For those who're still hopeful of IAF acquiring F-35As, well the LockMart delegation visit that was just about to happen in India to make a formal proposal has now been postponed. Any guesses why
after Rus visit maybe.For those who're still hopeful of IAF acquiring F-35As, well the LockMart delegation visit that was just about to happen in India to make a formal proposal has now been postponed. Any guesses why
Perhaps for the first time in history, both the Americans and Russians are vying to sell us their top of the line jets. For the very first time. Recall how the US offered us F-5s vs the F-104s the IAF asked for in the 1960s. We'd be fools if we didn't try to negotiate on opsec, ToT, weapons integration and other key areas to see how far they'd be willing to go.
I wouldn't say Russian equipment is bad by default. But the IAFs experience with the brand new MiG-29B in the 1980s should give us some pause. The same IAF walked out of FGFA not so long ago. There's been very little by way of production numbers, tech roadmap or lifecycle costs that's been revealed. Imo no country including Russia would part with source code for a jet that's at the start of its product lifecycle. The Russians have been known to renege on ToT, build times, cost - from the T-90 barrels to Gorshkov/Vikky.
The F-16 is a non-starter. Do you honestly think LM would insist on selling Vipers vs Russia's offer for Su-57? And F-35 may be a strike fighter but look at the jets it's replacing the world over - F-16C/D, F-18C/D, Tornado, etc. Plus it's sensor suite and EW is by far the best, esp against third-rate Chinese SAMs.
I'd say we must consider both jets as a discerning buyer. Make an informed decision.
Which ever way this is diced the IAF is in a soup. Not many FAs to meet our unique requirements & the few that meet it comes with its own baggage. As if that's not bad enough we've our own baggage too.
Recipe for disaster or Chronicle of a death foretold - take your pick but these aren't good signs or omens at all.
If it's any consolation, it won't exactly be smooth sailing for the Pakistanis either, buying the unproven J-35 (even if heavily subsidised by China). Frankly, this is just history repeating itself. GoI babus should have funded AMCA on priority rather than wait for no good reason. But India has made its bed as the saying goes.
It's OUT. Just wait for official confirmation.
Su-57 is coming in a G-to-G deal. Just wait for few months for the "official confirmation"
PS: DefSec has already accepted that a foreign 5th gen is going to come as a stop-gap before AMCA fully matures for war(~2040).
Su-57 is not ready for a deal in a couple of months. Only the 117 version with old avionics is ready for exports.
Anyway:
India to acquire 5th-gen fighters as interim solution? Defence secy says talks with partners are ongoing
With AMCA rollout expected to take a decade, Defence Secretary Rajesh Singh confirms talks for fifth-gen jets amid reports of Pakistan acquiring Chinese stealth fighters.
theprint.in
A decision is many years away, by which time next gen jets will have become available.
All it does is push the Ukrainians back, that won't help you control the air.
R-37M can't kill an alerted agile target.
Plus Gandiva comfortably outranges the R-37M anyway.
I don't think Astra Mk3/Gandiva will be ready in near future. Even, MK2 isn't inducted yet i guess. So R37 is a good option for MKI as of now.
Frankly I was thinking more in terms of the Chinese. The IAF isn't losing any sleep over the PAF. Let me so far as to say that if in 5 years there's zero addition to the IAF inventory ( and zero attrition as well ) & PAF gets another 40 J-10CE + 40 J-35 it still doesn't change the equation between us.
Granted we'd take more hits in Operation Sindoor like encounters or in an actual war. Our focus or in any case the IAF's focus ought to be China. If the IAF is good enough to take on China , PAF automatically gets sorted out just like if the PLAAF is geared to take on the USAF , the IAF is taken care of .
Benchmarking yourself against the best & upgrading yourself to match it solves a lot of pesky issues you would've bothered yourself with otherwise.
Stop taking these stupid youtubers seriously. They are always BS when talking about future because its all guesswork. There are no new updates in defense every other day, but they need to create content daily to entertain simpletons. Thus they make up shit.
Just go back and check videos from a few years ago. Most of them are wrong.
Yes, it absolutely does......R-37M’s launches outright force Ukrainian pilots to abandon their missions and take immediate evasive action........Its sheer range, speed, and kinematic reach essentially allow Russia to enforce a “no-go zone” in contested airspace............In effect, the R-37M gives Russians the ability to control the air over large areas by denying opponents the freedom to operate within its engagement envelope........even when it doesn’t score a kill, the threat it poses disrupts enemy sorties and degrades their operational effectiveness which is precisely the kind of air superiority and area denial it was designed for in first place.
The R-37M has more than enough maneuverability to engage and neutralize any current or even next-generation fighter aircraft....... it's very high speed, a large high-explosive 60 Kg warhead & an oversized seeker head gives it superior target resolution and lethal effectiveness at extended ranges......On top of that, its lofted flight profile allows it to optimize kinematics over long distances, which is a key factor in its performance..........Gandiva simply doesn’t match the R-37M when it comes to maximum range........ It lacks both the extreme Mach numbers and the high-altitude, lofted trajectory that give the R-37M its exceptional beyond-visual-range (BVR) engagement envelope........so, while Gandiva is certainly capable, it doesn’t outperform the R-37M in these critical aspects.
I always wonder why people assume it's bulk makes it bad to target fighter jets.
Like haven't they seen s-300 and its missiles?
Haven't they seen akash series and it's 60kg warhead?
Akash missile has length of 5.8 meters and weight of 720kg.
R37m weighs ~510kg and length of 4.06 meters.
Just him and defence matrix...
he has taken this information about astra mk2 from past year parliamentary committee report...
I see substance in his videos...nothing much to say if you think so..
Noted sir...have started understanding little of defence and weapons system since couple of years ago.
Because all the others you mentioned are surface-launched. When it's an air-to-air missile, every extra kilogram of weight matters. It needs to be carried by an aircraft, and it is a drag on the aircraft.
No parliamentary committee report said Mk2 is in production. Development trials -> user trials -> LSP -> Production order
Its likely in development trails. A long way to production. Even the defense secretary was saying that Astra is now delayed.
Then verify the substance. Where is this said report. its a public document.
Of course, its part of learning.
Screwing up the carrier program is not relevant to the Su-57.
No clue why people cannot associate things properly. Like claiming Mahindra Scorpio sucks 'cause Tata Nano failed. Like, what's the relationship?
It's already under captive trials.
My QUOTE was about people assuming it's not maneuverable enough to target fighter jets because of its large size.
And again, it's a big missile to carry, but it also give long range, has bigger seeker, had bigger warhead( bigger fragmented warhead).
I dug up and I found something useful related to what you asked...I am putting screenshot here ..I am not able to paste link of that report...please asses that statement and tell if it holds true. Thank you.
Attachments
Why do you need to "maneuverable" to target, you are stable while firing towards an extreme long range target. The issue is that the maneuverability of the fighter in any engagement will be limited to something like +/-3G due to the load limit.
It must be a mistake. There is not a single press release on the mk2 test firing. This has never happened before for a non-strategic missile development. We only have visuals of drop test from MKI.
Lets take another example. The video said Astra mk3 test fired. Its just wrong, only Solid Fuel Ducted Ramjet (SFDR) was tested from land which is limited to propulsion for Mk3.
Latest update here.
Any missile can do that, even Astra Mk1. They currently cannot tell what was fired, so they will have to take evasive action anyway, whether the Russians fire an R-27 or an R-37M.
Only the R-37M's burnout speed is high. Its speed will eventually drop a lot more than Gandiva at long range. Even though it has a larger seeker, it's not a full-fledged AESA seeker, so its ability to resolve a target and maintain track will be lower.
Max range too is higher on Gandiva. R-37M's range crosses 280 km only with an additional booster whereas Gandiva's been designed to do that organically. 340 km is its stated objective, it could even exceed that.
The main drawback of the R-37M is its significantly low G performance compared to smaller SAMs, and it can only engage targets up to 8-10G versus the required 12G. Furthermore, its not suitable for lower ranged targets due to its high burnout speed making it entirely unsuitable against fighter jets across its entire envelope.
Its found some success in Ukraine 'cause their jets have not been designed to detect and react to the launch until the seeker kicks in. The Russians have found ways to launch their missiles without alerting enemy RWRs and have effective EW to degrade Ukrainian radars.
It cannot be replicated against an enemy with an advanced air force because advanced IR sensors can detect the threat from long range. Meteor has a slow cruise speed of mach 3-3.5 in order to maintain stealth for that reason whereas typical rocket motors have speeds of mach 4-4.5, never mind a blinding speed of mach 6.
The IAF can buy it in small numbers for HVAs, but it won't replace regular AAMs.