I see. what are you thoughts on the Super Hornet for India.
I know it's not as capable as the Rafale/EFT, but for the cost it seems like it would meet most of IAF needs.
No, it doesn't comply to several requirements, be it flight performance, IRST, ToT of critical techs..., it is cheap because it is far less capable and that's why Boeing offered the growth options at the end, but if India funds them, the cost would be far higher too and that with limited tech transfer.
The F16 was the better US offer, since it's flight performace, the IRST, the more capable EW of the Block 60 as well as the costs would had made it preferable. On the other side, the same weapon pack and industrial limitations, the fact that PAF knows the fighter and could had evaluated the UAE versions, made it a no go. Sad, the F16IN would had formed a great hi lo combo with the MKI, just in operational terms.
M-MRCA mainly was a test how serious the US is with opening up to India and providing proper arms and techs. It might be at a better level compared to what you give Pakistan, but far below to what we have on the table from Europeans, Russians or Israelis. And as long as the US laws restricts weapons, capabilities and industrial advantages to India, the US vendors won't win large tenders.
If we had opened a parallel negotiation with Eurofighter also, it would have given Rafale guys enough pressure to make the deals faster and more beneficial to us. Now they are saying they need to negotiate some more on this deal. And I really dont understand why we need to invest this much money for a stop gap fighter? I mean we will go for 5th gen fighter in next decade and we will have another Mig 21s in our hands..
Well, the decision to take the L1 to prefered negotiations in 2012 was the right one from our side, but we couldn't expect that Dassault would take so long to comply to the requirements and would start the HAL issue. Back then the biggest concern for delays were cost negotiations.
M-MRCA is not a stop gap fighter! That's a common misunderstanding, because the initial idea of the MRCA tender was to get a fast to induct fighter to counter LCA delays.But with the M2K production running out and the possibility to see what the US actually are ready to offer, the new tender had far different aims. Advanced capabilities, future potential and a high priority on industrial benefits were now more important than cost-effectivity or that the winner was fast to induct. That's why the 2 most costly fighters, that however offered the most capability and industrial advantages were prefered.
It's also a common myth, that having 5th gen fighters means, that they will be used in any mission all the time. Apart from the US, that doesn't care about getting bankrupt, all nations will use 4.5th gen fighters for the bulk of the operations. Even China is mainly inducting J10 and J11 versions for the same aim and that's where M-MRCA has it's importance for IAF and where LCA simply is no alternative. It was a mistake to go for a light class fighter in the first place, but we thought we could counter the lack of capability with large numbers. The delays now rules large numbers out and that makes the addition of capability to the fleet important again.