Well since my last post which was "F-16 to be MADE IN INDIA - Lockheed Signs Pact with TATA" and after this became a news (mainstream media as well as other sites etc) a lot of people I know have texted me, mailed me and contacted me by various ways. Most of these people have asked questions some of which are
- Why is govt selecting F16?
- Isn't F16 obsolete ? Pakistan also have same jet.
- Why is IAF killing tejas ?
- When will manufacturing start?
And many more questions. Media being negligent as always when it comes to defence and to make their headlines better or for whatever reason made it look like we are buying f 16 for sure.
To clear it out this is not true. The pact was signed TATA ADVANCED SYSTEMS and not with the government. Till now we have no intention of buying F-16 block 70. The pact says that
IF & ONLY IF THE GOVERNMENT & IAF SELECTS F-16 AS WINNER OF MMRCA-II THEN LOCKHEED ALONG WITH TATA WILL MANUFACTURE THE F-16 IN INDIA (which is an important clause in MMRCA-II).
Also now many of my readers which are new would not be knowing what MMRCA-II is or why is it needed & why foreign fighters when we have our own jet? The answer to these have been given by me already in my other post, here is the link "MMRCA II- WHY IS IT NEEDED?"
Now people also want to know the other fighters which were competing for the big possible order from IAF so till now there are basically two fighters which are LOCKHEED MARTIN's F-16 BLOCK 70/72 & SAAB's GRIPEN E. In link below I have compared the jets and the offer by both respective companies.
Also the jet being offered is not obsolete, it's actually a new block or generation of F-16 which even American airforce doesn't have (don't say this is because they have 5th gen, I will address this thing soon in future). Also Pakistan has about 70 f 16 jets most of which are block 20-30 jets and some of those are even 2nd hand fighters obtained from nations which have retired them, only about dozen or so of their F-16 are capable (block 50/52) jets, also most of the fleet is also struggling to stay operational due to spares issues.
So hopefully this post has cleared the misconceptions and if any of those still remain or if u have any questions related to this do post them in comment section and I will try to reply asap.
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What about Tejas?
ReplyDeleteAs explained in MMRCA II post link in post it will not affect Tejas program.
DeleteI don't agree! It WILL affect Tejas, including in nasty ways as it'll be used as an argument to discredit any hope in some foreign sales as competitors will say : "Look, Tejas is just here to sustain domestic industry, for serious job, they rely on our F-16/Gripen" while actually, Tejas Mk1A is at end : Kaveri will be available in only a few months and with it onboard, Mk1A will outcompete Gripen-E for about half the price.
DeleteF-16V is pretty ridiculous! Better buy 2nd hand Mirage-2000 and upgrade 'em.
Moreover, F-16V or Gripen-E while less capable, are as expensive as Rafale and if Gripen-E is likely to have hald of Super-Hornet's hourly cost so merely equal to Rafale ($10-12k), F-16 hourly cost's about $23k. And now the funny point : F-16V empty weight is heavier than Rafale while MTOW is 3600kg under! The huge GE F110 is even bigger/heavier than two M88 of 1st gen while in the end less powerful! (and there is still ZERO Rafale accident due to engine/mechanical failure)
Now, Kaveri is a M88 derivative (or Safran simply couldn't dev it as fast), so, minor mods of air intakes (as it's more powerful so needs to breath more) like 1.5cm larger, makes Rafale 100% OK (no mods and less powerful versions still OK, system is modular any way)
Then you have a common engine on both platforms which, as being modular, is MUCH easier to maintain than older concepts like F414 or F110.
There you end with a common engine for Rafale AND Tejas Mk1A but moreover, as long as logistics is OK with enough personnel, M88 already allowed 10-11 missions/day from aircraft carrier during the Libyan operation for a full week and 5 daily missions in normal operations, thus Tejas Mk1A will also benefit from this! Good luck to do 4 flights/day with F414 or F110, it's their intensive use maximum, they assume 2 daily missions in normal mood.
I think that if Rafale is considered in numbers, especially with the serious offset, it wouldn't be a problem to have Tejas Mk1A benefit from the same stealth features Rafale has and that air Marshall SB Deo pointed :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndnE8txkk2k
So yeah, it would affect Tejas, but also Rafale and also India's defence capabilities, augment the logistics uselessly, no matter if Gripen-E or F-16V are purchase, they would do double job while Rafale and Tejas Mk1A have more potential at it even ending much cheaper.
Moreover, it's not a problem to investigate the HUGE records of LockMart or Saab/BAe when it comes to briberies but it'll may even become a huge problem to export either F-16V or Gripen-E : F-16 is 100% US, you need Washington to allow you to export and don't hope ToT! Gripen : 1/3 Brit, 1/3 Swede, 1/3 US.
So, many potential buyers like Taiwan, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Philippines, etc etc are to be excluded and so will be any market US or UK are competing too when a Tejas Mk1A as a 'baby-Rafale' would be a winner for single engined contender and once Dassault settled in India, there'd also be benefits for India and a package single/dual engine can compete too.
Another interesting point by SB Deo about weaponisation of space :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVN42sHCzX0
Now, have you heard about the R&D of Aldebaran space launcher, especially the trimaran version to be fit on Rafale :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldebaran_(rocket)
It'd be easy to consider other potentials than small satellites :
'Golden Eye', PGS (prompt global strike, MIRVs, small sat-killers, ASAT... and sub-orbital trajectories can surely be considered with bigger payload.
All I can see with LockMart and Saab/BAe in India is an attempt to prevent India from competing on the global market while Dassault has the contrary interest : too many EU nations are still US lackeys (although the 2018 EU environmental law with the chapter on aircraft noise is likely to... ban F-35 from EU skies! This turd is as noisy as Tu-95! And as it's official since May 17th that the building of an EU-army's on the way...).
But also, and you can be sure US DoS doesn't wants ANY country being able to challenge US air supremacy, especially at sea. Tejas Mk1 being already STOBAR-OK, so will Tejas-Mk1A. Any (pretty cheap) long version of Mistral-BPC can be fit with ski-jump, arrestor cables and slight angled-deck. A 245.5m pure aircraft carrier version culd cost about $800M with even 2 stories hangars. With anyone having aircraft carriers with cheap jet-fighters able to totally challenge F-35 and get power-projection capability, singing "Rule, USA, USA rules the waves" and doing the gunboat-policy on any small country not willing to bow to PFNAC/NWO/'Pax-Americana', let's be clear, opening the door to LM means that after 70 years of independence, India will again be colonised by UK's doppelgänger.
DeleteDassault to Bring Largest FDI via JV :
ReplyDeletehttp://thestrategictimes.com/dassault-to-bring-largest-fdi-via-jv/
Note one point Hitesh : in a former article comment, you pointed that Rafale's flyaway cost ended $98M per unit. Actually, you forgot a serious point : the integration of many Indian, Russian and Israeli weapons and of the Elbit HMD. Basicly, and no matter if it's some Dassault or other aircraft, the integration of a weapon on a modern platform costs about $100M but it's merely done once and for good (well, it was much cheaper to integrate the Mk-82 bomb for Egypt but it's a free-fall dumb thing). If I'm not wrong, there were near a dozen integrations. I have no idea of the stockpiles of weapons ordered on the contract but a SCALP-EG cost is €850k and a Mica about €1-1.1M. Visibly, the TDA (Thales) ILGR guided rocket (range 10km) has been added to Rafale's gear with a 12 units supersonic pod, meaning that by using 4 TERs, you carry 144 guided rockets with about double the range of US Hydra70 or Russian S-8.
In other terms, definitively, neither F-16V or Gripen-E are a better bang for the buck.
Now, as you explained the Chinese's "dragon's trap", I can explain the USAn "Eagle's Iron Claws" : once detailed, you'll see it can be better to be allied with the Chinks than with Muricans!
Yes mate I know that China is following American footsteps when it comes to the debt trap thing and its a strategic policy which every big nation does but seeing at Indo-China history u will see we can't trust Chinese ( we r not even trusting USA, they r just strategic partners and not allies). We can't trust China because once we called them brothers, our weak leaders have then UNSC SEAT and also Tibet but they backstabbed us in 62. They tried same in 67 but failed. America is just a way to counter China and gain technology for us. We are Russian allies and will stay same. It's a mutual alliance for mutual interests ATM.
DeleteAnd in Rafale I have mentioned the cost of weapon integration and the upgrades etc separately.