This month, China’s state media published its decision to supply 50 Wing Loong II armed drones to Pakistan, which it prophesied would be a nightmare for Indian land formations in high-altitude areas as the Indian military lacks the capacity. to respond to new threats. old war weapons.
Arguing that Chinese and Turkish armed drones had played a crucial role in the Libyan, Syrian and Azerbaijani conflicts by decimating enemy defenses and conventional armor, Chinese media said that Indian ground formations would not be able to stop an attack of a large number. of armed drones.
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While the Chinese emphasis on the success of Wing Loong II in the African and Asian theater is a noteworthy matter, Indian military officials note that armed drones function optimally in uncontested airspaces or where they have air dominance. Like in Afghanistan and Iraq, where US drones have been used to carry out attacks against insurgents or terrorists because the US dominated the airspace.
This will not be the case for China or Pakistan’s border with India.
“Be it the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir or the Royal Line of Control in Ladakh, the airspace is closely monitored by radars and hotly contested with the fighters. Armed drones will simply be shot down if they cross the lines, ”said a former chief of the Indian Air Force.
But Pakistan’s acquisition of China’s armed drones underscores the need for India to acquire armed drones and anti-drone systems, as UAVs can be used to launch air-to-ground weapons without crossing the LoC or LAC. . Drones can fire weapons beyond the combat envelopes of Indian guns or surface-to-air missiles on the ground.
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For now, India does not have any armed drone system.
The navy is acquiring two US predators on lease for maritime domain awareness to identify friends or foes. And the Israeli weaponry upgrade to the Heron drone will take time.
India had accepted the need for the armed forces to have close-in weapons systems in 2015 and launched the tender for the system that detects and destroys incoming missiles or enemy aircraft three years later. The Russian S-400 system, which made the cut, is expected to be available next year.
Defense public sector company Bharat Electronics, meanwhile, has created an anti-drone radar-based system, but it has yet to be validated by users.
While it is in the interest of the Chinese media and military to compare the Indian army with Armenian, Syrian or Government of National Accord (GNA) forces in the Africa-Asia scenario for their psychological warfare, the medium-power radar manufactured by Bharat Electronics detects even birds in flight. Also, it is profitable to shoot down an infiltrated drone using L-70 or ZU-23 air defense weapons.
After all, a Chinese Wing Loong II drone costs one-tenth the cost of a fighter and it doesn’t make sense to shoot it down with million-dollar US air-to-air missiles.
To ensure that troops are protected from fighting weapons, the Indian Army is using tunnel defenses with huge Hume concrete pipes to provide defense in the event of a first attack on the front lines. But a stroke of luck from an enemy drone can unravel the best of defense plans without a properly integrated air defense network.
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