Rupee News

Admiral Edouard Guillaud, military personal staff officer to French president Nicolas Sarkozi, heading a delegation on the follow-up of President Asif Ali Zardari’s recent visit to Paris, called on the Pakistani president a few days ago and conveyed his government’s decision to provide Tiger combat helicopters and other equipment to Pakistan to strengthen its abilities [...]. None of the news agencies elaborated whether these will be ex-stock French army or newly built. But since its own operational requirements are not fully met, (the French Army has or will be placing a follow-on order for another 40), it would appear that these helicopters, in all probability, will be new.

French Tiger Choppers

 [...] the French helicopters will be in the long-time service of the Pakistan Army. The Tigers will be equipped with air-to-ground missiles with semi-active laser-seekers with a range of several kilometres. A squadron or so of the “tank buster” can cause serious disruptions to the enemy’s armoured divisions, so it should be good news for the Army.

We have been using French weaponry for as long as my generation of officers can remember. The Pakistani Navy inducted Daphne-class submarines back in 1971, and made its mark almost immediately after its induction when the PNS/M Hangor sank INS Kukri in the 1971 Indo-PakistanI war, the first in an action of this nature since World War II. The Daphnes were followed by the Agosta 70 and later by Agosta 90 submarines, which are equipped with SM-39 Exocet subsurface-to-surface missile.

The other success story had been the French AM-39 missile system onboard the British Sea King helicopters. Pakistan paid for the research and development of installing the Exocet onboard the Sea King helicopters, since this had never been attempted before and the idea originated from Vice Admiral H H Ahmed, who was chief of the Naval Staff after the 1971 fiasco. Under an agreement, Pakistan was to receive royalty from any Sea King sales with Exocets installed, but it is not known how many sales fell in this category or how much was paid to the government of Pakistan on this count, if at all. Considering the global population of these helicopters, something should have come into the national kitty for the labours of the late “Admiral H H,” as we all fondly called him.

The French-built Breaguet Atlantique long-range maritime surveillance aircraft had been in the service of the Navy for nearly three decades and are only now being replaced by the US P3C Orions. The PAF had been operating the Mirage aircraft for nearly three decades which, before the induction of the F-16s, had served its high-tech inventory vis-a-vis the Chinese aircraft of earlier vintage. One squadron of the Mirages had been fitted out to carry the Exocet for rapid response against any hostile threat at sea.

[...]

The French niche market in submarine sales to Pakistan and some other traditional customers has also been adversely affected with the coming of age of the German competition. [...] As if the French submarines losing competition was not bad enough, the United States’ propping up of another European competitor, Spain, where US-based firms are supplying the crucial command and control systems for its S-80 submarine programme, has further dimmed the prospects for France to maintain its erstwhile near-total global monopoly on the sale of diesel submarines.

So far just over two hundreds of the Tiger helicopters have been sold to the French, German, Spanish and Australian armies. [...] Pakistan’s defence market, it is worthwhile to note, has not been too gainful for the French military industry in the last ten years or so. Apart from other, one of the main factors for this had been the opening of US origin equipment options post 9/11 after a spell of US sanctions which had been imposed in the wake of nuclear explosions by Pakistan in 1998.

The Tiger can also fire Mistral ground-to-air missiles which should pose a threat to the Drones/UAVs activity in certain flight envelopes at low level. In the wake of President Zardari’s visit to France, there have also been reports of French assistance to Pakistan in nuclear programmes, the details of which have not yet emerged but it is generally believed to relate to improve safeties, and where our efforts with the US had not been too successful. Whether or not France cocks a snoot at the US and arms the Tigers with Mistrals and goes ahead with nuclear assistance, however, remains to be seen.

[...] French connection, déjà vu Thursday, July 23, 2009

Taj M Khattak. The write is a retired vice admiral and former vice chief of the Naval Staff. Email: tajkhattak@ymail.com