Defence equipment in most cases comes at great costs. Therefore, it is inevitable for it to stay in operational use for long periods in the defence forces the world over. However, prudence would demand that the equipment is replaced before it becomes obsolete.

At a press conference held to mark the 78th anniversary of the Indian Air Force (IAF), the Air Chief, Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik stated that the IAF was grappling with the problem of large-scale obsolescence of its equipment with as much as 50 per cent of its equipment having become obsolete. If this statement had been true, it would have rung alarm bells of the most serious nature with regard to the state of the equipment on the IAF’s inventory. Fortunately, soon after the press conference, the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), while being interviewed by a TV channel, had the opportunity to clarify that he was actually alluding to obsolescence of some of the IAF’s equipment.

So what is the difference between a set of equipment being obsolescent or obsolete? Oxford dictionary defines obsolescent as ‘something which is in the act of becoming obsolete or going out of use’ and obsolete as ‘disused, already discarded or at best, antiquated’.

Defence equipment in most cases comes at great costs. Therefore, it is inevitable for it to stay in operational use for long periods in the defence forces the world over. However, prudence would demand that the equipment is replaced before it becomes obsolete. While most world class armed forces have been able to keep their defence equipment current, how have the Indian armed forces fared in this regard? Even a modest scrutiny would indicate that for a combination of reasons, the Indian armed forces have been unable to avoid reaching this dismal situation in some or much of their operational equipment depending upon the service in question. While the Indian Army perhaps is the greatest victim in terms of obsolete equipment, the IAF would find its place somewhere between the two services, the Indian Army and the Indian Navy.

It is true that at any given time, a service would be concurrently handling many types of equipment in terms of age or operational relevance. The Indian Army, for example, talks of three categories such as new or current, obsolescent and obsolete. However, taking into account the highly capital intensive equipment of the Navy and the Air Force especially the latter, it is suggested that the equipment on its inventory be divided into four categories i.e. new, old, obsolescent and obsolete. As stated earlier, because of the exorbitantly high costs of initial acquisition, the Air Force equipment invariably undergoes midlife upgrades with life extensions when it reaches the stage where it starts to ‘get old’ that this second stage has been recommended. However, the impact of technologies is such that no Air Force equipment should ever be allowed to reach the last stage where it becomes obsolete as not replacing the equipment on reaching obsolescence would result in dangerous deficiencies in the operational effectiveness of the Air Force.