6 Rafale fighter jets with India specific enhancement to arrive in Dec-Jan 2022

It is understood that once the India specific enhancements are tested to satisfaction in Indian conditions, the existing fleet of 30 Rafales will be retrofitted with the same enhancements in the coming year.

Published on: Nov 25, 2021, 11:54:06 IST

By Shishir Gupta, Hindustan Times, New Delhi

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India is set to get remaining six Rafale multi-role jets with country-specific enhancements including long range air-to-air missiles, frequency jammers and advanced communications in the coming two months.

With the induction of Rafales and Russian S-400 air defence systems, India will have an potent arsenal to deter any threat in the region.

According to IAF officials, first of the three Rafales with India specific enhancements with arrive from Istres-Le Tube air base, north-west of Marseille, France in December while the last three of multi-role fighters will be flown into Ambala air base in January 2022. The Istres air base is equipped with test bed facilities for manufacturer Dassault Aviation to install India specific enhancements on Rafale fighters.

It is understood that once the India specific enhancements are tested to satisfaction in Indian conditions, the existing fleet of 30 Rafales will be retrofitted with the same enhancements in the coming year. The Indian Rafales are based in Ambala to handle the two front threat and in Hashimara to respond to any emergency in the eastern sector.

Apart from the Meteor air-to-air beyond visual range missiles, the Rafale has potent weapons like SCALP air to ground laser guided ammunition to target the enemy from over 300 kilometers range and HAMMER precision terrain hugging ammunition which hunts and destroy high value enemy targets from 60 kilometers away.

With 36 Rafale in its armory, the Indian Air Force will also become much more potent in December with the induction of at least two S-400 air defence systems in India. The Russian S-400 will not only match similar system deployed with the Chinese Army on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) but also deter any aerial threat from across the Tibetan border from 400 kilometers. Indian Air Force with longest beyond visual range air to air missiles onboard Rafale and S-400 air defence system to protect the air bases and skies above, any enemy will think many a times before casting an evil eye towards India.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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