First serial produced Mig-35's delivered

[milosh]

India is NOT seeking I-Derby-ER missile to replace R-77 and SRAAM to replace R-73 for their Sukhois. Those are speculations and fake news, nothing more.

Ah, the 'I don't like that, I'm gonna dismiss it as fake news!' defence, no evidence required!

He gave us evidence and that is deal to buy 1000 new Russian missiles. Why would India sign that deal if they are buy more missiles which are planing to replace? Of course maybe deal is signed but if it is then that is evidence they don't plan to dump R-77 nor R-73.

[knowan]

He gave us evidence and that is deal to buy 1000 new Russian missiles. Why would India sign that deal if they are buy more missiles which are planing to replace? Of course maybe deal is signed but if it is then that is evidence they don't plan to dump R-77 nor R-73.

Because reality isn't black and white; buying Russian missiles does not mean 'Russian missiles good', there can be numerous reasons to buy the missiles even if India is less than satisfied with them.
Eg, history is filled with examples of inferior weapons being knowingly produced or purchased.

It takes a heavy amount of bias to look at the 1000 missiles thing and come to such a conclusion and dismiss contrary evidence out of hand; it's textbook nationalistic fanboy behaviour.

Hell, just looking into it will find more sources talking about it, such as Janes: https://www.janes.com/article/88867/iaf ... er-bvraams who quote official sources.

[madrat]

Surely they will not buy missiles that are less than optimal against their immediate regional competitors.

[milosh]

Because reality isn't black and white; buying Russian missiles does not mean 'Russian missiles good', there can be numerous reasons to buy the missiles even if India is less than satisfied with them.
Eg, history is filled with examples of inferior weapons being knowingly produced or purchased.

It takes a heavy amount of bias to look at the 1000 missiles thing and come to such a conclusion and dismiss contrary evidence out of hand; it's textbook nationalistic fanboy behaviour.

Hell, just looking into it will find more sources talking about it, such as Janes: https://www.janes.com/article/88867/iaf ... er-bvraams who quote official sources.

Look if they don't plan to buy smaller amount of missiles for Russians then we can talk about replacingR-77 with some other missile. But if they buy lot of R-77 when they will be able to replace them? In late 2020s? What missile would be actual then?

That is why I find very fishy story about replacing R-77 with Derby BUT it could be pressure on Russians, for example lower price for R-77-1.

Btw official source isn't so serious in media even in west media, in indian media unnamed official is mostly journalist itself.

[skyward]

The order is not that big. It is just a so so size order if you factor in they have more then 250 SU-30mki. They only order 400 R-77. It is smaller order then the last one and with a larger fleet. They most likely plan on buying that number way before what happen on February and all the talk about the lower range of the R-77. We are talking about India here which is not the hallmark fast decision making.

[hornetfinn]

Yeah, their missile and avionics technology is so 'backward' that their arms export is the 2nd largest in the world, some 15 billion $ each year.

Like I said, India is free to choose pretty much anything they want from anyone (both Russia and the West), and during the previous 15 years they've chosen to order 464 Russian-built fighter aircrafts Su-30MKI, MiG-29K/KUB/UPG and only 36 Rafales (and now additional 1000 air-to-air missiles for those jets and S-400... and many other stuffs).

Is that why India has been actively seeking I-Derby-ER missile to replace R-77s and ASRAAM to replace R-73 for their Sukhois?

India is NOT seeking I-Derby-ER missile to replace R-77 and SRAAM to replace R-73 for their Sukhois. Those are speculations and fake news, nothing more. No contract was signed for I-Derby-ER or ASRAAM, but the fact is that they are ordering another batch of 1000 R-77 and R-73 missiles, the contract is already signed.

Could be but both of these are currently in evaluation and could become reality within few years. So there is no possibility of contract being signed yet.

On the contrary, Russian-built R-73s are carried by their French-built Mirage-2000s. Sukhois and MiGs don’t carry non-Russian missiles.

They did do that as a stop-gap measure as Magic 2:s were becoming obsolete and MICA would've required a lot more extensive upgrades as it's much more complex missile with data link, LOAL, BVR capability, imaging infrared seeker, advanced guidance methods (not just proportional navigation) and fully digital interfaces. Nowadays their upgraded
(since 2012) Mirages are using MICA missiles replacing previous missiles, including R-73.

R-73 is definitely a more capable weapon than Magic 2 overall with longer range and wider engagement cone. MICA is again a lot more capable missile than R-73 being clearly superior in pretty much everything.

How about their Sukhois having French and Israeli avionics systems like HUD and EW system?

So what?

It doesn't prove anything.

Don't forget that the majority of avionics in Indian Su-30MKI, MiG-29K and MiG-29UGP is Russian-made and that they have Russian-made N-011M Bars and Zhuk-ME radars. Back in the 2000s the Indians could choose some other radar, but they didn't.
Indian Mirage-2000 has Israeli-made HMD and Russian-made R-73 missiles... so if a French-made aircraft has Russian-made avionics, does it mean that French avionics is 'backward' when compared to Russian/Israeli avionics?
As far as I know, Israeli F-16I has a lot of non-US-made avionics: does it mean that US avionics is 'backward' when compared to Israeli avionics?

BTW, they are also negotiating with Russia for avionics upgrade for Su-30MKI. The first ones where delivered in 2004 and their avionics is now a little bit obsolete.
https://www.janes.com/article/91947/iaf ... h-fighters

IAF to upgrade its Su-30MKI fleet and acquire more such fighters

The Indian Air Force (IAF) aims to upgrade its fleet of Sukhoi Su-30MKI multirole fighters by equipping them with advanced avionics, radar, and weapon systems.
“We will upgrade the Su-30MKIs with [modern] radar and weapon capabilities and also tackle their obsolescence management and electronic warfare capabilities,” said Air Chief Marshal R K S Bhadauria during a 4 October press conference, but did not elaborate.

They could choose missiles and avionics from some other country for their Su-30MKIs, but they didn't.
Overall, Russian military-defense industry is highly-developed, they are the 2nd largest arms exporter in the world and their education in engineering, technical, natural sciences (math & physics) is quite good.

Switching the radar to something else (especially from other country) would've been very costly and taken a lot of time as it's so central and complex part of the weapons system. It's very rare that customers of some fighter want to buy some other radar than what is standard in that particular fighter aircraft. Some older aircraft have been upgraded with newer radars, but not new fighters. Even then the radars are usually designed with similar standards and systems.

Then the missiles are usually pretty closely tied to the radar and weapons system in general, especially BVR weapons. It's rather expensive and laborous to integrate new missiles to the system. Basic heat seeking missiles like R-73 are easy to integrate as they don't need to talk to the weapons system that much. They can be integrated even to basic jet trainers with ease because they don't need much. So I don't think there is much Russian or derived avionics in Indian Mirages.

I didn't say that Russia didn't sell a lot of kit and that their weapons industry is poor compared to many others. I just pointed out that there are shortcomings that are most glaring. Russian air-to-air missiles are getting long in the tooth. I think it's a testament of how good missile R-73 was is that it's not totally obsolete by now been in service for 35 years. R-77 is also pretty old design in itself and hasn't received upgrades like equally old AIM-120 has several times. R-77 doesn't have two-way data link or GPS guidance augmentation like AIM-120 or Meteor. It seems to have significantly inferior range than either (with current AIM-120 models).

Basically to stay competitive in the future, they will need to introduce IIR seeking missiles with LOAL and BVR missile with significantly better performance than any variant of R-77. I'm sure they are working on both but we'll see when those become operational. Both of those are available to all Western fighters and are in widespread service already.

[swiss]

On the contrary, Russian-built R-73s are carried by their French-built Mirage-2000s. Sukhois and MiGs don’t carry non-Russian missiles.

They did do that as a stop-gap measure as Magic 2:s were becoming obsolete and MICA would've required a lot more extensive upgrades as it's much more complex missile with data link, LOAL, BVR capability, imaging infrared seeker, advanced guidance methods (not just proportional navigation) and fully digital interfaces. Nowadays their upgraded
(since 2012) Mirages are using MICA missiles replacing previous missiles, including R-73.

R-73 is definitely a more capable weapon than Magic 2 overall with longer range and wider engagement cone. MICA is again a lot more capable missile than R-73 being clearly superior in pretty much everything.

This article exactly confirms your statement.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/iafs-fr ... ad-2067318

And according to an IAF Pilot the Mica IR its about 4 times more capable then the R-73. I think this says enough.

The Russian R-73 missile is now in the process of being progressively replaced in the Indian Air Force. Since 2015, the Indian Air Force has been receiving heavily modified Mirage 2000s which are equipped with the French MICA air-to-air missile. Approximately one squadron or 18 Mirage 2000 jets have already been inducted by the IAF. "The Mica is about four times more capable than the R-73 in close combat and is integrated with the (Israeli) DASH helmet mounted sight as well," says an IAF pilot familiar with the upgrade process.

[madrat]

If R-73 is on order that would be less sense than R-77, considering India's access to better seekers. Surely Indian engineers can come up with something equal to the old R-73 by now. Twenty years ago this wasn't possible, but in 2019 is it still not?