LCA Tejas Mk1 & Mk1A - News and discussions

Why the US used F/A 18 SH in Syria (instead of F-22), and achieved one of the best high tempo mission in history of aviation.

Why MiG 21 were doing CAP missions on morning of 27th Feb 2019? And why French Air Force gone gung ho in Syria, but had to roll down high tempo mission within a month.

All your answers lie in it.

Too cryptic a post for its own good.

How does its answers any of the questions raised by @Milspec ?
 
Only when we have a private sector company of the size of HAL , this monopoly can be broken with competition
If not a private entity we need at least another public company compete with it to make them more efficient and cost effective. Again not just we have zero competition, it is also a single point of failure. If HAL screws up every other plan of armed forces goes for a toss. Just imagine the plight of IAF the very idea of being dependent on one company to deliver the critical equipment is simply nerve-racking.
 
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1) we didn't learn any lesson from doklam, 2017.
2) Nothing from Feb 27,2019 too
Now ladakh incident! After this year union budget only we can confirm that wheather we have learn any thing or not.
You are being unnecessarily pessimistic.
 
Too cryptic a post for its own good.

How does its answers any of the questions raised by @Milspec ?
These are not the answers, these are counter questions.

When even the USA, the greatest military and economic power cant afford to have their whole fleet with F-22 & F-35, how we expect this from a developing country?

And we shouldn't dream of adopting OrBat & force-mix of European powers, those are fcuking idiots (and i am not going to sugarcoat it), who never used airpower in conventional warfare in the last 50 years.

Even the French had to revisit their offensive plans against ISIS, within a month. Warfare is not just pen and paper, that 1000 F-22 or Rafale secure you a win.
Warfare is statecraft.

And seriously if we are going to waste flight hours of Rafale and MKIs on CAP or CAS or interdiction missions, instead of deploying on missions of air-superiority, DPSA missions, SEAD/DEAD then there is huge problem with IAF.

BTW, if Super Sukhoi still not taken off till 2023, Tejas Mk1A going to be more superior aircraft (generation-wise) than MKIs. Dream that
 
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In short , sab log galat, main jo kahu wohi sahi?

Just point fingers at the right people.

The IAF's responsibility is only planning and QRs. Their planning, as I've explained before, is second to none. The USAF hopes to get to that point, based on Roper's words, in 50 years. And their R&D QRs are quite modest, while their import QRs are at peak industry standards.

And even then the MoD tries to interfere in their responsibilities. Like how Parrikar tried to buy more MKIs in lieu of Rafales, to the point where the IAF had to publicly stop it. The helicopter scandal with its MoD-changed QRs is still fresh in the minds of the CBI.
 
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But the current government just placed orders for 21 Mig29's to be procured from russia at 7418cr, i,e $49 Million, are you insinuating that the All-knowing, All Planning IAF bought Mig29 at almost twice the price of advanced versions of MKI? That doesn't bode well for the IAF?

That price isn't unit price, it includes cost of upgrades, spares and ground support equipment. It's cheaper than the LCA contract.

Also you are confused about two different prices, buying from Russia to make in India and buying directly from Russia come at two different prices. You made the same mistake in the small arms thread, where you are assuming the $700 for made in Russia and $900 for made in India are the same. Their currency has tanked, nothing more. They can set whatever price they want for made in Russia items because because their stuff is already cheap to produce, but can't do the same for Russian tech made in India. You should read up on the exchange rate dynamics and how it affects contracts in the pre and post ruble collapse.

Since the Mig-29 upgrade and other contracts, including MRO and engine production, were signed before the ruble collapsed, we are paying the Russians based on the old rates. Which is why our MKI costs $55M while the new Russian MKI costs $25M. Since we signed this deal through a GTG, we cannot take advantage of the lower pricing, it would have worked the other way round if the ruble had strengthened instead, which meant lower profits in rubles. Contract negotiations were done using dollars at the time, so we will continue paying the same amount regardless of the ruble's price. Not to mention the Mig-29 price is from the 80s, with escalation added to it. Plus when you make in India, you are paying standard Indian costs to produce the same, you cannot take advantage of the Russian costs in any case. It's common sense, if something is made in China for $10, the same thing can't be made in the US for $10, the price is going to be much higher. So the $700 rifle that's made in Russia is likely being globally sold at perhaps a 50-60% profit margin whereas the $900 rifle made in India is likely being sold at less than 10% profit margin.

It's nothing strange that a Su-35 now costs $90M each in the global market, including spares, maintenance, training, weapons and insfrastructure. They are selling their originally $65M aircraft at less than $45M now, while their air force is buying it at $25M. The Su-57 as well was estimated at 80-90M before the ruble collapse, but now the Russians are buying it for their own use at $35M, although the international price could be much higher due to their class monopoly.

Following the announcement of a planned order by the Russian Air Force for 76 Su-57 next generation air superiority fighters, the price of the acquisition was reported by Russian media at just 170 billion - or $2.6 billion. This extremely low cost was met with much surprise by analysts - amounting to just £35 million per fighter where a price approximately three times this had been expected.

The FGFA R&D contract also fell from $5.5B to $3.7B due to the exchange rate difference.
[In December 2015] Russia tried to salvage the joint project by making India an offer to cut down its financial contribution from 6 to $ 3.7 billion for three PAK FA T-50 prototypes and technology transfers.

So in case we buy Su-57, we should be able to get it at a much cheaper rate than the Rafales even if the Russians add a 50% profit margin over the $35-50M unit price, but, here's the clincher, as long as it's entirely made in Russia.
 
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You are being unnecessarily pessimistic.
Am i?
What did we have learn after Doklam? The ladakh incident has happened with in a two years after doklam and we still dragging mmrca tender, only god knows when it will conclude.
 

So the first production of the Mk1a is due in 3 yrs from the date of signing of the contract. Which also means, the entire complement of 83 Mk1a's should be delivered by 2029. I wonder how does it take so long in spite of 2 lines established in Nashik & Bangalore respectively. @Milspec

Yet, according to some news reports the 1st prototype of the Mk2 is due to fly either towards the end of the calendar year 2022 or the 1st Qtr of calendar year 2023.
 
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As a war-planner, it shouldn't be perceived like - there is no solution.

There are asymmetrical war-fighting capabilities to be acquired which when combined with smart diplomacy & fresh tactics (dissuading/detering PLA attack via innovative means), the very possibility of a conflict can be postponed beyond 2025.

So, lets not approach the challenge of potential PLAAF aerial attack for purely from tunnel-vision of conventional "interception"
I am specifically thinking :

  1. Better Domain Awareness: Augmentation in AWACS fleet (widest gaping hole in our deployment; Even PAF already took advantage in Feb 2019 ) + Dense network of man-deployable Radar Meshes on Mountain-tops + HALE drones + Mini-surveillance drones + SIGINT + ELINT UAV's
  2. Defensive capabilities: MR-SAM + QR-SAM + AKASH batteries on all theaters of perceived conflict
  3. Offensive capabilities: Expediting the induction of Rudram + SAAW + Transferring Mig29K's from IN to IAF (as @raghu1974 pertinently mentioned, that's more than 2 fully-functioning squadrons) + Equipping all Mig 29's & SU30 MKI's with I-Derby ER & Brahmos-A + Inducting Equipping LCA with I-Derby ER & Astra MK2 & ASRAAM or MICA + Inducting fleet of more Harpy drones + Predator variants + Armed Rustom variants etc.
All of the above can achieved within 3-4 years, without burning the bank.

I have intentionally skipped all the things IN & IA can/will do to deter the very potential of PLA invasion (beyond the scope of thread).

All of those are being done, but none of them are the solution to solving the problem of missing LCAs. Also, the LCAs are needed for the Pak border since the time to react is very low as the bases are just 100-150Km away from the border on either side.

The idea behind the LCA's design is to support our CAPs during an enemy attack. So its all about how quickly they can be scrambled. The Mig-21 takes 1.5 min, LCA will take 2.5-3 min, a twin engine jet takes 5 min.

If a JF-17 is 50Km away from the border, it can cross it within 3-4 min. So that's the time you have to scramble your aircraft and meet it in the numbers needed. Pretty much everything you have mentioned doesn't help counter this. Only the Mig-21, LCA and other single engine jets can.

So if a JF-17 is ready to fire 100Km standoff weapons at our bases that are 100Km away from our own border, then by the time the it covers that distance of 50Km and is ready to fire its bomb, the Mig-21 will be engaging it, LCA will be at altitude facing it, while any twin engine jet will still be taxing towards the runway. Nothing beats the Mig-21 in this mission, while the LCA is the minimum necessary to pull this off. Whereas the twin engine jet is a sitting duck.

Based on the points you have brought up, 1 is what we generally need anyway. 2 will still have blindspots. 3 doesn't help with the IAF's neeed for QRA.

We need Mk1A at the Pak border and we need the extra persistence MWF at the Chinese border for QRA. Right now we are using Mig-21s and Mirage 2000s at both borders.

The alternative is to quickly induct second-hand single-engine jets, but there's nothing available that's immediately able to stand up to the brute capabilities of an AESA-equipped JF-17 with a long range BVR missile, the alternatives are all without AESAs and PL-15/Meteor class weapons. The Gripen E, F-16V and LCA Mk1A are what we need in this class, and none of them operationally exist as of today, and the J-10C is not available. Hence there is no immediate solution until 2024-25, even if all three points you mentioned are carried out to a tee.
 
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Am i?
What did we have learn after Doklam? The ladakh incident has happened with in a two years after doklam and we still dragging mmrca tender, only god knows when it will conclude.
We lost at the negotiating table at doklam. And we completely stopped pla. Objectively there was nothing to learn from doklam. And this time we are playing like the Chinese do. By making our demands as aggressive as theirs. Mmrca is something only the government knows when they will initiate...
 
All of those are being done, but none of them are the solution to solving the problem of missing LCAs. Also, the LCAs are needed for the Pak border since the time to react is very low as the bases are just 100-150Km away from the border on either side.

The idea behind the LCA's design is to support our CAPs during an enemy attack. So its all about how quickly they can be scrambled. The Mig-21 takes 1.5 min, LCA will take 2.5-3 min, a twin engine jet takes 5 min.

If a JF-17 is 50Km away from the border, it can cross it within 3-4 min. So that's the time you have to scramble your aircraft and meet it in the numbers needed. Pretty much everything you have mentioned doesn't help counter this. Only the Mig-21, LCA and other single engine jets can.

So if a JF-17 is ready to fire 100Km standoff weapons at our bases that are 100Km away from our own border, then by the time the it covers that distance of 50Km and is ready to fire its bomb, the Mig-21 will be engaging it, LCA will be at altitude facing it, while any twin engine jet will still be taxing towards the runway. Nothing beats the Mig-21 in this mission, while the LCA is the minimum necessary to pull this off. Whereas the twin engine jet is a sitting duck.

Based on the points you have brought up, 1 is what we generally need anyway. 2 will still have blindspots. 3 doesn't help with the IAF's neeed for QRA.

We need Mk1A at the Pak border and we need the extra persistence MWF at the Chinese border for QRA. Right now we are using Mig-21s and Mirage 2000s at both borders.

The alternative is to quickly induct second-hand single-engine jets, but there's nothing available that's immediately able to stand up to the brute capabilities of an AESA-equipped JF-17 with a long range BVR missile, the alternatives are all without AESAs and PL-15/Meteor class weapons. The Gripen E, F-16V and LCA Mk1A are what we need in this class, and none of them operationally exist as of today, and the J-10C is not available. Hence there is no immediate solution until 2024-25, even if all three points you mentioned are carried out to a tee.
Whats the reaction time for Mig31, Gripen & F16?
We lost at the negotiating table at doklam. And we completely stopped pla. Objectively there was nothing to learn from doklam. And this time we are playing like the Chinese do. By making our demands as aggressive as theirs. Mmrca is something only the government knows when they will initiate...
My point is even after the doklam incident we have taken Chinese intentions lightly, and we didn't learn any lessons in Doklam or previous salami slicing incident.
 
ErtAiboUwAEOaaT

 
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Whats the reaction time for Mig31, Gripen & F16?

2-3 min for SE and 5 min for TE. It's because the engine is started sequentially in TE and not together at once. It's 1.5 min for Mig-21 because the engine can be started even without the pilot due to its inlet design.

Mig-31 is used to intercept bombers.
 
As far as I know, we have had no problems with the pace of our missions in the Middle East. Do you have a link to justify your statement?
Are you seriously asking? you guys abdicated your duty toward citizens to USA. While blaming the USA in NATO.

Chammal: assessment of the French engagement​


The Chammal force is contributing to both aspects of the coalition’s action: the air campaign and training the Iraqi armed forces. Nearly half of the trainees enlisted in the ICTS since March 2015 have been trained by the French armed forces.
Since the intensification of the air strikes began on 15th November 2015, France has doubled its number of air sorties (63 per week on average), representing 44% of the coalition’s total sorties excluding US air operations. Nearly two and half times the number of strikes have been carried out: 140 strikes in two months.
  • During the week of 31 July – 6 August, Air Force aircraft flew 802 sorties in support of OIR. Since operations began in Iraq and Syria on Aug. 8, 2014, the Air Force has flown more than half of the total 167,912 sorties.

And this is a situation when ISIS directly attacked France. Even in Kargil with third rate logistic of spares, India was doing 160-200 fighter jet sorties per week.

To muh mat khulwao, sharam kar lo kuch. And I am not going to translate it, because this post is meant for Indias, that where we look and see as our guiding star.
 
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Are you seriously asking? you guys abdicated your duty toward citizens to USA. While blaming the USA in NATO.




And this is a situation when ISIS directly attacked France. Even in Kargil with third rate logistic of spares, India was doing 160-200 fighter jet sorties per week.

To muh mat khulwao, sharam kar lo kuch. And I am not going to translate it, because this post is meant for Indias, that where we look and see as our guiding star.
The way you present the situation is bullshit. I'm not going to present an argument but the bottom line is that if the Italians attacked us in the Alps the same way the Pakistanis attacked you in the Kargil, we would do much better than you.
 
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