Does the stealth shaping have a big impact compared to the more conventional Scorpene design?
I don't really see the need for this when India is already building Scorpenes. Why not continue with the advanced Scorpene design with Indian AIP? You already have a SSN program. The excess money...
With more countries going with Li ion battery submarines are AIPs still necessary? From what I can remember the Japanese switched to Li ion because AIPs don't give enough power for high speed maneuvers so they didn't think the extra endurance from AIP was tactically useful.
The performance for scorpene evolved should be good from what France has shown and India already has built 6 scorpenes so there is synergy there. Maybe your 6 scorpene can also be upgraded to scorpene evolved?
Might make sense to give the Su-30s some strike capabilities. Maybe for surprise attacks from long range with targeting data supplied by drones? Su-30 doesn't have the EW capabilities of Rafale and it has a big RCS so can only be used in certain situations.
I still rather the Su-30 be gradually...
Having to wait on Russia for all testing must also delay the program significantly. Maybe they just don't have the capital budget allocated to the program for a testbad aircraft as opposed to flight testing fees which are more spread out?
Why is the Indian navy so insistent about AIP instead of going with fully LiB Scorpène Evolved from France? Japan is also moving towards fully LiB submarines instead of AIP.
Is the Indian Navy requirements much different from Indonesia and France...
Rafale with Storm Shadow is good enough for now. I think only the US, Russia and China have dedicated naval bombers.
However something like China's 200+ Xi'an H-6 is a very serious capability in a war.
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2024/03/the-netherlands-select-naval-group-for-its-new-submarines/
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/12/naval-group-offering-barracuda-family-submarine-to-the-netherlands/
"It is an exceptionally quiet, ocean-going submarine that has the same...
Going for more Rafale instead of F-15 may actually be better. It is much more cost effective to order more of the same type of fighter. You get economies of scale and easier logistics. This is the reason the French designed the Rafale as a multirole fighter to meet all their needs from air...
The Rafale has been surprisingly dominant against the Eurofighter and American 4.5 gen fighters in competitions recently.
This is despite it on paper not really being a standout in performance against other western 4.5 gen fighters.
I guess the French all round package is just very well put...
There is a decent argument for fully Li-ion subs like Japan vs the AIP + Li-ion subs from Korea. We aren't looking to launch SLBMs like Korea and the extra power from fully Li-ion might be better than the longer fully submerged duration of AIP.
Don't underestimate the Koreans. Their defence industry is world class. Just look at K2 Black Panther tank and the KSS-III submarine.
They also had help from Lockheed Martin.
