That was apparently the decisive factor in India’s choosing Dassault’s Rafale multi-role fighter over the EADS Typhoon:
French firm Dassault has emerged as the lowest bidder for a $10bn (£6.3bn) contract to supply India jet fighters.
Dassault Aviation, as preferred bidder, will now enter final talks before signing a deal that will supply India’s air force with 126 Rafale aircraft.
Correspondents say this is one of the world’s biggest defence deals and is a major setback for rival bidder, the Eurofighter Typhoon.
Eurofighter lost out in December on an $8bn deal to supply jets to Japan…
BBC defence and diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says the Indian air force is going through an unprecedented period of modernisation; a response in part to China’s developing air power.
Four other bidders had dropped out in the lengthy Indian selection process.
It’s interesting that the combat proven Super Hornet didn’t get a better look, as Boeing had offered to co-produce the design in the subcontinent and its unit cost was nearly $30 million less than Dassault’s option. India’s MoD was apparently concerned about potential political constraints with respect to the Super Hornet bid. The French, on the other hand, will sell anything, to practically anyone.
Except the Israelis. I figured they were scared of us slapping an embargo on them like we did during the Clinton administration that grounded their Sea King fleet. That hurt their navy badly and I guess they don’t want a repeat.
The Super Hornet carries more gas and has more growth space than the Rafale, which is pretty pricey considering how little it really is. The Rafale is probably a lot more maneuverable in a twisting, turning fight, but it carries a lot less in the way of PGMs. I think with the Su-30s and Jaguars doing most of the mud-moving for them, they needed an aircraft with more straight air-to-air capability like the MiG-21s it will replace. As an air superiority platform, the Rafale will be a good match for their needs, especially since their indigenous LCA program is awash in problems.
I think they chose it based on price and that a refit of their Mirage 2000s with similar avionics would give them a great deal of commonality.
America is a longterm ally with Pakistan. The American occupation in Afghanistan is dependent on Pakistan being an ally and the Pakistani Airfore has recently been supplied with F-16 aircraft. India would have to be crazy to buy combat aircraft from America.
It is an odd procurement for India. Or maybe not. If anything it was the largest intelligence gathering exercise on modern fighters ever. They now have a better grasp of what capability all the contenders have.
As for the Super; well, “combat proven” if the enemy buries their air force in the sand.
Let me just say that, having flown against Super Hornets recently, I’m a great deal more impressed by the platform than I had been heretofore. It’s much more than just a “big Hornet.”
Perhaps — but the Indian AF pilots flying the Super Bug said it was too big and truthfully, was closer to the SU-30MKI in that regard. Back channel tells me one of the things that shoved Rafale to the front was the Libyan ops — France understood the game well and moved heaven and earth to get precision strike capabilty on the aircraft, exercised in combat and thence, showcased to the Indians. Given the deep dissatisfaction the Indians also have with the MiG-29 in general (popular press there calls them “flying coffins”) I wouldn’t expect to see the -29Ks last too long either. Bottomline is the two fighters we brought to the contest were not up to the all aspects of the tender (shrug). In other news, the first P-8I subassemblies arrived in India for final assembly last week, their follow on transport are from the US and there a number of other engagement opportunities with the Indian military down the road, so I guess I’m not all that wrapped around the axle over the way this played out (not surprised either). Another flyoff to watch will be to see what Brazil decides – many of the same players are involved there, but the ground rules are different…
w/r, SJS
P.S. Also not that broken up that we now won’t have to open up the Super Bug’s AESA for domestic production over there – as that was one of the many provisos of the tender…
Given the deep dissatisfaction the Indians also have with the MiG-29 in general (popular press there calls them “flying coffins”) I wouldn’t expect to see the -29Ks last too long either.
That would be the MiG-21.
They now have a better grasp of what capability all the contenders have.
Ain’t that the truth. Though I think the whole MMRCA thing is redundant. They should have bought more Su-30MKI to tide them over till the PAK FA. They have an inventory zoo as it is.
Part of the reason the F-16I got dropped is because its too much like the Pakistani F-16s; the Indians wouldn’t want to buy a similar aircraft for reasons ranging from target deconfliction to national pride in admitting the Pakistanis have long operated an aircraft good enough for India too.
I thought the Super Hornet didn’t meet all the requirements specified in the original tender (maybe hot/high performance?).
I read commentary somewhere that defended the decision to drop the F-16 and F/A-18 from consideration because the airframes had little growth potential left. Might be legit for the F-16, but its crazy for the Super Hornet since it’s about as old as the Rafale and is only tenuously related to the legacy Hornet. Lots of room to grow both the single and twin seat Super Hornet.
The Indians are warming to buying more from the US, see the recent P-8I, C-17 and C-130 purchases, and the rumor the AH-64 is leading the Mi-28N for a new attack helo.
What doesn’t make sense to me is that MMRCA was nominally a tender to replace the MiG-21/-27, but the Indians have chosen to buy a high end multirole fighter. They already have the Su-30MKI and are onboard for the PAK-FA, which are roughly in the same class as the Rafale. To me they seem to be buying more aircraft than they need, where they could go with something a little less expensive to round out the numbers. As it looks now, by the end of the decade the IAF fighter fleet will be Su-30MKI, PAK-FA, Rafale on the high end and Mirage 2000, Jaguar and HAL Tejas on the low. I don’t see a massive difference in capabilities in the 3 high and 3 low end – in fact I’m surprised they aren’t standardizing on about four across the board. Best I can guess is that the IAF is not happy with a couple of their current platforms but can’t drop them just yet.
(Yes yes, they have the MiG-29K too, but that’s the Navy. They’re supposed to have a naval version of the Tejas come on line as well- though that program is all but certainly far behind schedule- but I won’t be surprised if there is another tender in a few years to supplement the naval fighters with offered to… the Rafale and Super Hornet!)
The French have a history of only doing right by the West when it suits them politically. Granted, they let Israel “steal” the plans for the Mirage, but when Argentina took the Falklands they were a little slow to embaro missile tech to the junta.
They armed Saddam (there was a song popular on Paris radio “Go for it Saddam” released just before Desert Storm), they arm many regimes around the Gulf. French pilots flew for Libya for many years. India just wants an aircraft that won’t be subject to embargoes from a gun shy Washington too busy getting cozy with the barbarians in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
They want to modernize their airforce, but where it counts they need aircraft that they can rely on. Rumor has it their SU-27 clones need depot level maintenance from Russia.
My fear is that France may go with the new “Arab Spring” and sell to the new less that stable countries. We don’t need a repeat of the Cold War era arms bazaar.
My theory is that the French bombed Libya for dragging their feet on buying Rafales. That’ll learn ‘em.
From what I’ve read, there’s a healthy slug of corruption in the Indian MoD. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the deciding factor, as the French are quite “realistic” in that respect.
Well they’ve already sold brimstone to the devil, so what else is there to surprise us? (But, I know, it’s still a pi$$er when they do – not that I’m casting nasty aspersions on our Indian allies))
France has been desperate to sell the Rafale. They will give away all the technology possible if it makes a sale. France funds domestic defense R&D to a large extent on the income of foreign sales. The fact that Rafale had lost contest after contest until very recently was very embarrassing and boded very badly for future French aircraft design and production. Now, it may be possible, but at the price quoted I wonder how much profit there will be?
I’m rather relieved at this. There are many reasons to like India, they should be natural allies, but they don’t want to be. They are too independent, and have too many ties to Russia. I was wary of what technology might accidentally slip out of their hands. The Navy will continue buying Super Bugs for some time, so there will be more opportunities for procurement.
Funny thing is, the Rafale is in many ways actually an older design than the Super Hornet. The Super Hornet was just about redesigned from the ground up in the early-mid 90s, while Rafale was designed in the 80s. In many respects it is more limited than the Super Hornet. I’m certain politics, bribes, and kickbacks played a huge role in this decision. Some Indian officials probably just got their retirement paid for, and then some.