The point of view of a French forumer and his understanding of the situation (Translated with
www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version))
It's a good thing for us that Anil Ambani's business has fallen apart. Because he is no longer able to influence the management of DRAL in a bad way. Knowing that he managed to lose the important contracts he had in naval maintenance for example (the dockside maintenance of the ships of the 7th US fleet for example...)
Between Anil and his brother Mukesh it is a funny family story. They started out with the same money when their father Dhirubai died and the Reliance Group companies were split up. There was no will, their mother settled everything.
In the following years, they clashed in all areas. It even went as far as an unsolved murder attempt on Anil via helicopter sabotage...
Since then, Mukesh, the elder brother, has become the richest man in India with a net worth of 80 billion $, while Anil, the younger brother, has seen his personal fortune divided by 20 to be "only" 4 billion today, by dint of doing anything.
For example, in France, he had accumulated a debt of several tens of millions of €, I think about 170 if I remember correctly. Because he had not been able to pay 6 million in taxes.
He finally paid 7 million... the press used this affair to talk about "corruption", "conspiracy", "Rafale affair", etc etc, a lot of bullshit.
Dassault started the discussions with Reliance Industries Limited in 2007 with the blessing of the Congress party led UPA at that time, Mukesh being a huge Congress donor.
In 2011 creation of RATL between Dassault and RIL. Discussions with HAL stalled, and in 2015 endgame: with Dassault/HAL talks halted burying MMRCA.
Mukesh sells RATL to his younger brother and enemy Anil, who runs "Reliance Anil Dhirubai Ambani Group", or "Reliance ADA Group", or "Reliance Group".
In 2016, Narendra Modi decided to buy 36 Rafales from France. And to carry out the offsets, Dassault turns to... its partner ALREADY in place, which from now on will not be called RATL but DRAL, for Dassault Reliance Aeronautics Limited.
...And of course since Anil is a donor of the... BJP, Narendra Modi's party, hard right, unlike his brother Mukesh, and well it will upset the Congress party, which will cause the anger of the candidate Rahul Gandhi who will focus ALL his electoral campaign against the Rafale...
...In the end, the BJP will get nearly 80% of the votes and the Congress less than 20%, their worst score in more than 60 years of existence. Against the backdrop of the mini air war in Balakot, which called on Indians to address the problems of the Indian Air Force, galvanized national sentiment and, paradoxically, put pressure on the Congress party, which was accused of having held up the Rafale acquisitions.
That was four years ago.
The result is that Dassault has a free hand to invest in India politically, economically and industrially. To work the way it wants, and make its Indian ecosystem grow the way it wants. With hundreds of sales promises at the end of the tunnel.
Even if the Indians will have to pass the buck soon. Especially when France does not hesitate to have its Falcon 2000 Albatross assembled in India (originally 11/12, now 8/12 if I followed correctly).
So yes, DRAL will probably quickly become the best aeronautical asset in India. The industrial facilities are ramping up and even though we don't have any new satellite images we know from the press that the second lot of land owned by Anil Ambani of Reliance ADA Group is being put to use to build more facilities for DRAL. The extension of the cement taxiway, which is clearly visible, has demonstrated for the past three years that this section of land is intended to be used for buildings.
I think we will know more early this year. In the meantime, if the Rafale ISEs give complete satisfaction, we can safely consider that not only are these Rafales the IAF's best assets, but also that it will want many more, and that we will thus risk rendering obsolete any competing offer that, while having equivalent costs, does not offer the same functionalities.
This will eject Boeing, SAAB, maybe even Sukhoi unless they come back with an "FGFA" based on the Su57, which they already refused once. For LM, the F-16V has been finished for a while. And the F-35 doesn't mix well (in theory) with the S400.
So perhaps there is not much missing to force the last little Indian effort, which would force us to resize the production tool, and perhaps to cross a new threshold of profitability that would allow us to obtain those famous "economies of scale" that seem to work so well for the industrialization of the F-35.
Let's imagine an F4.2-equivalent Rafale coming out at less than $80 million flyaway, for example. Not least because of the reduced cost of GaN modules. This could open up many markets.
