“The fashion of guns is back. The army sustained them for good reason and these guns can be effectively used with fragmentation ammunition,” Director General of Army Air Defence (AAD), Lt Gen Sumer Ivan D’Cunha, said.
Asserting the need for modernisation with an emphasis on ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’, Lt Gen D’Cunha also cautioned that the Indian industry must offer “reduced timelines” when it comes to delivery.
The AAD, initially part of the Territorial Army, was later separated from the Artillery in 1994 as a separate coprs that looks after destruction of air threat “before it manifests”, officials said.
The army is planning to replace the L70 and ZU-23mm with “successor” platforms. However, as of now, it is not looking to import, as far as guns are concerned, they said. The first trials of the indigenous successor platform to replace the old L70 guns is likely to be carried out in July, the officials said, adding that an RFP (request for proposal) is already out for the procurement of 220 such guns. The L70 guns were originally manufactured by Swedish defence firm Bofors AB in 1950s, and India stared inducting over 1,000 of them in the 1960s.
On QRSAM, the AAD DG said, “We are hoping to place a contract within 4-5 months. And once it is done, the First of Prototype Model (FoPM) will be there over a period of several months.”
In September 2022, the defence ministry in a statement said that the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Indian Army had successfully completed six flight-tests of the QRSAM system from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) in Chandipur off the Odisha coast.
The flight tests were conducted as part of evaluation trials by the Indian Army.
The While Schilka and Tanguska are planned to be replaced by indigenous successor platforms, while Osa-AK missile system is planned to be replaced by QRSAM, thus boosting the air defence capabilities of the Corps, the officials said.
On February 1, the ministry said the DRDO has successfully conducted three successive flight-trials of Very Short-Range Air Defence System (VSHORADS) from Chandipur.
These tests were carried out against high-speed targets flying at very low altitude.
VSHORADS is a man-portable air defence system designed and developed indigenously by the Research Center Imarat in collaboration with other DRDO laboratories and development-cum-production partners.
The missile system has the capability to meet the needs of all the three services of the armed forces — the army, navy and air force — it said.
“As you look at higher variety of drones, we have VSHORADS, we need to carry out a cost-benefit analysis and it would be cost prohibitive to use missiles against all drones. So, fragmentation ammunition is the way forward,” Lt Gen D’Cunha said.
The AAD is also in the process of acquiring radars such as the Low-Level Light Weight (LLLR) radar.
“We had bought LLLR radars as part of an emergency procurement which is capable of picking up Mavic drone without grenade, and can definitely pick up with grenade. Nano drones beyond this size may be able to carry out surveillance but can’t carry weapons. So, we are looking at increasing the density of these radars,” he said.
Greater density is required for mountains and valley, the senior officer said.
Lt Gen D’Cunha also cited the Russia-Ukraine conflict and other recent conflicts to emphasise the importance and growing threat of drones, counter-drones and other disruptive technologies.
The employment of drones as a concept manifested in a different way in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Both drones and counter-drone systems came up in a “big way”, he said.
The development of this capability was so “escalatory in matrix” that every day there is new technology coming in, which becomes a challenge for air power, the AAD DG said.
“Integrated with proper surveillance grid of radars, it ensured that Russian started flying higher and their vulnerability increased. This has allowed Ukraine to maintain control over its airspace and support its ground forces more effectively,” Lt Gen D’Cunha said.
