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I am not sure what I can add to this, save what I have already stated.
India has been involved in 5 wars since 1947. some big, some small lasting only a few weeks. It is a safe 1 rupee bet that India will be involved in more wars to come. Future wars may be bigger and better, lasting months and years, maybe even involving two different fronts simultaneously.
India in no way is prepared for this for a variety of reasons.
India gives low priority to the military because of some misplaced Gandhian philosophy which has some bearing on Indian military doctrine. 2.5% on defense. India is shy about military arms exports considering it immoral and dirty. Indian politicians generally distrust the military which came to the boil in the 1970's between Indira Gandhi and Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. Hence India has a mere 34 divisions to Pakistan's 30, with more forming with foreign military assistance.
The next war WILL be in the mountains, requiring massive acquisitions of artillery, mortar, AA guns with huge stockpiling of munitions in the areas of probable action but curiously the bureaucrats are busy beefing up India's maritime power. Now if you are a rich country and you spend 10% of GDP on defense then you can be a little careless with defense expenditure BUT if you are poor Third World country which only spends 2.5% of GDP on defense, then in that scenario every Rupee counts and matters.
To compound matters we have DODO on charge of Indian weapons development with a mere 39 ordnance factories to support India's needs. A few well guided missile showers could easily wipe out India's entire defense manufacturing base in a few days.....WONDERFUL!
To compound matters we have DODO on charge of Indian weapons development with a mere 39 ordnance factories to support India's needs. What they produce is of poor quality, and as the article below shows is not indigenous in any sense. A credible power, not even a wannabe Super power (UK, France) needs wholly indigenous weapons systems. You can't be a credible power with other nations supplied weapons systems. Never. All the foreign suppliers have to do is delay, or even stop the spare parts and that's it, your military machine grinds to a halt.....ask the Iranians in 1988.
To compound matters we have DODO on charge of Indian weapons development with a mere 39 ordnance factories to support India's needs. And the Indian military with their hands in the till from foreign weapons acquisition put artificial high expectations on the performance of Indian weapons systems, so that when they do fail, the military brass opt for the foreign model. The Soviet Union and PRC never built perfect weapons systems at the beginning, far from it, but the military recognising the value of domestic production and supply during war went with them.
Indian defense is a mess, but looks good ONLY against failed state Pakistan and its even worse military.
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India has been involved in 5 wars since 1947. some big, some small lasting only a few weeks. It is a safe 1 rupee bet that India will be involved in more wars to come. Future wars may be bigger and better, lasting months and years, maybe even involving two different fronts simultaneously.
India in no way is prepared for this for a variety of reasons.
India gives low priority to the military because of some misplaced Gandhian philosophy which has some bearing on Indian military doctrine. 2.5% on defense. India is shy about military arms exports considering it immoral and dirty. Indian politicians generally distrust the military which came to the boil in the 1970's between Indira Gandhi and Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. Hence India has a mere 34 divisions to Pakistan's 30, with more forming with foreign military assistance.
The next war WILL be in the mountains, requiring massive acquisitions of artillery, mortar, AA guns with huge stockpiling of munitions in the areas of probable action but curiously the bureaucrats are busy beefing up India's maritime power. Now if you are a rich country and you spend 10% of GDP on defense then you can be a little careless with defense expenditure BUT if you are poor Third World country which only spends 2.5% of GDP on defense, then in that scenario every Rupee counts and matters.
To compound matters we have DODO on charge of Indian weapons development with a mere 39 ordnance factories to support India's needs. A few well guided missile showers could easily wipe out India's entire defense manufacturing base in a few days.....WONDERFUL!
To compound matters we have DODO on charge of Indian weapons development with a mere 39 ordnance factories to support India's needs. What they produce is of poor quality, and as the article below shows is not indigenous in any sense. A credible power, not even a wannabe Super power (UK, France) needs wholly indigenous weapons systems. You can't be a credible power with other nations supplied weapons systems. Never. All the foreign suppliers have to do is delay, or even stop the spare parts and that's it, your military machine grinds to a halt.....ask the Iranians in 1988.
To compound matters we have DODO on charge of Indian weapons development with a mere 39 ordnance factories to support India's needs. And the Indian military with their hands in the till from foreign weapons acquisition put artificial high expectations on the performance of Indian weapons systems, so that when they do fail, the military brass opt for the foreign model. The Soviet Union and PRC never built perfect weapons systems at the beginning, far from it, but the military recognising the value of domestic production and supply during war went with them.
Indian defense is a mess, but looks good ONLY against failed state Pakistan and its even worse military.
__________________________________
Indigenous? Dhruv advanced light helicopters are '90% foreign'
By Rajat Pandit of the Times of India.
After 34 years of development, the foreign component in the "indigenous" Arjun main-battle tank still hovers around 50%. Similar is the case with the still under-development Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, which will even in the future fly on imported engines.
And now, it has come to light that another so-called major indigenous defence project, the twin-engine Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH), whose design and development began way back in 1984, is still around 90% foreign.
With the defence ministry floundering to lay the foundations for a robust military-industrial base or cutting-edge defence R&D by involving the private sector in a big way, India will continue to import huge quantities of armaments and military sub-systems for a long, long time to come.
"As against the envisaged indigenisation level of 50% (by 2008), 90% of the value of material used in each ALH is still imported from foreign suppliers," says the latest CAG report, tabled in Parliament on Thursday.
"Even though ALH has been in production for 10 years, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd has not been able to identify alternative indigenous suppliers," said CAG, which conducted a "performance audit" on the ALH project being run by the defence PSU.
Technical glitches and crashes have also continued to dog the ALH project, which has a sanctioned cost of Rs 2,103 crore till now, putting paid to much-touted ambitious plans to sell the 5.5-tonne helicopter to other countries.
"HAL could not penetrate the international market in the absence of international certification despite showcasing ALH in foreign airshows since 2003 (at a cost of Rs 59 crore). It could not also successfully execute the orders received from the civil market," said CAG.
Even the Indian armed forces, which have inducted around 80 ALHs till now, are not too happy. There has been a huge delay in de-induction of the old Cheetah and Chetak helicopter fleets, adversely affecting operations in high-altitude areas in forward locations.
"The technical requirements finalised in 1979 by Army and IAF have not been fully achieved. The ALH has been found unsuitable for the intended multi-role requirements due to excess weight and limited engine power," said CAG.
The 40 ALHs, inducted by Army under a Rs 1,747 crore contract in March 2006, for instance, cannot fly over 5,000-metre altitude, even though the force had wanted them to have the capability to fly over 6,500 metre. Nevertheless, another Rs 9,490 crore contract for another 105 Dhruvs was inked with HAL in December 2007.
Moreover, the development of a new higher-powered engine Shakti for ALH, in collaboration with foreign company Turbomecca, as well as the helicopter's "weapon system integration version" have both been long delayed.
