Bộ trưởng Quốc phòng Ấn Độ Antony: Kỷ nguyên của MiG ở Ấn Độ sẽ kết thúc vào năm 2017

End of the MiG era by 2017, says Antony 

 

TNN
Feb 24, 2011

NEW DELHI: Russian-origin MiG-21s were the first truly supersonic fighter jets to be inducted into IAF in 1963, which then was a move by India to counter the F-104 Starfighters provided to Pakistan by US.

The MiG-23s, MiG-25s, MiG-27s and MiG-29s, each with their own specific roles, followed in later years. The MiGs, in fact, once constituted over 75% of India's combat fleet, and still constitute a bulk of it. But now, with IAF going in for modern fighters, the end of the entire MiG era, except for the latest MiG-29s, is in sight.

"We have got a clear-cut plan to replace them. By 2017, the entire MiG series will be replaced in a phased manner, that is from 2014 onwards,'' said defence minister A K Antony in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

In the years ahead, India's frontline combat fighters will have 270 Russian Sukhoi-30MKIs already being inducted for around $12 billion, the 126 new medium multi-role combat aircraft to be acquired in the $10.4 billion MMRCA project and the 250 to 300 fifth-generation fighter aircraft to be built with Russia in the gigantic $35 billion project.

Moreover, induction of the first 40 of the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft will also begin towards end-2013, with the first two squadrons becoming fully operational at the Sulur airbase (Tamil Nadu) by 2015 or so, a full three decades after the LCA project was first sanctioned to replace the ageing MiG-21s.

Antony, on his part, assured Parliament that large-scale induction of Sukhoi-30MKIs, LCA and MMRCA would take place within the next few years, while acknowledging such an exercise could not take place in the past due to "historical reasons''.

While the single-engined, delta-winged MiG-21s did indeed provide yeoman service to India over the decades, the high crash record of these highly-demanding fighters have also scarred the nation.

Of the 793 MiG-21s inducted into IAF since 1963, over 350 have been lost in accidents. IAF has recorded 40 crashes in just the last three years, a majority of them being MiGs, which killed 16 pilots, 24 service personnel and five civilians.

With several design limitations due to their 1960s and 1970s vintage, coupled with shoddy maintenance and poor quality control of spares, as well as inadequate training to rookie pilots, the MiG-21s even came to be known as the "flying coffins''.

Even the track-record of the "Bisons'', the 125 MiG-21s upgraded with new avionics, improved gearboxes and cockpits, and the capability to fire some BVR (beyond-visual range) missiles, has not been free from controversies. But faced with the huge delays in Tejas, IAF plans to operate the "Bisons'' till at least 2017.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/End-of-the-MiG-era-by-2017-says-Antony/articleshow/7557331.cms

Ấn Độ trì hoãn dự án "hệ thống cảnh báo và kiểm soát không lưu"

Delays hit homegrown Awacs as Pak races ahead

Rajat Pandit
TNN
Feb 8, 2011

NEW DELHI: India's indigenous Awacs (airborne warning and control systems) or "eyes in the sky" project has been hit by delays even as Pakistan is fast closing the technological gap in this arena with China's active help.

Moreover, IAF's proposal to acquire two more Israeli Phalcon Awacs, after the first three were contracted under the $1.1-billion contract inked in March 2004, is yet to gather full steam. "There is in principle approval for two more Phalcon Awacs but negotiations are still in progress," said a top defence ministry source.

Awacs or AEW&C (airborne early warning and control) systems can detect incoming hostile cruise missiles and aircraft much before ground-based radars, as also act as potent force-multipliers by directing air defence fighters during combat operations with enemy jets. They can also track troop build-ups far away in enemy territory.

The critical requirement for Awacs had led the Cabinet Committee on Security, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to clear the Rs 1,800-crore indigenous project in October 2004, barely six months after the Phalcon deal.

The CCS had then set a time-frame of seven years for development of the homegrown mini- Awacs, under which AEW&C systems developed by DRDO are being mounted on three Embraer-145 jets obtained from Brazil for $210 million.

But these AEW&C planes are nowhere near even beginning their flight trials. The project completion date has now being extended to April 2014, which itself is set to be revised. "The aircraft and mission system availability is now scheduled for this year, with the integrated system availability pushed back to 2013," said a MoD source.

Once operational, these aircraft are slated to have a normal radar range of 250 km and a 375-km extended one, with a 240-degree coverage and five-hour endurance time.

The Phalcon Awacs, with a detection range over 400 km, too, have suffered from technical glitches. Under the complex project, the Israeli 360° Phalcon early-warning radar and communication suite has been mounted on Russian IL-76 heavy-lift military aircraft.

The first Phalcon Awacs was originally scheduled for delivery in December 2007, with the second and third ones following in September 2008 and March 2009. But the first arrived only in May 2009 and the second in March 2010, with the third yet to be delivered. Awacs are a crucial element in the plan underway to set up five nodes of IACCS (integrated air command and control system) across the country.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Delays-hit-homegrown-AWACS-Pakistan-races-ahead-with-China-help/articleshow/7446009.cms

Ấn Độ chi hơn 25 tỉ USD để chế tạo 250 máy bay chiến đấu ban đêm thế hệ thứ 5

India to spend over $25 billion to induct 250 5th-gen stealth fighters

 

Rajat Pandit,
TNN
Oct 5, 2010
 

NEW DELHI: India will eventually spend over $25 billion to induct 250 advanced stealth fifth-generation fighter aircraft (FGFA), on way to being co-developed with Russia, in what will be the country's biggest-ever defence project.

With a potent mix of super-manoeuvrability and supersonic cruising ability, long-range strike and high-endurance air defence capabilities, each FGFA will cost upwards of Rs 450 crore or around $100 million.

This will be in addition to the huge investment to be made in co-developing FGFA with cash-strapped Russia, as also the huge infrastructure required to base, operate and maintain such jets in India.

"We are looking to induct 200 to 250 FGFA in phases from 2017 onwards,'' confirmed IAF chief Air Chief Marshal P V Naik on Monday. As reported by TOI earlier, New Delhi and Moscow are looking to ink the FGFA preliminary design contract when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev comes visiting here in December.

Under intense negotiations for the last four-five years, the FGFA project will also figure in the talks between defence minister A K Antony and his Russian counterpart Anatoly Serdyukov on October 8.

Though the Indian FGFA will based on the Russian Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA, which flew for the first time this January at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur facility in Siberia, it will be built to IAF's specifications. It's already being touted as superior to the American F/A-22 `Raptor', the world's only operational FGFA as of now.

ACM Naik said the 30-tonne FGFA will be a "swing-role fighter, with very advanced avionics, stealth to increase survivability, enhanced lethality, 360 degree situational awareness, smart weapons, data-links, high-end mission computers'' and the like.

Along with 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft, which India plans to acquire in a $10.4 billion project, 270 Sukhoi-30MKIs contracted from Russia for around $12 billion and 120 indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, the FGFA will be the mainstay of India's air combat fleet for the foreseeable future.

Even as the Army revises its war doctrine to factor in the worst-case scenario of a simultaneous two-front war with Pakistan and China, is IAF also preparing for the same?

"Our modernisation plans are based on the four pillars of `see, reach, hit and protect'...We prepare for a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional, multi-front war,'' said ACM Naik.

"But our approach is capability-based, not adversary-specific. Our modernisation drive is in tune with our nation's aspirations,'' he said, adding that India's strategic interests stretched "from Hormuz Strait to Malacca Strait and beyond''.

To a volley of questions on China and Pakistan, IAF chief said, "All neighbours, from the smallest to the largest, have to be watched with caution...Their capabilities have to be assessed...Anything that can upset the growth of our nation is a matter of concern.''

With the new planned inductions in the pipeline, IAF's obsolescence rate will come down to 20% by 2014-15 from the current 50% or so. "But this does not mean that we are not fully capable of defending the country from any air or space threat at the moment...We are,'' said ACM Naik.
 

 

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-to-spend-over-25-billion-to-induct-250-5th-gen-stealth-fighters/articleshow/6685002.cms

Bước tiếp theo của Tổ chức Nghiên cứu và Phát triển Quốc phòng Ấn Độ: vũ khí như trong Chiến tranh giữa các vì sao

DRDO’s next: Star Wars-like weapons

 

Rajat Pandit, TNN, Aug 3, 2010
The Times of India

NEW DELHI: Move aside Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, DRDO is trying to develop its own set of Star Wars-like weapons. From laser dazzlers to control rioting crowds to high-powered lasers to destroy incoming missiles, DRDO is working on a slew of directed energy weapons (DEWs).

"Lasers are weapons of the future. We can, for instance, use laser beams to shoot down an enemy missile in its boost or terminal phase,'' said DRDO's Laser Science & Technology Centre (LASTEC) director Anil Kumar Maini, talking to TOI on Monday.

Incidentally, DRDO chief V K Saraswat himself has identified DEWs, along with space security, cyber-security and hypersonic vehicles, as focus areas in the years ahead. "LASTEC has the mandate to develop DEWs for armed forces,'' said DRDO's chief controller (electronics & computer sciences) R Sreehari Rao.

While conventional weapons use kinetic or chemical energy of missiles or other projectiles to destroy targets, DEWs decimate them by bombarding with subatomic particles or electromagnetic waves at the speed of sound. Apart from the speed-of-light delivery, laser DEWs cause minimal collateral damage.

DRDO, of course, often promises much more than it can deliver. But even the defence ministry's recent "technology perspective and capability roadmap'' identifies DEWs and ASAT (anti-satellite) weapons as thrust areas over the next 15 years, as was first reported by TOI.

The aim is to develop laser-based weapons, deployed on airborne as well as seaborne platforms, which can intercept missiles soon after they are launched towards India in the boost phase itself. These will be part of the fledgling ballistic missile defence system being currently developed by DRDO.

The US, incidentally, is already conducting tests of high-powered laser weapons on a modified 747 jumbo jet, the ALTB (airborne laser testbed), which direct lethal amounts of directed energy to destroy ballistic missiles during their boost phase.

It will, of course, take India several years to even conduct such tests. For now, LASTEC is developing "a 25-kilowatt'' laser system to hit a missile during its terminal phase at a distance of 5-7 km. "All you need is to heat the missile skin to 200-300 degree and the warhead inside will detonate,'' said Maini.

LASTEC is also working on a vehicle-mounted "gas dynamic laser-based DEW system'', under project Aditya, which should be ready in three years. "But Aditya is just a technology demonstrator to prove beam control technology. Ultimately, we have to develop solid-state lasers,'' said Maini.

Even countries like US have now shifted their focus to the more efficient, smaller and lighter solid-state laser DEWs since chemical (dye and gas) lasers are dogged by size, weight and logistical problems.

LASER POWER

Non-Lethal systems:

-- Hand-held laser dazzler to disorient adversaries, without collateral damage. 50-metre range. Status: Ready.

-- Crowd-control dazzlers mounted on vehicles to dispel rioting mobs. 250-metre range. Status: take 2 years more.

-- Laser-based ordnance disposal system, which can be used to neutralise IEDs and other explosives from a distance. Status: trials begin in 18 months.

Lethal Systems:

-- Air defence dazzlers to take on enemy aircraft and helicopters. 10-km range. Status: take 2 years more.

-- 25-kilowatt laser systems to destroy missiles during their terminal phase. 5 to 7-km range. Status: take five years more.

-- At least 100-kilowatt solid-state laser systems, mounted on aircraft and ships, to destroy missiles in their boost phase itself. Status: will take a decade. 

 

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/DRDOs-next-Star-Wars-like-weapons/articleshow/6248942.cms

Trong vòng một năm, Ấn Độ sẽ có bộ ba hạt nhân

In a year, India will have nuclear triad: Navy chief

 

Rajat Pandit, TNN, Dec 3, 2010
The Times of India

NEW DELHI: Only three countries, US, Russia and China, can be said to have fully-operational nuclear weapon triads -- the capability to fire nuclear-tipped missiles from land, air and sea. India will gatecrash into this highly-exclusive club by 2012.

Navy chief Admiral Nirmal Verma, not given to making dramatic statements, said the triad will be complete once its crucial underwater leg, the country's first indigenous nuclear submarine aptly named INS Arihant or the "destroyer of enemies", is commissioned towards late-2011 or early-2012.

The land and air legs are already in place with the Agni family of road and rail-mobile ballistic missiles as well as fighter jets like Mirage-2000s and Sukhoi-30MKIs jury-rigged to deliver nuclear weapons.

"When INS Arihant goes to sea, it will be on a deterrent patrol (read armed with nucelar-tipped missiles). The triad will then be in place... the aim is to make it as effective as possible," Admiral Verma said on Thursday, in the run-up to Navy Day on December 4.

This comes barely a day after Wikileaks revealed that American and European diplomats were greatly alarmed about Pakistan's feverish production of nuclear weapons. Estimates show Pakistan already has around 70 to 90 warheads, higher than India's 60 to 80. China, of course, is way ahead with around 240 warheads.

While Pakistan is nowhere near getting a nuclear submarine, China has 10 of them in its 62-submarine fleet, with three of them being SSBNs (armed with long-range strategic missiles). India, in contrast, has just 15 conventional and ageing diesel-electric submarines.

Consequently, INS Arihant is crucial to India's nuclear deterrence doctrine, which revolves around a clear "no-first use" policy. A robust and survivable second-strike capability is hugely dependent on having nuclear-powered submarines, armed with SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles), which can operate silently underwater for several months at a time.

Admiral Verma said INS Arihant, which was "launched" at Vizag in July 2009, would have potent SLBM capabilities to complete the triad. With INS Arihant's miniature 83 mw pressurised light-water reactor slated to go "critical" within a month or two for sea-acceptance trials, Navy also seems quite confident about ongoing undersea tests of the 700-km K-15 and 3,500-km K-4 SLBMs.

The 6,000-tonne INS Arihant, which has four silos on its hump to carry 12 K-15s or four extended range K-4s, is to be followed by another two nuclear submarines under the secretive Rs 30,000 crore Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) project.

Navy, on its part, wants to have three SSBNs and six SSNs (nuclear-powered attack submarines) in the years ahead. The force will also finally induct the K-152 Nerpa submarine, on a 10-year lease from Russia, towards April-May 2011 after several delays.

While the 12,000-tonne Nerpa will not come armed with long-range missiles due to international treaties, it will help train Indian sailors in the complex art of operating nuclear submarines. It will also be a lethal hunter of enemy submarines and warships, armed with torpedoes and 300-km Klub-S cruise missiles.


Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/In-a-year-India-will-have-nuclear-triad-Navy-chief/articleshow/7030573.cms

Quân đội Ấn Độ sẽ có thay đổi lớn nhất từ trước đến nay

Indian Army set for its most radical revamp

 

Josy Joseph, TNN, Jan 13, 2011
The Times of India

NEW DELHI: The Indian Army is set for the biggest transformation in its recent history, according to authoritative sources and plan details accessed by TOI. The restructuring could begin as early as March-April.

The proposals include setting up of a Strategic Command, comprising of Army's offensive capabilities, abandoning many existing administrative structures and thinning down of headquarters at all levels. Taken together, this is said to be the most radical organization change that the Indian Army has seen.

The proposals are part of a 'transformation study' done by a high-level team under Army chief Gen V K Singh when he was heading the Eastern Command. A dependable Army source said the plan is now set to be rolled out. A defence ministry source said the ministry would go along with the proposed reforms.

The last such transformation was almost 30 years ago, which resulted in the Army's mechanization in a major way. The new proposals are more path-breaking, said Army sources.

One of the most critical proposals is the creation of a Strategic Command, under which the three Strike Corps would be brought together.

Jaipur may host Strategic Command

A subsidiary study underway is presently debating where to locate the Strategic Command.

Currently, two options are being considered — to convert either the Jaipur-based South-Western Command or the Pune-based Southern Command into the Strategic Command. Once a final decision is taken, areas under the army commands would be redistributed. Sources indicate that Jaipur looks to be the most suitable location.

The South-Western Command in Jaipur was set up in 2005, with a part of the Western and Northern Commands being carved out to create the new command. Creation of the new Strategic Command would mean the Army would go back to having five commands with operational areas under them, apart from the Army Training Command and the new Strategic Command.

The Strategic Command would also have a new addition, a proposed Mountain Strike Corps meant specifically for the China border. The proposal for country's first mountain strike corps is presently awaiting approval of the cabinet committee on security. 

 

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Indian-Army-set-for-its-most-radical-revamp/articleshow/7272321.cms