It is interesting to note that one of the main arguments (read:excuses) to purchase the MRCA was the supposed “delays” in the Tejas programme. But now that both are expected to be inducted at nearly the same time, what argument does the IAF have now ?

If im not mistaken, the trials for this competition have already started. Each of the six competitors is to send couple (?) of machines for these most rigorous trials, and only then a winner (logic dictates this to be the one with the greatest bang for buck) would be announced.

Lets (hypothetically speaking) add LCA to the list now. When could IAF get its hands on couple of LCA? And would they meet most (if not all) of IAF’s operational requirements? Or should IAF just simply believe that MK.2 a Gripen NG equivlent would b ready by 2014?

You seem to be forgetting one very important detail here.. that a large portion of the cost overruns and price renegotiations for Gorshkov and other deals is to be attributed to USA, as well… More precisely, to a simple fact that in the meantime you have made your currency look like toilet paper sheets. I really don’t wanna start some kind of ‘US is to be blamed for everything” agenda here but waiting for you pointing out this fact would be pointless, right?

Notice that no American manufacturer is seriously affected by falling dollar while all Russian or European suppliers who have bonded their contracts to the US currency (typical for India and the neighboring region) are suddenly getting paid 25% less. Now pointing finger on them for something you have caused is a bit of a hypocrisy, don’t you see it that way?

Not a very fair statement. As you pointed out others are getting affected. But how many other companies/countries have gone to such lengths when dealing with their traditional strategic partners?

Vikrasehman,

there’s little there I can argue with. Note that all my posts assume a North Korean attack, because although I consider that very unlikely indeed (why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?), I am absolutely certain that there will be no attack the other way.

Unfortunately, another poster appears to believe in absolute N. Korean superiority in everything. 🙁 I’ve been trying to persuade him that this is unrealistic, but I don’t think I’ve made any impact.

Just one quibble: any estimate of the rate of destruction of N. Korean artillery should assume that a large proportion of S. Korean heavy artillery is tasked with counter-battery fire. Aircraft are not the S. Koreans only weapons.

True. Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? And I assume, no one knows that better than the ‘dear leader’.:)

Even with all sorts of best possible counter attack scenarios from SK sides, civilian casualties would be massive. Now I dont know if any of these scenarios have considered a possible pre-emptive strike on NK, but I dont know how realistic that really is. And if NK opens the front, well we could all imagine a few thousand shells and a few hundred missiles falling into the cities right at the start. Almost Unimaginable.

We do not have an engine for LCA. That’s the issue. MMRCA will fill in squadron numbers. You can’t field just green LCA’s alone, they need proven systems. its not just money.

Well, in that case someone out there needs a kick up the backside to start thinking a bit in advance. People in the outer world have known about the engine issues for a long time now, and only had the project managers considered this issue in time, may be the engine would not have been such a big problem. And instead of spending $10+ billion on improting an entire jet from a foreign country, all India would have needed was engines. By 2013/14, LCA would have been quite a mature system. Bear in mind this argument is based on the assumption that LCA is indeed a 4.5 gen fighter.

MCA still needs design, technical in puts. Hence FFGA is needed. Another issue is that FFGA is a hedge.

Expensive hedge.

US is a technology leader. So, lets count it out for time lines. India needs it for the time lines that its enemies will have a Six Gen. India does has a MQ-9 like program. Please google, you could even Binge it.

OK.:)

No, but S. Korea also has thousands of artillery pieces. Those N. Korean “artillery pieces” include rocket launchers & mortars. On the same basis, S. Korea has 11000, a lot of them better than anything the north has, & with far better target location abilities.

Swerve, I dont think one can really question the conventional superiority of S.Korean forces over those of N.Korean. Heck, NK probably does not even have enough fuel reserves for a longish term conventional war??? But I think, its the civilian side of the matters which poses the real challenge for the SK side.

We all know ‘dear leader’ and his unpredictability as well his attitude towards his own population. From that I think its somewhat safe to assume that he won’t have too much of a moral dilemma vis-a-vis his own civic population when he looks at the ‘greater good’. In a non-nuclear war, all the ‘dear leader’ has to do is to target Seoul and any other near by civilian population centres with his artillery pieces and missiles some laden with non-conventional bio/chem weapons. Civilian casualties would be in hundreds of thousands considering the close vicinity of Seoul to DMZ. If I remember correctly, one of the studies estimated the number of around at least one hundred thousands provided that US/SK AFs can destroy most artillery pieces & missiles within first four (?) days which would required around 4000 sorties per day. Now with US being busy in two different countries, can you imagine that sort of sortie rate? Other studies have estimated much higher casualty figures. Now is SK willing to accept that? And are they willing to accept the same sort of damage on NK side in return?

I think the ‘dear leader’ recognises the above mentioned, and his nukes are more US oriented (insurance policy) rather than SK.

But it’s supposed to replace Jags and M2000s, isn’t it? Considering that the MCA is supposed to mix with the PAK-FA/FGFA, I’d expect India to sign a PAK-FA contract with liberal ToT and then apply tech from that project to the MCA, which would be quicker than completely going it alone.

To be honest, I dont know. My personal opinion is that we get so many different opinions about IAF from so many different sources that sometimes things are not as clear as they perhaps should be. If M2Ks get upgraded (and it would be an expensive upgrade) I can see them staying in IAF till around 2030. So who knows.

Regarding MCA, to be honest like many others Im quite baffled by it. I can understand India’s involvement in Pak-FA, because IAF obviously wants a 5th gen fighter by 2020 or so. But then MCA as well? From what I understand, proponents of FGFA say that after Indian work, FGFA would be a totally different fighter, i.e. based on Pak-FA and not the Pak-FA itself. If this was the case then why not simply develop FGFA into a multi role machine? That would bring down all sorts of costs. I guess I can give counter-arguments to my own arguments, but I rather doubt that it would somehow make me comprehend the whole logic of this whole thing.

I just did a search. See the post on 8th June 2008, 14:53. Answers these questions in detail. Shows where there is will, there is a way.:)

https://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-330110.html

Since this thread was about dividing the pacific between chinese and US, I thought I’d post another article about something else that could have been divided.:)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KE29Ad01.html
China says ‘no thanks’ to G-2
By Jian Junbo

SHANGHAI – At the Sino-European Union (EU) summit in Prague last week, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao rejected the concept of a Group of Two (G-2) comprising China and the United States, saying “it is totally ungrounded and wrong to talk about the dominance of two countries in international affairs”.

It was the first time a Chinese leader has publicly commented on the notion of a G-2, though Wen and a number of Chinese officials and think-tanks had cast doubt on the practicability of past notions of a “Chimerica”.

The idea of a G-2 was first forwarded by US academic circles in 2006, but it was raised again by Zbigniew Brzezinski, an influential specialist in international relations and national security advisor to former US president Jimmy Carter, in Beijing in Januaryas the two countries celebrated the 30th anniversary of establishing formal diplomatic ties.

Similar to “Chimerica”, which would put the US and China at the forefront of international affairs, the idea of a G-2 grouping has attracted wide attention, especially as Brzezinski was an advisor to President Barack Obama during the presidential elections.

In the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in London last month, the G-2 was floated again in the Western media and academic circles. Then after several weeks, on the eve of this month’s just-concluded 11th Sino-EU summit, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband predicted that over the next few decades, China would become one of the two “powers that count”.

He said, “China was becoming an indispensable power in the 21st century in the way [former US secretary of state] Madeleine Albright said the US was an indispensable power at the end of the last century”. He also argued it would be up to Europe if it wanted to change the G-2 into a G-3.

While widely discussed, the concept of a G-2 has not been clearly defined. According to Brzezinski, G-2 described the current reality, yet for Miliband, G-2 was a possibility in the foreseeable future.