RBT's Defense Blog

  IAF currently operates 11 C-17 Globemaster IIIs. In 2010 it ordered 10 of these behemoths under a Very Heavy Lift Aircraft tender. In 2011, the IAF and Boeing agreed on terms for the order of 10 C-17 Globemaster IIIs under a US$ 4.1 billion deal, with an option to buy 6 more. However, some reports say IAF was duly informed by Boeing that the aircraft production line was slated to be closed soon, so if they wished to exercise an option to order 6 more aircraft, they needed to do it soon. So, in 2012 or 2013 IAF reported firmed up plans to buy 5 more of these jets. But unfortunately, due to unfavorable economic conditions, the government didn’t give a go-ahead. So, when the government changed in 2014 the IAF hoped the deal will go through. But for unknown reasons, the new government sat on the proposal. Even after repeated requests by Boeing, the deal for 5 more jets couldn’t be taken forward. So ultimately after waiting endlessly for India to give orders for 5 more C-17 Globemaster II

  IAF has a major freighter issue at hand. Currently, it operates 17 IL-76MDs and 11 C-17 Globemaster IIIs. According to an estimate, IAF needs a total of 36 strategic heavy freighters at least not counting the mid-air refuelers. I am not talking about the requirement for tactical freighters which is filled by 12 C-130J-30 SH (6 more on order) and 108 An-32 and in the future, 56 C-295 will be added to it. The saga of mid-air refuelers is a never-ending saga (more about it later). Out of the 17 IL-76MD freighters bought during the Soviet era in the 1980s basically, only half the fleet is available anytime based on the serviceability, due to lack of spares. The IL-76 jets have more turnaround time than C-17 Globemaster IIIs, meaning the former requires more hours of servicing for every hour of flight than the latter. The case is somewhat similar to the 6 IL-78 mid-air refuelers purchased in 2003 and 2004 from Russia. Only the 3 Beriev A-50 variants of IL-76 (the best of all 3 variants)

Ghulam Rasool Galwan ,  a Ladakhi explorer from Leh, was the first to explore the course of the river. In 1892. He was part of a British expedition team that was exploring the areas to the north of the Chang Chenmo valley when they ran into this previously unknown river valley, which was later named after him. This is one of the rare instances where a major geographical feature is named after a native explorer. As it happened that on a mission with Dunmore Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore, he was part of a group that hit a wall of tall mountains and steep gorges with no possible way out. The 14-year-old boy, Ghulam Rasool Galwan instead went ahead to search for a possible route out. To everyone’s surprise, he found a relatively easier passage through the ravines that helped the expedition to go ahead without much difficulty. Impressed, Dunmore Murray decided to name the newfound passage through the edge of water naming it as Galwan nul

Pinaka is a multiple-barrel rocket launcher or MBRL produced in India and developed by DRDO for use by the Indian Army. The system has multiple variants including a 40 km Mark-I and 60 km Mark-I Enhanced to start with. The rockets can be fired in a salvo of 12 in mere 44 seconds. Mounted on a Tatra truck Pinaka, inducted into the Indian Army in the late 1990s in large numbers has been effectively used in the 1999 Kargil War to neutralize entrenched Pakistani positions on difficult to climb mountain tops. Pinaka was developed as a replacement to the aging BM21 Grad MBRL, the soviet origin rockets that have been in service with Indian Army for over 4 decades. Each Pinaka battery consists of 6 launcher vehicles, each with 12 rockets; 6 loader-replenishment vehicles; 3 replenishment vehicles; 2 Command Post vehicles with Fire Control computer, and DIGICORA MET radar. A battery of six Pinaka launchers can neutralize an area of 1,000 mete