The Indian Air Force is, in the year 2014, in a state of gradual denudation of its fighter squadrons and rather laborious and painstaking negotiations for replacements for the to-be-decommissioned-by-2017 MiG-21 variants. The MiGs have served the nation well for five decades even as they were falling out of the skies from age-related problems and a younger generation of pilots who made errors while operating this high-performance fighter. Negotiations for the selected replacement, the medium… Read More »Combat platforms

There are guns and there are guns. Depends on what one wants to shoot. If one wants to carry a gun for self-defence (or homicide) then the weapon would be in the category of ‘hand gun” ranging from the automatic pistol to sporting rifle for big game hunting with the close-quarter battle carbine in the middle. In warfare the personal weapons carried by soldiers-rifle and carbine-are called “small arms” inclusive of every type from automatic… Read More »Modern guns

The history of submarine operation is mixed with tragedy and success but modern navies are going for high quality deep sea rescue technologies to save their fellow sailors who dedicatedly maintain undersea strike capability for their country. Fourteen years after 118 submariners met a grisly death at the bottom of the ocean in the Kursk, a British team has developed the most advanced underwater rescue system in the world. It is time that runs out… Read More »Submarine rescue

It is heartrending to see Indian Navy, which had earned for itself an enviable reputation of being forward looking-as seen in the lead it too in indigenization and production of ships based on Indian design- becoming embroiled in incompetence, bad seamanship and tragic accidents like the INS Sindhurakshak explosion inside Mumbai harbour. One wonders under which slot one should place the failure to plan and create a submarine rescue vessel given that the entire submarine… Read More »Naval operations

Conceived in 2007 the Indian unmanned strike air vehicle (USAV)-an attack version of the reconnaissance and surveillance and strike type of unmanned aerial vehicle that has had an impressive record of precision drone attacks against Islamist terrorists in the tribal belt in Pakistan’s Waziristan – should come out of the project definition stage by 2015. It is projected to be ready for squadron service by 2020. One will have to say “god willing” given the… Read More »Requirement of UCAV

For long, the cry was heard that the Indian Army was largely “night blind” or unable to fight a war in the dark. This was hardly an admission that any modern, self-respecting, fighting force should make. Yet, through well-placed leaks and frequent innuendos the impression was created that the Indian Army was deficit in at least one of the capabilities that a modern-day war requires. The implication was that most of the tank and mechanized… Read More »Night fighting capabilities

With the advent of nanotechnology in military warfare, it is no more a dream or a just science fiction where aliens invade Earth and return without getting injured despite heavy exchange of ground fire from best equipped soldiers having ultra decimated guns at their hands. The aliens could escape because they had nano-particles inside the body of their soldiers which had given them extra speed, extra mobility and extra lethality to deal with fire from… Read More »Nanotechnology for soldiers

There has been talk of improvement of infrastructure-helipads, airstrips for heavy-lift aircraft, roads, bridges and everything else that allows for easy passage and maintenance of a large body of fighting men all along the Line of Actual Control opposite that of the Chinese positions-since the middle of the last decade. The Government of India at that point of time abandoned its policy of deliberate benign neglect of the landscape adjoining the LAC in Arunachal Pradesh… Read More »Infrastructure along LAC

Difficult terrain in the early years of warfare (World War I and World War II) was that landscape that was serrated with trenches and cratered by the fall of heavy ball-type artillery which tended to obstruct passage of motor vehicles and towed and self-propelled guns thereby obstructing the momentum of the battlefield charge. Trench warfare was the norm rather than the exception in these two conflicts and the kind of obstruction they created to mass… Read More »Terrain warfare

The Indian Army is considered as among the best trained army in the world when it comes to mountain or high altitude warfare. India, due to the instability in the region, hostile neighbors with the need for permanent deployments in the mountainous regions, has come a long way since 1962. India’s mountain warfare units were vastly expanded after the 1962 war, with the creation of 6 Mountain Divisions. But it was the shortcomings and observations… Read More »Winter warfare