In modern warfare, the use of drones has increased. In the militaries of countries such as China and the United States, from micro and small drones to strategic-level drones, they are equipped. The rest of the world has also developed or introduced various types of drones, which have played a large role in many wars or conflicts in recent years.
For example, in the recent war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the application of The Arbor drone is a big highlight, and we have also talked about many topics related to drones.
Many friends are more concerned about the Indian army, want to understand the development status of the Indian military UAV, we will make a brief analysis of the development / introduction, application and future direction of the Indian military UAV in this article.
As we all know, the United States and Israel were the first countries to use military drones, and to this day, these two countries are still leading the trend in the development of military drones. When Israeli drones emerged in the Battle of the Bekaa Valley in 1982, India had already noticed the significant use of drones in the military field.
Therefore, as early as the 1980s, India began the research and development of military drones, it should be said that at least in terms of consciousness, India is still very early.
However, we also know the problems of the Indian military industry, and the ideas are often very beautiful, but it is not so easy to implement.
In 1982, India launched the concept research of "autonomous unmanned surveillance platform"; in 1988, the Nishant UAV was officially established, which is mainly used for reconnaissance surveillance, artillery firing and loss assessment; in 1995, the Nishant UAV officially flew; in 1999, the Nishant UAV prototype participated in actual combat.
However, the performance of this drone is really unacceptable to the Indian army; in desperation, India had to turn to Israel, after technical improvements, by around 2005, the Indian military finally placed an order for 12 aircraft, but it is said that only 4 were accepted at the beginning.
Why is the Indian army so reluctant to see this "star" drone in its own country? Because the aircraft has been technically improved, it is still unbearable.
The drone has only 4.5 hours of clearance time, a payload of only 45 kg, a practical ceiling of less than 4,000 meters, and a range of only 160 kilometers.
If these indicators are only these indicators, they can barely be used, but the aircraft takes off using a car-mounted slide track, and the last drone can only drop off after 20 minutes; and the recovery is operated by parachutes or airbags, but the safety is not high.
Therefore, in actual use, the Indian army's limited equipment of the Nishant UAV often crashed, especially the first 4 of the equipment have all crashed, which has led to the disgust of the Indian military. It's just that nishant drone is one of India's "independent brands", which belongs to chicken rib equipment and is difficult to completely abandon. At present, the Indian military industry department is still developing Nishant's improved Panchi UAV, but the prospects of the UAV are still not optimistic.
In addition to Nishant, there are other models of drones developed earlier in India, but they are basically unsuccessful.
Given the difficulty of meeting the needs of the military, India began to seek such equipment from Israel.
In 2000, India spent $300 million to buy 8 Heron drones and related equipment from Israel.
Heron Drones are well-known brands of Israeli drones that perform tasks such as real-time surveillance, electronic reconnaissance/jamming, communication relay, and maritime patrols.
The aircraft is a large unmanned aerial vehicle with a maximum takeoff weight of 1150 kg, a payload of 250 kg, an endurance of 20 to 45 hours, and a maximum lift limit of more than 9200 meters.
Due to the tradition of the Indian army, the crash rate of heron drones is also very high
The arrival of this UAV has greatly improved the reconnaissance capabilities of the Indian army, so india has purchased it many times, making the aircraft the most important UAV in the Indian army.
In 2015, India approved the introduction of 10 Heron TP drones for $400 million, the latter with a maximum take-off weight of up to 4650 kg, a payload of up to 1000 kg, and in addition to reconnaissance capabilities, it also embedded a strike module, making the aircraft capable of detecting.
However, the deal does not appear to have been actually implemented (if implemented, it is expected to be reminded), so the Indian army is still equipped with an older version of the heron. Given that this version of the Heron has no armed strike capability, the Indian military is pushing to arm its existing Heron drones with laser-guided bombs, precision-guided munitions and anti-tank missiles to destroy enemy positions and armored vehicles.
In addition to the Heron drone, the Indian Army has also purchased Searcher 1 and Searcher 2 drones from Israel.
The searcher UAV is also mainly used for real-time monitoring, artillery correction, battlefield damage assessment, communication relay and other tasks, but it is comprehensively lower than the Heron UAV in performance.
The Searcher 1 drone is 4.07 m long, 1.18 m high and has a wingspan of 7.2 m, while the Searcher 2 UAV is larger in size and uses new engines, new navigation systems and advanced communication systems. The searcher 2 drone has a payload of 63 kg, a maximum flight altitude of 4575 meters, a maximum clearance time of 14 hours, and a combat radius of 120 km.
There are at least 100 Searcher 1 and Searcher 2 drones in the Indian army, and if you add the Heron drone, there are about 200 such drones in the Indian army.
In addition to heron drones and searcher drones, India also introduced Israeli-made Habi drones in 2009, and the number of equipment now roughly dozens. The Habi UAV is one of the few models in the Indian UAV unit that can be used directly for strikes.
After purchasing a lot of Israeli UAVs, India has not completely lost confidence due to the temporary setback of domestic UAVs, and India is still very active in the development of domestic UAVs.
Among them, it is worth mentioning the Rustum UAV, in 2009, the First Flight of the Rustum 1 UAV was successful; in 2012, India announced the successful completion of the 14th full-size flight test of the model.
India actually regards The Rustum 1 as a verification machine, as a springboard for the Rustum 2 UAV, so the Rustum 2 UAV is the model that the Indian army really has high hopes for.
Rustum 2 UAV is India's domestic hollow long-endurance UAV, the positioning of the aircraft is not only to replace the Indian military has been in service for many years of Heron UAV, at the same time on the basis of the aircraft will develop a Schatha integrated model and civilian model.
According to the design indicators, the maximum take-off weight of the UAV is 1800 kg, and the payload is 350 kg. Mission payloads include optoelectronic pods, synthetic aperture radar pods, electronic reconnaissance systems, and more. The aircraft will have an endurance of more than 24 hours and a maximum flight altitude of tens of thousands of meters.
But still that sentence, the ideal is very full, the reality is very bone.
In the course of the experiment, the Rustum 2 UAV encountered many problems such as overweight, limited imported components, too expensive, and too low safety.
In September 2019, a tested Rustum 2 drone crashed, which was another major setback on the road to the development of domestic drones in India.
On October 10, 2020, the Rustum 2 drone conducted another test flight, the drone flew at an altitude of 16,000 feet (4876.8) meters for 8 hours, and the next step is to fly continuously for 18 hours at an altitude of 26,000 feet (7924.8 meters).
That is to say, the Rustum 2 UAV is still a long way from being successfully developed and practical.
In addition to the active development of the Rustum 2 UAV in India, it is also involved in stealth UAVs, but at present, such UAVs are still limited to the concept and model stages, and they are far from true practicalization.
In recent years, India has also spent a lot of money to buy the US MQ9B drone.
Although there are many similar reports, each time there is a nose and an eye. However, in view of the fact that India has always had the "habits" of "thunder and rain and small points" and inconsistencies and reversals in the arms purchase case. Therefore, for such military purchases, unless it is said that it has really reached the implementation stage, it is better to let the bullets fly for a while before making a judgment.
Above we mainly talk about large and medium-sized UAVs, and made a brief introduction to the main projects of India's domestic UAVs. In the Indian army, the equipment of small and micro unmanned aerial vehicles has also advanced rapidly in recent years, but it is not very systematic.
In 2016, India claimed to spend $3 billion over 10 years to purchase more than 5,000 drones. Most of these drones are small and miniature, mainly to meet the needs of the Indian army for the use of battalion companies and even individual squad-level UAVs.
But the ability of Indians to make plans is one thing, and the level of implementation is another. Moreover, from the perspective of historical experience, India's defense plan is basically impossible to fully implement.
Judging from the current situation, we can be sure that India's awareness and attention to drones is very high.
But India itself does not have the ability to manufacture high-performance, even general-performance drones. Under the premise of obtaining foreign technology and components supply, India's "domestic" drone capabilities are still at this level. Therefore, for a foreseeable period of time, India will not be able to achieve a major leap in its own UAV combat capability through "domestic" UAVs.
Under the premise that "domestic production" is not powerful, India wants to improve the combat capability of its own drone fleet, and it must rely on outsourcing. Its outsourcing channels can be from Israel or from the United States.
However, for high-performance drones, the technical control of the United States and Israel is also very strict, and it is unlikely that India will transfer the core technology; and if the whole machine is purchased, the price of high-performance drones is not cheap, especially if it is sold to India, it is often several times higher than the cost price, which leads to India's purchase of drones, it is unlikely to be able to afford to buy enough quantities.
Therefore, in general, India is weak in the construction of the drone force, the heart is higher than the sky, and the life is thinner than paper. Obviously, I have realized the importance of drones, but my own ability and financial resources are limited, and I really can't do whatever I want.
The final result is that India's existing UAVs are still basically stuck in the traditional reconnaissance/communication aspects, and the expansion of other performance of UAVs, especially in direct strike capabilities, is extremely short,even inferior to the Azerbaijani army in the recent War of Asia and Afghanistan, which has at least a large number of UAVs and more suicide UAVs.
It is for this reason that India has stepped up research on arming the existing Heron Drone Fleet; at the same time, it will also focus more on strike capabilities when purchasing new drones in the future. However, this will also require time, financial resources and execution.