Military & Aerospace

UCAVs – post Nishant fiasco
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Issue Net Edition | Date : 26 Dec , 2015

Nishant UAV

Post dumping of DRDO’s Nishant UAV by the Army after successive failures with decades of development and at least Rs 90 crores (official figures) behind it, now comes the news that India is getting set to indigenously develop unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) that would be capable of targeting enemy through missiles and precision-guided munitions, and return to home base to re-arm for the next further mission.

The Project is named ‘Ghatak’ and it reportedly is follow up of the AURA (Autonomous Unmanned Research Aircraft) program sanctioned in 2009 at a cost of Rs 12.50 crore to undertake conceptual and feasibility study for the future indigenous UCAV. AURA design is based on stealthy flying-wing concept aircraft with internal weapons bay and a turbofan engine, similar to Northrop Grumman’s B-2 Spirit. Rao Inderjit Singh, MoS (Defence) told Parliament in December 2015 that the AURA project was successfully completed in April 2013 within its stipulated time schedule.

…development of the Kaveri engine was at a cost of Rs 2,839 crore and if it is not successful to power the indigenous UCAV, the money and decades of development will be a complete waste.

As per media reports, government is close to approving Project Ghatak at a cost of Rs 2,650 crore for developing the indigenous UCAV; the project is already approved by MoD, is presently being evaluated by an expert committee under the Ministry of Finance, and will eventually be put up for approval of the CCS.

The Ghatak UCAV reportedly is to be powered by a 52-kilonewton dry variant of the indigenously-developed Kaveri aerospace engine, which could not be used in the Tejas LCA because of technical reasons; insufficient thrust to power Tejas throughout its flight envelope, which led to procurement of American GE engines for the fighter project. Significantly, development of the Kaveri engine was at a cost of Rs 2,839 crore and if it is not successful to power the indigenous UCAV, the money and decades of development will be a complete waste. Project Ghatak was initiated by the Aeronautical Development Agency-DRDO combine in consultation with the IAF.

The UCAV will take at least a decade to become fully operational but the good news is that government plans to bring in collaborators from the initial stage itself. If the collaborators are chosen carefully, the production could be faster. In fact, this is an ideal project for Make in India with FDI and joint venture with foreign collaboration rather than leaving the project to ADA-DRDO. Joint venture and multiple assembly lines can enable not only early development but even exports to friendly countries. US consulting firm Teal Group estimated in 2013 that the global market for drones will almost double annually in the next decade, from US$ 6.6 billion to US4 11.4 billion every year.

…a delegation from Israel’s IAI has been holding talks with MoD to explore local manufacture of the Heron TP under the ‘Make-in-India’ program.

The DRDO has several ongoing UAV development projects like Rustom-H medium altitude, long endurance drones but these have taken considerable period of time already. The IA and IAF together have over 200 UAVs. Israeli Heron and Searcher drones are being used for surveillance and precision targeting.

The Armed Forces already have Israeli Harop ‘killer’ drones that act as cruise missiles to first detect and then destroy specific enemy targets and radars by exploding into them in kamikaze fashion.

As per IHS Jane’s, a delegation from Israel’s IAI has been holding talks with MoD to explore local manufacture of the Heron TP under the ‘Make-in-India’ program. Pakistan had announced on September7, 2015 that Pakistan’s indigenous ‘Burraq’ armed UAV was used to hit a terrorist compound in Shawai Valley killing three high profile targets.

The Burraq was reportedly deployed first time in March 2015 to test targeting of both static and moving targets with laser-guided missiles, which was claimed to be a success. The Burraq UCAV carries various imagery and motion sensors, and is equipped with a laser guided air-to-surface missile called ‘Barq’.

According to IHS Jane’s, the Burraq strongly resembles China’s CH-3 UAV. The 5.1-metre CH-3 has a 200-kilometre range and can carry a 100-kg payload. Pieter Wezeman, senior researcher at SIPRI said, Burraq is a transfer from China with a ‘developed in Pakistan’ stamp and a Pakistani name. But this apart, India needs to step up its UAV and UCAV development.

China possibly has the largest drone fleets after the US. In 2012, the US was reportedly operating 6709 drones compared to 280 by PLA but that difference in numbers could have narrowed down considering China’s mammoth defence expenditure.

China possibly has the largest drone fleets after the US. In 2012, the US was reportedly operating 6709 drones compared to 280 by PLA but that difference in numbers could have narrowed down considering China’s mammoth defence expenditure. Significantly, before 9/11, the US had only a small number of experimental drones that were never used in combat.

The advent of new wave of terrorism through the 9/11 terrorist attacks ushered a change in thinking albeit the idea of using a remotely-controlled, pilotless aerial vehicle emerged more than fifty years ago; the first remotely piloted drone was used as a weapon in World War II by the German FX-1400 or “Fritz”, which consisted of a 2,300 pound bomb, dropped from an airplane and steered by a pilot in the ‘mothership’.

Israel had used UCAVs in the 1982 war in Lebanon but American use of UCAVs began with GWOT, Predators hitting some 115 targets in Afghanistan during the first year of its combat operations. Presently there are over 7,000 drones with the US, at least some 200 of which are armed. As per US bloggers, CIA has been using UCAVs even within mainland US to target suspected terrorist.

In January 2015, the wreckage of an armed drone turned was located in Nigeria, pictures of which posted on social media indicating close resemblance to China’s CH-3 drone, images showing missiles fixed to two hard-points and a sensor payload. The Chinese PLA envisions its drone swarms scouting battlefields, guiding missile strikes, overwhelming enemy defences through sheer numbers. China is producing vide array of indigenous drones to accomplish these goals.

China’s ‘Wing Loong’ drone costs around $ 1 million, compared to the US ‘Reaper’ in the $ 30 million range. While technological capabilities may vary but then one can buy 25-30 Wing Loong drones for the price of one Reaper, especially when Wing Loong has the same endurance as the Reaper (20 hours), range of 4,000 kms and packs four points for mounting variety of lasers and PGMs.

We need to take note that UCAVs can effectively be used in support of CI-CT operations, locate and destroy targets with precision, and suppress enemy AD besides being economical and saving life of a pilot…

In August 2015, China unveiled its latest UCAV ‘Rainbow 5’ or Caihong 5 (CH-5). Rainbow 5 has a take-off weight of more than three tonnes and a wingspan similar to that of the US Reaper drone. It can reportedly can lift off with a wall-penetrating radar to identify and track targets inside a building. It can also support and protect other drones with electronic warfare devices, like suppressing enemy’s radar, significantly increasing the effectiveness of an attack. Equipped with more advanced technology, the Rainbow 5 can perform missions with little or no ground support, ushering in changes to China’s airstrike strategies.

So far only US, Israel, Britain and Pakistan have used armed drones in combat. However, according to ‘International Security’ 86 countries have some sort of drone capability, 78 using them for surveillance. According to a study undertaken in 2011, there were some 680 active drone development programs run by governments, companies and research institutes globally compared to only 195 in 2005.

UCAVs are doubly important for India not only because of Chinese and Pakistani UCAV capabilities but also because the Pakistani military continues to follow a state policy of terror and drones could well be used to support their proxy war, threat of attacks using UAVs by Pakistan based terrorist organizations being real.

The same can also be used by China even in non-war period to foment trouble in our northeast. We need to take note that UCAVs can effectively be used in support of CI-CT operations, locate and destroy targets with precision, and suppress enemy AD besides being economical and saving life of a pilot in case of the platform being shot down. At the same time, we must also simultaneously develop counter UAV-UCAV capabilities expeditiously.

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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Lt Gen Prakash Katoch

is Former Director General of Information Systems and A Special Forces Veteran, Indian Army.

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