S-125
Posted on 03/23/2011 10:09:38 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Tracking Libya, with eye on fighters Indian forces in market to buy weapons in use
New Delhi, March 23: India’s armed forces are closely monitoring the war in Libya despite New Delhi’s reservations against the “Allied” intervention because they are in the market to buy the weapons being used to bomb the North African country.
“We learnt from Iraq and Afghanistan also and we are watching what’s going on — it’s part of our job. This is what globalisation means,” a senior air force officer said, during a discussion here.
“Many of the (weapons) platforms that are in the operations (in Libya) are the ones we are evaluating,” he added.
Most of all, the Indian Air Force is following the bombing campaign by the US, UK, France and eight other countries because variants of four of the six aircraft that are competing for an estimated $12 billion Indian contract have been deployed by the coalition.
Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik has said India expects to contract 126 medium multirole combat aircraft by July.
“We are watching. We analyse every conflict. We learnt from Iraq and Afghanistan also,” a senior air force officer said.
In effect, Libya has become a kind of “field firing range” for these aircraft to demonstrate their ground-attack capabilities in operational conditions. Even if Libya’s air defence is poor, the US has already lost one aircraft — an F-15E Strike Eagle deep strike combat plane.
The Boeing (McDonnell Douglas)-made plane crashed near Benghazi on Monday night, an incident the US officially said was caused by a “mechanical fault”.
The Strike Eagle is not in the competition for the Indian order. But Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet is. The Canadian Air Force has deployed an older version of the aircraft, the CA-18 Hornet for “Operation Mobile”, its name for the offensive in Libya that the US calls “Operation Odyssey Dawn”.
The bombing run over Libya is believed to have been begun by France’s Rafale aircraft (“Operation Harmattan”).
The Dassault Aviation-made plane was demonstrated at an airshow in Bangalore last month, as was the Super Hornet, the US (Lockheed Martin) F-16 Super Viper and European consortium EADS’ Eurofighter Typhoon.
The Rafales are understood to have bombed a convoy of Muammar Gadaffi’s troops that was suspected to be headed towards Benghazi with the “Storm Shadow” stand-off missile, a weapon that can be fired at precise targets from more than 200km away. A mock-up of the “Storm Shadow” was also exhibited in Bangalore.
The Indian Air Force contract for 126 combat planes is specifically for a category described as “medium multi role” — meaning the aircraft have to demonstrate a capability for not only dogfights in the air but also for precise ground-attack — bombing specified targets.
The UK’s Royal Air Force and Spain have deployed the Eurofighter Typhoon for the operations in Libya. (The British call the offensive “Operation Ellamy”).
The US-made F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft of the UAE armed forces — the closest version to Lockheed Martin’s India offering — has been deployed by the Arab conglomerate, which has also deployed a version of the Mirage 2000. The Indian Air Force has two squadrons of the Mirage 2000 in its inventory.
Ironically, Libya’s air defence weaponry is mostly of the same origin and vintage as India’s own, comprising mostly S-125 Pechora surface-to-air missiles (also identified as the SA3) that were supplied by the erstwhile Soviet Russia.
S-125
So the good folks in India don’t want to see the Libyan conflict produce a scarcity of these weapons?
- Indian Defense Minister: Hi, can we see BOMBX in action.
- Sure, this would be great for the Indian Air force. Turn the TV on, we’ll drop one in Tripoli.
MIG-35s. I’m telling you they get warm fuzzies from the Russkies. Not to mention the Russians will kiss some serious Indian ass to make sure the sale goes through.
:-)
That would be the last thing on the Indian military’s mind given the speed with which decisions are made.
The only folks who seem to think that the Mig-35 has any serious chance in India are on Free Republic.
Right. You said that last time. Let me know if you want to make it interesting :-)
I said it again because you brought up the Mig-35 again. Take a look at what Ria Novosti is saying about it’s chances.
You mean these RIA NOVOSTI headlines?
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Those Ria Novosti headlines are precisely the REASON why the Mig-35 won’t win.
LOL! Ok! Obviously we’ve analyzed the situation differently. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.
To put it simply, the Mig-35, while being a decent system, has nothing to offer in terms of improved life cycle costs, sensors, electronics or new weapons. And it falls flat on one selection criterion-it’s not in Russian service.
But the main reason it won’t win is ‘Russia fatigue’. Buying the Mig-35 would mean that three out of four main IAF fighter types will be Russian. That didn’t even happen in the Cold War. If your logic using those Ria Novosti headlines were correct, US companies wouldn’t have won the most number of Indian defense deals in the past three years. Call it a game of high-stakes poker, but countries like India, Brazil, Turkey and the UAE seem to think they can increase their strategic influence by spreading the moolah around.
http://livefist.blogspot.com/2010/08/mmrca-buzz-mig-35-was-never-in-running.html
http://www.rianovosti.com/mlitary_news/20110202/162414414.html
In that case the Rooskies are out?
If not, India is not analyzing.
While admitting to an American, Western bias, what does the list look like to a layman?
Migs did well at beginning of Korea.
Migs didn't do well in Nam.
In other conflicts, Rooskie planes seemed to fail to get off the ground or flew from battlefields to neighboring countries if they weren't destroyed first.
Nowadays, Rooskies have a problem producing anything but prototypes.
Is there a history of India/Pakistan dogfights? Which planes won?
yitbos
Bombing Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya is not the same as bombing Pakistan or China. So there are practical expectations as to what to expect from such studies. The problem with hitting airfields in places like China is that they have scores of ballistic and cruise missiles which can lob at US and allied bases. Unlike Serbia or Libya.
About India, Pakistan or even China-all of them operate lots of Russian or Chinese hardware. So the East VS West line is rather blurred out there.
India-Pakistan dogfights (1965 and 71 wars) were more or less even going by most sources. The Pakistanis used American, Chinese and French aircraft while the Indians used Russian, British and French planes.
It’s not a war, it’s an airshow. All we need are vendors’ kiosks and glossy brochures.
Sounds exactly like what I said about the Gripen, Rafale, and Eurofighter.
It’s highly unlikely that decision makers would change their minds from one product to the other if one of the contenders record 20 air to air kills in this conflict. On the other hand, what would merit attention is if any of the contenders get shot down in numbers, record poor sortie rates and down-time; in other words all the negative indicators.
As for 1971 Indian Pak war, Mig-21s have known to bring down 4 or 5 F-104 starfighters without losing a single Mig-21.
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