At the dawn of the last century, flying machines were just a concept. However, by the end of World War I 18 years later, the aeroplane and the airship were well established in the military inventories of all the major powers. Their effectiveness in that conflict was not earthshaking, but their potential, both as a weapon of war and as a mode of transportation, had become obvious. The aeroplane with aerial weapons vastly expanded the area of combat activity, made economic, population and infrastructure centres far from the front lines vulnerable and made war global.

Evolution

In the period between the two World Wars, aerial bombs came into service that were far heavier than artillery shells of ground forces or those fired from the guns of the largest battleships. Integration of mechanised forces with attack aircraft in a war of fire and movement, was developed to prevent a repeat of the stalemate of trench warfare on the Western Front in World War I.

At sea, the aircraft carrier group with its embarked combat aircraft began to replace the battleship-centric force as the fist of power projection at sea. The US, Japanese and British fleets built up effective carrier-based air power assets. The effectiveness of reconnaissance over the sea and land, increased dramatically with the use of aeroplanes. However, all this required a degree of control of the air to prevent interference from enemy air assets. A favourable air situation over the battlefield on land and at sea thus became a prerequisite for success. All operations had to factor this in.

The aeroplane versus battleship issue was settled at Pearl Harbour and off the Malay coast by Japanese air power. In the battles of The Coral Sea and Midway, for the first time in history, opposing surface forces did not come into contact with one another. The air delivered bomb and torpedo decided the outcome and ended the domination of the Japanese Navy in the Pacific.

Strategic bombing was undertaken against civilian population centres by the Germans at first. The US and Britain retaliated on a massive scale over Europe and Japan. Bombing accuracies especially from high levels were dismal with errors at times running into kilometres, despite the development of better bomb sights and use of dive bombing techniques. The inherent inaccuracies of unguided munitions became clear. Specialist bombs of up to 5,400 kg were used against hardened targets and nuclear air burst fisson bombs against cities. Barring very limited use of guided aerial weapons mainly by the Germans, all aerial weapons were unguided.

Post-World War II conflicts in Korea and Vietnam saw extensive use of land and carrier-based aircraft supporting numerically inferior ground forces. In Afghanistan and in Iraq, firepower delivered by aircraft proved vital to the conduct of ground operations. All these conflicts were in very low air threat environments as far as one combatant was concerned since they were basically technologically asymmetric contests at least in the air.

The Present

Of late, low intensity asymmetric conflicts have erupted in various parts of the world. Here again air launched weapons have provided mobility of deployment, rapid response times and volume of firepower unobtainable with ground-based systems. They also have the advantage of not having a physical presence on the ground in the war zone.

As aircraft and weapons increased in complexity and cost, the high attrition rates seen in past wars became unsustainable. Technological advances made possible the development of precision weapons. Their increased accuracies minimised human error and enabled release from longer ranges. All this contributed to reduce high attrition rates.

Precision-guided munitions (PGMs) have become the norm especially in high threat scenarios. Long-range PGMs such as air launched cruise missiles give a strategic strike capability without having to use long-range bombers. However guns, unguided bombs and rockets are still effective in more benign environments and have a cost advantage. They also cannot be decoyed away from their targets by countermeasures since there is no guidance used after weapons release.

Precision night and adverse weather attack capabilities have been made possible by PGMs and the development of aircraft electronic aids. Specialised PGMs have been in use since the Vietnam War. Anti-radiation weapons to target radar emitters such as ground surveillance and fire control radars, laser and TV guided bombs and rockets, infrared homing and radar beam guided rockets have all been used in combat.

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones that originated as surveillance and reconnaissance systems with platforms optimised for endurance rather than speed, agility and weapon load capability. With the weaponisation of these platforms with PGMs, they have proved their ability for accurate air-to-surface strike with the added advantage of no casualties to those operating the platforms and not those at the receiving end, as well as providing an option of plausible deniability of involvement in military action. The drawback till now has been the limited performance capabilities of these platforms. Efforts are already on to give them manned aircraft like capabilities. Advances in electronics will make it possible to have independent robotic control in place of remote human control, thus removing the human element from the loop except possibly in a vetoing capacity.

The Indian Context

Till very recently, the Indian Air Force (IAF) was primarily a tactical air force because of the limited range and weaponry of the combat aircraft on its inventory. The heaviest weapon in the inventory of the IAF in 1965 and 1971 was the World War II vintage 500 kg unguided bomb. This has begun to change with the acquisition of long-range strike aircraft which will soon be capable of carrying supersonic cruise missiles which have a standoff range of around 300 km.

The oft repeated statement that “we will fight with what we have” is a tribute to the valour, professionalism and training of the people who do the fighting but is more of an admission of the failure of the system to provide them with the tools to do the job. Modern warfare is technology-intensive and a combination of human qualities and good weaponry is required to win. In 1962, Indian troops went into battle poorly equipped with antiquated weapons, no warm clothing, insufficient ammunition, poor communications and logistics support, no artillery or air cover to hold tactically inferior positions against overwhelming odds. Even though the available resources were limited, even what was available was not made use of. The thought of modernising our military originated only after the debacle that year.

Modern weapons are essential in a modern war. The IAF cannot afford to squander state-of-the-art assets of aircraft and skilled aircrew in efforts to deliver vintage dumb weapons on the 21st century battlefield. The IAF suffered from a mindset that considered precision weapons as exotic, which they are, without realising that they are even more essential than sophisticated launch platforms.

The IAF inventory now includes short- and medium-range IR and radar-guided air-to-air missiles with both passive and active radar sensors. In the air-to-surface role the IAF has anti-radiation, optical and laser-guided missiles and bombs with GPS and laser guidance, guided cluster weapons, as well as cruise missiles with GPS and inertial guidance. It has on board systems to launch these missiles and other missiles with a true fire-and-forget capability.

What the IAF lacks is quantity and in-house development capability. This will force the IAF to restrict use of PGM and wars have proven that the quantum of firepower can never be too much. Inadequate firepower compromises mission success and increases casualties. This requires weapons in quantity and detailed planning, simulation and validation. Weapon planning was neglected in the past and realistic figures to calculate target to weapon matching were not used. Hopefully this would have been been rectified by now.

The IAF needs to develop an offensive air-to-ground strike capability with UAVs, especially since the Indian armed forces will continue to be engaged in a low-intensity conflict with infiltrators on our Western borders. The weaponised UAV reduces exposure of ground troops and causalities and provides fire support at short notice. It is tailor-made for long duration armed surveillance which is what the bulk of the Indian military and paramilitary forces are engaged in. Ethical questions about using air power against own citizens are not valid here since infiltration is from another country or territory occupied by another country and is de facto an attack on the state from foreign soil. PGMs and weapons used on UAVs are ideal for such targets and do not tie down ground forces and weapons to the extent that is happening now. This is what is being done in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

Modernisation has to be balanced. The IAF has for long preferred to upgrade its launch platforms without paying the same attention to the weapons that these platforms carry. If the weapon does not hit the target, the best aircraft is of no use. Local R&D has to be accelerated to cater for disruption of supplies from foreign vendors and hopefully local production plus economies of scale could reduce costs. The nation cannot afford a repeat of 1962, counting on human grit and courage to compensate for the failure of the system.