Spitfire9Last year Minister of State for Defense M.M. Pallam Raju said, “The MiG 21s will get phased out by 2015-16. I think the last of the squadrons of the aircraft will be phased out by 2017.”
The Indian air force purchased 946 MiG-21s, of which 476 were lost in various accidents over the past 45 years.
Raju said that after the phasing out of the “MiG 21s from operational service, the air force will have the LCA, SU-30MKI, Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft and the Fifth-Generation Fighter Aircraft, which is being developed with Russia.”
How many Tejas, SU-30MKI and Rafale will be delivered by 2017 to replace the 450+ Mig-21’s being retired? And how many squadrons will there be left by 2017?
Edit:
By 2017 I can see deliveries of:
Tejas Mk1 – 40
Rafale – 18 + 0-40 HAL assembled ?
MKI – 100?
I see a reduction of 250+ aircraft in the IAF inventory by 2017.
Will Dassault be asked to assemble more Rafale to help bring forward deliveries? What about ordering additional Tejas Mk1? On that score would the IAF accept more Tejas Mk1?
Spitfire9And again, in Switzerland the Army recommends the product, the Politics chooses it, and the population validates the decision. This additional step makes all the difference, really. The Gripen does the job, has the better cost/efficient ratio, and is the cheapest to operate. That’s all what matters to voters.
It is interesting to read what someone from Switzerland has to say. The Swiss approach of
(a) military identifies a need
(b) goverment chooses from various suppliers
(c) population validates the decision
seems a very sensible one. The fact that the population can veto decisions it does not agree with has the effect of exerting pressure on the goverment to limit the provision of equipment to the military to what is seen as being reasonable by the electorate.
From what you say I imagine that the population wants an air force able to defend Swiss airspace but does not want to pay more than it needs to pay for that capability.
Spitfire9It appears that this visit is related to the evaluation of the typhoon by Koreans. They are studying their operational use, maintenance, etc., but at the moment there is no official conclusion (that I have heard).
1Saludo
Is there any conclusion from such a visit? The South Koreans have more information about how Typhoon is operated than they had before their visit.
I have not checked so does anyone know how far South Korea has progressed in the selection process?
Spitfire9the fact is that it is a swiss comission that will do the investigation… if they appointed a comission for that, they (the parliament) obviously have suffi iently strong suspicions about the matter.
If there are doubts about this being a “clean” deal, let there be an investigation.
and, once more, the replacements are likely to replace the hornet fleet as well later on, not only the F-5’s.
If the competition was for a single type to replace F-5 soon and F-18 later, Gripen does not look so much like the obvious choice.
as for “bribery is a standard in that business”, how come there are inquiries, sometimes trials and jail sentences?
I think that is easy to answer. There are inquiries, sometimes trials and jail sentences because the arms trade is rather corrupt.
Spitfire9well, what he says also is that:
“Cela étant, pour le Conseil national, les questions soulevées dans le rapport de la sous-commission restent ouvertes, notamment la série d’incohérences qui y sont énumérées.
Entre autres, au cours de la procédure, des critères de sélection ont été modifiés, de même que la pondération de certains barêmes d’évaluation. “
(strangely you seem to have missed that one, right in between the two quotes you posted)
“For the National council, the questions raised in the report of the committee remain unanswered, especially the series of inceherencies which have been listed.
Among others, during the procedure, the selection criteria have been modified, as well as the importance of some evaluations points”
one can also quote another paragraph a bit lower:
““Il y a bien des indices de corruption, mais aucune preuve” a affirmé Jean-Pierre Méan, le président de Transparency International Suisse, dont les propos ont été rapportés par plusieurs journaux hélvètes. “Il existe certains points d’interrogation. Car, quand la corruption entre en jeu, on voit exactement les mêmes procédés que ceux que l’on observe en Suisse” a-t-il ajouté”
“There are signs of corruption, but no proof”, said Jean-Pierre Méan, the president of Transparency International Suisse, whose words have been reported by several swiss newspapers. “There are certain questions to be answered. because when there is corruption, one can observe exactly the same proceedings as those seen in Switzerland”, he added”
in the end, the last two paragraphs, they remind that SAAB claims that they’ll cooperate to any investigations and that they are “clean”, as “SAAB isn’t involved in any bribery affair to this day and no SAAB employee has been found guilty of bribery…”
In the same time, the article says that SAAB admitted in 2011 that they paid 2.5 million euros in bribes to south african air force for the gripen to be selected, even if they rejected the responsibility on BAe at the time…
Yes, fair to point out that I skipped any changes made in selection criteria and their weighting. I think it is obvious that if you are replacing F-5, Gripen is what you will select from Gripen, Rafale and Typhoon.
Bribery and corruption: skipped that, too. The arms trade is notorious for the payment of commissions, consultancy fees etc where there is no real justification for such costs. It’s a dirty business but until all suppliers simply refuse to shake hands on a dirty deal with dirty people, suppliers will get their hands dirty, too.
I would be interested to know if there has been any “inappropriate behaviour” by SAAB. Of the three suppliers, SAAB is the one I would guess to be the least inclined to bribery and corruption. Just my guess, though.
Spitfire9There are suspicions of bribery now… it seems not to be over yet…
This is getting to be rather laughable:
…Gripen, avion estimé le moins bon des trois en compétition dans cet appel d’offres lancé pour trouver un successeur au F-5 Tiger actuellement en service au sein des forces aériennes suisses.
Basically the above says that Gripen was the least capable of the 3 aircraft competing to replace the F-5 Tiger. Quite true. But by far the most appropriate. If you need to replace your small old sports car with a new one, do you look to buy the most capable sports car available (say the fastest Ferrari, Lamborghini) or do you look to buy a smaller, less capable sports car?
Les constructeurs “ont eu l’impression que l’avion doté des meilleures qualités techniques serait sélectionné; ils n’étaient pas informés que le prix jouerait un rôle si important dans le choix final, même si ce critère avait été souligné de manière récurrente au cours”
Basically the above says that the losers were under the impression that the aircraft offering the most would be selected. They were not informed that price would play such a large part in the final choice even if this criterion had been stressed time and again. All I can say is that Dassault and Eurofighter must be almost unbelievably dumb if having been told repeatedly how important price was they somehow thought that meant price was not so important whereas all out performance was!
Spitfire9Much of the support they get comes directly from coalition forces for “protection” of convoys. As crazy as it sounds, it is allegedly cheaper to pay Taliban for not attacking than provide adequate convoy coverage.
Reminds me of “Catch 22”. Just as crazy.
Spitfire9BaE receives RFP from HAL for 20 more Hawks
Spitfire9http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19576907
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120912/DEFREG01/309120003/BAE-EADS-Discuss-Merger?odyssey=mod|breaking|text|FRONTPAGENot sure what to make of this yet. Doubt it’d be good news for UK industry though.
Short term, perhaps not.
Long term, I think it would probably make sense. There is too much duplicated spending on research and development work in Europe. For example, duplicated spending on broadly similar products like Rafale and Typhoon. With customers having less to spend it makes sense to target costs far more productively, so that you can offer more to the customer for the same cost / offer the same at a lower cost / release resources to enable you to offer a wider range of equipment. The European defence industry has to operate far more efficiently than it does now if it is going to remain a force in the coming decades.
Spitfire9The Jane’s report was commissioned and paid by Saab…
The only reliable numbers about costs are those given by customers and operators … and it makes global comparison difficult.
Perhaps SAAB wanted some respected entity to do a study of what it costs to fly western fighters knowing that Gripen would definitely have the best figures. I have never heard any suggestion that F-16 is as cheap to fly. The heavier twins in the study inevitably cost more.
As to the value of this result to SAAB, I’m not sure. Does it make it more likely that countries interested in buying fighters will consider Gripen in view of the Janes report?
Spitfire9Six global supersonic jet manufacturers present their planes to the Serbian Air Force
From the link:
“Eurofighter planes are very good, but too expensive for our means.”
Down to 5 candidates by the sound of things. I guess Rafale and Su-30 would be too expensive, too.
I’m a little surprised Gripen is not in the list. Perhaps SAAB sees no real possibility of Serbia having enough funds for new fighters.
Spitfire9This is shaping up to be an exceptional deal for Switzerland.
– much lower cost than the European twins over life time cycle
– no price rise whatever development cost may be
– price guaranteed by the Swedish government (so no chance of SAAB coming back to ask for more a la M400 with the threat of renaging on the contract if they are not paid more)
– problems inherent with late delivery covered by supply of Gripen C/D from 2016
– Gripen C/D could take over some duties from F-18, lengthening service life of F-18 / reducing overall air defence costs? Does not matter too much how many flying hours they put on the C/D aircraft since they are not intended to be in service for several decades
Spitfire9If I remember correctly, the price were 4 billion for the Rafale and 4.3 billions for the EF. Also, 500 million needed to be added to cover infrastructure cost for those two (not needed for the Gripen as it is enough small to fit in the current hangars and caverns).
Keep in mind that the price is a global package that includes weapons, spares, logistic, training, etc.
The marginal cost of flying the Gripen (fuel, maintenance, personnel etc) must be much, much lower than the same cost for the heavier twins so Gripen would cost how much less to own and operate over its life? 50% less than either Rafale of Typhoon? More than 50% less? Additionally I guess SAAB will not demand a fortune for MLU. What was it that India finally agreed to pay Dassault for M2K update?
And the Gripen was held to carry the highest risk financially by the Swiss committee! How they managed to reach that conclusion still escapes me.
Spitfire9If you take the middle of that range for the F-16 costs, you get:
F-16: NOK620 million/10000 hours = NOK62 million/1000 hrs
JSF: NOK995 million/8000 hours = NOK124 million/1000 hrs
Is the JSF figure based on $64 million a unit? The availability of aircraft at that price keeps moving to the right, does it not? So if Norway has to buy LRIP aircraft to keep to an F-16 retirement timeline or for any other reason, the $64 million figure won’t be what is paid. Norway has deep, deep pockets so I do not suppose that will be a big problem. Other countries are not in such a good position financially.
Jane’s is wrong! JSF CPFH is only twice that of the F-16, not three times as much. As for that Gripen thing, we said what in 2008? Look, shiny object over there….
I think that the Norwegian bean counters said that operating Gripen would cost more than operating JSF. I don’t think anyone would want to operate Gripen if it cost more than JSF. Unless they were mad, like the various customers currently operating Gripen. One more sounds like it is heading for the madhouse, too (Switzerland). Somehow they managed to delude themselves into thinking that Gripen had a lower CPFH than Rafale and Typhoon (both of which have lower CPFH than the the $21,000+ you give for JSF). Of course if you need 6 or 8 Gripens to patrol the skies of Switzerland as effectively as 2 JSF’s that does change things.
Spitfire9That’s the Great Leader, father of the Dear Leader.
You forgot to mention the Great Leader’s father. He was the Greatest Leader There Could Possibly Ever Be leader if my memory serves me well. 🙂
Having once lived in a one party tyrrany run by the “Supreme Combattant”, I do so love the terms of endearment these very nasty characters accord themselves.
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