By Raaj Nair,
As the planet is getting into into a war strategic era exactly where machines are becoming the initially line of defence followed by human intervention, which was the other way round earlier, the function of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has turn out to be a lot more protuberant. Giving a main fillip to Indo-US defence cooperation, India has begun the procedure to procure remotely piloted MQ9 Predator ‘B’ Sea Guardian from the United States. The Indian Navy has taken on lease two Sea Guardian drones from an American defence main (General Atomics) to boost surveillance more than the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). India and the US signed the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) in Sept final year. The drone deal that was place on hold for 2 years has fructified soon after the signing of the COMCASA as a result recognising India as a Major Defence Partner. Last month, India and the US signed the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) that permits the US to share sensitive geospatial information with India that could be applied in escalating the functionality of each weapon and surveillance systems.
The Sea Guardian UAS manufactured by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems of the US is the naval variant of the Predator B drone which is now identified a lot more appropriately by the name MQ-9 Reaper. This is a extended-endurance, higher-altitude platform that can be employed in an armed patrol function. It was the initially hunter-killer unmanned aerial automobile (UAV) that was employed operationally by the US Air Force for the initially time as early as in March 2007.
This unmanned platform has also been in service with the armed forces of Australia, Britain, Netherlands and Italy. In comparison with its predecessor, the MQ-1 Predator, the MQ-9 Reaper is bigger and a lot more effective as it is equipped by a 900 horsepower Honeywell TPE 331-10 turboprop engine, as against the 119horsepower engine on the MQ-1 Predator. Also, the MQ-9 Reaper is capable of flying at an altitude of up to 50,000 feet and can cruise at practically 3 occasions the speed of the MQ-1 Predator. These birds have an endurance of more than 27 hours, a speed of 240 knots correct airspeed and has a 3,850 pound (1,746 kg) payload capacity that incorporates 3,000 pounds (1,361 kg) of external shops.
These drones will have important capabilities for the Indian Navy escalating its domain awareness and potential to sustain a vigil more than the places that stretch from the Gulf in the west to the essential Malacca strait in East and vast waters of the southern Indian Ocean in a expense-efficient way as operating these drones are far more affordable than the surveillance sortie of Boeing’s P8i maritime reconnaissance aircraft.
The Army, Navy and Air Force had collectively come to the conclusion that India really should opt for a weaponised drone rather than the 22 x reconnaissance and surveillance Sea Guardian drones authorized in 2017 by the US administration for provide to India. India had initially expressed its interest in these General Atomics armed drones in 2015 and the procurement had been in the functions because then. First, it was getting processed as the obtain of 22 Sea Guardians for the Indian Navy till 2017 and was later converted into an acquisition for all 3 solutions.
In a important step to minimize the higher upfront expense of acquiring newest weapon platforms, Indian Navy this month inducted two MQ-9B Sea Guardian drones manufactured by the US defence main General Atomics on lease. American crew from General Atomics is also accompanying the gear and would help the Indian Navy in operating the machines. The intelligence information from the two drones is getting fed into the Indian Navy’s warfare network and the nation will have exclusive handle more than the information gathered by the two drones. Under the lease agreement, the drone manufacturer’s crew will only support in the upkeep and technical problems although the mission organizing and operational handle will rest with Indian Navy. The information gathered by the drones in the course of the flight would also be the exclusive house of the Navy The sale to India of the armed Predators was controversial when it was initially mooted — with India asking for 22 Sea Guardian maritime variants for its Navy
— way back in 2016. UAVs that can carry missiles fall beneath the Missile Technology Control Regime’s (MTCR) Category 1 classification, for which there is a presumption of denial of exports. In order to facilitate the export (as nicely as other sales of sensitive US defence gear), the Obama Administration designated India as a Major Defence Partner — a entirely new category for US-foreign relationships precise to India. The aim was to build a tighter defence partnership among India and the US to counter Chinese ambitions and to undercut Russia’s extended hold on arms sales to Delhi.
To enhance its surveillance capabilities, India in the final two decades has bought Searcher Mk I and II as also the Heron from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). The Indian Navy has been operating UAVs because 2006. In 2015, Israel agreed to sell ten Heron TP armed drones for $400 million to India. ProjectCheetah with Israel was commissioned to upgrade the in-service drones to carry out offensive operations against the enemy. Under this project, 90 Heron drones of the 3 solutions would be upgraded to be armed with laser-guided bombs, air to ground and air-launched anti-tank guided missiles.
Presently, two Heron UAVs will need to be flown in tandem with a time gap simply because they are not fitted with a satellite package. Without this package, facts has to be relayed back to base by means of the second drone in case of extended-variety surveillance. Obviously, when we acquired the Heron UAVs from Israel, the considering was mostly for deployment against counter-terrorists and counter-infiltration operations. The kind of extended-variety surveillance specifications that have come up with the Chinese aggression was not visualised simply because the specifications for offensive operations had been not the concentrate. The upgrade sought from Israel now requires fitting the Heron drone with a satellite package so that the UAV hyperlinks with the satellite above and facts is sent on a genuine-time basis. The upgrade will let the Heron to conduct extended-variety surveillance devoid of the worry of losing make contact with with the base or go into no make contact with zone. With this upgrade in reconnaissance capabilities, the forces on the ground would also be capable to get pin-point intelligence about hideouts in places exactly where guys have to be involved in operations and allow the Armed forces&#39 ground station handlers to operate these aircraft from far-off distances and handle them by means of the satellite communication program. This would increase the capability to monitor enemy movement, maintaining an eye on enemy places and stations for taking action against them as and when needed. The project is however to be completed.
India has, so far, been applying drones mostly for ISR purposes. It started early by importing Searcher 1 and 2 drones from Israel in the late 1990s for the 3 Services. These had been followed by the Heron — a sophisticated extended-variety, extended-endurance and higher-altitude unarmed drone. Ninety Herons are at the moment in service with the Indian armed forces. The Indian Air Force (IAF) has also imported a restricted quantity of Harop suicide drones from Israel, mostly for suppression of enemy air-defence systems.
China has the formidable capability of all kind of drones and has also been practising the use of swarm drones in current years although India is lagging far behind in this regard. China is exporting drones to Pakistan and is assisting Pakistan create indigenous drones like the ‘Burraq’ unarmed combat aerial automobile (UCAV) created by the National Engineering and Scientific Commission (NESCOM) in conjunction with the Pakistani air force. During China’s National Day parade in Oct 2019, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) displayed a quantity of UAVs — DR-8 supersonic spy drone, the GJ-11 stealth combat drone and the GJ-2 reconnaissance and strike drone. The PLA has also deployed yet another drone named CH-4, which underwent tests in the Tibetan plateau area in 2018 and the BZK-005C, particularly modified for use in higher altitudes. Since 2017, China has exported CH-4 and CH-5 fixed-wing reconnaissance and strike drones, promoting them to a lot more than 10 nations, shipping a lot more than 200 units each and every year.
Rustom is a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) RPA getting created by DRDO for the 3 solutions. First flights of Rustom-1&amp Rustom 2 took off on 11 Nov 2009 &amp15 Nov 2016 respectively. Despite years of improvement, the present status:- Rustom-1 MALE UAV (Prototype flight testing), Rustom-H HALE UAV (Under improvement) and Rustom-2 UCAV (Prototype flight testing). Rustom-2 has been renamed to TAPAS-BH-201 (Tactical Airborne Platform for Aerial Surveillance-Beyond Horizon-201). The American RQ-1 Predator is an clear template for the Rustom plan. Rustom-2 is capable of carrying a diverse mixture of payloads (350kg) which includes synthetic aperture radar, electronic intelligence systems and situational awareness systems. DRDO is in the procedure of enhancing the endurance to more than 24hrs.
MQ9 Predator ‘B’ Sea Guardian which are much less manoeuvrable and carry a lesser payload, are incredibly vulnerable to air defences, a capability each of India’s rival neighbours (China and Pakistan) excel at. The engagements more than Afghanistan and the achievement price could be attributed to the lack of air defence capability of the Taliban, although in other components of the middle east, these drones have been shot down by even the oldest of soviet-era missile systems. The current clashes among Armenia and Azerbaijan may possibly have shown how efficient these drones could be against enemy armour, meanwhile, it also shows the higher quantity of drone losses for each sides. The higher fees and the susceptibility of these systems would also have raised eyebrows for the Indian solutions. The fees incurred would have been Rs 900 crore per unit along with a 10% extra annual upkeep expense. Along with this, the deal would have provided no transfer of technologies or offsets, an problem raised in the course of quite a few internal meetings.
The fees saved from signing the Sea Guardian deal could be applied a lot more effectively by investing in extended-sought indigenous procurement of LCA Tejas Mk-1As and Light Combat Helicopters and supporting the internal industries beneath the helm of Aatmanirbhar Bharat.
(The author is Indian Navy Veteran. Views are private)