Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

ACuriousPLAFan said:

Well, I think the general idea is to reduce reliance on foreign components and parts for as much as possible, whether that be China's case or India's case.

Buying an F-16 is indeed more risky than buying F404 engines for the Tejas and AMCA. Although, when we go into the specifics, critical components of fighter jets such as aircraft engines and avionics are definitely more risky to be sourced abroad than, say, airframes and hydraulic systems that are easier to make and fabricate. Therefore, it is indeed imperative for India to seek indigenous replacement for these kinds of components as well - China has been doing that non-stop for more than 30 years now.

As an extra note, this forum is the Sino Defense Forum, and that much of our members have pro-China stances. Therefore, we have seen first hand and understood very well how dangerous it is to rely on imported components that are vital for national defense. Hence the responses.

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Stealthflanker said:

Does India really needs those AAM's ? Like they already have RVV-AE, with option to get R-77-1 if they want, MICA, Meteor and their indigenous Astra.

Instead of going foreign they should make more indigenous missiles.

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FairAndUnbiased said:

airframe is still the most critical. The airframe determines everything else: stability, how many engines there are, what the power of the engines will be, the intake shaping, the RCS, the possible size of radar, etc. You can have a good airframe with shit engine and it'll fly. A brick with a good engine is still a brick.

There are lots of tricks in airframe fabrication that are not obvious, like consideration of aeroelasticity (how aerodynamic forces shape the airframe, which in turn shapes the very same aerodynamic forces that the airframe experiences), minimizing weight and maximizing strength through hollow structures, advanced shaping techniques for advanced materials that do not like to be bent, precision welding tech for alloys that do not like to be welded, etc.

This is why when I saw that COMAC built the airfame for the C919, I knew the project will turn out OK. Everything else can be replaced in an airplane, but not the airframe. Changing the airframe is a new project and everything else has to be changed too, placement at minimum, scrap and redesign at worst. This is also when I saw the Tejas, I knew it was doomed, as its airframe is fundamentally a 3rd gen, F-5/Mirage style airframe with poor rear visibility and high RCS.

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Stealthflanker said:

Does India really needs those AAM's ? Like they already have RVV-AE, with option to get R-77-1 if they want, MICA, Meteor and their indigenous Astra.

Instead of going foreign they should make more indigenous missiles.

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siegecrossbow said:

Unless they go for American jets there is no need to integrate American missiles onto Russian or French jets.

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Abominable said:

I thought Indians were telling us Su-30s were made in India with full transfer of technology? Or are they only Russian made when they crash?

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Chandragupt said:

Tejas has smallest RCS among all 4th Gen fighter jets in the world the Mark 1 variant has RCS of 0.5 meter square which will reduce further in Mark1A
It's the lightest fighter jet in the world thanks to carbon composite airframe
It's 95% carbon composite by surface area and 45% carbon composite by weight

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Jason_ said:

You have some serious misconceptions about military aviation technology.

The difference in RCS between non-stealth heavy and light fighters is small. Frontal projection area is scaled to the square of length whereas size/volume is scaled to the cube, which means a fighter half the size would only have 33% smaller frontal projection size. When external weapons and fuel tanks are taken into account the difference further diminishes to be negligible.

Most RCS reduction efforts in 4th gen fighters focus on treating the canopy and engine inlets. Tejas is not better than any other modern 4th gens in these regards. In fact, Pakistani JF-17 and J-10C have DSI intakes which are known to be much stealthier than Tejas' pitot intake.

The use of composite materials do not decrease RCS. Composite conductors (e.g. carbon fiber) behave electrically like metal. Other composites (e.g. fiberglass) are radar transparent. Does that mean a plane covered in composite is transparent? No, in the same way a building covered with glass is not invisible. Rather, radars waves would then bounce off the highly reflective internal structures of the aircraft. Only radar absorbent materials absorb radar waves, and there is no indication that Tejas incorporate those in its composite surface. Right now, the F-35 is the only fighter publicly confirmed to have RAM baked into its composite skin.

Not all composite materials are created equal. The primary objective of using composite is to reduce weight, and yet despite allegedly having 45% of its weight being composite, Tejas has an underwhelming thrust-to-weight ratio <1, worse than the all metal F-15 in the 1970s.

A poor thrust to weight ratio could be explained by having advanced avionics that add weight. Sadly, Tejas lacks many essential systems found on competitor aircrafts. It lacks an integrated jammer, IRST, IR/UV missile approach warning system, towed decoy or satellite communications. Which suggests that Tejas either have low quality composites that don't save that much weight or have poor design that uses excess material to achieve the same structural strength.

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Jason_ said:

You have some serious misconceptions about military aviation technology.

The difference in RCS between non-stealth heavy and light fighters is small. Frontal projection area is scaled to the square of length whereas size/volume is scaled to the cube, which means a fighter half the size would only have 33% smaller frontal projection size. When external weapons and fuel tanks are taken into account the difference further diminishes to be negligible.

Most RCS reduction efforts in 4th gen fighters focus on treating the canopy and engine inlets. Tejas is not better than any other modern 4th gens in these regards. In fact, Pakistani JF-17 and J-10C have DSI intakes which are known to be much stealthier than Tejas' pitot intake.

The use of composite materials do not decrease RCS. Composite conductors (e.g. carbon fiber) behave electrically like metal. Other composites (e.g. fiberglass) are radar transparent. Does that mean a plane covered in composite is transparent? No, in the same way a building covered with glass is not invisible. Rather, radars waves would then bounce off the highly reflective internal structures of the aircraft. Only radar absorbent materials absorb radar waves, and there is no indication that Tejas incorporate those in its composite surface. Right now, the F-35 is the only fighter publicly confirmed to have RAM baked into its composite skin.

Not all composite materials are created equal. The primary objective of using composite is to reduce weight, and yet despite allegedly having 45% of its weight being composite, Tejas has an underwhelming thrust-to-weight ratio <1, worse than the all metal F-15 in the 1970s.

A poor thrust to weight ratio could be explained by having advanced avionics that add weight. Sadly, Tejas lacks many essential systems found on competitor aircrafts. It lacks an integrated jammer, IRST, IR/UV missile approach warning system, towed decoy or satellite communications. Which suggests that Tejas either have low quality composites that don't save that much weight or have poor design that uses excess material to achieve the same structural strength.

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kentchang said:

The GSLV has a similar weight problem. The launcher is 450 tons and delivers 6 tons to LEO with a specific impulse of 262s. The closest Chinese launcher is probably the CZ-3B at 425 tons delivering 12 tons to LEO with a specific impulse of 260s.

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