Successful weapons development programmes require the
united efforts of the Political, Bureaucratic , Armed Forces and the
Technological Establishments ( POBAT) . Individually none of them have the
capability to develop a suitable weapon but together, as always, the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts. The sustained poor performance of the Indian
weapons development programmes is a result of a situation where the first three
have abdicated their responsibilities to the Technical Establishment. Contrary
to popular belief ,Technology, Facilities and funding are not the main
constraints to developing a viable weapons Industry. Thinking in terms of a
Matrix, as used in Mathematics to solve complex multi variation problems, India
is repeatedly failing because it is focusing on the Technical sub matrix whilst
ignoring the other critical sub matrices. The pursuance of the above model for
the past seventy years has resulted in India perhaps the fourth largest economy
in the World being leading importers of Weaponry. This can be changed by the
total matrix approach.
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO is not the most well funded of Space Organizations.The performance of ISRO
has been entirely satisfactory on counts such as utility and contribution to
the nation building process, professionalism and credibility. It has evolved
its own philosophy and path without aping others and is arguably the most cost
effective of all such organizations with particular skills in long range
telemetry and control e.g.the Mangalyan project. ISRO has earned the grudging
admiration of its peers which is rare praise indeed. Unfortunately the same
cannot be said of its sister Organizations engaged in Weapons development.
To the Indian Citizen this great difference in results
is baffling. On one hand we have brilliant results on a modest budget in an
area that is literally “rocket science” and on the other hand we have
“performance “so pathetic it has the dimensions of a swindle. We have projects
that have lingered for years despite considerable funding. There have been
suggestions of involving the private sector and that delightful (to the
recipients!) panacea of increased funding. This is putting the cart before the
horse. Funding and private sector are necessary but not sufficient. Unless Systemic
changes are made, involvement of the private sector may lead to wastage of trust.
This contrasting performance in Space Research and Weapons development can only
be explained by viewing the problem as a Matrix.
The
Matrix Approach
In Mathematics a matrix is a series of factors
arranged in rows and columns. These factors are “weighted” according to the
influence it has on all the other
factors and are used to solve complex multi factor situations. The point of the
Matrix is all the factors have to be solved to arrive at the correct solutions.
The emphasis is to identify and adjust for all the factors irrespective of the
“visibility” or importance of the problem.
The HF 24 project is a good example of what happens
when some “small” factor in the matrix is ignored. The Government of the day
wishing to develop a supersonic warplane paid due attention to all the major
problems of developing a supersonic warplane in India of the Fifties. Foreign
design leaders were recruited, factories and facilities were built up, funding
to the tune of several tens of Crores was sanctioned, but there was a fatal “oversight”.
Prof.Kurt Waldemar Tank, the Chief designer had chosen the Bristol
B.Or.12engine for the HF 24. It was a decision which even with hind sight can
be faulted. The chosen engine had good prospects of being selected by NATO for
its light fighter programme. The Bristol B.Or.3 Orpheus were already under
production at Bangalore. The Bristol Siddely Company had completed the bench
tests and had flown the uprated B.Or.12 engine for 150 hours on a Sabre test
bed and had asked for a further one crore
per year to complete the certification.
This was refused by someone! The immediate result was that the HF24 was doomed
to having only 55% of its design installed thrust- and that too in a tropical
country where thrust and lift are both significantly eroded by the temperature.
The HF 24 was an aircraft of which a respected
UK journal wrote that if the HF 24 can meet its technical objectives it could
find an enormous market amongst the world’s smaller air forces for fulfilling
the demand for a low cost ground attack aircraft with a supersonic dash
performance. The cost of the loss of this opportunity cannot be computed. The
further move to remove the core German team of about six Designers in 1969 just
as the HF 24 squadrons were being built up resulted in the expected IOC related
problems not being tackled and the aircraft had limitations of gun induced vibration of the
cockpit and control locking problems. The decision not to fund the 2 crores
resulted in severely curtailing the potential of the investment of crores. The
reason for the decision which sabotaged the entire project could be many – political disinterest after 1962, ignorance by
the concerned Ministry, “covert”
marketing by the existing weapons supplier or sheer corruption but it
illustrates the need of for sustained “weeding”
of apparently trivial issues even after major
decisions have been made..
The
TSR 2 story
The story of the TSR 2 programme of UK in the 1960s is
relevant because it shows the typical “soft” problems that beset the
development of an advanced weapons system. There are excellent references about
the often painful details but the summary is as given below.
In the late ‘fifties the UK wished to have a submarine
launched nuclear deterrence system ( SLBM) independent of the USA. With
hindsight such a need was preposterous and an overreaction to a nonexistent
Russian threat.
Due to the anticipated delays in the SLBM submarines
programme it was desired to have an aircraft based nuclear delivery system- the
Tactical Strike Reconaissance 2 system.
The RAF which wanted to have the aircraft set about getting the
specifications as different as possible from the RN’s Blackburn Buccaneer
subsonic carrier borne strike aircraft. The Table 1 shows the successive
increases of requirements were all “justifiable” but added exponentially to the
cost. The last straw was that the bomber was required to take off from a grass
“Dakota” aircraft airstrip because it was felt that the existing runways would
be bombed. Whilst justifiable to design a “soft field” undercarriage with
balloon type tyres requires more airframe
volume as opposed to thinner higher pressure tyres that are sufficient for
concrete runways This increases weight and cost ! It is not surprising
undercarriage resonance was one of the major problems encountered during
development. More capability can be
justified but it may break the camel’s back often technically but certainly
always in terms of cost and time!
There was competition between the Navy and the RAF.
The Navy wanted funds for its super carriers and saw the TSR2 as a competitor
for funds. Lord Louis Mountbatten, the First Sea Lord, played a role in this
which was subsequently described as “beyond the limits of propriety”. He
discouraged the Australians, who were initially interested in the aircraft to
counter a perceived threat from the Indonesians about the prospects of the TSR2
thus helping to kill off its export potential which could have brought down its
unit costs.
The Americans played a role by offering the UK the TFX
which at that time was not even ready. They then offered the Phantom both for
the RAF and the RN. Here the British made the mistake of insisting on a british
engine, the RR Spey and much British avionics. The subsequent redesign of the
airframe was a heavens sent opportunity for the Americans to jack up quoted
prices by about 30%. This will have relevance in the way we negotiate our “Make
in India” programmes.
The UK Government, reorganizing the British Aviation
Industry under pressure from the Americans, formed the BAC consisting of the
former Vickers Weybridge works because it had experience in large airframes (
civil Viscount airliners it may be noted!) and the English Electric Warton
works which had actually designed the aircraft and had been building the
Lightning Mach 2 interceptor but gave the programme leadership to Weybridge!
The time and energy lost in overcoming initial cultural frictions and rivalries
wasted time and money.
The final and perhaps the most disgraceful act of the
episode was that when the programme was eventually cancelled expectedly on
grounds of cost the outgoing Labour Government ordered that not only would
all the 20 prototypes be destroyed or
rendered unflyable but also the tooling and jigs were to be destroyed so that
the project could not be restarted when the Tories came back to power! We in
India condemn ourselves that we are unique in our chicanery!
The purpose of citing the above is to show that every country and not only India faces
‘subsurface” problems in the process of weapons development. The successful
ones manage to solve them by painstaking diligence. as a National policy. Any
of the components alone cannot do it and the old adage “The whole is greater
than the sum of its part”!
It is necessary to illustrate what can be achieved by
painstaking common sense from the example of France under De Gaulle who faced
the identical problem of an independent nuclear strike force. France decided that
the possession of the bomb was sufficient deterrence. A ‘viable” deterrence was
adequate and affordable; an “unstoppable” deterrence whilst ideal was not. Accordingly
they chose a much simpler profile of low altitude but not the terrain following
tree top level of the TSR2 penetration and the aircraft was to operate from
standard Armee d’l Air bomber bases. This simplified technical problems and
costs. Accordingly they upscaled the proven Mirage 3 by 50% into a twin engine
version using the same engines and much of the systems already proven. Led by
Marcel Bloch Dassault with a team of fifty engineers and focusing on having the
aircraft aerodynamics right, the Mirage
IV-01 prototype was flying within two years of signing of the contract. Though
the aircraft was in every way technically inferior to the TSR 2 it fulfilled an
identified need to a a tight timescale and budget. Such was the soundness of
the decision and perhaps indicating how threats are routinely over assessed the
aircraft was supposed to be in service for only ten years, the so called
“inferior” solution, actually remained
in service for close to forty years.
To Indian readers there would be an uncanny similarity
between the TSR 2 and what is happening in India. This is nothing to be
surprised at rather it is that we should recognize that such problems are
inherent in a democracy and having acknowledged the existence of the problem
and acknowledging some additional problems as an ex-colonial country diligent
efforts must be made to solve them. These problems are what constitute a sub
matrix of the Indian Matrix.
The Indian Matrix.
Any weapons development programme will have a set of
universal problems. These are Challenges of developing new technology, Inter services
and intra services rivalry, Unrealistic assessment of threat etc.
There is usually a hidden sub-matrix of interactions on
which any weapons development programmes run. These are, in India‘s case:
An overly powerful bureaucracy whose threat perception
is: The Indian Armed Forces, Pakistan and then China -unfortunately -in that
order of priority.
A political establishment, particularly post 1969 and
the beginning of coalition politics, where political survival took priority
over national interests.
Higher than usual levels of corruption which leveraged
the ever present pressures from the
existing arms suppliers?
These resulted in efforts being vectored in different
directions so the net vector was much smaller and weaker than sum of the efforts
and resources put in.
Encouragingly however here have been very successful
programmes run in the areas of missiles, sonars and radars, AWACs and
helicopters. This would indicate that the malignant matrix is not overwhelming
in strength. The pro and counter development strengths are in near equilibrium
and corrections in even one of the above three could make significant changes
in the situation. Corrections in all and we could surprise the world.
The
malignant submatrix
It is said that a carpenter does not look at tree, he
sees twenty chairs. Given the evident, long sustained and regrettable hostility
between our bureaucracy and the Armed forces our bureaucracy sees the demands for a
mountain strike corps not only as complete waste of money on an unrealistic
threat assessment but behind that lurks the fear of tanks clattering up the
slopes of Raisina Hill. Not unrealistically, the Bureaucracy feels they would
be the prime targets! They are therefore inimical to any suggestions from the
Armed Forces for increases in effectiveness.
The Armed Forces ,long accustomed of getting a
fraction of what the demand have made a habit of exaggerating threats and the
consequent demands for funding. This is not granted and over the years of
finally making do without, its credibility as an informed experts have been
devalued.
The political element, habitually it seems, interested
in its own personal well being has abdicated its role as the harnessers of
these two powerful, competent and organized bodies resulting in bitterness and
chaos. Indeed the possibility exists that the common ploy of playing of two
very organized and powerful bodies to keep oneself in the seat may have
happened.
All the above points can be discussed and debated but gives
the crux of the real problem; the sub-matrix within the matrix. It is not
funding and technical issues. ISRO is successful despite being literally
“rocket science” but because much of this malignant sub matrix is not present
in its sphere of activity.
Solving
the Matrix.
Technical challenges are not the critical problems in
Indian weapons development. All serious technical
challenges were met ,usually within time. Neither is funding. Though often used
as an excuse never has a project actually ground to a halt solely because of running
out of funds. There has been chaos because the political establishment failed
to yoke the two others. This has resulted in each contender fighting its own
perception of the problem with no respect for the others expertise rather than
as a team working as a all arms battle group.
It is therefore not enough to form a CDS. That is a
necessary secondary step. The relevant Ministries and the Armed Forces must be
yoked to form a Weapons Development Group WADOG (by whatever name!). This task is
cut out for the Political Leadership.
The
benefits of a WADOG
Today we are shooting ourselves in the foot by trying
to produce Weapons to International Brochure Specifications. It will take us no
more than ten years to reach sanction free weapons capability.During this
period the Armed Forces will suffer from covert sanctions to coerce us to
continue imports. This is beyond the AFs competence and ability to resist. The benefits of a Cabinet WADOG vis a vis of
individual players as of now will be the following :
i)
Clear, moderated, multi input
identification of expected threats and their likelihood of requiring armed
action.
ii)
Planned action to contain such a threat
iii)
The National policy about our military
posture for say the next ten years. It will f necessity be a defensive,
tactical rather than any grandiose strategic global one.
This can only be done by the three (Political,
Bureaucracy and the Armed Forces PBAF)
acting in coordinated concert with mutual respect for each other’s knowledge and
competence. It is beyond the competence or the scope of any of the individual
PBAF components to see the full picture
any more than the blind men could “see”
the elephant.
Once the likely threat and scenarios are identified
and a realistic and curtailed war task is agreed with expert inputs from the
PBAF the following consequences will flow.
i)
Given the climatic and terrain conditions
a significant two front threat is low in probability.
ii)
The nature in warfare is different. Within
limits of logic the defence of the Northern front will be labour intensive.
iii)
Rather than numerical goals e.g. 45
squadron air force, address on priority the real weaknesses which seems to be the tactical
strike capability.
iv)
Nevertheless a large armed forces has a
deterrent value well beyond the treasury costs
Toughness, the ability to
continue to fight even after taking substantial losses can only come from a
sizable force. It is necessary if not sufficient.
If the high level plans are carefully made
we shall see realistic specifications emerging for our equipment. No country even
super powers over equips its weapons as costs is always a constraint. The
following examples will clarify.
Any American aircraft will have to cross
either the Atlantic or the Pacific before it can fire it weapons in anger. To
cross the ocean Flight refueling is a must. Even the AT 37, an aircraft in the
same category as out HJT 16 Kiran has FR capability. Is it for us as a general
requirement?
i)
To stage from Hawai to Wake Island the
distance is 2600 miles and Wake Island is only twelve miles long. This requires
a navigation accuracy of .00024 radians. Striking Sukkur Bridge over the Indus (only
as an illustration, please) from Jaisalmer is a distance of 150 miles. The accuracy
required is eight times less and this can make the difference between possible
and impossible.Much simpler less accurate equipment can be used rather than
ransoming our capabilities to sanctions.
ii)
The B2 bomber has an endurance of 40 hours
and has a crew of 4.Any conventional crew oxygen system would add to size and
reduce performance. The OBOGS become critical if not essential. For us its
development should have been lower priority.
iii)
Western aircraft are routinely certified
to +/-50 centigrad. This requires special engineering and materials. Given our anticipated
theater of operations should we change the temperature certifications to + 50/
- 25?
iv)
The point of citing these examples is to state that we
could, if the choice was between being sanction proof during the take off stage
of our weapons development and importing then clearly a lower than
international standard but adequate for our anticipated task has to be accepted
by everyone. We can significantly reduce our immediate technical challenges and
loads. The fixing of battle scenarios by is thus the critical first step.
The
Decline of Force levels.
Any country wishing to develop its independent weapons
industry will run in into a decline of its force levels . This is because the
existing suppliers of weaponery will be loath to lose a lucrative source of
income and influence. Soviet Russia in the early 1920s by decree destroyed its
imported war equipment. Such drastic action would be inadvisable in today’s
context but Iran’s maintaining of pre-Islamic revolution American weaponry for
fifty years through war and peace is both a source of inspiration and
knowledge. Equally relevant is the case of the Chinese. Between 1960 and 1986
the Chinese faced to actively hostile superpowers without blinking by relying
on the huge size (which we have) and its nuclear deterrence ( which we also
have) to buy time until its four modernizations were in place. Today the calm
patient Chinese have moved forward to the power projection phase.
Summary
The present “fire and forget” style of weapons
development has not worked and willnot work in a hundred years. The development
of weapons independence will need the active and sustained collaboration of the
four constituents of the POBAT and that too in an atmosphere of mutual trust
and respect. This Cabinet must lead and ensure.
Left to the politicians alone they will ignore it till
too late.
Left solely to the Bureaucrat the threat will be
downplayed in the name of looking for seeking diplomatic solutions.
Quite understandably, the Armed Forces, acting alone,
will over prepare for a worst possible scenario.
Left to the Technocrat we will have we shall a
technical chaos – an enjoyable technical picnic but too often very little by
way of timely hardware in service.
Yet the solution lies in the combined efforts of all
the four above. An important side benefit
of a combined ops type POBAT/WADOG is that it will eliminate the ability
of an isolated individual or group to
sabotage by taking a malignant decision.
The first task will be to realize that t5hat any
attempts to become weapons independent will take about ten years and during
this period the country will be vulnerable to various coercive measures from
those who are presently supplying weaponry. Relying therefore on the passive
deterrence of a large Armed Forces and the possession of nuclear weapons the
groupmust identify and quantify the following:
i)
Forewarned is forewarned; The intelligence
gathering and analysis systems must be augmented to be the best in the world.
ii)
Identify the possible threat scenarios
during this time and plans for their
resolution as a total combined package.
iii)
Discuss the military stance of the nation which
will be generally dissuasive and defensive during this period of weakness.
iv)
Make a holistic assessment of the forces
level required. For example theAir Force has a serious weakness in tactical
strike and CAS. The LCA has to have priority over AMCA.
v)
If needed prioritize development
programmes across the services.
vi)
Bring into focus the real needs and
specifications. The superpowers specifications are actually minimalist- for
their needs. Our specifications must also be minimalist for our needs.
vii)
The reduced technical tasks will lead to swifter completion of projects and we
shall see a reduction of expenditure of individual projects.
Prof. ( retd. 2014) Prodyut Kumar Das has thirty years
experience in the Industry.
References:
1.TSR2
McCelland T, Ian Allen 2010
2. Not much of an Engineer. Hooker, Sir.Stanley,
Airlife 2010
Table
1
The
growth of the TSR 2 specifications compared with the Mirage IVA
|
Aircraft
|
Role
|
Max. Speed
|
Min. Altitude
|
Radius
|
Airfield
|
|
TSR2 1st
|
Nuclear
|
M 1.3
|
330mts
|
350n.m.
|
Normal
|
|
TSR2-2nd
|
Nuclear /Conventional
|
M1.5
|
150 mts
|
500 n.m.
|
Normal
|
|
TSR2-3rd
|
Nuclear/Conventional/Recce
|
M1.7
|
50mts terrain following
|
600@M0.9
|
Grass Dakota
|
|
Mirage IVA
|
Nuclear
|
M1.7
|
Low altitude penetration, high altitude
dash to target
|
1000n.m with FR
|
Normal
|
It
would be clear to any engineer how much more difficult it would be to develop
the TSR 2 in 1960s. It is little wonder that this superior solution was
unaffordable and finally cancelled.
