SCRAP THE F16/70 & GRIPEN NOISE
IAF shoul;d stick to Tejas & order 36 more rafales
This is most sensible course of action!
Consolidate platforms and build your strategies around few machines, LCA and Rafale are both very capable fighters in their own right.
They are going to ORDER 36 Rafale in 2020?
I believe last of Indian Rafale (from current deal of 36 + 18 rights reserved) will be executed till 2021 (3 years after first fighters arrive in 2018), so 2020 is a reasonable date.
Even for Su 30 MKIs, several orders were placed after initial 30 were ordered and now almost 2 decades later, IAF operates 2 largest fleet of Flankers outside Russia. I won't be surprised if same is course of action for Rafale too.
Do you think Rafale will be obsolete at that time? Cause you will have to receive the second batch around year 2023 to 2026, when China had inducted 300 plus J20.
Thats not the point buddy.
China would have inducted J31 as well by that time frame and hence Chinese inventory of fifth generation fighters would be much higher.
however India needs to look at the situation from different perspective. It is given we cannot match PLAAF on one is to one number basis and planners would therefore take into account, actual threat perception point of view. My views are IAF is taking into account J-10 andJ-11, which have similar or matching capability.
While we can still debate on how Rafale compares with LO/VLO platforms (
@Picdelamirand-oil @Vergennes @BON PLAN ), it is a mighty mean machine in its own right. & if we consider 4+ generation fighters, Rafale can take on any of its contemporary peer in the region.
& given Rafale is replacing several platforms (MiG 21, MiG 27 and in future Jaguar and Mirage 2000), it is a good investment, from commonality point of view.