It may be difficult to predict with certainty what future battlefields will look like, but one thing is becoming increasingly clear: a sizeable share of it will be unmanned. UAVs and UCAVs are bound to proliferate, including in South Asia.

TThe Indian armed forces rank among the world’s largest and most powerful armed forces. Backed by the eighth largest defence budget, they have a growing appetite for frontline technology and an impressive shopping list. However, although the country’s industry is going from strength to strength, armament production does not seem to be its forte. That is why India is currently the world’s largest importer of military hardware. In the coming decade, it is likely to buy equipment worth up to $100 billion ( Rs. 5,50,000 crore). The lion’s share will consist of arms imports and the unmanned slice of the market is steadily growing.

A decade of conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq, during which exceptional reconnaissance missions by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and lethal strikes by unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAV) have become the norm, is rapidly giving these technological marvels pride of place on military wish lists. For instance, in 2005, the UAVs deployed by the United States constituted just five per cent of its total military aircraft; but by 2012, the figure had soared to 31 per cent. The US Air Force trains more pilots for UAVs and UCAVs than for any other weapons system because more hours are now flown by its unmanned vehicles than by its manned strike aircraft. And by 2030, a third of the Royal Air Force’s airborne assets could be unmanned.

As for Israel, it pioneered unmanned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations about 30 years ago and the Israeli military is in the forefront of UAV operational employment. Israeli companies like Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Aeronautics Defense are global leaders in the field of UAV technology. Most recently, last November, when Israel engaged Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip, its air force underlined the importance of keeping a potential combat area under continuous surveillance and the most cost-effective means of doing so was with unmanned devices.

Within a short period, UAVs have emerged from the pages of science fiction to become essential components of an advanced battlefield, creating a whole new category of arms purchases. And India is no exception.

The Indian Scene

It was the Indian Army that began the era of UAVs by inducting IAI Searchers in 1996. The Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Indian Navy followed suit. The three services together have perhaps 100 Searcher and 60 Heron UAVs. To view these figures in perspective, however, the US Department of Defense has over 6,000 UAVs (and growing) while the UK’s armed forces currently operate 335 UAVs in Afghanistan alone. India has a lengthy coastline and even longer land borders. UAVs are ideally suited to help the three services meet their ISR and security responsibilities along the country’s porous frontiers.

The Indian Army’s Searcher II UAVs are invaluable for battlefield reconnaissance. But since they are limited in numbers, they are highly controlled. It would help to procure them in larger numbers so that they can be transferred to the tactical level and provide more timely and actionable intelligence. Small UAVs that can provide local reconnaissance would also boost battlefield ISR operations. For instance, soldiers can easily be trained to operate and maintain hand-launched UAVs such as the RQ-11B Raven and the RQ-20 Puma, both manufactured by AeroVironment, so as to peer around corners or across hills. These devices can be carried by infantrymen, are easy to fly, and can be rapidly assembled or dismantled. The RQ-11B Raven weighs just two kg and is launched by hand. At present it is used only for reconnaissance, but it can be modified to drop a grenade-sized weapon. This may make it particularly appealing to field commanders. AeroVironment’s Switchblade, weighing about 2.5 kg, is also carried and operated by one soldier. Fitted with a video camera and GPS (global position system) to locate potential targets, it has 10 minutes endurance at 55-85 knots, and an effective range of up to 10 km. It is a “kamikaze” device, able to crash into its target with an explosive warhead. A larger and more capable machine, such as AAI Corporation’s RQ-7 Shadow, can be deployed for brigadelevel tactical ISR operations. It is rail-launched, flies at 8,000 feet and has a loiter capability of 4-5 hours.

The IAF has some Searcher II UAVs plus about 50 Heron medium-altitude long endurance (MALE) UAVs, developed by the Malat (UAV) division of IAI. The Heron is ideal for strategic and tactical reconnaissance missions of endurance over 40 hours, range about 350 km and has an altitude up to 30,000 feet. The IAF will also induct self-destructing combat UAVs named Harop from Israel this year. The IAI Harop is a hunter-killer UCAV with a small 23 kg explosive charge. Designed for suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD), it can detect the strong pulses transmitted by targets such as missile radars, automatically home onto them and then collide explosively with the source. Even radars that are shut down or not emitting can be hit. It has an operational range of 1,000 km and endurance up to six hours. The IAF plans to have fully operational UAV and UCAV squadrons by 2017.

Harop is just one of the several UCAVs developed from their reconnaissance predecessors. The US-mounted targeted killing of militants in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theatre using the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper vividly illustrates its usefulness, especially in asymmetric conflicts. The IAF may eventually consider acquiring the MQ-9 Reaper, a multi-mission, medium-altitude, long-endurance UCAV. However, UCAVs currently lack adequate defensive capability and are highly vulnerable in heavily defended airspace. For this reason, they are generally designed for maximum stealth, with tailless subsonic blended-wing bodies, shielded air intakes and attenuated exhausts.

The Indian Navy uses UAVs for maritime surveillance, traffic control, protection of exclusive economic zone (EEZ), anti-terrorism and anti-piracy tasks. It has three operational squadrons equipped with Heron and Searcher II UAVs. The Indian Navy also has long-term plans to induct ship-based rotary-wing UAVs that can provide real-time surveillance while operating with a carrier task force. For coastline reconnaissance, the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C broad area maritime surveillance (BAMS) unmanned system is an interesting possibility. BAMS is a naval variant of the US Global Hawk, equipped with sea-optimised equipment and sensors. With six to eight such systems, the Indian Navy would be able to cover the country’s entire coastline.

India’s paramilitary forces may also be attracted by Netra, a light-weight, autonomous hovering UAV for surveillance in low-intensity conflicts, developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and private sector idea-Forge. This 1.5 kg mini-UAV has a high-resolution daylight camera or thermal camera that can provide surveillance even in dense urban locations, for instance in a situation like the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.