The falling squadron numbers is a matter of concern, I wanted the deal to go through. We need to add 60 aircrafts each year, both frontline and second tier of defense, to have a powerful Air force. The shit is real in our neighborhood. We can't afford to go Brazil's way.
Dude!!You are missing the point here.The license production part of the deal is off,not the whole deal.In fact it is the best thing that could happen because now IAF will get the planes at a much faster rate,with better better quality control and a reduced cost per system!!license production clause was a bummer from the very beginning,since no country has ever become self reliant in any field by merely assembling a product under license.Just remember,how many different fighters (and tanks) we have assembled through out the years,but has it made us self reliant in the field of aeronautics??The answer is a big
NO.So there is no point in expecting this particular deal to have brought us result any different than the previous ones.
And moreover,it will free up the HAL facilities which would have been used to manufacture those Rafales (most likely at a snails' pace if I may add) and the same facility could be used to manufacture LCAs,which will again speed up the entire process of fleet modernization .
PS- Dude,no disrespect to you,but it would be better and much appreciated if you could lower your insults to the PKS,he's doing a noble job of making us familiar to the matters previously unknown to us common folk,and remember,he has got noself interest in this thing because he's not even a journo or a wanna be expert;he's a military enthusiast by his own accounts.And he's been doing this far better compared to the likes of that fucking sell-out Mr Shukla or that five year old douche-bag on steroid Shiv Aroor.
Granted,he is somewhat delusional when he gets all worked up by the concept of Aliens and shit but other than that,his predictions mostly come to be true,at least that's what I have found out over the years.Like he was the first who had mentioned that the operational A5's weight would be about 24 tons,which was later confirmed by Tessy Thomas,he was the one who had predicted that an Astra based QRSAm could well make Maitri redundant,and now it is coming to be true.But biggest point in favor of him would be that he had been saying this cancellation of Rafale license manufacture from the past couple of years,and now that too turned out to be true!!So please,do criticize him for his limitations and the weird alien mambo jumbo nonsense ,but please make sure you are not doing it just for the sake of it or because his ideas and perceptions doesn't match yours.Peace.
Did some investigation, weather true or not, The Kolkatta have 32 Baraks fitted below decks that are loaded internally to VLS launch module. This would explain the empty deck space. So in all thats 64 Barak 8 missiles.
Ok,but how they gonna take out the spent canisters at the first place??I mean you need to first take out the spent ones,in order to slide the reloads into its place,so how they gonna do that??There is no craines on-board.And besides,don't you think it would make more sense to put the rest in ready to fire VLS modules,instead of this supposed below deck reloads,which even if possible,is far more complex of a system which would be prone to mechanical failures and also cumbersome to use in high sea states??In my personal opinion,(it doesn't count for shit,I know that already) the empty space is kept for future upgrades,possibly Nirbhay sub sonic LACMs or longer range SAMs/anti BM missiles or both.
Fateh ki baat kia hain bhai tune.
By the way dude,you on fb??