By reducing the MMRCA 57 program to 2 aircraft, India increases the Rafale's chances of winning

In 2001, New Delhi launched a very important competition aimed at acquiring 114 medium combat aircraft to replace its Mig-27 and Jaguar which were due to reach their age limit by the end of the 2010s. In 2012, the Indian authorities announced the victory of Dassault Rafale, and the start of negotiations for the local industrial production of these devices intended for the Indian Air Force.

However, numerous difficulties hampered the discussions, in particular concerning the participation of the state industrialist HAL imposed by the Indian authorities, leading Paris and New Delhi to announce in 2015 the cancellation of this operation, replaced by a firm order for 36 Rafale produced in France.

However, and if the new Rafale Indians who have since arrived in squadrons have enabled New Delhi to partially compensate for the constant decline in the number of its operational combat squadrons, it quickly became necessary to launch a new competition, in particular to compensate for the announced withdrawal of the increasingly Mig-21 Bison. more outdated by the new Chinese and Pakistani aircraft and subject to numerous accidents.

The MMRCA 2 competition was launched in 2018, initially to acquire 110 fighters “ slight to replace the Bison. But following intense lobbying by the IAF facing a significant reduction in its operational capabilities, the Indian authorities announced a year later that medium aircraft were also allowed to compete.

In fact, what was initially supposed to be a competition between the Swedish JAS-39 Gripen E/F and the Lockheed-Martin F-21, in reality an F-16 Block 70 renamed to allow local manufacturing, turned into a repeat of the first competition, with the arrival, in addition to these two aircraft, of the F-15EX and the F/A 18 E/F Super Hornet from Boeing, the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Russian Su-35 and the Rafale French.

Despite numerous rumours, the situation had hardly changed for several years, while at the same time the Indian authorities were implementing an increasingly ambitious and restrictive local production policy, making negotiations with aircraft manufacturers difficult. .

According to Indian business website businesswolrd.in, a rebound would have occurred in May 2022, since New Delhi would have decided to reduce the ambitions of the MMRCA 2 program from 114 to 57 aircraft, while maintaining the imperatives of technology transfer and local manufacturing, so as to promote the strategy of the Make in India, and prepare for the arrival of new Indian-made aircraft from the LCA Mk2, AMCA and TEDBF programs.

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