SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

While India is considering a German proposal for Government to Government (G2G) deal for the supply of Next-generation Diesel-Electric submarines to India while it scouts for International vendors for its Project-75I (India) tender, it is estimated that the overall cost of the project will be around $8 billion sharp rise from the Six Scorpène submarines are being built under Project-75 by the MDL under technology transfer from the Naval Group of France under a $3.75 billion.

idrw.org has learned that German offers for Six-next generation submarines as expected won’t come cheap but price escalations from the 2005 deal for Six Scorpène submarines will put them at nearly double the cost which too was locally manufactured in the country.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

While attending the LAAD 2023, an international exhibition and conference for Latin American defence and security held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, India offered its BrahMos Supersonic cruise missile to the Brazilian military.

For some time now, India has had a strong interest in the Latin American market to increase its weapon exports to the region, and it has marketed this product in the region.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

Russia’s space agency said on Monday that it was in talks with India about supplying RD-191 rocket engines. Roscomos is looking to India as a new market because it is no longer able to export rocket engines to the United States.

The RD-191 kerosene/liquid oxygen engines are used in Russia’s Angara rocket boosters. The RD-181 engine is currently used to power the first stage of Northrop Grumman’s Antares launch vehicle which after the Ukraine war sanctions has meant export to the United States has collapsed.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

Bengaluru’s Raman Research Institute (RRI) will work with the Indian Navy’s combat systems engineering wing to develop secure communication channels of strategic importance using quantum technologies.

RRI announced last week a ground-breaking demonstration of secure communication between a stationary source and a moving receiver using quantum key distribution. Although the Indian Navy intends to use it for ship-to-shore communication in the first phase, quantum communications would provide secure communications for Indian missile submarines, raising the possibility that it could be used to communicate with nuclear-armed submarines.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

According to a report in the ” The Hindu”, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has flagged Three Defence PSUs selling Ordinance Factor, Trichy, Small Arms Rifle, Kanpur, and Rifle Factory Ishapore that from 2015 have been selling Indian Made Assualt Rifles to BSF, CRPF, ITBP and CISF over the cost of its production they’re by incurring a loss of ?366 crores over five years from 2015.

Three Defence PSUs have sold 12 different categories of guns and Assault rifles to Central Paramilitary forces at a loss because they failed to reduce their procurement cost of the raw material that is used to manufacture them in the country.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

The Ministry of Defence, Government of India, intends to procure Quantity 439 (Indian Army-415 and Indian Air Force-24) Light Vehicles (Electric) along with 35 x Fast Chargers (Indian Army-29 & Indian Air Force-06) under the ‘Buy (Indian-IDDM)’ category with minimum 50% Indigenous content and seeks participation in the procurement process from prospective Bidders.

Light Vehicles (Electric) should be able to achieve speeds up to 120kmph and can carry a payload of 900kg with a range of 400km that comes with a Battery pack & Motor life of Not less than 8 years/ 1,60,000 km.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) is looking to purchase 60-80 Medium Transport Aircraft (MTA) to be used as Medium Haul Transporters, for which it has already solicited bids from international aerospace companies that might agree to jointly manufacture them in the country under Transfer of Technology (ToT).

idrw.org has learned that whichever is selected will be used as a platform for the development of flight refuelling aircraft (FRA) and airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) as it plans to have more indigenous platforms to beef up its requirements as Chinese PLAAF expands its fleet of Force Multipliers.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

Indian Navy inducted MiG-29K supersonic air dominance fighters in 2010 but will get rid of the entire fleet of around 41 jets from service by 2025 onwards with less than 25 years of service in the fleet due to severe built quality issues with the jets that often requires periodic inspections at regular small intervals.

MiG-29K came with a 25-year design life of 6,000 hours and with a life extension programme it could have served Indian Navy for another 10-15 years but idrw.org has learned that the Navy has no such plans to enhance the service span for the fleet and instead entire fleet will be scrapped after retirement.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

Due to the banking system’s inability to clear payments for new equipment, the Indian Armed Forces have already hinted at low procurement plans for Russian-developed equipment for this fiscal year.

Economic sanctions imposed by the West on Russia’s banking system have resulted in payment gateways being blocked and the procurement of new equipment becoming more difficult. As a result, India is considering indigenizing Russian equipment and procuring Russian technology to advance its programme instead.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG

Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) next month will be sending key details of its proposal for local manufacturing of six advanced submarines for the Indian Navy in the country and as per media reports, key aspects will be that these German build submarines will have no room for the incorporation of Indian systems like Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) system developed by DRDO.

TKMS might agree to take responsibility for the delivery schedule of these submarines that will be built by selected Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited and Larsen and Toubro (L&T) at a 4 to 2 ratio if it is built using German technology but the incorporation of the Indian system will affect the delivery program due to extensive trials that might be required to certify them, which is why TKMS will oppose taking any liability for such delays if India insists.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG

Indian-state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has decided to activate two production plants to produce Hindustan Turbo Trainer-40 (HTT-40) basic trainer aircraft (BTA) with an annual rate of production to reach 20 units from 2026-27 onwards.

HAL plans to start with deliveries of 2 HTT-40 from Q4 2024-25 and ramp it up to 8 for 2025-26 and 20 units from 2026-27 onwards with IAF likely to take place orders for another 38 units around the same time taking total ordered aircraft to 108 units.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG

Indian Air Force (IAF) has signed the first iDEX contract for the procurement of ” Gaggan” an extremely high-resolution camera developed by Indian start-up DV2JS to be used for Remotely Piloted Airborne Vehicles.

Gaggan Camera is equipped with a 95 MegaPixel CMOS image sensor which is modular and compact so that can be carried in hand, or mounted on RC-Drone and UAV as it weighs less than 15kgs.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG

The Aeronautical Development Establishment of the DRDO is continuing R&D on the subsonic, 1,500 km-range Indigenous Technology Cruise Missile (ITCM) and earlier this year achieved a much-needed breakthrough after it was able to validate the newly developed small turbofan engine (STFE) in a fresh test from a defence facility off Odisha coast.

ITCM this year was tested with an upgraded mono-pulse X-band Imaging Synthetic Aperture Radar developed by the DRDL and ADE is planning to hold more tests this year for complete range to demonstrate missile capabilities before the technological demonstrator program is officially closed for the development of Long Range Land Attack Cruise Missile (LRLACM).

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG

Rolls-Royce has shown its willingness to co-develop a new engine that will not be based on the Eurojet EJ200, a low-bypass turbofan used as the powerplant of the Eurofighter Typhoon and build entirely from scratch so that Intellectual Property (IP) will be owned by India which won’t be the case with EJ200 that was developed by four companies under multi-national engine manufacturing consortium.

EuroJet Turbo GmbH owns Intellectual Property (IP) rights to the EJ200 engines even though this engine can be used to develop a 110-120kN class of engine to power India’s 5th Gen AMCA (Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft) programme but Rolls-Royce doesn’t want other jet manufacture (Avio, Industria de Turbo Propulsores (ITP), MTU Aero Engines) to be part of the program so a clean slate design offer to India.