Post-Ukraine $hit$how by the west, don't be surprised if we get thaads and patriots too. The Americans have realised they need huge production. They are going to double on their own arms production and double on promoting production in Korea and poland. The whole ukraine russia episode has been an eyeopener for the west when it comes to the quantity vs quality argument.
Trump Offers F-35 Jet to India in Push for More Defense Deals
- Thread starter Ginvincible
- Start date
Unless the US funds production lines in India (like they are doing for pharma), I dont see us becoming a supply chain partner for weapons.
Trump understands the need to keep Russia out of China's orbit. So he might be OK with us buying Russian oil and weapons. But he'd expect hafta from India at regular intervals too. Like Stryker, for example.
I doubt he'd make too many concessions on EUMA and other legal requirements baked into arms contracts, especially wrt high-end stuff like the F-35. So we'll have to tread a very fine line with Trump.
THAAD and S-400 are completely different requirements. THAAD was offered by the US after the S-400 was signed, but when the IAF asked for details about THAAD, it was for the BMD role.
Again, no. The IAF was very clear that they had no interest in the F-35. This was mentioned officially on two occasions. One, when Ajai Shukla wrote an article claiming the IAF asked for a classified briefing in early 2018, which the IAF denied, and the second time was in late 2018 by ACM Dhanoa after Gaganshakti.
What the IAF said is they will look into 5th gen when the technology becomes mature, and that their focus was on 4.5th gen and AMCA until then. That's also why they did not follow through with the varthaman Committee's recommendations.
The F-35 was absolutely never in the IAF's radar the entire time. Even today.
THAAD is available today itself. We would just be idiots to go for it.
Nah, the S-400 was necessary in 2020, Kusha is not expected until 2030.
Yeah, look at the date, they came running to India after the S-400 deal was signed. Anyway, the sticker price of THAAD is too much. We don't need it.
Here:
7 batteries for $15B, nearly a decade ago. It's unrealistic. And our BMD P1 is superior to it.
The IAF has already rejected the F-35, PAC-3, and THAAD. Even NASAMS. They have even rejected Israel's David's Sling. With American air defenses definitely rejected, the only possibility is for the F-35, but only if the MRFA and AMCA are not good enough.
Given the time it takes to develop and build an AAS with fighters, drones will take centerstage. So this argument was fine a decade ago, but now it's lost its value.
The F-35B is too expensive to be used on an AAS on its own without the support of a carrier, a proper fighter fleet, and AWACS. So countries are developing drone carriers instead. Plus the EMALS + IEPS option has given opportunity for regular fighters too. Check out Russia's new Varan family of ships.
The STOVL/VTOL concept on its own is good, but the problem is the F-35B itself. Sh!t performance, very low internal payload, difficult to maintain, and all that for a very high sticker price.
The F-35C can. But it's too heavy for the arrestor cables. The B is too wide.
In any case, by the time we modify the carriers or build a new one, we would have moved on to looking at next gen jets like the F/A-XX.
Lobbies will use 5th gen jets to criticize MRFA, that's all. The target isn't the military or the govt, but civilians. And the IAF will keep doing what it always does. Go for what they want, and not bother about all the noise around them.
I still think we are not quite there with drones doing A2A combat independently. Even the Type 076 looks like it will rely on GJ-11 drones exclusively for ground support roles. In the event of a peer to peer conflict and carriers start getting hit, I think there is value in a stovl platform that can be operated on cheaper/faster to build civ-spec ships converted into carriers. Something like the weird CSSC flattop China made recently.
I agree that the future is drone warefare but I think we aren't quite there and emals tech is still somewhat guarded to be available to all.
I think the idea is cool, its like the armata modular vechicle program but for ships. I doubt Russia has the resources to build these things in any significant quantity. It would be cool to see a mig-29k take off from a catapult tho.
what other STOVL/VTOL platforms are out there? The Harrier IIs are being retired by UNMC in the next year or two and replaced with F-35Bs. Same with the Italians. I'm sure the Spanish will make the change at some point too.
Existing F-35 operators plan on operating B from ships. Korea and Italy are on the way. Japan and Spain should follow suit. Turkey wants it too, maybe once they fix their relations.
But new ones, especially those without an F-35 as option, will have to work with drones whenever they become available. Unlike steam catapults, EMALS is a more realistic option in terms of getting an export supplier. There was just one source for steam, but EMALS could have 4, including India. And when it comes to firing off small drones, there could be more than 4.
Their defence modernization budget is bigger than the US'. Once the war is over, they will fix their inflation and high interest rates are gonna build up to dangerous levels.
They are talking about building 4 nuclear powered supercarriers right now, 70-90k DWT, not counting a few lighter carriers around the 50k DWT class too.
The Chinese are developing their own STOVL fighter. That will be interesting.
India would have preferred to buy the Israeli Arrow-2 in the early 2000s but all we got were 2 Green Pine radars, thanks to a US veto. The IAF considered but held off on buying S-300s at the time to counter Pak Ghauri MRBM. THAAD came into the picture much later but Obama refused to sell us.
My point is this: S-400 provides only incremental capability over Barak-8 produced in India at enormous cost. If anything, we should have invested in its ER versions to amortize costs than blow another $5+ billion on a whole new system.
Imo, the delays in S-400 deliveries have further diminished their value to India today
He is Trolling the AMCA fanboys
Who are having a meltdown
AMCA is of course necessary but F 35 is like an emergency purchase
Just for 2 or 3 squadrons
I agree. To be on the safer side and have an equalizer against China's 5th/6th gen fighter, if it's not heavy on budget, India should go with off-the-shelf 36 F-35s with all modern missiles and maybe ask for the Indian missile integration also. We should grab this opportunity and get a few of these birds before Trump is out of office. This will give a breathing space for another 15 years before AMCA will be in our inventory.He is Trolling the AMCA fanboys
Who are having a meltdown
AMCA is of course necessary but F 35 is like an emergency purchase
Just for 2 or 3 squadrons
Of the weapons on this list, we already have bought JDAM-ER for Tejas and SDB-2 for the MQ-9B. We should try for the AGM-158C (LRASM) too as part of an F-35 deal with the US. Though it's likely we may have to settle for the NSM instead.
I am also thinking like that. But wish it should come true. Again, if it's really on offer then we should negotiate for JASSM ER for our p8Is.He is Trolling the AMCA fanboys
Who are having a meltdown
This number is too less, IAF had already did the mistake multiple times in past by going minimalistic Number for mig29,Mirage 2000 and recent Rafale.
Unlike other western aircrafts,F35 will have lesser availability rate. So 6 to 7 squadron to be procured.
National security is more important than AMCA program,just saying.
NSM is a unique Norwegian antiship missile, the only fifth gen anti ship missile in market.
What's interesting about Indian units is that when you convert parsec into crore light seconds, the calculation, taking leap years into account, gives 1 light year = 31557600 light seconds and as one parsec is equal to 3.26156 light years, we have one parsec = 1029.27 crore light seconds, which is generally rounded to 1000, which is very practical.
What we need to do is get 36-48 f-35's and then ask the Russians politely.to produce 72-144 su-57's with indian customisation.
Either buy the rafale f5 and form a production line here. And then jus focus on tejas AMCA and super 30
The USN is adopting NSM too with local production as the JSM. But LRASM can operate in GPS-denied conditions (fully autonomous guidance)+much longer range than the basic NSM model iirc.
Both Arrow and THAAD were ment for the BMD role, so no competition with the S-400, which primarily has an AD role.
Yes and no. You are talking about the S-350, not the S-400. We won't be going for it because of MRSAM and Akash NG.
But the main capabilities of the S-400 come via their long range missiles; 250 and 400 km. Barak 8 doesn't meet this requirement no matter how big of a booster you attach to it. In some ways Kusha also falls short, but that's the S-400's main rival.
Not at all. The IAF will happily buy more if Kusha gets delayed.
When the place value system was created independently, the West followed a bottom to top approach while the Indians followed a top to bottom approach.
So when the French wanted to count beyond the hundreds, mille was invented. But Indians wanted to count down from 10^22 seconds, which is 100 Brahma years (311.04 trillion years). So counting down in the hundreds was far easier than in the thousands because it was done mentally. I guess this also had to do with paper being expensive compared to the Renaissance period. Similarly, it was easier to estimate the value of small objects like atoms. In Indian texts number went down to around 10^-7 seconds when calculating time. Buddha estimated the size of a carbon atom as 4x7^-10 cm via a poem, and he turned out to be right.
So when you measure in the hundreds, it is easier to calculate two digit numbers mentally, you get more divisions, and the number patterns our brain likes come in more frequently, like 1000 crore light seconds versus a very small two-digit 10 billion or the very massive 10,000 million.
Physically and mentally too, it's easier to say/think 1 lakh versus one hundred thousand. It's even more easy in our own languages; ek lakh, das lakh, ek karod.
That's why mathematicians and scientists prefer using the Indian system in India, and that's the system we teach the kids in too.
Of course, we had the thousands system too. This is from a book from 300-1000 BC.
eka (1), daśa (10), mesochi (100), sahasra (1,000), ayuta (10,000), niyuta (100,000), prayuta (1,000,000), arbuda (10,000,000), nyarbuda (100,000,000), saguran (1,000,000,000), madhya (10,000,000,000), anta (100,000,000,000), parârdha (1,000,000,000,000).
But what we use today is from Ramayana.
Laksa is lakh and koti is crore. And from 10^9 to 10^18, we use different variants of crores, like lakh crore and crore crore.
So who knows? Someday when long distance space travel becomes frequent, our standardized place value system will become part of the metric system while light years and parsec will become something akin to the imperial system.
