Take for example the Akash Missile trials. Airforce has already tried it, Army does not gives dates for trials. they will give delayed date for trials after musc bickerng and then they will delay it with some excuses. Nag missiles, it proved its original version, Army came up with requirement with extended version. Extended version is ready, where is Army avalible for trials? Talk about delays, it wouldn’t have happened with navy. Quality of DPSU is another thing. But originally you had blammed DRDO for all the ills. I just wanted to prove that you are dead wrong about it. Repeat this after me : DRDO Naval projects Do Not get delayed. Repeat 3 more times! DRDO Naval projects Do Not get delayed; DRDO Naval projects Do Not get delayed.; DRDO Naval projects Do Not get delayed..

http://frontierindia.net/npol-hands-over-next-generation-sonar-design-for-india-navy-ships

Read this, read the last para.

Stop your empty rethorics. DRDO designs + DPSU (BEL) + Naval involvement = success.

Now take the case of Kaveri aero engine, I can safely say India today has a Turbo Fan engine technology. It has issues going into LCA, but, it can be down rated, and used for say “IJT” program. Although, GTRE is still testing it for Kaveri 9.5 integration into LCA prototype, you can see air force sleeping and not making additional attempts in planning for the engine to come into smaller aircrafts. ADA or HAL will have to carry on the possibilities and Air Force will come and critise it.

How different are two attempts. Kaveri marine is more of naval project, kaveri Air Force is a GTRE project. You can understand the difference.

Result? Kaveri marine will com into production faster than kaveri Aero.

It’s like a permenant relay race. Develop and equipment, production, deployment, enhancing the system, production, deployment and it goes on. What happens with DRDO-DPSU-Army is that, after DRDO, DPSU runs as it wants then Army runs for the comptetior.

It is not that Army has not inducted weapons by DRDO design, like NBC equipment, INSAS etc. It’s the high decibel attention on Arjun Tank that has brought bad name to DRDO. You must have heard of Trishul Missile project. Indian Navy version was not a success, do the naval guys go and leak it to the press after every trial? One naval Vice Admiral said “I saw the trials, some succeded, some did not.” Its just not like Army, they go and talk failures to press anonymously. Its very unprofessional. IAF used to follow that, but, their current Chief is pro Indian weapons, hence the juniors refrain. We still saw Air Force personnel planting stories of Akash missiles falling during trials.

Army has a habit of complaining about everyone and anything. Like for example, they blamed Air Force, the intelligence after kargil. Gen VP malik, who was not willing to come back from arms purchasing trip from Poland during Kargil, is now going to town saying that since the NDA did not publish white papers, Kargil happened… etc. You should realise that Army blames everything. it like Congress (I), they just want scapegoats.

On the other hand, it wants to import high altitude helicopters that do not fit High Altitude operations, T-90 tanks which have more problems than Arjun tank, does not initate towed artillery which is ususaly imported etc. One exception is ALH.

There were 3 chances where they could have inducted Arjun in mark-1, mark-2 and mark-3 states like Merkava story. They did not. Those days, we did not have enough expertise to make tank but we tried our level best, just like Israelis.

I will point out a link http://www.subcontinent.com/sapra/weapons_indigenisation_20050408.html

Just a small correction to Gen. (Retd.) Shankar Roychowdhury when he says about the bolt in concluding para. To remind you the bolt is not manufactured by DRDO but PSU. You can clearly see DRDO gets hot with the stick that should have actually hot the DPSU (Avadi for this instance).

You need 10 equipments for DRDO sucesses? I will satisfy you in more than 10 equipments, I will give you 10 equipment “classes” where it succeded.

1) NBC protection equipments: They are moving from 1st generation to second generation. It includeds a host of equipments, processes, training etc.

2) Ballastic Missile Class. I have not included tactical missile classes where except Trishul, all other missiles are successes. One question of Army Inductions, I will address that later. Army is the crux of all the problems.

3) Engineering equipments like Sarvatra, amphibious dozer etc.

4) Life Sciences class which includes your ration packs, glaciar drinks, iron metal removing from water, high altitude farmin/rearing (very important logistic in Ladhak and other high altitudes, visit them, you will be stunned).

5) Naval ship signature management class.

6) Electronic warfare for Army and Navy (As usual Army lags behind)

7) Avionics: DARE has made systems that go intSu-30 MKI, LCA etc.

8) INSAS family: Delink it from the production quality, the design is a success.

9) Naval Sonars and other Naval electrnics.

10) Radars.

Remember, the above is classes, the classes have several products. Next , if you take the sub systems and critical equipments which do not fall in classes etc are developed and deployed.

An important aspect of DRDO you must remember, it does “research projects.” Like Abhay FICV, its already in technology demonstrator (TD)stage, but, again its for Army and you know what will happen to it. The MCA aka fifth gen project, if it comes, it will be a research and TD project only. It will not be a deployable project untill one of the services decides to adopt it.

Now, if you look around, BEL and Navy have excelent working relations with DRDO. BEL has its budget that is dedicated to DRDO projects, it has a choice of not doing so.

Army and Air Force are really an issue. First let me tackle Air Force. If you read AM P Rajkumars book on LCA projects, you will understand how Air Force personnel would stop the Air Chief from attending the first flight. To quote “if you go, it will show our support to the LCA project.” You can understand how the national project is treated. Where as the Naval LCA progresses in a faster pace inspite of same sanctions that hit the Air Force project. You should understand that LCA project mandate was to create “only 2 TD’s”. DRDO, since had excess budget (means it spent less to create TD’s), it created PV-1 in same mandate. If DRDO would have waited for the next mandate, the LCA project would have been delayed more. The IAF gave its Staff Requirement in “2004.” If LCA project suffered, it is because of babudom, air force apathy, HAL attitude and sanctions. On it’s part, ADA has actually pulled out a rabbit out of hat. The design, CLAW etc. The MMR and Kaveri are eventually going to get in air. But it won’t stop the project.

Now I have been reading this particualr online news source since it was started. You should read the archives. The “project Devil” SAM. You see how the project was killed. The project performed better than the original missile, the Air Force decided that it does not want a missiles in that “class” anymore.

Comming to Army, this website is littered with horror stories. Read, “The First ATM” (anti tank missile) which was 1960′s project etc. Army has the worst attitude too. In army, if someone speaks good about Arjun Tank, will have its career threatened. But some have spoken up.

On that engine issue, DRDO actually has a 780 HP engine of T-72 tank. It seems it did not perform in heat. But the story dos not end there, instead of Army getting back and getting it perfected, it went ahead and purchased some foreign engine. It was foolish to kill that engine project. They have started a new project for 1500 HP powerpack now. It is not true that they did not develop and engine. We actually have an engine which no one is interested in.

You should know the nature of research is same as your life. There are hits and misses. But, its up to the services to get their job done. Best example in navy. It always gets its job done.

Ypour comment on my saying that “your perceptions based on media” is actually true, else you would not have asked for top 10 equipments. This is not what in my defination “called a discussion.” You are expected to do some basic research. Instead I had to spend a morning typing out something which is already avaliable on internet.

The onus is on you, if you ask informed matuare questions, you will get same treatment. If you post ill informed rethoric like Arjun Tank, INSAS, DRDO etc failure, what else you expect?