Its wrong to say that only rich fight wars. Most wars are fought to become rich. We cannot feed & get enuf resources for our huge population if we keep constantly moaning about being poor. Need to maximize our abundant resources that is population to our advantage. At this rate we will never progress while whole world is competing for resources and we are just cribbing about being poor and doing nothing.
Military Mediocrity - Who Will Bell the Cat?
- Thread starter Saaho
- Start date
Lets take a look at a number of problems.
1. Buying jets : Why the *Fluff* we had to do this dance of 7-8 vendors to buy a god damn jet? IAF wanted more Mirages. Dassault was ready to provide but MoD delayed the tenders. We could have thrown the tender out and just went and bought the damn planes from Dassault. We ended up buying way more expensive jets! We don't have any industry to absorbe the tech YET our procurement laws have tech transfer!
2. FGFA : We wasted 100 million plus of FGFA project. We could have waited for Russia to finish the damn plane and then bought a few. But NOOOOO! We want Tech Partnership -- though we are no where near to produce even a Su30MKI type plane whose Tech Transfer happened in 1990s - 2000s. Totally opposite to money issue.
3. Pathetic build quality of small fire arms : We could have licensed one of the mature AK design (which we ended up doing finally) and mass produced it and called it a day. But NOOOOO!!! Army brass wanted to do 5.56 caliber rifle which apparently was a new in-fashion thing. OFB wanted to experiment with transparent magazines --slots be damned! And ADRE wanted to experiment the chimerization of rifles. We ended up with INSAS. Need I say more?
4. A plane whose development cycle is much older than I am : I mean, you wanted a plane okay... you wanted it to have the latest and greatest fly by wire ja-jings. Okay. BUT WHY THE HELL YOU WANT TO DO AB-INITIO ENGINE TOO! Where is frugality in that? Even likes of sweden do not try it. Should have taken a hint! And why the hell you don't let a established partner help you in project planning or management?
5. Admiral Pennywise Dollarfool Carrier : Yeah real cool deal. Billion in discount! Except Russia swindled us hard. Should have seen it coming miles away from. We worked with Russians all the time.
The amount of money we have wasted on weapons R&D without any manufacturing is telling. We have science projects in the name of defence research. We have money to blow in "science projects" but NO money for real warfighting ability.
The US was the richest country on the planet then. It was quite retarded that they waited until 1941 instead. You are confused between being rich and being relatively rich. You have to look at current wealth, not future potential wealth.
You and I know history and economics quite differently.
Oh, and India has complete overkill against Pakistan. The Pakistanis in fact openly admit to it, that's why they keep threatening us with nuclear annihilation every other week.
Here, this is their latest one. Perfectly supporting my argument right now.
Pakistan Minister Threatens India With Nuclear War, Says it Won’t Harm Muslims
In an interview with Pakistani media channel Samaa TV on Wednesday, Rashid claimed that Pakistan has very precise weapons which are small and perfect.
www.india.com
We are simply far too overwhelming on the conventional front.
There's not much to say. It's for the gullible.
A lot of the Generals we selected have significant accomplishments under their wings. They weren't selected just because...
Yeah, I know, that's what I said.
Huh? I'm definitely talking about something else entirely. Like there's no relation between what you said and what I said.
So lemme get this thing straight. Pakistan can threaten us irrespective of economics but we cann't do it because? errr? Seriously why cann't we do it?You and I know history and economics quite differently.
Oh, and India has complete overkill against Pakistan. The Pakistanis in fact openly admit to it, that's why they keep threatening us with nuclear annihilation every other week.
Here, this is their latest one. Perfectly supporting my argument right now.
Pakistan Minister Threatens India With Nuclear War, Says it Won’t Harm Muslims
In an interview with Pakistani media channel Samaa TV on Wednesday, Rashid claimed that Pakistan has very precise weapons which are small and perfect.
Also leave threats. When chips were down they came in and shot our airforce out of sky in clear day light. What we did? Dropped some bombs overs trees and went looking for holes.
Also, Heck Why cann't we pull a "Pakistan" on China?
I dunno what you were then talking about. The point was simple : We have military leadership which can't select its weapons right even the basic ones likes rifle and you told me some weird story about "Superpower", "weapon to doctraine" and "too far in future".
That's totally worthless.
It doesn't apply in our situation. With China, we are fighting for different reasons, like prestige and influence.
That sort of thinking ended after WW2. Now trade is a better medium to get resources.
In the future scientific development and access to space will become even more important. Humanity has access to endless resources, as long as we have the technology for it.
Yep. Stats and numbers are useless. Fiction is real.
Nothing in this quote is correct. The IAF themselves switched their aim to Rafale instead of Mirages. When time passes, so do requirements.
The jets we bought are way cheaper than the MMRCA jets, and for an older version at that.
Nothing correct there either.
FGFA had a lot of issues, including money. The MKIs are fine.
Nothing correct there. You can be sure the army knows what it's doing better than you do.
So you recommend half-assing everything?
Again, nothing correct there.
R&D takes time. But we are punching way above our weight class. Ask yourself the same question 5 years down the line. The optimism within our military industry is tremendous right now.
I don't know what you see war as, but in my book, we shouldn't fight unless we get the ability to fight just 1 single war and finish off the enemy for good.
I support doing that with Pakistan today, but not China. With China, we need the ability to accomplish two major objectives rather than a hundred minor objectives, that we may or may not be able to achieve today. One would be the liberation of Tibet, that's the minimum we need to achieve before we can go to war with China. The second would be the ability to walk into Beijing. Unless we can accomplish at least one of those, war should be out of the question.
This has nothing to do with will and bravery.
Even from my point of view pakistan should be our primary target. But our loudmouths in govt are simply becoming embarrassment even on pakistan now. The way they have gone totally silent simply shows the current govt has no idea whether on pakistan or china. I wish they can go past the temple & stop feeding the cow. Results of which we are seeing now is ringing alarm bells (...not coming from temple) & total BS (not coming from cow either)
We dont need to liberate tibet or go beijing both of them very hard tasks to be done on one go. We need to send a message that for any adventure there will be response. We need to push them back and restore the status quo, thats all we need do. Not doing so would mean there is no difference between previous govts & current govt.
Do you know why Pakistan still exists today?
It's not from the lack of trying. It's because we have been stopped from doing it, on multiple occassions, by powers much stronger than us. We still do not have the ability to say no even today. The only answer is we need to increase our own strength in order to accomplish this, and we are getting there.
I pointed this out elsewhere. What the Chinese are doing is totally pointless. As long as we are ready to go to war, say for example we decide to free Tibet, then everything the Chinese are doing today is going to be useless. Decades of salami slicing can be reversed completely in just one night.
We may decide to push back today, but have you ever considered that they may have the ability to take away Kashmir itself? What our real military capability is, only the govt knows. So you will have to trust the govt is making the right decision, applies for both past and present govts. The Chinese may only be waiting for India to attack first. The Chinese are in the process of finishing the modernisation of their entire army over the next 2 years. Which means, the forces facing us on the border are very likely to be a fully modernised force. Otoh, we have barely even begun our own modernisation. So you should also consider the worst case scenario for us, not just the best case, or what you think is good enough.
Not quite.
IAF after Kargil had quite a shine on the plane. It still prefers the M2000-5 when it needs to deliver.
If we had signed a deal back in 1999 - 2000, this entire situation could have been avoided.
Why did it never happen?
Because our stupid leadership went with multi-vendor tender (HA!). The RFI itself for MMRCA came in 2004. These RFIs were sent to (among the others) to Dassault Aviation for M2000-5 MK2. Dassault closed the production line of M2000-5 in Nov 2007 after delivering the last jet to Greek airforce. Initially they didn't even respond to RFI and that was a smart move. India could not decide on the plane till 2012 and deal could not be signed till 2015. Keeping the production line open for 5-8 year made no business sense.
So what was the reason that no mirages were purchased to replace Mig-21s? Indian leadership incompetence in purchasing. Nothing to do with money, just pure incompetence.
Lastly, IAF never switched to Dassault Rafale. Their primary choice M-2000 - 5 Mk2 was simply never offered by Dassault.
Thats exactly why we are buying 36 jets. When the need is for 150 + jets. Had we gone for 80 + M-2000 -5 Mk2 in 99-2000, we must have paid more, right?
If FGFA had so many issues why the hell go for a joint venture in the first place? Let Russia make a workable jet then MKI'ze that. Remember, we are a poor country with no money? Why pay for R&D --- which is always risky?
MKIs are a topic for some other time but surely their "ToT" never delivered anything.
Thats exactly why Army went from 7.62 calibre to 5.56 calibre and now looking for rifles which can fire 7.62 rounds. Right? Sounds exactly like a plan...
Did I miss that we are poooooooooooooooor? Ever seen poor countries do fighter jet engine research?
I am not half-assing, your charecterization of economic issues of India is what makes such research look wierd.
Oh yeah! Then tell us what is correct?
No. I will do something else. I will look back 10-15 years and ask that question NOW. 10-15 years back we were making plans of first flights of AMCA by 2019 or so. 10-15 years back, we were confident that we will replace the jet engine by Kaveri. Nothing of that sort has happened. They didn't even retry certifiation. 10-15 years back we had seen the issues with INSAS. Now we are asking Russians to produce AK203 locally for the forces. There were Amogh, Excalibar and what not in between but none of them inspired any confidence from forces. 10-15 years back a marine gas turbine based on failed Kaveri project was floated but we are still going to Ukrainian/Russian/European manufacturers for our marine gas turbines.
We have money to blow in these science projects but no money for actual capability we need now. What kind of logic is this?
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Our "stupid leadership" were following the law.
The French did offer the M2000. Right from the beginning. In fact, since the 80s there was a plan to manufacture 110 jets.
Mig-21s were supposed to be replaced by LCA, not M2000.
Please get all facts in order. Nothing you say is correct.
Obviously wrong. The M2000 upgrade that we got was negotiated at the same time, ours is more advanced than the -5 Mk2. Dassault had no issues offering anything we wanted. They even offered their full production line of the M2000.
Boeing offered the SH, so the French switched to the Rafale. So the entire tender was redrawn. By the time all this played out, the M2000 was quite old compared to the SH with AESA radar and of course the Rafale.
Tell that to your precious Rahul Gandhi. He ruined the plans of the govt to buy 90 jets for MII. GoI decided on a new tender because the opposition is anti-national.
What on earth are you talking about? We didn't go for the joint venture because there were many issues. Are you under the impression that FGFA is an active program?
The MKIzation plan is just license production, we wanted co-ownership, but that's off the table. The FGFA would have been a massive export bonanza for us, with multiple countries wanting such an aircraft over the next 30-40 years. We would have seen at least 400 jets exported out of Indian factories, apart from building 200-300 for ourselves. For FGFA, even the airframe was supposed to be different. Your understanding of the program is not enough.
HAL doesn't agree since they finished production of all the jets needed with ToT.
Yes, it is exactly as planned. Which is why it's being implemented. Doctrines change.
Literally no relation between what you are asserting and being poor.
How much do you think we have spent on all this?
I'll wait for you to get at least something right before I waste more time on ya. Cheers.
That does not happen. You have to fight skirmishes continuously to weed out your insufficiencies. Its like saying that I will not lift 10 pounds but I will wait till I can lift 100 pounds. Does not quite happen. You have to lift 10,20 and 50 pounds before you lift 100 pounds. Otherwise you never know what you were doing wrong. The art is to avoid falling down and keep war away from your home.
No, they were doing something else : Covering their hind sides. After Bofors no one wanted to be entangled in any defense procurement. Instead of fixing a broken "procurement law", they let the country down by NOT procuring fast enough.
Not during the MRCA competition. In response to 2004 RFI, they didn't enter M-2000 Mk2 in the competition even though it was a favorite of IAF. They were actually invited for M2000-5 mk2 fighter.
IAF primary concern was depletion of squad strength. LCA had just one test flight in early 2000s and Mig-21s and Mig 23 were due to retire. Mig 23 air interceptor and ground attack both retired in 2006 and 2009. This was the place MRCA was supposed to fill. It didn't happen till date.
Upgrade, remember that word. Its one thing to upgrade and another to keep a production line open without churning out fighters.
Please provide your source. You haven't shown one. And before you say that, no you are not a source.