Scooter, the growler was not offered, a growler lite without offensive capabilities was offered, so that takes away much of that argument.

The 2 “anti-US” reasons you mention, are also why i ‘d prefer Gripen NG. It has the risk of “innovation” , but at the end, this comes down to contract terms.

unfortunately, gripen doesn’t have quite the say on the tech it uses if the OEMs don’t agree. that is a major problem from the viewpoint of TOT.

The project nonetheless started in the late 80’s/early 90’s.

keep repeating it and people might believe you. 😉

a ship being re-built in a russian yard and a fighter aircraft being developed explains why IAC would have a protracted schedule ? that’s some leap of logic.

on LCA, 10 years from first flight to in service is pretty decent if you ask me. I know you will come up with another ‘LCA was started 50 years ago’ statement and keep repeating it without proof but the fact remains that the project was de facto funded only from june 1993. why not compare how long it took the aeronautical super powers france and the EF consortium to develop the rafale and EF. and do keep in mind neither aircraft was operational by IAF standards till very recently.

which is what I said.

a project starts ONLY AFTER the government okays in principle the initiation of a project (which for IAC happened in 1999) following which the relevant service along with the manufacturer/shipyard/DRDO lab (as applicable) submits a detailed proposal to the government. the work on the project really starts only after the government approves the proposal and sanctions the funds for the project. (which happened in 2002)

it would help if you read what other people wrote instead of copy pasting from global security.

IAC-1 is taking 10-11 years, counting from GOI approval in 2003, and that with no prior experience. the actual construction period is 2008-2013(both inclusive) i.e 6 years. and this was held up for near 2 years due to delays in procurement of steel from russia, since replaced by steel from Indian manufacturers spec. SAIL.
IAC-2 is expected to be approved by 2011. in that case 2020 is quite possible.

if India needs assistance it will be only in specific subsystems like cat’s, not overall design.

lastly, CVF is not nuclear powered is it ? 😉 I’m willing to wager IAC-2 will be.

no, fincantieri was roped in as design consultants and while they did have inputs (and which obviously are influenced by cavour) it is not ‘designed’ by fincantieri by any stretch of imagination.

the design was already in place by 2002 and fincantieri’s contribution started only in 2005. their main job was to review, finetune and okay the design in addition to designing the propulsion system, which is one area where they actually did the main job. they will also help in the trials.

holy **** ! where did you get this ? looks incredible.
2 versions as well.

even the bort numbers are similar to the su-30K’s that were painted in national flag colours.

So how would you make life easier by having your one and only SSBN based near the COCO islands, ports being built in Bangladesh by China, and to the right covered by ports being built in Burma?

listening posts in coco islands are going to detect a submarine which may be anywhere in the bay of bengal ? how small do you think the BOB is ?
ports being built in bangladesh ? burma ?
how on earth are these a threat ? are they going to use merchant seamen with binoculars to detect ballistic missiles subs ? :rolleyes:

have you any idea how difficult it is to detect subs even with the full panoply of ASW aircraft and surface ships at your disposal ? and you think a couple of ports with no military presence is a larger threat than half the worlds navies operating in the arabian sea ?

even more importantly BoB is not normal operating area for any other military other than Indian forces. any foreign element in these waters can be tagged much more easily and taken care of.

Also by obfuscate obfuscate and obfuscate I was talking about what you must do to win with a submarine. That is the whole point, is it not that makes a sub so lethal? The fact that people do not know where it is and where it will fire from? Again it is all about the shell game. Dont let your enemy know under which shell your pea is.

and yet what you proposed i.e deploying in arabian sea would be the best way to get your sub detected by every navy in the world and surrender its noise signatures as well.

By basing your only nuclear submarine in the bay of bengal surrounded by listening posts and other ports and possibly hostile governments you have just allowed me to know where your main deterence for first strike is. I know the geographic location of your water based nuclear deterent and I am about to send my ASW aircraft in that region.

saying that it ‘might be’ in bay of bengal says absolutely nothing about a sub’s geographical location. that’s 2172 thousand sq km of area !
if you think that’s enough for you to pinpoint a sub’s location be my guest. I’m sure I can hook you up with any leading navy of the world for a tidy sum per detection you make. 😀

So if you could why wouldnt you want your nuclear submarine in the arabian sea?

because it’s riskier and many magnitudes more difficult if you are targeting china. but I don’t think you’ll understand.