What you & most folks who do these sort of comparisons dont understand is that for all practical purposes, South Korea works hand in glove with the United States. It has deep access to many US supplier lists, US technological assistance and furthermore, it can acquire systems off the shelf from Europe or even repackaged via JVs (Samsung Thales Techwin) without any political objections raised.

India faced (and still faces) a huge hurdle in terms of technological assistance. The K2 you mentioned above has systems from across the world, available to Korea off the shelf and customized, and the PM can concentrate on system integration and overall design. The K1 predecessor, was pretty much a US supported design. The cooperation extends beyond just design and technology transfer to the crucial field of heavy engineering. SoKo firms dont face any restriction in collaboration and procurement of both manufacturing equipment and even R&D. They built on this to get a fairly decent R&D setup in military, which piggybacks on the worldclass civilian R&D which again was setup without any sanctions/political issues dogging it.

In contrast, the average Indian PM has had to face a usual delay of 2-3 years to even get an off the shelf system, thanks to India’s non aligned position and its status which placed it directly in opposition to the United States political objectives. The limited funding means that a total develop from scratch approach is not possible either.

Take a look at the Arjuns gun sights. The Indians originally procured them from Europe, but the Germans said they could not help as the US would not allow them to, the Dutch who offered something, were in no place to support their systems a decade into the project as the crucial Thermal sight was American and they were denied a license, and it took several years of diplomatic efforts till France stepped in, agreed to work with India on supplying the imager.

The only way around this logjam is for India to invest heavily, in the tune of billions of dollars to develop its local R&D and manufacturing capabilities, along with creating an ecosystem of world class civilian capabilities (look at how Taiwan created its electronics ecosystem) for sustainability and long term commercial growth, but thats easier said than done in India, where widespread political corruption works hand in glove with vested interests (civil and military) to preserve the status quo. One Chief Minister recently spent around $420 Million to have her own statues made and installed. The great economist PM of India serves more as a figurehead and is busy pottering around with loony peace overtures in search of a Nobel prize whereas the economy takes on more and more debt, and corruption piles on. In such a milieu, India’s defence organizations have and will continue to face an uphill struggle.

And another factor: defence research in India is largely done by old-fashioned, poorly run government-owned institutions like DRDO, DPSUs and Ordinance Factories. Due to various problems inherent to government-run institutions(inefficient management, low wages, lack of performance increments, no incentive to meet deadlines due to assured funding and lack of domestic competition) these have consistently underperformed given the budget and resources allotted to them(high in Indian money and still higher given lower Indian costs).

The government is trying to change this in recent years by inviting the Indian private sector’s involvement in defence but this is half-hearted because the politicians in charge of the defence industry(like Antony and Raju) have socialist mindsets and the PSUs and their labour unions lobby aggressively to maintain their monopoly over the armed forces’ needs. What is needed is for India to embrace private defence firms the way the South Korean armed forces have embraced companies like Hyundai.

KAI’s T-50 was intended to loosely mirror the F-16. Yes, T-50 is used to train ROK pilots and ground crews for their F-16 squadrons. But T-50 was also given weapon systems and flight performance that allow it to augment F-16 in combat operations. Radar modes, navigational accuracy, IFF, weapons compatibility, M1.68 speed (clean), +8/-3G structure, and turning performance similar to F-16 are all way beyond the needs of a “trainer”. Because of the additional capabilities, it is not an inexpensive “trainer” system to own or operate.

The IAF wanted a cheap, easy-to-maintain, non-combat trainer, so most of those added bells and whistles were excluded from the HJT-36 by choice. If the IAF had asked for them it would not have taken much more effort for HAL to integrate the original AL-55 instead of the de-rated non-afterburning version, added a real radar and IFF. As it is most of those features can be added as an option to make it combat-capable if necessary.

Tanks on the other hand is something else.. I think the K1A1 and the new K2 programmes are far more successful than the Arjun. the K2 already secured exports for its technology for Turkey’s new tank.

Wasn’t K-1 based on the M-1 Abrams?

That’s easy

Thanks… not being able to read it I assume the 15-20km figure is for active detection and 40-60km for passive detection. Or is the first figure for towed array and second for hull-mounted sonar?

How does it compare to the MGK-335 Platina and MGK-345 Bronza in specs? I’ve heard mention of the Platina’s max range being 40km.

Does any one have any performance specifications on the new Zarya sonar suite on the Stereguchy class corvette? Information on sonar performance, in general, is hard to come by.