After Kerala and Gujarat, India is now deploying Navy unmanned aircraft on the Tamil Nadu coast to detect terror as well as conventional threats emanating from sea in real-time.
The new naval UAS squadron, named INAS 344, with a mix of Israeli Searcher and Heron aircraft, will be formally commissioned at the Parundu air station in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday.
With an eye on China, the Parunda Air Station was commissioned in 2009, as part of the overall strategy to boost force-levels on the eastern coast with new warships, aircraft and UAS. The new UAS station also comes at a time, when India is trying to plug holes in its coastal security architecture, which were exposed by the 26/11 terror strikes in Mumbai, with an array of measures ranging from coastal radar networks to an extensive maritime intelligence grid.
The first naval UAS squadron (INAS 342) has been operational at Kochi for the last few years. After Kochi, Porbandar (INSAS 343) and Parundu, new naval UAS squadrons are also earmarked for Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar islands. As part of the Navy’s three-tier aerial surveillance grid for the Indian Ocean Region, the unmanned aircraftare being used for the innermost layer reconnaissance up to 200 nautical miles.
The naval UAS fleet is quite small compared to the Army and IAF ones. The armed forces have inducted over well over 100 unmanned aircraft, with their ground control systems and data terminals, since the 1999 Kargil conflict.
While these also include Israeli ‘killer’ drones designed to detect and loiter over enemy targets before exploding into them like cruise missiles, the forces are now also keen to induct armed drones and full-fledged UCAVs (combat UAVs) in the years ahead.
Source: The Times of India