By Colonel Awadhesh Kumar, Special Forces Veteran
European consortium firm MBDA are now quite disappointed and demoralised after having lost the race to equip the Tejas Mark 1A with Thales radar and then go on to supply their Meteor missile even for this fighter.
The French are equipping the IAF specific Rafael fighters with Thales AESA radars and of course the Meteor Beyond Visual Range Air to Air Missiles. So MBDA sensed that they could go for a highly profitable kill that is equipping the Tejas Mk1A with the same. The cost being prohibitive, naturally there was no response from the Indian side for the Thales radar but IAF did show interest in the Meteor missile for the Tejas Mk1A.
Seeing an opening, MBDA wrote to IAF that Meteors would be supplied and integrated with Texas Mk1A only if it was also fitted with the Thales developed AESA radar. They became blind to the fact that Rafael numbers were reduced from 126 to just 36 because of this very high cost of European AESA radars. The clever European Consortium were in the know that Israel were developing an AESA radar for up-gradation of around 60 Jaguar fighters of the Indian Air Force and therefore this arm twisting effort.
On 26 October this year, the aghast MBDA watched the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd signing two contracts with Israel Aerospace Industries for equipping the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft with two major avionics systems that will dramatically improve the combat capability of an already improved Tejas fighter version called the Tejas Mark 1A.
One was for the ELM-2052 ‘active electronically scanned array’ radar, developed by an IAI subsidiary, Elta and the other was for Elta’s ‘electronic warfare’ system. Thus choosing the Elta radar effectively rules out the costly Meteor for the 83 Mk1A and for the follow on Mk2 and with it, all the hopes of MBDA.
By 2020, there will be two squadrons of Tejas Mk1 or 40 fighters serving the IAF with the current Mark 1 version. Meanwhile work is going on a new improved version called the Tejas Mark 1A, with five specific improvements — including indigenous AESA radar and the BVR missile.
Till full development of these, IAF was keen to equip MK1A with Elta AESA and MBDA Meteor missiles as
these BVR missiles presently have the matchless ability to engage enemy fighters 200 km away, before the adversaries can fire their own missiles. IAF also wanted the Tejas Mark 1A to carry MBDA’s eponymous Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile. Accordingly last year the IAF issued a formal request for proposal — stipulating that the Tejas Mark 1A must have the AESA radar and BVR and ASRAAM missiles.
Anticipating strong competition from the Israelis, MBDA made a further mistake stating that it would not allow the Meteor missile to be integrated with any non European AESA radars. Reason given was that after firing of the missile, initially it is controlled and guided by the parent aircraft. Only when the target comes within a certain range of the missile that its own internal guidance and Lock on system takes over. Thus during the initial period of the missile’s flight, the aircraft’s radar tracks the adversary fighter and transmits directions to the missile through two-way data links. Therefore given the missile’s tight relationship with the radar, as perMBDA there was a need for deep integration and sharing of source codes. MBDA also cited technology security concerns that integrating the Meteor with Israeli radar would endanger secret source codes and technologies.
When HAL’s tendering processes resulted in the selection of the Israeli ELM 2052 AESA radar, MBDA became desperate.In May 2018, it once again wrote again to the IAF Marshal Dhanoa that with six nations involved in the MBDA, clearing the Meteor’s integration with a non-European radar would be complicated. Hence from a purely technical point of view, and considering the required clearances, Meteor on LCA may only be considered with a European radar. ‘ As design authority and OEM (original equipment manufacturer) of the Meteor missile, we wish to confirm to you that integration of this missile can only be possible with a European radar and our proprietary data link.’
In order to rule out the possibility of the Israeli firm carrying out the integration, the MBDA categorically tried to mislead / threaten by saying : ‘No other mode of integration is possible and any other suggestion from third parties is misinformed. MBDA will not be able to offer Meteor for Tejas if a non-European radar is chosen for that platform — we will not be able to gain 6 Partner Nation clearance. Furthermore, the integration of Meteor is only possible using MBDA’s proprietary datalink technology. No other 3rd party is capable of carrying out Meteor integration.’
The clever Europeans got a shock of their life when IAF queried whether the Meteor could be integrated onto the indigenous Indian UTTAM AESA radar the Defence R&D Organisation was developing. It meant that UTTAM was about to be fielded. ….of course Tejas Mk2 will be equipped with UTTAM AESA and Astra Mk2 BVR. Reluctantly MBDA gave conditional acceptance in July 2018.
Though it could not resist putting spoke once again and so the MBDA wrote: ‘integration would be perfectly feasible (provided) this DRDO ‘UTTAM’ radar would need to be shown to be completely indigenous.’ It again tried to be clever by stating ‘Security concerns over the implementation, architecture and day to day operation would need to be addressed and the 6 partner nations would need to obtain access to full working prototypes of the Uttam radar before progressing to the next stage.’ They are reluctant to share their source codes but expect India to share all the details of UTTAM AESA radar with them!!!
Hearing HAL chief R Madhavan statement that ‘The contract has been finalised as per HAL’s techno-commercial (procurement) procedures and the lowest bidder was chosen’, MBDA must be seething in frustration. Though from HAL’s perspective, Elta’s ELM 2052 AESA is the logical choice of radar.
The Israeli firm developed this radar specifically for the IAF’s ongoing upgrade of 60 Jaguars at its own cost, apparently in the expectation that it would also find place in future Tejas upgrades.It probably also helped in fast tracking the UTTAM. Now the ELM 2052 radar could quickly go into production in India in an IAI-HAL joint venture. Thus with the ELM 2052 AESA radar being built for two programmes — the Jaguar upgrade and the Tejas Mark 1A — it worked out significantly cheaper than the Thales and Saab radars.
To MBDAs consternation, ASTRA has been successfully test fired and cleared that would provide the Tejas Mk1 and MK 1A with a world standard missile. By the time Mk2 version enters service, IAF will have ASTRA Mk2 to be followed by ASTRA Mk3 both World beaters BVR missiles.
