by Ravi Rikhye
In 1969, GOI formulated a requirement for a new light fighter, but the 1974 Pokhran nuclear-tests led to a high technology embargo on India. We tried to develop our own engine, the Kaveri. Even without the usual Indian chaos, mismanagement, overstatements, this would have been a difficult job. Notice China still doesn’t have it right. Tejas first flew in 2001, and the first squadron, No. 45 at Sulur (Bangalore) should be combat ready by 2019, or a mere 50-years after the requirement was formulated.
From time to time the Government auditor smacks HAL’s knuckles with a vicious steel ruler, pointing out this has not been fixed or that has not been fixed; HAL dutifully promises to remedy the issue. By the time that happens, the world has moved on to a new generation of weapons. This has happened with Tejas. As the second decade of the 21st Century began its inexorable countdown, HAL began realizing Tejas was simply not good enough for the new and emerging threats. It decided to develop a Tejas Mark II. The GOI said okay, but you must produce 40 Tejas Mk I, and to encourage you, here’s an order for 83 Mk IA. The IA remedies many shortcomings of the Mk 1, including being 1000-lbs lighter. In short, nonetheless, Mk I is obsolete before it enters full service. As can be seen with the US F-15, -16, and -35, if a fighter is successful, and if it is designed for future growth, you bring it into service and start working on the next version. Then when that version enters service, you upgrade the first version. You continue until you can’t upgrade the first version anymore, and you start withdrawing it from service. Meanwhile, you’ve also been designing an entirely new aircraft. Thus: F-16 Blocks 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 50, 60, 70, and if needed, a Block 80 could be developed. Meanwhile, F-35 Block 10 (or whatever the USAF has numbered it) is entering service. It is hard to tell how many squadrons have stood up, particularly as the US is reequipping squadrons with 12 aircraft till more become available. USAF squadrons will have 24, USMC 16, and US Navy 10. There seem to be six squadrons as of November 2017, though not necessarily at full strength. A large number of aircraft are with test and training squadrons. And work has begun on a 6Gen fighter for 2035 service.
Rarely does it happen that a plane like Tejas I, on which so much time, money, and effort has been expended, is scrapped for a new version before entering service in meaningful numbers. Yes, there have been situations where technology and strategic decisions render an aircraft obsolete. One case was the XB-70 Valkerie, very high-altitude bomber that cruised at Mach 3. Ostensibly it was dropped because the Soviets had developed the MiG-25 Foxbat Mach 3 interceptor; the Soviet SAM-2 could reach the bomber at altitude; it could not penetrate at low level, which the US accepted as a counter-tactic to increasingly capable Soviet air defenses; and was hugely expensive.[305] Later it was learned the MiG-25 was redlined at Mach 2.5, after which the engines could be damaged. Its radius of action was just 300-km.
In 2017, the MoD, purely by accident, had a momentary flash of thought. The Tejas was supposed to be the Indian LCA, why were we looking at everything but Tejas? Why were we not focusing money on the medium multi-role and stealth programs? That MoD had to ask this question, rather than issuing an order to the IAF, reflects a changed balance of power between the MoD and the military. This another subject that requires a thesis, because it is a fundamental shift. For now, a few generalizations must suffice. (a) In our hyper-mediatized world, public opinion has become important. Everyone is an expert. Retired military people who write have multiplied by a factor of 10X or 20X, or even more from my days in India. Journalists are more aggressive in seeking out serving officers for comments. Officers are more willing to speak off the record. (b) Which air force would choose a standard sedan over a BMW? Tejas being the standard sedan. (c) With foreign exchange now available in abundance, the MoF can no longer use that as an excuse. As the economy expands, and as GOI cuts defense spending to lows not seen since before in our independent history, the GOI also cannot pull the “no money” excuse. (d) The rise of China has led Indians, citizens or officials, to take defense more seriously. (e) The current government was elected on a promise to stop the decline of the military and to use the strengthened military to assert our rightful place in the region. No more being kicked around by Pakistan and China and whomsoever was bored and needed excitement.
None of this is relevant anymore after India Today, the nation’s largest newsweekly, revealed a classified document containing the Indian Air Force’s reply on why it doesn’t want Tejas. No need to guess how the document reached the newsweekly; clearly it was given by the IAF, possibly through an intermediately. The Air Force says: (a) Tejas has an endurance of 59-minutes versus 4-hours for an F-16 and 3.5-hours for a Grippen; (b) the Indian plane has half the bombload; (c) it requires 20-hours of maintenance per flight-hour versus 3.5 for the F-16 and 6 for the Grippen; (d) aircraft life of Tejas is 20-years versus 40 for the F-16 and Grippen; and (e) its performance in some respects is inferior to the obsolete MiG-21s still in IAF service. I assume this means that its rate of turn is slower. Now, while the maintenance and life of aircraft issues are of key importance in terms of life-cycle costs, the other issues are misleading. The LCA is designed as a point defense fighter; its endurance is twice that of the MiG-21; plus the IAF has not revealed under what fuel and payload conditions this figure is given. It is possible, for example, that a fully laden Tejas, with a theoretical war load of 4-tons and without external fuel will have that low endurance. But for air defense loiter, it will be lightly loaded, say with four air-to-air missiles and 3000-liters of external fuel and the endurance will be more. Either the Tejas will use precision-guided missiles on an attack sortie, or it will use dumb bombs. If dumb, it is not going to be able to make more than one pass over the target because, in the modern air environment, a second or a third pass will result in the aircraft being acquired by defending fighters and SAMs. It will not be carrying 4-tons of bombs, at most 1 or 2-tons. If the IAF is referring to turn rate as inferior, sorry folks, as fighters have become a platform for launching weapons, the capability lies in the air-to-air missile. A degree or two per second turn is not going to make the slightest difference. Performance is important, but so is ease of maintenance and the life of the aircraft.
But the critical point is that the Tejas Mk IA will have a unit cost of $100-million. Forget F-16 and Grippen, that money will buy an F-35, which in three years will likely be down to $80-million in 2017 dollars. Two, where exactly is the Tejas? Its fine to talk about national self-sufficiency and the like, its fine to talk of a second production line, but the reality is that 30-years after the aircraft should have entered squadron service, it is nowhere to be found! Since 1969, we have been treated to hypotheticals and excuses. The IAF should ask the GOI to slowly repeat: “One squadron will be ready in 2019”, and ask: can GOI assure the IAF that starting 2019, two squadrons a year will be reequipped? The truth is the GOI cannot assure anything except more delay.
Meanwhile, just to show how seriously we take indigenous defense production, the French have arrived out of nowhere, telling the IAF there is no need for the GE-414 engine, the French will invest $1.15-billion to get the Kaveri program restarted.[306], [307] Except: been there, done that. The Kaveri was designed with the help of some hundreds of French technicians, and it failed. Besides, do the French think the Indians are so stupid that we will take a newly developed engine over one with three million flying hours[308] behind it, and tens of thousands of combat hours, and development underway to boost its thrust from 22,000-lbs to 26,000-lbs? Actually, yes. Any rational French supplier will think exactly that because we Indians are that stupid. The French will fire up the “this is a made in India engine, we are showing you how we can meet your need for offsets if you buy the full original order of 126 Rafales, and extend it to 252, which India clearly needs.” By the way, regardless of which medium fighter is chosen, we do need 252 of them and not 126. First Kaveri must be developed, the Tejas redesigned, and additional testing will be required, taking anywhere from 5 to 8 or more years. According to one school of Indian metaphysic
al thought, a person can live through 2-million incarnations without making the slightest effort to earn merit, and s/he will become immortal no matter what. What're 2-million incarnations among friends?
The reality of the situation is that Saab has sold the Indian Air Force on the idea: take a Grippen made in India, rebrand it as a Tejas Mk II, and presto, we have an Indian light fighter[309] And the nutty thing about this idea is that it is excellently sensible. The aircraft will cost 2/3rds that of a Tejas, it may be the finest light fighter in the world, it will be made in India with all the benefit of boosting our aircraft production eco-system, and as long as Saab is allowed to partner with a private India company, it will meet production targets.
Three points to ponder when we talk of design-make in India. (a) A common assumption is that because Indian wages are low relative to Western countries, an India made product will be cheaper than its foreign counterpart. When Dornier decided to build their Do-228 light transport in India, they knew the productivity of Indian workers versus German would be lower, so they planned for 1/3rd productivity, and the equation remained profitable. The productivity turned out to be 1/7th.[310] The notoriously relaxed public-sector company HAL produces the plane, and productivity must have improved with time. But local production, even in the west, forces a premium on aircraft price. For example, Australia is paying a 17% premium for local F-35 assembly, Britain would have paid 40% and decided on direct imports.[311] Italy and Japan accepted the premium for reasons of industrial policy. Have Indian studies been done on the cost-benefit of imports versus industrial policy gains? (b) Modern combat aircraft have become frightfully expensive to develop and deploy. Many countries don’t bother anymore to develop their own fighters. Britain, Italy, Germany, and Japan are historically famous for the width and depth of their aircraft industries. While Germany has decided to stick with the Eurofighter, Britain and Italy decided on the F-35 despite their involvement in Eurofighter. Japan is probably at least the second most highly developed technical country, but it continues to use American fighters. It has only recently deployed its own light fighter, the F-2, which is a redesigned F-16. So why reinvent the wheel? Last, (c) India cannot manage the economies of scale of US production. No one can. For example, 4600 F-16s have been produced, and so far, 3100 F-35s are in service or on order. Incidentally, even some Chinese fighters use imported engines.
Next time Indians want to tell the Pakistanis that our Tejas is superior to their JF17, best to first remember that they are getting ready to convert the sixth squadron and will likely have their seventh by the time our first is fully stood up. Tejas in Sanskrit means radiance. Radiance is aesthetically beautiful, but you cannot hold it in your hand.
After this peregrination, we’re back to the question MoF wants to avoid, the cost of modernizing the Indian Air Force. As of 2018, we will have 25 first-line squadrons in service or on order: 14 Su-30, 6 Jaguar, 3 Mirage 2000, and 2 Rafale. That’s 17 squadrons short, plus we should be preparing for replacement of 1.5 squadrons/year from those needing replacing by 2030. That’s 35 squadrons, equal to 735 aircraft. Assume a unit cost of $100-million for each as a round figure, $50-million for spares, etc, and we’re looking at $110-billion in today’s prices. Add a very modest 5% annual inflation, that’s $200-billion. Add at least $100-billion for other IAF aircraft, radars, SAMs, war reserves and so on, that’s $300-billion. Is that a lot of money to spend over 8-years? Perhaps. If GOI decides it is, we still have choices. Shift to a purely defensive air posture with 500 combat aircraft and settle the border dispute with China and accept its leadership in the region.
Other aircraft/BMD
$ Billion
18 x C-130J @ $150-million
2.7
12 x AWACS @ $300-million
3.6
12 x ground battle surveillance @ $200-million
2.4
48 x CH-47 for forward airfield support @ $60-million
3
12 x business jet for military transport pool @ $100-million
1.2
60 x 10-ton air tactical transport @ $50-million
3
24 x Combat Air Search and Rescue @ $50-million
1.2
18 x air refueller @ $200-million
3.6
48 x armed utility helicopters for base defense @ $30-million
1.5
3 x Aegis long range BMD installation @$3-billion (60 rounds each)
9
24 x THAAD close-in BMD batteries @ $750-million
18
48 x Last ditch anti-missile batteries @ $100-million (Israeli)
4.8
54
Reminder: 800 new fighter aircraft at $100-million flyaway each means $80-billion
Note: Ballistic Missile Defense
BMD is technically the hardest military weapon to get right. We cannot, however, continue to let it slide in the hope that one day we will deploy our own indigenous defense. When most people think of ballistic missiles, they think of 15,000-km range ICBMs closing in at 24,000-km/hour, about 7,000-meters/second. All “ballistic” means is that a missile is powered during the start of its flight; the engines cut-out; the missile keeps climbing until apogee; and then starts on its unpowered downward journey. The shortest-range US ballistic missile was the Lance, with a minimum range of 70-km and a dial-up N-warhead of 1-100 KT, and a speed of about 1-km/second. Devilishly clever, these Americans, seeing as the missile entered service as far back as 1972. A fire unit had two launchers with one missile each, and two reloads for each launcher. We need defenses against the thousands of tactical missiles China can use against us, and the hundreds available to Pakistan because a 500-kg precision warhead can make things uncomfortable if it hits your airfield, bridge, POL stocks, ammunition dumps, railway junction and so on. But isn’t that the same as an air-delivered bomb hitting you? No, because an aircraft will come in at – say 480-knots to release its weapons, and it makes for a large target. A missile arrives much faster and is a relatively small target.
Because of the complexity of the task, BMD is layered, and each layer fires multiple shots. The US, for example, uses a four-layer defense. A missile fired from North Korea would first be attacked by Aegis/Standard missile destroyers in the Sea of Japan, next by the Midcourse heavy interceptor launched from Ft. Greely, Alaska, which has 40 missiles with 20 more authorized in the FY 2018 budget, and 40 more planned for a new base, then by Aegis/Standard as it approaches the US coast, then by THAAD. Patriot does not have the capability against ICBM warheads, but can down short-range missiles – Patriot PAC3 MSE, 16-round launcher, and a capability against medium-range missiles are under development. A fifth layer will be BMD lasers. Currently, the US reveals little about this development.[312] All that is known is that a 100-KW truck-mounted laser will be tested in 2022. My suspicion is that a 1-MW laser is needed against ICBMs. The Airborne Battle Laboratory had a 1-MW laser mounted in a Boeing 747.[313] Contrary to what you may have heard, it worked on the technical level but did not make it to deployment. The problem was that the weapon was to be used in the boost phase, which meant aircraft would have to be based close to the periphery of the launching state and providing protection for the system was thought impossible. It has been suggested that for the stand-off distance to be in a safe zone a 20-30 MW laser was needed.[314] The aircraft had a 20-shot “magazine”. Also, costs were thought prohibitive, $30-billion+ purchase cost for 20 aircraft. But how about a 1-5 MW ground-based laser for last-ditch defense? Warheads may be coming in at 7-km/second, but light travels at 300,000-km/second. A sixth layer under development will be large stealth UAVs armed with lasers to attack missiles after launch in their boost phase. The more the layers, the greater the chance of shooting down a missile. It is difficult to say, without better data, what is the PPk (kill rate) of the current US ABM system.
In India’s case, a single Aegis Ashore installation can easily cover all of India. The Standard 3 Block IIA missile has a range of 2500-km. Three are sugge
sted for overlapping coverage and redundancy in the case an attack damages an installation. While my suggestion of THAAD is notational, it should be noted there is no such thing as Israeli BMD systems. They are all jointly developed with the US. Aegis Ashore is expensive. The $1-billion/installation seen in the media is likely only for the infrastructure and radars, because the missile is alleged to be $25-million or more per round. Nonetheless, we need this to feel secure in the face of Chinese nuclear coercion. For decades western doctrine has been to rely on mutually assured destruction, which demands no BMD because any attempt to defend oneself is seen as destabilizing the nuclear balance. This position is absujrd and immoral. The duty of a government is to defend its people, not to expose them to massive deaths and casualties to show the other side that we won’t launch N-weapons at it. Since when has war been fought using swords and no shields? For the Pakistan front, a shorter-range system like THAAD is adequate because Pakistan’s geographical depth is just 500-km. Pakistan aims to put nuclear cruise missiles at sea; for that, however, different defenses are required. Aegis Ashore and THAAD are anti-BMD systems, not anti-cruise.
Now a proposition that we fatalistic Indians will not welcome. There must be civil defense. Indians face threats by erasing them from our minds because we cannot cope with the idea of threats like nuclear weapons. Agreed we are not Switzerland or Sweden, the combined populations of which would fill perhaps two-thirds of the National Capital Region. We have a population of 1.3-billion. Nonetheless, we must start. The potency of nuclear radiation falls off sharply within days[315] In 21 days it falls to 0.1%. Further, medicine to mitigate radiation exposure is already widely developed. Admittedly, building shelters for hundreds of millions, organizing them to seek and live in shelters, and planning for post-recovery are problems of staggering magnitude. That is no excuse to avoid tackling them. For example, the bulk of India’s 60-million tons of wheat and rice reserves are stored above ground. Assuming 150-kilograms per person per year including some transport/distribution losses, that would feed 400-million people for a year, allowing time for restoration of agriculture and transportation infrastructure.