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India going ahead with 36 French Rafale jets for $8Billion


ashdivay

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4 minutes ago, enigma6584 said:

 

So why not go with 100 more Rafale?

diplomacy . 

 

every big order comes with certain diplomatic strings attached. 

Either in form of the foreign country or company doing some kind of tech transfer or concession in other diplomatic area for India. 

 

India is basically using $$$$ as a diplomatic tool on global stage. 

 

Rafael will be investing substantial money in maintenance infrastructure and transfer tech to India for this deal.

 

 

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I can think of a lot more important thinks India could spend 8-billion on

Addressing child poverty in your home land would be top of my list. IMO

I realise having a strong army is a good deterrent against aggression but your military is already in a strong position.

Compared to your most likely aggressor 

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1 hour ago, Marko said:

I can think of a lot more important thinks India could spend 8-billion on

Addressing child poverty in your home land would be top of my list. IMO

I realise having a strong army is a good deterrent against aggression but your military is already in a strong position.

Compared to your most likely aggressor 

 

your knowledge of geopolitical situation of Indian sub-continent might be limited in this case. As mentioned by Hedge . Biggest threat to India is not Pakistan but China. Every few days PLA tests indian border guards. there are non stop probes by PLA into indian territory. Their attempts to see how India reacts. 

China seems to have upped the tempo after India's economic growth rate passed that of China this year http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/12146579/India-overtakes-China-as-worlds-fastest-growing-major-economy.html


As far as $8 Billion dollars , that's small amount compared to India's GDP which is estimated at  $2.29 trillion ( 2016)  

With a defence budge just 2.3% of of GDP, its very acceptable.  

 

Coming back to your logic of "abandoning all Defence spending and concentrate on poor people". Well it has been happening , India has been able to uplift more than 60% of its population. 

Based on Wolrd Bank figures, between 1986 and now , poverty levels have fallen below 40%. 

India did this while maintaining its military budget along with space and nuke programmes and living with sanctions (in the 90's) and Global economic downfall (Which did not affect India) 

 

Bottom line , you can't just take 8 billion dollars and throw it at people (like the stimulus cash US govt thew at its people)

Economic growth is achieved by creating environment that enables business to grow , when business grow they create jobs , when people have jobs they buy stuff which causes more business to grow and generate more revenue for the GOvernment taxes. 

 

I expect Indian economy to grow at 10% in next few years. specially when they start the massive Infrastructure upgrade projects. (US and rest of the Europe should do this).

 

Oh and India already recovered the cost of buying the rafale jets by auctioning off its Wireless frequency band to private companies for 4g mobile service.

In 4 days of bidding India made $9.9 bln http://www.reuters.com/article/india-telecoms-auction-idUSL3N1CC2Y2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, ChrisWerb said:

Ash you chose wisely with Rafale. It's a superb warplane and extremely flexible and powerful in air to ground operations. It just needs a true long range AAM to make it the perfect 4th Gen fighter.

 

thats what i am trying to figure out is what LRAA it will use ,  do french have their own LRAA or do they user the american one ?

Edited by ashdivay
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At present the French use MICA in IR and active radar formats. By all accounts it is a very good missile, capable of locking on after launch. However, it has limited range (c. 50km). Meteor will give it an AAM with much longer range and no escape zone than any AMRAAM. Only Sweden actually has Meteor in service so far, but other nations including France and the UK are not far behind.

Edited by ChrisWerb
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The one fly in the ointment is that Textron is discontinuing production of the CBU-105 - they were refused an export licence to Saudi and decided to formally stop manufacture and sale, allegedly to make their shares more ownable by people and businesses with ethical policies. I know India bought a substantial quantity of them. I would have liked to have seen you buy more - possibly with wing kits.

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Indeed, part of the reason India stopped at 36 Rafales was because HAL, India's domestic combat aircraft manufacturer, is notoriously difficult to work with for foreign designers and manufacturers. Not content with a frankly incredible agreement for  technology transfers and a production contract for 108 of 126 Rafales slated for service in the IAF, HAL overplayed their hand and demanded that Dassault guarantee the work which Dassault inevitably refused. The Indian MOD got around this problem by reducing the order to 36 which can be seen as a sweet spot of establishing the Rafale as a significant part of the IAF but not enough to justify a domestic production line.

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On 10/12/2016 at 6:53 AM, ChrisWerb said:

At present the French use MICA in IR and active radar formats. By all accounts it is a very good missile, capable of locking on after launch. However, it has limited range (c. 50km). Meteor will give it an AAM with much longer range and no escape zone than any AMRAAM. Only Sweden actually has Meteor in service so far, but other nations including France and the UK are not far behind.

 

Long term storage is the problem with the MICA because refrigeration is needed.

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1 hour ago, Homer said:

 

What's wrong with the F-35 beside being expensive?

Well, beyond its stealth capabilities it's effectively an F-16E/F, matching that aircraft in every metric. Seems like a lot of money wasted for what already existed in the (cheaper) F-22/A.

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4 hours ago, Homer said:

 

What's wrong with the F-35 beside being expensive?

well its currently not flight worthy according to everyone who has flown it.It has a main gun mounted besdie the cockpit,so that when a small door opens it causes such turbelance(sp?)that the cannon is all over the place making it practilly usless/The fighter version has no view of the pilots six o' clock.And it costs a trillion dollars so far.....and the F-22 is superior.The F16 destroys it in 1 on 1 dog fight constantly.

 

heres some tidbits,strait from the Pentagon and the weapons testers.Some are a few yrs old but the problems still exsist.I wont even go into what problems  Norway  is having.

 

https://www.rt.com/usa/pentagon-f35-report-combat-012/

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-f-35-cant-run-on-warm-gas-from-a-fuel-truck-that-sa-1668120726

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/26/politics/f-35-fighter-jet-problems-gilmore-memo/index.html

 

 

:)

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13 hours ago, MAJ_Fubar said:

Well, beyond its stealth capabilities it's effectively an F-16E/F, matching that aircraft in every metric. Seems like a lot of money wasted for what already existed in the (cheaper) F-22/A.

Every metric?  How can you make that claim when so much about the F-35 is unknown?  For example, what is the F-35's best instantaneous and sustained turn rates?  What are the rates at sea level and 35,000ft?

 

10 hours ago, mpow66m said:

well its currently not flight worthy according to everyone who has flown it.It has a main gun mounted besdie the cockpit,so that when a small door opens it causes such turbelance(sp?)that the cannon is all over the place making it practilly usless/The fighter version has no view of the pilots six o' clock.And it costs a trillion dollars so far.....and the F-22 is superior.The F16 destroys it in 1 on 1 dog fight constantly.

 

heres some tidbits,strait from the Pentagon and the weapons testers.Some are a few yrs old but the problems still exsist.I wont even go into what problems  Norway  is having.

 

https://www.rt.com/usa/pentagon-f35-report-combat-012/

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-f-35-cant-run-on-warm-gas-from-a-fuel-truck-that-sa-1668120726

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/26/politics/f-35-fighter-jet-problems-gilmore-memo/index.html

 

 

:)

 

1. Show me 3 pilots who says it's not flight worthy?  Of the vids I've seen with pilot interviews, they have nothing but praise (a little too much actually).

2. Gun location is not unusual. No different than current US fighters. During the development of the A-10, it's cannon produced so much smoke that it regularly caused one engine to flame out. It got fixed. Is the vibration problem unfixable on the F-35?

3. You do know that the F-35 has a 360 optic system that lets do stuff like look through the cockpit floor?  Not to mention it will automatically track and identify all air threats within visual range.  Do a search for "F-35 DAS".

4. "costs a trillion so far"  no it hasn't.

5. Some ways the F-22 is superior, some ways not.

6. The F-35 has never had a dogfight with the F-16.  Did you read the report your claim is based upon?

 

The whole purpose of the testing and evaluation program is to identify problem and fix them.  With the F-35, every problem identified becomes a AH HA! WHAT A PIECE OF SHIT! even if it only happens one time to one airplane. 

 

RT is not a good source for the F-35.  At least it wasn't the interview with Pierre Sprey.

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