The armed forces and the entire Ministry of Defense needs to be overhauled. Too much dependence on PSU like HAL and OFB which don’t deliver on time or innovate 30-40 years too late
The Indian private industry can create and innovate drone technology with subsidies from the center. Then the armed forces can competitively induct these. But there needs to massive mindset change in the Indian Military and MoD bureaucracy.
You are looking at Drones exclusively from an AI perspective. But, drones are already being used in Kasmir for remote surveillance driven by human operators.
(For that matter, drone enthusiasts do not use AI for operating their drones)
That was probably what the good general meant.
Remote surveillance would have enabled a faster response and possibly neutralized the element of surprise.
While your post is well researched and well written, dogmatic statements would do you no credit.
Also, try and remember that most plans of modernization and procurement will by their nature remain under wraps usually till after the fact.
MEthinks the reality lies somewhere in between what the author and Ramandeep Bajwa state. AI is to be programmed into the drone, yes. The drone is sold complete with AI by the vendor, yes. But the vendor does not have access to the Ladakhi conditions. While the drone will perform well over Tilpat ranges and IAF and the Army Aviation wallas will quite happily buy the drone, over Ladakh/ Skardu, the drone may NOT function at all well. Ramandeep needs to be reminded that both Houthis and the ISIS used the drones in dry, almost flatland scenarios.
So there. The situation on ground is complex, a BIG YESS!Lots of signals/EME youngsters will have to burn the midnight oil that too in Ladakh or on the Glacier before anything deters the PLA actually.
Interesting hypothesis and correct in large parts. But like what it says about Gen Panag’s comment being,… “more eloquent in what it fails to say than in what it does.”, the same is probably true about the article itself.
Rather than blaming the Indian Army for the lapses, it remains eloquently silent about the actual problem and its reasons for being.
The Army is hamstrung by the MoD. One Chief famously said at the height of the Kargil war, that we will fight with what we have.
Nearer in time, we had our beloved PM berating the Army Commanders for asking money for modernisation, saying that war is not going to happen, why are you asking for more money?
Two successive Defence Ministers turned Finance Ministers have effectively starved the Defence Forces of all funds and capped modernisation and all ongoing projects. The author briefly alludes to the Battlefield Management System shelved in 2018, there would be many others not in the public domain, including some dealing with AI.
That is the basic reason why Indian Armed Forces are in a bind. The Defence Secretary, whose responsibility is the Defence of the realm, is not accountable for his inactions., but contrary to all logic, holds sway over all items to be introduced into the Army. The Army has no say whatsoever except to rubber stamp what the MoD wisemen want. Until and unless this changes, and the Armed Forces are reinstalled as part of the government of India, nothing will happen.
Drone warfare isn’t as complicated as the author is making it out to be. Most drones either carry weapons like missiles and bombs or are weapons themselves. They are launched into the battlefield and either they pick targets themselves and attack them or targets are spotted for them and weapons released from a remote location by humans in the loop. If drone warfare was so complicated it would have been very difficult for jihadis to use them, which they have done successfully in Syria, Libya and recently in Afghanistan. All you need is to train your personnel and that’s about it, the drone will do the rest. It will fly over enemy territory and will pick up targets and attack them. It is as simple as that.
The following passage isn’t true and it isn’t as complicated as the author has made out it to be:
“It is a computer programme that must be trained on massive amounts of relevant data: millions of visual, acoustic, electronic, thermal signatures of enemy entities, terrain and meteorology data of potential battlefields and the like. This data will run into terabytes and cannot be summoned by fiat. It is specific to different battlefield conditions, and must be painstakingly collected over time, analysed and labelled, made machine-readable and then carefully introduced with a substantial margin for error.”
The armed forces and the entire Ministry of Defense needs to be overhauled. Too much dependence on PSU like HAL and OFB which don’t deliver on time or innovate 30-40 years too late
The Indian private industry can create and innovate drone technology with subsidies from the center. Then the armed forces can competitively induct these. But there needs to massive mindset change in the Indian Military and MoD bureaucracy.
You are looking at Drones exclusively from an AI perspective. But, drones are already being used in Kasmir for remote surveillance driven by human operators.
(For that matter, drone enthusiasts do not use AI for operating their drones)
That was probably what the good general meant.
Remote surveillance would have enabled a faster response and possibly neutralized the element of surprise.
While your post is well researched and well written, dogmatic statements would do you no credit.
Also, try and remember that most plans of modernization and procurement will by their nature remain under wraps usually till after the fact.
MEthinks the reality lies somewhere in between what the author and Ramandeep Bajwa state. AI is to be programmed into the drone, yes. The drone is sold complete with AI by the vendor, yes. But the vendor does not have access to the Ladakhi conditions. While the drone will perform well over Tilpat ranges and IAF and the Army Aviation wallas will quite happily buy the drone, over Ladakh/ Skardu, the drone may NOT function at all well. Ramandeep needs to be reminded that both Houthis and the ISIS used the drones in dry, almost flatland scenarios.
So there. The situation on ground is complex, a BIG YESS!Lots of signals/EME youngsters will have to burn the midnight oil that too in Ladakh or on the Glacier before anything deters the PLA actually.
Brilliantly articulated.
When I read that the military is acquiring disparate systems from Russia, France, US, Isreal etc, you always wonder how they integrate.
Just because of this antiquated approach, we are paying too dollar for hardware and continue to remain a generation and a half behind our adversaries.
Military needs to engage start-ups urgently and on an ongoing basis.
Interesting hypothesis and correct in large parts. But like what it says about Gen Panag’s comment being,… “more eloquent in what it fails to say than in what it does.”, the same is probably true about the article itself.
Rather than blaming the Indian Army for the lapses, it remains eloquently silent about the actual problem and its reasons for being.
The Army is hamstrung by the MoD. One Chief famously said at the height of the Kargil war, that we will fight with what we have.
Nearer in time, we had our beloved PM berating the Army Commanders for asking money for modernisation, saying that war is not going to happen, why are you asking for more money?
Two successive Defence Ministers turned Finance Ministers have effectively starved the Defence Forces of all funds and capped modernisation and all ongoing projects. The author briefly alludes to the Battlefield Management System shelved in 2018, there would be many others not in the public domain, including some dealing with AI.
That is the basic reason why Indian Armed Forces are in a bind. The Defence Secretary, whose responsibility is the Defence of the realm, is not accountable for his inactions., but contrary to all logic, holds sway over all items to be introduced into the Army. The Army has no say whatsoever except to rubber stamp what the MoD wisemen want. Until and unless this changes, and the Armed Forces are reinstalled as part of the government of India, nothing will happen.
Drone warfare isn’t as complicated as the author is making it out to be. Most drones either carry weapons like missiles and bombs or are weapons themselves. They are launched into the battlefield and either they pick targets themselves and attack them or targets are spotted for them and weapons released from a remote location by humans in the loop. If drone warfare was so complicated it would have been very difficult for jihadis to use them, which they have done successfully in Syria, Libya and recently in Afghanistan. All you need is to train your personnel and that’s about it, the drone will do the rest. It will fly over enemy territory and will pick up targets and attack them. It is as simple as that.
The following passage isn’t true and it isn’t as complicated as the author has made out it to be:
“It is a computer programme that must be trained on massive amounts of relevant data: millions of visual, acoustic, electronic, thermal signatures of enemy entities, terrain and meteorology data of potential battlefields and the like. This data will run into terabytes and cannot be summoned by fiat. It is specific to different battlefield conditions, and must be painstakingly collected over time, analysed and labelled, made machine-readable and then carefully introduced with a substantial margin for error.”