Will India Go For F-16/F18 ?

Will India Go For F-16/F18 ?

As all Know that India has been for the first time been offered F series planes by the USA now it will be very interesting if you can add your suggestions on the topic .....will India go for it?
Has there been any development in this matter...concerning India's decision ...I heard from one of my Indian Friends that India has decided not to go for F planes instead they will go for some other brands (Don’t remember but its not a famous one)
NB I dont think India Buying some Mirages from Qatar is not the substitute

Here is my Ideas

Why India Should Go?

1 After long time the offer has come...go n grab it......If India gets it then India will have all verities of Aircraft Technology ...they have Russian Tech ,French Tech and now they will have US tech .......I don’t think that any other country has such a variety of technology

2 the Pakistanis have it so buy a few of them ...know their drawbacks .....and screw them

3 Give the Russians(who had been always India's better friend than US) access the the aircraft so that they can analyze what's good and what's bad with F series ...indirectly help them to know their enemy

4 from political point of view its a good move to keep the ignorant Indians happy by buying these US Junks in spite of having better Russian Tech

Why should India Not go for it

1 From the practical point of view its a complete waste of money (when u have better birds..............)

2 US traditionally has supports the WEAK(Pakistan) against the strong (INDIA)so that the strong gets weaker so try to stay away from them


[edit on 30-3-2005 by prelude]

India has major logistics problems because they have way too many types of aircraft, (and it's not even necessary, many have similar roles). More aircraft types will give the InAF an even bigger mess than it already has.

I like the 3. digit . I am evrytime think that it s best point , ..

India wont to do that or else the U.S. will say ok you want to give our jets to the ruskies then we will give Pakistan more advanced jets and help in training their armored forces. I don think India is that stupid. Plus all export versions of U.S. jets are version form the original jet which has been stripped of classified and very advanced tech.

Pakistan was is and will never be a threat to India Unless any big power like USA or China DIRECTLY joins (mind that not support ) Pakistan in a war against India ..................US has been always helipng Pakistan against India by the way you mentioned ..so the Indians will have nothing to lose coz even if they dont help the Russians US is going to favor the Paks

but I too think that the Indians will think 10 times b4 helping the us
the main concerns will be
1 Economic sanctions.....however Indians have proved that they can rise inspite of ameriacn sanctions after their Nuclear testings in Pokhran

2 International Immage: India has always been a Diplomatically weak but CLEAN country

3 they may try to Interade the Tech to their own aircrafts instead of giving it to the Russians

4 Indians will have to be concious bcoz they a still to immature to do secret deals

5 Future wars will be fought through economy not through weapons

[edit on 30-3-2005 by prelude]

I personally think India will snub Americas offer and go for either a Russian aircraft or a European aircraft (but not anything British)

I doubt they would deal with China because of the close ties between Pakistan and China.


If America was to offer a superior aircraft (F15 strike eagle for example) then they may be interested.

supiror aircraft? wtf? indias plane beat f-15 hands down in an exercise cant put link on know but it is inthe f-18 vs su 37 thread.
idian planes shat all over the f-15

Time and time again people would bring up the Cope India exercise (if that's the one you meant) as "proof" that the InAF is superior to the USAF. Some points I would like to make

- it was a simulated engagement with heavy ROE
- the exercise was more for relations than for competition
- the F-15s in the exercise had no AWACS support like they usually have
- the F-15s were far outnumbered by InAF fighters
- the only real confrontation was between the F-15s vs. the MiG-21s with souped up radars. The Indian Su-30MKI did not do as much
- the USAF intentionally did not use its full strength in order to assess the capabilities of the InAF.

[edit on 30-3-2005 by Taishyou]

The excercise wasn't fair and it was only made for the congress to spend more money on the F/A-22 (which didn't happen and the units got reduced rather than increased).

Please take time to spell at least one in ten words close to right. Reading your post was painful especially once i realized you had no agenda except america bashing.

You don't think 339 raptor is enough? considering that it doesn't take as many Raptor to do the same thing as the F-15.

I don't know how to counter the arguement that Cope India was relations building measure..
Hell from now on.. any exercise that the USAF take part in ..
AND GOD FORBID LOSE!!..
NO matter!!..
You know what ..
It was just a relations building exercise!! so there.. USAF integrity intact!!
BRAVO

NOT!!!
I haven't heard of a SINGLE air combat exercise in the history on mankind which
was won before it was fought..
JEEZ!!



Give it a break guys..USAF underestimated to IAF and now they go back to their drawing boards and LEARN from the exercise...

And again we ATS members are NOT..I repeat NOT SMARTER than the US Congress...

IF WE can see through the motives of the exercise .. SO CAN THE US CONGRESS!!!

God this place reeks of bravado

And now back to the topic at hand..

IMHO India will give the deal some honest consideration because as i said before .. now its not just about buying the best plane..
Its all about forging possible future strategic ties in various other fields..
The F-18 Hornets E/F haven't been offered to any other country on the planet (NATO members included)
That must stand for something..
NOW THATS A POLITICALLY MOTIVATED EVENT NOT A FREAKIN" COMBAT EXERCISE!!

Originally posted by Taishyou
- the F-15s were far outnumbered by InAF fighters
- the only real confrontation was between the F-15s vs. the MiG-21s with souped up radars. The Indian Su-30MKI did not do as much
- the USAF intentionally did not use its full strength in order to assess the capabilities of the InAF.

Arrrg! *freaks out*

I agree with what you say, but, I have to say again that as has been discussed to death, the claim of being outnumbered is exceedingly disingenuous. USAF planes were outnumbered simply by the fact that they participated in exercises in a foreign country.

However, in terms of the DACT red v. blue deployments, IAF and USAF teams (Su-30K, F-15E) fielded similar numbers against opposing forces (other IAF aircraft (-21, Mirage). In these exercises, the report publicly revealed by Congress showed that IAF teams fared better (mission success rate) in these than their USAF counterparts.

Again, not that so much should be made from this exercise.


As for the F-18s, not a chance in hell, imho. India doesn't require an aircraft in this class, as it has other (cheaper, arguably more effective) aircraft that fills the same roles (MKI, MiG-29K for IN in 2006, NLCA in future)

F-16 block '70' may be in the offing for the MRCA contract, but not F-18.

-Raj

Well, I'm not particularly pro-US so I didn't bring up that Cope India thing to say "oh look those Americans are so great they can't possibly lose to Indians," no. What I think is that people shouldn't take a little exercise so seriously, in real warfare with the USAF operating in its full potential, the InAF won't have such an easy time. What this exercise is mainly about is US pilots going to India, getting to know Indian pilots, see how their air force works, learn a bit about their culture, eat their spicy food , do some (or a LOT) of formation flying with MiGs and Sukhois, and then the fighting exercise was like "why don't we have a friendly match before we leave." Nobody's going to get killed in this exercise, so nobody's morale is going to drop. It's all fun and games. In real air combat, pilots may fear death, they may panic, etc and mess up standard routines and get confused with aircraft controls. And in a full scale war the air force command would be a total mess with transmissions going everywhere, AWACS directions delayed, ground control instructions delayed, unindentified aircraft closing in, SAM suddenly popping out of nowhere, there will be total confusion and chaos. Who will win in a fight like this, USAF or InAF? Well I don't think we'll ever know unless such a fight happens, but the truth is, Cope India doesn't tell you anything. It wasn't serious. Two football teams come together, toss balls around, do some workout, get to know each other, then play a practice game, then one wins, then we can conclude the team that won is superior and it will win a real match?

[edit on 31-3-2005 by Taishyou]

Oh and one more thing, and this is going back to the topic too. India has way too many incompatible aircraft types, and that will pose a significant logistics problem especially in a messy war. Each aircraft needs its own set of spare parts, and you'll have to get spare parts for all of them from various locations, and no you cannot put a MiG-21 landing gear on a Mirage. One big unnecessary thing about this is that some aircraft in India's inventory have overlapping roles, so it's a waste to have both the MiG-21 and MiG-29 filling in interception role, for example, while having to get spare parts and munitions for both of them. The USAF has many aircraft types as well, but their roles are more distinct and there's less overlapping, plus the USAF is rich and they have no problem producing and delivering spare parts for all their aircraft quickly and efficiently.

Now if India were to get the F-16 or F/A-18, that just adds to the logistics problem. Now they need to get spare parts for the American planes as well as the Soviet planes. It's a pain in the azz. My suggestion for India would just to be focus on finishing the LCA and MCA, make sure they are fit for combat, then ditch all other fighters except the ones that are good, namely Su-30MKI.

[edit on 31-3-2005 by Taishyou]

“Please take time to spell at least one in ten words close to right. Reading your post was painful especially once i realized you had no agenda except america bashing.””

Ok sir my English is bad….Its not my mother tongue ……But can u please write a sentence in Russian with all the spellings wrong?……

Americans should stop barking about their English skills …..they don't even have a language of their own....….. so forget of higher things like Tradition ,Science , Technology etc

I don't need to keep an agenda for “America Bashing” because I fell its a stupid idea to fire at an already dead person .


[edit on 31-3-2005 by prelude]

Okay say I agree with you...what do have to say about Cope Thunder??
InAF pilots embibing some american culture? Popping a burger or two??
c'mon this isn't a soical cultural exchange program..
Its what khalsa said.. its pure and simple DACT..

no us is not a trustworthy defence supplier.

sales of parts and spares will be embargoed later.

this offer is just to boost the us industry

Like I said in an earlier post, it's nothing more than a calculated move to bait India. The US will never let a country like India manufacture their top-notch planes.

The offer on the Super Hornets was made only to counter the offer of F-16s to Pakistan. They know very well that India will never plunk in 100 million+ (including tech transfer and logistics) per plane when they have so many alternatives available. In the end, the US can say they made a fair offer and it was India who refused it.

It would have been more interesting if they had offered the F-22 or at least the JSF. India would have jumped at the offer.

Still beats how F-16s can aid the fight against terrorism!!! Maybe, Bush was thinking that laid off Lockheed Martin workers could turn terrorists. That's the only thing that makes sense.