India cancels tender and goes for problems plagued LCA . | World Defense

India cancels tender and goes for problems plagued LCA .

Zeeman

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Notice the tune of this article.... even the writer is puzzled and scratching his head .... Teja project was initiated before I was born... I am 45 now...


Tejas to beat Rafale, F-21? IAF switching to LCA, says Bipin Rawat
Rawat said induction of Tejas jets will help India emerge as a key defence exporter
May 15, 2020

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The Israeli Derby missile being test-fired from a Tejas | PIB


The Indian Air Force's long-delayed plan to buy over 100 foreign-designed fighters has made little progress in the past two decades. The latest iteration of the plan came in April 2018, when the Indian Air Force formally launched a process to buy 114 fighters in a deal estimated to be worth around $15 billion.

The Indian Air Force was also simultaneously negotiating with HAL to buy 83 units of the indigenously designed Tejas fighter at an estimated cost of $6 billion. The Indian Air Force had already ordered 40 Tejas jets from HAL.

On Thursday, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat indicated that the Indian Air Force was “switching” to the Tejas in place of foreign options.
In an interview to Bloomberg, Rawat said, “The Indian Air Force is switching that [order for foreign fighters] to the LCA. The IAF is saying, I would rather take the indigenous fighter, it is good.”

Rawat argued that the induction of additional Tejas fighters will help India emerge as a key exporter of defence equipment, citing the "relatively low price" of the jets.

Rawat described the proposed move to buying indigenous Tejas fighters as a "shift to start using locally made weaponry". Rawat was quoted by Bloomberg as saying, "The defence forces will be using a lot more domestically produced goods, and there is an understanding there may be some quality issues in the beginning, but these will be improved."

Rawat told Bloomberg, "The artillery guns, air defence systems and radars will all be indigenous systems as well. We are doing well with artillery guns and in air defence systems. We are also looking at ammunition manufacturing in our country in a very big way.”

A possible switch to the Tejas in place of foreign fighters would be considered a major change in priority for the Indian Air Force. Seven aircraft were in contention for the contract for 114 fighters. These included a customised version of the US-designed F-16 called the F-21 and the French Dassault Rafale. In 2015, the Narendra Modi government cancelled a tender to buy 126 Rafale jets and instead opted for an outright purchase of 36 Rafale fighters from France.

Interestingly, in 2017, it was reported that the Indian Air Force had complained that the Tejas in its current configuration was "far behind" competitors like the F-16 and the Swedish Gripen. The Indian Air Force complained about parameters such as poor aerial endurance and weapons load and higher maintenance costs of the Tejas.

The 83 Tejas jets the Indian Air Force is buying will be of an improved MK1A configuration, which will have more capable electronics, radar and air-to-air refuelling capability. In addition, the DRDO is working on an advanced version of the Tejas, which was initially called the Tejas Mk2. In 2019, the Tejas MK2 project was renamed the Medium Weight Fighter. The Medium Weight Fighter will have design enhancements, a higher-thrust engine and more weapons carriage capability. However, the Medium Weight Fighter is expected to fly only by 2022.

In 2018, the Indian Air Force reportedly committed to buying 201 Tejas MK2 fighters if it met performance requirements. If such an order materialised, it would mean the Indian Air Force would have a total fleet of 324 Tejas jets.

While the Tejas is considered an indigenous fighter, many of its core systems are of foreign origin. The current Tejas variants use a General Electric F404 engine, while the Medium Weight Fighter will have the F414 engine from the same company. In addition, Tejas uses a British ejection seat and an Israeli-origin radar. The Tejas is also equipped with Russian and Israeli air-to-air missiles.
 
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Jaeger

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from what I understand, HAL wants to hand off the Tejas project, however to a private company, same company that wanted to manufacture the Dassault Rafale under license, however France rejected that proposal,
anyways getting back onto the topic, whether the missiles, avionics etc, are foreign, at least some Indian budget is finally going towards local companies instead of foreign imports, but I don't see Tejas beating the F-21 or Rafale for the simple fact, it will still take 1 or 2 years for the Tejas to be fully ready for mass production and service entry.
 

Khafee

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from what I understand, HAL wants to hand off the Tejas project, however to a private company, same company that wanted to manufacture the Dassault Rafale under license, however France rejected that proposal,
anyways getting back onto the topic, whether the missiles, avionics etc, are foreign, at least some Indian budget is finally going towards local companies instead of foreign imports, but I don't see Tejas beating the F-21 or Rafale for the simple fact, it will still take 1 or 2 years for the Tejas to be fully ready for mass production and service entry.
There is a reason why it is called "Limping Combat Aircraft"§§•
 

TsAr

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This is not the first time they have decided not to buy foreign aircrafts.....One must remember this evaluation has been going on since 2007/08 when the MMRCA tender was put forward by the congress govt....Indian economy still has some work to do for them to afford 100+ planes....
 

BATMAN

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In that case, this decision will reflect upon Indian war doctrine, which basically is entirely Pakistan centeric.
My guess.... there will be no more air battles in a foreseeable future, simply because there will be no willing pilots in InAF!
 

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The Tejas simply doesn't have the range to seriously threaten Pakistan. It's a good plane for India to have - from the Pakistani perspective.
 

Jaeger

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from what I understand, HAL is now trying to really get 123 Tejas, 70 HTT-40 Trainers and unknown amount of LUH Helicopters by 2026, I am starting to wonder truly if HAL has this sort of capability, since I've heard most HAL Facilities are not up to date, and so on.
I do know India, has been trying to focus more on domestic projects rather then constant reliance on foreign imports, and whether we may disagree or agree on it, to an extent it has been showing they are wanting domestic products out faster.

however, let's step aside from their own domestic orders, and look at the overall export situation. Is/Will India in the future be able to be a reliable partner when it comes to exporting weapons? it's not just fulfilling the order, it's also be able to conduct your basic MRO, additional orders and much more. they claim that Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia and a bunch of others have interest in their weapons, but if they want to reach the point to be a large weapons exporter in Asia, they need to start focusing on indigenous products rather then foreign and completely overhaul and modernize facilities too.
 

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from what I understand, HAL is now trying to really get 123 Tejas, 70 HTT-40 Trainers and unknown amount of LUH Helicopters by 2026, I am starting to wonder truly if HAL has this sort of capability, since I've heard most HAL Facilities are not up to date, and so on.
I do know India, has been trying to focus more on domestic projects rather then constant reliance on foreign imports, and whether we may disagree or agree on it, to an extent it has been showing they are wanting domestic products out faster.

however, let's step aside from their own domestic orders, and look at the overall export situation. Is/Will India in the future be able to be a reliable partner when it comes to exporting weapons? it's not just fulfilling the order, it's also be able to conduct your basic MRO, additional orders and much more. they claim that Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia and a bunch of others have interest in their weapons, but if they want to reach the point to be a large weapons exporter in Asia, they need to start focusing on indigenous products rather then foreign and completely overhaul and modernize facilities too.
you do have a point, however, the thing is India had quite sometime, like ~2 decades roughly to get the Tejas up and running and now all of sudden, they change the tactic and want to start spending more money on the plagued aircraft, because some Indians been scrutinizing Modi about relying to much on foreign systems rather then Domestic.

*HAL has been proving to be completely unreliable not only with the maintenance of aircraft, but also working on domestic projects such as the Tejas, and even being able to build their own jet, we gave them production license on the Su-30MKI, however HAL at one point only managed to provide the IAF 3 jets in one year, and signed 2 different contracts last year for a total of 58 Su-30MKIs to be built in Russia and sometime between the 2 contracts, had pitched a contender for Lockheed Martin to help modernize HAL Facilities across India

*Last Year, when HAL proved to be unreliable when they had a crash (I believe it was a Mirage 2000) France's Dassault declined to allow India to manufacture 90 Rafales by HAL (36 was going to be sent in flyaway condition) and in fact which led to another major "crisis" the Privatization of Defence Companies in India, majority of Indians were in fact in support of it because of HAL's reputation of proving to be unreliable, and lately Indian private defense companies have shown better weapons and much needed equipment for the Indian Military.

* heading back to the Rafale contract, this year Dassault and Reliance Defense (Indian private company) have begun constructing the DRAL facility in Nagpur, which will only build parts for the Rafale, and there has been growing concerns even though the Indian Media hasn't shown much on it lately, but Tejas MK2 was suppose to be a joint production line between HAL and Reliance Defence.

*Indian focusing on their own weapons: They are indeed, starting to slam their companies both Private and Govt. owned with money to get their military the needs, however most of the problem is Bureaucratic tape. alot of Indians, want to rely on foreign imports (I believe even some Indian officials back) and others want domestic reliance, however like you mentioned they need to focus on their facilities, which is something the Private Companies comes into. the Kalyani group for example, has mentioned the Saudis were interested in their Bharat 52 Howitzer, but it's most likely scheme to allow them to get a sale pitch to the Indian Military.

*can India be a reliable weapon exporter? well if you look at, the Ecuadorians completely phased out their HAL Dhruvs and has even offered to send them back to India after 1 crashed, due to glitch's and bad maintenance, however most will say it's the Ecuadorians faults (which yes) however HAL has been known to use cheap quality metals and systems to mass produce equipment, but over time things can change and Indian can finally be a major supplier and become better at it, as long as they focus on their Facilites and the Quality they use.
 

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this is a head scratcher, since they go back and forth between the Tejas, however I see this as a political move more then a "Military needed this" one. if they are cancelling a 114 contract, for 123 Tejas, then Modi can claim he cares for his own defence companies, which has been hated for since, Private Companies are now becoming common down there.
but at the same time, I also wonder about their contract for 57 new Naval Multirole fighters, will that also be cancelled for the 57 Tejas-N? this is big news if they actually stick to it
 
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