we are spending 3 billion for 30 reaper drones , so its pretty clear that price will be high , but the edge they will provide will be price less when hegemon China and neusance Pakistan are doing everything possible to derail us .
Under the current condition of our aviation industry , we cant develop a product which can challenge the adversary qualitatively in near future
Thing is the reapers will be used to the very last hour of their service life... not to mention the capacity/edge in certain infra (past the reapers themselves) India will be accelerating on...that are (apparently) included in this bill. Stuff that India can absorb RnD wise for the downstream like was done with phalcons, greenpine, you name it.
It would not be the case with F-18s. You will literally be paying (at least) double for what you use (of any relevance) in the end.
If say you front 10 billion dollars for the whole affair, you literally are not going to use
5 billion dollars of it....or use at very diminished scale (they end up effectively being glorified trainers past say 15 year window and thats if India gets them ASAP...rather than Mig 29 K extended dawdling which is what is likely going to happen and thus timewise excludes F-18 just by that alone).
That is money India cannot afford given how this stuff and how these choices (given asset inertia) compounds.
We simply do not have and will not have (up to 2050) the force provider and force multiplier scale like the USN (and US military at large) has at its disposal.... to keep F-18s as relevant as can be in their setup when confronted by increasing 5th gen+ stuff.
We do not have or will have that vast array of both sharp spearheads and wider number of semi-sharp spears behind it (that make the latter more relevant to keep around).
It is all similar to how USAF keeps B-52 relevant given the raw scale and intensity of all else it has alongside it....and you can tell me how old the B-52 is as a platform.
Every (far fewer) spear of ours has to be as sharp and honed as possible as we do not have the raw scale to apply "Tier 1 spear head" and Tier 2 "follower bulk".
They have to be as cost effective as possible (not just acquiring, but total lifetime capability/cost ratio).
It would have been better if India simply commited to large order of Rafale 10+ years ago....say 200+ and have couple squadrons of those in maritime version. Get whatever the maximum was with France (at that scale) for relationship building and offsets, ToT whatever....what could have been done compared to 36 now and 36 later approach.
If that was done, the path would have been clear for streamlining 5th gen into both AF and Navy alongside and after Rafale....without need for this Mig 29K and TEDBF program at all.
But we now have this hodge podge game being done now....just like was done with Tejas "oh gee its too small" ---> MWF/mk2.....as compared to MWF from get go and then just AMCA commitment.
With the options on finance and requirement etc, and this very non-ideal situation (again by oafish babudom) at hand, TEDBF makes the most sense.
At least we wont be wasting so much money....and we use (expensively developed and delayed) capacity we have developed with Tejas ecosystem.
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