Why India needs to Side-Step and Trim the Scale of MRFA Program to Focus Directly on 5th & 6th Gen Fighters, Technologies & Capabilities

India, facing an acute shortage of fighter squadrons while facing a belligerent China and hostile Pakistan, needs to rapidly bolster its overall fighter fleet squadrons strength with the addition induction of new fighters at an accelerated pace. Even the Indian Air Force's current chief of staff, Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh admitted that the IAF needs to induct at least 35-40 new fighters every year to make up for the alarming level of shortfall, with the IAF currently operating with just 31 fighter jet squadrons, as against the originally sanctioned and minimum level of 42 squadrons.

To fill that void in its fleet strength, the IAF had floated a tender under the MMRCA program, way back in 2008, for procurement of 126 medium, multi-role fighters for the IAF which could fill the capabilities gap in the IAF's force structure. However, the MMRCA never materialized and the GOI instead opted to procure 36 Rafales directly from France in fly-away condition. Now, the talks of medium fighters procurement have resurfaced, in form of the new MRFA program, which is more or less a rehashed MMRCA.

However, amid the latest deal by the GOI for direct, G2G procurement of 26 Rafales-M for the Indian Navy as well; speculations are rife that the IAF may directly procure a second tranche of a limited number of Rafales from France for beefing up its depleting, overall fleet numbers & strength. It seems like a logical choice, too, as the IAF already has established training & maintenance facilities for Rafale in India and the Navy, too, is gunning to field Marine Rafales on its carrier decks now, thereby, favoring the decision on the grounds of operational & logistical synergies.

But rather than filling up its squadron shortfalls with 110 of 4+ gen Rafales, which cost a minimum of EUR 120 million per unit, besides known problems in tech transfer & issues like integration of indigenous avionics as well as armaments (like BVR Astra missiles & GaN radar etc.); MOD should somehow rapidly ramp-up production rates on Tejas Mk1A (with a unit price of under $50 million) & accelerate the Mk2 by inclusion of private players in the industrial base, setting up of multiple assembly lines and scouting alternates for the GE F404 engines, which has been primarily causing the production delays.

This could be done by considering either Safran's M88 engine, which powers the Rafale, and which also has a very similar thrust output range as the F404, or a downrated variant of the Pratt & Whitney's F100 engine, which is combat proven, extremely reliable and has a similar thrust output of around 24,000 lbf as GE414's (being procured for Tejas Mk 2 and AMCA) peak thrust output of 22,000 lbf. These will maintain the same thrust-to-weight ratio for the Tejas' airframe despite a slight increase in weight with the integration of alternate engines. Around 100+ Tejas Mk1A would cost almost $8 to $10 billion at the max while a similar number of Rafales would cost at least $25+ billion without the full multiplier effect on India's economy. Thus, only a couple of squadrons of Rafale could be created, as an interim measure, while the production of Tejas is ramped-up and the AMCA is fast-tracked to 2030.

The financial savings, thus, would be substantial in this scenario, which could be, instead, used for the procurement of 5th gen capabilities, in form of outright procurement of at least a squadron of either F-35 (available at $90 million a unit) or Su-57, as a stopgap measure, to deter China till the AMCAs become available and are inducted en-masse; rather than it getting squandered on 4+ gen Rafales offering limited capabilities upgrade over Tejas or any other 4+ gen platform while facing a clear 5th gen adversarial threat from and relative capability gap against China.

Further, India will have to actually look quickly towards a 6th gen capability (needing substantial investments) soon, too, as by the time AMCA becomes available in 2035 (as committed to currently by the ADA, DRDO and HAL), the world would have moved on to 6th gen platforms and capabilities with the 6th gen American F-47, Pan-European GCAP & FCAS and the Chinese J-36 likely to become a functional reality by then. Thus, prudence, bird's-eye view and long term thinking are a must in making decisions in the short term, all of which, favor a direct leapfrogging to 5th gen and 6th gen platforms & capabilities by side-stepping and/or trimming the scale of the MRFA...

Image Credits: FlyingDaggers45Squadron, Image Usage: CC BY-SA 4.0