If the Indians are shrewd they’ll seduce SAAB to come aboard the AMCA as a 50/50 funding and development partner in return for selecting the Gripen for the MMRCA.
A company with the status of SAAB will in turn attract other partner countries and defence companies, there is a ready market for an affordable F-35 class fighter and I don’t see why an alternative international consortium couldn’t deliver an equally capable rival.
IIrc, the Indian Navy is an official development partner for the AMCA, so the F-35B/C may be a fallback option.
Indians dont need to be shrewd , they need to be realistic.Thinking about it for a while and I think that in no possible way should HAL opt to try to develop AMCA alone.They will require a lot of help to make it fruitful.Otherwise it can again lead to a ‘saga” of shifting timelines and unnecessary friction with the airforce.Now whether saab is the right answer , or maybe embraer or any other , that has to be decided after judging what each of them are good at or is in a position to offer.The requirement of those participating countries will also have to be taken into account eg. what the respective airforces are thinking about 5th gen a/c , the minimum number of airframes reqd to make the venture profitable for them etc , though numbers should not be much of a problem because the IAF would want atleast 200 of these birds ideally.SO its basically going to be profitable.
There was some news iirc about HAL looking for industrial partners but i have to check.Maybe a proactive offer from any party would be helpful 😉
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