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valysre

Junior Member
Registered Member
The IAF's big problem with domestic procurement is the large 'generational' gaps between the fighters that are made in India.

The last attempt was I think the HAL Ajeet, which for some reason was procured in very small numbers despite decent performance as an aircraft, and before that, the HAL Marut, which also delivered decent performance. These two aircraft were close together. The next attempt that made it off the drawing board was the HAL Tejas.

HAL Ajeet and Marut were only a decade more advanced than aircraft that served during the war in Korea. Suddenly, there is a jump to HAL Tejas, which has several decades worth of advancements compared to the last time HAL had to design and build a fighter.

Compare this to SAC in China. SAC has had consistent fighter production all the way from the J-2 (MiG-15 license) [with J-5, J-6, J-7 in between] to the J-8 (domestic fighter comparable to MiG-21), then the J-11 (Su-27 variant) and J-16 (J-11 development, cannot really be directly compared to the Su-27 at this point).

India missed out on building several decades worth of experience with fighter aircraft programs because they chose to take the 'easy' way out and simply buy Western aircraft and now suffers the consequences. All countries with successful indigenous fighter programs (Swedes, French, Russian, American, Chinese) have a history of fighter programs going pretty far back, with consistent iterations over time. I think there is very little the IAF can do to really repair indigenous fighter design, simply because they are missing this experience.
 
FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
valysre said:
The IAF's big problem with domestic procurement is the large 'generational' gaps between the fighters that are made in India.

The last attempt was I think the HAL Ajeet, which for some reason was procured in very small numbers despite decent performance as an aircraft, and before that, the HAL Marut, which also delivered decent performance. These two aircraft were close together. The next attempt that made it off the drawing board was the HAL Tejas.

HAL Ajeet and Marut were only a decade more advanced than aircraft that served during the war in Korea. Suddenly, there is a jump to HAL Tejas, which has several decades worth of advancements compared to the last time HAL had to design and build a fighter.

Compare this to SAC in China. SAC has had consistent fighter production all the way from the J-2 (MiG-15 license) [with J-5, J-6, J-7 in between] to the J-8 (domestic fighter comparable to MiG-21), then the J-11 (Su-27 variant) and J-16 (J-11 development, cannot really be directly compared to the Su-27 at this point).

India missed out on building several decades worth of experience with fighter aircraft programs because they chose to take the 'easy' way out and simply buy Western aircraft and now suffers the consequences. All countries with successful indigenous fighter programs (Swedes, French, Russian, American, Chinese) have a history of fighter programs going pretty far back, with consistent iterations over time. I think there is very little the IAF can do to really repair indigenous fighter design, simply because they are missing this experience.
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If this is the case, and India still refuses to learn, then the Iranian subsonic stealth striker is going to be flying before AMCA and Iran will have 5th gen before India.
 
Gloire_bb

Gloire_bb

Captain
Registered Member
yungho said:
It's a time issue for India. I'm personally optimistic and won't look down on India and programs like the AMCA because it's a matter of survival. If the country cannot get projects like that across the finish line, it's a negative signal about the country as a whole not just it's MIC.
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My 5 cents is that problem is they're exactly not a matter of survival.

India always has "better export" option, and its survival as a country isn't threatened by lack of fighters.
 
Gloire_bb

Gloire_bb

Captain
Registered Member
FighterHead said:
The Su 57 are still not ready and if we take its current configuration, it is not much better then the rafale.
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French indeed try to sell it this way(as do swedes; what choice do they have?), but if you are bought into it, you're the root of your own problems.

Twice so because it is french, I e you knew what you signed up for.

There's at least some merit, however questionable, when 4.5 gen aircraft are pitched against other 5 gen; the latter come with some sacrifices due to a conceptual switch.

Against su-57 in particular, any preceding gen fighter aircraft is massively worse in-literally-every-single-way.
FighterHead said:
Lack of Critical Tech Transfers: One of the main demands was the ability to independently upgrade and maintain the aircraft, which required access to sensitive source codes. We had asked for 100% ToT. Russia repeatedly refused to share this information unless India increased its financial contribution(to upto 7 billion dollars for R&D alone, dont forget India would have to spend a whopping
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to get 144 aircrafts), which was a non-starter for India’s long-term self-reliance goals and also hard to finance.
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I.e. rafale price(without tot) for concurrent tot. Which is called sharing the burden.

Otherwise, Russia shouldered 100% of burden, and it doesn't need India for anything in the project. Why the tech transfer?

If India though that 5th gen tech can be obtained just for token money - what to say; 36, 1990s aircraft, outdated from birth, is your reality.
As is inability to finish even first truly operational Tejas. China, in the meantime, moved from struggling with J-7 to J-36/50.

And this also is a result of India not really caring. Of course, other countries execute just because it's normal to produce results for investment (Korea for example), but India doesn't.
 
V

valysre

Junior Member
Registered Member
FairAndUnbiased said:
If this is the case, and India still refuses to learn, then the Iranian subsonic stealth striker is going to be flying before AMCA and Iran will have 5th gen before India.
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It may actually be that bad. Another big problem is that despite domestic rhetoric to the opposite, the IAF and domestic suppliers don't really see an existential threat from China, Pakistan, etc.. The result is a very haphazard and frankly lazy strategy that gives no thought to whether a procurement attempt will fall flat on its face, deliver a decade too late, or any of the various problems that Indian procurement programs seem to face.
 
FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
valysre said:
It may actually be that bad. Another big problem is that despite domestic rhetoric to the opposite, the IAF and domestic suppliers don't really see an existential threat from China, Pakistan, etc.. The result is a very haphazard and frankly lazy strategy that gives no thought to whether a procurement attempt will fall flat on its face, deliver a decade too late, or any of the various problems that Indian procurement programs seem to face.
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The saddest part is, HAL should not be this bad. India got its start manufacturing aircraft under the British Empire. HAL was already building fighters in WW2 and manufactured its first jet engine in 1957. There is no reason why HAL should have fallen this far behind. It is the most extreme incompetence.
 
V

valysre

Junior Member
Registered Member
FairAndUnbiased said:
The saddest part is, HAL should not be this bad. India got its start manufacturing aircraft under the British Empire. HAL was already building fighters in WW2 and manufactured its first jet engine in 1957. There is no reason why HAL should have fallen this far behind. It is the most extreme incompetence.
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Exactly. It is because for 30 years, from 1960 to 1990, the IAF chose to instead of fostering a domestic production, to purchase foreign aircraft with very little-if any-domestic work done on these aircraft. The resulting gap in expertise is just too wide. If IAF had followed up on Marut and Ajeet like PLAAF followed up on J-2 and J-5, then the situation would be completely different.
 
F

FighterHead

New Member
Registered Member
I am sorry if tagging is not allowed. But i dont have enough time or mental strength to correct or argue with you guys. So again only focus on the points which are bold, underlined or italicized.

Michael90, FairandUnbiased, Ouguoh, Biscuits, Valysre, Gloire_BB.

All of you are very knowledgable and you have made some very genuine and logical arguements and I agree with all of them despite some of them having a few things wrong, but I wont be nitpicky about them(its just an online arguement) and I wont argue against you because the way Indian MIC has functioned, it is clear that it has been a disaster, marred with corruption and inefficiency. When you operate in such a manner, all the reasoning for that performance, whether valid or invalid,of which we have both, will be seen as an excuse. People like me cant do anything about it except argue in vain as the Indian MIC fails to deliver everytime(it might have improved in certain areas a lot, but still) despite taking many traditional, logical or novel approaches. They have tried everything under the sun and you will find an example of every kind of recruitment, procurement, R&D thinking and initiative you can imagine if you search hard enough. Whatever reasoning we may put forward, can be invalidated as an excuse as all of them ultimately lead to failure. We can argue all we want, but with only failures to show for when asked for results, we just dont stand a chance, especially in a forum populated by people who have a thriving defense industry according to their needs (majority of countries), even when we have some valid points. But i will say that i am glad that we still are trying and not giving up.

India, after getting the Nuclear bomb, has no need to see other nations as an existential threat due to MAD. Given the fact that India and nearly an overwhelming majority of Indians barely cared about the Military before we had the nuclear bomb (caring when a war starts does not count), to think that we would care more about it after getting the MAD capability, will be wrong. We are just too diverse to collectively give two shits about things like military. This was a major reason why we got invaded again and again.
The main reason India seems to still try its hands at military research even now after getting the MAD capability is not because it wants to safeguard itself form its neighbours. Of course that can always be a reason, but nowadays, the 5th gen jets, the SSBNs, the BMD systems, Space capabilties, chips and manufacturing, all of them point to one thing, which is that India has aims of becoming a Superpower (or) atleast an Independent pole of the upcoming Multipolar world (sure many would laugh or joke about it, but thats true for everything related to us nowadays)
Nearly every country is ready to provide us with the weapons we want, we can sell ourselves to USA and get hundreds of F-35 (or) we can join the ongoing GCAP or FCAS 6th gen programs as they are willing to let us in. USA is providing australia with SSBN, so why dont we just do the same. Give some bases to USA on Indian territory and get those advanced platforms easily. All the BMD and space capabilities, everything is already available in the west and Russia. We dont even export a lot of defense equipment anyways, so it not like our economy will take a hit if we stopped with our initiatives.
But we dont stop with all of these initiatives, as doing anything i mentioned above, no matter how good or beneficial, will always be seen as taking one step backwards toward the Superpower dream. As you guys said already, no nation will ever provide us with everything i.e 100% Tech transfer aint happening and we were given a reality check by the Russians in the FGFA program.
Sure, we can always aim lower to get some 'smaller' critical things others will share, even at a higher price, but we dont do that. That can be said to be a bad mentality and i agree with that.
In the pursuit of this dream, we are doing what can and cannot be done. India as a nation has always dreamt big, and as such we have had grand successes and failures. We dreamt of a space program when a vast majority of our country did not have clean drinking water and the ability to read. Our dreams are and always will be called delusional, it does not matter whether we fail or succeed. Part of that criticism can be rightly blamed on us for not working hard enough or doing things in a fashion which is bound to fail.
The Indian MIC is often rightly criticized for its over-ambition and for pursuing initiatives in a fashion that are likely to falter, whether in research, procurement, or project execution. However, with our MAD capability and a rapidly expanding economy, India has the luxury of time to experiment and learn from its failures until success is achieved. In India, limiting our vision to small ambitions will only result in even less progress than we are seeing today. We must dare to dream big, and then continuously evolve to meet the challenges necessary to realize those dreams.

Still,
I would choose our relentless efforts, even if we fail spectacularly each time, over the stagnation of never trying at all. Failures are inevitable, and we should never let them deter us. It doesn’t matter if the world laughs or seeks to dehumanize us – we must continue to push forward. We left behind the brits in space capabilites despite them equating us to
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and killing us like
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.
We need to learn and innovate better paths in order to get to our dreams, not just give up if we fail to do so.
 
Lethe

Lethe

Captain
One aspect that folks are missing in this discussion about HAL and LCA and the post-Marut graveyard is that LCA was not developed by HAL, but by ADA, which was established under DRDO to run the LCA program, explicitly distinct from HAL. In practice ADA functions as a "dependent competitor" to HAL because ADA cannot actually build anything, while HAL maintains its own design expertise and interests, as seen in its proposed HLFT 42 which just so happens to tread on LCA's toes.

Prodyut Das was an engineer with HAL in the 1980s and had at least
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, has written extensively about the issues he perceives in how ADA was established (lack of necessary expertise and experience because most of it was in HAL and remained there) and run (at arms-length from both IAF and HAL) and how those flaws have shaped the LCA program over time. Alas this commentary is dispersed over many posts across many years so that I cannot simply find and link to The ADA Critique, but
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is probably as good as place as any to start. Obviously Prodyut Das' is but one motivated perspective and I would not suggest taking it entirely at face value, but I nonetheless I think it is worth paying attention to.
 
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Gloire_bb

Gloire_bb

Captain
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FighterHead said:
Even the Mughal Empire, while of Central Asian origin, embraced and integrated Indian culture, traditions, and administration into its rule. Many of the Mughal rulers (like Akbar) adopted Indian customs, married Indian princesses, and promoted local culture and traditions.
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Also i'd add that Afghanistan was(and to some extent remains) a border of Indian cultural sphere.
Chinese states and empires were often created from beyond(at least back then). It didn't make China anything less; it doesn't do India lesser either.
 
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