The Army has significantly augmented its firepower along the 1300-km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Eastern sector, while also beefing up overall defences in the region, especially in the Tawang sector, by integrating various services in realtime through automation. This includes upgraded L-70 air defence guns, M777 Ultra Light Howitzers, and automated and electronic fusion of Bofors and other artillery guns deployed along the LAC.

Eastern Army Commander Lt Gen Manoj Pande, on 19 October, said that China has increased the intensity of military exercises and deployment of troops in its depth areas opposite the Arunachal Pradesh sector and that India has correspondingly readied contingency plans to deal with any eventualities.

Army has set up “integrated defended localities” at several locations along the LAC. These integrate various arms of the Army like infantry, engineers, artillery, air defence, aviation and also the fighter aircraft of the Air Force, to respond to any threat in realtime and bring in maximum firepower, explained Maj. Rufus Johnson, a Company Commander at one such locality near the LAC near Bumla.

Integrated defensive battle is not fought at the company or battalion level. It is a cohesive and coordinated battle fought employing all arms and services that are available with the armed forces. Army had infused significant technology to fuse various sensors and platforms for battlefield transparency and also quick response.

Upgraded L-70 air defence guns have been deployment in high altitude areas for the first time. The limitations associated with the upgraded guns have been overcome by incorporation of state of the art components, latest technology, making it a potent weapon system against all low level air threat that include unmanned aerial vehicle, unmanned combat vehicle, attack helicopter and modern aircraft, to increase the target acquisition and automatic tracking capabilities of the gun.

The gun is also equipped with a Muzzle Velocity Radar for enhancing the accuracy of fire. The gun has the ability to be integrated with tactical and fire control radars which give it more flexibility in its deployment. The upgraded gun system that operates along with a high-end Israeli radar can be counted among the best available air defence guns in its class globally.

The L-70 guns was manufactured by Swedish company Bofors AB in 1950s and India procured them the late 1960s. These legacy guns were upgraded by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL).

Ultra Light Howitzers

The M-777 Ultra-Light Howitzers inducted in November 2018 has been deployed all along the LAC. The M777 is a 155-mm, 39-calibre towed artillery gun and weighs just four tonnes.

India has contracted 145 M777 guns from BAE Systems, of which over 75 had been delivered. Three regiments had been deployed and the fourth was in the process of being raised.

The M777 had given significant flexibility in employment options for long range fire power, one officer posted near the LAC said on condition of anonymity. It can be airlifted by Chinook heavy lift helicopters to any forward location at short notice in case of any contingency.

In addition, the Army had long deployed the legacy and battle-proven Bofors guns along the LAC. They had now been made more effective and the response time significantly improved under Project Shakti undertaken by BEL, by integrating them electronically with the command centre and forward troops.

Heron drones

Advanced Heron drones procured from Israel are operational now and are far more advanced than the Herons in the existing inventory and their anti-jamming capability is much better than their previous versions.

The acquisition of these drones has been done under the emergency financial powers granted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government to the defence forces under which they can buy equipment and systems worth Rs 500 crores to upgrade their warfighting capabilities, amid ongoing border conflict with China.

Other small or mini drones are being acquired from Indian firms.

The Indian defence forces have been taking these initiatives to acquire weapon systems that can help them in the ongoing conflict with China. The last time such a facility was given to the defence forces was in 2019 right after the Balakot airstrikes against terrorist camps in Pakistan.

The Indian Air Force has also exercised emergency financial powers to acquire a large number of anti-tank guided missiles, long-range precision-guided artillery shells along with the Hammer air to ground standoff missiles with a strike range of around 70 kilometres.

Unmanned Ground Vehicles

The Army is on the lookout for Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) to assist infantry troops in high-altitude areas with surveillance, tactical reconnaissance, targeting enemy positions, delivering critical supplies, and carrying out rapid evacuations. The need for such a platform stems from the difficulties encountered in Ladakh, such as incidents involving a military clash with China at heights of over 15,000 feet.

The army’s requirements for the platform state that the unmanned ground vehicles, or UGVs, should be able to carry a load of 250500 kg and should be able to operate in high altitude areas along the northern borders—a reference to the frontier with China.

A weapon platform variant mounted with a machine gun has also been listed as one of the requirements that the UGVs should have. Twelve Indian companies will showcase 35 such platforms to the Indian Army in Babina from December 9-14 in an experiment called “Strike”—surveillance, tactical recce, intelligence, kinetic effect, and evacuation systems.

Over 30 different types of unmanned ground vehicles were showcased by the developers, and these will be embedded with sub-units for tactical exploitation. The experiment involves various categories of UGVs, viz., surveillance, reconnaissance, intelligence, kinetic effect, logistics, casualty evacuation.

The unmanned vehicle that the army is looking for should perform recce and surveillance and have a load carrier aimed at last-mile delivery and casualty evacuation. The unmanned vehicles can also be used for explosive detection and neutralisation of improvised explosive devices. The army has stated that a robotic arm with the capacity to lift a minimum weight of 5 kg is a must.

According to the army’s requirements, the UGV should be able to operate in varied terrain conditions, including deserts, plains, mountainous and high-altitude areas, existing along our borders. The army wants the vehicles to be operated remotely as well as in an autonomous mode. The requirements further state that it should be able to place explosives and carry out remote detonations of identified IEDs and mines.

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The appearance of new drone-based threats flying across the Line of Control and international boundary have presented a new range of threats to security agencies. Since 2019, Pakistan-based terrorists are using drones to drop arms and ammunition into India.

On June 27, this threat made the next logical step-up—when two drones attacked the Jammu airbase dropping shaped charges which punched through a roof of a building without any casualties. It, however, signalled a clear and present danger—of small-sized drones being used to carry out attacks on sensitive installations and in public gatherings.
BSF personnel open fire at the drones which are launched from within Pakistan but they have no idea if they ever hit them or not.

Pakistan operates drones with GPS coordinates which are pre-programmed for the drone to land at some place or at least reach that place to dump the consignment.

Existing ground-based air defence radars are unable to track commercially obtained drones because of their small size—a one-metre drone has the radar cross-section of a bird and can often be mistaken for one. The successful integration of the counter-drone system with legacy AD systems offers interesting in-country solutions to replace costly imports.
The Army has tested L70 anti-aircraft guns in anti-drone mode against low flying mini rogue drones, firing 40mm shells with proximity fuses.

The system interfaces a counter-drone system made by a Hyderabad-based Zen Technologies with the army’s in-service L-70 air defence gun. It is similar to one ordered by the Indian Air Force in August. The IAF placed a Rs 120 crore order for an unspecified number of counter-drone systems from the same firm.

The Zen-Anti Drone Air Defence Systems or ZADS variant ordered by the IAF, is primarily a ‘soft kill’ system. It detects and jams radio frequency emissions from the drone between 10 metres and 10 kilometres. The firing trials in Gopalpur are the first use of it as a ‘hard kill’ system, where it physically destroys the drone.

The radio frequency detector on the ZADS indicates the direction of the approaching drone, the day and night camera aligns itself towards the target and zoom searches to estimate its approximate range. The system then passes target coordinates on to the L-70 gun through a customised hardware interface. The gun receives the coordinates in ‘remote’ mode, aligns itself towards the target allowing the operator to lock on and fire. And all this in a matter of seconds.

The army can swiftly upgrade older guns like the Swedish L-70s and the Soviet-made ZSU-23 guns into drone killers. The costs are not known but are believed to be in the range of Rs 6 to Rs 8 crore per gun upgrade. The guns have to be first upgraded with an electro-optical system, like the one on the upgraded L-70, before they can be interfaced with the ZADS counter-drone system.

It will also need newer ammunition like the special proximity-fused ammunition manufactured by Bharat Dynamics Ltd (BDL)—each shell is packed with 1,000 fragments of tungsten that are detonated by a proximity fuse.

The army has approximately 1,180 L-70 anti-aircraft gun, made by Swedish arms firm Bofors AB, which were first bought off-the-shelf in the late 1960s and later licensed produced in India. Around 200 guns have been upgraded by BEL under a Rs 575 crore contract some years ago. The guns are being given new electrical servo drives, electro-optical fire control system, video tracking and a new air defence radar. The upgrades however were meant primarily to tackle low flying helicopters and aircraft.
These were preliminary trials. The system will need to be further refined before it can be certified for use.

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