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India wants C-17's


Dawes

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Back on topic, isn't India also in line to receive some of the new P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft?

 

On those you don't just get an aircraft, you get the system. There would be too many restrictions for the Indians to accept.

 

Addendum:

 

Well, I stand corrected. Wiki says thusly:

 

On 4 January 2009, the Ministry of Defence of India signed an agreement with Boeing for the supply of eight P-8I Poseidons at a total cost of US$2.1 billion.

 

I am shocked I tell you, shocked. Seriously. That's premier gear they are buying.

Edited by TSJ
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I think you need to get real considering how people got into Leh in the first place. If people can haul cargo into Leh in the first place, it is not by any stretch of imagination that you can haul up to 80 tons of cargo to Leh.

 

 

The price given for these 10 C-17s including spare support and technical support was quoted to be at $5.8 billion so my assertion still stands. Now what were you saying about the route costing more than the C-17s?

 

 

Speak for yourself. You know nothing about my loyalties and I don't have to answer jack shit to you, Gestapo wannabe.

1. People can haul anything in, if it's broken down into small enough loads. So what? What relevance does that have to anything?

 

2. OK. Add in the costs of locomotives, rolling stock, spares, & maintenance of them & the line for a while. Compare like for like. Add in the near-certainty that the preliminary estimate is a great under-estimate. Then remember that the $5.8 billion for the C-17s isn't the contracted price, it's a worst-case, never-exceed, maximum possible price, if India chooses to exercise every option, buy every extra, pay for the Americans to do lots of support that the IAF is capable of doing & will probably choose to do itself, etc., etc. You're comparing a hypothetical maximum, including many things which probably won't be bought, with a hypothetical minimum, excluding many things which have to be bought. Not a valid comparison.

 

3. Your loyalties are clear for everyone to see, & they don't match your passport. By resorting to low abuse you have lost all right to courtesy. Piss off, arsehole.

Edited by swerve
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2. OK. Add in the costs of locomotives, rolling stock, spares, & maintenance of them & the line for a while. Compare like for like. Add in the near-certainty that the preliminary estimate is a great under-estimate. Then remember that the $5.8 billion for the C-17s isn't the contracted price, it's a worst-case, never-exceed, maximum possible price, if India chooses to exercise every option, buy every extra, pay for the Americans to do lots of support that the IAF is capable of doing & will probably choose to do itself, etc., etc. You're comparing a hypothetical maximum, including many things which probably won't be bought, with a hypothetical minimum, excluding many things which have to be bought. Not a valid comparison.

You forget about the need and costs to upgrade and strengthen the airport runway and facilities to accommodate the C-17s. Don't forget the higher operating cost of C-17s compared to locomotives and trains. Not to mention that the trains can haul a lot more cargo than 10 C-17s ever could. Aside from the Nicobar and Andaman Islands I do not see any strategic need that could not be satisfied using other land based conventional means and Nicobar and Andaman Islands can be well served by ships.

 

3. Your loyalties are clear for everyone to see, & they don't match your passport. By resorting to low abuse you have lost all right to courtesy. Piss off, arsehole.

 

No you are the true asshole and you were the one that started the ball rolling when you started questioning my loyalty and asking me what citizenship I hold in post after post when it is clearly that it bears no relevance to the topic at hand and that it was a sneaky attempt at trolling. Thus, you lost any courtesy that would be normally deserved.

 

I am putting you on my ignore list.

Edited by Cookie Monster
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You forget about the need and costs to upgrade and strengthen the airport runway and facilities to accommodate the C-17s.

Really? Upgrade & strengthen a 2750 metre asphalt runway for an aircraft that can land on semi-prepared strips? Upgrade the facilities of a commercial airport & IAF base for a self-unloading military transport? What a weird notion. :lol:

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Wonder if this is a backlash regarding recent Russian\Indian military deals gone sour like the carrier deal?

Maybe going to Red Flags has made the IAF generals looking to more Western kit while the Army culture is more Russo-centric?

Railroads might be better for domestic economic developement but that's a different ministry and set of politicians.

 

Maybe they just want a first-class trash hauler. Seems to be recentley more useful than other assets.

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Well we are landing our's on a 6,000' ice runway. The best dam plane we have bought in a long time. India has troops in faraway places and will like continue to do so. The Russian planes are heavily booked and getting on. The crews have a interesting disregard for safety and have been known to use their aircraft for landscaping around Trenton, removing fences, trees, etc.

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Well we are landing our's on a 6,000' ice runway. The best dam plane we have bought in a long time. India has troops in faraway places and will like continue to do so. The Russian planes are heavily booked and getting on. The crews have a interesting disregard for safety and have been known to use their aircraft for landscaping around Trenton, removing fences, trees, etc.

 

Can the C-17s land on a 3000 runway fully loaded? Or is that purely marketing BS?

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Can the C-17s land on a 3000 runway fully loaded? Or is that purely marketing BS?

Leh has a 2750 metre runway.

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Can the C-17s land on a 3000 runway fully loaded? Or is that purely marketing BS?

 

I can't answer that question, but here's where I got my information from:

 

http://www.intelligencer.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2555417

 

this guy has a hate on, but some good links

 

http://boeingc17.blogspot.com/2010/04/c-17-lands-at-cfb-alert.html

 

Ice runway

http://dawninantarctica.blogspot.com/2010/01/c-17-aircraft-from-mcchord.html

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I can't answer that question, but here's where I got my information from:

 

http://www.intelligencer.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2555417

 

this guy has a hate on, but some good links

 

http://boeingc17.blogspot.com/2010/04/c-17-lands-at-cfb-alert.html

 

Ice runway

http://dawninantarctica.blogspot.com/2010/01/c-17-aircraft-from-mcchord.html

 

I think the hater is another NRI who is posting on the BRF forum under the name of Giles. He lives in Canada and I believe is a 757 pilot or something like that. Just hates the US, it's what turns him on. The US is responsible for Pakistan etc., etc. The thought of this guy making flights into the US chills me.

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I think the hater is another NRI who is posting on the BRF forum under the name of Giles. He lives in Canada and I believe is a 757 pilot or something like that. Just hates the US, it's what turns him on. The US is responsible for Pakistan etc., etc. The thought of this guy making flights into the US chills me.

 

:rolleyes: Oh really? Do you equate this guy with the naturalized guy from Pakistan who tried to blow up the Times Square?

 

Give me a break. I have heard worse from several Tanknetter posters than this guy.

 

Besides, do you have any concrete proof that this blogger is Giles? and additionally, that he is out to get US? :rolleyes:

Edited by Cookie Monster
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  • 2 weeks later...

Any chance a C-17 could be turned into an orbiting gunship?

 

Like an AC-130? I doubt it, since the C-17 is so expensive to procure and operate; the risk isn't worth it. Recently, the USAF was looking at arming C-27s to supplement AC-130. That would be a more economical alternative.

 

An add-on system that allows C-17s to roll off PGMs on demand (a true bomb truck) could be useful; it would allow the C-17 to provide air support while staying high, above the AAA environment.

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  • 6 years later...

From wiki

 

In February 2011, the IAF and Boeing agreed terms for the order of 10 C-17s[133] with an option for six more; the US$4.1 billion order was approved by the Indian Cabinet Committee on Security on 6 June 2011.[134][135] Deliveries began in June 2013 and are to continue until 2014.[136][137] In 2012, the IAF reportedly finalized plans to buy six more C-17s in its five-year plan for 2017–22.[129][138][139] However, this option is no longer available since C-17 production ended in 2015.[140]

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I guess it wasn't a used plane sale yesterday, but just hurricane prep. They flew 26 C-17s out yesterday, one every few minutes. Pretty cool.

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From wiki

 

In February 2011, the IAF and Boeing agreed terms for the order of 10 C-17s[133] with an option for six more; the US$4.1 billion order was approved by the Indian Cabinet Committee on Security on 6 June 2011.[134][135] Deliveries began in June 2013 and are to continue until 2014.[136][137] In 2012, the IAF reportedly finalized plans to buy six more C-17s in its five-year plan for 2017–22.[129][138][139] However, this option is no longer available since C-17 production ended in 2015.[140]

The IAF asked to exercise some of those options years before the line closed, but it took so long to get through the bureaucracy that it was too late. The Indian MoD eventually sent a request to the USA to buy some C-17s shortly after the last of the white tails was sold. Doh! Indian military procurement is very, very screwed.

 

It puts me in mind of some documents I recently checked the English translation of for the foreign aid agency of a leading developed country. They were obviously not meant for the eyes of the recipient country. The situation described in the receiving country (not India) was farcical. Plans & actions sat around for months or even years waiting for the attention of someone senior enough to say "Do it", lower-ranked people not having the authority to act on their own initiative. There were competent & conscientious locals, but they struggled to achieve anything in an environment where what was done depended on who backed it & their personal networks. Self-serving officials manoeuvred for power, & that meant undermining or sidelining projects linked to their rivals, regardless of their value to the country.

 

The rise of one such person to power over a couple of years was laid out, because of its impact on the aid project. She'd sidelined the great hope of the aid agency, a well-qualified, energetic, & apparently well-meaning man - but lacking strong allies, having spent too much time doing his job & not enough schmoozing. She was busy dismantling what had been achieved, because it got in her way. She was creating competing offices which didn't speak to each other & whose heads were dependent on her, reversing the move towards co-operating departments with common aims & good communications. She'd ordered her subordinates not to talk to the aid agency, even in response to direct questions. Unqualified cronies were flooding in, forming a private office around her which arbitrarily interfered in the operations of the sections doing the work. Competent managers were having their teams transferred away from them. Plans had become theatre, announced in public with no internal preparation, uncoordinated with each other. Everything was going to hell. Good people were keeping their heads down.

 

Guess what the project was? Administrative reform to increase efficiency & effectiveness, starting with the ministry for planning - "and administrative reform".

 

The aid workers had devised & were trying to implement a strategy to bypass her & her organisation & deal directly with the organisations her lot were supposed to support, to achieve as many of their original aims as possible. The internal reports I saw were bitter & oozing frustration.

Edited by swerve
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