General Atomics MQ-9B SkyGuardian/SeaGuardian Drone for the Indian Armed Forces

Ashwin said:
It’s interesting how this “planted” news woke up confirmation bias of almost everyone. Nationalist (Default settings socialist America bad education), Leftist (obviously) and the desi boys who wants everything indian (disregarding the fact that anything comparable is 5-10 years away). Everyone was ready to say “told you so”. It was a perfect propaganda defused by appropriate speedy response.

It also points out the fact that there is no “American default good” crowd in india. Its like everyone is taking the hard pill. Proximity to US is inevitable.
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There will always be a trust deficit between the US and India. Even disregarding history, India has great power ambitions that will eventually run counter to America's desire to preserve its global hegemony. I'm an American and I would love both countries to be firm allies but I just don't see that happening unless India submits itself to America like the UK or Japan.

I also don't think its unreasonable to want domestic options for defense. India has been working on this tech for decades at this point with little to show. Even countries like Turkey and Iran are able to manufacture comparable platforms (even if the electronic systems on board might not be all the way there).
 
randomradio said:
It's the opposite. It's a very cheap option for maritime surveillance, we don't have enough assets already.
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we already have P8 's , if we could procure drones locally even with lesser endurance that would have been good enuf. For monitoring seas it looks like an expensive option, on the border no doubt these can do a great job.

Military will always ask for the sky, there needs to be some level headed thinking required when we keep spending more on purchases than on our R&D programs.
 
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jetray said:
we already have P8 's , if we could procure drones locally even with lesser endurance that would have been good enuf. For monitoring seas it looks like an expensive option, on the border no doubt these can do a great job.
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Yeah, that's what Tapas is for. The navy is interested in it.

It's unclear what sort of restrictions the IA and IAF versions face. Like ATAGS, it seems to have not met some high-altitude requirements which the navy doesn't face.
 
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jetray said:
we already have P8 's , if we could procure drones locally even with lesser endurance that would have been good enuf. For monitoring seas it looks like an expensive option, on the border no doubt these can do a great job.

Military will always ask for the sky, there needs to be some level headed thinking required when we keep spending more on purchases than on our R&D programs.
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Actually, Military is not asking for sky. Not at all. Drones are cheaper means to surveil massive amount of water around us. This drone is very good, it can deploy sonobouys. It can help Indian navy to quickly deal with threats targeting our carrier group by launching a SMART missile on the location which this drone detects a submarine in. This drone system and SMART make a very competent combo.
 
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Ashwin said:
This is the main use case of UAVs like MQ-9, not to risk human lives.
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Also being such an expendable asset , its possibly better to invest in own tech & gradually mature that tech over the years, rather than buying at extremely inflated pricing.
 
marich01 said:
Also being such an expendable asset , its possibly better to invest in own tech & gradually mature that tech over the years, rather than buying at extremely inflated pricing.
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We were investing for the last two decades. From the times of NAL's LCRA. There is no lack of will.

When a failure of such a grand scale occurs, it opens the way for imports. Services cannot wait indefinitely for DRDO.

Talking about expendable assets, we still use banshee target drone. Yet to replace even that !.
 
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U.S. drone sale to India proceeds to next phase​

The possible sale of 31 MQ-9B high altitude long endurance armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) from U.S. firm General Atomics to India progressed to the next stage after a 30 day Congressional notification period concluded on March 1. The deal, pegged at an estimated $3.99 billion, was announced in June last year during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s State visit to Washington DC.


“The next step after the conclusion of congressional review is for the parties to agree upon and sign a Letter of Offer and Acceptance,” a U.S. State Department official told The Hindu. The procurement decisions and timelines were now with the Government of India, according to the official . With general elections looming in India, it is possible that the next steps will be on hold until May, when the elections are expected.
 
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