Quoting from the other thread as the main looser is the Indian Navy….

Considering the volume of documentation leaked, is it even likely that a single guy is responsible?

Nic

Few things….

All the participants usually give the technical/operational details of their “best” submarines/offer and so did Japanese and Germans along with the French. No big deal there as it happens in all confidential presentation. The French most likely played it safe without endangering their SSN and likely gave details of their most advanced conventional sub in physical form which happen to be the IN’s scorpenes.

This is not likely to be a single person leak, but a scapegoat is being made out of someone. That said, I feel it was a DCNS presentation for the Aussies for the sub deal, which somehow got leaked from the official guy(s) during the course of “work” or after the “work” was over.

Japan provides details of Soryu-class submarine offered to Australia

See here to get a glimpse of what Germany shared in terms of technical details…
The sound of silence – why Germany lost its subs bid

Led by TKMS deputy chief executive Dieter Rottsieper, the Germans doggedly questioned every key assumption the Australians had made. The Australian delegation began the two-hour debrief by assuring the Germans that the decision to reject their bid was not swayed by politics, the media or other factors. It was based entirely on the need to choose a regionally superior submarine that could be sustained through its life in Australia.

But, they said, the truth was that despite Germany putting forth an excellent plan for the local defence industry to sustain the boats, the submarine itself was not good enough.

The Germans were told that the “critical issue’’ was that their submarine was too noisy.

Specifically they were told, with deliberate vagueness, that the boat would be too noisy at a particular frequency that was very important to the Royal Australian Navy — an apparent reference to the submarine’s ability to collect close-to-shore intelligence without detection.

The Germans countered by asking what the frequency was and why it was not emphasised in the bidding process.

HDW leak on Indian subs. Note here that the leaks came after/during the submarine deals for South Korean Chang Bogo class subs in the late-80s to early-90s. Then also the latest variant of U-209 submarine (U-205-1500) was what got leaked, which happened to be that of Indian Navy’s.

The designs of two submarines, Shalki (SSK-1500) and Shankul (SSK-1500), both based on a German design, were leaked between 1992 and 1994, and made available to a South African newspaper. Officials who had worked closely with the MDL submarine department told The Hindu that it was alleged that the German supplier of the submarines, Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW), was responsible for the leak.

Also, I’m not inclined to believe that ridiculous narrative of the aussies regarding the years the documents have been in the open….they are making it as if they wasted all these years to leak them out. Their track record on leakages says to the contrary.
Australian police to investigate submarine tender leak

The aussies are having a field day embarrassing the Indian establishment…

JMHT…

France Plans Inquiry into Scorpene Submarine Design Leak

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/france-plans-inquiry-into-scorpene-submarine-design-leak

We can go around a lot talking about this. But let me take one thing that came to my mind….and this is specific to the Aussies.

This leak, I feel, by the Aussies now, when IN’s first of the Scorpene class/INS Kalavari undergoing sea trials and is to join the fleet in few months time, is showing the middle finger to the Indian Navy and India saying – u f$king morons we know everything about your new submarine fleet. Things like these are likely to have an impact on the crew morale who are “forced” to sail out on a “compromised” sub.

Do not forget, Indian’s have very bad memory, that Aussies were the ones on duty to check the IN in the IOR and one of the requirements (as per reports) during the Aussie sub tender was not to share any of the designs or stuff with India. The Aussie subs requirement is for their operations in IOR (among others) and their adversaries/challengers list include Indian Navy. It wont change in any foreseeable future.

Regarding the leak itself, France had nothing to loose once they pocketed the multi-billion dollar contract for six Scorpenes from India, so someone from them likely shared the details with the Aussies on demand from the Aussies themselves earlier in the process itself. Germany & Japan also seems to have shared such details regarding their submarines on offer and this somehow happened to come out of that “closed” briefing. Aussies specifically might have demanded all details regarding the Indian submarine and the French manufacturers (known for their commissions/bribes) might have offered it as a bribe (not the whole package, but part) to clinche the deal.

JMHT…

The report nails it perfectly of Russian actions, cant agree more on what the report says of Chinese views & discussion regarding Russia’s rather modest action in Syria after the ceasefire & “mission accomplished” withdrawal.

I wish I’m wrong, but… post that stupid “ceasefire” and “mission accomplished” stuff, Russia is showing how to loose a winning (mil situation/momentum pre-Feb 2016 ceasefire)/winnable (restore & increase the military assets to fully support manpower constrained SAA & allies) game. It now looks very much like the Rio Olympics men’s volley ball match for bronze between Russia and US where Russia won the first two sets and then the US team came back to win the next three and take away the medal, leaving Russia with nothing. I wish Syria doesn’t go that way. High time Russian decision makers/planner took a review and corrected their mistakes and priorities….. or like the so-called Russophiles from $hitoles claim there is nothing wrong with Russian planning/executions and completely blame it on the ‘incompetent’ Syrian forces.

Regarding the assets in Syria, I just want to reaffirm that helo gunships are the most critical assets in this Syrian conflict and the ones that will help the Syrian & allied forces to gain ground with minimal causalities. There shouldn’t be any doubt regarding manpower shortage with the Syrian forces and in this high attrition war, this aspect need to be given the required priority. Syrian forces with limited manpower needs whatever close-air support they can get so that they can advance with zero to minimal causalities and I believe there is no substitute for gunships in that department and hope Russia increase the firepower to whatever level is required to see this bloody Jihadist war come to an end at the earliest.

This one is a bellingcat contributor and those who know the bellicats “worK’ on Russia and Novorossia know what to expect from the guys who are contributors and where their sympathy lies. The usual reports of these ppl are filled with visual proofs with screen grabs and pics, and whats interesting (for those who did not knew/understand it earlier) is that the report talks about several Russia Mi-24s that assisted the Syrian offensive on Tabqa, but not a single picture or video of any helo gunship can be seen/found.

And the pics and videos are not likely to be found as helo gunships were absent in that Tabqa offensive, in contrast, Palmyra offensive (similar terrain/vegetation) saw this critical close air support in its full glory with no shortage of pics or videos of the gunships.

There is no chance for the Syrians to have blocked the pics of helo gunships participated in the Tabqa offensive as pics and videos have been coming out through social media without any blockade through out this war in Syria. The only time(s) that I have seen the Syrian military having a blackout on pics/videos was when a Russian Mi-28 and Mi-35M were lost. In none of these cases we saw any pics (or news; Mi-35 news came through Rus MoD after the crew was airlifted to the base) of these accidents from the Syrian personal on the ground getting leaked to the social media.

Have no confusion regarding the close air support for Tabqa offensive, helo gunships were absent in that offensive to support the Syrian forces attacking a well entrenched enemy. The Syrian forces went on offensive without this critical close-air support of helo gunships for a fast changing battlefield which was almost impossible to influence from air by the fighters flying high and fast, dropping few bombs in half hour intervals or more. The result was, unfortunately, a failure.

This is exactly what we saw in South Aleppo also, the Jihadist stormed the Syrian positions wave after wave and broke through the front lines. Fighters and even close air support aircrafts like Su-25s are not going to make much of a difference as what such battlefields require is helo gunships which can stay and maneuver inside friendly territory and direct fire on terrorists positions when needed. But the helo gunships were not used in South Aleppo and the reason was the the likely presence of manpads with Jihadi’s.

^ I don’t know what to say in short about the assets being used in South Aleppo battles to retake the lost academy and other areas. Airstrikes after airstrikes….and for how long are they going to continue this???
Even after that Syrian forces storming the lost territory/buildings sustain causalities coz that’s the nature of urban combat.
The two assets that I feel will make a significant difference (rather than those airstrikes) in clearing those areas are
1) TOS-1A (WTF are these stuff??….and how many in Syria, 4?6?…the numbers are ridiculous)
2) Helo Gunships (already in Syria, but “unemployed” in S.Aleppo due to manpad threats)

I guarantee you the prospect of F-22s showing up unexpectedly is not one Syrian pilots enjoy thinking about.

I think pilots would be more concerned about getting their aircraft out of Syrian airspace safely considering that US a/c have a very high technical failure rates that culminates in crashes while operating over conflict zones. What a waste it would be loosing a F-22 over Syria.

Just by chance SyAAF aircraft gets shot down over Syrian airspace, the response might not be going after fighters, the better and more valuable targets would be those big sluggish whales operating over Turkish and Saudi airspace guiding the fighters.

And the evidence for this claim is…?

Just wondering if there is any evidence to the contrary…?

Suddenly:

http://bmpd.livejournal.com/2050868.html

Zelenodolsk also got a contract for 5 project 22800 ships. It is now the 3rd shipyard involved in the program.

Good to see the new orders and even better to see the project having parallel lines. But Zelenodolsk has not undergone any modernization w.r.t their shipbuilding process and they still construct them the old way from keel up inside the covered docks with two lines in parallel. The next unit can only be laid down after those hulls are complete and launched. They need to be upgraded to employ proper modular construction so as to have a better production rate.

Chinese side recently said about sending aid to Syria.

What are the chances China will help with sending armed drones?
Russia is a non-player in this area due to earlier stupid decisions (sidelining and cancelling the proposed Sukhoi’s drones) and only manufacturers outside of NATO to have armed UAVs are China and Iran. China being in a bigger league. Their armed UAVs have been doing good in Iraq and the same would be very helpful for the Syrian army in their fight against the terrorists.

Also any chance for the Chinese to send their helo gunships like the Z-10 for gaining some real combat experience?

To be frank, the 11356 deal was the most ill conceived deals made and threw open the complete lack of long-term planning in the establishment. Didn’t the guys knew or forecast what they needed 10-20 years down the line?

Lets look at the timelines.
1997, Nov – 1st contract for 3 ships @ $1 billion
2006, July – 2nd contract for 3 ships @ $1.5 billion

2016, ???…not even sure if it will get signed in 2017 considering that someone (as reported) asked the Russians to sell the ship for scrap value, which the Russians outright rejected.

There is a 10 year interval between every single order.
There are only 4-5 deals, files on which moved fast, probably unprecedented in Indian procurement history and made rapid progress in terms of acquisition. In all of these deals, we did not see the usual Indian process of buying a limited stock/batch to check the system in Indian condition and only then to proceed with further orders. This so-called “good process” was even kept for the much much needed capability of AWACS.
1) Scorpene subs
2) C-130J
3) P-8I
4) C-17
and then a 2nd hand “safe to steam” Tentron/INS Jalashaw. Indian Navy did not use the ship for evacuation in Yemen even though its critical need as promoted in the media was “rescue and humanitarian efforts”. It was only used out of no choice during the Libyan crisis.