Can't see anything that I can say yeah this is a 100% pakitani product there are only western copys and some stuff made Under license
look we've made thunders with the help of china, frigates with help of china, subs with the help of France, rifles german copys, apcs american copys, tanks with the help of china and Ukraine,UAV's with the help of italy and some copys of chinese uav's(CH-3's)...
can't we produce Something 100% made in pakistan ?
There are too many posts such as why don’t we have an Aircraft carrier, why don’t we build nuclear submarine and now why don’t we design and manufacture all the arms needed by our armed forces? I personally know quite a few among my own family members who are of the opinion that since we managed to make the atom bomb, we can get to the moon; it is the corrupt ruling class & the politicians who are responsible for Pakistan remaining backward.
There is nothing wrong with the question; however it is an indication that most of my compatriots have little or no concept of the pre-requisites of a viable modern arms industry.
No country has unlimited funds, on the political front, the choice is how much of it to allocate these to education, health and general development versus on the Defence. Arms industry requires large funding on Research & Development of arms to keep pace. In Pakistan’s case, where number of tax payers are less than the number of people who travel by air, there is not a lot left over in the Defence Budget to be allocated to the R&D.
There is also the question of economy of scale; if an advanced arms industry is not feasible; only way to get state of the art weaponry is via outright purchase, through joint development and / or producing under licence. Many developed nations have adopted this route to acquire advanced weaponry.
Arms industry always begins with producing small arms and ammunition. Next step being manufacture under license, followed by modifying and improving licensed weapons. Production & developing indigenous weapons is where developing nations fail. I don’t mean to imply that a developing nation cannot have a modern military; only that the weapons will not all be indigenously developed.
For developing countries without an industrial base such as Pakistan; it is an eternal ‘Catch 22’ which to build first; civilian or defence industry? Additionally, to develop new weapons, they must spend money on research and development. There may be lack of will political will to divert scarce resources to the R &D of the armaments industry. Hence one would find that wherever possible, it is much quicker and simpler to purchase technology.
One finds that even when less developed countries managed to produce finished weapons systems, they have been unable to eliminate or even substantially reduce their subordination to foreign suppliers and continue to rely heavily upon foreign inputs for weapons design, engineering and critical components and subsystems. For example Al-Khalid using Ukrainian engine.
Even when producing under license, weapons needed to stay updated is getting onerous because of the skyrocketing cost of advanced weapons. Hence you find that even the governments with sufficient assets continue to exercise cautions before embarking on new and costly weapons procurement programs. (India in case of Rafael)
Countries such as the US, UK & Russia etc. already had an arms industry and infrastructure in place before World War II. Therefore, these countries could focus on upgrading , building new and or more advanced infrastructure, and on the research and development during the cold war years. On the other hand countries such as China were behind technologically and needed to spend a lot more effort on research and development just to catch up. Thus Chinese industry still lags behind the US & Russia in sophisticated weaponry, especially the aircraft engines.
Honourable Hamza quoted example of Iran. Firstly the entire Iranian weapon program involves manufacturing modified versions of the platforms purchased during the Shah's time. Secondly, the Gulf War showed that weapons owned by Iraq were worthless when faced with the advanced arms & equipment of the opposing forces. Mostly likely adversaries of Iran are Saudis & the Israelis. Does one honestly think that Iranian manufactured weapon platforms will stand up to modern arms of the IDF in actual battle?
Even if a nation is “developed”, it does not imply that the country possesses a fully indigenous arms industry. Nor does it follow that when a nation becomes “developed” it will automatically have a domestic state of art arms industry. Even with the infrastructure in place and human capital to build it, some developed nations are having trouble maintaining the advanced arms industry. You see the European nations joining forces to develop state of art fighters such as Typhoon. Additionally, there is a widening military-capabilities gap between the Unites States and rest of the world which even Russia & China are finding hard to catch up such as in Stealth Technology.
Difficulty in domestic arms development is evident from the India’s experience. India’s first attempt to build an indigenous fighter aircraft, the HF-24 Marut, with the help of German designer Kurt Tank, was in the late 1950s. Marut relied on imported parts and materials and was more expensive to produce in India than it would have been to import the complete plane from abroad. The plane was technically obsolete by the time it was first delivered in 1964.
Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) has been under development since 1983. Even after 30 years of development, India still depends on foreign help with the engines. Understand it is about to become operational but can it compete with the current 4.5th generation fighters such as Typhoon or Rafael? Fate of the Arjun tank is no different.
One can therefore safely conclude that prospects of the developing nations for developing their own indigenous advanced arms industry are extremely poor. Also that few nations now have the capability to develop and build advanced systems alone. Target of self- sufficiency will most likely fail as second rate weapons stand zero chance of success when faced with an army bristling with the modern weaponry.
When my compatriots ask why can’t we develop our own weapons, I can only comment that in my humble opinion, it is not possible for developing countries such as Pakistan to establish an advanced arms industry .
To have modern military capabilities, Pakistanis have a choice of either buying weapons outright, licensing production of weapons, or pursue joint development of weapon systems with the countries willing to do so.
