Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Reforms Will Keep India’s Russian-Built Arsenal Relevant ... For A While
Forbes ^ | Oct 17, 2022, | Craig HooperSenior Contributor

Posted on 10/25/2022 12:49:15 AM PDT by dennisw

India is in real trouble with its weapons systems. Decades of over-reliance on cheap Russian equipment—equipment that is currently failing the battlefield test in Ukraine—risks exposing India’s military as little more than a paper tiger.

It’s a tough problem. Nearly 60 percent of India’s defense equipment is Russian made, but with Moscow struggling to replace weapons lost in Ukraine, India’s era of easy access to cheap military equipment is over. Worse for New Delhi, Ukraine is demonstrating that Russia focused on all the wrong things in weapons development. Designed to support an older way of warfare, Russian gear has struggled to independently integrate into the modern, agile, and unified command-and-control systems necessary to fight and win in the modern battlefield.

Russia’s debacle means New Delhi can no longer hide India’s fundamental military flaws. It is now common knowledge that India’s Russian-sourced battlefield platforms, while numerous, have crippling innate vulnerabilities. For years, New Delhi may have loved buying low-cost, formidable-looking Russian T-90 and T-72 main battle tanks, but there’s now no disguising that New Delhi got exactly what it paid for: modernized iterations of a defective design, as well as intellectual rights to build the bad gear for themselves.

India’s government, spurred on by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is already enacting substantial reforms, reorganizing India’s Armed Forces to support a modern, joint fight. And with Ukraine demonstrating every day that agile command-and-control offers Russia’s flawed weapons a new lease on life, Ukraine’s army is showing India exactly how it might reinvigorate a military anchored on Russia’s obsolete and underperforming “Potemkin Arsenal,” buying time to replace Russia’s broken platforms.

Today, India has sufficient justification to both accelerate New Delhi’s ongoing military reforms and to quickly bolster its own flawed arsenal with modern situational awareness-boosting capabilities.

(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: craighooper; ponyplop; whataload
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-86 next last

1 posted on 10/25/2022 12:49:15 AM PDT by dennisw
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: dennisw

TRANSLATION: Rooskies gyped India with shoddy military equipment. But as we can see on the Ukraine battlefield, Roooskies gyped themselves too. Then China gyped them with lousy tires for their military. That peel off or go flat again and again.

There is no honor amongst thieves.


2 posted on 10/25/2022 12:53:59 AM PDT by dennisw (Never attribute to stupidity, what can be attributed to malice)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dennisw

Never let propaganda go to waste, especially on and within FR.


3 posted on 10/25/2022 12:59:05 AM PDT by cranked
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: cranked

This site has been hacked there is so much BS on it now; it is like Democratic Underground.


4 posted on 10/25/2022 1:07:10 AM PDT by bte
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: dennisw

Sure it nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with India looking to diversify arms suppliers given the sanctions that are on Russian exports of varying things from energy to weaponry....


5 posted on 10/25/2022 1:08:18 AM PDT by cranked
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: bte

Called it about a month plus ago - these peddlers are turning FR into Drudge and DU 2.0 with the mass spammed day after day after day after day after day BS.


6 posted on 10/25/2022 1:10:12 AM PDT by cranked
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: dennisw

India’s enemies are China and Pakistan. China’s military, at least, is also built around Russian hardware and equipment copied from Russian hardware, and China does not have a US government willing and eager to become a major arms supplier. India does.


7 posted on 10/25/2022 1:12:51 AM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: cranked

This is not propaganda.
The tactical deficiencies of the Russian way of war are obvious. Russian tanks are very vulnerable. Russian Airforce systems are severely lacking, especially in SEAD. And China has the inside scoop on things like the S400, and is very likely to be able to exploit them. India does realize it has a sourcing problem, and that change in policy actually predates this war.
Russia has severe problems.


8 posted on 10/25/2022 1:16:26 AM PDT by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: buwaya

It’s Russian aimed propaganda, with as typical Russia propaganda spewage from the originator of this thread.


9 posted on 10/25/2022 1:17:53 AM PDT by cranked
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: dennisw
Decades of over-reliance on cheap Russian equipment—equipment that is currently failing the battlefield test in Ukraine

What a load of mindless pro Ukraine propaganda.
Russian equipment is “failing” in Ukraine huh?
So tell me, just how did the super expensive American equipment do in Afghanistan after 20 bloody years of fighting , when a bunch of stone age Afghan warriors chased America out with our tails between our legs?

10 posted on 10/25/2022 1:21:23 AM PDT by SmokingJoe ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: buwaya
This is not propaganda.

Its pure propaganda.

11 posted on 10/25/2022 1:23:22 AM PDT by SmokingJoe ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: cranked
Some of the Soros spam bots from Twitter have been moved here.
12 posted on 10/25/2022 1:26:17 AM PDT by SmokingJoe ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: AnotherUnixGeek

China has had the budget and tech expertise to modify and upgrade the base Russian designs, Russia hasn’t. Their stuff should do better, the big question being the human factor. I still would bet on China on that too.

Granted the Russians have been suffering against whats definitely not the western “A” team. Ukraine has done very well with just a small, limited slice of western tech, but thats all it is. Should it come to it, China will immediately be up against that “A” team with its full capability.


13 posted on 10/25/2022 1:26:42 AM PDT by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: SmokingJoe

In what way? This theme has been ongoing in the defense journals for years. Look up the France-India Rafale deal.


14 posted on 10/25/2022 1:30:10 AM PDT by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: buwaya

Let me know the next time the US or the West fights a Ukraine or Russia 1st world ‘A-Team’ army, kthx.

Iraq? No
Syria? No
Afghanistan? No
Serbia? No
Vietnam? No

‘A-Team’ my arse.


15 posted on 10/25/2022 1:31:03 AM PDT by cranked
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: buwaya

Please, please, let the West or US send M1A1s or M1A2s or Leopards, or AMXs. Please.


16 posted on 10/25/2022 1:32:29 AM PDT by cranked
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: cranked

Its a ongoing theme in discussions of Indian defense policy going back at least a decade. The Indians were unhappy for a long time.

There are very serious deficiencies in most Russian systems, not just tanks. Thats why India went with the French Rafale in 2018 vs whatever SU model Russia wanted to sell them.


17 posted on 10/25/2022 1:36:05 AM PDT by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: buwaya
In what way?

See post # 10.

18 posted on 10/25/2022 1:36:20 AM PDT by SmokingJoe ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: cranked

Your friends won’t like that. The situational awareness advantages alone would be overwhelming. And Abrams, etc. don’t come by themselves. They come with a whole way of war.

What you need is to do a whole lot of research.


19 posted on 10/25/2022 1:40:14 AM PDT by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: buwaya

Everything has ‘deficiencies’, to include Russian hardware to include German hardware, to include any NATO hardware, or even the US hardware.

It’s funny how I can read an article on the same thing concerning India and diversifying its military hardware suppliers and not read one piece of BS spewed concerning “deficiencies”......

‘India, world’s biggest buyer of Russian arms, looks to diversify suppliers’
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-worlds-biggest-buyer-russian-arms-looks-diversify-suppliers-2022-05-18/

And Reuters notorious for its anti-Russian BS to boot.

Merely indicates what I said: ‘to diversify and indigenise’


20 posted on 10/25/2022 1:40:24 AM PDT by cranked
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-86 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson