Is Reverse engineering a Good Option for India?

Reverse engineering is a Big No-No in Indian Defence Sector, Country’s major weapons producer like DRDO, Hal and other various labs always wanted in house research and development of indigenous weapons .Indian weapons development have seen continuous delays, mainly due to this following factors . Lack of funds, poor Ground facilities, lack of expertise, over ambitious Projects by our scientist which has resulted in almost all Weapons development going over budget, facing delays or project been scrapped . Due to which imported weapons had to be purchased to fill in the gaps left by delays in production of this Indigenous Weapons systems.


Reverse engineering of Military application really started after World War –II, When US and Soviet Union used German V-2 Rocket designs to build up their Missile and Space rockets. Even at the height of World War II Soviet s copied American B-29 strategic bomber which had landed after Bombing Mission over Japan and made perfect copy and named it Tu-4. Cold war only intensified the Reverse engineering in Military Weapons. Soviet Defence Forces was the major Benefiter of Reverse engineering; they perfectly copied Roll Royce Engine for Mig-15 and also Reverse-engineered copy of the AIM-9 Sidewinder, made possible after a Taiwanese AIM-9B hit a Chinese MiG-17 without exploding, later Soviet scientists would describe as a university course in missile development.



Lately China has been Reverse engineering every thing that they have purchased from Russia or Europe. Russian officials have been irritated for years by what they view as China’s illegal reverse engineering of combat systems From Sukhoi-27 to Engines and many subsystems. China still manufactures many of the Soviet Designed Fighter aircrafts and Bombers till date .But China’s illegally Reverse engineering also means that Many European Nations and even Russia refuse to give china latest or advance weapons’ to them .Russia even did not considered China for their Pak-FA 5th generation fighter aircraft project, Sukhoi Su 27/30 MKK which china have in it armed forces and not top notch and come with under powered Radar and no latest Avionics Package.



Even China’s Claims of bettering over Russian Weapons is just more of claims then actually acceptable by other countries which uses Chinese weaponry, even Major Chinese Weapons importer like Pakistan are opting for European Avionics over Chinese For their Joint Project of 4 Gen Fighter like JF-17 and may again likely go for European Weapons again for J-10B fighter aircraft which they have decided to purchase from China. Russia trust in India can be seen by recent negotiations for Russia to export two Akula II SSNs to India. These advanced nuclear submarines never have been available to China. India has been procuring and gaining production licenses from Russia and several Western nations for decades, and it never has copied any systems illegally. Level of confidence in dealing with India is very high among Arms manufactures; this has seen many Advance levels of Technology transfers or Joint development of Futuristic Weapons, developments which various labs in India are engaged in.



Vinayak shetti is a free lance Journalist based in Goa and also admin of www.lca-tejas.org