MMRCA debate

[MilSpec]

the travesty is DRDO and HAL works with absolutely no responsibility at all. And that is not their fault !

Let me add something .. The kind of business organisation you have and the operating environment and the reward systems greatly influence the way how much the firm would be effective in achieving its goals.

If you have a modicum of understanding of the bureaucratic form you will know that such a form of organisation is totally infeasible to tackle the complex and unstable challenges of an aerospace industry. We need very fast responsiveness and a major haul of the reward systems in it.

Point is, we haven't structured DRDO and HAL well enough so that it can function efficiently and live upto the challenges of the aerospace industry.

You should see the attitude ( in literal sense and not MTV lingo ) of people working there. They treat it just as a bread and butter job ( the anecdotal sarkari naukri ) where they have to be there for couple of hours everyday and their targets in life are not aligned with the organisational goals ( which is to deliver products every couple of years ).

The kind of commitment needed from an individual in such a industry will simply not be served by a 9AM to 5 PM schedule interspersed with samosa breaks and a guaranteed fixed emolument increase every 2 years or so.

IMHO these firms should be more horizontally structured and higher ups must be trained to not treat their younger counterparts as a threat to their job and we should create empowered roles where the responsibility of outcomes is shared among all.

Unfortunately even if what i say is implemented, it will be the first of its kind government organisation in India.

Some more detail would go far in this discussion. There is no organisation in the world which can have a static structure, The structure of any organisation , HAL to boeing to the Annaporna restaurant need to constantly evolve or they will go out of business. But the larger question is when would this logic be applied to the Ministry of D (i am not sure if it stands for defence anymore)

 

[Dillinger]

There cannot be any substantial objective debate on MMMRCA- Rafale period. The simple fact remains that there isn't enough information available on the subject.

Objective
The objective of mmmrca project (not the original mrca - mig29mki vs mirage 2000-5) was a three pronged strategy.
1> To get a platform that satisfies minimum operational requirements of forces (multi role, aerodynamic performance, detection range, BVR probability, radar resolution and noise, SPS, Sortie rate Engine turnaround time).
2> To obtain comprehensive technology transfer with material to product capability within the Indian manufacturing sense.
3> To select a platform which has the optimal lifecycle cost to performance (both flying and service)


Let me disagree with supposed experts fielded in the Indian defense circles by saying all three objectives are ambiguous, amateurish and unrealistic. The reason being objectives need to be "S.M.A.R.T" - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and with a given Time .

Lets look at inherent issues with these objectives:

Minimum operational conformance:
All 6 aircraft went through field trials, from minimum requirements and availability Mig35 was a given deletion as the aircraft did not exist, and gripen deemed not mature enough. There is no transparency why these decisions were taken, Mig 35 was exactly as real as the Su30MKI was when decided to procure, high altitude trials was also an issue for the mig 35 which was a real ding, but still wont be a deal breaker as I am privy to information that it was an easy fix but not allowed by the evaluation committee. It was a russian mistake and a comedy of errors for which russian ground staff was to be blamed, same happened for hot weather trials for the F/A18 SH. From the complete package perspective except the Mig35 Zhuk AESA, F/A 18Sh and F16 IN none of the aircraft's fielded had an operational aesa radar so could be argued as grounds for disqualification, but were given a lifeline. But no such considerations were done for the Mig35 or the F/A 18 SH engine issue. (even though both the test aircraft's had different engines than were offered on the package). why?

Comprehensive technology transfer:
It is laughable that evaluation of technology transfer was done by the Indian Air Force and Ministry of defense, Which has zero knowledge of the matter. The most experienced entity in the country for technology transfer, HAL was never consulted for scope of technology transfer. Even Tata or Mahindra has comprehensive knowledge of technology transfer paradigms like Vave, PED, PG1-3, etc, when has Airforce done any tech transfer to evaluate the efficacy of the bids and their ToT offer. In a bid I can claim to share Design data, and with-hold any of the following like material properties, or standard part designation or DFMEA data, of level of detail, or drawing standard mismatchs, or comprehensive Jigs and Fixture setup process as undefined in the bid and the evaluation team wouldn't know.

The air chiefs of stratpost are having a field day taking digs at HAL, completely disregarding the fact that Material to product transformation transfer has never occurred except probably in the case of Mig21 in the history of modern aviation. Looking at what fokker or samsung or mitsubishi has fone with F16 Subsystems, it is astounding what HAL has achieved in the same paradigm. But which Air chief marshal or Blogger would know that, when they can barely differentiate between a mill and a lathe.

Life Cycle Costs:

No verifiable data exists for lifecycle cost any of the aircrafts for the MMRCA. the simple fact remains is that US lifecycle costs of F16 CANNOT be applied to India. A Mil std rivet cutter costs $52 in US, the same costs $162 in India. Same applies to theAircraft grade Aluminium stampings, Steel billets, Titanium alloy, hardened bearing, so on and so forth. Also there is no transparency in the lifecycle costs submitted to the Airforce, especially for an aircraft like Mig35 which never existed in the first place. How did Airforce evaluate EFT and Rafale's cost when their respective radar and some of the key munitions did not exist in production? This raises a very big question in authenticity of the evaluation of Life cycle cost. Apart from that when did Air force become credible in evaluation life-cycle costs of capital equipment? I am extremely fascinated with the comparison with Mig29 debate when it comes to life cycle cost, especially when Indian airforce has done nothing to reduce it. Mig29's are a direct purchase from Russia, and maintenance was done by Base repair depot. The actual reason of serviceability of mig 29 is not the aircraft itself but gross incompetence of BRD's to maintain required spares and extremely poor skill level of BRD technicians. As a matter of fact if HAL nasik division stops supporting 11 BRD, it will close doors the next day, this is the real reason why Mig29 faced serviceability issues and in all reality the post UPG program all maintenance and overhaul will transfer to HAL.


We like to keep taking potshots at the LCA program and now I have started hearing this new turkey gobble that Funds have never been the issue, which is complete horse $hit. Revenue budget for ADA and HAL has been extremely poor, i wouldn't go into role of HAL in LCA program, as I have roared on and on about it in the past. But IAF and especially by the Ministry of Dufus have deliberately stifled the revenue budget for LCA program which hasn't allowed HAL or the ADA to hire the required numbers of engineers and technicians for all the phases of the LCA program. You do not provide any resources to the Indian agencies, and post useless retired airforce and army personnel to positions in manufacturing who cant read a simple drawing and then expect them to manage and expedite a manufacturing project with more than a million part assembly. What else can be expected from the program then.


regards

@sancho @Oscar @Capt.Popeye

No mention? Feel unloved.

The point people tend to miss is that firstly, no one, not the French and not our own sasurs are going pass on the Know-why. The issue lies in trying to explain the sheer complexities of the process which are comprised within the simple sounding line "materials to product transformation". Most people cannot even comprehend the complexity involved in such a transfer process specifically because they conflate know how with the know why and refuse to understand that there are so many constituents which inform the design and then build a system that any said component being absent will render all their notions of ToT redundant.

 

[MilSpec]

No mention? Feel unloved.

The point people tend to miss is that firstly, no one, not the French and not our own sasurs are going pass on the Know-why. The issue lies in trying to explain the sheer complexities of the process which are comprised within the simple sounding line "materials to product transformation". Most people cannot even comprehend the complexity involved in such a transfer process specifically because they conflate know how with the know why and refuse to understand that there are so many constituents which inform the design and then build a system that any said component being absent will render all their notions of ToT redundant.

No love lost. rest assured, just a feeble forgetful old mind in young body.

 

[Dillinger]

No love lost. rest assured, just a feeble forgetful old mind in young body.

Tell me something though, now that we have ADA running about as a reality with almost all the responsibility for designing the indigenous front line aerospace products (LCA, AMCA) how do you reconcile that with HAL's envisaged role of being the "provider" for the IAF, I mean how do you get HAL as a simple systems integrator on these projects to somehow take its production experience (production being a science and in terms of specific products a technology in and on itself, something that ADA admittedly forgot when it thought that HAL would pick the tab) and inform current and future ADA designs?

Frankly its a little sickening to see the ADA chief bemoan how they solely focused on building a plane rather than an implement of war, to paraphrase him. Although I will say this, they have bought back some ground on this with initiatives like the ASMS.

 

[MilSpec]

Tell me something though, now that we have ADA running about as a reality with almost all the responsibility for designing the indigenous front line aerospace products (LCA, AMCA) how do you reconcile that with HAL's envisaged role of being the "provider" for the IAF, I mean how do you get HAL as a simple systems integrator on these projects to somehow take its production experience (production being a science and in terms of specific products a technology in and on itself, something that ADA admittedly forgot when it thought that HAL would pick the tab) and inform current and future ADA designs?

Frankly its a little sickening to see the ADA chief bemoan how they solely focused on building a plane rather than an implement of war, to paraphrase him. Although I will say this, they have bought back some ground on this with initiatives like the ASMS.

Mikoyan, Sukhoi, iluyshin, formula if applied will work. Let ADA function the way it want's under the chatrachaya of MoD. Let HAL design it's product, let there be private investment in HAL ( Because without HAL's profits being sucked by Ambani brothers and our beloved neta's, there is no chance for them getting thier real share of revenue and capital budget).

If pigs could fly, I would want HAL to wash it's hands of Rafale and let the IAF manufacture the aircraft they way they want to. Let them use who ever the **** they want to manufacture the the aircraft. Ideally. HAL should only concentrate in manufacturing MKI, Super MKI, and UPG, Mirage upgrade, Jaguar upgrade, mig7M Dare, PMF FGFA and most importantly LCA MkII and larger Super Mk2 AESA. But that is if pigs could fly.

IAF and MOD will cribb and complain about HAL, then go ahead and send them to the OEM for overhauls. and start stopping overhaul lines.

IAF and MoD have mismanaged the situation so bad, that I would prefer to be rickshaw wala instead of GM HAL

 

[shiv]

Some more detail would go far in this discussion. There is no organisation in the world which can have a static structure, The structure of any organisation , HAL to boeing to the Annaporna restaurant need to constantly evolve or they will go out of business. But the larger question is when would this logic be applied to the Ministry of D (i am not sure if it stands for defence anymore)

yes ! dynamic and evolving structure goes unsaid since i have already made it clear how profound the dependency is with external factors .. !

currently no one is willing to discuss it. The discussion either gets concluded that DRDO are bunch of losers or saner ones wrap it by saying improve military-HAL/DRDO interaction in product prototype testing stage. No one bothers to capture the underlying reason for it.

My friend's elder brother was in DRDO and he left it after couple of years bogged down by too much of politics and ultimately joined IIT Kanpur through gate. He was a really bright fellow.

The challenge really is to change the attitude of each employees in these organisations !

 

[Dillinger]

Mikoyan, Sukhoi, iluyshin, formula if applied will work. Let ADA function the way it want's under the chatrachaya of MoD. Let HAL design it's product, let there be private investment in HAL ( Because without HAL's profits being sucked by Ambani brothers and our beloved neta's, there is no chance for them getting thier real share of revenue and capital budget).

If pigs could fly, I would want HAL to wash it's hands of Rafale and let the IAF manufacture the aircraft they way they want to. Let them use who ever the **** they want to manufacture the the aircraft. Ideally. HAL should only concentrate in manufacturing MKI, Super MKI, and UPG, Mirage upgrade, Jaguar upgrade, mig7M Dare, PMF FGFA and most importantly LCA MkII and larger Super Mk2 AESA. But that is if pigs could fly.

IAF and MOD will cribb and complain about HAL, then go ahead and send them to the OEM for overhauls. and start stopping overhaul lines.

IAF and MoD have mismanaged the situation so bad, that I would prefer to be rickshaw wala instead of GM HAL

Yarra that's a broad term sort of thing you're envisioning there.

I am talking of how exactly can collaboration exist between ADA and HAL because at the end of the day LCA MK.1 and 2 and the AMCA (if it ever comes about) will be ADA designs with HAL churning them out, so how can HAL play its part not just in the build but also by informing ADA at the design stage itself?

 

[jaunty]

Now it has been close to 10 years of this drama.

MMRCA is like a day time soap opera on Indian TV, it never ends.

 

[sancho]

There cannot be any substantial objective debate on MMMRCA- Rafale period. The simple fact remains that there isn't enough information available on the subject.

Objective
The objective of mmmrca project (not the original mrca - mig29mki vs mirage 2000-5) was a three pronged strategy.
1> To get a platform that satisfies minimum operational requirements of forces (multi role, aerodynamic performance, detection range, BVR probability, radar resolution and noise, SPS, Sortie rate Engine turnaround time).
2> To obtain comprehensive technology transfer with material to product capability within the Indian manufacturing sense.
3> To select a platform which has the optimal lifecycle cost to performance (both flying and service)

The simple fact that exactly the 2 fighters, that are most expensive to procure and to operate clearly speaks against an "objective" to search for the optimal lifecycle cost to performance, otherwise at least 1 of the better choices in this regard must had been shortlisted too. The whole lifecycle cost is more a new feature "within the process of evaluation", since earlier only the lowest procurement cost was considered. But it never really had an importance for the shortlisting and came in only in the final selection fo the L1 and L2, which however included costs of the whole offer and not only about the operational costs of the fighters.

Minimum operational conformance:
All 6 aircraft went through field trials, from minimum requirements and availability Mig35 was a given deletion as the aircraft did not exist, and gripen deemed not mature enough. There is no transparency why these decisions were taken

First of all, there is no official statement that would confirm that the Mig was rejected because of that, it is only a commonly stated fact that, neither there is a proper Mig 35 prototype available till today, as the Russians proposed to us (bigger wings, more fuel and hardpoints...), or that it would not had been available according to the timeframe of the RDP for delivery (which even the Russians openly admitted and which now turned out to be true).

Mig 35 was exactly as real as the Su30MKI was when decided to procure

No it wasn't, since the Su 30Ks and even the early Su 35 prototypes, where available to show multi role capability and tech performance. For the Mig that was not the case, the trials were done with older Mig 29SMT and K/KUB airframes, the AESA was only in early prototype stage and far from the promises the Russians gave, so all they had were a Mig 29 with TVC to show us, while there was not a single new capability that would actually be new.
The US contenders on the other side had operational AESAs, modern avionics and the better weapon pack to show of, the Europeans added even better weapons and high flight performance. It shouldn't be surprising that (according to rumors) IAF was not that impressed by the flight performance of an around 12t Mig 29K, with RD33MK engines @ 100kN dry, but without TVC, compared to an 11t EF, with canards, 120kN dry thrust and most likely even supercruise capabilities right? So when you cut one of the most important factors for Russian fighters, the flight performance, you don't actually have much left in it's favour. And if then lifecycle costs plays a role too, it gets even worse!

From the complete package perspective except the Mig35 Zhuk AESA, F/A 18Sh and F16 IN none of the aircraft's fielded had an operational aesa radar

That's not correct, infact the Russians still have no operational AESA at all and the Mig had only tech demo versions, similar to what the Gripen or the EF offered. The only fully developed AESAs were fielded by the US fighters and the Rafale, which even came to India with the AESAs, while the Mig, the EF and the Gripen for the most part did AESA trials in their countries.

But no such considerations were done for the Mig35 or the F/A 18 SH engine issue. (even though both the test aircraft's had different engines than were offered on the package). why?

The F18SH was offered by Boeing with the currently integrated version of the GE 414, but that doesn't provide enough power to fulfill the reported flight performance requirements, but Boeing still offered it, to remain with the advantage of low unit and operational costs (EPE would had added development costs, increased maintenance costs and a far lower operational life of the engine). The EPE engine offer, came only very late, when it was evident, that the lack of flight performance was a deal breaker and was a desperate move on their side to remain in the competition, but since they did not included it in their offer from the start, it obviously can't be considered later.

Comprehensive technology transfer:
In a bid I can claim to share Design data, and with-hold any of the following

But that's the point of the offer or even of the reply to the RFP, the vendor propose data or possible techs, that they want to share. How much that is true at the end needs to be seen, since often the data are theoretical estimates, not similar to operations in Indian forces, or will come with difficulties for ToT to the Indian industry. But all this are matters that will come up in future, the crucial point of theis objective however was, not only to get the limited ToT that foreign vendors used to provide in the past, far away from useful ammounts or even critical techs, but demand things as a requirement to be even considered within the competition. The fact that even the US now was ready to provide fighters and that even in a licence production deal, was a huge chance for India and it clearly needs to be exploited as much as possible. So more than HAL's experience with ToT in the practical sense, it was important to get certain critical ToT's for Indias industry and future. Btw, since the RFP gives the winning vendor the free choice of selecting partners to divert ToT, it had no use to get HAL involved anyway, since HAL would had focused on their own needs, but if the winning vendor chooses other partners, the whole time to talk and evaluate with HAL would had been wasted.
Simple example, of HAL wanted ToT of the MFD's of Rafale, but Thales preferes to provide it via their JV to Samtel, HAL doesn't get anything, which makes it useless to talk with HAL in the first place about what they want.
We all know that one of the cruicial ToT requirements were for AESA, which also is the most likely reason that went against the US fighters and here again, it is not HAL that will benefit from ToT, but BEL, since they are meant to be the partner of Thales.

You might surely be right that IAF has not the competence to evalute the practical side of ToT, but I don't think they did that anyway. Their aim was to get important techs and barely compared the offers for what the vendors were ready to share. Now after 2 years of negotiations with Indian industrial partners, Dassault and Co were able to meet the requirements and their offers, the practical side howevern will be seen only over the next decade or so.

 

[Abingdonboy]

Saw this vid a few days ago, underlines the fact the MMRCA is a MUST. The 2022 shortfall would only be exacerbated if the MMRCA doesn't come to fruition.


Who cares about what these journos have to say? Bloody fools.....

 

[sancho]

Who cares about what these journos have to say? Bloody fools.....

Actually they pointed out some pretty good points, infact it's the surprising diversity of experts "ex IAF, IA, IN service men, Indian defence journalists even including Ajay Shukla) that made this discussion quiet interesting, because only then you get different point of views. It is logical that the forces would otherwise only talk about things in their interest (blaming MoD or the PSUs), but not talking about the mistakes of the process of the competition as pointed out by Vishal Thapar for example. It would had been even more interesting, if there would had been officials of the industry too, like HAL or DRDO to react to critizism.

 

[$even]

The part that caught my attention in the debate was the availability rate of 44% for the Rafale operated by the French .That figure is really disappointing when you think about the PAF operating their F-16's at 73.6%.

 

[nik22]

The part that caught my attention in the debate was the availability rate of 44% for the Rafale operated by the French .That figure is really disappointing when you think about the PAF operating their F-16's at 73.6%.

Looks like bigger and complex a fighter get, its availability reduces. Mirage 2000 in IAF also have pretty good operational availability. IAF has been happy with Mirage. But 44% for Rafale in France is a shocker. It is comparable to Sukhoi (Russian weapons in general are blamed for more operational cost).
It would be interesting to now if someone has figure for F22

 

[$even]

Looks like bigger and complex a fighter get, its availability reduces. Mirage 2000 in IAF also have pretty good operational availability. IAF has been happy with Mirage. But 44% for Rafale in France is a shocker. It is comparable to Sukhoi (Russian weapons in general are blamed for more operational cost).
It would be interesting to now if someone has figure for F22

85% for the F-22 according to flight global.

Sorry can't post the URL.

 

[MilSpec]

The simple fact that exactly the 2 fighters, that are most expensive to procure and to operate clearly speaks against an "objective" to search for the optimal lifecycle cost to performance, otherwise at least 1 of the better choices in this regard must had been shortlisted too. The whole lifecycle cost is more a new feature "within the process of evaluation", since earlier only the lowest procurement cost was considered. But it never really had an importance for the shortlisting and came in only in the final selection fo the L1 and L2, which however included costs of the whole offer and not only about the operational costs of the fighters.

Reading the post in entirety would have helped instead of cherry picking. I stated 3 objectives, and F/A 18 SH, Gripen and Mig35 were deemed not meeting the first objective, and thus did not contend in the competition despite what ever it's cost to performance would have been (Don't know what operational shortcoming was observed in F16). I hope you understand that, and who evaluated life cycle costs of project and not just the aircraft is in contention here. The question arises that lifecycle cost of the aircraft is quoted by the mfg, not not evaluated. because IAF doesn't posses the needed background to evaluate life cycle cost of a manufacturing project to begin with. Correct me if I am wrong. Then is there a penalty clause for exceeding the estimated cost of operation as claimed by mfg? if not, why?

First of all, there is no official statement that would confirm that the Mig was rejected because of that, it is only a commonly stated fact that, neither there is a proper Mig 35 prototype available till today, as the Russians proposed to us (bigger wings, more fuel and hardpoints...), or that it would not had been available according to the timeframe of the RDP for delivery (which even the Russians openly admitted and which now turned out to be true).

Yes, it is called made to order, RAC did not see the advantage to manufacture a prototype where odds were already stacked against them. when barometric pressure correction was not used to evaluate idle thrust for the prototype, which is a standard practice even for USAF.

No it wasn't, since the Su 30Ks and even the early Su 35 prototypes, where available to show multi role capability and tech performance. For the Mig that was not the case, the trials were done with older Mig 29SMT and K/KUB airframes, the AESA was only in early prototype stage and far from the promises the Russians gave, so all they had were a Mig 29 with TVC to show us, while there was not a single new capability that would actually be new.

Assuming your argument is absolutely correct
Then EFT, and Rafale had Captor E and RBE2 Operational? RFI was issued by IAF, RAC was not trying thrust an aircraft down the throat of IAF, if mig 29 ovt, had nothing to offer then why did IAF send RFI and RFP to RAC to begin with, and waste the tax payers money. If Mig29 had nothing to offer then why include it in MMRCA.

Now Assuming the opposite of your argument,
3D TVC on still one of the most capable aerodynamic platforms ever designed puts the plain jane Mig29OVT out of realm of all competition in WVR. I saw the OVT in Bangalore, and I have spent a lot of time seeing MKI's fly. I have also seen F22 Raptor doing airshow tricks. nothing could have come close to the simple Mig29OVT. Apart from that as far as no single new technology is concerned, open architecture would have given immense cross platform flexibility, RVV-PD all aspect would have given a significant BVR advantage, Increase in fuel was later shown in Mig29UPG, so was completely achievable. My assumption would be for these stated reasons Mig35 was included in the MMRCA competition, if not then the MOD and IAF better have a good reason why the RFI was sent to RAC to begin with.

The US contenders on the other side had operational AESAs, modern avionics and the better weapon pack to show of, the Europeans added even better weapons and high flight performance. It shouldn't be surprising that (according to rumors) IAF was not that impressed by the flight performance of an around 12t Mig 29K, with RD33MK engines @ 100kN dry, but without TVC, compared to an 11t EF, with canards, 120kN dry thrust and most likely even supercruise capabilities right? So when you cut one of the most important factors for Russian fighters, the flight performance, you don't actually have much left in it's favour. And if then lifecycle costs plays a role too, it gets even worse!

Question, how do you evaluate life cycle cost of a non-existent aircraft to begin with and how credible would that cost be?

That's not correct, infact the Russians still have no operational AESA at all and the Mig had only tech demo versions, similar to what the Gripen or the EF offered. The only fully developed AESAs were fielded by the US fighters and the Rafale, which even came to India with the AESAs, while the Mig, the EF and the Gripen for the most part did AESA trials in their countries.

Rafale came to india with a prototype radar and not an operational one, I wonder how do you do a PLM project on a prototype with no pfmea or dfmea, may be you know something I dont, but I have never heard of Life cycle cost evaluation on prototype subsystems.

But that's the point of the offer or even of the reply to the RFP, the vendor propose data or possible techs, that they want to share. How much that is true at the end needs to be seen

Then where is the penalty clause?

since often the data are theoretical estimates, not similar to operations in Indian forces, or will come with difficulties for ToT to the Indian industry. But all this are matters that will come up in future, the crucial point of theis objective however was, not only to get the limited ToT that foreign vendors used to provide in the past.

So IAF will evaluate if it needs tooling and machine tools for internal stamping of wing skin of rafale without asking HAL? How does IAF evaluate a ToT proposal? What manufacturing background does IAF evalaution team have to evaluate offset clause?

far away from useful ammounts or even critical techs, but demand things as a requirement to be even considered within the competition. The fact that even the US now was ready to provide fighters and that even in a licence production deal, was a huge chance for India and it clearly needs to be exploited as much as possible. So more than HAL's experience with ToT in the practical sense, it was important to get certain critical ToT's for Indias industry and future. Btw, since the RFP gives the winning vendor the free choice of selecting partners to divert ToT,

Isn't that beautiful. So dassault would like ambani bandhu to build Wing assemblies, so Dassault would sell a AL profilers, Hydraulic Die Presses and laser Welders to Ambanis, and ambanis dont pay any import duty for the capital equipment and is subsidized by MoD. But wait, HAL has the largest CNC complex and the second largest AL profilers in asia.. but again Who cares....

it had no use to get HAL involved anyway, since HAL would had focused on their own needs, but if the winning vendor chooses other partners, the whole time to talk and evaluate with HAL would had been wasted.

Oh I wish, HAL had the capability to reject this project. i would have celebrated. Let IAF and Ambanis manufacture it with ADA or xyz.
For evaluation of ToT, the MOD ignores the biggest TOT agent in the country.... This must be a brilliant move.

Simple example, of HAL wanted ToT of the MFD's of Rafale, but Thales preferes to provide it via their JV to Samtel, HAL doesn't get anything, which makes it useless to talk with HAL in the first place about what they want.
We all know that one of the cruicial ToT requirements were for AESA, which also is the most likely reason that went against the US fighters and here again, it is not HAL that will benefit from ToT, but BEL, since they are meant to be the partner of Thales.

And do we know the unit cost of the same MFD's that the JV would be providing compared to what HAL could have given?

You might surely be right that IAF has not the competence to evalute the practical side of ToT, but I don't think they did that anyway. Their aim was to get important techs and barely compared the offers for what the vendors were ready to share. Now after 2 years of negotiations with Indian industrial partners, Dassault and Co were able to meet the requirements and their offers, the practical side howevern will be seen only over the next decade or so.

So you are saying the decision of selection involved some superficial ToT clause? Then why bother and waste the tax payers money, stall IAF's requirements with all this? You keep repeating this important techs, now if the ToT wasn't discussed in detail, how would IAF even be able to tell with 100% confidence that the bid supported can let BEL completely manufacture the RBE2 from scratch within a given time period? The tech transfer could assume certain available technology which would only let BEL may be get the ability to make material to product transformation after development of key technologies, which could be 2 years to 20 years (remember bofors)? IAF doesn't have the ability to evaluate any such criterion.