Indian Army thread

[nitesh]

Guys check these:
http://www.drdo.com/dpi/SADSR-Sep-Oct_08.pdf
http://www.drdo.com/dpi/Frontline_Article1.pdf
http://www.drdo.com/dpi/Ind_Strat2.pdf

 

[nitesh]

New Delhi (PTI): Following in the footsteps of the US Armed Forces, the Indian Army soldiers will soon be armed with laser guns to help take on militants without even firing a single shot.

The Laser Science and Technology Centre (LASTEC), a DRDO laboratory, has developed 'Laser Dazzler' -- a non-lethal gun -- for the armed forces to be used during counter-insurgency and anti-terrorist operations.

"The laser gun is a non-lethal anti-personnel weapon, which could be used to disorient or dazzle an armed soldier or a terrorist without causing any collateral damage in the process," LASTEC's Associate Director A K Maini told PTI here today.

He said the gun would flash a laser beam, which could virtually "blind" the terrorist or anti-social element for around 40 seconds - time good enough for the troops to nab the culprit.

The flash beam of the gun is two to three metres wide, which would provide better chances to the forces in disorienting the target.

"The gun can be used effectively in counter-insurgency operations and close combat battles by the defence and paramilitary forces," Maini said.

The DRDO-developed gun would be used for trials by the Army in counter-insurgency operations in the next five to six months. It would be tested in "real combat" situations in both Jammu and Kashmir and North Eastern states.

The laser guns are also fully compliant with the UN conventions, which prohibit the use of laser guns that cause permanent blindness.

The Hindu News Update Service

 

[su-47]

New Delhi (PTI): Following in the footsteps of the US Armed Forces, the Indian Army soldiers will soon be armed with laser guns to help take on militants without even firing a single shot.

The Laser Science and Technology Centre (LASTEC), a DRDO laboratory, has developed 'Laser Dazzler' -- a non-lethal gun -- for the armed forces to be used during counter-insurgency and anti-terrorist operations.

"The laser gun is a non-lethal anti-personnel weapon, which could be used to disorient or dazzle an armed soldier or a terrorist without causing any collateral damage in the process," LASTEC's Associate Director A K Maini told PTI here today.

He said the gun would flash a laser beam, which could virtually "blind" the terrorist or anti-social element for around 40 seconds - time good enough for the troops to nab the culprit.

The flash beam of the gun is two to three metres wide, which would provide better chances to the forces in disorienting the target.

"The gun can be used effectively in counter-insurgency operations and close combat battles by the defence and paramilitary forces," Maini said.

The DRDO-developed gun would be used for trials by the Army in counter-insurgency operations in the next five to six months. It would be tested in "real combat" situations in both Jammu and Kashmir and North Eastern states.

The laser guns are also fully compliant with the UN conventions, which prohibit the use of laser guns that cause permanent blindness.

The Hindu News Update Service

good development. can seriously reduce collateral damage. also, terrorists can be bought back alive for questioning.

 

[nitesh]

CVRDE to develop unmanned infantry combat vehicle

Chennai, Sep 28: The Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE) at Avadi near here has started developing unmanned infantry combat vehicle for carrying troops as a precursor to developing unmanned Future Main Battle Tank (FMBT) by 2020

Talking to mediapersons on the sidelines of SAE India Students Convention, organised by the SRM University at its campus in suburban Kattankulathur, here last evening, CVRDE Director S Sundaresh said robotic technology was being incorporated in the Russian Infantry Combat Vehicles (BMP Vehicles), which was being manufactured at Medak Plant using Russian technology.

A man base vehicle would control three unmanned vehicles to be used for surveillance, to detect Nuclear, Biological and Chemical weapons and mines.

The manned BMP vehicles being used by the Army would be converted into unmanned teleoperated autonomous vehicle, the prototype of which was demonstrated to the participants of the convention.

''We have undertaken the project last year and a full-fledged vehicle will be handed over to Army in four years' time. We are planning to hand it over to Army by 2011 for field tests, after which we will take up full scale production,'' he added.

--- UNI

CVRDE to develop unmanned infantry combat vehicle .:. NewKerala - India's Top Online Newspaper

 

[nitesh]

DRDO technology focus on solid state devices

http://www.drdo.com/pub/techfocus/2008/oct08.pdf

 

[nitesh]

Russia to deliver another 18 Smerch rocket launchers to India

01/ 10/ 2008

MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will deliver an additional 18 Smerch multiple rocket launch systems to India, the state-run arms exporter said on Wednesday.

"This agreement was reached during the Russian defense minister's recent visit to Delhi," Nikolai Dimidyuk of Rosoboronexport said.

The Smerch MRLS can effectively engage any type of target within a range of 20 to 90 kilometers, and is operated by a crew of three servicemen.

Russia is soon to start delivering 38 Smerch-M 9À52-2 MRLSs to India under a $450 million contract signed two years ago.

In August, Rosoboronexport signed a $300 million contract for the delivery of additional Smerch systems.

RIA Novosti - Russia - Russia to deliver another 18 Smerch rocket launchers to India

 

[nitesh]

India targets defence industry
By Shilpa Kannan
India Business Report, BBC World

Mahindra factory
Indian defence firms are building new plants and factories

On the outskirts of Delhi, construction is in full swing at the Mahindra Defence Systems (MDS) manufacturing plant.

The tall, glass and steel structure will soon produce armoured vehicles for the country's defence forces, making it India's first private sector plant dedicated to making military vehicles.

MDS, a division of tractor and utility firm Mahindra & Mahindra, is one of a number of local and foreign firms that hope to benefit as India takes steps to develop its fledgling defence industry.

Currently the bulk of Indian military hardware is sourced from overseas and a handful of state firms, but by 2020 the Ministry of Defence hopes to acquire 70% of defence equipment from indigenous sources.

The drive comes as India is increasing its defence budget to modernise its armed forces. Defence spending totalled $19bn (£10.6bn) in the last financial year and is expected to exceed $30bn by 2012.

Attracting investors

India began opening up its defence industry in 2001 when the government first allowed private sector participation and some foreign investment.

But private firms largely stayed away, with the exception of a few companies like L&T, Kirloskar and MDS.

In October, laws came into effect which will make it easier for Indian and foreign companies to invest in the country's defence industry

The 2008 Defence Procurement Act aims to make the industry more transparent and means companies will no longer need a license from the government to manufacture defence-related goods.

Overseas interest

Overseas companies are keen to invest in the sector even though current rules state they cannot take more than a 26% stake in an Indian defence firm.

India has an army of 1.1 million, a navy of 47,000 and the world's fourth largest air force of 120,000.

BAE Systems, the UK's largest defence firm, has applied to India's Foreign Investment Promotion Board for permission to set up a joint venture with MDS to produce vehicles and artillery equipment.

MDS would have a controlling 51% stake, with BAE holding the remainder.

Brigadier Khutub Hai, of the Mahindra group that controls MDS, says that the joint venture would allow it to bid for major multi-billion dollar defence projects, which would then be built in Mahindra facilities in India.

The plant currently being built by the firm could also become part of BAE's global supply chain, he adds.

Buyer to maker

India's Minister of State for Defence MM Pallam Raju says that India is in the process of switching from being almost exclusively a buyer of military equipment to becoming a manufacturer in its own right.

He adds that Indian defence firms should benefit from a new "offset" policy that requires foreign suppliers of defence equipment to source components and other goods from Indian companies.

However, he said that the 26% ceiling on foreign direct investment will likely remain in place.

"Indian companies really have to pull their socks up, pick up on their capabilities and get their partnerships together," he said.

New business

InfoTech Enterprises, which provides engineering design, is another company that hopes to benefit as India opens up its defence industry.

About 97% of the firm's revenues come from orders from big aerospace firms like Boeing, Dassault, Pratt & Whitney and Bombardier.

BVR Mohan Reddy of Infotech Enterprises
Infotech hopes the new law will bring in more business from overseas clients

Existing clients have promised the firm more work once they start to fulfil the offset policy requirements and must source more components in India, says BVR Mohan Reddy, chairman and managing director of InfoTech.

The company, which has nearly 8000 employees, is opening two more facilities outside Delhi as they expect their business to boom.

With the modernisation of India's armed forces expected to present defence companies with opportunities exceeding $100bn in the coming decades, it's clear that Indian firms are preparing to claim their fair share.
BBC NEWS | Business | India targets defence industry

 

[nitesh]

Indian Army gets advanced amphibious warship

Fri, Oct 3 02:44 PM

Mumbai, Oct 3 (IANS) One of the most advanced amphibious warships of the Indian Navy, the INS Shardul, was Friday formally affiliated to the 5 Armoured Regiment of Indian Army, at the Mumbai naval harbour.

The ceremony was conducted Friday morning aboard INS Shardul, a large landing ship tank, a defence spokesperson said.

Rear Admiral Anil K. Chopra, flag officer commanding, Western Fleet, Maj. Gen. G.S. Malhi, Commandant of 5 Armoured Regiment Col. R.K. Magotra signed the Charter of Affiliation with Cdr. Shailendra Singh, the commanding officer of INS Shardul.

Shardul, meaning the tiger, symbolises agility, strength and valour and has been built by the Garden Reach workshop, Kolkata.

Loaded with state-of-the-art equipment, INS Shardul is an amphibious warship capable of transporting various kinds of combat operations, personnel and accomplishing all objectives of landing (beaching) operations.

The 5 Armoured Regiment holds some of the most potent and advanced tanks in the world.

Since 2002, the regiment has been at the cutting edge of the mechanised operations.

Though the armed forces have a long tradition of 'affiliating' their units, the modern military trend of all three services - army, navy and air force - fighting wars jointly has added an operational aspect to the tradition, observed Rear Admiral Chopra in his welcome remarks.

Indian Army gets advanced amphibious warship - Yahoo! India News

 

[Marshal]

Good news...... I think this ship is 5000+ tonnes class ......India should now concentrate on something like Jalshva type large indigenous amphibious ship.

 

[nitesh]

Error Page

Helicopter gunships, soldiers attack rebels in Congo

With Indian Air Force helicopter gun- ships killing hundreds of rebels and infantry combat vehicles pun-ching through rebel positions, India’s largest-ever deployment of soldiers on foreign soil has taken on a muscular new turn in the heart of Africa.

The Democratic Republic of Congo's internal conflict — whose resolution is a test case of strong global intervention — has led an Indian brigade under the United Nations mission (known by its French acronym MONUC) to rework its peacekeeping strategy from a velvet glove to an iron fist.

The first signs of the changed Indian posture were visible late September in Masisi in the collapsing eastern province of North Kivu, the epicentre of the conflict between rebels and government troops. UN North Kivu brigade commander Bipin Rawat, who learnt his trade in Kashmir and India's northeast, ordered Mi-25 and Mi-35 attack helicopters of the IAF to strafe positions tightly held by the private army of rebel general Laurent Nkunda.

The underutilised Russian-made IAF gunships fired a salvo of rockets that killed hundreds of Nkunda's rebels. The offensive sorties allowed ill-equipped and ill-trained Congolese government troops drive back rebels who had come menacingly close to seizing Masisi, which is on a vital road axis some 80 km from North Kivu’s capital Goma.

Indian Army infantry combat vehicles, used only for a cosmetic show of force thus far, rumbled into life with machineguns blazing and cannon punching through rebel defences in the flashpoints of Tonga and Kanyabayonga where Indian posts are located.

“In the past one or two years, some degree of passivity has seeped into our operations,” Brigadier Rawat told the Hindustan Times. He said UN rules allowed the use of force in specific scenarios.

“We’ve decided to fight with our equipment,” said Rawat, who took charge of the Indian brigade this August.

There are now more than 4,500 Indian troops with the UN’s costliest peacekeeping mission in the Congo, a sprawling (the size of western Europe), dangerous and notoriously unstable country formerly known as Zaire. It was here that heavyweight boxing champion Muhammed Ali knocked out George Foreman 34 years ago in a world-famous bout called “Rumble in the Jungle”.

The Congo is home to half of all Africa’s forests and has enough diamonds, gold and copper to make it the continent's richest country. But it has come to represent the worst of Africa: most of its 60 million people live on less than $1 a day and its women and children have suffered almost unimaginable sexual violence.

It was first ravaged in the late 19th century by Belgium's King Leopold, who ran it as a personal colony. Later, one of Africa’s worst dictators, Mobutu Sese Seko — backed for strategic reasons by the West — famously squandered public money on Concorde charters to Disneyworld and million-dollar shopping sprees to Brussels and Paris.

After Seko was deposed 11 years ago, the Congo descended into bloody patchwork of war and butchery that claimed the lives of 3 million Congolese and at its height embroiled nine countries. To growing criticism of its irrelevance, the UN then launched its mission to stabilise the Congo, with 2006 seeing the first democratic elections in 40 years. The Congolese turned out in millions to vote in Joseph Kabila as president.

Rawat said his message is that Indian troops “will walk the extra mile to protect the Congolese people”, whose mistrust of MONUC has grown manifold in recent weeks. “It is not a pretty picture to see an Indian soldier, tested in the hottest of fires, hunker down in a jeep even as unruly crowds pelt stones,” said Rawat. “It’s happening here. Locals are asking what difference has MONUC made.”

That changed when an 8,000-strong crowd recently took shelter at a 10 Assam base in Masisi when the Congolese army traded heavy machine gun and mortar fire with the rebels.

The crowd clapped as IAF attack helicopters fired rockets. Rawat said his soldiers would resist “the temptation to go over the top at all costs”.

That’s because all rebel groups are signatories to a January 2008 peace accord, and the key mission of troops is to bring them to the negotiating table.

India has a long history of deploying troops in the Congo: the first Indian blue berets (the colour used on UN duty) served from 1960 to 1965. It is the only UN mission where an Indian soldier — Captain G.S. Salaria — was awarded the Param Vir Chakra. He died in 1961, trying to save the Katanga province from falling to rebels.

 

[nitesh]

DRDO ready for joint research with Indian auto players

Chennai Oct 3 (IANS) The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is ready to extend financial support to promote a common automotive research body to develop new products, said a top defence scientist. “World over technologies developed for defence use, later come to the usage of the masses. There are a lot of areas where DRDO and the domestic auto industry can work together,” P. Sivakumar, project director (Arjun), Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment said here Friday.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) conference on Automotive R&D Trends 2015, Sivakumar said the organisation has already mooted the idea to SAEINDIA - the engineering society for advanced mobility.

According to him, a separate research organisation could be floated in which auto industry players can be members.

“Today many hi-tech products - like sensors - that are fitted in Indian cars are imported. Such items can be developed by a common research body for the larger benefit of the auto industry,” he added.
DRDO ready for joint research with Indian auto players

 

[nitesh]

Army wants mini spy drones with 'killer role'-India-The Times of India

Army wants mini spy drones with 'killer role'
10 Oct 2008, 0051 hrs IST,TNN

NEW DELHI: The Army has launched a global hunt for a "massive" induction of "mini" and "micro" spy drones for short-range surveillance and intelligence-gathering missions as well as detection of NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) contaminants in the battlefield.

Interestingly, the Army even wants these man-portable spy drones or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) to be capable of "a killer role". "They should be capable of carrying warheads and explosives for hard kill of light targets," said a source.

The Army, Navy and IAF, in fact, are all planning another major induction of UAVs, elated as they are with their experience of Israeli ‘Searcher-II' and ‘Heron' UAVs, inducted after the 1999 Kargil conflict and the 2002 Operation Parakram in the wake of the terror attack on Parliament.

At present, the armed forces have around 100 Israeli UAVs, with more being inducted in phases, which include the Harpy "killer drones" designed to detect and destroy enemy radars by functioning like cruise missiles.

The eventual aim, of course, is to have full-fledged UCAVs (unmanned combat aerial vehicles), which in the long run may well replace manned fighter jets for medium and long-range tactical as well as strategic bombing missions.

An interim step would be to have armed drones akin to the American "Predators", armed with ‘Hellfire' missiles and laser designators, which the US has extensively used in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The IAF, on its part, is already integrating its UAVs with weapon platforms for delivering precision-guided munitions. But coming back to the "mini" and "micro" UAVs, the 1.13-million strong Army wants to induct them in phases right down to the battalion-level by the end of the 12th Plan (2012-2017).

"Since it will take time to equip all the battalions, the first priority will be the units deployed in Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East. We want both the mini and micro UAVs to be light and modular to facilitate man-pack carriage by two to three soldiers," said the source.

As per specifications drawn up by the Army, the mini UAV should have a range up to 60 km, with a maximum operating ceiling of 25,000 feet, maximum weight of 40 kg and a minimum endurance of four hours with standard fuel tanks.

The micro one, in turn, should have a range over 15 km, with the maximum operating ceiling of 25,000 feet, maximum weight of 30 kg and a minimum endurance of two hours. Apart from the "killer" and NBC detection roles, the key features of these remotely-piloted spy drones include detection, recognition and identification of "human targets"; post-strike damage assessment; and communication and intelligence missions.

Since the drones will be stealthy in nature, the Army plans to also equip its Para (Special Forces) battalions with them for covert missions beyond enemy lines, counter-terrorism operations and ‘beyond-the-hill' surveillance. All this comes even as the Army is in the process of operationalising two new UAV squadrons of Israeli high-altitude Herons, with eight drones each for the Srinagar-based 15 Corps and Leh-based 14 Corps.

 

[jefmq]

Asia is asian's Asia ,none of us can reap benifits by competition.
Cooperation maybe a good way to solve the disputes between China and India,actually,none of us would like to see the war broke out.

 

[nitesh]

Asia is asian's Asia ,none of us can reap benifits by competition.
Cooperation maybe a good way to solve the disputes between China and India,actually,none of us would like to see the war broke out.

good point made. The things are moving slowly but in the right direction. Possibility of war is remote.

 

[nitesh]

good move

The Hindu News Update Service

UAVs for Special Forces to hit targets behind enemy lines

India is embarking on a defence project to develop unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) carrying Laser Target Designators (LTDs) to be used by its Special Forces to accurately hit targets inside enemy territory.

The country's premier defence research agency, DRDO, is spearheading the project, in partnership with the Army, Navy and IAF's Special Forces, that aims to reduce the risk of losing personnel operating behind enemy lines.

"We are planning to base LTDs on UAVs to cut down the risk of our troops getting caught inside enemy territory while illuminating targets for attack and save the cost of sending another aircraft for doing the task," a senior Defence Ministry official told PTI.

The LTDs, at present, are carried inside enemy territory by Special Forces troops, who focus it on enemy targets for the Air Force's aircraft to drop a Laser Guided Bomb (LGB) to hit the target.

The other way of doing the special operation is to send in two aircraft -- one to illuminate the target with laser and the other to attack the target -- which turns out to be a costly proposition for the armed forces.

"It was realised that sending troops with the LTDs six to seven km close to highly-guarded targets behind enemy lines and then flying in an aircraft to attack it was quite risky and very expensive," the official said.

It was found that a UAV could fit the bill, as they can penetrate deep into enemy territory with minimal chance of being detected and can be operated from long distances using a remote. Moreover, there would be no loss of lives in the Special Forces troops, he said.