Go Bankrupt, Air Force Style

[SpArK]

Waiting for the bids to get opened now...

Its too late for gripen..

Either we can shelve those Jaguars ASAP and replace with 6-7 sqnds of Gripen in a seperate deal... if the deal is damn sweet.

Cut

Paste

 

[SpArK]

A nice formation of Gripen @royal wedding display

 

[DarK-LorD]

The author is definitely a miser.

 

[Dash]

Go Bankrupt, Air Force Style

Interestingly, while the choice of radar has been given as the reason why the lower cost Gripen was eliminated, the Eurofighter has the exact same radar system as the Swedish aircraft, made by the same manufacturer. Additionally, the lifecycle costs of the Eurofighter are believed to be nearly ten times that of the Saab option, while the costs of the Dassault option are reportedly eight times the cost of the Gripen, for every hour of flight. This will make operation of either of the two shortlisted variants prohibitively expensive for the Indian Air Force.

If the life cycle cost is a combination of operational cost and other, depends if the operational cost is low then the life cycle cost will also remain low and countries dont operate these aircrafts everyday to burn fuel, unless there is a war...and SAAB is war time will have a high operational cost because of its low capabilities and additional support it will need from other fighters so technically what could have been done in 5 fighters we will need 7-8 fighters to get teh job done adding operational costs...

So it makes perfect sense to reject this one.

Purchasing white elephants has become the sport of choice for the Defense Ministry. The Indian Navy has bought the mothballed Admiral Gorshkov from Russia at a price that will cross the $3.2 billion mark, or three times the estimate given at the time the decision to purchase this aircraft carrier was made. Like the Eurofighter or the Dassault options, the Admiral Gorshkov (now re-christened Vikramaditya and awaiting induction sometime in 2012) will be hugely expensive to operate. Of course, as the just-concluded $2 billion deal for the ‘upgrade’ of the Mirage squadrons shows, the higher the cost, the more the hidden ‘sweeteners’ are likely to be.

No body would have given you an aircraft carrier in less then $4 billion. Cost over runs are a close to normal things in defence projects, US DOD funds several projects and then cancells them, what does that mean,, how many projects they have cancelled?

People who think like this dont know much about the world, but just think what they think is right...BS...

 

[janon]

One of the glaring factual errors in this article is where it claims that eurofighter and gripen have the same radar. That is completely untrue. Gripen proposed a Selex-galileo made radar, while EF proposed CAESAR, an AESA version of its formidable captor radar. This doesn't look like an inadvertant mistake on the part of the writer - since he is using this to make a point, I can only conclude that this is intentional lying.

 

[GURU DUTT]

one more thing why is he only pressing for grippen only seems big brother is plying games

 

[Dash]

one more thing why is he only pressing for grippen only seems big brother is plying games

Another Ajai Shukla in making

 

[blackjack]

After reading the article I find that he gives more emphasis on the current European economic crises rather than IAF's decision. IMO MoD has done a wise thing. It has not kept all its eggs in one basket. Eg : C130/C17's to US, PAK-FA to Russia, Mirage 2000 upgrade to France (which may also indicate where the MMRCA may be heading), Radars to Israel etc. All in all, everyone's happy.

 

[sancho]

Go Bankrupt, Air Force Style...

...This columnist favoured the Gripen, not only because it’s much cheaper than the two other European Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) under consideration, but because Saab would have been agreeable to the location within India of far more significant chunks of aircraft production than the Eurofighter consortium or Dassault, both of whom seem seek to confine production operations of higher technology items to Europe rather than partnering with India to lower overall costs. Unlike Germany and France, the Scandinavian countries are far more willing to enter into equal partnerships with Indian industry, and hence the acquisition of the Swedish aircraft would have boosted local capabilities far more than either of the two options now shortlisted...

...Interestingly, while the choice of radar has been given as the reason why the lower cost Gripen was eliminated, the Eurofighter has the exact same radar system as the Swedish aircraft, made by the same manufacturer.

These 3 parts alone shows that the author has no idea about what he is talking, because once it wasn't IAF that changed the competition from MRCA to MMRCA, but MoD/GoI, although IAF prefered the simple addition of more Mirage 2000s, which would have been easy to induct and cheap to operate.
Secondly, because a simple google research would have been enough to understand, that the Swedish industry is not able to offer us production of main parts of the Gripen NG in India, nor to co-develop them with us, because they didn't developed them and bought them mainly from foreign countries itself!

Sweden needs approval from the US for the GE 414G engine for example, to even offer the Gripen to India. Same goes for most parts of the radar, or avioncs, where Sweden itself is just a licence production partner, or offers only minor indigenous parts to the whole development.
The AESA radar for example is not "exactly" the same that the EF has, because Gripens Raven AESA has a Swedish back end, while it's highly based on the Selex AESA including the Swashplate design. The back end of CAPTOR - E instead will be developed by Selex and EADS, not to forget that the EF radar will be much bigger, which alone might be a reasons for different performances.
Similar, the IRST of the Gripen NG comes from Selex and is highly based on the PIRATE IRST of the EF, but that doesn't mean that this export version will be as capable, or that Saab has got the approval to offer us the production in India, let alone ToT...
The only part of the Gripen NG (E/F) development which is not finished now, or fully of Swedish origin is the design, because so far we only see a Gripen NG tech demonstrator = an older Gripen D with some changes to test NG capabilities. But exactly her Sweden already took a decision and offered Brazilan industry the participation on it, because Saab knew exactly that their main opponent in the Indian competition will not be any of the MMRCA fighters, but the Indian LCA!
Both fighters are simply toooo close in weight class, performance, techs, only the different weapons makes a real difference and that's why Saab choosed to offer more participation in that competition, where they saw bigger chances to win.

The simple fact is...

...India already has it's light - medium weight, single engine, cost-effective fighter, with the maximum (imo too much) ammount of Indian industry participation, that's why neither cost-effectiveness, nor participation of Indian industry in general is the main goal of MMRCA, but to increas defence capabilities and improving our industry!
That Rafale and (at least in A2A) the EF are more capable than the Gripen should be clear, but since Saab is as dependent on foreign development partners in all main fields like India is itself, Swedish industry can't improve us much. French industry, or the EF consortium on the other hand developed all main parts of their fighters alone, can offer not only the production of these parts in India, but also much more ToT, less restrictions and much more assistance to improve the Indian industry and that is already visible in several fields! French Thales, Safran, MBDA or even Dassault Aviation itself are partners for several parts of LCAs development, techs and even for Indian weapon developments and another important point is the very small size of Swedish offsets we would get, since Swedish industry involved in Gripen is basically Saab, which is dramatically less then the consortiums behind Rafale and the EF. Both points clearly shows why the higher costs of Rafale and EF are worth it, when we also get more industrial benefit in return than we would get from the Gripen (not to mention the political side).

A poor article, just to spread some provocative theories and get some attention, based on a huge lack of knowledge, or understanding of the competition!

 

[sancho]

Either we can shelve those Jaguars ASAP and replace with 6-7 sqnds of Gripen in a seperate deal

What for? Rafale is way better to replace the Jags, since it's more useful and capable in the strike role than Gripen, but more importantly, we have way better indigenous alternatives to replace Jags (that btw was licence produced until 2008, so partially are brand new):

(+ 2 x SR missiles on the overwing pylons, LDP on the centerline)

(same load with an LCA, while the LCA MK2 might be able to carry even more weapons)

(AURA UCAV, provides higher strike loads to longer ranges with way higher penetration capability than the Jags, LCA, or Gripens)


No matter from which point one look at it, India don't need the Gripen, Swedish industry, let alone Swedens support!

 

[Andross]

Gripen suffers in hot temp countries which this article failed to mention

 

[Archie]

What for? Rafale is way better to replace the Jags, since it's more useful and capable in the strike role than Gripen, but more importantly, we have way better indigenous alternatives to replace Jags (that btw was licence produced until 2008, so partially are brand new):

(+ 2 x SR missiles on the overwing pylons, LDP on the centerline)

(same load with an LCA, while the LCA MK2 might be able to carry even more weapons)

(AURA UCAV, provides higher strike loads to longer ranges with way higher penetration capability than the Jags, LCA, or Gripens)


No matter from which point one look at it, India don't need the Gripen, Swedish industry, let alone Swedens support!

WELL LCA is not meant for ground attack roles
It will mainly Replace Mig21 Bison in Point Defence Role , while Navy might use it for Fleet Air Defence

 

[luckyyy]

1) the twice the cost of rafale/EF compare to Gripen do not justify the deal , Gripen has rejected on radar when both Gripen and EF going to get the same radar from the same company......
2) in past also IAF has rejected sewdist fighter and picked Jaguare ,...and jagure became the white elephent in IAF...

somewhere the IAF has a foult which few are reluctent to address..

 

[SpArK]

The wow

stealth_gripen

 

[harpoon]

1) the twice the cost of rafale/EF compare to Gripen do not justify the deal , Gripen has rejected on radar when both Gripen and EF going to get the same radar from the same company......
2) in past also IAF has rejected sewdist fighter and picked Jaguare ,...and jagure became the white elephent in IAF...

somewhere the IAF has a foult which few are reluctent to address..

IAF picked Jaguar over SAAB Viggen as US which is a major supplier of SAAB parts was reluctant to give the aircraft to India in the 1970s where Indo-US relation was not as rosy as it is now. I think its the exact same fears about US being an unrelaible supplier is one of the reason that caused the rejection of Grippen. As for Jaguar being a White Elephant, can you explain how?