BUILDING A DRONE FORCE

The Indian army has ambitious plans to raise specialised drone warfare units equipped with indigenous UAVs. But India's drone industry needs extra support to overcome procedural, financial and technical hurdles

- BY PRADIP R. SAGAR

If THERE WAS A MAJOR LESSON FOR INDIA FROM OPERATION SINDOOR, it was the need to upgrade its drone power—both in terms of a strike force and in defending itself against enemy Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). In fact, battlefields have been transformed by drones, which are now indispensable for ISR (Intelligence-Surveillance-Reconnaissance) through medium/ high altitude drones, or for precise strike missions through battlefield support UAVs armed with bombs and missiles. During the short and sharp conflict between India and Pakistan from May 7-10, another form of attack drones gained prominence. Known as loitering munitions or fire-and-forget 'kamikaze' UAVs, these are armed with warheads that 'loiter' over an area before identifying and swooping down on targets—often used in 'swarms' to overwhelm air defences and pulverise enemy assets. The high level of integration of these range of drones in modern warfare is now essential to ensure the success of the Indian armed forces. While India acquitted itself well with the limited range but highly precise, expensive and powerful drones, apart from successfully carrying out a range of counter measures to destroy incoming cheap Turkish- and Chinese-made Pakistani UAVs, experts say that there is need for an urgent review of the country's drone warfare capability which was lacking on several fronts. “We can't depend only on expensive platforms. We should fast-track induction of low-cost drones and loitering munitions for mass deployment, build domestic production lines, adapt air-defence and electronic warfare to counter saturation attacks and develop tactics for combined use of high-end and expendable drones,” says former Northern Army commander Lt Gen D.S. Hooda.