home Weapons Ballistic and artillery India to Use Israeli-Manufacutred UAVs for Combat Missions

India to Use Israeli-Manufacutred UAVs for Combat Missions

Nov 18, 2016

A Hunter Joint Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in flight during a Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) training exercise at Fallon Naval Air Station (NAS), Nevada (NV), during exercise DESERT RESCUE XI. The Hunter is an Israeli multi-role short-range UAV system in service with the US Army (USA). The exercise is a joint service Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) training exercise hosted by the Naval Strike and Warfare Center, designed to simulate downed aircrews, enabling CSAR related missions to experiment with new techniques in realistic scenarios.

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The Indian Air Force is working to upgrade and equip its fleet of Israeli-made Searcher and Heron Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with missiles under a top secret and classified programme code named ‘Project Cheetah’.

According to India Today, the Air Force is looking to join hands with the Israel defence major Israeli Aircraft Industry (IAI). “Under the project, we are planning to equip our Searchers and Herons with advance snooping capabilities and missiles which can target terrorists and their hideouts both within India and if required, across the borders,” a senior Indian Air Force source told Mail Today.

With such a capability in its fold, in future scenario if the Army units inform about any particular launch pad of terrorists getting active, the Air Force can deploy its armed drones to unleash a silent punishment to terrorists from 30,000 feet over the ground.

After silently hovering over PoK over suspected launch pads for some time gathering accurate intelligence the drones can launch an attack and return to the base causing greater damage than what the troops can do.

“The precision guided missiles would also help in specific elimination of desired targets and there would be none or minimum collateral damage in such operations,” an AF officer explained.

Officers said the drones can also be put to use in case a terrorist hideout is located in higher reaches in Kashmir where missiles can be safely fired to destroy them without any fear of causing any injury to the civilians.

For turning their surveillance drones into killer vehicles, the Indian AF has taken a cue from the United States. For the Americans, drones are the weapons of choice for taking out terrorist leaders or destroying their safe houses.

At the moment, the Indian AF flies the Israeli-made Searcher II and Heron UAVs for reconnaissance and snooping purposes.

“With the upgrade in snooping capabilities, the forces on ground would also be able to get pin-point intelligence about hideouts in areas where men have to be involved in operations,” an AF source revealed.

The upgrades would also enable the Indian AF ground station handlers to operate these aircraft from far-off distances and control them through satellite communication system.

The project has been in the works for quite some time and government is also thinking of involving Indian agencies, including the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, to use their expertise in the programme.