Indian Armed Forces at a glance

By: Kartikeya Semwal With the ever-increasing escalation by China on India’s eastern border, chances of India fighting China in the near future cannot be ruled out. With the growing air-space violation by Chinese helicopters & jets & the number of jets being regularly being inducted by Chinese airforce, the need of having more & more combat-capable jets is being felt by IAF (Indian Air Force).  Chinese choppers. We all know that the induction of LCA Tejas is going on and the 1 st squadron of Tejas Mk-1 IOC variant has already been inducted while induction of 2 nd squadron having an improved Tejas Mk-1 FOC variant has just started from 27 May 2020. The ‘good thing’ about Tejas is that its second squadron will be complete (18 jets) in the next 12 to 18 months.    Tejas Mk-1.  But in order to meet the Chinese aerial threat, IAF needs to induct more new jets & modify and upgrade the existing ones. One such similar and much needed modifica...

By: Kartikeya Semwal With the ever-increasing threat posed by China’s PLA Navy in the IOC (Indian Ocean Region), neighbouring countries like Japan, South Korea and Australia have started feeling the need to induct and operate aircraft carriers of their own. Till now, none of these countries has an operational Aircraft Carrier (AC). Instead, they operate heli-carriers and/or ALS (Amphibious Landing Ships). But more than them, India feels the immediate need of operating at least 3 Aircraft Carriers (ACs). Currently, the Indian Navy has a solo AC called INS Vikramaditya, a 44,000-tonne behemoth brought from Russia. By 2022, India will get its 2 nd AC which is its own indigenous AC called INS Vikrant; a 45,000-tonne ship. Now since India has a vast coastline to guard, it needs 1 AC fleet to guard its western coasts & another to guard its eastern coast. INS Vikramaditya in battle mode. Guarding the western coast is easy when compared to the eastern coast as our foe Pakist...

By: Kartikeya Semwal We all know that Indian Navy which operates 1 Aircraft Career INS Vikramaditya till date with a couple of Mig-29K fighters; & will soon get its first indigenous Aircraft Career in the next 2-3 years. And for that, it will need new fighter jets to keep up with emerging challenges put up by China’s PLZ Navy in the Indian Ocean region & in Bay of Bengal. New fighters will also be needed to replace the ageing Mig-29Ks on the other aircraft career keeping in mind that China is developing its own aircraft careers that will be well supported by indigenous J-15 & J-20 fighters, the latter of which is a modern day 5 th generation stealth jet. INS Vikramaditya with decked Mig-29Ks & Mi-26 choppers Indian Navy is gearing up to place an order of 57 fighter planes and a number of jet fighter manufacturing companies from various countries are in the race to get this deal. Now, we all know that India is not going to buy Lockheed Martin’s F-21, nor Eur...

IAF says – “Ready for a 2-front war”. Really? By: Kartikeya Semwal It is good to see that IAF (Indian Airforce) is working hard to move from strength to strength by acquiring different types of fighter planes, transport aircrafts and different types of helicopters. But this doesn’t mean that it is ready to fight any type of war, especially when it is about fighting a two-front war on western and eastern fronts. Though IAF has been carrying out war games, operational exercises, joint exercises with friendly countries but it doesn’t mean that it is ready and well equipped for a two-front war. The most important point is still the same- lack of enough jet fighters to complete full squadron-strength of 45. We all know that the last of Mig-21s were retired a few months back in 2019 that had brought down IAF’s squadron strength to 33. But recently, with retiring of Mig-27 3 rd generation fighters lovingly called “Bahadur” by IAF, the current squadron strength is down to a dangerous l...

India improving Missile Inventory of it’s Amred Forces By:-Kartikeya Semwal We all know that India has 2 disturbing & distrustful international neighbours namely Pakistan & China. We have fought wars with both in different years in the past. And our army keeps having skirmishes on both- it’s eastern & western fronts. India remains under threat to fight a two-front war which is a national issue of great importance. In order to address this issue effectively, DRDO (Defence Research & Development Organization) has been working hard to develop a range of different types of missiles ranging from sub-sonic, super-sonic, SRBM (Short Range Ballistic Missile), AAD (Advanced Air Defence), QRSAM (Quick Reaction Surface to Air Missile) MRSAM (Medium Range Surface to Air Missile) & ASM (Air to Surface Missile). This will enable the Indian Army & give them teeth to fight a limited, quick & effective 2-front war, especially with China.  QRSAM test-fired.  ...

Rafael or Mig-35 which fighter is best suited for IAF? By: Kartikeya Semwal Rafael Vs Mig-35 For long Indian Air Force (IAF) has been having the requirement of 114 fighters after it scrapped the 126 MMRCA (Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft) deal and purchased 36 Rafael fighters from France. The new MMRCA-2 called the MWF (Medium Weight Fighter) will acquire 114 new medium combat jets from a foreign company along with full TOT (Transfer of Technology) to manufacture the jet fighters completely in India, including it’s spare parts. For this, the winning foreign company will also have to partner with an Indian defence firm, & share their technical know-how with them. Now we all know that there are as many as 6 foreign companies from as many countries, which are vying to get the MWF order of 114 fighter jets. Here, we will focus on just 2 of them namely- Dassault Aviations of France & Mikoyan Consortium of Russia. While Dassault brings it’s most advanced combat jet R...

Tejas Mk1 in action.  Should HAL boost production of Tejas Mk-1 & Mk-1A? By:- Kartikeya Semwal Now that we all know that by the end of 2019, IAF will be down to just 30-32 squadrons as against the sanctioned strength of 42; it’s high time that the Govt. of India (GOI) & HAL should focus on addressing the issue of falling fighter squadrons of Indian Air-Force (IAF). HAL that has been tasked with producing the indigenous LCA (Light Combat Aircraft) Tejas Mk-1 & 1A has just produced 16 of the first 40 Tejas Mk-1s. So ironically, HAL has failed to produce even 1 full squadron of Tejas jets despite passage of 1 & ½ years which is very slow. While our threatening neighbours Pakistan & China are adding new fighters in considerable numbers every year. The latest news about Pakistan was that, it would start getting JF-17 block-III from July-August this year. Similarly, China too is adding J-20 5 th generation fighters at a good pace while India lags behind i...