French bag Indias largest defence order for fighter jets
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indianspetsnaz
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we should have made the pick on overall quality not cost, EFT would smoke Rafale any day.
Jai ho daadi waale baba kiI just remembered that, I have said "India will choose Rafael " long time ago. Now i can see that i was correct. as always ....
gowthamraj
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Cheers rafale fans , our support for rafale did't go vain 
@ spark
@ spark
praveen007
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The Times of India: Latest News India, World & Business News, Cricket & Sports, Bollywood
.
.
"The first MMRCA built in HAL should roll out in 2017-18.
Thereafter, HAL will deliver six jets per year, which will go up to 20 per year later. HAL will achieve 85% technology absorption by the end," said a source.
Both MoD and IAF are confident there are "enough safeguards'' built into the project, which includes "performance-based logistics'', to ensure India "gets the best machine, spares and product support".
.
.
"The first MMRCA built in HAL should roll out in 2017-18.
Thereafter, HAL will deliver six jets per year, which will go up to 20 per year later. HAL will achieve 85% technology absorption by the end," said a source.
Both MoD and IAF are confident there are "enough safeguards'' built into the project, which includes "performance-based logistics'', to ensure India "gets the best machine, spares and product support".
T90TankGuy
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the time frame seems a bit off . i believe all the fighters are to be inducted in a ten year time frame.
France swoops to rob UK of £13bn Indian jet contract despite Government promises aid package would secure deal
France swoops to rob UK of £13bn Indian jet contract | Mail Online
fuckn brits ...
Visit the link again, they have made more additions to their article
man it seems their backs are hurt quite badly
sss112
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If there was a competition for how bad a looser can you be, the Brits would definitely take the top 10 positions for sure.
It seems they were banking on their plane to be chose in MMRCA so that they would get another country to spend on the further development of the "White Elephant" they have in the inventory.
It seems they were banking on their plane to be chose in MMRCA so that they would get another country to spend on the further development of the "White Elephant" they have in the inventory.
praveen007
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David Cameron pays price in India for poor links with Gandhi dynasty | Politics | guardian.co.uk
.
.
David Cameron pays price in India for poor links with Gandhi dynasty Prime minister's trade mission to India grated with Gandhi family which preferred low key approach of David Miliband
.
.
A failure to forge links with Rahul Gandhi, great
grandson of independent India's first prime
minister, is worrying Tory grandees. Photograph:
Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images
Downing Street is, to put it mildly, deeply irritated
that Britain has lost out to France in a £10bn
defence contract to supply fighter jets to India.
Aides said the prime minister would work hard to
persuade the Indian government to change its
mind after Delhi announced that the French
Dassault Rafale jet would be its first choice over
the Eurofighter Typhoon.
The announcement was a personal blow to
Cameron who picked India as the destination for
his first major overseas trade mission as prime
minister in July 2010. The prime minister, who
was accompanied by six cabinet ministers and
captains of British industry , wanted the visit to
highlight a new focus on trade in foreign policy.
But the decision by Delhi this week shows the
prime minister's hopes that Britain's historical
links with India would open a new era appear to
have foundered. France, which ran the small
outpost of Pondicherry on India's east coast until
1954, appears to be a bigger player in Delhi,
capital of the rather larger British Raj which
stretched from Karachi in the west to Chittagong
in the east until 1947.
There are no doubt lots of technical reasons for
Delhi's decision to opt, on an initial basis, for
French fighter jets rather than the British-backed
Eurofighter Typhoon. It is cheaper for a start.
But the abruptness of the decision highlights one
of the prime minister's central weaknesses in his
relations with India: he appears to have no links
with India's real decision makers, the Gandhi
family. Cameron says he has excellent relations
with Manmohan Singh, his Indian counterpart. He
will be raising the defence contract with Singh.
But Singh is a technocrat with little real power.
Power within India's ruling Congress Party rests
with the Gandhis.
The prime minister did not meet any Gandhis on
his visit. Sonia Gandhi, the widow of the former
prime minister Rajiv, withdrew from a meeting
with Cameron. This was not a snub because she
has been seriously ill.
The more ominous signal was the decision of her
son, Rahul, to fly to London shortly before the
prime minister landed in Delhi. Rahul, great
grandson of independent India's first prime
minister Jawaharlal Nehru, is close to David
Miliband. They bonded in 2009 when they stayed
the night in a hut in a village in Rahul Gandhi's
Uttar Pradesh constituency after Miliband was
invited to visit the "other India".
Rahul Gandhi has no links to the Tories because
the party neglected the Gandhis during its years
in opposition. Cameron's approach during his
visit to India also grated with the Gandhis.
Sonia Gandhi has been the guiding hand for
Manmohan Singh's government which has
helped turn India into an economic giant. But
Congress portrays itself as the party of the poor.
Pitching up in India with a planeload of business
leaders and talking about grabbing business
audiences in front of a glitzy audience in a five
star hotel, as Cameron did in Delhi, is seen as
rather vulgar in the Gandhis' eyes.
It is understood that Rahul Gandhi's thinking on
this was reflected by Miliband. The former foreign
secretary once described the prime minister's
approach on foreign policy as "low-grade
mercantilism". Spending a night in a hut
hundreds of miles from Delhi is, in Miliband's
view, a more effective way of influencing India.
A decision on fighter jets is unlikely to have been
made by the Gandhis. But senior Tories say that
Britain would punch at a higher level in Delhi if the
Tories had built better relations with the Gandhi
dynasty which has provided three prime
ministers since independence in 1947.
.
.
David Cameron pays price in India for poor links with Gandhi dynasty Prime minister's trade mission to India grated with Gandhi family which preferred low key approach of David Miliband
.
.
A failure to forge links with Rahul Gandhi, great
grandson of independent India's first prime
minister, is worrying Tory grandees. Photograph:
Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images
Downing Street is, to put it mildly, deeply irritated
that Britain has lost out to France in a £10bn
defence contract to supply fighter jets to India.
Aides said the prime minister would work hard to
persuade the Indian government to change its
mind after Delhi announced that the French
Dassault Rafale jet would be its first choice over
the Eurofighter Typhoon.
The announcement was a personal blow to
Cameron who picked India as the destination for
his first major overseas trade mission as prime
minister in July 2010. The prime minister, who
was accompanied by six cabinet ministers and
captains of British industry , wanted the visit to
highlight a new focus on trade in foreign policy.
But the decision by Delhi this week shows the
prime minister's hopes that Britain's historical
links with India would open a new era appear to
have foundered. France, which ran the small
outpost of Pondicherry on India's east coast until
1954, appears to be a bigger player in Delhi,
capital of the rather larger British Raj which
stretched from Karachi in the west to Chittagong
in the east until 1947.
There are no doubt lots of technical reasons for
Delhi's decision to opt, on an initial basis, for
French fighter jets rather than the British-backed
Eurofighter Typhoon. It is cheaper for a start.
But the abruptness of the decision highlights one
of the prime minister's central weaknesses in his
relations with India: he appears to have no links
with India's real decision makers, the Gandhi
family. Cameron says he has excellent relations
with Manmohan Singh, his Indian counterpart. He
will be raising the defence contract with Singh.
But Singh is a technocrat with little real power.
Power within India's ruling Congress Party rests
with the Gandhis.
The prime minister did not meet any Gandhis on
his visit. Sonia Gandhi, the widow of the former
prime minister Rajiv, withdrew from a meeting
with Cameron. This was not a snub because she
has been seriously ill.
The more ominous signal was the decision of her
son, Rahul, to fly to London shortly before the
prime minister landed in Delhi. Rahul, great
grandson of independent India's first prime
minister Jawaharlal Nehru, is close to David
Miliband. They bonded in 2009 when they stayed
the night in a hut in a village in Rahul Gandhi's
Uttar Pradesh constituency after Miliband was
invited to visit the "other India".
Rahul Gandhi has no links to the Tories because
the party neglected the Gandhis during its years
in opposition. Cameron's approach during his
visit to India also grated with the Gandhis.
Sonia Gandhi has been the guiding hand for
Manmohan Singh's government which has
helped turn India into an economic giant. But
Congress portrays itself as the party of the poor.
Pitching up in India with a planeload of business
leaders and talking about grabbing business
audiences in front of a glitzy audience in a five
star hotel, as Cameron did in Delhi, is seen as
rather vulgar in the Gandhis' eyes.
It is understood that Rahul Gandhi's thinking on
this was reflected by Miliband. The former foreign
secretary once described the prime minister's
approach on foreign policy as "low-grade
mercantilism". Spending a night in a hut
hundreds of miles from Delhi is, in Miliband's
view, a more effective way of influencing India.
A decision on fighter jets is unlikely to have been
made by the Gandhis. But senior Tories say that
Britain would punch at a higher level in Delhi if the
Tories had built better relations with the Gandhi
dynasty which has provided three prime
ministers since independence in 1947.
praveen007
FULL MEMBER
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2010
- Messages
- 927
- Reaction score
- 0
- Country
- Location
The Real Reasons for Rafale
++
The Real Reasons for Rafale’s Indian Victory
.
.
By Giovanni de Briganti
PARIS --- While many observers cite technology
transfer, prices and performance as being major
factors in India’s selection of the Rafale as its next-
generation fighter, reality is very different even if
these factors obviously did play a significant role.
In the same way that it is true that Rafale lost
several competitions through no fault of its own,
it must be recognized that its victory in India was
also won, to a great extent, through no fault of its
own. The real reason for its victory is political,
and the long memory of Indian politicians was a
major contributing factor.
This is not to say, however, that Rafale’s own
impressive qualities had nothing to do with its
selection. The Indian Air Force, which was
extensively briefed by the French air force in the
autumn, was particularly impressed by its
operational performance during the Libyan
bombing campaign and in Afghanistan. Rafale
also has a naval variant which could be of future
interest to India, given its plans to buy and build
aircraft carriers, while the recent decision to
upgrade India’s Mirage 2000H fighters will
simplify the air force’s logistics chain, as these will
share with Rafale many weapons and other
equipment.
The Indian Air Force also is a satisfied user of long
standing of French fighters, going back to the
Dassault Ouragan in the 1950s. It was also
particularly appreciative of the performance of its
Mirages during the 1999 Kargil campaign against
Pakistan, and of the support it then obtained from
France. During that campaign, India obtained
French clearance – and possibly more - to
urgently adapt Israeli and Russian-supplied laser-
guided bombs to the Mirages, which thus able to
successfully engage high-altitude targets that
Indian MiG-23s and MiG-27s had been unable to
reach.
Rafale was preferred because of lower costs, and
the Indian air force's familiarity with French
warplanes such as the Mirage, Bloomberg
reported Feb. 1 quoting an Indian source who
asked not be named. "Unit-wise, the French plane
is much cheaper than the Eurofighter. Moreover,
the Indian air force, which is well equipped with
French fighters, is favouring the French," the
source said.
To Indian officials, France’s steadfastness as a
military ally contrasted strongly with that of the
United States, which stopped F-16 deliveries to
Pakistan (but kept the money) when it found it
expedient to do so, and slowed or vetoed
delivery of components for Light Combat Aircraft
that India was developing. And, of course, the
1998 arms embargo, decreed by the US after
India’s nuclear test in May of that year, left a very
bad taste in Indian mouths. France, on the
contrary, was the only Western nation not to
impose sanctions.
That, Indian sources say, was New Delhi’s real
reason for eliminating Boeing and Lockheed
Martin from the fighter competition; India has
resolved, these sources say, to buy only second-
line equipment from the U.S., such as transport
(C-17, C-130J) or maritime patrol aircraft (P-8I).
Vital weapons such as missiles and fighters,
when they cannot be locally produced, will
remain the preserve of France and Russia.
Political considerations were also a significant
factor playing against Rafale’s final competitor, the
Eurofighter Typhoon. As this aircraft is produced
by a consortium of four nations, each with
different foreign policies and different attitudes
and tolerances to arms exports, Indian officials
were a bit nervous about their ultimate reliability
as a single supplier.
Germany is a long-standing Indian aviation
partner, and a respected role model for Indian
politicians, many of whom were educated there.
German companies – essentially the former
Messerschmitt-Boelkow-Blohm, now part of
EADS - helped Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.
develop both the LCA and the Advanced Light
Helicopter, now called Dhruv. These links were
the reason the Eurofighter bid was led by
Germany’s Cassidian, and not BAE Systems, the
former colonial power. But Germany had
dithered over technology transfer for LCA, soft-
pedaled on ALH tech transfer when German
pacifists raised their eyebrows, and coughed
when India almost went to war with Pakistan
over Kargil and Kashmir, so in the final analysis it
could not be considered a reliable supplier of
major weapons.
Italy has never sold a major weapon to India, and
so could bring neither influence nor reputation to
support Eurofighter, while the third partner,
Spain, is totally absent from the Indian military
landscape.
This left BAE Systems as the best-known
Eurofighter partner in India, and so by default as
its ultimate public face. BAE in 2003 sold £1.5
billion’s worth of Hawk jet trainers to India, with a
follow-on, £500 million order in 2010. However,
its previous major sale to India was the Jaguar
light attack aircraft in the 1970s. In fact, this
aircraft was jointly developed by Britain and
France on a 50/50 basis, and while it was license-
produced by HAL it was never really successful
as a fighter. Furthermore, France could claim as
much benefit from its Indian career as BAE.
Taken together, the Eurofighter partner nations
posed an even thornier problem: in case of war,
German law prohibits deliveries of weapons and
spares, Italian law and public opinions would
demand an embargo, which Spanish legislation is
murky. What would happen, Indian politicians
must have wondered, if after buying the
Eurofighter they went to war? Would spares and
weapons be forthcoming, or would they be
embargoed? The political risk was obviously too
big to take.
Weapons also played a significant role in
persuading India to opt for Rafale: not only is its
weapons range mostly French-made, and thus
not subject to a third-party embargo, but so are
all of its sensors. Eurofighter, whose air-to-air
missiles include the US-made AIM-120 Amraam
and the German-led IRIS-T, and whose primary
air-to-ground weapon is the US-made Paveway,
was obviously at a competitive disadvantage in
this respect.
Furthermore, the Rafale is nuclear-capable and
will replace the Mirage 2000N in French service as
the carrier of the newly-upgraded ASMP/A
nuclear stand-off missile; it is also capable of firing
the AM-39 Exocet missile, giving it an anti-ship
capability that its competitors do not have. India
is also interested in fitting its BrahMos supersonic
missile to a wide range of its combat aircraft, and
Rafale could apparently carry it.
Given that India had sworn to buy the cheapest
compliant competitor, it would have been unable
to justify picking the Rafale had this not been
offered at the lower price. While official figures
have not been released, and indeed may never
be, initial reports from New Delhi claim that Rafale
was offered at a unit price of $4-$5 million less
than Eurofighter, which is a surprisingly large
advantage given the French aircraft’s reputation of
being high-priced.
The French offer also featured substantially lower
costs of ownership, according to the same
reports, thanks to lower fuel consumption and
simpler maintenance requirements.
If true, these figures imply the French offer
undercut Eurofighter by over $600 million, which
is a large enough difference for one French insider
to wonder whether Dassault Aviation will ever
make any money on the contract.
But, even if it doesn’t, the Indian contract gives
Rafale instant legitimacy, not only because of the
thoroughness and transparency of the bidding
process, but also because India is the only
country to have fought four and a half major
wars since 1948, and so knows something about
air combat.
For Dassault, the Rafale program will now remain
active, with a stabilized production line, for
decades to come, and the company will have that
much more time to find additional customers.
Keeping its production line and supply chain
humming at an economically-viable rate are
sufficiently valuable achievements to push
immediate profits into the sidelines. Supporting
126 – and possibly 206, if India buys an optional
second batch – combat aircraft, and providing
spares, fixes and upgrades over the next 40
years, will generate gigantic profits, and this more
than justified lowering Dassault’s notoriously high
profit margins.
And, as French Defense Minister Gérard Longuet
told reporters during an impromptu press
conference in Parliament, France may soon find
“that good news travels in formation,” implying
that further, long-deferred contracts might soon
be announced.
++
The Real Reasons for Rafale’s Indian Victory
.
.
By Giovanni de Briganti
PARIS --- While many observers cite technology
transfer, prices and performance as being major
factors in India’s selection of the Rafale as its next-
generation fighter, reality is very different even if
these factors obviously did play a significant role.
In the same way that it is true that Rafale lost
several competitions through no fault of its own,
it must be recognized that its victory in India was
also won, to a great extent, through no fault of its
own. The real reason for its victory is political,
and the long memory of Indian politicians was a
major contributing factor.
This is not to say, however, that Rafale’s own
impressive qualities had nothing to do with its
selection. The Indian Air Force, which was
extensively briefed by the French air force in the
autumn, was particularly impressed by its
operational performance during the Libyan
bombing campaign and in Afghanistan. Rafale
also has a naval variant which could be of future
interest to India, given its plans to buy and build
aircraft carriers, while the recent decision to
upgrade India’s Mirage 2000H fighters will
simplify the air force’s logistics chain, as these will
share with Rafale many weapons and other
equipment.
The Indian Air Force also is a satisfied user of long
standing of French fighters, going back to the
Dassault Ouragan in the 1950s. It was also
particularly appreciative of the performance of its
Mirages during the 1999 Kargil campaign against
Pakistan, and of the support it then obtained from
France. During that campaign, India obtained
French clearance – and possibly more - to
urgently adapt Israeli and Russian-supplied laser-
guided bombs to the Mirages, which thus able to
successfully engage high-altitude targets that
Indian MiG-23s and MiG-27s had been unable to
reach.
Rafale was preferred because of lower costs, and
the Indian air force's familiarity with French
warplanes such as the Mirage, Bloomberg
reported Feb. 1 quoting an Indian source who
asked not be named. "Unit-wise, the French plane
is much cheaper than the Eurofighter. Moreover,
the Indian air force, which is well equipped with
French fighters, is favouring the French," the
source said.
To Indian officials, France’s steadfastness as a
military ally contrasted strongly with that of the
United States, which stopped F-16 deliveries to
Pakistan (but kept the money) when it found it
expedient to do so, and slowed or vetoed
delivery of components for Light Combat Aircraft
that India was developing. And, of course, the
1998 arms embargo, decreed by the US after
India’s nuclear test in May of that year, left a very
bad taste in Indian mouths. France, on the
contrary, was the only Western nation not to
impose sanctions.
That, Indian sources say, was New Delhi’s real
reason for eliminating Boeing and Lockheed
Martin from the fighter competition; India has
resolved, these sources say, to buy only second-
line equipment from the U.S., such as transport
(C-17, C-130J) or maritime patrol aircraft (P-8I).
Vital weapons such as missiles and fighters,
when they cannot be locally produced, will
remain the preserve of France and Russia.
Political considerations were also a significant
factor playing against Rafale’s final competitor, the
Eurofighter Typhoon. As this aircraft is produced
by a consortium of four nations, each with
different foreign policies and different attitudes
and tolerances to arms exports, Indian officials
were a bit nervous about their ultimate reliability
as a single supplier.
Germany is a long-standing Indian aviation
partner, and a respected role model for Indian
politicians, many of whom were educated there.
German companies – essentially the former
Messerschmitt-Boelkow-Blohm, now part of
EADS - helped Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.
develop both the LCA and the Advanced Light
Helicopter, now called Dhruv. These links were
the reason the Eurofighter bid was led by
Germany’s Cassidian, and not BAE Systems, the
former colonial power. But Germany had
dithered over technology transfer for LCA, soft-
pedaled on ALH tech transfer when German
pacifists raised their eyebrows, and coughed
when India almost went to war with Pakistan
over Kargil and Kashmir, so in the final analysis it
could not be considered a reliable supplier of
major weapons.
Italy has never sold a major weapon to India, and
so could bring neither influence nor reputation to
support Eurofighter, while the third partner,
Spain, is totally absent from the Indian military
landscape.
This left BAE Systems as the best-known
Eurofighter partner in India, and so by default as
its ultimate public face. BAE in 2003 sold £1.5
billion’s worth of Hawk jet trainers to India, with a
follow-on, £500 million order in 2010. However,
its previous major sale to India was the Jaguar
light attack aircraft in the 1970s. In fact, this
aircraft was jointly developed by Britain and
France on a 50/50 basis, and while it was license-
produced by HAL it was never really successful
as a fighter. Furthermore, France could claim as
much benefit from its Indian career as BAE.
Taken together, the Eurofighter partner nations
posed an even thornier problem: in case of war,
German law prohibits deliveries of weapons and
spares, Italian law and public opinions would
demand an embargo, which Spanish legislation is
murky. What would happen, Indian politicians
must have wondered, if after buying the
Eurofighter they went to war? Would spares and
weapons be forthcoming, or would they be
embargoed? The political risk was obviously too
big to take.
Weapons also played a significant role in
persuading India to opt for Rafale: not only is its
weapons range mostly French-made, and thus
not subject to a third-party embargo, but so are
all of its sensors. Eurofighter, whose air-to-air
missiles include the US-made AIM-120 Amraam
and the German-led IRIS-T, and whose primary
air-to-ground weapon is the US-made Paveway,
was obviously at a competitive disadvantage in
this respect.
Furthermore, the Rafale is nuclear-capable and
will replace the Mirage 2000N in French service as
the carrier of the newly-upgraded ASMP/A
nuclear stand-off missile; it is also capable of firing
the AM-39 Exocet missile, giving it an anti-ship
capability that its competitors do not have. India
is also interested in fitting its BrahMos supersonic
missile to a wide range of its combat aircraft, and
Rafale could apparently carry it.
Given that India had sworn to buy the cheapest
compliant competitor, it would have been unable
to justify picking the Rafale had this not been
offered at the lower price. While official figures
have not been released, and indeed may never
be, initial reports from New Delhi claim that Rafale
was offered at a unit price of $4-$5 million less
than Eurofighter, which is a surprisingly large
advantage given the French aircraft’s reputation of
being high-priced.
The French offer also featured substantially lower
costs of ownership, according to the same
reports, thanks to lower fuel consumption and
simpler maintenance requirements.
If true, these figures imply the French offer
undercut Eurofighter by over $600 million, which
is a large enough difference for one French insider
to wonder whether Dassault Aviation will ever
make any money on the contract.
But, even if it doesn’t, the Indian contract gives
Rafale instant legitimacy, not only because of the
thoroughness and transparency of the bidding
process, but also because India is the only
country to have fought four and a half major
wars since 1948, and so knows something about
air combat.
For Dassault, the Rafale program will now remain
active, with a stabilized production line, for
decades to come, and the company will have that
much more time to find additional customers.
Keeping its production line and supply chain
humming at an economically-viable rate are
sufficiently valuable achievements to push
immediate profits into the sidelines. Supporting
126 – and possibly 206, if India buys an optional
second batch – combat aircraft, and providing
spares, fixes and upgrades over the next 40
years, will generate gigantic profits, and this more
than justified lowering Dassault’s notoriously high
profit margins.
And, as French Defense Minister Gérard Longuet
told reporters during an impromptu press
conference in Parliament, France may soon find
“that good news travels in formation,” implying
that further, long-deferred contracts might soon
be announced.
Jon Snow
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2018?? and that too at 6 aircraft per year?? Hope its false news......
If it isnt then we should take the option for 80 more rafale and have the french build them for us asap.
tvsram1992
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not more than mki . Mki is like barbie...u sneaky bastard...
btw rafale is not katrina.....its bipasha...so sexy...
peep
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maybe true also mate. Since MKIs production wont stop before 2017 ( yes fcuking 18 years to completely manufacture 230 MKIs )
Our military industrial base sucks a$s
praveen007
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.
.
First Indian assemble MKI entered service in 2004, and first full indigenious made MKI entered IAF in year 2010,.
Thus 2017 time-line for all 272 mki to be delevered at the rate of 20 a/c per year is good speed for HAL.
And not to forget the upgradation of remaining and new mki's from 2014 onwards is not bad.
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