Tatas to invest heavily post FDI hike in defence

[Dillinger]

look at our stupid *** anechoic chamber,,,how the hell can we make anything meaningful??

Although the Navy at least had the foresight to build up a Marine gas turbine test bed in Vishakhapatnam. But then NPOL, NMRL, NSTL will often get going with inadequate infra and then disappoint.

Here is what we've designed:-

A thermal torpedo, exceptional speed and range, pump jet propulsion. Where and how we will simulate the appropriate conditions to test it (before field testing and the like) I dunno, under what conditions we have indeed tested it (because certain tests have been carried out) I dunno.

 

[he-man]

Although the Navy at least had the foresight to build up a Marine gas turbine test bed in Vishakhapatnam. But then NPOL, NMRL, NSTL will often get going with inadequate infra and then disappoint.

Here is what we've designed:-

A thermal torpedo, exceptional speed and range, pump jet propulsion. Where and how we will simulate the appropriate conditions to test it (before field testing and the like) I dunno, under what conditions we have indeed tested it (because certain tests have been carried out) I dunno.

Yaar all depends whether in the end we make it or not!!
We have started too much with little completion of those projects.

Lets hope we learn the lessons and increase the spending where its required.

 

[karan21]

Well, Indian private companies are gonaa just exactly what DRDO is doing. Bring in foreign designs and foreign parts and put them together and give it a nice Indian paintjob.

 

[Dillinger]

Yaar all depends whether in the end we make it or not!!
We have started too much with little completion of those projects.

Lets hope we learn the lessons and increase the spending where its required.

Lolwa, did you see any planned expenditure being mentioned in the defence budget for the same? No? Well that should answer the question.

 

[MilSpec]

Don't get so upbeat, while they do have some good products to their name, TATA and co. are world champions at screw driver giri, so much so that they can make the OFB chaps blush.

No amount of cosmetic changes and JVs will build the MIC that India needs, for that concrete structural changes are required.

Lets start with the requisite infrastructure, of which is there is so little in India, in fact I found my self (for the first time in a long time) nodding in agreement with Shri Avinash Ji as he lamented the absence of said infrastructure in detail in his recent IDSA lecture.

And that's what the DPSUs have to deal with, which do have access to a limited type and quality of test infra, the private entities don't even have that, compare this to small scale enterprises located in foreign countries which have their own private test ranges.

Torpedo ko test karne ke liye test rig hai nahi which can simulate sea state conditions lekin torpedo toh zaroor banayenge. Hell, Egypt had a flying engine test bed back in the 60s when it was contemplating engine development, aur bhai hamare pas to aaj bhi nahi hai. This is a very generic and super simplified overview, the details would be truly depressing.

The problems associated with the anemic nature of our defence manufacturing are systemic tendencies of the very structures we've put in place and systemic tendencies by dint of being inherent in the said system don't go away without an actual overhaul (in the truest meaning of said word).

Hit the nail on the head... couldn't have said it better.

 

[Dillinger]

Hit the nail on the head... couldn't have said it better.

No news on the Chitradurga testing facility yet, was supposed to be a green filed facility with a lot of essential infra, kanjar NGT had halted development of the same in April-June last year, no news on that yet.

 

[he-man]

Lolwa, did you see any planned expenditure being mentioned in the defence budget for the same? No? Well that should answer the question.

Oh i will not comment man,,i still remember our conversations here,
On lca,our own aesa radar(airborne) etc ,,,none is even remotely close to reality so excuse me if i am sceptical here.

As i have already said,,,till the private industry participates,which may well take another 5-10 years atleast there is no hope here.
Reasons are pretty simple,organizations that employ 50% of the workforce on the basis of quotas cannot do shit.By participation i mean investing in r&d,not just screwdriver jobs they are currently doing.
Govt may need to give them incentives for that though like dual use of infrastructure with defence psu's maybe,whatever needs to be done should be done as we need private industry to be strong here.

Another thing is the slow speed of our completion,,,by the time we are on to something the world moves on to something better,,this has been happening for a long time now.

Unless we outspend our rivals like china did,,,don't get ur hopes up.And we all know thats not gonna happen anytime soon

The only field where we are doing relatively better is ISRO and the fund allocation again is just 1 billion$ this year,,,,which is just stupid imho.

 

[Dillinger]

Oh i will not comment man,,i still remember our conversations here,
On lca,our own aesa radar(airborne) etc ,,,none is even remotely close to reality so excuse me if i am sceptical here.

As i have already said,,,till the private industry participates,which may well take another 5-10 years atleast there is no hope here.
Reasons are pretty simple,organizations that employ 50% of the workforce on the basis of quotas cannot do shit.By participation i mean investing in r&d,not just screwdriver jobs they are currently doing.
Govt may need to give them incentives for that though like dual use of infrastructure with defence psu's maybe,whatever needs to be done should be done as we need private industry to be strong here.

Another thing is the slow speed of our completion,,,by the time we are on to something the world moves on to something better,,this has been happening for a long time now.

Unless we outspend our rivals like china did,,,don't get ur hopes up.And we all know thats not gonna happen anytime soon

The only field where we are doing relatively better is ISRO and the fund allocation again is just 1 billion$ this year,,,,which is just stupid imho.

See, you're relapsing, pvt. participation seems to be the mantra, and its meaning (simplified to an extreme extent) is rendered to be amorphous, ill defined.

AGAIN, pvt. participation will mean jack all if the above is not fixed, AND THE ABOVE CANNOT BE FIXED BY THE PVT. COMPANIES. At the moment, GTRE probably has more R&D expertise than all the private companies put together in defence aviation for example.

Simple and ad hoc solutions do not exist to complex problems, private participation might mitigate some issues but it will not solve the prevalent and underlying problems.

Remember, the issues are systemic tendencies and not aberrations in an otherwise tight system.

@he-man As for the indigenous AESA FCR, that is more likely to emerge than other projects, by dint of the fact that we got through on finding a round about route for fabricating the components of an AESA (with the LSTAR, ARUDHRA, ASHWINI etc. coming online things are looking a tad bit brighter on that front in an overall sense).

 

[he-man]

See, you're relapsing, pvt. participation seems to be the mantra, and its meaning (simplified to an extreme extent) is rendered to be amorphous, ill defined.

AGAIN, pvt. participation will mean jack all if the above is not fixed, AND THE ABOVE CANNOT BE FIXED BY THE PVT. COMPANIES. At the moment, GTRE probably has more R&D expertise than all the private companies put together in defence aviation for example.

Simple and ad hoc solutions do not exist to complex problems, private participation might mitigate some issues but it will not solve the prevalent and underlying problems.

Remember, the issues are systemic tendencies and not aberrations in an otherwise tight system.

Please read what i have written again,,,i have already conceded that it may well take private players about a decade to start doing something meaningful,,,they will not do anything till they sniff profit.

And again however money u put in a company that has 50% relatively uncompetitive workforce compared to the competition,,please don't hope for miracles.Half the workforce is a huge number and did not deserve to be working there,plain and clear.

Please bookmark this comment and feel free to see it 5 years down the line.It will hold true then too.
The difference private industry will make,,,once it starts investing in r&d after a decade or so will be

1)more salaries to people albeit proportionally more working hours too
2)pay based on performance
3)100% competent workforce free of any quota

When will that happen??I cannot predict
Is that the only way forward?absolutely,no doubt about it

 

[SrNair]

Don't get so upbeat, while they do have some good products to their name, TATA and co. are world champions at screw driver giri, so much so that they can make the OFB chaps blush.

No amount of cosmetic changes and JVs will build the MIC that India needs, for that concrete structural changes are required.

Lets start with the requisite infrastructure, of which there is so little in India, in fact I found my self (for the first time in a long time) nodding in agreement with Shri Avinash Ji as he lamented the absence of said infrastructure in detail in his recent IDSA lecture.

And that's what the DPSUs have to deal with, which do have access to a limited type and quality of test infra, the private entities don't even have that, compare this to small scale enterprises located in foreign countries which have their own private test ranges.

Torpedo ko test karne ke liye test rig hai nahi which can simulate sea state conditions lekin torpedo toh zaroor banayenge. Hell, Egypt had a flying engine test bed back in the 60s when it was contemplating engine development, aur bhai hamare pas to aaj bhi nahi hai. This is a very generic and super simplified overview, the details would be truly depressing.

The problems associated with the anemic nature of our defence manufacturing are systemic tendencies of the very structures we've put in place and systemic tendencies by dint of being inherent in the said system don't go away without an actual overhaul (in the truest meaning of said word).

Once this Private Sector got a strong hold in defence industry they will push it in to an advanced level by themselves.
Reason is simple .Public sector dont have any motivation.But private sector has motivation; profit and competition.

 

[AMCA]

Lol, we have plenty of folks who can design systems, unfortunately said designs need to be then calibrated and debugged for which the aforementioned infrastructure is required, and that's putting it in very simple terms.

Even where basic test rigs are available, compare their quality to what the other's are working with, and mind you this is not an argument which can be objected to by stating that much like other's have better technology they also have better test rigs thereby insinuating that we somehow cannot build said infrastructure. We very much can, but we scrimp on it, cut corners (lack of higher order leadership in organisations, which do not take cognizance of the fact that the essentials are just not in place, an engineer can only do so much, imagine having achieved 90% of the dry thrust on the Kaveri in the absence of in-country aforementioned crucial infra, I call that a miracle) and then completely reject what the logical outcome (delays, time overruns, teething issues etc.) points towards (IKARA:- Insufficient knowledge and random action, born out of an absolute lack of any experience on part of the powers that be in said matters).

Here let me give you an example:-

That btw is a pretty big F-18 hanging in there. The picture depicts the Advanced System Integration Lab, NAWC.

Another pic from the ASIL.

The NAVAIR IBST.

AND NOW FOR THE PIECE DE RESISTANCE

The NAL CEM-Lab.

Spot the difference, mind you, if you can build a smaller and stringier anechoic chamber then you can build far bigger ones too with specific and differing testing parameters. Its all about pouring in the money.


BTW, since TATA and Mahindra AND Kalyani are all going to build artillery pieces, do any of them have their own firing ranges? The answer is no, why, because that's what our laws (yup, laws) stipulate. So they had best line up for using one of the army's firing ranges, and best of luck with that.

EDIT:- GOT THE MESA PIC WRONG, HAD MISLABELED IT IN MY ARCHIVES, ITS ANOTHER PIC OF THE ASIL ONLY.

@Abingdonboy @Gessler

Well here you go with the one ISRO has

 

[he-man]

See, you're relapsing, pvt. participation seems to be the mantra, and its meaning (simplified to an extreme extent) is rendered to be amorphous, ill defined.

AGAIN, pvt. participation will mean jack all if the above is not fixed, AND THE ABOVE CANNOT BE FIXED BY THE PVT. COMPANIES. At the moment, GTRE probably has more R&D expertise than all the private companies put together in defence aviation for example.

Simple and ad hoc solutions do not exist to complex problems, private participation might mitigate some issues but it will not solve the prevalent and underlying problems.

Remember, the issues are systemic tendencies and not aberrations in an otherwise tight system.

@he-man As for the indigenous AESA FCR, that is more likely to emerge than other projects, by dint of the fact that we got through on finding a round about route for fabricating the components of an AESA (with the LSTAR, ARUDHRA, ASHWINI etc. coming online things are looking a tad bit brighter on that front in an overall sense).

The bone of contention is again whether the aesas that we produced have indigenous mmic chips??
And the biggest doubt that i have

Are these radars desi designed or acquired under tot from israel??

Well here you go with the one ISRO has

Thank god,,we at least made a nice looking anechoic chamber,,,much much relieved i am

 

[Dillinger]

Well here you go with the one ISRO has

I know, now compare to the NAVAIR facility, exactly how do you plan to conduct near filed and far filed tests with that wrt a scale model or article? Not to mention you need to run closed system tests even for the electronic components to gauge EM environment performance etc. etc. etc.

This is simply NOT ENOUGH. ADA and NAL need proper green field facilities otherwise they're sunk.

The bone of contention is again whether the aesas that we produced have indigenous mmic chips??
And the biggest doubt that i have

Are these radars desi designed or acquired under tot from israel??



Thank god,,we at least made a nice looking anechoic chamber,,,much much relieved i am

Looks are irrelevant, look at the size and the instrumentation. The test parameters matter, you want to stick a whole jet in that and run missile seeker tests on its tail section, pray tell, HOW?

 

[AMCA]

I know, now compare to the NAVAIR facility, exactly how do you plan to conduct near filed and far filed tests with that on to scale model or article? Not to mention you need to run closed system tests even for the electronic components to gauge EM environment performance etc. etc. etc.

This is simply NOT ENOUGH. ADA and NAL need proper green field facilities otherwise they're sunk.



Looks are irrelevant, look at the size and the instrumentation. The test parameters matter, you want to stick a whole jet in that and run missile seeker tests on its tail section, pray tell, HOW?

Errrr!! Bro I am not an Engineer.. Do you speak Economics??

 

[Dillinger]

The bone of contention is again whether the aesas that we produced have indigenous mmic chips??
And the biggest doubt that i have

Are these radars desi designed or acquired under tot from israel??



Thank god,,we at least made a nice looking anechoic chamber,,,much much relieved i am

I already provided the patents for the TR units remember, the IPR is ours.