Hadn’t the IAF decided not to continue with the IL-76 for the second batch? Given they’re phasing out the remainder of their IL-76 fleet it’d be better to choose a commercial platform like the AWACS.

Funnily enough it wan’t long back that you gave me reply that seemed more passion than wisdom. But as for now, I have no doubt about the Indian Army’s determination to fight things through to the bitter end, but I have every doubt about whether the government will allow them to. The Indian voter is hardly as strategic-minded as you say, we generally decide votes over far more petty matters. No government is going to lose an election solely over loss of territory, because here people and government alike are sadly too busy bickering over various domestic matters to care much.

Lot of quivering outrage there, but your first statement does’nt necessarily flow from what Swerve said.

The point of not developing the border infrastructure is to make it harder for the enemy to resupply his extended lines of logistics. The deeper he gets, the more disadvantaged he is. Ultimately, the Lines of Communication become overextended and the enemy is on the backfoot. The Indian forces would, on the other hand, be fighting from preprepared positions stockpiled with enough reserves and could hold out for a while while larger battle formations got into play. This is actually the same policy followed till date, and the Indian Army’s strength in the respective sectors is such that it has proved to be a deterrence from any permanent large scale invasion. The back and forth tussles over unmarked pastures are not that alarming from the Indian POV, despite the hype they generate.
The thinking which you dismiss as “shortsighted” and the bureaucrats whom you dismiss as “spineless” actually came up with a good plan for the era, given Indian constraints, given which the Indian side has managed to more or less maintain the status quo, at low cost, for the better part of the century, post the 1962 conflict. There was no luck either that the PRC withdrew during 1962. Their LOC was overextended and their political message to Nehru & co had been delivered. Meanwhile, the Indian Army was gathering everything but the kitchen sink to hit back, and the PRC withdrew before the Indian side got its PR victory in turn.

The change today, is because the post boom PRC economy has allowed them to rapidly ramp up infrastructure on their end to the level that they can sustain LOC to the battle zone, and rapidly reinforce units engaged. But it wont be easy.

Its still anything but an easy task, and relatively still means days. The Indian forces employed in theater, are formidable. Make no mistake. The Army has learnt from ’62 and barely five years thence, in 67, didnt back down from pressure on the borders, leading to a shooting skirmish. And lets not even bring up Chequerboard and Op Falcon.

Today, the Army & AF plans are being executed and more importantly India can afford a response now. Its very straightforward, without money, there can be little movement on the infrastructure front.

Two additional raisings have been sanctioned for the Army alone, thats a huge step forward. The AF is upgrading all the AF bases throughout the country in 2phases, and deploying more modern eqpt to the theater.

Another point is that Indian citizens in the border area want and expect the border infrastructure to be improved, given they can see the corresponding improvement on the PRC side.

All in all, its not necessarily any sign of incompetence or treason. Times change, methods change.

Talk to any half decent roadways engineer and ask about the amount of money it takes to maintain a road in inclement weather, as in the NE, and you’ll get an idea of why we moved slow on the infra. front.

The thing is, even the most powerful armed forces in the world can’t win if there isn’t enough political will behind them. Past history has shown that the Indian army, through their own caution or orders from governments, have been reluctant in recapturing lost territory. In 1962 the counter-offensive was delayed and the IAF kept out owing to fear of ‘escalation’. In Kargil they were imposed with the handicap of not crossing the LoC and instead fighting from lower ground to again avoid ‘escalation'(and it seems a few Kargil posts are still under Pakistani control but hushed up by the government to avoid reversing the ‘peace process’). The Chinese don’t necessarily want to conquer Delhi, they just want to grab all currently disputed territories. That’s what they’re most likely to do in the event of a conflict while Indian armed forces in their entrenched positions remain in a defensive posture. Afterwards considerable swathes of territory will remain under their control while the Indian side is reluctant to invade, leading to more Aksai Chin.

As for the cost of the infrastructure, the main reason the Northeast is so backward, and maintaining border infrastructure unfeasible, is because there isn’t enough infrastructure to facilitate economic development! A vicious cycle…

If modified civvie craft could do the job there’d never have been a need for the Hercules or any other smaller military cargo aircraft either.

The A330 would have passenger doors and those that a passenger plane would have for loading suitcases etc. – Not the most useful thing when you’re trying to load vehicles. Nor would it have any way of parachuting supplies in, or landing on anything but concrete. The list goes on…

The unpaved runways requirement is unnecessary for nations that are only looking for use on their own territory rather than Afghanistan-like operations. As for cargo loading, isn’t the MRTT supposed to accept military pallets?

So equip Kinzhal(which equips the new Yaroslav Mudry frigate, so it can’t be out of production) and Positiv on all future units. It isn’t going to take some great feat of engineering to do so, especially as the first unit already has Positiv.

From the second hull on the Kashtan is replaced with 12 9M96 missiless. Also, the russians seem a little bit obsessed with the idea “let’s make a cruiser out of a 2000 ton corvette”. What I mean is that the 20380 is a bit oversized for a corvette, but too crammed for a frigate.

By the way, notice that the Novorosiisk is called a torpedo-rocket submarine, meaning that it will at least carry Clubs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC9FSRaLByY

According to the above advertising video the 20380 has room for 16xKlinok. Can’t see why that wouldn’t suffice. As for Furke, a small ship like this doesn’t need AEGIS-type AESAs; Positiv-ME1 is more than enough.:diablo:

The fact that it hasn’t already deployed them is ridiculous. What else were they developed for?

And there was actually a doctrine of not developing border roads? What kind of treasonous mind would draft such a policy?

It was a good fighter-bomber for its time but is unlikely to be of much use against the US or Israel in the event of a conflict. That said, the Iranians appear to have modernised them somewhat, and they possess mid-air refuelling capability and so are quite probable for use in the nuclear delivery role.

http://www.milavia.net/aircraft/su-24/su-24.htm

During 1990 Russia delivered 12 Su-24MK Fencers to the the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF). The IRIAF has modified these aircraft to use Western weapons, such as the C-802 Noor anti-ship cruise missile. After Operation Desert Storm began, Saddam sent 24 Iraqi Su-24MKs to Iran. These have since been integrated in the IRIAF Su-24 fleet. In 2002 all Iranian Su-24s were modified with inflight refuelling probes to receive fuel from the IRIAF KC-707 tankers.

The Iranians have been looking to further modernisation but I’m not sure if it actually happened; there was and is a lot of US opposition.

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2001/mar_2001/iran_russia_military_30301.htm