Dassault Rafale, tender | News & Discussions [Thread 2]

[zeeshanvita]

It does not seem India will sign a deal in this quarter...may be not even till june...may delay by the last two quarters..I guess both parties dont want to give further ground to one an other..

 

[PARIKRAMA]

Well honestly i dont blame MOD or IAF.. The reason being the plan B was always our indigenous capability development which we till date had not been satisfactorily able to develop or deliver. If suppose we would have got LCA development done by 2004-05 (FOC type) then by now we may have seen MK2 type medium class prototypes . It is a different matter that our programs had lots of hiccups post Pokhran2 episode. But then again Plan B should never be importing another machine but sadly our capabilities still are not mature that we can think in those lines.

The beauty of Rafale deal is more about offset part which i hope and firmly believe may help us develop defense ecosystem . I dont know about the fineprint of TOT but i hope its something which as i mentioned should help our industry move towards more sophisticated and cutting edge tech manufacturing and makes more as developer/producer types. If we are able to do that then in 15-20 years Plan B of indigenous production would be so strong that our country would be in advantageous position more often.

If we quote Plan B for MMRCA as EFT or fallback as MKIs then we are only fooling ourselves as truth is even EFT with new standards whats under development if thats what they offer would be costly just like F3R over F3/F3+. I mean as compared to what they may have submitted as bid and got as L2. Its now too late to actually discuss with L2. Hence i hope a good news comes out soon (either way signing or cancelling).

 

[$@rJen]

Parrikar writing a letter to his French counterpart asking where is their Negotiation team and when will it come to India suggests French are not serious and Deal is Gone case .

any source for that news?

Really hope the deal falls through. From a strategic POV, the Rafale is totally unnecessary.

Care to explain
??

Times of India reported today that India defence minister Manohar Parrikar has written to his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian that India was still awaiting the "empowered" delegation he had promised to send to resolve the imbroglio. The two ministers had decided to "fast-track" the negotiations during talks in New Delhi on December 1.

TNN reported a part of the news though

The whole news was
India wants closure on the MMRCA deal to buy 126 Dassault Rafale fighters before Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits France and Germany in April.

followed by DM writing mail as this was part of fast track process

Damn.... Parrikar is Making french to sweat more... They're in for a real shock from New Government... fall into original conditions.

 

[sancho]

Sancho i wouldn't dismiss as quickly Talios pod. It has capabilities sniper or Litening do no thave like dtection of gound moving target or A2A tracking and identification.

It has nothing (at least publically known) that would make it superior to the Litening, most likely costs more and offers no commonality within the IAF fleet. IAF in fact would need to buy dedicted pods only for the Rafale, while they only have to integrate the Litening and use those that they now bought for Mirage, the Mig 29 and Jags.
The only game changer as said earlier, would had been a joined development as part of the ToT offer or an integrated solution, that would make it useful for A2A too, but nobody really needs A2A capabilities in an external pod, that will be carried only in A2G missions right?

Your table is fairly accurate, but add a huge improvement of Spectra in the F3R game.

I added the once I knew, but feel free to add / correct the parts I missed.

 

[SR-91]

any source for that news?.

Parrikar outlines alternatives to Rafale | Business Standard News

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has fired another warning shot across the bows of French fighter manufacturer, Dassault, which has been negotiating for three years with the ministry of defence (MoD) to sell the Indian Air Force (IAF) 126 Rafale fighters.

A fortnight after declaring that the IAF could make do with additional Sukhoi-30MKI fighters - which HAL builds in Nashik - in case "complications" in the negotiations were not resolved, Parrikar has gone further in outlining how the IAF could function were it decided not to procure the Rafale.

Speaking to a television channel, Headlines Today, on Monday, Parrikar said the Su-30MKI offered a viable alternative, especially given that Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) was upgrading and overhauling the fighter and equipping it with state-of-the-art electronic warfare systems.

Said Parrikar: "Sukhoi-30 choice is always there. What I mean to say is: upgrade the Sukhoi-30, make it more capable." Dismissing concerns about the IAF's falling fighter numbers, Parrikar said the IAF could put more fighters into the sky by improving the serviceability rate of its current fleet of 35 squadrons.

Business Standard has earlier reported (October 23, 2014 "Govt takes note of Su-30MKI's poor 'serviceability'") that barely half of the IAF's premier Russian fighters are available for combat missions at any given time. Since then, due to HAL's efforts, that has risen to 58 per cent, still below the global norm of 80-85 per cent. Parrikar made it clear that the IAF needed to look at the issue of fighter costs. He said, "It is not always… go and purchase it. A cost effective purchase is also important."

Declining to reveal the actual cost of buying the Rafale, Parrikar said, "Whether it is Rs 40,000 crore, or Rs 50,000 crore or Rs 1 lakh-crore, we are speaking about 50 per cent of the capital budget of the defence services."

Parrikar also voiced his concern at Dassault's reported reluctance to meet the terms of the IAF tender, which required the French company to guarantee the 108 fighters that HAL would build in India, after the first 18 were supplied fully-built in France. The defence minister said, "I have told (Dassault) to send a person to work out the (differences). You have to be clear that, irrespective of anything, the (tender's) terms have to be met. They cannot be diluted."

Parrikar laid down a deadline of March 2015 for his ministry to revamp five important policies - permitting foreign companies to have agents in India; the issue of blacklisting companies for wrongdoing; defining "Make in India" policy; bringing micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) into defence production; and a clear offsets policy.

Interestingly, Parrikar said he was considering creating a list of defence products that would no longer be imported. He said, "Maybe some items can be brought under that, where we have already developed a certain import substitution (ability). Some items may be brought under that by 2015."

 

[CONNAN]

Indian Defence Secretary in France for Rafale Talks

NEW DELHI — Indian Defence Secretary Radha Krishna Mathur is in Paris Monday and Tuesday to help speed negotiations on the Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) program, an Indian Defence Ministry source said. A senior official of state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) is accompanying Mathur, the official said.

In December, Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and visiting French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian agreed to fast-track the MMRCA negotiations for the purchase of 126 Dassault Aviation Rafale fighters for US $12 billion. That figure, originally estimated in 2007, is now put at about $20 billion, the MoD source added.

The contract negotiations are on track, the official said, but refused to specify when a deal could be finalized.

"Negotiations can be stretched in big ticket deals like the MMRCA deal," the official added.

Talks with Dassault began in 2012 after Rafale was down-selected as the preferred aircraft over the Eurofighter Typhoon. Issues relating to the cost of the 108 Rafales to be license-produced by HAL and French guarantees on the delivery schedule have delayed final agreement.

Under terms of purchase, the first 18 aircraft will come in fly-away condition while the remaining 108 will be manufactured under a technology transfer process. Out of the 108 aircraft to be license-produced in India, 74 would be single-seat and 34 twin-seat aircraft.

Even as HAL is finalizing the cost of the Indian-made Rafales, HAL is insisting that Dassault guarantee the delivery schedule because hundreds of spares and subsystems will be supplied by the French.

French officials have said they can assist HAL in the delivery schedule and help lower the cost of the Indian-made Rafales, but cannot give guarantees.

An Indian Air Force official said the MMRCA negotiations would have been finalized long ago if the Indian producer had been a private sector company rather than a state-owned entity.

Indian Defence Secretary in France for Rafale Talks

 

[Indian_Patriot]

Quote
"Care to explain
??"


This is going to be a somewhat detailed post so i hope you have the patience to read through.

Its pretty simple really...from a strategic POV its important that we have an airforce that is capable of handling our adversaries. Our principal adversaries are Pakistan and China, we don't need an airforce that is capable of countering the US. First our most immediate threat - Pakistan.

The Pakistani air force's principal threat to the IAF comes from 76 F-16s and 50 JF-17s. The rest of the number's are made up of totally outdated fighters such as the F-7 and Mirage 3. So the principal threat arises from a total of 126 aircraft or 6 squadrons. IAFs current fighting strength of 4th generation aircraft is 216 Su-30 Mki, 68 Mig-29 Upg and 49 M2k. I would add to this that although the Mig-21 Bison cannot be considered a 4th generation aircraft, its upgrade has made it a very capable platform.

Here is an excerpt from Red Flag back in 2008.

Profiling the MiG-21 Bison:
"The MiG-21 bison is a pretty neat airplane."
"It is based on the MiG-21 as many of you guys know from the Vietnam (War) era, but upgraded with an F-16 radar built by the Israelis in the nose, active radar missile, and they carry an Israeli jammer on it would practically make them invisible to our legacy radar in the F-15 and F-16."
"MiG-21 had the capability to get into the scissors with you, 110 knots, 60 degrees nose high, go from 10,000 feet to 20,000 feet, very maneuverable airplane, but it didn't have any good weapons. Now it has high off bore sight Archer missile, helmet mounted sight, active missile, and a jammer that gets it into the merge, good radar..."



So i would add 124 Bisons to the list, it is easily capable of countering the JF-17 and even the F-16 in the point defence role. That gives us 457 aircraft or roughly 22 squadrons. So that is 6 PAF squadrons vs 22 IAF squadrons in the air-to air role. We clearly have a superiority here. When it come to A2G, we have sufficient capability with regards to Pakistan especially when we add our upgraded Mig-27s and Jags into the mix. It also needs to be noted that the A2G mission is evolving and as more missiles in the Brahmos/Nirbhay class are inducted into the forces many of the missions that previously would have required a fighter can be carried out by our missile forces. This is especially true considering the proximity of Pakistan air bases to the Indian border, the majority of which are within 250 Km of the Indian border. So i think we can safely say that if a limited conventional conflict broke out with Pakistan tomorrow we could handle it with regards to the Air Combat perspective. But of course we don't just have Pakistan to deal with.

I will discuss China in the next post and why additional 'Super-Sukois' would be sufficient for us vis-a-viz China until we start inducting the PAK-FA.[/QUOTE]

 

[Indian_Patriot]

Now when it comes to China its a matter of numbers that we need to worry about. They have roughly 900 aircraft in the roughly 4th generation category. I include the J-11, J10 and the Su-30 MKK in this category. The rest of it is pretty much obsolete junk. You can see the Chinese philosophy of 'quantity has its own quality' at work here.
It needs to be noted that even their most advanced aircraft the MKK is half generation behind our Su-30 Mki when it comes to air to air combat. The Chinese have recently begun development of their Fifth generation fighter, but we can expect induction to be some time off yet, especially considering their lack of experience in developing cutting edge fighters. Therefore from a technological perspective we are currently ahead of the Chinese. What we need to do is to boost our numbers.

Rather than induct a brand new platform with all the associated costs and complexity, (we already operate too many platforms more than even the mighty US airforce) i argue that we would have a sufficient deterrent if we boosted the number of our most potent platform the Mki. I would put in an order for up to another 10 squadrons of Mki's, manufactured in Russia. This way we could induct them quickly into our fleet. Our total Mki fleet needs to be around the 500 mark imo. If we signed such a large contract with the Russians it would drive the costs down due to the scale of the project. These Sukoi-s could be a category apart from our current ones i.e. Super Super Sukois incorporating technologies developed for the PAK-FA, such as newer engines, Irbis Radar, ram coatings etc. We then would have the numbers as well as the Technology to counter Chinese aggression. I would estimate that a contract for 200 Super-Super Sukoi's would be valued at about $15B. Another reason to induct more Sukoi's rather than Raffles is that Chinese targets are much much further than Pakistani targets and long range deep-strike missions is an area which the Sukoi excels at.

 

[Prajapati]

Rafale deal is DEAD

Dassault will not stick to the RFP and will not cut the cost for adhering to the RFP and thus violating L1. These will be reasons given for scraping the deal.

IAF will get upgraded Su 30 MKI and a few new one's too with new orders for LCA.

 

[ashwamedh]

Rafale deal is DEAD

Dassault will not stick to the RFP and will not cut the cost for adhering to the RFP and thus violating L1. These will be reasons given for scraping the deal.

IAF will get upgraded Su 30 MKI and a few new one's too with new orders for LCA.

Hope this becomes the reality....
For once India should learn from our neighbors and Indian Navy....
Induct the current version of Tejas at the earliest and continue to upgrade it continuously, rather than expecting a 4th gen fighter at the first go....
This would really help in maturing the platform....

 

[sancho]

In the meantime

The Aviationist » RAF Typhoon jets fly over the snow-capped Grand Canyon on their way to Red Flag

(Note, refuelling with the A330 MRTT that we still didn't bought yet, a year after selection!)

 

[Gandhi follower]

I hope we scrap the deal. We a poor nation can't afford such expensive toys. better to invest in good relationship with china. china is the real threat.

 

[Storm Force]

Concentrate on tejas mk1, and beyond 2020 on mk2 tejas.

Upgrade mki to super mki

Better sams radars etc.

 

[sancho]

I digged a bit around wrt the liquidity damages and responsibility issues of Dassault. Of course we won't have access to the RFP, but we can find Defence Procurement Manuals or Defence Procurement Procedures of the defence ministry on that.

Defence Procurement Manual 2006 - Liqudated Damages:

Defence Procurement Manual 2009 - Liqudated Damages:

Defence Procurement Procedures 2013 - Liqudated Damages:

In all these guidelines, it is pretty clear, that the supplier / OEM (Dassault) will only be held responsible for delays that was caused by themselfs. The 2013 version, is even pretty detailed in the delivery schedule, about what must be delivered (by Dassault and partners), for the manufacture and supply of the product (Rafale) by the production agency (HAL). There is nothing that hints about the Dassault being held responsible for delays caused by HAL, so these claims can't really hold any ground.

 

[Superboy]

better to invest in good relationship with china. china is the real threat.

Even think about taking a square inch of Aksai Chin and see what happens