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India Turns Down American Fighter Jets, Buys From France
An anonymous reader writes "While America had offered the F-16, F-18 and now the stealth F-35 fighter, India picked for its new multi-role attack jet a low cost, older French plane. Why? For one, it's cheaper, and two, if American/Indian relations go bad, can they get the parts and equipment to keep the planes in the air? It seems prudence beat out the latest in technology."
Reminds me of a line about WWII I came across years ago that ran something like: "The superior German tanks could outperform anything the Allies threw at them, 10:1. Unfortunately, they built 11 tanks for each German tank."
Actually the French have long history of military success. One major cause of their rapid capitulation to Germany is that a significant minority of the French leadership supported Hitler and Nazism.
While America had offered the F-16, F-18 and now the stealth F-35 fighter ...
The F-35 was never offered for this contest .. it wouldn't even be eligible. Only aircraft that were already in production and could start deliveries by 2013 were allowed. The other American aircraft were eliminated in the first round ... The Indian Air Force liked the F/A-18's AESA radar so much that it was made a mandatory requirement for the other contestants too. However, in size the Hornet is just too big for the role the IAF was looking to fit it into. The F-16 never had a chance since Pakistan is a major operator of the type.
... a low cost, older French plane. Why? For one, it's cheaper ...
Cost is not that significant a factor ... like I mentioned earlier, the tenders were unsealed only after the aircraft that didn't meet the performance parameters were eliminated. By law, the IAF has to choose the lowest-cost successful bidder.
Both the Rafale and Eurofighter are more expensive than the Hornet or Falcon (and significantly more so than the Gripen). If the Hornet or Gripen had gotten to the second round, they'd probably be the winner of the contest.
... if American/Indian relations go bad, can they get the parts and equipment to keep the planes in the air?
That's one of the criteria where the American aircraft failed. India's defence policy requires multiple vendors from different countries of origin to minimise the control that can be exerted. (Which is why the IAF flies such a plethora of types). After the Indian nuclear tests in 1996, US sanctions meant that most Western-built designs in IAF service were affected due to a lack of spare parts (Sea King helicopters, F404 engines for the Tejas fighter etc.).
Don't be silly, this comment was about the Russians who beat Hitler on the Eastern Front. America != Allies.
I don't think the Russians kept that close a count and the number includes T-34 variants like anti-tank guns and self propelled artillery. I do have something that says in 1943 a T-34/76 took 3,000 hours to build while the Panther took 55,000 hours. The Russians could build in a month what it took the Germans a year to do. And by 1943 the T-34 was a proven design with established doctrine. The Panther had major early problems and while it turned into the best medium tank given 1:1 odds, the odds were never 1:1.
'Someone in the india ministry of defense should google "french military victories'
Top hit for me is below, it describes a string of victories (And some defeats) going back to 387 B.C. In particular Joan of Arc and Napoleon where involved in french victories.
What is you point, other than documenting your typically ignorant American attitude, i bet you call still call them freedom fries at your house.
http://www.militaryfactory.com/battles/french_military_victories.asp
I'm not sure where the original quote is from, but I've seen variations of it before in reference to the US Army in Europe. My information is from a variety of sources that I've read over the years, both books and articles. On the superiority of the Soviet T-34, I can point to Robert J. Kershaw's War Without Garlands, which includes a quote from a German officer that "our tanks were able to defeat tanks that were quite superior in firepower and armour" due to each tank having a radio and a crewman to operate it, allowing for more coordinated tactics. The main deficiency of the T-34 being a small crew and lack of a radio in most tanks.
A similar quote that DOES refer to the Soviets is "quantity has a quality all its own."
Slashdot's usual BS political linkbait headline has nothing to do link the actual story. This is not about French vs. US aircraft, France vs. the US in general, or anything like that. If you read either of the linked TFAs, they say specifically that:
Both of TFAs talk about how this decision is a blow to the Eurofighter, not to the US - not anymore than it is to Sweden or Russia. It is just another poorly edited (or edited at all?) Slashdot anti-US linkbait, flamebait article.
I swear I'm almost done with Slashdot except that it still has some informative comments on science stories, I need to just browse that section and ignore the rest since they just piss me off.
"95% of all Slashdot
The major reason for the rapid capitulation of French to Germany in 1940 is that we were crushed.
There were between 50 000 and 100 000 French military killed during the 2 months of the German invasion in 1940 (+ the wounded of course). The French army was vastly oversmarted and overpowered but it did attempt to resist.
Please read a bit of history and stop spreading nonsense. The vast majority of French people still deeply hated the German 20 years after the first world war.
India's military relationship with the US has not always been very good. For example, when India supported the Bangladeshis during their Liberation War, Nixon's response was to send in a carrier battle group to support Pakistan, despite evidence of genocide by the West Pakistani army. Given India's closeness to the USSR, the US was always somewhat wary of military ties. Operation Smiling Buddha and Operation Shakthi didn't help very much either, but the US rather quickly learned that economic sanctions against India didn't really prove effective and withdrew them in a few years.
The IAF also has a relatively long history of using fighter aircraft and helos of French origin. The French are not shy about sharing technology either, such as the Master AP system that's integrated into India's Ballistic Missle Defence network, or SAGEM's numerous avionics subsystems that are part of the HAL Tejas.
Bottom line, then, is that while I'm sure US support of Pakistan would have had some influence, many other factors (much of it historical) contributed to the final decision.
Lafayette was made an honorary citizen of the US in... 2002. But he remained a Frenchman during his own lifetime, and played a role in 1789 and 1830 French revolutions.
Quoting Defense Industry Daily article The F-35’s Air-to-Air Capability Controversy:
The core problem in Pacific Vision 2008 was that even an invulnerable American fighter force ran out of missiles before it ran out of targets, at any number below 50% of missile firings resulting in kills. Whereupon the remaining Chinese fighters would destroy the American tankers and AWACS aircraft, guaranteeing that the USAF’s F-22As would run out of fuel and crash before they could return to Guam.
To reiterate: RAND’s core conclusion is not about specific fighter performance. It is about the theoretical limits of better performance under adverse basing and logistics conditions. RAND’s Project Air Force argues, persuasively, that based on history and current trends, numbers still matter – and so does the “Lanchester square.” That’s the theory under which the combat performance of an outnumbered combatant must be the square of the outnumbering ratio (outnumbered 3:1 must be 9x better, etc.) just to stay even.
Or, as the oft-repeated Cold War era saying goes, “quantity has a quality all its own.”
Additional problem with F-35 is that it has limited missile carrying capacity, range, and stealth (stealth requirements were downgraded from very low observable, to low observable).
Dyslexics have more fnu.