No 'Dhanush' Howitzer for the Army?

[The_Sidewinder]

Dont worry fellas. Dhanus will be inducted.

 

[sancho]

It is simply irrelevant when they are being funded with tax payer money. Heck they can even take an order for a single aircraft if it was asked of them.

Wrong, they have to because they have no choice and that's what you leave out, while privat players can even reject profitable deals, if they think it's not profitable enough, because they have the choice!
So while HAL have to commit themself to the national interest no matter if it's beneficial for their own interests or not, privat industry needs to commit themself like Bharat Forge does and invest in R&D on their own and not only wait for basic licence production deals. Only then the Indian forces get indigenous alternatives and only then India gets self reliant!

 

[Bang Galore]

Wrong, they have to because they have no choice and that's what you leave out, while privat players can even reject profitable deals, if they think it's not profitable enough, because they have the choice!
So while HAL have to commit themself to the national interest no matter if it's beneficial for their own interests or not, privat industry needs to commit themself like Bharat Forge does and invest in R&D on their own and not only wait for basic licence production deals. Only then the Indian forces get indigenous alternatives and only then India gets self reliant!

What do you mean they have no choice? They aren't burdened by ideas like loss & profit & they have no concept of not doing deals because they are not profitable. All deals are profitable for them, they all get paid & someone else picks up the bill. Every deal is in HAL's interest, even if it is for 1 aircraft because it means they get more money & lose nothing. Easy for you to say Bharat Forge & others should do this or that, it is downright silly to even compare it with companies like HAL. While HAL does "national service" using the tax payer's money, you expect everyone else to fork out their own money. Bharat Forge took a big risk with their investment in artillery, very few can afford that. However comparing it with the likes of HAL etc is beyond ridiculous. Even if HAL didn't have a single order, their jobs are pretty much secure, doing any number works for them. Your understanding of business & national interest is weird, if companies did things the HAL way, they would pretty much vanish from the picture & then it would be easy pickings for foreign companies to have a free run charging whatever they want. Some national interest..........

 

[sancho]

What do you mean they have no choice?

If MoD gives HAL the task to licence produce any aircraft in whatever number, HAL can't simply reject like a privat company can.

All deals are profitable for them, they all get paid & someone else picks up the bill.

Take the Pilatus trainer licence production as an example, HAL didn't wanted to do it and prefered to keep focusing on their own development, but if MoD had insisited they wouldn't had a choice. Since it's more likely that a privat industry player is meant to get the licence production, HAL might not need to bother themself with it anymore UNLESS, no privat player is ready to do it. Then MoD will go back and demand HAL to do it!
And that's the difference, a government owned company is bound to the national interest in the first place, because they are bound to MoD's decisions. Privat industry isn't, they can participate in MoD tenders or reject it as we see in the Avro replacement, because their goal is profit not the national interest.

Easy for you to say Bharat Forge & others should do this or that, it is downright silly to even compare it with companies like HAL. While HAL does "national service" using the tax payer's money, you expect everyone else to fork out their own money.

Why not? Samtel does it for years and is more than successful with it! They are mainly looking at the national interest, developing or producing avionics for the national market and our forces. Even better, they are jointly working with HAL to develop even better systems, showing how privat and government owned industry can work together for the Indian forces! So we already have good examples in India, we only have to push our privat industry to more of such joint developments, if not with our government owned industry, they should do it with foreign once.

 

[amardeep mishra]

On the contrary, the campaign is promoting MANUFACTURING in India, not Indian developments. If any Indian privat player can offer a foreign howitzer at similar or lower costs, with even better performance, they will have a better chance than the indigenous once.
The heli deals are also not cancelled to favour HAL's helicopters, but to implement the policy to team up with Indian privat partners and let them produce the FOREIGN helicopters in India.

The campaign is a huge blunder and far too many Indians fall for it, because the government sells it the right way, while it has nothing to do with pushing indigenous developments nor with making Indian self reliant. But one have to give it to the PM and his advisors, they made excellent choices for their PR teams during elections and now to sell their agendas.
Check this article, good read about the PR team:

Revealed: Man behind PM's Make in India campaign | Latest News & Updates at Daily News & Analysis

oh i am opening it after such a long time!probably after 2 years and my observation of certain people hasnt changed a bit!
ok coming back to the main point of all this make in india campaign,i'd like to provide my humble observation based on
1)attending various DRDO seminars
2)interaction with a couple of research engineers
3)having read a vast amount of research publications of DRDO.
It is really naive to singlehandedly claim that HAL or for that matter india's indigenous research in defence industry is non existent existent,for HAL alone filed close to 400 patents last year -and in my opinion patents are true indicators of inventiveness.However it is also true that the work culture in various DPSUs is mired with bureacratic hurdles and red tape ism
HAL and IAF to Work for ‘Make-in-India’ - The Times of India.
and as far as your argument of joint ventures is concerned,let me write here in no uncertain terms that no country simply parts away with their critical tech no matter how close you are to them!For instance we are buying/license manufacturing close to 272 SU-30 jets and even manufacture 87% of the engine(AL-31) at HAL korapput ,but in spite of that russians havent parted away with their SCB tech or in other words enabled indian industry to produce those very same SCBs! Thermal barrier coating is another area,however thankfully DRDO(DMRL) have designed ceramic based TBC
this slide will give you a brief idea of patents filed in various sectors ,i also happen to have one of my friends dealing with patent litigation and can provide a detailed document pertaining to total number of pates filed in in indian patent office(close to 48,000patents were filed in indian patent office last year)
India : Innovation and patents Sector Report_August 2013

@sancho

by the way do you know how many patents were filed by BHEL last year?It is certainly the highest among any public sector entity!two years back,they filed 385 patents-
Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd.
This year however they have exceeded the 400 mark(~440-450 patents).Now you'd naturally ask why i am bringing these figures now?It is just to highlight the fact that the general trend of research in INDIA HAS CHANGED and more emphasis is being laid to prtect the intellectual property from countries like china that continue to award "short patents(i forget the exact category)"(10 year validity) without even taking the pain of cross examining patent against the PRIMA-ART(that is left at the time of litigations(i.e when some foreign entity sues the chinese inventor for copyright violaitons or IPR breach) and in that too,the local chinese court seldom gives out verdict in the favour of foreign entity!)

@sancho

you see,there are certain critical high risk/high reward technologies that i think indian private sector wouldnt undertake for now- most importantly the metallurgical research related to single crystals,thermal barrier coating etc- these would have to be undertaken by the DRDO in collaboration with indian academic institutions,in fact DMRL is heavily collaborating with IIT kanpur(since i have seen various joint research papers).Once they have created the process/requisite technology then that can be transferred to indian pvt players for mass production.(Remember the critical DMPS- DUAL MODE FERRITE PHASE SHIFTER for our rajendra radar was patented by a IIT delhi professor way back in 90s! and the ToT of manufacturing DMPS was given to CEL- central electronics ltd)
here is what i propose should be done-
1)Creating ACCOUNTABILITY(which is lacking in various projects) in projects undertaken by DRDO
2)Abolish those DPSUs that have serious backlogs and fail to deliver(i know itz a bold move,but one that should be taken if we are to succeed)
3)Manufacturing responsibilities should be given to pvt players instead of DPSUs
4)Along side,pvt companies like TATA,AL,L&T should be encouraged to take up research projects in less critical areas or even design of sub-systems(for instance various companies especially TATA,BHEL and L&T have joint research collaborations with IITs and NITs for various projects ranging from CFD(computational fluid dynamics),temperature control in boilers,critical boilers,application of image processing in various flaw detection techniques to name a few).I am sure defence research can be undertaken by pvt players in collaboration with IITs/IISc/NITs(on a similar line with DRDO-IITs partnership)

I would like to emphasise the importance of research- back in 2012,i came to know that RCI was working on digital beam forming technolgies(prior to that all indian designed phased array radars featured beam forming in analog domain).That DBF tehnology has now been implemented in two of the most advanced and newest radars designed by DRDO namely arudhra and ashwin. What it allows is,impressive control of beams emanating from every single radiating element(because now you have got a A/D converter attached to every antennae(radiating element).You see these are some of the critical research that go un-noticed by a vast majority of so called indian defence analysts like prasun sengupta let alone our media

these are the pictures

 

[sancho]

and as far as your argument of joint ventures is concerned,let me write here in no uncertain terms that no country simply parts away with their critical tech no matter how close you are to them!For instance we are buying/license manufacturing close to 272 SU-30 jets and even manufacture 87% of the engine(AL-31) at HAL korapput ,but in spite of that russians havent parted away with their SCB tech or in other words enabled indian industry to produce those

Which is nothing but logical, since the MKI deal was done in the late 90s, in a time where we were highly dependent on Russia and no western country was ready to give us any credible ToT. Looking at the MKI deal then needs to be done from that point of view and not from our current need of modern techs!
Back then, the MKI deal was a game changer for the Indian industry, since we got the chance not only to assemble / licence produce foreign parts that were delivered to us, but to produce them under ToT on our own in India. Today we are even able to modify the MKI with more Indian systems and further increase the content, while the bulk of the systems obviously remain Russian of course, but still it offers our industry a major chance to improve themselfs.
Compare that to what DRDO has achived with LCA in the same time! Not a single squadron is inducted yet, because they wanted to develop too much indigenous stuff for it. So where did Indian industry gained more, from customizing MKI or dreaming about LCA? So what's the use of having patents, when you don't get things done?

M-MRCA is now the next step from the MKI deal, which is aimed to get us more industrial benefits and the modern techs that we need and don't develop currently on our own, JV and more importantly co-developments are similar advantages to make things actually possible and at the end to defend the country!
It's good that DRDO or other government owned companies are developing things, that's even exactly what I would want to see from our privat industry too, not only aiming on licence productions, but it's also important to have realistic ideas about what is possible, in what time and what quality. As long as that is not happening, the developments won't get successful and the forces will have to import things again, because our industry was not able to deliver. Numerous foreign fighter engines, because DRDO was not able to deliver Kaveri, Pilatus and possibly even new foreign jet trainers, because HAL was not able to deliver HTT40 and IJT, additional Do 228, because NAL was not able to deliver Saras...

you see,there are certain critical high risk/high reward technologies that i think indian private sector wouldnt undertake for now

Of course, but why should we limit ourselfs to DRDO "or" industry? Why can't we force DRDO to JV with privat partners and benefit from both sides? We had made us dependent from DRDO or HAL for far too long, while the privat industry is still not too interested in fully getting to developments, so lets get them to do things together instead! I am very hopeful about the DRDO / TATA Kestrel development and would love to see more similar JV's, which is why I would love to see an indigenous SSK development of MDL and L&T for example. Combine these in competition to other team ups, if necessary with foreign partners and you get the best for India and the forces.

here is what i propose should be done-
1)Creating ACCOUNTABILITY(which is lacking in various projects) in projects undertaken by DRDO

100% agree! As long as DRDO gets a free pass for failures and mistakes, nothing will get better.

3)Manufacturing responsibilities should be given to pvt players instead of DPSUs

And here I disagree, since it's better for us to let them compete with each other and to take the best offer. Diverting dependance from one side to the other (from Russian imports to western, or government owned industry to privat industry) doesn't help, pushing all of them for more performance by competing will get the most out of it!

 

[amardeep mishra]

And here I disagree, since it's better for us to let them compete with each other and to take the best offer. Diverting dependance from one side to the other (from Russian imports to western, or government owned industry to privat industry) doesn't help, pushing all of them for more performance by competing will get the most out of it!

@sancho

tell me sancho,have you actually seen,attended,talked to research engineers working on these systems? It is really not correct to to bash a system without having a first hand knowledge ,experience of these,dont you agree?
PS- I am talking about DRDO and not DPSUs

So where did Indian industry gained more, from customizing MKI or dreaming about LCA? So what's the use of having patents, when you don't get things done?

@sancho
i will tell you how exactly indian industry or in particular DRDO gained a lot while developing LCA-
1)development of control laws at CLAW provided an immense understanding of various adaptive controller strategies especially gain scheduling,model reference adaptive controller that suits the particular aerodynamic layout of LCA- it is not an easy job believe me! from CFD analysis to implementing adaptive controller strategies on a digital controller(mission computer) is just amazing
2)secondly,GTRE's gas turbine program provided the DRDO with valuable insight into designing a complicated gas turbine,sadly the challenges associated with kaveri are more to do with metallurgy than the design and layout of kaveri. which is quite obvious in this case because,one of my seniors who worked at ARCI- one of the labs specializing in powder metallurgy ,says that SCB and TBC are two most TIGHTLY EXPORT REGULATED technologies- no one will tell you how they grew the crystals- equiaxed or directionally solidified or single crystal.Hence DMRL's pain staking research created(for the first time in country) not only equiaxed and directionally solidified structures but also single crystal blades of first generation(late 80s and early 90s era).Another technological aspect of DMRL we've been ignoring all along is the metallurgical process designed by DMRL to extract titanium sponge from TiCl4- these are all certain technologies that HAL can never achieve regardless of degree of ToT offered by russians.you'd have to get your hands dirty if you want to develop these

 

[sancho]

tell me sancho,have you actually seen,attended,talked to research engineers working on these systems? It is really not correct to to bash a system without having a first hand knowledge ,experience of these,dont you agree?

No I don't and I don't agree, because you don't need experience in the field to distinguish between promises and reality and the simple reality is, that after years of defence developments in India, we still get far too little out of it. We have succeeded in certain areas of course, but we are also blinding ourselfs a lot and engineers, scientists and project managers are never taken accountable for these problems isn't it? Instead we always hear the same lame excuses, it was our first try, it was ambitious..., we didn't get enough support...

i will tell you how exactly indian industry or in particular DRDO gained a lot while developing LCA...

So how many LCA's are inducted now?
How many MFDs could HAL or SAMTEL build for LCA compared to MKI so far?
How many EW systems is DARE developing for MKI, Mig or other fighters and how much for LCA?
...
...
...
Don't just rate the intention, look at the outcome!

2)secondly,GTRE's gas turbine program provided the DRDO with valuable insight into designing a complicated gas turbine,sadly the challenges associated with kaveri are more to do with metallurgy than the design and layout of kaveri. which is quite obvious in this case because,one of my seniors who worked at ARCI- one of the labs specializing in powder metallurgy ,says that SCB and TBC are two most TIGHTLY EXPORT REGULATED technologies- no one will tell you how they grew the crystals- equiaxed or directionally solidified or single crystal.Hence DMRL's pain staking research created(for the first time in country) not only equiaxed and directionally solidified structures but also single crystal blades of first generation(late 80s and early 90s era)

The "valuable insight" costed the LCA program years of delays, because DRDO was so eager to put an indigenous engine into it, they they were never able to develop on their own. Nobody is against getting an valuable insight, but then DRDO should had done the Kaveri project as it's done all over the world, by starting it as a Tech Demo program, independent from any fighter and without a time line when it needs to be ready. They then should had selected a foreign engine for LCA from the start and build the fighters around that engine and not always come up with the foreign engine, when it gets clear that the Kaveri is nowhere near to be useful for LCA.
You can't justify "some" insights in the general engine development field, with the failure that Kaveri is, since it was directly linked to LCA!
And pointing to sanctions or export regulations are exactly those excuses that I meant, since nobody forced DRDO to go for US partners or techs, they could had taken counterparts from Russia, France or Israel too. So if these techs were not available, DRDO should never had tried to do it alone, but had tried to customize a foreign engine for starters. Volvo took a US engine and costumized it for the use in their Gripen, could DRDO had done similar with the Klimov RD 93 or Snecma M52 engines? Would that had been the safer and more realistic options to get insights in the engine field? Would that had eased the LCA program?

 

[amardeep mishra]

Volvo took a US engine and costumized it for the use in their Gripen, could DRDO had done similar with the Klimov RD 93 or Snecma M52 engines? Would that had been the safer and more realistic options to get insights in the engine field? Would that had eased the LCA program?

@sancho
do you even understand what you are saying? what exactly do you mean when you say "customized" a gas turbine engine? based on my little experience,i can safely assume that americans never did any technology transfer of their valued 4th gen SCBs,TBC or blisk manufacturing- and that is the most important in any engine(rest everything is irrelevant from complexity point of view)!- VOLVO must have changed some minor design of GE engine- i dont understand why is that even relevant(since we were discussing degree of complexity)
Even DRDO has modified the german MTU engine to enable it to perform flawlessly in harsh desert conditions(superior cooing,air filtering etc)

No I don't and I don't agree, because you don't need experience in the field to distinguish between promises and reality and the simple reality is, that after years of defence developments in India, we still get far too little out of it. We have succeeded in certain areas of course, but we are also blinding ourselfs a lot and engineers, scientists and project managers are never taken accountable for these problems isn't it? Instead we always hear the same lame excuses, it was our first try, it was ambitious..., we didn't get enough support...

@sancho
Well then,i rest my case,i wouldnt waste my time explaining my point to people who dont have an iota of what is happening in various DRDO labs.as for the rest of your post- i would agree ACCOUNTABILITY remains a major problem in various projects and that needs to be addressed. Secondly,i worked on rajendra radar back in 2012 during my interns(signal processing and beam steering).So i happen to "know" various challenges associated with design and development of critical technologies.
"deployment" of a weapon is not a sole criteria of the success of a lab project!- from a purely design perspective,it is the vast knowledge of various processes associated with the r&d of that system and overall gain of the industry that matters ina long run

 

[Stephen Cohen]

@sancho

If Something has to be blamed for LCA's delay it is the MMR

GE 404 was ALWAYS going to be the engine for LCA

Please read this news of 2007
F404-GE-IN20 Engines Ordered for India Light Combat Aircraft | Press Release | GE Aviation

It says that so far 600 flights with GE 404 F2 J3 have happened
and eight engines are already in use

In EACH NEWS relating to LCA since the early 90s; which appeared in the newspapers
it clearly mentioned the use of GE 404 engines

Infact Pokhran tests of 1998 had HIT hard the LCA programme
Read this news of 1998
Rediff On The NeT: US sanctions hit progress on LCA and light chopper projects

Kaveri was always an independent programme

 

[he-man]

@sancho

If Something has to be blamed for LCA's delay it is the MMR

GE 404 was ALWAYS going to be the engine for LCA

Please read this news of 2007
F404-GE-IN20 Engines Ordered for India Light Combat Aircraft | Press Release | GE Aviation

It says that so far 600 flights with GE 404 F2 J3 have happened
and eight engines are already in use

In EACH NEWS relating to LCA since the early 90s; which appeared in the newspapers
it clearly mentioned the use of GE 404 engines

Infact Pokhran tests of 1998 had HIT hard the LCA programme
Read this news of 1998
Rediff On The NeT: US sanctions hit progress on LCA and light chopper projects

Kaveri was always an independent programme

Sancho is correct,,,kaveri was a requirement too just like mmr back in the day.
But even with a foreign radar drdo cannot even develop a decent radome.

Thats a real shame.

 

[Stephen Cohen]

@sancho

The LCA programme was forgotten by the Indian people till the
LSP 3 with the Elta RADAR flew for the first time

The first flight flight of LCA was in 2001 /4 JAN
The radar came in 2010 /23 April

From the first prototype TD1 ; GE engines were being used 404 F2 J3
and now GE 404 IN20 were installed from LSP2 onwards ie from 2007 onward
the contract for which was signed in 2005

There is NO question of LCA getting delayed due to Kaveri

Only after LSP 3 and then LSP 4 did the Indian public interest was revived in LCA
From 2001 till 2010 people had simply forgotten about the LCA

The biggest culprit for the delay has been the MMR radar

 

[sancho]

VOLVO must have changed some minor design of GE engine- i dont understand why is that even relevant(since we were discussing degree of complexity)

It is reported that they have modified 40% of the originial engine on their own, so much for minor changes and why that is relevant is simple. If experienced companies like Volvo or Saab decide not to go for a completely newly developed engine, on board of their new fighter, why did DRDO thought they are better and can develop an own engine for LCA? That's why I asked you if DRDO could had done the same, with save options from Russia or France?
If yes, they would had got the valuable insight that you talked about, without risking the LCA program, without the risk of problems during sanctions, with far more possible ToT than with US engines...
As I said, nobody had forced DRDO to develop an own engine, nobody forced them to directly link it to LCA and nobody forced them to go and ask the US always for tech support, all these are examples where DRDO made mistakes on their own and the minor outcome of the Kaveri project with "some insights", can't justify all the delays and problems it caused!

wouldnt waste my time explaining my point to people who dont have an iota of what is happening in various DRDO labs

To be honest I couldn't care less about what is happening there, as long as they only promise things but fail to deliver, they are hardly of use for India and the forces. If you really are for accountability, you can't simply ignore DRDO's failures and have to start looking at them and at how to avoid such things in future.

If Something has to be blamed for LCA's delay it is the MMR

MMR is another part of the problem, which could had been avoided, but Kaveri was always aimed on LCA, the decision to go for the GE engines came only when it was clear that Kaveri is no alternative. The de-linking of the Kaveri program in fact just happend a few years ago in 2008 or 09 or so, till then DRDO kept aiming on it.[/QUOTE]

 

[amardeep mishra]

If experienced companies like Volvo or Saab decide not to go for a completely newly developed engine, on board of their new fighter, why did DRDO thought they are better and can develop an own engine for LCA? That's why I asked you if DRDO could had done the same, with save options from Russia or France?

@sancho
the answer is simple,back in late 80s,probably around 87-90 indian planners desired a higher degree of self reliance in terms of propulsion hence they decided to go ahead with the development of gas turbine all on their own.One of the reasons why russian engine wasnt considered the base or reference while developing our own was more to do with IAF's displeasure with the low MTBO figures of russian engines that IAF operated for so long.Secondly back in late 80s when this program was undertaken and even now india is much more prone to sanctions than swedes.To be brutally honest the primary reason of delay wasnt the kaveri ,a host of other nagging issues were responsible
According to GTRE's own research engineers,the metallurgy of russian engines is still a GENERATION behind that of latest western GTs

 

[Stephen Cohen]

@sancho

The links I have posted clearly support my statements

Your statement on Kaveri is wrong

Please read my links again