Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Lethe said:

Sorry, to be clear my point is that over the past thirty years it has not been flying in the sense of having airframes in service with each accumulating >100 flight hours/yr. Today and going forward, yes, the aircraft "is flying". As more aircraft are produced and cleared to full operational envelope, there will be crashes. This is to be expected. Elevating safety record to top priority will not advance India's interests. India can afford crashes, what it cannot afford is stagnation borne of unwillingness to take risks and "do". LCA was ready to fly for 12 months prior to its first flight but nobody was willing to authorise it. This is the kind of mentality that needs to change.



Tejas looks attractive from some angles, less so from others. I would not say it is a particularly attractive aircraft, but it is not ugly either. Lengthening the fuselage for Mk. 2 will improve the appearance.

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Aesthetics is a different thing but what i have concluded after checking the specs of this fighter jet is that it’s the world’s best in it’s category of fighter jets
The only thing I didn’t like was American engine only if India replaces American engines with their indigenous engines it will become one of the best selling fighter jets in the world and I think India can do that
India is buying 100 GE F404 engines for 83 Mk1A jets with spare parts so that they can continue to use these jets even under American Sanctions.

Chandragupt said:

Aesthetics is a different thing but what i have concluded after checking the specs of this fighter jet is that it’s the world’s best in it’s category of fighter jets

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In some ways Tejas is "more advanced" than e.g. JF-17, or F/A-50, but that is not the same as being a better aircraft, and in any case it doesn't really matter. India doesn't need the best fighter aircraft in its class, it needs an aircraft that is in service, produced in triple digit numbers, with fully indigenous technology/manufacturing pipeline. Preferably a decade ago.

Chandragupt said:

The only thing I didn’t like was American engine only if India replaces American engines with their indigenous engines it will become one of the best selling fighter jets in the world and I think India can do that
India is buying 100 GE F404 engines for 83 Mk1A jets with spare parts so that they can continue to use these jets even under American Sanctions.

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Unfortunately we are still yet to see even a hint of a credible roadmap to an indigenous engine. I suspect that LCA Mk. II and AMCA are going to be stuck with F414 indefinitely, not least of all because they have been designed around that engine, which means that any indigenous engine that fails to match F414 will be dismissed, just as Kaveri has been in favour of F404, when it needs to be embraced and improved upon instead. You can't take lab research and a handful of engineering prototypes and turn them into a world-class engine. You need to commit to series production, extensive and ongoing testing, iterative refinement, spiral development integrating new technologies as they arrive. The aircraft should be designed around the engine that can be delivered, not a (foreign) engine chosen to meet the aircraft that has been designed.

Ok some recent IN stuff:

The first ASW-SWC ship, P68 INS Arnala, was launched 20/12/22: The Anti-Submarine Warfare - Shallow Water Craft contract is for 16 small (~700-900 tons) ships armed with RBU-6000 and lightweight ASW torpedoes. There are two different designs being built by Cochin Shipyard (CSL) and Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineeers (GRSE) respectively. Arnala is from GRSE. Curiously the superstructure appears to be composite.




D67 INS Mormugao, second of the four Project 15B destroyers, was commissioned 18/12/22:




S25 INS Vagir was delivered to the Indian Navy 20/12/22 and should be commissioned shortly. S25 is the fifth of six Scorpene-class submarines on order. Photo is from the launch in 2020.

siegecrossbow said:

I’m talking about how the fence blocks the gun.

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Looks like it sure does. Regardless, it would surely give way after 2-3 frags lol.

Lethe said:

Ok some recent IN stuff:

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India really needs to make indigenous radar panels. I hope they do. Before that they can't scale up the navy quickly

kurutoga said:

India really needs to make indigenous radar panels. I hope they do. Before that they can't scale up the navy quickly

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INS Anvesh TD would be a testbed for the same.

Algorithms is software not hardware.

From historical analogy pov, I believe the above would be the same for future NGD/NGF projects

The USS Norton Sound (originally a non-combatant support ship as a floatplane tender) during the 70s and 80s, wherein it served as the platform to integrate and test the first iterations of both the AEGIS combat management system, the AN/SPY-1 radar, as well as the first prototype of the Mk.41 VLS. All these elements were integrated & tested together on this ship first, before being installed on Ticonderoga (and eventually Arleigh Burke) class warships.

Lethe said:

in the long-term I do believe that India's achievements will be more than sufficient to disturb the established powers of this world (many of whom seem to be under the illusion, just as they were with China, that India will stay in its box forever)

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The main problem is the enmity against China that many Indians have. My impression is that Chinese in general are indifferent to India but don't carry any real hostility. Meanwhile, the Indian govt banning various Chinese apps and raiding the Indian offices of firms like Xiaomi in what looks like politically-motivated campaigns.

If this pattern continues and if the gap between India and China remains large, then the West will be able to bully India into accepting prohibitively expensive defence imports since its domestic capabilities will lag behind for the foreseeable future.

ZeEa5KPul said:

I haven't seen anything particularly toxic from any members here about India; on the contrary, the toxicity is almost always from Indian trolls. Even were that not the case, why do you think India merits any respect based on the conduct of its supporters here?

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I created an account on a major Indian defence forum that I will not name here as a "balance" to this place. I left voluntarily after a few weeks. Not only is the quality much lower but outright racism was allowed and even encouraged. I saw moderators(!!) using slurs like c***ks and g**ks liberally against Chinese. By contrast, SDF moderators are massively respectful to a side that engages in little else than racialised taunts and low-info discussions.

It's a shame, because I think the topic of Indian defence is one of the most important among all military matters. You don't have to be a blind Jai Hind type to argue that India matters and will matter more in the future. So I appreciate the attempts by the mods to raise the quality of the discussion but as you correctly point out: it takes two to tango.


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