good point mithradates.agreed.what about time?i'd rather spend fifty mill and bridge the gap rather than wait for sometime to develop one.manufacturing takes longer in india than in china because we lack manufacturing hardware. a gap of one generation? well, i'm not at all surprised since its coming from you.your previous posts reflected the same ill-conceived notion.actually in some key areas its the other way around.

1 generation in military hardware is roughly 15 years. Nearly every key military system that India can domestically produce is 1 generation behind China. Of course one can buy the latest SU-30 from Russia, but keep in mind that for the cost of that 1 SU-30, an industrialized nation can build 5-10 roughly comparable fighters in the same timespan along with enough multiple reloads of missiles and spare parts. Moreover, I never said that buying bridge-gap equipment from foreign nations is a bad thing. The point being said here is that external military purchases should be aimed at estabilishing technological parity of your domestic military industries with that of other world powers not just as a way of increasing one's military power. The reason being that the latter approach has largely proven to be ineffective.

Well, I have been looking at this thread for quite some time. For one we have to agree that China is ahead of us in military manufacturing. But the point is we don't have to match China in terms of defence spending. China does not have it in her to attack a country like Taiwan. So attacking India would set her back by at least 50 yrs(economically) and there are no guarantees that it would win the war. Right now, we should be happy by investing in our infrastructure, education and healthcare. The other things should just fall into place. Remember, whatever the US posters might say, they did not outpace the SU. They just outlasted them. We have to do the same. Amen!

"India has had access to more advanced weapons than China for decades, yet the underlying technology of many of these weapons are as yet not fully understood by Indian engineers and manufacturers." Probably because India was not hell-bent on building up it's military. Motivation is the PLA's advantage.

""If you can build a wheel yourself for $1 why would you buy it for $10? By the same token, why would you want to spend $50 million dollars on an F-16, when you can spend $10 on a roughly equivelent FC-1?"" What makes u think an FC-1 will be anywhere near equivelent to an F-16?? Has the so-called FC-1 be in a fight with an F-16 yet. I haven't heard of it. China has nothing to match an F-16 against, may be the Su-27, but I doubt it. As for reverse engineering, it is nothing but a "FANCY" word for copying. No wonder the copied versions never match up to the orginals. Indian forces believe in equiping themselves with the originals albeit in smaller numbers with a rider of tech transfer unlike the Chinese who keep copying and passing stuff of as their own TECHNOLOGY. No wonder so many R&D centers are being opened up in India, but few in China. Nobody trusts the Chinese communists, not even folks who do the largest amount of buisness with China!!

FC-1 LIGHT FIGHTER: The FC-1 has its roots in the now defunct Super-7 program which fell apart after he Tiananmen Square demonstrations were put down by the PRC. FC-1 development continued under the MiG design bureau using data from the rejected MiG-33 strike fighter. The FC-1 has 7 stores stations - four under the wing, two on the wing-tips and one under the fuselage. Fixed weapon is a 23-mm inner cannon hidden inside fuselage. In addition to the PL-8 short-range infrared-guided air-to-air missile, which was derived from Israeli Rafael Python-3 technology, the FC-1 could also carry SD-10 medium-range missile. It may also be fitted with indigenously developed PL-11 or PL-12 medium-range AAM for BVR combat. For ground attack missions, the FC-1 will carry laser-guided bombs, YJ-8K anti-ship missile, as well as various unguided bombs and rockets. The FC-1 is favored by the PLA Navy aviation branch but not by the PLAAF itself which wants the more capable J-10 strike fighter to replace aging MiG-21 and MiG-19 designs. Pakistan has funded most of the FC-1 development and may purchase up to 150 of the fighters if it meets the Pakistani Air Force requirements. The FC-1 is being developed by CAC-1, formerly Chengdu Aircraft Corp., with partial funding by Pakistan. The FC-1 draws its design lineage from the Super-7 fighter program, a cooperative development between Chengdu and then Grumman Corp. The agreement was signed in 1988, but fell apart after Beijing's violent reaction to the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989. However, the FC-1 incorporates many features from the U.S. F-16 Fighting Falcon design. The F-16 features appeared during the 1990s after Pakistan transferred a single F-16A fighter to China in exchange for DF-11 missile technology. Russia also has contributed to the FC-1 project. The FC-1 reportedly incorporated several features of the now-defunct MiG-33 lightweight fighter project rejected by the Russian air force. The Russian MiG design bureau dedicated several teams of engineers to the Chinese fighter after the fall of the Soviet Union. A single modified MiG-29 engine, the Klimov RD-33, dubbed the RD-93, powers the FC-1. The Pakistani air force eventually could buy up to 150 FC-1s, but this purchase depends on whether the aircraft meets performance expectations. The aircraft is favored by the Chinese naval aviation arm but has found little support from within the PLAAF itself. The Chinese air force is currently testing another lightweight fighter named the J-10. The PLAAF leadership feels that the FC-1 is a waste of time and a costly duplication of the J-10 effort already under way.

I will say generations for sure. India failed H-bomb test 1998 which China had succeeded it in 1967, more than 40 years before. That reflects the technology gap. -- yakeepi Correction mate: You think we failed the H-Bomb test. We know exactly what you did in 1967... and have done ever since. It was an Indo-Tibetian Border Police team that laid detectors which brought light into China's nuclear testing program. Where did you hear India failed? On the CNN?

I would only match China in those areas of defence spending, that cannot be rapidly produced when needed. Stuff like training. The risk with matching China in all areas is that you 'll end up buying lots of hardware that will be 5 to 10 years old when you need to use it.

Just work on building an assymetric defense against China, you'll save money while buiding a viable force against your greatest threat. India will have money for a more complete military once the manufacturing and R&D sectors really start rolling.

I don't think india has any urgent need to match china....our armed forces are strong enough to repel any attack by china. China cannot win a war against india ....it will be a stalemate (though india might be at a slight disadvantage). As india's economy grows so will its defence spending. Just concentrate on social and economic reforms with an eye on the armed forces.