Vayu Issue IV July Aug 2017
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IV/2017 Aerospace & Defence Review The Dragon’s Claws India-Israel Relationship China’s Military Modernisation Israel’s Defence Industry Paris Air Show 2017 The Baltic Connection boeing.co.in 286mm in. Bleed 286mm in. 275mm Trim 275mm 257mm Live TOGETHER. BUILDING THE FUTURE. Boeing is proud of its longstanding partnership with Indi a. A partnership India can depend upon to meet its developing requirements, from surveillance, strike and mobility platforms to C4ISR, unmanned systems and support services. The most advanced systems and technologies providing the greatest value for India today and tomorrow. 197mm Live 215mm Trim 221mm Bleed Job Number: BOEG_BDS_IND_3223M Approved Client: Boeing Product: Boeing Defense Space & Security Date/Initials Date: 1/20/15 GCD: P. Serchuk File Name: BOEG_BDS_IND_3223M Creative Director: P. Serchuk Output Printed at: 100% Art Director: P. de Koninck Fonts: Helvetica Neue 65, Helvetica Neue 75 Copy Writer: P. 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Frontline Communications Partners 1880 Century Park East, Suite 1011, Los Angeles, CA 90067 &OLHQW)URQWOLQH-RE9HU$' &\DQ 0DJHQWD <HOORZ %ODFN IV/2017 IV/2017 Aerospace & Defence Review A New Era for Sameer Joshi reviews status of the including Bombardier and Embraer, 38 PLAAF restructuring and reforms, even as ATR notched steady orders. India-Israel mission strategy and combat Some highlights of the Paris Air Show capabilities, along with focus on its 2017 are included. indigenous Air Superiority Fighter (ASF) force, concluding with an assessment of Visit to Thales in the PLAAF vs IAF scenario over Tibet 99 The Dragon’s Claws India-Israel Relationship in the coming years. France China’s Military Modernisation Israel’s Defence Industry Paris Air Show 2017 The Baltic Connection The PLAAF in 1962 Cover : The Chengdu J-20 fifth generation 74 fighter (Artwork by Priyanka Joshi) Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s State visit to Israel has heralded a new era Vayu was amongst select media persons DITORIAL ANEL in the political ties between the two E P from around the world who attended nations. Steadily over the years, Israel MANAGING EDITOR a three-day detailed session on Thales has become India’s most trusted and their activities which included Vikramjit Singh Chopra national security partner and defence The US Central Intelligence Agency factory visits and live demonstrations supplier and this visit has been qualified (CIA) had made an assessment of EDITORIAL ADVISOR of some of their innovative products. as elevating the bilateral relationship to Chinese air capability and its There were Drones, C-UAV, radars Admiral Arun Prakash ‘new heights’. A slew of India-Israel joint effectiveness in operations against and airport security systems on display. ventures have followed the visit. India during the frontier war in the high EDITORIAL PANEL Himalayas in October-November 1962 Pushpindar Singh this has been de-classified 50 years after The Baltic Connection Air Marshal Brijesh Jayal 46 Israel’s Defence and is reproduced for Vayu readers. 104 Dr. Manoj Joshi Industry Lt. Gen. Kamal Davar 78 China’s Military Lt. Gen. BS Pawar Modernisation Air Marshal M. Matheswaran Gp Capt JC Malik Cdr M Nirmal Monica Arora Angad Singh Vayu’s Angad Singh visited a number The Nation’s ever innovative defence Sayan Majumdar of Russian shipyards on the Baltic Sea, industry continue to unveil new and reporting on several key programmes Richard Gardner (UK) cutting-edge technologies, exemplified China’s military modernisation and its implications are reviewed by Dr Manoj relevant both to India and the broader Reuben Johnson (USA) by Elbit’s SkEye WAPS, Rafael’s SPIKE Joshi who opines that the options before Russian-shipbuilding industry. Bertrand de Boisset (France) LR II, IAI’s Green Dragon, Controp’s High Definition Cameras, RADA’s India are not too many and we would Dr Nick Evesenkin (Russia) Tactical Radars and the Aeronautics have to evolve asymmetrical systems of 131 5 Centuries of Tamir Eshel (Israel) Tactical VTOL UAS. All these and our own to deter the Chinese - and thus Maritime Prowess others are of relevance to Indian lower the nuclear threshold. ADVERTISING & MARKETING MANAGER requirements. Husnal Kaur 87 The 52nd International BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER 54 The Dragon’s Claws Paris Air Show Premjit Singh PUBLISHED BY Vayu Aerospace Pvt. Ltd. DCNS, which has just changed its D-43, Sujan Singh Park, name to NAVAL GROUP, traces its New Delhi 110 003 India routes back to 1631 and is assuredly Tel: +91 11 24617234 one of the world’s leading shipbuilder Fax: +91 11 24628615 For the Vayu editorial team, covering and integrator. the biennial Air Show at Le Bourget e-mail: [email protected] Also: Irkut MC-21’s Maiden Flight; With recent state-enforced in June 2017 is now virtually routine, e-mail: [email protected] INIOHOS 2017; FAMEX 2017. organisational reforms, institutional the Journal having been at the Salon restructuring and the induction of a International since 1975, or for over variety of fourth and fifth-generation 40 years. At the same location there Printed at Aegean Offset Printers Regular features : combat platforms over the last decade, obviously were new shapes (and Commentary, Opinion, Viewpoint, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army sounds), the Dassault Rafale dominating National Imperative, Geo-Politics, The opinions expressed in the articles Air Force (PLAAF) is on course the military and Airbus A380plus the Aviation & Defence in India, World published in the Vayu Aerospace & Defence towards becoming a most assertive civil sectors. The to-be-expected sales Aviation & Defence News, Ancient Review do not necessarily reflect the views instrument for regional dominance and rivalry between Airbus and Boeing was Aviator Anecdotes, Vayu 25 Years or policies of the Publishers. international influence for China. vigorous but there were new players Back, Tale Spin. Visit us at: www.vayuaerospace.in C O M M E N T A R Y to the professionalism of the Indian soldier when they state in their Why 2017 is not 1962 columns, “India’s military has more experience in mountain combat”. hen Chinese editorials of its controlled media were baying Localised logjams like Doklam have their own dynamics and operational Wfor Indian blood and suggesting that Indians should ‘not imperatives that are bereft of the ‘paper strengths’ of hypothetical full- forget history lessons’ of 1962, the sharp rebuttal from defence scale wars. Structurally also, the independent PLA is a potential threat minister Arun Jaitley that ‘the situation in 1962 was different, the to its own regime of the Communist Party of China. Hence, the PLA India of today is different’, was not a political tit-for-tat but a cold swears its allegiance to the CPC and not to the country! So the ‘party reality that needs to be reiterated, stripped of any hyper-nationalistic Army’ necessitates that all company-level PLA officers are also CPC import. The defence forces of India are specially guarded and weigh members, and they have ‘political officers’ as apparatchiks to ensure each word thoroughly through the prism of hard facts, as opposed control. The non-military advisory CPC committee members have to any political posturing. Herein, the underpinning calculus of major say on military matters as opposed to the PLA itself. Amidst all the Indian Army Chief’s stoic comment that ‘India was ready for this, ‘political work’ is a significant part of the PLA training that entails a two-and-a-half-front-war’ this was a further confirmation of the wasteful propagandist indoctrination of the CPC’s, civilian sensibilities. Indian preparedness towards any eventuality. This is a fact, despite Unlike the Indian armed forces, who have been frequently involved the numerical and material superiority that China has maintained in cross-border wars and insurgencies since 1962, the Chinese have over India since the 1962 war, and even during the 1967 border had no major combat experiences. Its famed technological prowess conflict at Nathu La and Cho La, as indeed now in 2017. It is equally is ‘reverse engineering’ at best with unproven efficacy, whereas the true that China’s military investments are approximately thrice bulk of Indian defence equipment and composition has either been that of India’s ($151 billion as opposed to $51 billion for India in bloodied in combat or is of a credible Western technological origin 2017), and that its standing Army is nearly twice that of India’s (2.3 with proven capabilities. Never mind India, China’s perennial bug million to 1.3 million), or even that its estimated nuclear warheads bear Taiwan has defied all Chinese belligerence and military bullying, are more than twice that of India’s (260 to 110). three waves of ‘Taiwan Strait Crisis’ have not altered Taipei’s resilience However, none of these statistics count in a restricted war in an or sovereignty. With all its numerical strength, supposed ‘blue water’ isolated theatre. Intrinsically and perversely, the reality of nuclear Navy capabilities, cutting-edge military platforms like the fifth warheads at the disposal of both the Chinese and Indian regimes generation Chengdu J-20, burgeoning nuclear weaponry, world’s fundamentally alter the dynamics as compared to 1962.