wings.
Reason for the upgrade is presumably a delay in the F-35.
I believe we have 57 F-16 left (we bought originally 72).
LokeTyphoon has experienced cost growth, but not by that much, and it has been reported as being the cheaper aircraft in Switzerland and the UAE, and within 5% in India – and that could mean 5% cheaper, or 5% more.
What, I thought the Rafale was found to be cheaper than Typhoon in Switzerland? (in addition to scoring higher on the requirements…)
LokeOn a pure operational efficiency point of view the rafale was the clear choice of the swiss air force given the missions they have to tackle. The rafale despite being more expensive could do better with less aircrafts according to the swiss operational evaluation.
The operational evaluation was tailored to swiss type of missions requirements. In the end the swiss air force choice was the rafale. So on purely operational criteria the rafale was considered more efficient.
Other political/industrial considerations pushed the politics toward a gripen choice but that was not based on “operational efficiency”. The final political choice makes sense in swiss case because they don’t face a big threat to say the least. So any “modern” fighter could make the cut.
Just that benchmarked against the type of threat the swiss are facing the rafale was considered more efficient, even with less aircrafts. But some could rightfully say that those types of threats are too “hypothetical” so a cheaper albeit less capable aircraft will make the cut anyway.
AFAIK the F-16 was looked at but “did not make the cut”? So it seems not “any” a/c would do. Also interesting to note that Boeing after some initial discussions with the Swiss decided to not enter the competition with the SH, which no doubt is both capable but also significantly cheaper than the Rafale.
Often, the air force wants to have the best and most expensive solution, ignoring the wishes of other forces…. In the end one needs to look at the total picture.
And sometimes “the best” is also not to be preferred, even by the air force.
Interestingly it is claimed that some Austrian pilots have said that they regret Austria did not buy Gripen — it seems some of them would prefer to fly Gripen than not fly Typhoon (rumors have it that the number of flight hours are less than stellar, in part due to the high operational costs of the Typhoon… 😉 ).
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