Indian Military

New Delhi — The Indian Navy continues to suffer delays in acquiring multi-role helicopters (MRH) as bids from international manufacturers have expired. The Indian Defence Ministry has indicated that the commercial bids from US firm Sikorsky and British-Italian firm Agusta Westland for the MRH have expired last month.

The Request for Proposal (RFP) for the 16 MRH worth $1 billion was issued in August 2008 and since the commercial bids are valid for two years only, they stand expired. The Indian Defence Ministry now intends to request the firms to revise their offers. While the technical evaluation has been wrapped up, Indian Navy is yet to pursue the Flight Evaluation Trials for the two contenders.

The two contenders for the MRH for the Indian Navy are the US firm Sikorsky’s S-70B Sea Hawk and British-Italian Agusta Westland’s NH-90 helicopters. Once the contract is decided and awarded, the Indian Navy would get the delivery of the MRH within 46 months in three phases and the RFP provides an option of placing follow-on orders for another 44 helicopters.

New Delhi – While the Indian government has announced that it will be acquiring six new submarines in the Project 75 India (P-75 i) project, the French major DCNS has made an offer to India of a bigger version of its Scorpene conventional diesel-electric (SSK) submarine for a $5 billion. The contract will be for six submarines.

According to DCNS, there will be an extension in the design of the existing Scorpene submarine and new sections in the submarine will include the Air Independent Propulsion (AIP). While DCNS has already responded to the Indian Navy’s Request for Information (RFI) last September, it is now awaiting the Indian Navy to issue its Request for Proposals (RFPs).

DCNS has already got a contract for building six Scorpene submarines at the state-owned Mazagon Docks Limited (MDL) under a $4 billion contract signed with France in 2005. This also involves transfer of technology and the first submarine from the P-75 project is expected to be with the Indian Navy by 2015 and the last by 2018.

New Delhi – The Indian government has once again floated tenders for Towed and Tracked Gun Systems and vendors from various countries like France, Britain and the U.S have been invited for the bids. The acquisition is a major part of the Indian Army’s modernisation programme but has always suffered setbacks due to repeat cancellations of the tender. While the process to acquire towed and tracked gun systems was initiated in 2006, tenders have been cancelled due to the alleged corruption and scams involving the bidding companies from abroad.

However, India has come close to negotiating the acquisition of 145 ultra light guns from BAE Systems US called the M-777 A1 since the trials for the same have been concluded in India. India plans to acquire this gun through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) route and the US Congress has already given its clearance.

The M-777 A1 is an ultra light 155mm/45 calibre gun and its striking features include its mobility, transportability, survivability and lethality.

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The Indian Navy has issued a Request For Information (RFI) for a second batch of Multi-Role Helicopters (MRH), even with the existing tender process for a USD 1 billion order for 16 helicopters still under way.

The RFI reads, “The Ministry of Defence, Government of India, intends to augment the fleet of existing multi role helicopters (ASW/ASUW/Special Ops Commando) with suitable new-build Naval Multi Role Helicopters (NMRH), with comparable performance and ASW, ASuW, SAR, ELINT and Special Operation / Commando operation capabilities. The basic helicopter for all three roles viz ASW, ASuW and Special Operation / Commando should be same with common airframe, engines, avionics etc for ease of maintenance training and Op-logistics issues. Capability should exist in the helicopter for role specific configurations to be achieved with ease.”

The navy shopping around for a second time is being seen as a result of the the increasing requirement for Multi Role Helicopters, keeping in mind the decreasing life of the navy’s Sea King helicopters.

New Delhi –The Indian Air Force (IAF) has finally equipped 55 of the Jaguar fighter aircraft with autopilots after the Indian Defence Ministry was criticised for delays in the upgradation. Defence Minister AK Anthony has assured that it will soon be issuing a tender for procuring additional sets of autopilots for the remaining Jaguars in the IAF fleet.

The Comptroller and Auditor General had raised the issue of delay in the induction of autopilot in its report of 2008-09 and the Indian Defence Ministry was blamed for this delay. The Indian Defence Ministry agreed with the audit conclusions and will be issuing a Request for Proposal (RFP) for new sets of autopilots for the Jaguar fighters.

The Jaguar fighters have always been a trusted war horse since they first came to the IAF almost three decades ago. At the time of induction, the Jaguar was considered to be the fastest aircraft and added a new dimension to air operations in the Indian sub-continent. Under an agreement with the Indian Air Force, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has been entrusted with the upgradation of Jaguars that would extend their life by another 15 years, through the year 2020.

NEW DELHI: The Army may finally exorcise its Bofors ghost this year by inducting its first-ever 155mm howitzers since the infamous scandal in the mid-1980s completely derailed its artillery modernisation plan.
"I am very hopeful that we should be able to see some induction of one type of artillery gun this year itself. For others, there are certain trials in progress and certain RFPs (request for proposals) in the pipeline,'' said Army chief Gen V K Singh.
The first gun to be inducted is likely to be the M-777 ultra-light howitzers, 145 of which India will buy from US in a direct government-to-government deal worth $647 million under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme.
The defence ministry has also now re-issued the fresh RFP (request for proposal) for 155mm towed artillery guns, trials for which have been repeatedly held over the last several years but only to be scrapped.
The project to buy 400 155mm/52-calibre towed artillery guns, to be followed by indigenous manufacture of another 1,180 of them after transfer of technology, alone is worth Rs 12,000 crore.

New Delhi– India’s new Defence Production Policy (DPP) which will take the domestic defence industry into the new era of self-reliance and indigenisation has been released this week. The draft of the new DPP was approved in December last year by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Defence Minister AK Anthony.

The draft DPP indicates that the Indian government has decided that preference will be given to indigenous design, development and manufacture of defence equipment. The new policy will apply to long-term needs such as equipment required over 10 years into the future and a robust defence industrial base will be developed for self-reliance. The industrial base will harness the potential of private sector for design, development and manufacture of defence equipment. In the case of strategic and critical technologies, the draft DPP stresses the need to be self-reliant.

The DPP 2011 also has a new offset policy that accepts a key request of foreign as well as Indian vendors in the aviation and homeland security sectors by expanding the existing list of products in the offset category to include internal security and civil aircraft.

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The Indian Army has issued a Request For Information (RFI) for towed artillery guns, effectively canceling the previous process for procurement of these weapons systems, in which BAE Systems was fielding the FH77 B05, (an upgraded version of the FH77 B02 in service with the army) against Singapore Technologies (ST) Kinetics’ iFH 2000.

The army, which had issued the RFI on Thursday, gave much cause for confusion, by initially alluding to ‘A Self Propelled Gun System mounted on a vehicle chassis such as CEASER 155 mm Self propelled Gun’. The line was deleted on Friday evening, to remove any doubts about the earlier tender process being canceled.

During the day, on Friday, sources in the Ministry of Defense confirmed that the RFI, indeed, indicated a fresh tender for 155 mm/52 caliber Towed Artillery Guns. The reason the ministry gave for this decision was the creation of a single-vendor situation due to the non-appearance of the ST Kinetics’ gun at the trials.