Rafale proposal 'effectively dead' as Dassault bid not cheapest

[SpArK]

I've decided not to anymore. I appealed my previous rating and warning to @Oscar, and got no response. As you can see, the Pakistani member's shitty flaim bait passed the test of acceptability for @Horus. So I want the negative to stand, because it says something about the raters and the rating system. Since I don't have any respect for the rating system anymore, I shall respond ball for ball (or "mortar for bullet", as the BSF calls it) to such trashy posts by Pakistanis, if the mods don't neg them or delete them. I know I don't initiate trolling, I only respond, and only when their trolling is given a pass, and only because I have lost faith in the ratings and moderation.

*cough* *cough*

What I was referring to was that no one is offering us "complete" ToT, there is no point holding it against the Americans alone.

True. The previous arguments of fear over american systems holds no true in the present geopolitical scenario.
Even Gripen has a chance.

 

[janon]

And yes, Growlers are bought by Aussies, hence its also on available list

It was a growler-lite. I'm not sure if the complete growler package is available for export. It is still their best EW weapon. @gambit @SvenSvensonov ?

(BTW Sven, please consider changing your username to something easier. It is a PITA to tag you, I can never get it right.)

 

[Echo_419]

I've decided not to anymore. I appealed my previous rating and warning to @Oscar, and got no response. As you can see, the Pakistani member's shitty flaim bait passed the test of acceptability for @Horus. So I want the negative to stand, because it says something about the raters and the rating system. Since I don't have any respect for the rating system anymore, I shall respond ball for ball (or "mortar for bullet", as the BSF calls it) to such trashy posts by Pakistanis, if the mods don't neg them or delete them. I know I don't initiate trolling, I only respond, and only when their trolling is given a pass, and only because I have lost faith in the ratings and moderation.

Good to know you have taken a stand on this

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If this is real then we should go for the F-18

 

[SpArK]

It was a growler-lite. I'm not sure if the complete growler package is available for export. It is still their best EW weapon. @gambit @svenswenov ?

Even MKIs can be made to use the job of Growlers... ask @sancho

 

[SrNair]

View attachment 193880

Sparkky .We are talking about the US here.They are masters in arm twisting.
MoD has already cleared that there will be no revisit in MMRCA deal.

 

[janon]

*cough* *cough*

Some guilty of commission, some of omission.

No Indian rater has negged that fellow, although his post is more uncalled for than mine.

 

[syedali73]

I have said this before, and repeating it again. The concept of transfer of technology (TT) among certain members is highly flawed. I am in academia and into the business of research and development. R&D is hugely expensive business, and complicated war machines comprise of hundreds if not thousands of individuals components whose technologies are patent protected. No matter what price is offered, technology is not transferred for it is not only Boeing (for instance) that owns all the patents behind individuals components used in a machine. The max one gets is limited license to assemble the individual components. Boeing ready to transfer the technology is a fallacy that certain members should try to understand.

 

[Abingdonboy]

Even as three Rafale fighters line up in Bengaluru for eye-popping aerobatics displays at the Aero India 2015 exhibition this week, senior ministry of defence (MoD) sources say the proposal to buy the French fighter is "effectively dead".

The reason: During three years of negotiations between Dassault and MoD officials in the so-called "contract negotiation committee" (CNC), it has emerged that Dassault's bid was actually higher than that of the Eurofighter Typhoon, not lower as the MoD had announced on January 31, 2012.

Dassault had submitted a sketchy commercial bid, and when the CNC obtained details from the French company to arrive at the actual cost of the Rafale, the figures added up to significantly more than had originally been estimated.

The confusion is due partly to MoD inexperience with "life cycle costing" (LCC). The global tender for 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) was the first time the MoD was awarding a contract based on LCC. This meant the winner would not be the fighter with the cheapest purchase price; instead the chosen fighter would be the one that was cheaper to buy, fly, maintain and overhaul over its 30-40 year service life.

"An inexperienced MoD, working off incomplete and sketchy details provided by Dassault, had incorrectly adjudged the Rafale cheaper. Now, after three years of obtaining clear figures from the French, we find India would be paying significantly more than had been initially calculated," says an official in the CNC.

Contacted for comments, the MoD has not responded.

The MoD has been backing away from the Rafale for two months now. On December 30, 2014, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar admitted for the first time there were "complications" in the negotiations with Dassault, and outlined the IAF's alternatives.

"The Sukhoi-30MKI is an adequate aircraft for meeting the air force's needs", said Parrikar.

Last week the prime minister was pointedly distanced from the Rafale. On Saturday, an unusual MoD press release denied a newspaper report that the PM would fly in the Rafale during the Aero India 2015 air show at Bangalore this week.

"It is clarified that there is no plan for the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to fly in any fighter jet. The news item is incorrect, misconceived and is not based on facts", stated the MoD.

This is the second time the MoD has gone wrong in LCC evaluations. As Business Standard reported on Saturday ("Defence ministry official questions whether Pilatus was cheapest trainer", February 14) an internal MoD noting last month sharply questioned the award of a contract for 75 PC-7 Mark II basic trainer aircraft to Swiss company, Pilatus. There too, the LCC was calculated incorrectly.

Significantly, that noting, signed by AR Sule, the MoD's "Finance Manager (Air)", who handles financial aspects of military aircraft purchases, alerts the defence minister to issues with LCC evaluation in the MMRCA tender.

Sule writes: "The issue (with LCC calculations) may be brought to the notice of the RM (Raksha Mantri) as two high value cases of IAF based on LCC model are at CFA (competent financial authority) approval stage."

Dassault's impending loss, however, will not be the Eurofighter Typhoon's gain. Eurofighter GmbH has maintained an expensive presence in Delhi for the last three years, just in case Dassault's bid encounters trouble. But Parrikar has made it clear that procurement procedures do not permit the second-placed vendor, i.e. Eurofighter GmbH, to be awarded the contract in place of the "preferred vendor", i.e. Dassault.

Dassault was adjudged winner of the MMRCA tender through a two-stage process. In the first stage the IAF ruled out on April 27, 2011 four of the six competing fighters. Boeing's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet; Lockheed Martin's F-16IN Super Viper; Saab's Gripen NG, and the Russian MiG-35 were adjudged not to have met the IAF's performance requirements.

In the second stage, the commercial bids of the remaining two vendors -Dassault's Rafale, and the Eurofighter Typhoon - were compared on a "life cycle basis" to select the lower bidder. On January 31, 2012, the Rafale was chosen as the cheaper of the two options, a decision that the MoD is now walking away from.

A senior official familiar with the Rafale contract negotiations says, "Given the value of this contract, it was always going to be scrutinised in detail. No MoD official is willing to endorse a Rs 100,000 crore contract with Dassault when it seems as if Rafale is not even the cheapest option".

This means the IAF would have to look elsewhere for fighters to increase its depleted squadrons from the current 35 to the authorised 45 (with 18 fighters in each squadron).

Besides enlarging its Sukhoi-30MKI fleet from the 272 fighters HAL will build by 2018, the IAF could order more indigenous Tejas Mark I fighters, over and above the 40 now on order from HAL. The IAF could also intensify its co-development of the Indo-Russian Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) with Sukhoi.

For Dassault, an Indian cancellation would be a serious blow. The French air force and navy, dogged by budget cutbacks, have reduced their planned Rafale numbers from 310 to just 180. On Friday, Egypt announced it would buy 24 Rafale fighters, becoming the first and only overseas buyer for Dassault.

"India will take longer than Egypt," said Eric Trappier, the chief executive officer of Dassault on Friday.

Rafale proposal 'effectively dead' as Dassault bid not cheapest | Business Standard News

I don't buy it and especially not from Business Standard, every week now there seems to be yet another issue with the Dassualt bid and yet NONE of them are officially stated by the MoD only by "unnamed sources".


Quite laughable really, there is some SERIOUS misinformation going around and fingers have been pointed at the EFT consortium in the past and I don't think it would be illogical to point them at that outfit in this case given who was found to be the L2 candidate and who would, one would expect, benefit from the L1 bid actually becoming the L2 bid.....

 

[SpArK]

Sparkky .We are talking about the US here.They are masters in arm twisting.
MoD has already cleared that there will be no revisit in MMRCA deal.

I am not asking for lengthy MMRCA revisits and the subsequent delays too... buy some good stuff in medium category and plug the freakin gap...we have data of all the fighters.... select something like we buy stuff normally.

Some guilty of commission, some of omission.

No Indian rater has negged that fellow, although his post is more uncalled for than mine.

I dont take Horusfic decisions based on nationality.

 

[Abingdonboy]

Has everyone noticed who has written this article? The most biased, anti-Rafale (arguably bought) journalist on these matters there is and you are all willing to take his word for it?

 

[possumlot]

It's becoming clearer on a daily basis that there is no ToT, not the way we want anyways. Depends on how much bargaining we can now do with the Americans after getting a government whose DM does not have reflexive anti-Americanism inbuilt. We are now building a new relationship, I wouldn't judge it necessarily with the old paradigms.

Not sure about the F-35 for now. Maybe sometime in the near future, especially for the navy.

Irrespective of any relationship we built, dealing with the Devil has its own dangers. Especially because they are stronger, smarter, greedy and ruthless with zero respect for others.

There is an old saying, Friendship or Enmity with cops is bad.

In absence of common sense, anti-Americanism has served us well. If we cannot identify the danger based on intelligence, then let it be based on instinct.

 

[janon]

I have said this before, and repeating it again. The concept of transfer of technology (TT) among certain members is highly flawed. I am in academia and into the business of research and development. R&D is hugely expensive business, and complicated war machines comprise of hundreds if not thousands of individuals components whose technologies are patent protected. No matter what price is offered, technology is not transferred for it is not only Boeing (for instance) that owns all the patents behind individuals components used in a machine. The max one gets is limited license to assemble the individual components. Boeing ready to transfer the technology is a fallacy that certain members should try to understand.

That's not entirely true, because we are not merely assembling Flankers - we are manufacturing them from raw material stage. We have at least been transferred manufacturing technology. We have also manufactured migs and jaguars. (Not merely assembled them.)

But it is true that no firm will part with complete knowhow.

 

[sancho]

Despite what Parrikar says, does that not mean Eurofighter is the cheapest and L1 vendor now? So what's the problem in going ahead with them? Of course that means another 3 years of negotiations

Another Ajay Shukla report based on unnamed sources.

 

[nair]

Another Ajay Shukla report based on unnamed sources.

Who pays this guy is the question......

 

[Abingdonboy]

Who pays this guy is the question......

Before it was Lockheed Martin almost certainly (he was pushing for the MMRCA to be scrapped and for the IAF to go for the F-35), but now who knows? If I had to bet it would be the EFT consortium or SAAB- maybe both? These are the two who have initiated aggressive marketing campaigns in the past few months for their (losing) products IN INDIA and I wouldn't say it was above them to include the likes of Mr Skukla in their "marketing budgets".