Well frankly speaking, no one can point fingers at us unless we give them a reason.
Nearly all of our military programs have suffered significant setbacks this year.
The Agni failed, and while it is likely that they were testing new equipment, there has been no word from the officials so far.
Two Sukhois have crashed, one would've thought that one frontline fighter crash would have been enough to wake up the Air force, but sadly this too is wishful thinking. Maintenence, technical issues etc. make sense if there's a crash or two. How would one explain seven crashes in this year alone. If this is their condition during peacetime, imagine what will happen during a war.
The Army hasn't had decent artillery for over a decade now, despite the availability of funds.
There's certainly more, but the point I'm trying to make is that India is losing precious time, there are serious flaws in the way we're going about things. There needs to be a sense of urgency that is all but absent in the entire establishment.
I'm really hoping we can turn things around fast. We have friends across the globe, its high time we leverage our contacts and get a move on things.
I think you and I have a very different idea of significant.
The IAF needs needs a new fleet to replace its Aging fighters. You cant blame Maintenance for all the crashes.
For the SU-30 MKI, the first one was found to be Pilot error.
was it not.
The second we still dont know, The Every MKI pilot must fly at least 200 hours a year. The Planes get a lot of use, 2 crashes over the last
12 years isn't a bad record.
Even the Americans Crashed the B-2 Spirit, and those cost as much as an aircraft carrier.
There is always a probability of a crash, the more aircraft u have and the more you fly them the greater the probability.
Notice how IAF pilots who use older planes have to fly less than those who uses New ones.
That's because most of those planes, are already worn. and the probability of them crashing is much higher
Agni suffered a setback, We still dont know what they were testing or what went wrong. ITs not new equipment because they said it was an end-user trial.
Which leads me to speculate that since the Agni-II is an un-Canistered Missile it has a limited life. I believe they were testing to see IF Installing new equipment of the same type would extend the life of the Missiles.
This is also the previous generation AGNI, India already has an AGNI-III.
Now the India Army, I agree with you there they have been the worst performing branch in the Whole modernization scheme.
The Army is riddled with corruption blocking almost every attempt to go in the right direction.
They even went as far as to downplay the Arjun which in the end out performed the IA requirements.
No artillery, in the last 10 years and any attempts at procurement are getting blocked by corruption charges.
The Only thing they have going for them is the F-INSAS programme,
which i will admit has made progress at least as far as laying the network infrastructure needed for an Army to at least operate such a program.
Hopefully someone gets though and takes action in this branch.
