Though the A K Antony led DAC had cleared the acquisition of two Deep Sea Rescue Vessels in December, 2013 after the tragedy of the death of 18 naval personnel due to the sinking of INS Sindhurakshak Submarine, the current defence minister Manohar Parrikar led Defence Acquisition Committee again discussed the proposal in October, 2015 and cleared the acquisition of Deep Sea Submarine Rescue Vessels, which are required for the recovery of submarines or personnel… Read More »DSRVs for Indian Navy

Recent events need to be analyzed before deciding on how to modernize the Indian Special Forces. The most recent is the raid into Myanmar to eliminate the insurgents who had struck the Indian Army convoy in Chandel in Manipur in June this year. It needs to be underscored that it was a half-baked operation which failed to achieve the unqualified success that a hit against the very perpetrators of Chandel should have sent an unambiguous… Read More »Indian Special Forces

Air superiority is an essential military mission, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Air superiority has been an enduring prerequisite to military victory during conflicts in the twenty-first century. Although control of the air does not itself destroy or defeat the majority of enemy forces, it provides the freedom of action and strategic flexibility that allow other military forces to do so. Air superiority is central to a full range of… Read More »UCAVs in future battlefield

Among the many lessons learnt by India from the Kargil intrusion by the Pakistan Army Northern Light Infantry in 1999 was one that it should not require the wasteful expenditure of more than 2,50,000 tons of steel over a period of more than two months to be able to dislodge/eliminate an entrenched enemy. The efficacy and necessity of precision guided munitions that deliver a warhead to within a meter of a target was brought home… Read More »Laser guided bombs

As India is already being described as regional power with strategic interests beyond its shores and having ambitious plans to upgrade its expeditionary capabilities, the Indian government has decided to equip the IAF with latest and most capable airlift capabilities. After the arrival of ten C-17 Globemaster aircraft, the government has cleared four more, while the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) of the Ministry of Defence has accepted the IAF proposal to import 16 Chinook heavy… Read More »Lift capabilities of IAF

The 21st century battle is going to be fought through various lethal bandwidths of beams than guns and rockets as modern militaries are keen to deploy precision weapon which can smash targets with the pressing of switch buttons than firing costly missiles. The whole concept is flying an aircraft is getting a reduced option while firing long range missiles are going to be costly for battlefield commanders apart from handling and storing. But pressing a… Read More »Laser technology

The modern militaries are getting trained to fight a conventional war which has highlighted the need to develop skills necessary to effectively conduct operations in any state-on-state conflict, characterized with force-on-force engagement. As traditional forms of warfare continue to develop and military operations become more complex in both scope and approach, the modernization of soldiers in order to combat such changes is an important focus point for militaries around the world. Today’s conflict situations require… Read More »Digital soldiers

The Indian Army’s Future-INfantry Soldier As System (F-INSAS) must conform to the Indian national nuclear doctrine of No First Strike but Massive Retaliation or Second Strike. The underlying logic behind this doctrine is the survivability of both the nuclear-tipped strike missile batteries/aircraft to effect retaliation and of troops to hold ground in either the offensive or the defensive mode. Therefore, survival in a nuclear, biological, chemical (NBC) environment must be the pre-eminent consideration in outfitting… Read More »Soldier modernization

Militaries around the world are looking for ways to introduce armoured unmanned ground vehicles to protect the soldier from boobytraps and improvised explosive devices (IED) and the increasing possibility of a chemical, biological, radiation and nuclear (CBRN) threat to ground forces. The experience of Iraq and Afghanistan is beginning to percolate into military establishments that have begun to realize that preventing manpower attrition could have a more direct effect in the successful outcome of a… Read More »Role of armoured vehicles

The cancellation of the contract for the 126 French Rafale medium multirole combat aircraft has drawn attention to the future of a very significantly important battlefield tool-head mounted display-that helps ensure a “first shot kill” from within a fighting platform. A burgeoning joint venture between an Indian private sector company Samtel Avionics and the French company Thales that specializes in high-end airborne electronic systems for supply of helmet mounted displays appears to have been nipped… Read More »Digital eyes