Presumably the assembly machinery is still being worked on. Series production won’t commence for another few years anyway.

I know I’ll get the usual replies of ‘They’re the experts, trust them’ but nevertheless I find the, well, ‘rough’ surface of the plane disturbing. For stealth design even something as small as a protruding screw can cause a significant RCS increase, especially when they all add up. The J-20 seems to have followed this philosophy more closely.

More harm is done by delaying contracts, cancelling contracts (look at the Army Artillery Tamasha) etc. than Bribes.

I just hope the competition goes ahead Indian Military need for modernization is more important than petty scams.

Agreed. Being overzealous about fairness and transparency can make it night-impossible to get defence deals done. Open tenders with all the formalities can take half a decade to resolve(MMRCA), and that’s without cancellations and re-tendering like the ASW helicopter tender, medium-range MPA tender, utilitity helo tender, artillery tender et al.

Frankly there’s nothing wrong with single-vendor deals with preferred suppliers. It’s done all over the world, and in the end it’s faster, more efficient and often cheaper(considering long tendering processes can get affected by inflation) than sending an RFI to every manufacturer in the world every time you want to buy an engine or missile.

Mistral price disputes resolved?

http://rusnavy.com/news/navy/index.php?ELEMENT_ID=11649

Procurement contract for two French Mistral class helicopter carriers and shipbuilding license for other two ships is evaluated at least as EUR 1.5 bln, said Russian deputy defense minister Vladimir Popovkin.

…

“Contract on Mistrals provides delivery of TCS Zenith 9 along with the ships, although without license for its reproduction”, Popovkin said.

Interesting detail, given the SENIT-9(mistranslated above) Combat Management System would be one of the critical technologies Russia wants from the West.

In the long run the Russian Navy needs a new destroyer design anyway. Instead of postponing it and letting the Sovremennys retire they should start development immediately instead of wasting billions on the Kirovs.

And if time is a problem then like with the Krivak-4s they can mass-produce an existing export design: the Project 21956. It uses mostly existing sensors and weapon systems and could be built relatively cheaply. And a dozen of these carrying Rif-M would far better serve the air defence role for multiple fleets.

I have to say, for a small(er) company Selex has some really impressive achievements in AESA radars. They were already offering AESA technology for export in almost every airborne application(fighters, helicopters, MPAs and UAVs) years before the RBE2-AA became a reality. It’s a pity the Vixen doesn’t seem to have many takers outside of Sweden.

I don’t think either the Typhoon or the Rafale will be in a position to seriously compete with the F-35 unless EADS and Dassault do a Silent Eagle and develop a version with internal weapons carriage.

To pitch in on the Kirovs, can three cruisers really make that much of a difference for entire fleets? The Russian Navy is better off spending that money on a fleet of new air defence destroyers.