Tanks are cheaper to acquire and operate?. u need 3 people salary to operate tank. they have huge fuel (short range) and logistics (tank shells) costs. extremely vulenerable from Air power to IED.

Gunships have much greater engine power so more sophisticated radar and Electronic warfare suites can be installed. high speed and low altitude flight ensure element of surprize in attack along with greater turn around time.
Suffice to say, for the Indian and Chinese armies both tanks and helicopters have value on the mountanous border. Far be it for us to doubt their competence.

I dont see any utility of tanks in mountains. how many choppers operate in afghanistan and compared to tanks.

The Soviets used tanks in Afghanistan. The US is also using them now. So there certainly seems to be some utility to using them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ZvzfnQNzw

Even the Afghan National Army has some.

IAF didnot evaluate IL-476 as it hasnt flow yet and and all initial orders are for Ruaf. Only new versions with PS-90 that are used extensively are two to three carriers.
http://www.silkway-airlines.com/

They evaluated it, even if no formal proposals were made. When the original C-17 orders were announced IAF top brass stated that they evaluated multiple options in the market(needing to justify a single-vendor purchase) and found the C-17 to be the only one that suited them. Multiple options would mean at least two, and the IL-76/476 and An-124 are the only ones besides.

Airlifting tanks WAS a factor. The Arjun weighs a few more tonnes than the IL-476’s capacity and in any case neither it nor the T-90 would fit in the 476’s cargo bay. That left the C-17 the only option.

IL-476 has highers cruising speed, more range and 60ton payload capacity, more advanced glass cockpit and digital controls.

It has a glass cockpit and digital controls, so does the C-17. ‘More advanced’ is subjective. Newer does not mean more advanced.

it has huge advantage over other competitors like A330-200F/C-17 etc as they dont have AWACS version.

Makes no sense. 95% of customers who buy cargo planes don’t do so for an AWACS configuration. As a matter of fact aside from Russia, China and India every AWACS buyer in recent times has preferred commercial airliner platforms.

and are nearly 2.5 times the initial acquisition costs.They are simply too heavy for shorter range operations.

Obviously Russian planes will always have a lower price. That still won’t help their sales chances in many Russo-phobic markets. And in those places the C-17 is the only option for strategic lift.

how many tanks can be supported with small fleet.

Not many if they have to be airlifted in a jiffy. But over time, the IAF can mobilise hundreds of tanks to the border. Which they plan to do, if they haven’t done it already.

BTW those border areas have no good rail network connectivity, so air transport is still more viable.

why didnot US lift tanks in C-17 into Northern Iraq instead of fighting all the way from the South.

No idea. But C-17s have airlifted US Army tanks before.

Fact of matter is Russian cargo companies are using for years continously to support Iraq/Afghan wars. They exactly know what kind of cargo was carried. the kind of landing strips that were built. the distance carried. where the hubs are located globally. and they made the most profit. All this real world experiance is input into IL-476. and modernized An-124.

It is not just the range with cargo but empty range for previous modernized version increased to 10,200km. and some time aircraft need to be sent to remote locations empty.
http://www.volga-dnepr.com/eng/presscentre/releases/?id=5831

But that hasn’t created interest in the IL-76 or An-124 for militaries, has it? They prefer to just lease it when needed from Volga Dnepr.

so gradients steeper means tanks are not workable on Indian side.

The Indian Army would disagree, since they are actually sending and operating them there.

Ultimately, I see the IL-476 and An-124 dominating the heavy transport market for the near future, but that’s only because the C-17 will be out of production soon. It has no bearing on its competitive ability.

I like the IL-476 to be honest, but I wish the RuAF had asked for a lengthened fuselage like on the IL-76MF so that they could make the most of its increased cargo capacity.

HAL and UAC negotiations have everything to do with the project. For one, they’ll only be able to actually begin serious design work and freeze the final specifications after they first agree on workshares, funding, TOT and schedules.

http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/india-russia-mta-project-runs-into-rough-weather_738042.html

India was “not satisfied” over the business plan submitted by the Russian side as there was nothing much for its engineers and scientists to do in the development of the proposed aircraft, Defence Ministry sources said here.

Defence Minister AK Antony had expressed India’s views on the issue to his Russian counterpart Anatoly E Serdyukov during his visit to the European nation earlier this month for the 11th meeting of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC).

The two sides have now decided to hold a meeting next month to iron out the differences, the sources said.

Antony had also expressed concern at the tardy progress made in the design and development of the MTA.

The two countries want the issues related to the aircraft to be resolved before the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Russia in December.

The project has already got delayed. The Defence Ministry had last year said it would start by beginning of this year.

That was in 2011. The way things look I doubt it’ll start by the beginning of 2013 either.

The engines may not be ready yet, but they could at least freeze the design, construct prototypes for static testing and even fly one with an intermediate engine like the PS-90. In truth, the project has been stuck in negotiations for the past few years and we have no idea when work will actually start.

The Russians may not care about timeframes that much, but its a matter of priority for us because our An-32s don’t have many years left, even with the 10-year life extension they’re getting in Ukraine.

Just the investment in Anti-ship missiles is far more than investment in Aster-30. its technological dead end.
Even India is not investing in improving Aster-30 but investing in Brahmos-2.

India has not bought the Aster-30 in the first place so there’s no question of investing in improving it. We rejected both that and the S-300/400 family to buy the Israeli Barak-8. Even in the past when we were actively shopping around for a long-range SAM/ABM system we wanted the Arrow-2 and not the S-300.

Just adding that to the discussion. Russian SAMs are not as dominant as you think, nor is budget size the ultimate factor in the effectiveness of a SAM.

Those who can’t afford to replace them may keep them in service longer than 2017, though I doubt many will be in flyable condition.

Otherwise, its era is over.

I don’t know how reliable the rumours of Indian interest in the Zhuk-A are(They’re not the sort to keep upgrading aircraft again and again, especially with major components like radars, the present MLU will probably last the MiG-29s for the rest of their lives), but the AESA antenna was designed to fit on existing Zhuk-ME back-ends for a modular upgrade.

Not only did you fail to comprehend a word of my post, you’re totally out of touch with industry realities- either by choice or lack of information:

You need to understand the implications of the above report and what sequestration would mean for companies like LM who earn 82% of their revenues from the US government, or a 9.4% cut across the board in existing defence R&D programmes.

I’m well aware of the doom and gloom that follows whenever the USG cuts R & D funds to some or the other of the hundreds of projects. I also know that despite the impact of these, the realities are far better than you fantasise. LM is not going to collapse from having its funding slashed for a few projects. Many get delayed or cancelled all the time, there’s a lot of waste in US defence procurement.

But the lead they have over Russia will continue for a long time to come. It’s simply a matter of scale: Even with these oh-gawd-awful cuts the US continues to spend over a trillion dollars in defence every year. Russian firms can’t keep up. When NIIP and NIIR brag over their first-gen AESA radars Lockheed, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman are already working on second or third gen designs with more advanced processors, more modes, electronic warfare and other advanced capabilities. When Russian design bureaus have yet to develop an operational HMDS on the lines of the Topsight and DASH for its fighters we have stuff like the JHMCS with its X-ray vision under development. When the PAK FA’s IRST and its 100km range are being praised the F-35 has this.

But in general there’s a hell of a lot of pessimism among internet warriors about US armaments and firms, so I don’t expect to change your long-standing expectations of its immediate collapse in this lifetime.

BTW, I’d take the Strike Eagle’s latest stealthified incarnation over the Fullback.;)

Maybe not collapse but you need to be aware of the dire state of all EU nations’ public finances untill at least 2020 (with the exception of Germany).

Falling defence spending in the US has led BAE Systems to hedge it’s bets with EADS and Airbus for the foreseable future, this will in turn lead to significant defence consolidation between the several big military aircraft & systems companies of the EU. This dilema has led many in the UK (and the US) to question whether BAE would be better off going it alone or even merging with a US defence firm to secure its long term military aircraft & systems pedigree. Aside from a heavy UCAV, it’s unlikely that Berlin will lead the charge for a 6G fighter.

With US and EU defence expenditures in a downward spiral until at least 2020 (and maybe beyond), the Russians are still maintaining a significant state funding stream for core hi-tech military R&D efforts. Although they are trying to diversify their economy towards a more civilian high-tech base, nevertheless this coming decade will represent a chance to steal a march on their rivals or -at the very least, catch up in critical technologies they currently lag. There are already signs of the latter.

The Americans don’t have to worry. They already have a huge lead and are just expanding that further. They’ve made a large headway into ‘sci-fi’ level technologies like railguns, lasers, microwave weapons, operational missile defence and are now developing things like ‘sixth generation fighter’ design. Even with current and projected cuts their defence budget is and is likely to remain far above that of Russia.

And consolidation of the European defence industry, with all the accumulated capabilities and knowhow they have, isn’t a cause for Russian celebration either. That would just result in a stronger competitor, and in terms of combined military spending the EU’s expenditure is also above Russia.

So the best you can hope for is fewer number of competitors. The Western defence industry will continue to develop, maintain their competitive edge in many areas and compete with Russia for years to come. And that’s assuming optimistically that Russia will face no major crisis or economic downturn for the next 50 years as you all seem to be doing.

Can you name one ?

Sure. The Borovichi Refractories Plant/Borovichi Firebricks Works.