Ukraine on Brink of Missile Deal with India

Ukraine is close to signing one of its biggest ever defense deals for air-to-air missiles with India, according to Russian media reports.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta says the deal for R-27 missiles, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, is in the final stages and is waiting for approval from the Ukrainian leadership.

The Vympel R-27 (AA-10 Alamo) missile is a medium-to-long-range air-to-air missile developed by the Soviet Union. It is similar to U.S. AIM-7 Sparrow.

The missile comes in infrared-homing (R-27T), semi-active-radar-homing (R-27R), and active-radar-homing (R-27AE) versions. It would be fitted to India’s MiG-29 and Su-30 fighter jets.

While the deal has not been confirmed officially, the paper quotes a source close to Ukraine’s national security and defense council, saying both nations are sensitive to Russian concerns over the deal and want to make sure that it would not irritate Moscow.

Tensions between Kiev and Moscow could arise later because if the deal is successful, India may want to buy other weaponry from Ukraine, entering a market dominated by Russia, defense analysts quoted by the paper said.

Some industry experts believe Moscow would not oppose the deal as the Ukrainian company is the only manufacturer of these missiles, although Russian firms supply some components for R-27.

The R-27 was originally designed by Vympel, a Russian missile design bureau, in the 1980s. Vympel is now part of Russia's Tactical Missiles Corporation, which now produces successor weapons to R-27.

Artem, a Ukrainian arms firm involved in R-27 production in Ukraine, could not be reached for comment.

Ukrainian R-27s displayed by the Artem and Arsenal companies at the Moscow air show in 2011 featured what the makers claimed were upgraded seekers. Arsenal said it had developed a new infra-red seeker for the R-27 extending its detection range from 18 km to 30 km.

New Delhi showed interest at the recent DEFEXPO-2012 arms show in Ukrainian anti-tank missiles and new engines for Mi-family helicopters produced by the Ukrainian Motor Sich company, according to Ukrainian officials.

Russia to Show New Tank in India

Russia will display a prototype model of its new T-90S tank at the Defexpo 2012 arms exhibition in India later this week, arms firm Rosoboronexport delegation head Viktor Komardin said on Monday.

"This new tank will be the gem of the show," Komardin said. "Its first foreign presentation will be the main event," he added.

"The Indian Army already operates the T-90, so its modernized variant - which, by the way is an absolutely new machine - will be of great potential interest to the Indians," he said.

The show will take place in Delhi from March 29 to April 1.

India has overtaken China as the world's largest conventional arms buyer in the last five years, according to a report from the Swedish Stockholm International Peace Research Institute released last week. India spent $12.7 billion on weapons in that period, 80 percent of which came from Russia.

India and Russia to Develop Hypersonic Cruise Missile

Russia and India are in talks to jointly develop a hypersonic cruise missile and will soon agree on a general outline of the design, the head of the BrahMos Indian-Russian cruise missile program, Praveen Pathak, said on Friday at the Defexpo defense show in Delhi.

"In the near future, we will set up a joint working group which will work out the parameters of the missile in cooperation with developers, and also decide how much each side will contribue to the project," Pathak said.

The weapon will be capable of flying at Mach 5-Mach 7 speeds, he said.

"We want to create a weapon which would not differ much from the existing BrahMos missile in weight and dimensions, so that it could be used in existing launchers on ships or mobile launchers. In this case it would not take too much work to convert such systems to hypersonic," he said.

"Russia has a longstanding interest in high-speed weaponry and scramjet propulsion, which an Indo-Russian programme could draw on," said Douglas Barrie, air warfare analyst at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. "The design of a genuine hypersonic missile, given the performance requirements, would likely be 'new' rather than using the present 3M55 Onyx/Brahmos design which uses a ramjet for sustained supersonic flight," he added.

India's Defence Research and Development Organization has previously displayed a demonstrator model of Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator at airshows. NPO Mashinostroeniye, India's partner in the BrahMos program, developed a hypersonic missile known as 3M25 Meteorit, but it was never deployed.

India will also carry out the first test-firing of the air-launched variant of the BrahMos Russian-Indian supersonic cruise missile by the end of this year, Pathak said.

"We hope by the end of the year we'll carry out the first launch from an aircraft. It will be an air-launch," he said.

Work on adapting the air-launched variant of BrahMos to arm India's Su-30MKI aircraft is being undertaken for the Indian air force, he said. Several aircraft have already been modified to carry the weapon, he added.

Su-30MKI (Flanker-H) multirole fighter

The Indian air force has already taken delivery of enough of the ground-launched variant to equip  two battalions. The missiles will be based near India's borders to strike at enemy airfields, air defense sites and radar stations, said Pathak.

India tested a ground-launched BrahMos earlier this month. "The missile flew its maximum range, 290 km. The terminal phase of the flight was a steep diving trajectory. This is one of the requirements for the ground forces," he said, adding that a steep diving attack profile was necessary for hitting targets in mountainous terrain.

BrahMos, a derivative of the Russian NPO Mashinostroeniye 3M55 Yakhont naval cruise missile, is one of the most capable weapons of its class, combining long-range (up to 290 km), high speed (up to Mach 2.8) a heavy warhead of up to 250 kg, a low radar profile and a variable attack profile, including low level flight down to 10 meters and up to 14,000 meters. The weapon operates on a fire-and-forget principle.

The ground-launched variant weighs around three tons at launch.

Russia to sell off 18 fighter planes that India rejected

Minsk : Russia is to put up for sale a batch of 18 Sukhoi Su-30 multirole fighter aircraft, rejected by India on concerns about their engines and returned to Russia in 2003, a defense official said Wednesday.

"The 18 Su-30s previously used by India and then returned, are in an aviation repair plant in Belarus and are on sale to potential buyers," said Alexander Fomin, deputy director of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation. He added that the aircraft could be modernized before being sold on.

The Su-30MKI is India's lead fighter aircraft, and around 140 have been produced under license by HAL Aeronautics in India. The Indian Air Force is expected to buy a total of around 280 during the next decade.

Development of the Su-30 began in the 1980s for the Soviet armed forces, based on the Su-27UB conversion trainer.

The first batch of 18 Su-30s delivered to India were Su-30MK and Su-30K standard, and were built to a lower specification than the later Su-30MKI. This meant that they did not have thrust-vectoring engine nozzles or canard foreplanes, enabling extra maneuverability.

Their avionics systems were also built to a lower specification than the later Su-30MKIs built by HAL, which included a high level of Israeli and French-built systems.

India readies to select mid-air refueler

New Delhi : India is readying to select the winner of the $2-billion tender for six mid-air refuelers for its air force, with both the contending planes from European consortium EADS Airbus and Russian Ilyushin clearing the flight trials.

According to informed sources, the Indian defence ministry is now considering the bids to arrive at the lowest bidder in the tender issued in September 2010. India is looking for six refuelers.

The tender had been reissued by the government after the Airbus' A330MRTT was selected by the Indian Air Force as the winner of an earlier tender in 2009.

But the finance ministry objected to the "high cost" for the A330MRTT. So the tender was cancelled in January 2010.

"After three trials in November, we have been informed that we are compliant with the specifications mentioned in the tender," Airbus Defence Capability Marketing vice president Ian Elliot told reporters here.

Ilyushin too has been found complaint, the sources said.

Asked about the finance ministry objections during the previous tendering process, Elliot said the concerns were relating to "capital investment cost."

But now, the lowest bidder for the tender will be worked out on the basis of life cycle cost of operating the plane over several decades.

During flight trials, Airbus had demonstrated midair refueling of Indian Air Force's Sukhoi-30 and Jaguar combat planes on its A330MRTT.

It also similarly demonstrated refueling of Mirage-2000s while contesting the United Arab Emirates tender. India has a fleet of nearly 50 Mirage-2000s. India also has a six-aircraft fleet of IL-78s.

Sukhoi Su-30SM: An Indian Gift to Russia’s Air Force

Russia’s Defense Ministry has ordered 30 heavy Sukhoi Su-30SM fighter planes. Given that the same model has been exported to India for more than 10 years, this choice seems both logical and pragmatic.

Thirty 30’s

The Defense Ministry and the Irkut Corporation, an affiliate of the United Aircraft Corporation, have signed a supply contract for 30 Su-30SM multirole fighter aircraft, a Defense Ministry spokesman told journalists Thursday, March 22. “Under the contract, Irkut Corporation will build for Russia’s Ministry of Defense 30 planes of this type by 2015,” he said.

Rumors that Irkut, a long-standing exporter, may supply several dozen fighter aircraft to the Russian Air Force began circulating late last year. Now the rumor has become a reality – a contract in black and white.

But why did the Defense Ministry choose the Su-30’s? After all, they have been mostly supplied to customers abroad rather than to the Russian Armed Forces, where just a few planes of this type are in use.

The Su-30, properly speaking, is an entire family of aircraft and the most famous Russian-made (not to be confused with Soviet-made) fighter plane outside of Russia. It was developed in the Soviet Union on the basis of the Su-27UB combat trainer aircraft as a command plane for Air Defense air regiments flying ordinary Su-27 interceptor aircraft.

In 1993, its export version, the Su-30K, was developed, sparking record demand and the sale of several hundred planes.

The family is further subdivided into two parts: the “Chinese” Su-30MKK/MK2, which were produced in Komsomolsk-on-Amur and exported to Venezuela, Indonesia, Uganda, Vietnam, and of course China; and the “Indian” Su-30MKI, manufactured in Irkutsk and purchased by India, Algeria and Malaysia.

The model ordered by the Russian military is a “localized” version of the “Indian” Su-30MKI. Earlier, Komsomolsk-on-Amur delivered to the Air Force four “localized” Su-30MK2’s.

A flying multi-tasker

As a basic platform for the multirole heavy fighter aircraft, the Su-30MKI is remarkable primarily for its universality. It boasts a so-called “open architecture”, making it relatively easy to add new systems in the basic electronic equipment and to use advanced guided weapons (supplied by different manufacturers).

The Su-30MKI sports a Russian radar and optic locator, French navigation and heads-up display systems, Israeli EW and weapon-guidance systems, and Indian computers.

The “Chinese” line is based on a different logic that prescribes parallel installation of new systems that fall short of full integration.

Most likely, the military is attracted by how easy it is to add different weapons and equipment to the Su-30MKI, transforming it into an attack fighter-bomber, a heavy interceptor aircraft, or something else.

Who placed the order?

It is hard to pinpoint who exactly ordered these 30 aircraft. The contract was signed by Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Irkut President Alexei Fedorov. After the signing ceremony, Serdyukov commented that the planes would “increase the Air Force’s combat power.”

By contrast, Fedorov went on record as saying last summer that the Defense Ministry was going to order 40 aircraft. Later the press reported, citing the Irkutsk aircraft plant’s general director Alexander Veprev, that the deliveries were likely to be made in two installments: the first 28 aircraft were intended for the Air Force and another 12 as an option for naval aviation. Air Force C-in-C Alexander Zelin confirmed the figure of 28 in fall 2011.

As we can see, the first batch of Sukhoi-30’s has been purchased. The remaining 12, as some military sources intimated to the press, were intended for the Black Sea Fleet’s naval aviation.

Given that naval aviation has seen cuts in combat aircraft, it seems logical to reinforce it with heavy Su-30SM two-seaters that are efficient both in air-to-air combat and against ground and surface targets.

Thus far, however, there is no mention of plans to buy the Su-30 for the Navy. Possibly the option will be realized later.

Exporters’ courtesy

There is another simple explanation for choice of the Su-30MKI. Irkut has been churning out these planes for 10 years thanks to its completely streamlined production method. This means that its products are of high quality, relatively cheap (which pleases the Defense Ministry in particular) and will be supplied on time.

It is one thing if, in order to make 30 aircraft, you have to breathe life into an idling plant, to fine-tune (or develop anew) your technological method, buy additional equipment, and – still worse – hire personnel. But it’s quite another if you have been manufacturing standardized aircraft for years and years and can easily divert your workforce to produce an “improved” modification for your own country’s Air Force. The cost of this batch on the side is dramatically lower.

This approach (buying quickly and on the cheap what can be produced immediately) has been growing in popularity in the Russian military. We have mentioned the Su-30M2 combat trainer aircraft intended for the Russian Air Force. The same goes for the carrier-based MiG-29K, which in its present form was developed for the Indian Navy.

This approach is logical in its own way. The military expects certain fundamentally new models that are being tested with some degree of success. The Air Force is eying the T-50, the fifth-generation fighter aircraft, and the Navy has been trying to get into shape its Lada project involving the construction of non-nuclear submarines. The Land Forces have boycotted the purchases of all currently existing armor models, urging manufacturers to invent something totally new.

In the meantime, the Armed Forces will buy cheap, mass-produced, well-equipped, if ordinary, military hardware, like the Su-30SM.