W.E.B. Du Bois
04-30-2011, 04:40 PM
So India tried to build an F-16 class fighter for about 20 years. It's called the Light Combat Aircraft or LCA. They want to replace the many Mig-21's they have. The plan was ambitious and India's military industrial complex sucks. It really does. It has failed in every independent venture that I can think of. Their Arjun main battle tanks is a piece of crap, it's so poor that India is buying the old Russian/Soviet T-90 instead of Arjun and they've gone back to the drawing board for a new tank. The LCA had a lot of engine problems, and you really can't sympathize with India at all for that, since it has access to the entirety of the world's leading aircraft companies in Europe, Russia and the United States to help them build the engine. They just blow.
So anyway, the LCA will eventually be built after some delays, but they have wasted so much time that the Migs are so old they must be immediately replaced as they literally are unsafe to fly. I won't make light of the deaths of all those patriotic Indian pilots who died in the Mig-21 because they were too old to fly. The numbers are huge.
So to compensate for all these problems, India is going to order about 125 fighters to be built by someone else. They took a ton of contenders including the F-16, F-18, Mig-35, the Eurofighter, the Rafale and Saab's Gripen. Of these, I think the Gripen was probably the right choice. The Mig-21 is a cheap shit plane. If your goal is to replace a cheap shit plane with a comparable plane, then the planes that India was really looking at are $70 million. That's not cheap. I'd wager a Mig-21 costs a fraction of that, probably 20% of that or less, I'd say.
So now, India has rejected all of those fighters who were bidding except the Eurofighter and Rafale. India's weapons have only two possible adversaries: Pakistan and China. If she fights with either, sanctions could be involved and the Europeans are so averse to everything, they might just pull the plug on selling weapons and parts to India during a war for those fighters. So that's why you go with the Rafale. The French really don't have a lot of scruples when it comes to who they sell weapons to.
WEB
So anyway, the LCA will eventually be built after some delays, but they have wasted so much time that the Migs are so old they must be immediately replaced as they literally are unsafe to fly. I won't make light of the deaths of all those patriotic Indian pilots who died in the Mig-21 because they were too old to fly. The numbers are huge.
So to compensate for all these problems, India is going to order about 125 fighters to be built by someone else. They took a ton of contenders including the F-16, F-18, Mig-35, the Eurofighter, the Rafale and Saab's Gripen. Of these, I think the Gripen was probably the right choice. The Mig-21 is a cheap shit plane. If your goal is to replace a cheap shit plane with a comparable plane, then the planes that India was really looking at are $70 million. That's not cheap. I'd wager a Mig-21 costs a fraction of that, probably 20% of that or less, I'd say.
So now, India has rejected all of those fighters who were bidding except the Eurofighter and Rafale. India's weapons have only two possible adversaries: Pakistan and China. If she fights with either, sanctions could be involved and the Europeans are so averse to everything, they might just pull the plug on selling weapons and parts to India during a war for those fighters. So that's why you go with the Rafale. The French really don't have a lot of scruples when it comes to who they sell weapons to.
WEB