RUSSIA - INDIA Military Contracts

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:

If I were in the indian government I would buy mig 35 in Russia  and ask Russia to help develop a simple and cheap 4+ generation single engine fighter based on the same engine, similar to the JF17 that China developed for Pakistan.

i am not seeing present MMRCA of 108 fighters succeeding either, it's going to be 36 more Rafales, and rest of the 80 fighters can be MIG 35/SU35 and money saved going into SU30MKI modernisation which too is not going to cost less then 7-9 b $ as it includes newer radars, engines and meanwhile Tejas in 200 Nos will be inducted in various versions. Although it would be interesting to watch US moves as they are trying there best to push for either of there aircraft from lockheed or boeing but its not going to succeed

Pinto wrote:

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:

If I were in the indian government I would buy mig 35 in Russia  and ask Russia to help develop a simple and cheap 4+ generation single engine fighter based on the same engine, similar to the JF17 that China developed for Pakistan.

i am not seeing present MMRCA of 108 fighters succeeding either, it's going to be 36 more Rafales, and rest of the 80 fighters can be MIG 35/SU35 and money saved going into SU30MKI modernisation which too is not going to cost less then 7-9 b $ as it includes newer radars, engines and meanwhile Tejas in 200 Nos will be inducted in various versions. Although it would be interesting to watch US moves as they are trying there best to push for either of there aircraft from lockheed or boeing but its not going to succeed

Actually if I am not mistaken The JF17 was developed with serious help from MiG corporation. If so it would be maybe possible to develop in a relatively short time a variant for India without any Chinese or Pakistani component.

I do not know the status of tejas, but I heard that there were quite a bit of problems.
And anyway I do not see the point of having the tejas also as a carrier based aircraft... are they planning to have a mixed fleet on their carriers?

I thought they just needed to replace the mig21 that will be retired, and some will be replaced with bigger aircrafts (mig35 or rafale) while others with cheaper smaller aircrafts

Concerning the carrier based fighter, the rational decision will be to buy additional mig29k or navalised mig35... we will see what they will do...

About Indian localised production.

It has been seen with the parts for Su30 and Mig29 that Indian produce these with higher price and lower quality than Russia...

To be fair that is not actually true... everybody decides on what they want to pay for and where they can save money.... the factories and tools the Russians make their MiGs on they might not have spent too much on so they can keep the production price down for the Russian AF purchases.

If that is the case India could spend more and get better tooling and production equipment and end up with better made aircraft, or more accurately aircraft made to a higher standard without needing highly skilled labour.

The problem of course is that for Russia to make some planes they have the factories and much of the tooling was paid for by India when it ordered MiG-29KR fighters for its Navy. The Russian Navy tacked on orders of its own so it did not have to pay for tooling and training up a work force... they were ready to go when the order was made.

When India orders either MiG-35s or MiG-29M2s and wants to produce them in India then they need to also pay for factories and tooling and training skilled labour to make those planes so it is always going to cost more... but the point is that when they have finished making those planes they have a workforce and factory that is ready to make more planes or something else... if they make another 200 planes then they don't need to pay for another factory to be built and because they make them themselves no one can stop them from making as many as they want within reason and of course they can make spare parts and also support their own aircraft which reduces operational costs.

Of course they might also want to reduce costs and cut corners where corners should not be cut to make the planes and have some real problems down the road... which might give the plane a bad reputation it does not really deserve... which is probably why France is not allowing local production of Rafales.

Maybe the compromise could be for them to buy the top end product from russia and develop together a smaller cheaper alternative to be mass produced in India (with russian engine, of course).

This indigenous alternative should have been the tejas, but i do not know if it will ever be successful.

AFAIK they had three stealth fighter programmes the light (Tegas II) the medium (?) and the heavy (Su-57 variant)... personally I think the light aircraft is a waste of time and should be non stealthy 4++ gen light plane that is cheap but with lots of external hard points and cheap to make in large numbers, while a medium stealthy fighter is big enough to carry a reasonable internal weapon load to remain stealthy when loaded and of course the heavy stealth fighter makes sense as your primary air control fighter.

I would keep going with Tegas but scale back some of the requirements and just keep it cheap and simple and make lots of them, and create a MiG-35 based medium stealth fighter with Russian contributions and of course the Su-57MKI...

The MiG-29M2 could replace current MiG-21 and MiG-27 and Jaguar and M2K aircraft, plus a few MiG-35s. Over time you will work out what the MiG-35 has that is worth the money and over time its advanced bits will get cheaper too so over time transition the MiG-29M2s into MiG-35s and together with mass produced Tegas IIIs they can be the backbone of the force.

Many of the components on the MiG-35 and MiG-29M2 could be used on the Tegas III for commonality.

i am not seeing present MMRCA of 108 fighters succeeding either, it's going to be 36 more Rafales, and rest of the 80 fighters can be MIG 35/SU35 and money saved going into SU30MKI modernisation which too is not going to cost less then 7-9 b $ as it includes newer radars, engines and meanwhile Tejas in 200 Nos will be inducted in various versions.

They were buying those 36 Rafales for about 8 billion so there wont be much left over for anything else... if they bought two lots they are probably already 5-6 billion over budget as it stands.

MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/. India is very much likely to buy an extra batch of Russian MiG-29 fighter jets, chief of Russia’s Federal Service for Military Technical Cooperation Dmitry Shugayev said on Monday.

"There is a high probability that we will have an additional order for MiG-29 fighter jets," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.

India currently has more than 60 MiG-29 aircarft.

According to Shugayev, Russia has good chances to take part in India’s tender for the purchase of 110 fighter jets that is to be announced soon. It was reported earlier that the Russian side planned to take part in this tender with its MiG-35 fighter jets.

https://tass.com/defense/1130943

Pinto wrote:MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/. India is very much likely to buy an extra batch of Russian MiG-29 fighter jets, chief of Russia’s Federal Service for Military Technical Cooperation Dmitry Shugayev said on Monday.

"There is a high probability that we will have an additional order for MiG-29 fighter jets," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.

India currently has more than 60 MiG-29 aircarft.

According to Shugayev, Russia has good chances to take part in India’s tender for the purchase of 110 fighter jets that is to be announced soon. It was reported earlier that the Russian side planned to take part in this tender with its MiG-35 fighter jets.

https://tass.com/defense/1130943

maybe Garry will end of being right, with India buying a mix of MiG29M and Mig35

For sure it will also be the most cost effective solution. They cannot pretend to have MiG35 with AESA radar and all the inprovement at the cost of a unmodernised MiG29 from the 80s

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:

Pinto wrote:MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/. India is very much likely to buy an extra batch of Russian MiG-29 fighter jets, chief of Russia’s Federal Service for Military Technical Cooperation Dmitry Shugayev said on Monday.

"There is a high probability that we will have an additional order for MiG-29 fighter jets," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.

India currently has more than 60 MiG-29 aircarft.

According to Shugayev, Russia has good chances to take part in India’s tender for the purchase of 110 fighter jets that is to be announced soon. It was reported earlier that the Russian side planned to take part in this tender with its MiG-35 fighter jets.

https://tass.com/defense/1130943

maybe Garry will end of being right, with India buying a mix of MiG29M and Mig35

For sure it will also be the most cost effective solution. They cannot pretend to have MiG35 with AESA radar and all the inprovement at the cost of a unmodernised MiG29 from the 80s

Well yea Garry is right India will end up buying 36 more Rafales and its game over for that tender. After that 20 su30 mki PLUS 24-32 Nos MIG 20UPG and few sq of MIG 35

Tejas is getting FOC but issue with it is slow production rates of state owned HAL delivering only 8-10 AC a year, since last year its lots of work is being outsourced to private sector and by 2022 it will start having regular faster production

Apart from this the upgrades of 300 plus SU30MKI to su 35 level with latest engine. radars and avionics will get full attention and funding from later this year

Pinto wrote:
Well yea Garry is right India will end up buying 36 more Rafales and its game over for that tender. After that 20 su30 mki PLUS 24-32 Nos MIG 20UPG and few sq of MIG 35

What should they buy additional Rafales? At that price it was almost robbery. Without bribes the Gauls should not be able to win another contract...

despite India placing orders for another 400 T-90S to be produced in India, even though they just placed an order for 118 Arjun 1A tanks. some key points in the article below. the title of the article is also wrong stating that its the the most potent tank in its inventory lol.

"The Arjun MBT had performed better than Russian T-90s during a desert trial conducted by the Army in 2010. However, reliability and availability weighed on the Army’s mind. The force argued that weight of the MBT, 62.5 tonnes, was a handicap as it meant that Arjun was too heavy for roads, bridges and canals along the Pakistan border.

The Army, in 2010, proposed an improved version of the tank, which would be called the Mark II, and was to have over 80 improvements, including 15 major ones.

However, this also meant that weight would increase further."

"Talks between the DRDO and the Army continued until March 2018, and it was finally agreed that the next batch of Arjuns, to be called Mark 1-A, would be supplied without the missile firing capability."




https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/indian-army-to-receive-400-t-90-tanks-russian-mod/

https://theprint.in/defence/army-set-to-place-order-for-118-arjun-mark-1-as-the-most-potent-tank-in-its-inventory/380869/

No joke ?!! Of course it will be better with 20 tons more and probably full of western stuff inside. But move it now

Russians would have 100t tank fully protected and with a 200mm gun if it was worth loosing mobility.

Isos wrote:No joke ?!! Of course it will be better with 20 tons more and probably full of western stuff inside. But move it now

Russians would have 100t tank fully protected and with a 200mm gun if it was worth loosing mobility.

exactly and they themselves stated the extra weight wasnt that suitable for its needs. Also the fact they are ordering Mk1A versions and not the MK2 version which they state is better than T-90, only shows that they weren't all that impressed with the MK2 vs. cost vs. T-90S. hence they are ordering the MK1A (relatively small order) and loads more T-90S (400). I think they should just give up on the Arjun its been nothing but a waste of money. their army is about 90% soviet/Russian made tanks which share many parts, and operate fairly similar, as well as having the same calibre, the T-90 and their T-72 Ajeya/improved Ajeya which is similar to the polish PT-91 Twardy version are all decent tanks, wasting money on Arjun was a complete mistake. with india looking to have over 2000 T-90S in service soon along with the T-72 Ajeya is more thn enough for their needs and should bide their time for now. there constant desire to waste money on homegrown projects that end up running up into wasteful billions of $ and end up running massively behind schedule to produce a substandard or outdated piece of equipment is madness. Not o long ago they paid $1.9bn ($4mn each) for 464 T-90S while the Arjun in its modern version is around $7mn each, the MK1 (not MK1A) costs around $4mn each) and the tanks design has been 37yrs in the making shocking

maybe Garry will end of being right, with India buying a mix of MiG29M and Mig35

For sure it will also be the most cost effective solution. They cannot pretend to have MiG35 with AESA radar and all the inprovement at the cost of a unmodernised MiG29 from the 80s

If it was up to me I would make the new purchase 250 airplanes and I would aim to replace the MiG-21s, MiG-27s, and MiG-29UPGs they have upgraded.

I would replace the with a mix of MiG-35s and MiG-29M2s... effectively the cheaper older 21s and 27s would be replaced with 200 MiG-29M2s, and the upgraded MiG-29UPGs of which I believe there are about 60 odd, I would replace with 50 MiG-35s.

That would replace 3 different airframes with 1 new airframe as the 29M2 and Naval MiG-29KR and MiG-35 all share the same airframe... the M2s can be upgraded to 35s if needed or when the technology becomes more affordable... and lets face it... a MiG-29M2 with TVC engines and modern avionics is an enormous step up in terms of short range point defence fighter (MiG-21) and short range light strike (MiG-27) with a wide range of air to ground and air to air munitions available, and of course the MiG-35 is a big step up from the MiG-29UPG upgrades they are using now, and while more expensive only buying 50 will make them much more affordable than trying to buy 110 35s or anything else in that category....

Well yea Garry is right India will end up buying 36 more Rafales and its game over for that tender.

36 more Rafales will consume all the money for new planes, but wont deal with the problem of reducing numbers of aircraft it was supposed to deal with.

India wants a non Russian aircraft... what they should do is bite the bullet and pay MiG to accelerate a MiG-29 stealthy 5th gen replacement plane instead of pissing billions away on French fighters.

The Rafale is not a bad plane but for the 16 billion dollars it will cost them to get two lots of 36 of them they could have paid for a new 5th gen fighter to be developed... and by spending a little more... say 20 billion on the programme they will own the technology, unlike with 16 billion dollars spent on french fighters they have no ownership of the technology of...

What should they buy additional Rafales? At that price it was almost robbery. Without bribes the Gauls should not be able to win another contract...

It doesn't actually hurt to have aircraft with totally different design philosophies and different weapon ranges, but they would be much better off with a production licence for the M2K with the option to make their own upgrades and improvements... the Rafale is just an order of magnitude too expensive... they are paying more for their medium weight fighter than they are for their heavy fighter or they would pay for their heavy 5th gen fighter...

Source diversity only matters to improve reliability of supply... paying more and buying the technology yourself for domestic production of a 5th gen medium fighter to replace the MiG-29s would be a better investment... they could get exactly what they want and own it so no one could stop them making more...

Not o long ago they paid $1.9bn ($4mn each) for 464 T-90S while the Arjun in its modern version is around $7mn each, the MK1 (not MK1A) costs around $4mn each) and the tanks design has been 37yrs in the making shocking

Another factor is that the Arjun is supposed to be the domestic tank but it has a foreign gun and engine and armour and electronics and transmission etc etc etc.

It is not so much an Indian tank as the Indians choice tank with parts India has selected from other countries.

It is no more a domestic tank than a T-90 assembled in India...

On the positive side the factories built to make the AK-203 should also be able to make a light machine gun version of the rifle and probably other weapon types too...

GarryB wrote:

maybe Garry will end of being right, with India buying a mix of MiG29M and Mig35

For sure it will also be the most cost effective solution. They cannot pretend to have MiG35 with AESA radar and all the inprovement at the cost of a unmodernised MiG29 from the 80s

If it was up to me I would make the new purchase 250 airplanes and I would aim to replace the MiG-21s, MiG-27s, and MiG-29UPGs they have upgraded.

I would replace the with a mix of MiG-35s and MiG-29M2s... effectively the cheaper older 21s and 27s would be replaced with 200 MiG-29M2s, and the upgraded MiG-29UPGs of which I believe there are about 60 odd, I would replace with 50 MiG-35s.

That would replace 3 different airframes with 1 new airframe as the 29M2 and Naval MiG-29KR and MiG-35 all share the same airframe... the M2s can be upgraded to 35s if needed or when the technology becomes more affordable... and lets face it... a MiG-29M2 with TVC engines and modern avionics is an enormous step up in terms of short range point defence fighter (MiG-21) and short range light strike (MiG-27) with a wide range of air to ground and air to air munitions available, and of course the MiG-35 is a big step up from the MiG-29UPG upgrades they are using now, and while more expensive only buying 50 will make them much more affordable than trying to buy 110 35s or anything else in that category....

Well yea Garry is right India will end up buying 36 more Rafales and its game over for that tender.

36 more Rafales will consume all the money for new planes, but wont deal with the problem of reducing numbers of aircraft it was supposed to deal with.

India wants a non Russian aircraft... what they should do is bite the bullet and pay MiG to accelerate a MiG-29 stealthy 5th gen replacement plane instead of pissing billions away on French fighters.

The Rafale is not a bad plane but for the 16 billion dollars it will cost them to get two lots of 36 of them they could have paid for a new 5th gen fighter to be developed... and by spending a little more... say 20 billion on the programme they will own the technology, unlike with 16 billion dollars spent on french fighters they have no ownership of the technology of...

What should they buy additional Rafales? At that price it was almost robbery. Without bribes the Gauls should not be able to win another contract...

It doesn't actually hurt to have aircraft with totally different design philosophies and different weapon ranges, but they would be much better off with a production licence for the M2K with the option to make their own upgrades and improvements... the Rafale is just an order of magnitude too expensive... they are paying more for their medium weight fighter than they are for their heavy fighter or they would pay for their heavy 5th gen fighter...

Source diversity only matters to improve reliability of supply... paying more and buying the technology yourself for domestic production of a 5th gen medium fighter to replace the MiG-29s would be a better investment... they could get exactly what they want and own it so no one could stop them making more...

Not o long ago they paid $1.9bn ($4mn each) for 464 T-90S while the Arjun in its modern version is around $7mn each, the MK1 (not MK1A) costs around $4mn each) and the tanks design has been 37yrs in the making shocking

Another factor is that the Arjun is supposed to be the domestic tank but it has a foreign gun and engine and armour and electronics and transmission etc etc etc.

It is not so much an Indian tank as the Indians choice tank with parts India has selected from other countries.

It is no more a domestic tank than a T-90 assembled in India...

On the positive side the factories built to make the AK-203 should also be able to make a light machine gun version of the rifle and probably other weapon types too...

i quite agree Mig-29M2 and Mig-35 are enough for their needs and Russia would be willing to allow production of Mig-29M2 and as you say they can upgrade in the future. as for tanks they should give on this domestic piece of crap thats got 60% foreign parts in it. continue to buy T-90S, and run with T-90S and its T-72 upgrades, this will keep India going for many years at which point in the distant future (5-8yrs) Russia will maybe in the position to export Armata to which they could sell to India to replace its T-72, so then they would run with T-90S and Armata. Countries like Belarus, Serbia and India would be better to co-produce with Russia this would save them money and have a decent product at the end of it instead of wasting money and producing outdated items or a product that cant compete with other countries defence sales/market.

Any experienced engineer would have known that starting with a 65+ tons tank is a waste of time.

They should have made a medium/light IFV to replace bmp-2 and just buy t-90. Then make a medium tank to replace older t-72. And then a 65+ tons tank to replace t-90 in 10-15 years.

About fighters, they should have made the tejas with one foreign firm's help like Sukhoi or Dassaut. Then make it totally indegenious and then make biger one.

Isos wrote:Any experienced engineer would have known that starting with a 65+ tons tank is a waste of time.

They should have made a medium/light IFV to replace bmp-2 and just buy t-90. Then make a medium tank to replace older t-72. And then a 65+ tons tank to replace t-90 in 10-15 years.

About fighters, they should have made the tejas with one foreign firm's help like Sukhoi or Dassaut. Then make it totally indegenious and then make biger one.

Probably that would have been a better approach, also because, if I am not mistaken, arjuna has a not inconsiderable share of western components, including a german diesel engine.

I still need to understand the need for a 65 tons tank, anyway. It is like doing an airplane for tactical support, but making so big that it cannot land in most airports.

By the way, where these tests done about 10 years ago honest, or just extremely biased?

https://wap.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/arjun-tank-outruns-outguns-russian-t-90-110032500022_1.html

flamming_python wrote:I disagree that the Arjun is a waste of time

As a country with ambitions, a large military budget, a big military... and potentially a huge engineering base - India is probably doing the right move by learning how to build tanks, vessels, fighters, etc... itself

It's not there yet, but it gets some experience from the Arjun, and the next iteration will be better.

at the expense of the indian tax payer, to produce garbage, and outdated too heavy for purpose tank, made with 59% foreign made parts and a tank design harking back 40yrs not wise not clever. Some countries just need to learn when not to waste money. India if it was wise would let other countries do all the hard work, and they just buy production rights far cheaper and it still gets made in India to a certain degree, no shame in doing that either just a sensible approach. small arms etc, and certain vehicles yes i agree they can make it, trainer aircraft fine, but the Tejas another cockup. they placed an order for 83 tejas mark 1 not so long ago it worked out at $65m per aircraft not cheap for that type of outdated aircraft. And i would imagine the Mark 2 to take longer to finalise and cost even more. The did well with the Su-30 production. why not mig-29M2 production as garryb mentioned. makes perfect sense and would be cheaper and better aircraft.

Well it is important to have also some internal Engineering and development work, but it does not make sense in this way. I have to admit that the idea from Isos would make sense. Develop a sort of light tank/  infantry fighting vehicle like a modern version of the soviet BMP-2, BMP-3 with the help of Russia and establish a local production for the T90M MBT.

The partnership for the bramhos missile went quite well for  India. I do not understand why they alsways change plans...

miketheterrible wrote:I think the plan is that India is already pushing for T-90M upgrade for all their tanks.

Russia has no problem making the tanks for others.  For some reason though they end up taking forever to get said tanks for themselves.  Except for the cheaper T-72BM3, they got over a thousand of those.  But T-90M is taking forever for them but already offered to others outside.

And that's good. The army is not in hurry for the t-90M as the t14 is coming. They can wait with the t-72.

The gov already obliged them to use more the t-80 while it's 1.5-2 times more expensive than a t72. With more t-90 they won't even have money for a couple of t-14 let alone the 2500 that the army wanted.

The more they wait without buying the t-90 the more t-14 they will get. Export contracts are helpful for them as they use thebproduction plant for exporr countries.

Isos wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:I think the plan is that India is already pushing for T-90M upgrade for all their tanks.

Russia has no problem making the tanks for others.  For some reason though they end up taking forever to get said tanks for themselves.  Except for the cheaper T-72BM3, they got over a thousand of those.  But T-90M is taking forever for them but already offered to others outside.

And that's good. The army is not in hurry for the t-90M as the t14 is coming. They can wait with the t-72.

The gov already obliged them to use more the t-80 while it's 1.5-2 times more expensive than a t72. With more t-90 they won't even have money for a couple of t-14 let alone the 2500 that the army wanted.

The more they wait without buying the t-90 the more t-14 they will get. Export contracts are helpful for them as they use thebproduction plant for exporr countries.

Russia has already plenty of tanks.

Every tank that is upgraded is one that must not be disposed.

Russia has enough tanks in reserve, and many of those (T72B and T80) could be brought to a modern standard with an upgrade.

Apparently they plan also to modernise and transform several T72 tanks belonging to the reserve into BMPT terminator.

I still believe they will get quite a bit of T90M, and at least half of them will be new built.
For sure the export order for India will help with the production.

miketheterrible wrote:Why not make the T-72's into T-90M's at least as close as possible?

Well the T-72B3M should be quite good, and even if not on par with a T-90M it is a very capable tank.

It is also the version used since 2014 in the Tank Biathlon competition.

https://www.janes.com/article/95004/india-fast-tracking-purchase-of-10-additional-ka-31-aew-c-helicopters


India is fast-tracking negotiations to acquire 10 Russian-made Kamov Ka-31 'Helix' airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) helicopters in time for the expected commissioning in 2021 of Vikrant , the Indian Navy's (IN's) indigenously designed aircraft carrier.

Official sources told Jane's on 20 March that the IN wants to "imminently" finalise the Ka-31 import, which was approved by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in May 2019 for an estimated INR36 billion (USD478.8 million), given that up to four of the AEW&C platforms are expected to be embarked on the 37,750-tonne carrier.

IN officers said Vikrant aims to field its full air complement of Russian-made MiG-29K/KUB 'Fulcrum' fighters and rotary-wing platforms by 2022.

Want to read more? For analysis on this article and access to Jane's unrivalled data and insight, learn more about our subscription options at janes.com/products

The Russians were clear about their plans... upgrade existing type as far as possible, while working on the generational replacement.

The T-72 and T-80 upgrades are essentially all the bits they are developing for the T-90s and are based on things they are developing for their next gen tanks.

There are four next gen tanks... Armata T-14, Kurganets B-?, and Boomerang K-? and Typhoon x-?

The Typhoon is most likely to be a Sprut equivalent light tank...

Weapons need to be effective and useful, so they all need upgrades, so even if they stopped spending all money on tanks and just focussed on T-14, B-x, K-x, and X-x it would mean existing forces would suffer.

The new tanks wont mean anything until they are in service in entire divisions which is going to take a while because an entire Armata division means dozens of different armata type vehicles...

Upgrading the T-72s and T-80s means the tanks that are in service right now become better and more capable... new communications and optics and ammo means training at night and as a net centric team can start now instead of having to wait for enough Armata tanks to become ready for use in training... upgraded 72s and 80s are ready now...

Comparison between IAF Mig-29UPG and Indian Navy Mig-29KUB