Drones are playing an increasing role in modern warfare. In the midst of the armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan that broke out in September last year, turkey aided Azerbaijan with a large number of TB-2 Tchatha integrated drones. Since Armenia was simply not prepared to respond, a large number of tactical units on the ground were ruthlessly harvested. Among them are not only T-72 main battle tanks, or BM-30 "Tornado" rockets, but even the S-300 air defense system that Russian aided them to resist air-space strikes.
It is no exaggeration to say that this drone has greatly influenced the entire Nagorno-Karabakh war. Because the Azerbaijani army, in fact, did not gain any advantage in ground confrontation. Instead, they were often ambushed by Armenian infantry detachments. But by using drones in large numbers, the other side's advantages are destroyed and victory is achieved.
If It were not for Russia's timely intervention, I am afraid that Armenia would have lost the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is 4400 square kilometers of land! In fact, the drone that Turkey aided Azerbaijan is nothing more than a popular product. It's just a clumsy imitation of China's Rainbow-3 drone! Its maximum take-off weight is less than 700 kg, the maximum load is only 150 kg, and the reliability of Turkish drones is average. Compared with the world's mainstream Cha-Ta integrated drones, those take-off weight of one or two tons, TB-2 is also quite pocket-sized. However, it is such a cheap popular product that has completed the blow against the enemy's dimensionality reduction.
In this case, India also wants to join in the fun. After the armed conflict in the Galwan Valley in June 2020, the Indians continued to send their troops to the northern border areas like chicken blood. In addition, they also realized that their northern neighbor is a drone powerhouse, and its pterodactyl and Rainbow series of drones have been exported to many countries. Therefore, India has also accelerated the speed of drone research and development, and even wants to leapfrog to the ranks of stealth drones.
The latest report in the Indian media is that a drone test footage from an aerial test site in southern Karnataka, India, was exposed. The footage shows that India is testing a small drone with stealth and flying wings. Previously held in India at the Bangalore Air Show, India has taken the initiative to expose, is developing Ghatak unmanned attack aircraft, and came up with its own concept model, the aircraft that appeared in the picture of the UAV test flight, and the Ghatak unmanned attack aircraft basically maintained the same, according to the Indian media revealed, the test flight of the verification aircraft named SWIFT, the length of about 4 meters, the width of about 5 meters, the maximum take-off weight of just over a ton, equipped with a Russian-made "Saturn" 36MT turbofan engine.
On the surface, although the overall level of this verification aircraft has reached the international mainstream standard, it is almost impossible for this physique to be made into a so-called stealth, long-range, and check-and-play integrated drone. And there was news a long time ago that this drone will complete its first flight as early as 2019 and 2020 at the latest, but it has been delayed until today. This level of aircraft, compared to India, the difficulty of research and development is undoubtedly quite large, so the Indians themselves are also very self-aware, choose to continue to purchase MQ-9 armed drones from the United States.
According to Indian media, India and the United States will hold a summit in Washington in December this year, when the two sides will sign a total of $3 billion in contracts, mainly 30 MQ-9B "SeaGuard" drones, and possibly including MQ-9A "Death" drones. There is no doubt that this move is the act of the Americans using India as a cash machine to harvest.
The unit price of the drone of 100 million US dollars makes India have to adopt the method of installment payment, which is also india's ancestral art energy! As early as the 1970s and 1980s, India purchased The European Jaguar fighter jet and applied installments in large quantities. This time, they plan to pay a 15% down payment first, and the rest will be paid in full within 6 years. For India, this is both daily and sad, it has no R & D production capacity, and in the end it only has to be slaughtered.