Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
ers and surface-to-surface missiles. Infantry battalions urgently need to acquire modern
weapons and equipment for counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations to increase
operational effectiveness and lower casualties'. 13 A year later, Jane's Defence Weekly re-
ported that it had been told by a senior army artillery officer that the range of some field
guns on the Chinese and Pakistani frontiers 'barely crosses India's borders, rendering them
ineffectual'. 14 Yet the defence ministry failed to finalize a contract to buy 145 M777 light-
weight howitzers from the US arm of the UK-based BAE Systems in October 2013, even
though the company was saying it would have to close down its production line. 15
In the Indian Air Force, the problem is different. Orders for new aircraft can be excess-
ively slow - it took India 20 years to order Hawk trainers from the UK in 2004 - but they
do happen. There is, however, a high rate of crashes. Out of 872 Russian (originally Soviet)
MiG fighters bought, or partially made in India by the government-owned Hindustan Aero-
nautics (HAL), between 1966 and 1980, as many as 482 had crashed by mid-2012, killing
171 pilots. Reporting the figures to parliament in May 2012, Minister of Defence A.K. An-
tony said that the causes of accidents were both human error and technical defects 16 - inad-
equate pilot training, poor-quality manufacture and maintenance by HAL, cannibalization
of aircraft for spares, and tough conditions. 17
Ajay Shukla, a journalist and former army officer who specializes in defence issues,
wrote in March 2013 that over the previous five years, a total of 50 aircraft had crashed,
including 37 fighters and 13 helicopters, causing the death of 17 pilots, 18 service person-
nel and six civilians. 18 Quoting figures released by the defence ministry in parliament, he
said that the air force lost the equivalent of one fighter squadron (16-18 fighters) in crashes
every two years. Consequently, it had only 32 or 33 operational squadrons compared with
a minimum requirement of 42. 'With each [Russian] Sukhoi-30, the cheapest aircraft be-
ing currently inducted, costing close to Rs 350 crore, the loss of eight fighters per year to
crashes amounts to an annual loss of over Rs 2,800 crore,' he added. Costs would rise if
and when the Rafale, a French fighter produced by Dassault of France which was then be-
ing considered, was purchased at perhaps Rs 450-500 crore per aircraft. That was also the
anticipated price for an Indo-Russian fifth-generation fighter aircraft scheduled to become
operational towards 2020.
The Indian Navy has a better record than the other armed services. It has been developing
a capacity to design and build most of its warships in India, 19 which the army and air force
do not have for their equipment. It also goes for gradual improvements in its equipment,
whereas the army and air force tend to look for dramatic new prestige weapons that slow
down purchases.
India initially learned its shipbuilding skills from British Leander-class frigates that it
built in the 1970s, and from Kashin-class destroyers sourced from Russia in the 1980s. The
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