Indian UAV Procurement Programs : General Discussions
- Thread starter Ashwin
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Iran/Houthis took out >55 MQ9s with 358s. MQ1s will be a cakewalk.
Now Hezbollah is taking out Israeli drones easily:
Not sure if the value prop for expensive drones exist anymore if the likes of Houthi/Hezbollah have no trouble, let alone Pak/China.
Better for Solar/mPhibir to take the contract to keep the cost factor low and attritable with mass production IMHO.
Now Hezbollah is taking out Israeli drones easily:
Not sure if the value prop for expensive drones exist anymore if the likes of Houthi/Hezbollah have no trouble, let alone Pak/China.
Better for Solar/mPhibir to take the contract to keep the cost factor low and attritable with mass production IMHO.
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Well Archer NG uses Austro Piston Engine which is an Austrian Company so we will still have to rely on foreign OEM for Engine.
This Engine Saga has to be stop or else we will always be relying on others and they will use you as cash cow just milk milk and milk.
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That's an old poster. Austro got bought by the Chinese so the engine was swapped out with an Indian Jayem/VRDE 180HP engine
What failed arm?
They're the ones who are developing Nirbhay series and Ghatak
They need to support industry so we can actually build a base, iterate and build better hardware. Rather than doing licensing similar to last 30 years
Else you're going to stay behind while countries like Turkey, US and China leave you horribly behind that you're hopeless just because you were chasing short term goals of fielding hardware quickly
Not to mention, Archer NG won't be the only participant which is IDDM
Exactly why I called it failed. You know how long Pak army has had Babur CMs in its inventory?
The only way to make indian procurement system successful imo is to bifurcate their intention into "giving the armed forces a capability" or "building domestic Indian manufacturing and support capability".
Both cannot be prioritised at the same time.
I take this tender as the 1st one. Because going for the 2nd one will mean IAF getting these systems 5 year late.
And it's a big deal imo
Absolutely irrelevant
It entirely depends on what was requested by the military
Kusha is failure because Russia had S300/S400 since decades
PL17 is failure since USN had AIM54 since the 1970s
Arihant is failure since US fielded USS George Washington in the 50s
See, it's completely irrelevant
Nirbhay was started in 2012 and fielded in limited numbers by 2020, after they switched the engine to Manik
Babur meanwhile is based off Tomahawk and far less capable in comparison, and Pakistan is now switching off to Fateh IV
Building domestic industry helps exactly in building capability of the armed forces, unless you're preparing the military to fight few week or days long conflict with Pakistan.
US against Iran which has non existant air defence and air force has lost 24 far more capable MQ9s in few weeks. Same would be us, except we paid premium and can't replace the drones easily
Not to mention, Indian military has imported dozens of Heron and Hermes in recent times plus 3.1 billion MQ9 deal
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Read when the Nirbhay program was first sanctioned. Nirbhay has been tested and retired. ITCM is tested and retired and now we have LRLACM in testing.
3rd generation in testing without active service.
Persistent ISR in Indian sky in peace time is the primary task of these 87 platforms.
Irrelevant comparison on usage of MALE UAV by US and our requirements.
And still Line of Actual Control today lacks persistent ISR from Indian Side.
In an ideal world maybe, not in a practical world.
The forces gave more than a fair chance to useless ADE with Tapas.
That's also on military who keeps in perpetual testing, and Pakistan unlike us didn't have to perfect on CEP, ranges, TERCOM and indiginous engines
Zorawar, NAG, Pralay Rudram among others are prime examples of mismanagement of the program.
Army hasn't even fielded a sniper since 2000s beside emergency imports of Sako
Coming back, Nirbhay was started aroubd early 2010s, tested started 2013, fielded in 2020 after Galwan and we switched to perfecting it further and using indiginous engine.
Babur was so perfected, it achieved half the range, 20 CEP and was a dead story after Ukrainian engines stopped coming
My comparison of Babur is infact about Pak being able to reverse engineer a system and induct it in 7 years and then test and induct it's upgraded variant in another 3 years and that's before we paid extra dollars to Russians in liue of Akula lease to get technical support from them to kick start the Nirbhay program, with all the experience in building Brahmos earlier and ADE still failing.
Sending 8-12 extra rounds meant for testing is not fielding a system.
Yes the armed forces are to blame, but not here. They should be targeted for buying Hermes 900 over Heron Mk2 in emergency procurement.
How can they buy a totally new untested system for a similar purpose and class for which they have an operational system for around 2 decades without anyone saying DhristiGate scandal at Modi!
Irrelevant and doesn't address what I just said.
Their military is more willing to induct immature hardware unlike us, especially army who has not run a single program well without requirement creep or difficult QR and then delaying induction
Nirbhay itself was inducted in 7 years after program started, and again, we also had to test indiginous turbofan
Russian technical support was their powerplant until it was switched off to manik
LOL everyone knows Pak's contribution here is the exact shade of green used to paint it.
China had Pak to give it intact TLAMs (or perhaps the US "donated" the older block for services rendered) for the control algos and H/W, and KH55s to reverse engineer the turbofan. India built its own IP -- far more respectable and establishes an institutional DNA of someone that can build something from scratch.
What exactly was wrong with Tapas?
They wanted it to perform 30k feet with 24 hour endurance while carrying few hundred kg in a piston engine, and then in emergency procurement bought Hermes 900 which was even worse and half the fleet bought crashed almost immediately
ISR being ignored for decades despite procurement of Heron Mk1/2, Hermes 900 and 3.1 billion MQ9 deal, while closing down development of Tapas and then making case for licensing again
That's your average development cycle
Strong countries can prioritize many things at the same time. IAF's mandate is to protect the skies. Getting the capability to do so by encouraging and building local industry is how strong nations do it. If IAF doesn't accept this role, it will forever remain mediocre.
Fortunately -- they've established their own aero design institute so I do have hopes for them.
ADE has failed to deliver any products to the armed forces in the last three decades, even though they had a head start in UAV development since the days of Nishant in 1990. The only success they had is target drone Lakshya. Nirbhay failed to meet the project requirements and was subsequently closed.
Developing a system is not an achievement, but delivering a product to the user is.
That's the choices made by politicians by following socialist institution-building models. By restricting private industry and separating functions of the military was a conscious choice. Its changing now slowly.
Hilarious, Nirbhay didnt even finish user trials. But somehow it was "fielded". Basic logic failed.
It failed to meet ASQR. How hard is it to understand ?