Chinese drone manufacturer DJI is facing trouble doing business in the U.S with all kinds of legal hurdles and has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Pentagon, while Raytheon has been fined almost $1 billion and Sweden’s Saab has been subpoenaed for its sale of Gripen fighters to Brazil.
Saab will begin production of the Carl-Gustaf M4 from its site in Jhajjar in Haryana next year, with the first-ever 100 percent ownership of a venture by a foreign manufacturer in India. The production is intended to largely service the Indian Army-requirements with additional potential for exports.
Saurabh Joshi analyses the significance of the agreement to produce GE F414 fighter aircraft engines in India and its far-reaching consequences for India’s military aviation industry, indigenous fighter capability and defence ties with the U.S.
Indian Army orders all personnel to delete their Facebook accounts, Boeing completes delivery of the last five of 22 Apache attack helicopters to the Indian Air Force, Saab begins production of the Gripen in Brazil and the Indian Navy completes Operation Samudra Setu
The F-15EX is neither a ‘navy fighter’ nor a renamed F-16 and the IAF is curious about it. That’s why the Rafale might finally have a formidable challenger, if India can get past the fact that it’s American.
The IAF’s new contest for fighter aircraft is expected to get underway over the next few months. But there remain a number of significant outstanding problems ahead, that could delay or derail the process.
Part III of this analysis examines the implications of the single most interesting data point to emerge from the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India. This date has never been mentioned in earlier media reports, and what is almost startlingly significant is not only what transpired on this date, but the fact of the date, itself.
Part II of this analysis examines how the defence ministry’s Contract Negotiation Committee (CNC) interpreted an inflated cost analysis of the Eurofighter bid and undervalued the cost of the Rafale bid, five times.
Part I of this three-part analysis is a contextual reading of the February 2019 CAG report and outlines how the IAF’s MMRCA contest was fixed to get the Rafale back into the contest after it was rejected, three times, and how the threats to a Rafale win were removed.
Even after two decades since the acquisition case, the Very Short Range Air Defence (VSHORAD) search has seen a system absent from trials and failing trials, being passed as technically compliant and ending up as, apparently, the cheapest. Also problematic is the difficulty its purchase could pose by provoking U.S. sanctions under their CAATSA.
We examine lessons learned from the MMRCA contest and look at seven ways to derisk the process to prevent a repeat of the result in the earlier MMRCA competition.
Angad Singh and Pushan Das help StratPost editor Saurabh Joshi understand how the new IAF fighter contest will be different from the last one and why it will take two general elections before an order is placed.
Updated: MMRCA 2.0 will be a repeat of the MMRCA contest with the same six aircraft: F/A-18 Super Hornet Block III, MiG-35, F-16 Block 70, Gripen E, Eurofighter and Rafale.
Boeing is the third international manufacturer to have announced a partnership with Indian companies for the production of fighter aircraft in India.
The defence ministry has provided a singular and unconvincing defence of why it did not ask for, or entertain, a competing commercial offer for the Eurofighter Typhoon pitched by Airbus.
