A secret meet between Israel and India to prepare a $3 billion arms deal

A secret meet between Israel and India to prepare $3 billion arms deal

A meeting between Israeli Director general of Ministry of Defense along with his officials, Israeli ambassador to India Carmon, home minister Rajnath singh and defense minister Manohar parrikar held in Delhi, Friday. some sources close to Israel mentioned the meeting discussed about the Prime minister's visit to Israel and the proposed arms deal worth of $3 billions.

After the president, home minister and foreign minister visit to Israel, The Indian Prime minister gearing to visit the Holy land. This is the first official prime minister level visit to Israel. However Modi as Gujarat CM visited Israel earlier. The prime minister's visit is not only just a political visit, It's a key military level visit too.

India selected the Israeli firm Rafael to team up with Indian private company Kalyani, to build and supply third generation fire and forget anti tank guided missile to Indian Army. Rafael's Spike beat US Javelin, french and Russian firms to supply more than 300 plus Spike launchers and 8000 plus Spike missiles. The proposed deal not yet signed so far, the deal still on the cabinet committee on security for negotiations and preparations. 

Indian army announced the spike missile selection in October 2014, following joint venture between Kalyani and Rafael by February last year. Kalyani will make the missiles and launching systems, while Bharath Dynamics integrate the system into one. the Spike missile details and other information found here.

Days ago, IAF Selected the Israeli Spice guided bomb and new generation litening target pod to integrate into the Su 30 MKI. the reason is, to make the Su 30 MKI better in air to ground missions too, the details also found here. 

Indian Army is on the other side who repeatedly asking the land based version of Barak 8 dubbed as medium range SAM. The air force also asking the same, However some sources say India might sign a contract with Israeli IAI to supply one regiment of MR SAM, which comprising eighteen firing units. India also plans to sign mass acquisition of  Barak 8 missiles from IAI and DRDO for Indian Navy.

However there is no clear information about the proposed sale of armed Heron drone sale. Earlier it's reported that India already signed the deal with IAI to supply eight Eitan drone for some $400 millions. the earlier article about IAI Eitan found here.

Reports from Ministry said that, CCS and Finance ministry working closely with the Israel firms to prepare the final contract papers. which will be signed during the PM visit to Israel.

Rustom 2 Drone L&T Joins with DRDO

Rustom 2 Drone L&T Joins with DRDO 

   State run DRDO shares Rustom 2 armed drone technology with leading private player L&T to build, modernize and export [ if government approved ] Ingeniously made armed version of Rustom 2 drone, L&T already invested in the Rustom 2 development program, the desi Predator drone. Army, Air force and Navy already shown interested in the armed drone, expecting first batch orders of some 75 units, DRDO and L&T plans to complete all trails before 2017, and mass produce those units along with another private partner Taneja aerospace and aviation limited.

     DRDO fast tracks the Rustom 2 Project, In this years Aero India they signed many contracts with  state owned companies like BEL and HAL, for integration and ground control systems. later another contract signed with TAAL for fuselage building and now, they signed another contract with L&T for aerial target systems and training equipment. DRDO plans to build two different variant of Rustom 2, one is the reconnaissance variant another is the armed variant. both carry similar payloads, while one comes with improved surveillance systems as payloads, and another version comes with 350 kg payload of air to surface bombs or missiles.

    DRDO planned to build six prototypes, two models for each Army, Air force and Navy variants. It's reported DRDO and TAAL demonstrating Rustom 2's capabilities to navy. The Navy is the first customer to earlier variant of Rustom 1, who is using most desi projects. Army too asking DRDO to demonstrate Rustom 2's capabilities. Army plans to procure more than 20 units in first phase, and planning for more later. Air force isn't hurry since due to the delay of Rustom 2, Airforce singed a contract with Israeli company to supply ten IAI Eitan armed drones. It's suspected that Air force Rustom 2 comes with large modification of Israeli systems with increased payload.

    Rustom 2 is designed to perform attack missions by flying low and meantime fly high for long time surveillance. high altitude drones fly longer time than other aircraft, due to it's weight, engine power and  Speed. to maintain long flights the drones must fly above the commercial air traffic line to evade any confrontations with civilian planes. still no information available about the Rustom 2's flying altitude, however it's believed it can fly above some 40,000 feet.

    Also DRDO signed a agreement with state owned VRDE - Vehicle research and Development Establishment to produce engines which will be used in the Rustom 2. VRDE and private player Mahindra already signed a contract to jointly build a 200 HP engine. So it's clear all the Rustom 2 drones comes with indigenous engine. in April 2014 DRDO successfully completed the ground trails of the engine with Rustom 2 supported by HAL.

   As of March 2015 only two Rustom 2 prototypes developed. it's believed they build more in coming days with the support of Taneja. However there is  no information about the Rustom 2's combat range. it's believed Rustom 2 will fly more than six hours, with the speed of some 300 kilometers, and the combat radius of  900 kilometers.

   Rustom 2 can carry 350 kg of weapons, mostly desi made Helina anti armor missiles in quad pack, or two 100 kg guided bombs, mostly laser guided LGB's. it's hard to achieve launching the Spice glide bombs since it needed guidance from on board aircraft, DRDO's Defence Electronics Application Laboratory provides all critical data links connecting the drones and control center, using secure satellite data link. It's expected the Rustom 2 will be inducted into the forces after 2017.

India to buy attack drone IAI Eitan from Israel

India to buy attack drone IAI Eitan from Israel

    The Indian Air force all set to induct combat drones from Israel within a year, an agreement reached with Indian Ministry and Israeli aircraft industries to supply the attack drone IAI Eitan, ground control station, modification of exiting air base to accommodate much larger drone, weapon packages, and spare parts, the deal valued more than some $400 millions, with the price tag of $40 million per plane, IAF plans to induct nearly 10 Eitan drones in it's attack drone fleet, 

  The Indian air force planned to induct the attack drones by earlier 2012, and sought foreign drones, meantime DRDO proposed Rustom 2 drone with attack capabilities, and promised to deliver within a matter of time, however the progress of Rustom 2 is not going well, as Chinese already developed and  testing a drone similar to US MQ 9 Reaper drone dubbed wing loong, the Pakistani's also performed a battlefield UAV with attack capabilities, and India yet to catch up.

   It's hard to digest that IAF asked to purchase some attack drones from Israel, who is willing to sale only to India, however with some political reasons the UPA government denied to allocate funds to buy attack drones, and the new government already briefed by the IAF several times, and they cleared the deal by now, last week the NSA Chief Ajit Doval due a visit to Israel and met some Israeli officials, within a days some Israeli officials too visited Delhi and sealed the deal.

   Israel is known as a reliable partner to India, who ready to sell it's state of art technology to India with transferring critical technologies, It's believed that IAI might allow the DRDO team to inspect and study the Eitan drone and continue work on the Indigenous Rustom 2 drone,

   IAF may think to establish a new drone base somewhere in western front, by deploying those attack drones to monitor the  international border, IAF already operating array of Israeli drones including the Heron drone similar to Eitan and target drones like Harpy and Haroop. the Eitan is developed based on the Heron UAV, sharing similar airframe and characteristics, the Navy and Airforce operates more than fifty such drones for recon purpose.

   The Eitan is an MALE- Medium Altitude and Long Endurance UAV's ,means they can operate in the medium altitude some 30,000 feet to 50,000 feet, and stay in the air for more than 30 hours, to conduct recon missions continuously, the earlier Heron is lack of range due to it's data link and control methods, Heron can perform mission inside a circle of 350 km, because it is designed to patrol the designated area for more than a days

   The Eitan something like the American MQ 9 Reaper, or more powerful than the Reaper, the Eitan is designed to fly above the commercial air traffic that is 30,000 to 40,000 feet, because of long endurance the Eitan can stay above the commercial air line for more than a day, the Eitan can fly above some 45,000 feet and perform recon missions, the huge wing helps the Eitan to fly very low to perform strike mission and within a matter of time it can reach the higher altitude to continue the surveillance, the Earlier Heron is not designed to fly such high altitude, it's fly below some 10,000 feet, the American MQ 9 is also share same characteristics of flying altitude.

   The drones are powered by turboprop engines, so they were slow speed and subsonic, the Eitan uses the Canadian Pratt and Whitney engines which delivers 1200 horse power way too powerful than the American Reaper, which accelerates the Eitan to reach more than 300 kilometers per hour in normal flight speed, the reaper is much faster than the Eitan, the IAI Eitan is much larger drone, with the length of some 13 meters and a wing span of some 26 meter similar wing size to the Boeing 737 Commercial Air Plane.

   Once the Eitan fully fueled, it can stay in the air for more than 36 hours, with the use of Satellite communication it can perform mission with the range of some 7,000 kilometers, one of the very few drone who works on the beyond line of sight, and it's possible even if the Base is located in Delhi, the drone can perform attack mission deep behind enemy lines, similar capabilities is not available in any other drones, except the US Navy MQ 4 Global Hawk.

   Originally the Israeli's made the Eitan to attack Iranian long rang missiles in it's launch pads, that's the main reason of increased Range and Endurance, and Israel tested the drone by flying more than 20 hours with beyond line of Sight, the Drone can't be jammed by it's signal since it uses secured satellite communication and uses pre- programed flight routes in  communication denied air spaces, the onboard system allows the Drone return to Base if the mission is compromised or successful,

   The Eitan carries upto one ton of payload's in it's center line, with a quad packed Hellfire anti armor missiles, precision and laser guided munitions and Spice missiles, IAF receives such weapons and armaments along with the $400 million deal, Israeli's used the Eitan during the Israel Palestine war The drone dropped precision guided munitions against a moving armed convoy. and some Strike missions against the Terrorists in Sinai peninsula.

   With the induction of armed drones gives an upper edge to India by conducting strike missions against infiltrators along the international border, earlier the Recon drones gives moving information to the army commands, while they send Soldiers to confront them, and from now they never risk the Soldiers life, if anyone tries to Infiltrate the border, the Eitan comes from the Sky and drop the munition without any warning, and It's a boost to IAF that in future they can conduct strike missions inside Pakistan by targeting terrorists camps.