RajanActually and as far as SH is concerned, I could say with virtually no risk, that India procuring 10 C-17s is the death sentence for the SH candidateship at the MRCA. I thought it was rather likely when India selected the P-8, but now I am positive. Boeing has managed to secure way too much cash from India. They can’t possibly get ALL the big contracts for many reasons.
But then again, I never liked the SH anyway :diablo:
Best regards
I wish your words come true. 🙂
RajanI have included CBU-105 under PGM category. I have basically referred to those deals which US is getting on platter withiout serious competition.
I think these deals are thank you note for US for indo-us nuke deal as also a way to prevent too much political heat against Indian BPO industry.
Further for some time Russians have been a nuisance regarding timely supply, spare parts, no off sets, difficulty in ToT, insisting on Upgrade contracts of older equipement etc. But personally I think that Europeans will get hit more than Russians as Strong Euro and refusal to negotiate on price will do them in.
We need some of the US weapons. They can deliver quality weapons well with in timeline. But one deal after another! Thats not good.
Yes this will increase the pressure on Russia to improve their quality and maintain timely supply and other peripherals. Strong Euro is a temporary cause, I think Europeans will manage it in long term.
Whoever talking about high cost of the European fighters should know that what ever fighter India chooses or they sell will be within the allocated budget. Keeping that in mind Europeans bidding for the tender….
Not to forget that Indian navy is interested in F-35 and pushing for E-2C
Its E-2D.
RajanBell did not participate in the newly released tender for the LUH. those ******s first raised objections for the first tender and when because of them the entire process was repeated, they gave some excuse about not being able to comply with the offset obligations and pulled out the second time around.
It was because of Bell, they canceled the first tender. They will re-tender again and again until Bell win it! AH-64D, Chinook and F18SH will follow…. God bless America but God should save India as well. :rolleyes:
RajanI guess your standards for “mastering” is quite low.
Much higher than many other copycats. 😀 There are some countries which only wants to copycat others systems and claims it as her own. 😉 These Indian technologies are enough to contribute in PAK FA. India is ahead in many areas that were proved with Brahmos and SU-30 MKI. Thats why the IAF wants various Indian systems in FGFA instead of Russian.
Rajanhttp://www.eturbonews.com/13681/supersonic-commercial-flight-could-return-2015
The Russians are currently testing a new fifth generation PAK-FA T-50 supersonic stealth fighter that will be in direct competition with the world’s only current fifth generation supersonic jet, the new US F-22 Raptor. Even India is on the supersonic bandwagon, participating with Russia in the development of the new jet.
RajanIt seems that India has made request for 10 C-17s for purchase through FMS route. India seems to have upped its purchases from USA even though MRCA contract seems still rather far away
Potential Purchases
8 P-8 for 2 Billion US$ (with option of another 8?)
6 C-130s for 1 Billion US$ (with option of another 6)
10 C-17s
Harpoons for around 200 million US$
Air to surface PGMs 375 US$
M777 for arond US$ 650 million
Marine gas turbine engines
LCA engines around US$ 225 million to date
Javelin missiles under negotiation
Hellfire missiles under negotiation
Recent Past Trenton + choppers US$ 100million
Recent Past WLR US$ 200million
Possible LAV VIII
(Chances of PAC-III, radars seem dim due to costs & Israeli JVs)
Possible CH-47s
Lot of other low profile items like NVG, sights, rifles etc
Add 22 AH-64D Longbow and 510 CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons to that. Boeing will be the winner of the IAF’s attack heli competition, I am 100% sure. Then there is tender for 197 LUH as well, Bell should win this.
RajanMay be Saraswat is crowing about it because its his baby , but to be fair what Shourya did was to fly a sustained depressed trajectory (DT) flight ( its not a cruise missile )
Shourya was not a ‘baby’ of Dr. Saraswat. He was associated with BMD projects and RCI. The RCI developed the ring-laser gyroscope for the missile. It’s project director was A.K. Chakrabarti.
DT flight is not a new invention by DRDO but was always promoted as a way to keep the element of surprise , since they fly low they are not detected easily by Early Warning Radar and has a Short Flight Time to Target specially in context of US/Russia SSBN/SLBM flight ( was considered destabilising )
Shourya flight path was not just DT. Even Prithvi can fly at DT but went higher altitude than Shourya, though Prithvi has 350 km range while Shourya has 700 km range. Shourya never climbs beyond 55 km altitude.
The Iskandar-M for one also does a sustained depressed trajectory flight and hence is promoted as an effective missile against tactical ABM but it does at at speed of M 4 – 4.5 and not a sustained hypersonic flight as Shaurya does ( ~ M 5 – 6 )
Isk-M has a range of 400 km against Shourya’s 700 km. What is the maximum altitude Isk-M climbs during flight?
What makes Shaurya very significant is its new very accurate Laser INS/Guidance which combined with sustained DT flight makes its a very effective first strike weapon and has good ABM feature
Due to new features Shourya is a potent second strike weapon for which it was developed.
RajanDo you have any details or sources for this information?
All these information are in public domain. I read these in news, interviews, DRDO articles and seminars. Here is one for you…
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2526/stories/20090102252609400.htm
Shourya is a hypersonic missile; it can reach a velocity of Mach 6 (six times the speed of sound) even at low altitudes. On November 12, even before this “totally new” missile crossed a distance of 300 km, it reached a velocity of Mach 5, heating up its surface to 700{+0} Celsius. The missile performed an ingenuous manoeuvre of rolling to spread the heat uniformly on its surface. Its high manoeuvrability makes it less vulnerable to present-day anti-missile defence systems.
Shourya can reach targets 700 km away, carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads. It is 10 metres long and 74 cm in diameter and weighs 6.2 tonnes. It is a two-stage missile and both its stages are powered by solid propellants. Its flight time is 500 seconds to 700 seconds.
In the estimate of V.K. Saraswat, Chief Controller, Missiles and Strategic Systems, DRDO, Shourya “will rank among the top 10 missiles in the world” in its class, with its high-performance navigation and guidance systems, efficient propulsion systems, state-of-the-art control technologies and canisterised launch. It can be easily transported by road. The missile, encased in a canister, is mounted on a single vehicle, which has only a driver’s cabin, and the vehicle itself is the launch platform. This “single vehicle solution” reduces its signature – it cannot be easily detected by satellites – and makes its deployment easy.
Shourya was ejected from the canister by a gas generator, developed by the High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL), Pune, and the ASL. The gas generator, located at the bottom of the canister, fires for about a second and a half. It produces high pressure gas, which expands and ejects the missile from the tube. The missile has six motors; the first one is the motor in the gas generator.The centrepiece of a host of new technologies incorporated in Shourya is its ring-laser gyroscope and accelerometer. The ring-laser gyroscope, a sophisticated navigation and guidance system made by the RCI, is highly classified technology. Advanced countries have denied this technology to India. In Shourya’s flight, it functioned exceptionally well. Its job is to monitor the missile’s position in space when it is flying. The missile’s onboard computer will use this information on the missile’s actual position to compare it with the desired position. Based on the difference between the missile’s actual and desired positions, the computer will decide on the optimum path and actuators will command the missile to fly in its desired/targeted position.
If one were to strike a comparison, the missile is akin to a human body, with the gyroscope acting like the eyes, the computer like the brain and the actuators like the hands.
M. Natarajan, Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister and Director-General of the DRDO, praised the way the ring-laser gyroscope functioned in Shourya’s flight. “We flew our own navigation system in this missile. It worked very well. This is an important step forward for the country in the navigation of missiles, aircraft and spacecraft. No other country will provide India this navigation system,” he said.
Another important feature of the missile is that it has a trajectory that is non-ballistic. This gives Shourya a big advantage in a combat environment of interception by a ballistic missile defence shield. Saraswat said: “There are many features in this missile that reduce its radar cross-section to very low values, ensuring that under no phase of its trajectory, Shourya can be detected by state-of-the-art radars. In strategic defence scenario, this missile will find an important place after it completes its development trials.”
What has focussed attention on Shourya is that it is a land variant of the DRDO’s K-15 missile launched from under water. There have been several launches of the K-15 missile, coming under the Sagarika project. The last of these took place in February 2008 from a submerged pontoon. The launch simulated the conditions of a submarine. W. Selvamurthy, Chief Controller (R&D), DRDO, asserted that the missile provided India with a second strike capability. Selvamurthy called Shourya’s flight a significant milestone in building capability for the nation in the field of missiles for both strategic and tactical applications.
A.K. Chakrabarti, programme director of the Shourya project, said the missile had several “safety interlocks” preventing it from being fired inadvertently. He said strategic missiles (that is, missiles that can carry nuclear warheads, which are used only for a show of threat) had redundancy and reliability built into them so that they were not fired accidentally. Safety interlocks provided such redundancy.
Although hypersonic missiles fly at high altitudes, what makes Shourya different is that it can fly at low altitudes. For instance, Agni variants flew at 100 km, 200 km or 500 km altitudes, reaching even Mach 15. “But Shourya flies at a relatively low altitude, even reaching Mach 6. This is the crux of the matter in terms of technology development,” Saraswat said.
Chakrabarti added: “Hypersonic missile is a new field of activity even in advanced countries. However, we have established our expertise in this field.”
CANISTERISED FORM
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Shourya lifts off from the Integrated Test Range at Balasore on November 12.
Shourya’s launch was in a canisterised form but from a silo. Half of the missile’s length was inside a pit, that is, a silo. Chakrabarti said: “You can easily put the entire missile inside the pit. Normally, the depth of the silo depends on the operation. So the depth can be 10 metres or 20 metres, depending on the place where you are going to launch it from, the condition of the ground, or safety requirements.”
Whether the missile was launched from a depth of 20 m or 40 m did not make a difference, P. Venugopalan, Director, DRDL, said. The silo had to be built accordingly. “The missile comes out of it as part of its trajectory. You must fire the main booster only after it comes out of the silo.” A tremendous amount of effort went into the design, quality assurance, and the manufacture and testing of hardware. “For a large system, you cannot afford to conduct many tests. In a few trials, you have to prove the system. Shourya has a high order of reliability,” he said.
What lends mobility to Shourya is that it can be launched from a canister mounted on a trailer. This trailer, or launcher, as it is called, was built by the Research and Development Establishment (Engineers), Pune. It has several features to absorb shocks in order to make the transport of the missile by road safe.
Chakrabarti said the canister was made of locally available high-strength, special-glass composite. The DRDO has set up a facility in the missile complex to manufacture the tube.
Dr. A. Subhananda Rao, Director, HEMRL, said: “This gas generator system should have a very high reliability of 99.997 per cent. If it fails, a lot of things will burst.” The gas generator’s propellants have a special requirement. Their burn rate should be very high, that is, three to four times more than that of the rocket’s propellants. The responsibility of the generator is to produce the gases at the required pressure so that the missile comes out of the canister within a certain velocity band. “The basic requirement is that the missile should come out of the canister within a few seconds. This is to meet the required canister-exit velocity,” Subhananda Rao said.
The first stage is fired by a motor powered by solid propellants, which has a complex grain configuration. The second stage is fired by another motor, which will take the missile to the required velocity. There are retro-motors as well. “When the first stage is separated from the second stage, it has to be decelerated to maintain the gap between the first and second stages. For separating the first stage and jettisoning it, we have pitch-and-yaw motors,” he added.
The HEMRL provides the solid propellants for powering Shourya’s various motors and the pyro devices for jettisoning the first stage. There are elaborate facilities at the 850-acre (one acre is 0.4 hectare) HEMRL complex to design and produce the solid propellants required for various missiles.
The secret of Shourya’s success, in the estimate of M.S.R. Prasad, project director, lies in its optimum configuration. The smaller the size of the missile, the lower its drag and resistance. So its packing density would be high. “Shourya has minimum weight and minimum cross-section. That gives it a high performance,” Prasad explained. If the missile’s diameter were to be large, it could be comfortable internally. But such a diameter would increase the air resistance and decrease the overall performance.
It was a young DRDO team, under the leadership of A. Joseph, project director, that built the missile. While the project team was from the DRDL, which designed Shourya, important contributions came from the ASL, the RCI, the HEMRL and the RDE (Engineers). The missile is under production by Bharat Dynamics Limited, Hyderabad.
RajanTwo things I would like conclude from this
As far as upcoming Brahmos Test from underground silo is concerned alongwith Shorya, it seems to me that DRDO Scientiest are bracing up for submarine launch variant of Brahmos.
But can anyone read very last statement of above report. It says that Shorya will remain undetected in underground silo till it is launch, so may I presume that it can be detected once it is launched?:eek:
Yes, they need launch it from underwater canister before launching from submarine.
Shourya is a very unique missile from DRDO. It will shape the future of India’s short to medium range missile systems. Shourya was developed to give Indian armed forces a second strike capability. It will be ‘underground’ until launch. It can be detected after launch but that will be difficult. It has the following features….
1) Low RCS.
2) Its not a pure ballistic missile nor a pure cruise missile. Its combination of both. It can maneuver in its entire flight path. Though it has a range of 700 km (for 1000 kg payload), it climbs maximum altitude of 55 km only. Then it fly like a cruise missile at hypersonic speed.
Variable flight path, extreme maneuver and low RCS made it very difficult to intercept. Robustness, silo, canister and underwater launch capabilities gives it immunity from first strike. I like this missile. 😀
RajanDoes India possess required Industrial and Aerospace capability to contribute to massive ambitious project like PAK-FA? Because contribution of India cannot be limited to
Yes. Modern aircrafts are build with advanced composites, reliable computers, avionics, EW systems, net centric and sensors….. India mastered all these technologies. Thats why went for many Indian systems onboard SU-30 MKI instead of Russian.
Rajan2. Indians are contributing with respect to composits.
Where did you got that theory that India is contributing only composites? :p
RajanRimmer why?
You laid bait and now you have attracted flames.
Now I see debate will turn into, how much Pakistan helped design JF 17, which is boring subject to read again.
I am 500% sure that this thread will be another India vs Pakistan or LCA vs JF-17/J10 thread. :rolleyes:
That’s the point or to put it another way round, what fighter can you get for $25 million? Defence ministries do not have bottomless budgets to buy, fly and maintain materiel. In another thread here I see that Rumania may be considering acquiring “free” used F-16’s because it needs to find a fighter that it can afford. I suspect that the through life cost of “free” used F-16’s will be a lot higher than the through life cost of Tejas MkII’s where you have to get your wallet out to buy new ones in the first place.
And what about those other countries with old MiG-21’s, F-16’s and Mirages that will need replacement in the coming years? Some of them will certainly be interested in a low cost fighter such as Tejas.
I am sure many air forces would love a few squadrons of F-22’s but air forces can’t buy anything because they don’t have any money. Defence ministries don’t have any money either. Governments have money but if they don’t want to fund the defence ministry’s desire to acquire expensive fighters for the air force, the defence ministry isn’t going to have the funds to buy them.
Good points. If we check LCA mk I’s capabilities its stealthy, its designed to be highly unstable with relax static stability, quad redundant digital FBW flight control, good radar, EW system etc are there. Now no other fighters will give all the capabilities of LCA. If you talk about F-16 than it’s accessories should cost much higher.
The countries having Mig-21 or Mirages will be interested in LCA/LCA mk II.
But again the most important point is will the Govt of India themselves interested in exporting LCA. If they than HAL have to increase the production line.
India from 2015 can export LCA mk II and FGFA as mid and high end fighters aircrafts according to buyer country’s requirements.
RajanI really dont see any sales for the HAL Tejas. Not enough Air Craft for your money. I see lots of sales for the T-50 though which the HAL Tejas will compete with.
Yes it offers slightly less for your money, but I wouldnt hold that against the T-50 – It might end up being the USA Trainer of choice and that would make it interesting to everyone.
Current LCA may not but LCA mk 2 which sceduled to fly by 2012/13 will sure hit international market. Its going to outperform many fourth generation fighters. The IAF committed for it. They will buy atleast 140 LCA mk 2.
Not enough Air Craft for your money.
What do you want from a $ 25 million fighter? :rolleyes:
RajanDRDO braces up for a series of tests
Hemant Kumar Rout
First Published : 05 Jan 2010 04:14:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 05 Jan 2010 07:17:52 AM IST
BALASORE: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) which is planning a series of missile tests in the next few months has a host of challenges before it to fit into the defence requirements of the country in the light of the heightening tension in and around India.
Sources said, at least five different ranges and variants of missiles are likely to be tested by the defence scientists and Indian Army in the first quarter of the year. The missiles to be tested from the integrated test range (ITR) off the Orissa coast are India’s longest range Agni-III, Agni-II, an interceptor, Shourya (the land version of submarine launched ballistic missile K-15) and BrahMos.
While 2000 km plus range Agni-II missile is scheduled for trial between January 6 and 9, the 3500 km range Agni-III will be test-fired by this month end.
The three other missile tests will be conducted one after another to gauge their accuracy and performances, said a source at the ITR in Chandipur-on-sea.
Defence analysts feel the scientists have to come out credibly to hold high the reputation of DRDO and to fit into the shoes of eminent defence scientists like APJ Abdul Kalam. ‘’Challenges are many and it is yet to see how it comes over the failures of the preceding years. Success and failures although tread along, keeping in view the defence requirements of the country, people have got a zero tolerance level as far as failures of the DRDO is concerned,’’ they remarked.
‘’While BrahMos and Shourya will be test fired from the ITR at Chandipur from a silo launcher, the Agni variants will be tested from the Wheelers Island off Dhamra coast in Bhadrak district.
During the advanced air defence (AAD) interceptor test, a Prithvi missile, modified to mimic a hostile ballistic missile with a 300 km -1,000 km range, will be fired from the Chandipur base and will be intercepted by another missile fired few seconds later from Wheeler Island,” said a defence scientist.
Defence sources said, the 2000 km plus range Agni-II missile, which was first tested in 1999 has a length of 21 meters, a diameter of 1.3 meters and weighs 19 tonnes. Having South China as the main target, the missile is designed to carry a one-tonne weapon. The Agni-III has a range of over 3,000 km and is capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads. ‘’India is now developing Agni-V having a strike range of 5000 km which will probably fly in the air early next year,’’ said a source.
Apart from its long range missiles, the DRDO is now focusing on the ballistic missile defence (BMD) system. As part of the project it has already developed two interceptors – exo-atmospheric (outside the atmosphere) and endo-atmospheric (within the atmosphere).
‘’While the exo-atmospheric PAD has been tested twice, the second test of the endo-atmospheric AAD interceptor will be conducted this time,’’ the source informed.
Similarly, the newly developed 600-km range ‘Shourya’ ballistic missile, which can be fired from underground silos unlike the Prithvi and Agni missiles will be tested for the second time.
It is meant to boost the country’s second strike capabilities.
Significantly, Shourya missiles can remain camouflaged in underground silos from enemy surveillance or satellites till they are fired from the special storage-cum-launch canisters.
RajanRimmer,
If JF-17 which is not in operational service of PLAAF, but only been exported to PAK can be a Mini-rafale , why can’t the LCA be a F-16??? :D:
FC-1 was rejected by PLAAF. I have seen an interview of Dr. Kota Harinarayana where he specifically mentioned that LCA was designed to counter F-16 along with many new features to replace high number of Mig-21 in IAF service. LCA was designed as to be a modern fighter with 4th generation technologies. IAF ordered 40 LCA already.
LCA’s engine issue been sorted out. Kaveri did exceptionally well in high altitude tests in Russia. India designed and developed an engine without ‘c‘opying and ‘p‘ainting other’s products! 😉
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