Head of Army Design Bureau on Advanced Materials

[@death_parade]

Pardon me sir, but apart from the projects listed at 11:20 onwards, I found this speech to be mildly disappointing. The entire speech can be summed up in one line: maximize capability while minimizing weight. While I don't disagree with the idea, my first contention is that there was not even a single word spoken about budgetary realities. And frankly, I don't see the current procurement system under DAP-2020 being serious about this either. The Army just spent 285 crore Rupees ordering robotic mules with questionable performance from an American company (Ghost Robotics, Vision 60 model) when Indian troops still don't have proper helmets in all Infantry units. What procedural issues are leading to such discrepancies in procurement? So a focus on advanced materials is good, as long as the focus does not begin to override hard budgetary and modernization realities. My second contention: It is the Army's job to set the GSQRs, and if the Army brass is clueless about the state of technological readiness, then they will continue to make unrealistic GSQRs that the Indian industry-academia-DRDO troika will ALWAYS fail to accomplish them. This disease has afflicted the Indian military industrial complex for decades and has hobbled all attempts to both: become atmanirbhar and get modern weapons to the soldiers on time. Finger pointing abound, but until we can address this situation with unrealistic GSQRs, or GSQRs that are tone deaf to what is achievable within a limited timeframe, Indian efforts to become a serious geopolitical player will be futile. I was expecting this talk to at least briefly touch upon how to approach fixing the following procedural issues, in order to ensure that our quest for advanced materials remains tempered by ground realities:- 1.) How to keep a real time track of the state of technological readiness in the country for every single perspective plan/requirement of the Forces. 2.) How to do the aforementioned objectively in the backdrop of the subjectivity introduced by DRDO's proclivity to over-promise and under-deliver. 3.) How to have an iterative process where after point number One is done, it is taken into account by the Army to take a re-look at its requirements. Ofcourse the Army might want the best equipment in the world, but we need to stay anchored to the reality that we are a developing nation with only a small % of our GDP invested in R&D. Army thus needs to make some hard choices between gold-plated capability at the cost of atmanirbharta or bronze-level equipment that still gets the job done. Pareto principle applies. 4.) How to decide when a capability is worth it to the point that import of subsystems should be sought if domestic tech readiness is not upto the mark. 5.) How to keep track of how much sanction-proofing and wartime supply chain disruption proofing of the Forces is affected by such imports of subsystems. 6.) How to guide the "required capability" -> "required technology" translation through Army, DRDO and academia discussions. 7.) How to prevent the finger pointing that invariably ensues, even in projects of critical national security importance. *There needs to be a particular focus on ensuring that the entire ammunition supply chain from bullets to missiles is 100% indigenous, because although modern warfare makes wartime production of capital equipment almost impossible (long lead times), the ammo is still within the realm where a wartime ramp up can allow us to sustain a war after depleting our War Wastage Reserves and even if the war switches from Maneuver warfare to Attrition Warfare, leading to a protracted war, like it has happened in Ukraine due to drones rendering the battlefield transparent.* ^This is important because ICs are the critical missing link that are still not produced in India and it doesn't seem as if the Armed Forces have impressed the importance of this upon the Government of India. A bunch of non-state actors have sent global shipping for a toss in the Red Sea. Our wartime ammo production can not rely on foreign IC supplies, especially ones from East Asia. Maybe it is time the Armed Forces put forward the strategic requirement to have at least some ability to make photolithography machines within India. We don't even need the advanced nodes for military ammo applications. Just older mature nodes would do.

[@MajGenRKArora]

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