Rob Arndt wrote:

On Nov 4, 5:53�pm, dumbstruck wrote:


On Nov 3, 3:24 am, Tiger wrote:



India's AF is looking to make a huge purchase & production deal. $10
Billion dollars for 126 aircraft. They are looking to replace their Mig
21's. There are about 6 ?Firms/ planes up for consideration.
Eruofighter Typhoon
Saab Gripen
Boeing's F-18
Lock Mart's F16
Mig's 29 & 35
Dassualt's Rafale & Mirage series


So if you had $10 Billion to spend? What would you buy for your force??
Keep in mind the needs of India, the potential foes & that any US plane
come with political strings attached (like Pakastians f-16 deal).


Rough field capability would be a plus; do the Saab and Mig offferings
still favor that? Eurofighter and Dassualt are probably very motivated
to negotiate price, but maybe Mig most of all... logical winner?

But I would expand the search box. On the more futuristic side,
consider unmanned hunter-killer drones like General Atomics MQ-9
Reaper, adding sidewinders. Using the price from Wikipedia, India
could afford 12000 of these instead of 126 of the above. Well, maybe
China or sombody could figure out how to jam UAV's.

My personal favorite would be a low tech option that takes advantage
of India's vast manpower. I'm thinking of a plywood overcast: 126000
rocket/cruise-missle carrying Mosquito's. Get the DeHavilland assembly
plans from the internet, and make it's plywood from recycled scrap
wood in a thousand village workshops. For engines, Russia must have
heaps of worn out Kuznetsov turboprops used on Tupolev Bear bombers -
those awesomely fast ones with counterrotating props might be rebuilt
cheaply. Quantity has a quality of it's own, and that is India's
forte.



Easiest answer is whatever meets India's needs in the region and not
what Russia, Europe, or the US think they need...

With 1.1 billion people, maybe they should emulate China and think
indigenous design, with a little help from their allies

In the 21st century there will be 5 powers: US, United Europe, China,
Russia, and India. China and India constitute 1/3rd of the entire
world population and are growing while the US, Europe, and Russia are
declining by birthrate. The West needs to start taking these nations
seriously.

Rob




Well part of my orignial post stated that the deal would include
provisions to domestically build.

"Eighteen of the fighters would be bought off the shelf by 2012 while
the remaining 108 planes would be manufactured under licence in India.

India would also hold the option of purchasing another 64 fighters from
the top bidder, Indian officials
said."- http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071102...LyZWTntzkE1vAI