Ready to share most modern technology with India: Germany

[Invincible INDIAN]

NEW DELHI (PTI): Appreciating the "transparency and orderly manner" in which the Indian government has gone about the selection of Medium Weight-Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA), Germany has said it is prepared to share most modern technology with its Indian partners.

Briefing reporters ahead of the Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit next week, German ambassador Thomas Matussek said in all probability she will express to the Prime Minister "our great satisfaction about the transparency and orderly manned in which Indian government approached this process".

She will also "express our full confidence in the procedure with which India, Indian Air Force (IAF) and Ministry of Defence (MoD) will continue to approach this process", Matussek said here.

Asserting that Germany was prepared to share most modern technology with its Indian partners, he said Germany was "quite happy" with its Eurofighter Typhoon's shortlisting.

Terming the development as a "unique, strategical and technological partnership", he said the Eurofighter represents the most advance and the most cost efficient combat aircraft.

He said these are the most modern aircraft, not the old ones which have been modernised many times.

Asked about competition from French fighter aircraft Rafale, developed by France’s Dassault Aviation, Matussek said, it was always better to go with a group of more than one country as it provides you with more expertise.

Developed by European Consortium's EADS, Typhoon along with Rafale last month qualified for the final round of commercial bidding process for the $10.4 billion MMRCA deal.

Under the deal, India would get a total of 126 fighter aircraft which will form the backbone of IAF's air-strike and deep penetration capability in the future.

 

[axisofevil]

Music to my ears....Germany is a formidable leader in the tech sector

 

[ramu]

Music to my ears....Germany is a formidable leader in the tech sector

It will be even better if we get to join the development. Many years of development is left in it and India can gain some cutting edge engineering skills if it joins the project.

 

[Skull and Bones]

EFT all the way.

 

[axisofevil]

Finally I have met 2 posters who see why I choose EFT all the way. Remember, as long as we are not doing anything wrong like supporting terrorism the world's opinion will be on our side. I have always said EFT gives us an opportunity to gow as a partner, something never offered to India, not even by Russia.

 

[praveen007]

its nice to do busniss with Germany but for IAF i wil only choose rafale.

 

[GUNS-N- ROSES]

i have a gut feeling it might go to french.

 

[nomi007]

at this moment India is in big trouble
they better know if they choose euro typhoon than Pakistan will choose rafale
or if they choose rafale pakistan will choose euro typhoon

 

[aakash_2410]

at this moment India is in big trouble
they better know if they choose euro typhoon than Pakistan will choose rafale
or if they choose rafale pakistan will choose euro typhoon

Yes that is a troublesome situation. looool Being sarcastic are you?

I didn't know Pakistan was planning to buy anything other than JF-17 and J-10 in foreseeable future? And even if they do will they be able to it in such big quantities as India?

 

[ares]

at this moment India is in big trouble
they better know if they choose euro typhoon than Pakistan will choose rafale
or if they choose rafale pakistan will choose euro typhoon

From where will you pay for it?

You airforce budget is one billion dollar a year..A rafael inclusive of weapons cost close to $100 Million...whereas Typhoon cost close to $120 million a piece..so either you can run you airforce or buy these aircrafts ..and these Europians are not partial to soft term loans like chinese or FMF like Americans ..they want hard cash on their tables.

 

[Renegade]

at this moment India is in big trouble
they better know if they choose euro typhoon than Pakistan will choose rafale
or if they choose rafale pakistan will choose euro typhoon

By making statements like these, you insult the intelligence of the PAF. I am sure they are more intelligent than simply going for a fighter not selected by the IAF. I am sure that they put much more thought in the process of selecting aircraft.

and by the way, from where will Pakistan get the money? You guys could not afford $ 2 billion for the F-16 programme, forget purchasing costly fighters like the Rafale or Typhoon and there is no way the Americans are paying for them.

 

[Ajaxpaul]

Nobody shares cutting edge technologies with other countries. If they offer you CET, then it must be outdated for them. Why is that no country wants to co-develop cutting edge technology with India? This is all big talk in the big games of politics. They have said what we Indians want to hear.

 

[sancho]

Finally I have met 2 posters who see why I choose EFT all the way. Remember, as long as we are not doing anything wrong like supporting terrorism the world's opinion will be on our side. I have always said EFT gives us an opportunity to gow as a partner, something never offered to India, not even by Russia.

- Brahmos
- FGFA
- MTA

Helicopter partnerships are on offer, just like tanks, or armored vehicles.

Russia was not only the first, but is still the only nation that gave us the opportunity to team up with them at such a large scale and so far not even the Israelis, or Europeans can even come close to that.



Regarding EF ToT, you have to take a closer look to see what ToT, or co-developments they mean and what the real aim behind their offer is!
With ToT of future upgrades they basically mean the upgrade to Tranche 3B, because that is the standard offered to India, but that also is not funded, nor ordered from the initial partners. IF we join as a partner, we have to pay a big part of the R&D from all changes that the T3B will have, like AESA radar, NG avionics, TVC, CFTs, integration of more A2G weapons, if needed more engine thrust. All this is not cleared yet and most of this will only come when we join, or might be developed for the EF only till 2020 as a retrofit upgrades for their older EFs.

The Rafale F3+ that is on offer for MMRCA instead, is completely funded and even ordered from France, which means we don't have to pay additional money for the techs and we still get ToT (full ToT + source codes of the RBE 2 AESA radar)!!!

Co-developments for EF are not going to be a big advantage for the Indian industry, except if we go for the Sea Typhoon. Why? Because most of the upgrades of T3B are already developed, the EF partners simply don't have the money to fully develop them. That's why they don't look for our industry to join the R&D stage, but to use the advantages of low production costs and our fundings to make this upgrades reality anytime soon.
The TVC for example was developed since 2000 and is available as a ground demo version and was on offer for the partners and their T3A. Eurojet the manufacturere even promised that the development costs will be covered by the benefits of lower fuel consumption (besides that it will make EF more maneuverable of course), but still no partner country wanted it and now they hope we will fund it if we join as a partner. The development is nearly done, so there isn't much that our industry will contrbute to the R&D, or where we can gain, we simply will get parts of the production of it, because that lowers the costs again. The same can be said, for AESA, CFTs, or avionics as well and only the Sea Typhoon might be a real co-development for India, because they only have studies so far and we are the only country (in the world!) that might have interest in an naval EF version. But what's the use? The Sea Typhoon will be less capable than comparable Rafale M, or F18SH versions, the development is so costly, that the UK prefered F35Bs and Cs instead. If we are the only operator of such an version, all upgrades of it must be paid by us alone and the by the time we developed it for such high costs, we already will have N-LCAs in service on IN carriers, that gave our country much more to gain in terms of naval R&D, or can start even to re-design a naval Pak Fa, AMCA version (Russia offers us to contribute, or even make the naval re-design).


Bottom line is, the EF partnership and ToT offer sounds good, but in reality they just search for an potent customer that can takeover parts of the fundings, that they can't at the moment. The gain for our industry is limited and the ToT offer in gerneral won't going to be much better as well (at least in fields that are important for us, like radar and engine).

The only fields where the EF really can offer more imo is at the ammount of offsets and maybe politics, but be it at the fighter itself, costs, ToT, or gain for our industry the French seems to have clear advantages.

 

[somebozo]

This article shall be considered as a lube for pushing forward the EF which has not earned much foreign customers due to its complexity and expensive maintenance. Saudi Arabia already operates 72 EF and Pakistani hands are all over it.

 

[GORKHALI]

This article shall be considered as a lube for pushing forward the EF which has not earned much foreign customers due to its complexity and expensive maintenance. Saudi Arabia already operates 72 EF and Pakistani hands are all over it.

Even we have hands over your F16block 52 say Israeli Sufa and singapuri F16 block52+ more capable than vanilla F16 block 52