A crisis of weapons development                                                                                       Prof. Prodyut Das

 Two recent presentations attracted my attention. The first was by Dr. Deodhare , Director of ADA on the future programmes by ADA and the second was a piece in TOI of Mar 2, 2022 headed “Is DRDO to blame for India’s acute Import Dependence?” by RJD MP Amarendra Dhari Singh, member, consultative committee on Defence. He hastens to put a sub heading “No, defence R&D is a complex process, perfunctory evaluations do it grave injustice”.

 One would think that 75 years after independence it is the nation- and not DRDO- that has suffered grave injustice. Certain projects of DRDO that not only failed to fructify but -thanks to a sustained and clever campaign of “it’s brilliant and it’s just around the corner” publicity it stymied any efforts to intervene decisively. The fact is that not all DRDO projects are being questioned. What is being questioned is DRDO’s complete failure to monitor and control some sensitive projects  particularly the crucial Tejas project- requires energetic corrective action.

The Ukrainian Fracas will have a serious impact on defence strategies and action plans- once the fog of war clears and facts are available for serious analysis. Whatever the outcomes there can be no doubt that India’s dependence on foreign vendors will be the cause of more than usual consternation. Given this background the above mentioned two pieces are of more than usual interest.

It is tempting to dismiss Dr. Deodhare’s presentation with “Yes we have heard of such wonders before but we will wait until you please deliver.” However even within his careful presentation he has revealed the parlous state of affairs the Tejas project is in. The presentation is perhaps an update of the presentation made by Dr. Parvin Ayachit on 29 March 2019 at the Workshop organized by the Society for Aerospace Studies and the Observers Research Foundation.  

If we tabulate the figures given by ADA there is warning that either the LCA Mk1 is a real “Lead (i.e., Pb.!) Sled” or the Tejas Mk2 is not going to be any better than the LCA Mk1. The figures given cannot reconcile that both the LCA Mk 1 and the Tejas Mk2 are good.

Table 1

Sl. No	Item	Tejas MK 1 FOC	Tejas MK2
1	Engine Thrust (k N)	78	98
2	Wing Area M^2	37	44
3	Length Mts.	13.2	14.7
4	MTO Kgs.	13,500	17,500
5	Internal Fuel Kgs.	2486	3300
6	War load Kgs.	3500	6500
7	Standard Deductions (Kgs)-pilot, gun ammo. hydraulic fluids etc.	250	300
8	Empty Weight (Kgs)	7264	7400
9	T/w -clean / MTOW   N/kg	7.8 / 5.777	8.9./ 5.6
10	Sp. Fuel (Int. Fuel /Cold Thrust)	0.0509	0.059

 Empty weight is arrived at by Sl. no 4- Sl. no.5+6+7. 

It is to be noted that if the Tejas Mk1 empty weight is brought down to a reasonable 6264 kgs- the clean T/w of the Tejas Mk 1 will be 8.7 and 5.77 comparable to the MK2 but with war load of 4500 kgs vis a vis 2500 kgs of the Mk1. Given today’s proclivity for PGMs 4500 kg war load is a “shortcoming” one can live with. In that case the Tejas Mk2 can be postponed.

What the figures also show are the following:

i)                 We see that both aircraft seem to have the same(!) empty weight. Either the LCA Mk1 is grossly, indeed criminally, overweight or ADA is being “publicly optimistic” about the Tejas Mk2. Either that or the figures make it clear that the LCA Mk1 is overweight by about a ton as of present- it should weigh about 6200/ 6400 kilos at most. The airframe of the Mk1 should weigh no more than 2000-2200 kg and that of the proposed mk2 no more than 2400kgs at the most.  

ii)                If ADA cannot reduce the weight of the Mk1 – to 6200 kgs from the present 7200 kilos then the Mk2s prospect is bleak. The possible reasons for the inability could be:

a)      We have the technology but the skill and spirit are not there.

b)       The LCA Mk1 requires so thorough a revision in terms of both redesign and production (tooling etc.)  it will be a new aircraft project. It would be difficult for ADA to ask for more funds without coming clean about past blunders. If they put that behind rectification will be easy, swift and sure. The desire to be cured is the necessary step to good health.

An estimate of weights

            Given the bigger size of the Tejas Mk2 the empty weight will go up by almost a ton vis a vis the         Mk1. The equipped fuselage length increase (1,5 mts) amounting to 675 kilos and about 200 kilos         for the canards 7 sq. mts.so, at the present level of skills we are looking at an empty weight                     increase of 800-900 kilos vis a vis the LCA mk1 i. e. close to 8000 kilos given the LCA Mk1 is             7200 kgs. If ADA cannot reduce the weight or hold the weight of the Tejas Mk2 to circa 7200kgs         and it is 8000 kgs as         anticipated  all the proposed Mk 2 figures mentioned  by Dr. Deodhar of             fuel and war load will go out of the window.

    If on the other hand ADA is sure that it can tackle the blunders and carelessness of the LCA Mk 1 it         will be not only a reflection of the bad quality of the original design but also, we will see a quiet             burial or “go slow” of the Mk1 production.  

    ADA would prefer to focus on the Mk2.This would land ADA in trouble later on. The trouble will         come from the poor location of the canard vis a vis the inlet. Given the uncertainties perhaps the             programme to reduce the weight of the Tejas Mk1 is a bitter, but better option. Perhaps a more             honest “all arms” rather than a "vote bank" peer review approach would be able to chalk out a                 rectification. Once ADA accepts - not publicly but wherever it matters- that the LCA Mk1 is a                 disaster-rectifications can be quite easy and possibly swift.

    Some technical points on the Mk2 are also cause for concern for what they portend:

    The additional fuel of internal 800 kgs will occupy about a 1000 litres of fuselage volume. It is                 doubtful-again short of drastic redesign of the internals- that the fuel volume will leave very much         space for the inevitable upgrades. We will be looking for further redesign soon.

    Dr. Deodhare spoke of about 300kgs of ballast “for CG reasons”. It is somewhat rueful that the HF         24 designed using wooden slide rules used only 114 (4 gun) -134 kilos (2 gun) of ballast in 1961 and     Tejas used 300 kilos when we had computers to design the thing in 2001! This alone is a telling             commentary of the poor quality of work of the LCA design.

    The other remark of interest was that LRUs were installed without consulting the customer resulting     in great difficulty in maintainability. Perhaps the ruling spirit was “We have the project, we have the     money, we have the backing; there is no need to listen to any one or brook any interference”. It has         proved to be a very costly attitude. The ADA of today- the IAF and the Country -are paying for the      sins of ADA yesterday. 

The pity is that the Tejas does not have major problems; it is a large collection of simple (I do not say “inexpensive ”!)  problems- all intertwined with each other! Perhaps the Tejas’ greatest foe is ADA itself because this organization is delaying rectification by trying to make corrections without drawing attention to the many blunders this programme committed in the past. Aggressive publicity and advertisement had projected the LCA Mk1 as great achievement but increasingly the evidence is that it was a badly bungled job whose rectification is now being hampered by ADA’s  agenda. A purge of influencers is required. 

Reverting to the table we see that-provided there are no other major problems- the rumour is that  the intake sizing has problems- if the Tejas’ Mk 1s weight is held in the region of 6200 to 6400 kilos the aircraft will become quite an useful aircraft with a power to weight ratio equal to the Mk2 and a war load of 4500 kilos. Given that PGMs are the preferred option such an aircraft may make the Mark 2 redundant or less urgent.

Summing up: Dr. Deodhare’s statements indicate that the Tejas requires massive detail redesign to get it into a workable state. The Tejas Mk2 is, de facto, a tacit admission that ADA bungled with the Mk1 and now it needs further funds to correct the errors and redesign the aircraft in a way as pointed out in the 1989 PDR. This state of affairs also explains why the Tejas production is continuing to be shy of any targets and commitments. It would be unrealistic to expect cheering news about Tejas any time soon.

 How soon will depend on whether a purge and an independent – not the usual “vote bank” review by IITs and other carefully cultivated  beneficiaries  is conducted. There is nothing seriously wrong technically ; only ADA appears to be having the wrong priorities.

Now coming to the Amarendra Dhari Singh remarkable piece on the DRDO ; I say remarkable because it has raised pertinent questions which, pardon me, I did not expect the common or garden variety of “Netas” to have such a grasp of. One is perhaps uncharitably inclined to think of “ghost writing”; certainly, very good briefing has gone into the piece. The points raised by this MP are as discussed below:

The Arjun Tank

The Arjun did excellently on trials and there were report of sabotage during the trials which is perversely is an indication of how good the product is- it frightened the competition! The point the MP makes is that the weapon was developed to the customer’s specifications and quite rightly the customer- in this case of the Army cannot absolve itself of the responsibilities on the plea the tank is too heavy at 63 tons for the bridges of Punjab. Quite apart from customer irresponsibility the moot question is:

Does the Army expect that in case of a conflict the Army can count on the bridges – irrespective of load limits -to be there at all? They would be natural targets!  Pontoons, River fords and bridging equipment should be the strategy to use the Arjun in Punjab and provided the Army is happy with it the Arjun should be the Standard Tank if only for "political" reasons -reasons that will become clear once the dust settles in the Ukraine.

Conspirators are the first to deprecate “Conspiracy theories” but several “scams"  in defence in evaluation trials means not only that the Government must have a kind of “Abwehr” or counter sabotage cell to see trials are not “fudged” – it is possible some of the rifle trials results are “corrupted”- for want of a better word- by using ammunition from varying sources with different level of ammunition quality. So was the fault the ammunition's or the rifle's ?Testing is an integral responsibility of Product Design and formulating Testing plans require as much effort and intelligence as the design itself. It is good to know that the Government is allowing the Private Sector to use the Government Facities for testing. This is just the first step. It has been found that when the Designer or the Customer is involved testing veracity can suffer. A completely - influence wise -isolated testing set up is important enough for Honda to have its products tested at a Testing centre some 80 kilometers away simply because they wanted "uninfluenced" Tests and results. If my memory is aright it is referred to  In Search of Excellence written by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman,  

The more generalized point the mention of the Arjun should direct us to is it is the Political Leadership that must lay down the “War Aims” and the Army then would come up with the necessary specifications and plans. Here the Army asked for a counter to the reported /anticipated  induction of the M1 Abrams tank and left CVRDE and DRDO holding the baby when that "flap" was over. Since we do not have too many expeditionary plans it can avoid both infructuous development expenditure and concurrently develop unique weapons -a point the PM somewhat presciently mentioned recently.

Comparison with DARPA

The MP feels that DRDO is unfairly compared with DARPA and he mentions three related if not relevant factors as reasons viz “since DARPA works exclusively on “blue sky” foundational projects independent of any requirements of the US armed forces, even DARPA projects fail, and that our bureaucracy will not take risks. He also cites the case of the INSAS which he says despite qualifying trials was stuck by various production issues which he feels it is unfair to blame  DRDO.

The short answers to these points is that:

i)                  it is not the nature of DRDO’s project that is the problem. It is DRDO’s lifetime sinecure kind of project management where projects being delayed are not shut down in time.

ii)                DARPA is more honest about failures.

iii)              DRDO under VS Arunachalam who branched out into areas it was not fit to be in. He reportedly wanted to create an Aeronautical Commission like the Space Commission. Had he succeeded he would have been hailed as a great visionary.

iv)              Regarding the INSAS the caution is that the DRDO's attitude is that “I have given the design you go and make it -I am not responsible for that” indicates both the lack of right spirit and the “ivory tower” ism and lack of “hands on” engineering experience of the Scientists. It also indicates a lack of passion and knowledge. Technical challenges should be grist in the mill for the Designer.

v)                The 5.56 mm gas operated automatic is by theory more difficult to master technically and more difficult to maintain. There are also ammunition quality issues The world’s armies were "conned" into the 5.56 mm by slick marketing once the technology was mastered in the US. The rest is History. The INSAS, frequently bad mouthed, actually was better than most western designs and suffered less teething problems. Why these problems were not rectified quickly is an organizational problem, As, again with the Tejas, the idea that I have done the design and shrugging off problems a “production related” betrays a fundamentally wrong understanding of the design process. There is no “fire and forget “ in design. You have got to nurse the "baby".

I must also point out that DARPA is no sinecure. You are there for three years- you do not get to develop a "gang" or a cabal and three years later you are looking for a job  the idea being that if you are such a hotshot that you qualify for DARPA you can get a good job dead easy. Compare this with our "progress by retirement culture" - someone retires after first flight, some one retires after FOC X.  

Lack of Foundational Research.

He cites the Kaveri engine as an example. Readers are referred to my blogs Prof Prodyut Das https://profprodyutdas.blogspot.com/  and Prof prodyut das 2:  https://prodyut7.blogspot.com/  for my detailed analysis and shows the cavalier approach that was taken to development funding in the period 1964 t0 2014. The project took long because senior but inexperienced scientist were keen to start a fresh project rather than first improving the Orpheus which was at that time not only numerically the most important engine but also had plenty of potential for growth and would have made a significant to Indian air power. It is also an indication of the malaise within the higher echelons of decision makers that the Kaveri engine was almost shelved just when the project was within an ace of success. Comparison with the Chinese engine development is a lame excuse. The Chinese went much more systematically and are enviously further up the road to engine development than us. They see the US as a competitor. What is our bench mark? Funds is not an issue as of the moment. Honesty of purpose is. Without honesty of purpose more funds will simply mean that some people will acquire if not pelf then certainly power without delivering the promised goods.

Engagement with the private sector  

He says all the right things that we all know and how the present Government is trying to bring in the Private sector. Where the article fails is that it attempts to paint the DRDO as a victim. It is not DRDO but the country that is the victim. This has to be sternly rectified.