End Of Era for IAF Jaguar?, OFB Restructure, Light Tank Russia

Future of the IAF’s Jaguar fleet is hanging in the balance

The future of the Indian Air Force’s six squadrons of Jaguar strike fighters is hanging in the balance. The IAF has regarded the Jaguar as under powered ever since it entered service in the late 19seventees. Now, wear and tear on its twin Rolls Royce Adour 804/811 engines has reduced the aircraft’s thrust even further, by an estimated 15-20 percent.

As a result, the Jaguar faces difficulty in carrying out its demanding combat role: Flying low and fast, deep into enemy territory; bombing its ground target accurately in a single pass and then screaming back to base, ahead of enemy interceptors.

Aiming to replace the Jaguar’s underpowered engines, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and the IAF negotiated for a decade with US defence giant, Honeywell, to “retro-fit” its F-125IN turbofan engines into the fighter. That was expected to make the Jaguar operationally viable for another two decades since the F-125IN engine delivers an impressive 40.4 kiloNewton of thrust, with full afterburners.

However, negotiations with Honeywell have proved futile. The US company wants a price the IAF considers on higher side and is unwilling to pay.

Under Make In India Initiative, Modi Govt Unveils Mega Plan To Restructure Ordnance Factory Board

The government has accepted a proposal to replace the almost 200 year old OFB with seven new defence Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs).

The new structure will help in overcoming shortcomings in the existing system of OFB by eliminating inefficient supply chains and providing these companies incentive to become competitive and exploring new opportunities, including exports.

The new entities will produce ammunition and explosives, weapons and equipment, vehicles, troop comfort items, optoelectronics equipment, parachutes, and ancillary products.

There will be separate responsibilities on different groups within OFB such as Ammunition & Explosives Group, Vertical Group for defence mobility and combat vehicles & A Weapon Group.

Russia Races Ahead of South Korea & Israel as India Set to Obtain Lightweight Tanks for China Border

Indian army will watch a trial of Russian made Sprut SDM1 light tanks in the near future. The cannon fire guided missiles, dart ammunition APFSDS and HEAT among other things.

The Indian Army has agreed to buy about 350 lightweight tanks from a global manufacturer as it tries to stand up to China – which has been using its new lightweight tanks, the Type-15, in Ladakh since last year.

The Indian Army is more at home with the 18 tons Sprut as the self-propelled tank destroyer has the same gun as the T 90 tank. The Sprut, which is light, also mounts the formidable 125mm smooth bore gun used by T-72 and T-90 tanks, which means the Indian Army need not change ammunition.

Russian manufacturers have upgraded the engine which provides good mobility in all conditions. Hence, Sprut may have the upper hand in the global contest under which the Indian army wants to buy a “new generation combat vehicle platform, approximately 350 Light Tanks in a phased manner.

Weakness of China’s nuclear submarine fleet against the US and India

By looking at the country’s favorable geographical position in the Indian Ocean, Indian Rear Admiral Sudarshan Shrikhande (retired), former Chief of Indian Naval Intelligence, stated: “Like the US, India has a geographical advantage for SSBN Submarines to patrol the open ocean, once deployed with long range submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBM).

We need to go beyond the areas where the enemy’s “anti submarine warfare strategy” is ineffective while reducing the resources devoted to defending against enemy submarines.

But experts note that China’s SSBN operations are greatly hampered by geography. The SSBNs of the US, UK, India and Pakistan have direct access to the world’s ocean basins, while Chinese ships do not.

The country is surrounded by shallow waters and Chinese SSBN Submarines also face the daunting task of breaking through bottlenecks to enter the much safer and deeper waters of the Pacific.

Hence China has disadvantage over Indian Submarine fleet looking at geographical weakness it has.

GSL starts work on second advanced guided-missile frigate for Navy

Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) began construction of the second advanced guided-missile frigate for the Indian Navy on Friday.

GSL aims to deliver the first warship in 2026 and the second six months after the first.

The ship under construction is part of the indigenous shipbuilding programme being executed under a technology transfer programme with Russia’s Yantar Shipyard. In 2018, India and Russia signed a suite of shipbuilding contracts regarding four Project 11356 frigates, with two ships being built by Yantar Shipyard and two being built by GSL based on technology shared by Russia.

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