Rafale DH/EH of Indian Air Force : News and Discussions

[Sancho]

Do you actually read French? Because I do. I know what he said, and what it actually means.

You have an opinion that's all. Again he confirmed his statement in later reports too and the authors of the reports confirmed it to Indian media as well. OSo your try to find an excuse don't get anywhere and has no meaning, just as calling it normal for the government to show preference for an offset partner. So don't confuse an opinion with knowledge!
What we know at this point is what Hollande said about the proposal and we would need confirmation or denial from people that were part of the talks.

P.s. the "rational evidence" part is funny. Good way to describe, lack of proper facts!

 

[Sancho]

So, you conveniently missed the part were Hollande clarified his statement after the original report?

Oh I didn't missed it at all and know, that he did not changed his statement as your own source shows too =>

In sum, Hollande is reiterating what he told MediaPart: That the Modi government proposed Anil Ambani’s name as a partner for Dassault in the Rafale deal, and that his own government had nothing to do with it. He has said that Ambani’s Reliance group was part of a “new formula” put forward by Modi for the Rafale deal. That alone would seem to contradict the Indian government’s position that it had nothing to do with Dassault’s decision to go with Reliance.

Hollande is not saying that India forced Reliance on Dassault, but that Reliance was part of an official government proposal, a “new formula”. Crucially, the Indian government has yet to deny this

I started is discussion saying its logically doesn't make sense for Dassault to obey any MoD 'proposal'

And that's the problem, you are looking at a justification for Dassault and refer to things that happend only after the deal was announced.

What you don't want to see is, that the issue has nothing to do with Dassault, but with the talks between Indian and French government in Paris! That's where the proposal allegedly happened, that's why the press releases on DPP are no refusal of Hollande's statements and that's what needs to be investigated.

- Rafale was already selected L1, for urgent purchase, it makes lot of sense to go for it again.

Again ignoring the fact, that L1/L2 only applies to tenders. The G2G deal is a separate new deal and the NDA government itself admitted, that there were 2 comping fighters! => therefore both should had been evaluated for the separate deal. You can't just deny that out of preference for Rafale.

- Every approval got ahead of the deal.

Yes, every approval "during the contract negotiation" was pushed through and according to MoD procedures.
But the question was, if there were approvals "ahead" of the announcement? So don't just follow the government's excuse by pointing to approvals that came later. It's important to know if IAF and MoD was involved ahead of the Paris trip or not and if there was an IAF request for the so called emergency, or if the government simply made it up?

- Why do you care if the current deal is 'bad' anyway

Because I want IAF to be capable to defend the country!
That's not possible with just 36 fighters and all the Rafale deal did, was wasting time and money, rather than giving IAF a useful number of fighters and our industry, useful techs and capabilities to improve! That's why I was for 126 Rafales in the MMRCA and against a bad 36 Rafale deal.

 

[Sancho]

https://www.thresholdimages.com/articles/french-dassault-pulls-out-of-fighter-jet-competition

@halloweene

And another chance for Rafale gone. I tried to get info's on the Swiss tender and Janes report from Swiss sources and media. There is so far no official or named confirmation though.

 

[A Person]

P.s. the "rational evidence" part is funny. Good way to describe, lack of proper facts!

Proper facts:

1. Dassault partnering with the Reliance group is older than Hollande's term as a President, or Modi's term as a Prime Minister
2. Dassault's biggest offset partner is not Reliance anyway
3. Hollande is only concerned with covering his behind and doesn't give a care about anything else at this point

That Reliance is "part of a new formula" is indeed factually exact -- the new formula being that foreign companies need to partner with private Indian companies for offsets instead of giving everything to DPSUs. That Ambani could have been listed as an example would make sense since it was already known Dassault wanted to partner with them. Again, Hollande had no power to choose the offset partners so whatever the discussion between him and Modi was, it wasn't about cronyism.

 

[Ashwin]

Oh I didn't missed it at all and know, that he did not changed his statement as your own source shows too =>

And that's the problem, you are looking at a justification for Dassault and refer to things that happend only after the deal was announced.

What you don't want to see is, that the issue has nothing to do with Dassault, but with the talks between Indian and French government in Paris! That's where the proposal allegedly happened, that's why the press releases on DPP are no refusal of Hollande's statements and that's what needs to be investigated.

I need clarification for following to continue this discussion:

• Since this so-called proposal is a G2G IGA there will be a record of it right? At least the minutes of the meeting is recorded I presume. In that case why all these journalists of both countries never tried to get hands on it? Why are they not seeing the obvious fact like you ! or are you going to make this argument in to a conspiracy theory with no evidence?
• Are you still holding your original statement that this deal is not under DPP-2016?

For a refresher, this was you questioning motives of Dassault back four years ago when they joined hands with Reliance (Different one though). So don't tell me <any private entity> need special under the table deal to get offsets. Dassault chose them as they wish even before MMRCA L1 win. [Thanks @Picdelamirand-oil for the link]

Again ignoring the fact, that L1/L2 only applies to tenders. The G2G deal is a separate new deal and the NDA government itself admitted, that there were 2 comping fighters! => therefore both should had been evaluated for the separate deal. You can't just deny that out of preference for Rafale.

Do you hear yourself? "L1/L2 only applies to tenders" and "there were 2 comping fighters!" on the same sentence. There are no competing fighters if MMRCA had nothing to do with this deal.

Preference for Rafale is my whole damn point. Going for a new fighter would be a bigger scandal on prima facie then choosing one originally selected by IAF and won the L1.

Yes, every approval "during the contract negotiation" was pushed through and according to MoD procedures.
But the question was, if there were approvals "ahead" of the announcement? So don't just follow the government's excuse by pointing to approvals that came later. It's important to know if IAF and MoD was involved ahead of the Paris trip or not and if there was an IAF request for the so called emergency, or if the government simply made it up?

Take a hike from your conspiracy la la land. You admitted paris was just a MoU like announcement, Now circling on the same .

They followed the procedure, which is what matters in the end.

Because I want IAF to be capable to defend the country!
That's not possible with just 36 fighters and all the Rafale deal did, was wasting time and money, rather than giving IAF a useful number of fighters and our industry, useful techs and capabilities to improve! That's why I was for 126 Rafales in the MMRCA and against a bad 36 Rafale deal.

You are basically saying IAF should have zero MMRCA rather than 36 by 2021. If modi would have canceled MMRCA and started a new one without urgent purchase in 2016, that would be the case. Exactly zero Rafales !!. And 2021 would have been that auspicious year where we would have signed the new deal. (given an optimistic timeline)

And this is no fun, you are rusty.

 

[Picdelamirand-oil]

The Rafale is qualified to the new F3-R standard

 

[Picdelamirand-oil]

Rafale is now the first fighter operational with both the METEOR missile and an AESA radar

 

[Sancho]

• Since this so-called proposal is a G2G IGA there will be a record of it right?

And you think it's that easy to get confidential recordings of G2G talks? It's the government that has to release info's and the lack of transparency is the key problem.
But you can turn it around too, Hollande has made an allegation and if he is not truthful, Indian or French current governments, could make transcripts of the talks available to the public and prove him wrong, but both haven't!
Instead both preferred to divert the topic, while Macron even said, that he was not in office then, meaning he was not responsible for what happened.

I am not even saying that there was cronyism or corruption, but there was no proper rejection of Hollande's allegation, that's for sure!

• Are you still holding your original statement that this deal is not under DPP-2016?

When did I said that? I said that the referral to the DPP has no meaning for the allegation, because the proposal in Paris is the issue, not the content of the DPP, that's why the press releases don't prove anything Hollande said to be wrong.

For a refresher, this was you questioning motives of Dassault back four years ago when they joined hands with Reliance (Different one though).

First of all, it was funny that pic linked that statement to somehow make a point wrt Rafale, although we talking about the Mirage upgrade there. Now you choose the same to say something about the DPP? But please explain your point, since I don't get what you are referring to.

Secondly, my point in the MMRCA was and still is, that Dassault must follow the Indian rules, that however as explained above and before, has "nothing" to do with the allegations of Hollande!
Moreover, recent statements of Trappier proved it once again, that Dassault has no interest in Indian rules.

Do you hear yourself? "L1/L2 only applies to tenders" and "there were 2 comping fighters!" on the same sentence.

Don't take things out of context. L1/L2 rules according to DPP only applies to tenders, therfore have no relation to a separate G2G deal, even more so in this case, since the whole deal was changed (lower fighters, no licence production and no ToT).

And yes there were 2 technically complying fighters, according to IAFs operational requirements, which are not related to the procurement policy (buy and make / buy).
Therfore, if there were more than 1 alternative, they should have been considered to choose the best proposal, at the best costs.

They followed the procedure, which is what matters in the end.

You know that how? Even SC is asking for these info's now?
Again, the government has not made any info's public (except accidentally), about the procedures. That's one reason why the deal is so shady.

You are basically saying IAF should have zero MMRCA rather than 36 by 2021.

Wrong, I am saying we should have followed what IAF wanted and if MMRCA was not able to conclude, turn to a similar alternative under the same objectives (126 fighters + licence production + ToT). IAF never wanted 2 separate deals, nor the risk of getting 2 types of fighters and most importantly, IAF don't wanted to wait for an MMRCA contract after 2020. All this is the result of Dassaults blockade and a bad deal in between.

 

[Sancho]

Rafale is now the first fighter operational with both the METEOR missile and an AESA radar

You could also say, Rafale is the only fighter that needs AESA, to operate Meteor. ☺

 

[Sancho]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1060854591170977792

 

[Sancho]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1060753793334173696

Unnamed source though

 

[Picdelamirand-oil]

You could also say, Rafale is the only fighter that needs AESA, to operate Meteor. ☺

There is no point in having a missile with the range of METEOR if Radar does not allow to fully exploit its domain.
I am sure that the Rafale can fully exploit the METEOR domain, I am sure that for the moment METEOR is not operational on the Typhoon, and for Gripen I am not sure that it can fully exploit the METEOR domain.

 

[Picdelamirand-oil]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1060753793334173696

Unnamed source though

What is the use of making comparisons between two contracts with such different perimeters, everyone knows that at the same perimeter the prices are not so different.

 

[randomradio]

What is the use of making comparisons between two contracts with such different perimeters, everyone knows that at the same perimeter the prices are not so different.

It's an article from Ajai Shukla.

 

[Himanshu]

Dassault withdraws from Canada’s fighter jet competition

Dassault, reviewed the draft request for proposals and determined the Canadian requirements for intelligence data sharing and interoperability, particularly with U.S. forces, would be difficult to meet, sources noted.

 

[Sancho]

There is no point in having a missile with the range of METEOR if Radar does not allow to fully exploit its domain.

Just that range is not the advantage of Meteor speed is and I highly doubt that the RoEs will change that much now. Either way, Gripen is operational with the missile and the latest radar improvements. There is hardly any doubt about Captor M anyway, when it comes to range and it's planned to be operational with RAF soon too.

 

[Bon Plan]

Delivering a few months before schedule can be a massive PR win for Dassault.

With clean chits from the CAG and SC, an early delivery will pave the way for more Rafales at a faster pace.

Do you think a first delivery of saying 3 Rafale some months early would have an impact ?

 

[Bon Plan]

Just that range is not the advantage of Meteor speed is and I highly doubt that the RoEs will change that much now. Either way, Gripen is operational with the missile and the latest radar improvements. There is hardly any doubt about Captor M anyway, when it comes to range and it's planned to be operational with RAF soon too.

A Rafale with PESA radar can fired a Meteor within its own radar range, and outside with the radar data sent through L16 from another plane.

 

[randomradio]

Do you think a first delivery of saying 3 Rafale some months early would have an impact ?

Most definitely. Since IAF's squadrons are down, early delivery followed by even a relatively small PR campaign will work wonders. Even one or two months early is good. It will help one-up HAL also, since they never deliver on time.

You will see why PR matters, read this:
No Early Delivery of Rafale Jets for India

The Russians can spin even on-schedule delivery as something negative.

Bureaucrats and politicians do not understand technology, but they do understand time and money. Even if Modi loses and Congress comes to power, at least the IAF will have some ammo to argue about timely deliveries of Rafale to squeeze in 2 more squadrons before MMRCA 2.0 moves into production.

 

[randomradio]

Centre submits in SC details of Rafale deal decision-making process

The Centre has filed in the Supreme Court details of the decision-making process for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets in a fly-away condition from France's Dassault Aviation.

The details of the decision-making process were submitted to the Secretary General of the Supreme Court on Friday in a sealed cover as directed by it on October 10 while hearing a PIL by advocate ML Sharma.
The Supreme Court had on October 10 asked the government to disclose details of the decision-making process for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets.

Directing that the information would be furnished in a sealed cover and reach the court by October 29, the court had said that it was not issuing notice to the respondents.
The court had sought information from the government as Attorney General KK Venugopal said the purchase of the French fighter aircraft concerned the national security and described the petition as a "political interest litigation" which had been filed when the government and opposition were locked in a severe political fight.

Addressing the court, PIL petitioner advocate ML Sharma had referred to the pricing of the aircraft that had been quoted at different points of time before different forums to drive home the point that price being paid by India was high.

He had taken the court through the history of deal initially starting in 2008, involvement of a corporate house before finally the deal for purchase of 36 Rafale aircraft in a fit-to-fly condition was signed.