Costliest fighter upgrade

IDRW News

Source : The Telegraph.

The government today approved the costliest military aircraft upgrade programme yet, gifting to France a deal that will see the Indian Air Force’s 25-year-old Mirage fighter planes being dressed up for more than Rs 200 crore a piece.

The cabinet committee on security (CCS) chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this morning put its seal of approval on the Mirage 2000 modernisation package that will cost $2.4 billion.

The IAF inducted 51 Mirage 2000 aircraft, made by Dassault Aviation of France, from 1985 to 1988. Over the years, the IAF has lost four such aircraft in crashes or in other damage.

Indian and French negotiators toiled over the proposal for nearly five years because of the high price that, critics said, would buy new aircraft. That is not entirely true. The kind of new combat aircraft that the IAF is currently evaluating would come, at a conservative estimate, for $80 million (over Rs 360 crore) each.

The total upgrade programme for the Mirage aircraft could top $4 billion. The proposal cleared does not include about $900 million for new weapons (possibly MBDA-made Mica air-to-air missiles) that will re-arm the aircraft and another $500 million for new facilities at Hindustan Aeronautics’s Bangalore establishment.

The Mirage 2000 aircraft of the IAF are based in Gwalior. The multi-role aircraft are also assigned a nuclear strike role. The upgrade programme envisages a new radar, new avionics, an electronic warfare suite and counter-measures.

Dassault Aviation shut down its Mirage 2000 assembly line in France in 2007. But before that it introduced a variant known as the Mirage 2000-V (called “dash five”). In the upgrade, the IAF’s Mirages are to be brought up to the dash-five standard.

India is currently in the process of acquiring 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft that could cost $12 billion. The French aircraft Rafale, also made by Dassault, and the Eurofighter Typhoon, are the only two in the race for the order from a field of six.

The Mirage 2000 upgrade will be mostly done by French firm Thales, in which Dassault has a significant stake.

Thales is also the major beneficiary of the Indian Navy’s Scorpene submarine acquisition programme.

Two Mirage 2000 aircraft will be flown to France for the modernisation package. Two will be upgraded in India with assistance from the French firms and the rest will be refitted by Hindustan Aeronautics.

Israel had also made a bid to modernise the IAF’s Mirage aircraft for half the cost that the French have charged. But the IAF did not find the Israeli package suitable.

Indian Army gets nod to fire back at Maoists

SOURCE : IANS

The government has permitted the Indian Army to fire back at the Maoists in self-defence by amending the rules of engagement, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said on Tuesday.

“The army is not there to fight against Naxalism (Maoists). But at the same time the government gave them some standard operating procedures for their self-defence, that is all,” Antony told reporters here on the sidelines of a seminar.

An army officer said: “The changes in the rules of engagement entails that troops can fire back if fired upon.”

The army had early this year requested the government to change the rules of engagement for it in Chhattisgarh, where it is setting up a training centre. The army wanted to defend itself if fired upon by the Maoist rebels.

The changed standard operating procedures for the troops was for the less-than-a-brigade sized force of about 3,000 soldiers sanitising a 75-km stretch of highway in Bastar’s Kondagaon in Chattisgarh.

The force is headed to Narayanpur, also in the central Indian state, where the army has been allotted a 750-sq km area of land as a ‘manoeuvre range’ for training in jungle warfare.

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Russia to Spend $730 Billion on New Weapons

Source : DefPro

 

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has announced his government plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons modernization by 2020. In his address to parliament earlier this year, Putin said Russia must be strong enough to fend off any threats from abroad, so missile production will double starting in 2013. Analysts in Moscow say this ambitious plan is intended mainly to preserve the government’s domestic and regional influence.

UPGRADE

Russia plans to spend $730 billion by 2020 to upgrade and re-arm its military. That’s nearly $20 million a day.

The new state arms procurement program includes purchases of eight missile-carrying strategic submarines equipped with Bulava ballistic missiles. Plus 600 aircraft and S-400 and S-500 air defense systems. The arms purchases, both at home and abroad, would allow Russia to raise the proportion of modern weaponry in its arsenal to 70 percent by 2020.

Independent military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer says upgrading the strategic nuclear forces is at the top of the list, but the rest of the military needs a boost as well.

“Then there’s of course the air force, the air defense system, the army – actually, everything needs re-arming because right now they say that [only] 10-15 percent of our weaponry is modern,” Felgenhauer noted.

BUDGET INCREASE

As Russia exports weapons worth billions of dollars abroad, the country’s armed forces are mostly equipped with outdated Soviet-era weaponry. In the last 10 years the government has increased the defense budget tenfold, says Felgenhauer, but still failed to bring the military up to date.

“Now the present defense minister says that there was massive misappropriation of funds,” Felgenhauer added. “The Russian defense industry, which is also downgraded, and its capabilities are much smaller than in Soviet times, responded to more funding by just raising prices. They are producing the same several fighters or missiles, but for a much bigger price.”

FOREIGN THREATS

Prime Minister Putin says it is necessary to spend billions on re-arming the military due to the need to fend off foreign threats. But while that will demonstrate Russia’s military might, analysts say the main goal really is to create more business for the country’s military-defense complex ahead of next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections.  

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Naval Tejas to begin Ground Trails soon

 Source : IDRW News Network

ADA is all set to begin ground testing of Naval Tejas NP-1 soon, in series of ground testing which will be performed, first phase will involve Engine ground runs, and other phase will include, slow speed engine run on the tarmac, and later high speed ground trials, where aircraft reaches speed of near take off before pilot slows the aircraft and brings the aircraft to immediate halt.

Naval Tejas NP-1 which was rolled out last year with much fun and fare ,struggled to meet deadline of end of 2010 for its first flight , NP-1 which is a Trainer variant of Naval fighter ,had issues related to heavy landing gear and additional weight which comes with any Naval fighter ,since it requires to carry hard landing on a aircraft carrier ,which means additional strengthing of the airframe .

Tejas NP-1 and NP-2, which is based on Mark-1 configuration of Indian air force, will not be inducted into Indian navy at all, this Naval Prototype will only be used to carry out flight trails on simulated aircraft carrier landings and take offs from the artificial shore-based test facility (SBTF) which is coming up in Ins Hansa in Goa, same facility will be used to train Naval pilots in future on Naval Tejas and Mig-29k.

Naval Tejas MK-2 Powered by GE-F-414 engines ,will be what Indian navy will be inducting , Navy in past has mentioned that it will not induct any Naval Tejas with engines powered by GE-F-404-IN20 ,Defence expert Vinayak shetty (admin of lca-tejas.org) explains that Naval Tejas powered by GE-F-404-IN20 engines ,will suffer loss of performance at sea , which means that Naval Tejas powered by GE-F-404-IN20 engines will have to carry less payload while taking off from a aircraft carrier ,due to lack of thrust in its engines . New engines on Mark-2 which comes with higher thrust will able to overcome this shortfall.