Indian army 6 Apache deal - my views

With so much talk of the recent clearing of 6 apache ah 64 E for IAAC or Indian Army and seeing how many people have hyped it up like an invincible beast, I feel really dissapointed by the entire saga.


First of all i have always said that both IAF & IAAC should not have a seprate attack helicopter requirement as it leads to duplication of inventory which is a bad way of spending the limited capital and resources we have, especially considering the fact that we are importing the equipment and not manufacturing these ourselves.

I have long stated that IAF should give away their attack helicopter fleet responsibility to IAAC which is a global norm as mostly its the army which requires attack helicopter and not the airforce.

IAF getting 22 apache and then IAAC asking for their seprate numbers but merely securing 6 apache is just duplication of the equipment. Both have sane role and both forces intend to use it for the exact same purpose of primarily tank destroyers while supporting the IA in their advance or defence.

What is even more horrible is the cost of getting these helicopters. The recent clearance for 6 apache and support and infra came at price of about 930 million dollars which is just short of a billion dollars. This is the critical capital which the forces always complain about saying not enough budget for modernisation but then they are willing to spend a billion dollars on 6 attack helicopters.

I although understand that it includes spares and support and weapons & infrastructure development cost but remember this will never have a ROI if we just get 6 for IAAC & place no future orders.

930 million for 6 helicopter gives a layman cost of 155 million dollars per helicopter which is about 3 times the price of a tejas mk1a or even if we consider the 60ish million per tejas mk1a with support it still means for 2 apache we get about 5 tejas mk1a jets. For army its price of about 100+ arjun mk1a tanks even if we consider that each arjun costs 8 million dollars a piece.

For a force which always complains lack of money & holds critical deals in limbo, such kind of spending cannot be justified esp when our own LCH is not inducted yet despite the HAL repeatedly saying that it is ready for LSP.

#defenceglobe