India needs more than Rafale to match China: Experts
AFP | Updated: Sep 22, 2016, 07.39 PM IST
HIGHLIGHTS
- Air Force says it needs at least 42 squadrons to protect its borders with Pakistan and China
- The Rafale deal will supply another two squadrons
- Real concern is China's military capacities are way in excess of India's
(AFP photo)
NEW DELHI: India may have just spent billions of dollars on hi-tech French fighter jets+ , but experts say it needs to do a lot more if it is going to face up to an increasingly assertive China.
The world's top defence importer has signed several big-ticket deals as part of a $100-billion upgrade since Prime Minister
Narendra Modi took power in 2014.
But it has been slow to replace its dwindling fleet of Russian MiG-21s — dubbed "Flying Coffins" because of their poor safety record.
An agreement to buy 36 cutting edge Rafale jets+ from France's Dassault aims to fix that.
"It will give the air force an arrowhead. Our air force has old aircraft, 1970s and 1980s generation aircraft and for the first time in about 25-30 years we will have a quantum jump in technology," defence analyst Gulshan Luthra told AFP.
"Rafale is loaded with (the) best of the technologies and we need it."
The Air Force says it needs at least 42 squadrons to protect its northern and western borders with Pakistan and China.
It currently has around 32, each comprising 18 aircraft. Air force representatives warned the Parliament last year that the number of squadrons could fall to 25 by 2022, putting India on a par with its nuclear-armed neighbour and arch-rival Pakistan.
But the real concern is China, an ally of Pakistan whose military capacities are way in excess of India's.
"Pakistan we can handle. Pakistan we can muscle our way, but China, no way we can handle," said Luthra. "And if China comes to the aid of Pakistan, then we're stuck."
China and India fought a brief war in 1962, and the border between the neighbours has never been formally demarcated, although they have signed accords to maintain peace.
The
Rafale deal, due to be signed in New Delhi on Friday, will supply another two squadrons, although it will be three years before delivery of the jets begins.
It falls way short of previous proposals for India to buy 126 of the jets, which stalled over costs and assembly guarantees.
Currently being used for bombing missions over Syria and Iraq, the Rafale can fly distances of up to 3,800 kilometres (2,360 miles).
Experts say it will allow the air force to strike targets in Pakistan and China from within Indian territory.
But critics argue the Rafale purchase is a costly solution to the problem, even after India bargained hard to get the price down to a reported 7.9 billion euros ($8.8 billion).
Defence Minister
Manohar Parrikar reportedly said last year the larger Rafale deal was too expensive. "We are not buying the rest. I also feel like having a BMW and Mercedes. But I don't because I can't afford it."
Modi has said he wants to end India's status as the world's number one defence importer and to have 70 per cent of hardware manufactured domestically by the turn of the decade.
His government lifted a cap on foreign investment in defence to 49 per cent last year.
Many now believe India will use the money saved from scrapping the larger Rafale order to invest in its first domestically developed light fighter plane, the Tejas.
The aircraft, touted as the smallest and lightest supersonic fighter aircraft of their class, are designed and manufactured in India, although some components are imported.
Defence analyst Ajai Shukla said the purchase of 36 Rafales would "placate Dassault, the
Indian Air Force and public opinion" after the larger deal was scrapped, but did not make good operational sense.
"You don't replace a small, light fighter plane with an extraordinarily expensive heavy monster like Rafale," he said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...-match-China-Experts/articleshow/54466421.cms
4 reasons why Rafale could ruin Modi and Parrikar's party
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News » 4 reasons why Rafale could ruin Modi and Parrikar's party
4 reasons why Rafale could ruin Modi and Parrikar's party
September 23, 2016 09:47 IST
Ajai Shukla explains why there is considerable discomfort within the defence ministry about the Rafale deal.
On a warm Delhi evening on April 3, 2015, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had left his South Block office and was driving to catch his flight to Goa, when his mobile phone received an incoming call from the Prime Minister's Office.
Could he come in urgently, an official asked, the PM would like to talk briefly.
When Parrikar reached the PMO, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sprang a bombshell.
Parrikar was told that, on Modi's forthcoming trip to Paris, he and French President Francois Hollande would announce an agreement for India to buy 36 Rafale fighters.
During Modi's nine-day tour of France, Germany and Canada, Parrikar would have to manage the media and field the inevitable questions.
Taken aback, Parrikar still caught his flight to Goa. Over the next week, he batted loyally on behalf of his PM, publicly defending a decision he neither understood nor agreed with, that was taken over his head, and that senior ministry of defence officials warned him would be difficult to defend.
Today, 17 months later, most pledges that Parrikar issued in defence of Modi's Rafale agreement have proven incorrect.
He told the Press Trust of India in Goa that all 36 Rafale fighters would join the IAF within two years; in fact more than six years will elapse before the final delivery is made.
He repeated the Modi-Hollande undertaking that the price would be 'on terms that would be better than' Dassault's bid in the now cancelled tender for 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft. It now turns out that India will pay a vastly higher price.
But Parrikar, through 17 months of defending a deal that was not his, has become the face of the Rafale.
And after Friday, when he and his visiting French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian sign an inter-governmental agreement for 36 Rafales, Parrikar -- and not Modi -- will answer for the purchase.
There is disquiet within the MoD about the acquisition, with officials concerned about subsequent scrutiny by Constitutional authorities like the Comptroller and Auditor General. Their key worries are as follows.
E
xorbitant cost
A key element in price negotiations is 'benchmarking', or comparing Dassault's price with other contracts involving the same fighter.
With India, Dassault had already established a benchmark in the MMRCA acquisition, where it had quoted a price for 18 fully built Rafales, just like the 36 fighters that India is now buying.
Speaking to Doordarshan on April 13, 2015, Parrikar had revealed Rafale's bid for 126 fighters, stating: 'When you talk of 126 (
Rafale) aircraft, it becomes a purchase of about Rs 90,000 crore' -- Rs 715 crore per fighter after adding all costs.
Now Parrikar would be buying 36 Rafale fighters for Euro 7.8 billion (over Rs 58,000 crore), which is over Rs 1,600 crore per aircraft -- more than double the earlier price.
True, the current contract includes elements that were not there in the 126 fighter MMRCA tender -- including a superior weapons package with Meteor missiles; and performance-based logistics, which bind Dassault to ensure that a stipulated percentage of the Rafale fleet remains combat-ready at all times. The percentage is guessed to be about 75 to 80 per cent, an unchallenging target for Western fighter types.
Even deducting Euro 2.8 billion for the weapons and PBL from the anticipated Euro 7.8 billion contract amount, a Euro 5 billion (over Rs 37,000 crore) price tag for 36 Rafales puts the ticker price of each at over Rs 1,000 crore.
For that the IAF can buy two-and-a-half Sukhoi-30 MKI fighters -- a heavy fighter as capable as the Rafale.
V
ariation in fighter types
IAF logisticians, who already struggle to maintain, repair and support six different types of fighters -- the Sukhoi-30MKI, Mirage 2000, Jaguar, MiG-29, MiG-27, MiG-21 and the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft -- are hardly welcoming the prospect of a seventh fighter type, which would require expensive, tailor-made base infrastructure, repair depots and spare parts chains.
Air power experts say more Sukhoi-30MKIs would eliminate this need, besides being cheaper.
Alternatively, fast-tracking the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft, which Russia and India intend to co-develop, would eliminate the need for Rafales.
Even if the IAF exercises an option clause for 18 more Rafales, there would be just three operational squadrons, like with the Mirage 2000.
Besides the options clause, nine more Rafales would be needed, since an IAF squadron has 21 fighters.
S
overeign guarantees
While New Delhi is negotiating the Rafale purchase directly with the private vendor, Dassault, the MoD wants sovereign guarantees from the French government, of the kind that come with American equipment bought through the Foreign Military Sales route.
In a FMS procurement -- India's C-130J Super Hercules purchase -- the US Department of Defence (the Pentagon) sets up a dedicated 'project management team' that negotiates on the buyer's behalf, beating down the price, establishing training and logistics support, and providing assurance that the buyer gets everything needed to operate and maintain the product.
Alongside FMS support, corruption is deterred by the stringent US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which vendors seldom dare to violate. This provides comfort to Indian MoD officials against subsequent allegations raised against a deal.
Paris, in contrast, is only willing to give a lukewarm written assurance of support with the Rafale -- something that the MoD refers to disparagingly as a 'comfort letter.'
P
iecemeal contracting
India needs some 200 to 300 fighters to replace the MiG-21 and MiG-27 fleet that is being phased out of service. Just 36 Rafales provides little cover, so the IAF hopes to buy not just 18 more under the options clause, but perhaps another tranche later.
MoD officials complain that piecemeal contracting provides little leverage for beating down prices.
The same problem will afflict the procurement of the Gripen NG, or F-16s, which the MoD is weighing as possible options to replace retiring fighters.
With an IGA in the offing, and a formal contract yet to be negotiated, New Delhi would still have the opportunity to address these issues, say MoD officials.
Yet, the IGA on Friday will be celebrated in the IAF as a giant step towards a fighter they have pursued tenaciously for 15 years.
Ajai Shukla
http://www.rediff.com/news/column/f...ld-ruin-modi-and-parrikars-party/20160923.htm