Comparing Korea and India's Military Industries is a Fool's Errand
Part 1 of the "Korea & India" series highlights how the two countries and their key players have vastly different objectives.
In June this year, it was reported that Korean Aerospace Industries Ltd (KAI) - formed in October 1999 via the amalgamation of the aerospace divisions of Samsung, Daewoo and Hyundai - is largely ready to proceed with the testing of its KF-21 “Boramae” (보라매, 'fighting hawk'), generally considered to be a “4.5-generation” fighter jet with stealth capabilities. Given that the Republic of Korea is in Asia, inevitable comparisons were made with the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (“AMCA”) project currently being spearheaded by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in India. By no means was this the first time that the efforts of HAL and KAI had been compared: the combat version of KAI’s T-50 “Golden Eagle” (골든이글) is often in competition with HAL’s “Tejas” (तेजस, “Radiant”) in the “light combat aircraft” segment of the military aircraft market, which has a burgeoning stake in Asia, Africa and South America.
This type of comparison between the two companies and their respective homelands is rather superficial. Both companies and homelands are working along different lines of evolution and have very different views on development goals for the industry respectively.
Interdependence vs Independence
To review the technical achievements in this field, a greater overview of the national security outlook is in order. The Republic of Korea (or “South Korea”) ostensibly derives much of its security from actions of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (or “North Korea”) via a sizeable U.S. military presence and support system. Since its independence from colonial powers, India maintained a “non-aligned” and independent presence, albeit with a more pronounced tilt towards the Soviet Union starting from the mid-fifties until the latter’s demise in the final decade of the 20th century.
Being aligned with the U.S. military necessitated a strong need for interoperability of weapon systems being developed in South Korea. Starting in the early eighties after Korean Air Lines secured a contract to assemble U.S.-designed F-5E Tiger II light attack aircraft, South Korean industrial houses went on to produce a large variety of high quality assemblies and sub-assemblies for various Western aircraft manufacturers. In the nineties, with Lockheed Martin as a design consultant, the South Korean government and Samsung laid out plans to design a next-generation trainer/light attack aircraft. Eventually, the relevant Samsung aerospace division was merged with that of Daewoo and Hyundai to form KAI, with which Lockheed Martin graduated to becoming a full partner of, to produce this aircraft.
Lockheed Martin’s involvement wasn’t happenstance: the aircraft project was an ideal venue for an “offset” requirement for South Korea’s purchase of F-16s. While the F-16 is produced by General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin had purchased its aircraft business in 1993. The “offset” requirement, in simple terms, meant that the production of a specific number of components of the purchased aircraft must be done domestically. As a result, KAI’s project - now named the “T-50/A-50 Golden Eagle” - bore a strong resemblance to the F-16 both in shape and even sub-systems.
Thus, the fighter variant of the T-50 - the FA-50 - shows significant ease of adoption, especially if the adopter has the likes of F-16s in their inventory. Furthermore, it costs between one-half and one-third the price of modern Western 4th-generation jets. The Philippines - which already operates F-16s - saw it fit to buy and use FA-50s in its war against terrorists. Also, given the high interoperability with the F-16s, the military found it cheaper to train F-16 pilots in the FA-50s. Poland, after donating a bulk of its already-obsolescing Soviet-origin weaponry to Ukraine in the current “special military operation” by Russia, saw it fit to adopt the FA-50 instead of waiting in queue for more F-16s from its post-Cold War ally the U.S.
India’s military industrial development, on the other hand, was based around the concept of independence. While the Indian military initially operated a number of British and American aircraft, the country’s non-alignment principles hampered its ability to acquire Western technology. Increasing U.S./NATO backing for Pakistan, which proved far more amenable, certainly didn’t help either. This led to India establishing a strong military relationship with the Soviet Union, which went on to provide a large bulk of the Indian military’s weapons, aircraft included.
HAL has long been a part of its homeland’s military effort. Starting with licensed production of British-designed Vampires and Gnats for the Indian Air Force, the company went on to produce the MiG-21 after the Soviet Union transferred technology in 1961. The MiG-21 - the Indian Air Force’s first supersonic aircraft - went on to destroy four U.S.-made F-104A Starfighters, two Chinese-made Shenyang F-6s, one U.S.-made F-86 Sabre and one U.S.-made C-130 Hercules operated by the Pakistani military in 1971. Outside of the Soviet Union, India became the world’s largest operator of Soviet aircraft: since 1963, over 1,200 MiG fighter jets alone - many produced under license by HAL - have held aloft the republic’s battle ensign. HAL also holds the distinction of producing Western aircraft under license simultaneously after Anglo-French SEPECAT’s Jaguar jets were inducted into the Indian military in 1979.
HAL also designed Asia’s first indigenous jet fighter under a project that started that started in 1956. The HF-24 Marut (मरुत, "Spirit of the Tempest"), with Dr. Kurt Waldemar Tank - who led the design department at German aircraft manufacturer Focke-Wulf from 1931 to 1945 - as HAL’s lead designer, was deployed in 1967.
The Marut, however, was never able to breach the Mach 2 sound barrier on account of its underdeveloped engine, the British-designed Orpheus 703 jet engine which already had a variant of thereof in the military’s Gnat jets. After a British project working on developing a powerful aircraft engine - the Bristol Siddeley Orpheus 12 Simplified Reheat (BOR.12 SR) Turbojet Engine - came to a sudden halt and threatened the realization of the Marut’s true battlefield potential, HAL and the government’s defence laboratories scrambled to find a solution. A rather bold initiative advanced by a government military R&D lab ostensibly fused a Soviet Klimov booster to the British Orpheus 703 engine to raise the desired output, provided the Marut had a design modification. However, given that the resulting aircraft still wouldn’t breach the Mach 2 barrier, Dr. Tank and the other engineers at HAL vetoed this idea. A modified version of the Orpheus 703 eventually made its way into the Marut but the resultant changes in the airframe effectively altered its operational capabilities: while originally conceived as a fighter bomber, it could only perform in ground attack and training roles. Just as the MiG-21 in the skies above, the Marut gained glory as a ground attack aircraft in 1971 but the tussles between government, military and engineer was a valuable lesson learned. In a monograph published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, it was summarized thus:
“At no point is it possible to identify a well orchestrated attempt to weigh the views of the military, the politicians and industry. Instead, the progress was linear, as the project proceeded it passed from the hands of the politicians, to the military and finally to industry. Or, put another way, the politicians defined the possibilities, the military defined the problem and industry was left to define the answer.”
These lessons lent itself to the formation of specific nodal agencies that delegated powers in the Indian military industry. These lessons also paved the way for the “Tejas” under India’s “Light Combat Aircraft” program. The “Tejas” was conceived as a replacement for the MiG-21 which, while the military’s 174 Maruts were being gradually phased out by the late 1980s, also filled in as a trainer and a ground attack aircraft.
Quick Note: Incidentally, the MiG-21 has an interesting bit of history with the FA-50’s “Big Brother” the F-16: in February 2019, an Indian MiG-21 Bison became the first aircraft ever to shoot down an F-16 (operated by Pakistan) in a dogfight. While foreign media (either China-oriented or Western) claim this didn’t happen, other sources - predominantly in social media - highlight images of wreckage from an F-16 in the aftermath. Given that Pakistan operates the F-16s under a “lease” program from the U.S. government, it should theoretically be fairly easy for the U.S. to take inventory and make an official statement. This hasn’t happened.
Outside of the engines - which are produced by General Electric - the entirety of the “Tejas” has virtually no interchangeability with any other aircraft family, even those employed by the Indian military. Both the Korean “Golden Eagle” and the Indian “Tejas” use variants of the General Electric’s F404 engine family.
The doctrine of interoperability makes the sourcing of the engine a moot point for South Korea and KAI. However, as the “Marut” story indicates, the engine is a fundamental step for India’s doctrine of independence and a key objective for its rapidly-evolving military hardware industry.
Another point of confusion might also lie in HAL’s new naming convention. While the “Tejas” Mk. I is ostensibly replacing the Indian military’s venerable MiG-21s, the upcoming Mk. II is in the same weight and performance class as their well-regarded Mirage 2000s and Jaguars.
Between the variants, there is a difference in comparators: the MiG-21 is predominantly an “air defence fighter” while the Mirage and Jaguar are “air superiority fighters” with strike capabilities. India’s Jaguar jets are also equipped to carry and deploy nuclear weapons. Given this, it would be logical to conclude that “Tejas” will evolve into a family of jets with shared design characteristics. This is unlike the FA-50, which could be considered a member of the F-16’s “family” given its interoperability. It doesn’t necessarily establish a bloodline for its country like the “Tejas” does.
Engines and Alliances
The origin of the jet engine is complicated. While German physicist Hans van Ohain developed the first engine that was deployed in the experimental Heinkel He 178 in August 1939, British engineer Frank Whittle arrived at a feasible design for a jet engine via an entirely different route by around the same time. After an alliance between Whittle’s Power Jets Limited and Rolls-Royce began to produce increasingly-feasible jet engines in 1941, the British government agreed to transfer technology to the U.S., thus giving General Electric the boost it needed to produce its I-A jet engines. A Bell XP-59A “Airacomet” fighter, powered by the GE engine, took flight exactly one year and one day after receiving Whittle’s W.1X engine.
After World War II ended, the Soviet Union’s Mikoyan and Gurevich (MiG), Yakovlev (Yak) and Lavochkin (La) design bureaus were tasked with building fighter jets centered on captured German technology, specifically the BMW 003A jet engine that was successfully tested on Heinkel He 162 and Henschel Hs 132 prototypes during the War. The 003 powered the Soviet Union’s first jet fighter, the MiG-9. However, the true fillip to Soviet jet engine development came after the British government sold Rolls-Royce Nene jet engines to the Soviet Union in 1947. With engine designs based on the Nene, the Lavochkin La-176 became the first European fighter plane to break the sound barrier in a shallow dive in December 1948. Subsequent development of Soviet jet engines owed an immense debt of gratitude to the foundations set by the 003 and the Nene.
Incidentally, the 003’s designer Hermann Östrich was assisted by French industrialist Marcel Dassault into working at France's state-owned aircraft engine company SNECMA after the War ended. The 003 became the foundation for SNECMA’s “Atar” jet engine that powered Dassault's Ouragan, Mirage III and Mystère fighters. In the present day, SNECMA has gone on to become Safran Aircraft Engines.
India didn’t let a lack of domestic alternatives hinder it from equipping its military with the cutting edge needed to stay level against all possible foes. Given extensive Soviet technical assistance, over 70% of the Indian military's army armaments, 80% of its aviation systems and 85% of its naval platforms were of Soviet origin by the time the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Since then, the military aircraft market is now open to competition from all quarters as opposed to being limited within geopolitical silos.
Of course for a very long time, the most significant foreign market for virtually every major military aircraft manufacturer has been the Republic of India - home to the world's 4th largest fleet of warplanes and the 3rd most powerful nation in terms of air power.
India is in the throes of an increasing push for indigenous production, with over a hundred items such as artillery guns, assault rifles, corvettes, sonar systems, transport aircraft, light combat helicopters and radars being banned from an "outright" import. Instead, foreign manufacturers are effectively being directed to either enter into joint ventures with either the now-thriving private sector long-running state-owned enterprises in India or establish a fully-owned registered domestic subsidiary with local employees.
Airbus has registered a recent success in this area under the first option: in a deal penned in September 2021, the company secured the sale of 56 C-295 tactical transport aircraft. After a "outright" import of 16 aircraft, the company will be developing an entire industrial ecosystem - from manufacture, assembly, testing and qualification, to delivery and maintenance over the aircraft’s lifecycle - in a joint venture with its partner Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL). The expectation is that this ecosystem will fuel further sales of other aircraft in the future and deepen market penetration.
Israeli firms have also been very successful since the formalization of ties between the countries in 2017 resulting in collaborations successfully producing a gamut of items ranging from rifles to drones and missiles, with a further deepening of this relationship on the cards that already generates tens of billions of dollars in business in the present possibly taking this closer to the hundred billion mark over the long-term. Both countries' governments and industry bodies consider the collaboration between Indian and Israeli defence firms on sophisticated technologies to be a success.
Another successful ally to India has been France. Despite being a founding member of U.S.-led NATO during the Cold War and India’s increasing closeness with the Soviet Union almost immediately after gaining independence, French foreign policy has never wavered in building a deep strategic relationship with India despite the latter’s geopolitical opposition to the U.S.-led blocs via non-alignment policies. Starting with French atomic energy commission (CEA) chairman Frédéric Joliot-Curie offering India know-how on low-cost nuclear reactor construction and ore processing in exchange for mineral exports in 1950, ties expanded to include exports of French fighter jets and helicopters, assistance in setting up a satellite launch site as well as rocket technologies and even supply of nuclear fuel after an earlier deal with the U.S. was scuttled by its government in the eighties, France has long been considered a reliable strategic partner to the republic and its place in the world of today. This partnership continues to bear fruits for the French military industry.
After a deal for 126 “Rafale” fighter jets by Dassault Aviation was watered down to 36 in "fly-away" condition, the French government pitched to the Indian government a proposal to set up a completely indigenous production facility for manufacturing Rafales - with Dassault's Indian partners fully integrated into its worldwide supply networks - if the order size is increased to 100. Furthermore, Safran pitched to India's Defence Minister the modernization and co-development of the indigenous Kaveri engine which - after 30 years of work resulted in nine full prototype engines, four core engines and strong capabilities developed by Indian manufacturers in many critical technology domains - wasn't deemed maneuverable enough for the present-day requirements of India's Light Combat Aircraft program. The French government further stated that the Safran proposal would guarantee India's complete ‘sovereignty’ in aero-engine technology. This is currently in the final stages of discussion.
Given how seriously the Indian administration and billion-plus citizens take the notion of sovereignty, the French propositions are very tempting.
Over this past decade, Soviet successor state Russia's share of Indian arms imports fell from 70% in 2012-17 to 46% in 2017-21. This fall has been keenly felt by likes of United Aircraft Company (UNAC) - which combined the many Soviet-era aircraft design bureaus and facilities under one umbrella. UNAC has been floundering in effectively meeting the India military's stringent requirements in areas such as quality, efficiency and timely delivery for next-generation weapons platforms (as opposed to spares and related services for existing aircraft). On the other hand, the “BrahMos” project (the name itself a portmanteau of India’s Brahmaputra and Russia’s Moskva rivers) successfully integrated Indian and Russian technical capabilities to produce powerful supersonic cruise missiles currently being sought by the Philippines and Vietnam in the face of Chinese maritime aggressions.
The “BrahMos” project, when combined with the Indo-Russian “Sukhoi Su-30 MKI” project, also gives an edge a deep-strike capability edge that even the Russian military doesn’t have. This is largely because the Su-30 MKI is distinct from the Su-30 operated by the Russian military, owing to French and Israeli subsystems being incorporated into the Indian-operated versions.
However, unlike the “BrahMos” project, India’s military industrial establishment had a negative experience with the Su-30 MKI. Reportedly, with India being the main funder of the project, Russia was required to deliver the technologies needed. As it turned out, most of the claimed technological development hadn’t even been completed, leading Indian engineers to bear the brunt of subsequent development while the Russian partner marketed the resulting “improved” Su-30 royalty-free around the world.
Furthermore, only 51% of the MKI’s components are domestically made while nearly 400 Russian-sourced manufacturers responsible for nearly 6,000 components have been gearing down production since 2019. Most of these aren’t necessarily high-tech: as per the agreement, these thousands of Russian-sourced components include the likes of titanium blocks, steel plates and even nuts, bolts and screws. Going “desi” (indigenous) despite the agreement seems to be the only way forward, which might have recently gained momentum with an announcement of the first of presumably several tranches of “upgrades” to India’s Su-30 MKI squadrons.
One source for the transformation in India’s military industry can be attributed to recently evolved detailed and prescriptive procedures by the government. These procedures enabled the acquisition of needed capabilities in a timely manner while fostering self-reliance, being transparent and accountable, and guaranteeing fair competition without favouring a single source. Meanwhile, the U.S. government’s policies have remained largely unchanged since the Cold War: it leverages arms exports to maintain its industrial base and — through economies of scale — reduce costs to the U.S. military. While this makes sense on paper, it doesn't work in the practical sense. Not only does this inhibit development of cost-efficient armaments suppliers in client nations, the weapons also tend to be more expensive in the post-Cold War era. Thus, U.S.-based/U.S.-aligned manufacturers such as KAI find themselves at a disadvantage here.
Exceptions Abound
The general cost inefficiency doesn’t necessarily mean that the Indian military shuns U.S. weapons altogether. After all, it operates the world's 2nd largest fleet of Boeing-made P8I submarine hunters, 22 Boeing-built Apache helicopter gunships built with India-specific requirements, 15 Boeing-made Chinook transport helicopters as well as 11 Boeing-made C-17 Globemaster III heavy transport aircraft. However, competition across all fields remains infeasible and the Indian government actively seeks replacements when offset requirements aren’t met - an area that U.S. manufacturers are stymied in due to U.S. government policies.
South Korean companies have had some success in entering the Indian market as well. The K9 self-propelled howitzer, now produced by the Hanhwa Group, will be extensively deployed by the Indian military after 50% of the components by value were localized and the system itself modified to match operating conditions both in the desert and in the Himalayas by its Indian partner Larsen & Toubro. Daewoo Shipbuilding has emerged as the only contender in India’s “Project 75” submarine project after other (i.e. Western and Russian) manufacturers expressed an inability to abide by specified timelines and technology transfer requirements. Interestingly, Daewoo Shipbuilding is poised to be acquired by the Hanhwa Group as well.
This entry of foreign players doesn’t mean that the Indian manufacturing industry is deficient. As Part 2 (and the conclusion to this series) will indicate, indigenous capabilities have consistently risen to the challenge, just as they have since the Republic of India came into existence.