Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Well, Tejas Mk.1A is more or less Indian J-7E.

Overall, what Indian tactical order of battle may look like in ~2030. Note that it's without naval air arm, which will add another ~70 fighter aircraft(4+/4.5).

(1)Core of the force - su-30mki(possibly underoing super upgrade) - ~250. Of those, same two squadrons are Brahmos-XR capable.
(2)Tejaswaffe(LCA) - halfway into current orders, ~150 FOC aircraft, split between FOC mk.1, Full mk.1A order and two years of second order.
(3)Rafales(assuming big order will pass) - earlier deliveris, for a total of ~75 a/c.
(4)Su-57 (assuming order will pass) - maybe around 1.5 squadrons by that point, aka ~36.
(5)Tejas mk.2 - optimistically early deliveries, around 1 squadron operational(24).
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jaguars should be retired; mig-29upgs(50) - close to, but not yet.

i.e. ~600 fighter aircraft, majority of the force being 4.5/4++. Not bad, though well below authorized strength. Though currently there is a path on how they can get to desired squadron number by mid-2030s.

From 09.2025 can't see much chance for CCA, unless it's S-70.

Overall - this is a big force (twice the size any China's potential opponent in the west, i.e. Taiwan/Korea/Japan). Likely around 2:3 overmatch over Pakistan(i.e. significant, but not decisive). Very strong focus on stand off/traditional(high end) long range strike - 150...200 long range munition carriers - which is way over other 4.

Against China - hopeless, and would've required to change entire plan from scratch. Which they don't do, i.e. for all the saber rattling, it's rhetoric for population only - they don't plan to keep up with PLAAF, and never really did; only deter at strategic level. And thus any agressive rhetoric should be treated as such.
As with PAF - it appears that both IAF and PAF are more or less keeping status quo.

Lethe said:

The shift from F404 to F414 for LCA Mk. 2 was prompted by a requirement for more thrust to further evolve the aircraft to meet modern requirements: more range, payload, and internal volume for equipment fit. The choice of a bespoke F404-IN20 variant for Mk. 1A also reflects a desire for more thrust over the baseline F404. There are indications that LCA has struggled with weight management despite vaunted extensive use of composites. But whatever the reason, the point is that there has been a consistent push on the Indian side for more thrust, and that is where M88 falls short relative to its slightly larger and heavier contemporaries.

The

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variant promises to increase thrust to 90kN, which matches existing EJ200. That is significant because EJ200 is the other engine that progressed to commercial evaluation for LCA Mk. 2, i.e. its performance characteristics were deemed suitable. However, LCA Mk. 2 has also grown further in the fifteen years since F414 was selected to power it.

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First of all, I will re-iterate again that I am not questioning the metrics or requirement by which the Indians judge what they need for the task. Whatever their requirements are, they obviously have enough competences to select the hardware they need for the task at hand.

Having said that, what they want, what they need and what they have are vastly different considerations. The Tejas was the ultimate lesson that they obviously didn’t learn from. They designed an aircraft for an engine they didn’t have, forced to find a replacement that for now they can’t get in quantity and what exactly are we left with right now?

They want more thrust in the fighter they have prototyped and testing but are unable to get the required number of engines to have any meaningful productions. They evaluate an engine for a design that for the most part hasn’t left drawing board and there are no guarantees that by the time they want to produce said fighter, the engine will be available in the quantity desired. Even your statement about the selection of F414 15 years ago is telling in and of itself. The Indians are selecting metric and standards that they can’t meet, they want it, may need it but it’s not what they have.

Everyone has dreams and aspirations, but reality has a nasty tendency to smack us in the face when those dreams and aspirations are too much for the resources that are immediately available. Thus in order to reach those dreams and aspirations, using what is available to build, learn, adjust and repeat is only way forward. It maybe slow and tiring but at least you are moving forward. The Indians however again and again demand and expect above their ability to execute and we end up in this type conversation again and again.

Lethe said:

Fair to say that India has extensive experience with operating, maintaining and assembling Russian turbofans. For whatever reason, they have shown no interest in further pursuing Russian turbofan technology paths. Could be that Russia categorically refuses to entertain the kinds of technology transfer that India is interested in, could reflect a broader desire to reduce dependency on Russian platforms and technologies. Or it could be that IAF is unreasonably fixated on specific metrics such as MTBO for which Russian solutions are not competitive. I don't think it's necessary to invoke national pride or other emotive characterisations. Clearly the lines of communication between Russia and India have always remained open.

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Yes India has a vast amount of experience operating, maintaining and assembling Russian turbofans. Thus I ask why then would they not choose to leverage such experience? Also despite all the said experience they have no experience in the production of the actual core components which partially led to the failure of Kaveri program. The focus should have been research, development and indigenising of the these core components while using your experience with the Russian base, basically what China did, if the Russians were not forthcoming with a full ToT. Since the said research and development had to be done anyway, why start from scratch when you don’t really know what you are doing and lack the trained manpower to do it.

Again, wants, needs and haves, there is no barrier preventing them from engaging western powers and technology in parallel, which would have given them more insight anyway. You claim that I invoke national pride or other emotive characteristics, but that is exactly what drove them to start the LCA and Kaveri in the first place. Instead of spending 2 decades and millions fiddling around with the Kaveri they could have used Russian engines as a base and focus on the core technologies first.

Seriously after almost 4 decades what do they have to show for it? A light fighter that by your own statement is underpowered, an inadequate industrial base for indigenous fighter production, lack of core technologies in all key areas and more pointless PowerPoint presentations than they know what to do with. If they didn’t pride themselves and just did what China did, ie identify the key components, focus the research and build the necessary numbers of what might not be ideal but good enough fighters. Maybe today the joint programs and ventures might actually yield results.

But no they just want ToT, expecting the world to just give them what took billions and decades, the same decades the Indians just F’ed around by the way, of accumulation to achieve. So no, the Indians have no excuses to give and should try to get whatever they can get their hands on and design around that, and frankly the Russians are their best bet even if they have to pay through the root for it.

Lastly, the JF-17 should always be a reminder to the Indians what they could have had. A fighter that is produced at scale, ‘cheap’, good enough for the job and is iterative with each block. The Pakistanis didn’t really had the choice, they took what their resources allowed and moved forward one painful step at a time.

johncliu88 said:

Even Indian will most like to purchase more Rafales, but Dassault's production capability is quite questionable. Just learned from the France military thread that Dassault will increase Rafales' production to 30 planes per year to meet the export quantity. I just wonder if Indian places an order now, when they will have the planes delivered.

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The 26 Rafales on order for the Indian Navy are scheduled to be delivered 2028-2031, so any additional orders for the IAF would come after that. In light of Dassault's current order backlog, I doubt they have any creative levers left to pull to accelerate delivery. A large order would likely be majority executed on a domestic assembly line, though of course many key components would still be coming from France and subject to supply chain limitations there.

Between negotiation, planning and execution, a large Rafale contract as currently appears to be favoured would likely run the entirety of the 2030s, which is why I don't think it's such a great idea. Large-scale acquisition of Rafale made sense on the original MMRCA schedule. Deliveries beginning by 2017 and wrapping up by 2030 with >200 aircraft delivered between IAF and IN? Fantastic, if only the budget had been available. But commencing deliveries in early 2030s? Rafale is a superb aircraft, but it belongs to an era that is drawing to a close and there are better options available in that timeframe, i.e. Su-57M. There is nothing to be done about LCA -- however inadequate and egregiously late, it is nonetheless essential.