Agreed , this money too can buy a good number of helicopters though ..

if it wasn’t spend on buying executive class aeroplane tickets and settling 5 star hotel charges. 😀

The UK has much greater capabilities in some areas than India, & some that India lacks altogether, e.g. SSBNs, SSNs, AEW, ELINT, tanker, & amphibious shipping. Some of these capabilities are expensive to buy & operate. Note that they’re all capital-intensive, rather than labour-intensive, reflecting the different cost structures of India & the UK.

unless you mean that India’s industry is lacking in the aforementioned categories, I don’t see how that is correct. of the given list, only SSN is missing in the forces inventory though not for long, since the akula is expected to join in a few months.

even considering industrial production capabilities, except the tanker (I take it you mean tanker aircraft ?) all others are in stages of development or already developed.

p.s. and if I’m not much mistaken jbritchford is talking about the state of the armed forces, not that of the MIC.

Probably depends (in both cases) on whether they think the customer would want to steal their IP. In both cases that might be worrying. Israel have been making lots of money doing Mid-Life Updates and India are after as much Technology transfer as they can get their hands on.

exactly how much ‘IP’ do the partner countries have in the F-35 ? it’s almost completely US designed. whatever original work done by partner countries is from basically 1 country, the UK. the rest are simply getting some production orders.

I really don’t see how they have a veto on the basis of ‘stealing their IP’, given that it’s not theirs in the first place.

The F-35 was not included in the India’s MMRCA.

did I say it was ? :rolleyes:

you may not remember this but the F-35 was tentatively offered to India long back, (it had not even been named back then) and India didn’t show any interest.

in practice the F-35 doesn’t fit in any of IN’s roles at the moment, so it’s a moot point. if the naval version of PAKFA doesn’t materialise then we might see some serious IN interest. won’t be before 2015 at the earliest.

I think money is not the big problem here. It is costly but affordable, but the big question is, ‘Does India need a QE type aircraft carrier?’ My answer is no. Its modern but actually built for RN not IN. It will waste of money when cheaper indigenous solution will be available at the same time ie 2017/18. If the news is true than I think QE goes to RN and PoW up for sale.

No. India is designing IAC-2 with 65000 ton displacement.

firstly, I don’t think IN can afford the PoW at the moment, a made in India 70k t carrier, surely, but not the CVF which costs an arm and a leg.

also, IAC-2 is same as IAC-1, around 40000 t. IAC-3 (whenever that comes) is supposed to be much larger, of the CVF size, possibly with nuke propulsion.

it did look a little strange, given that there’s no chance of gorky being canceled and the 2 in-house AC are on their way, 1 building and 1 follow-up confirmed.
3 is about all IN needs for the moment.

Its not uncommon for these ‘extreme’ views to get out into the media as they do have a certain tawdry sensationalist quality which seems to appeal to current UK mainstream print journalists.

is that a recent phenomenon ? 😉

I had this idea that writing a news report from the comforts of your home belonged to the highest traditions of british journalism ?! :dev2:

thanks quantum.

quantum, PLANAF holdings should not be brought into this discussion since they have little relevance in the potential theaters of conflict between India and china (near future).

as for the Jh-7A, PLAAF numbers will be ~ 20.

http://www.sinodefence.com/airforce/groundattack/jh7.asp

There are currently three JH-7/A regiments in the PLA Naval Aviation, and a JH-7A regiment in the PLAAF, totalling some 80~100 examples.

PLAAF 28th Air Division 83rd Regiment 30X9X Xianqiao AB, Zhejiang JH-7A (~20) Nanjing MRAF