New Delhi: The Indian Army, Air Force and the Navy will perform a tri-services firepower demonstration, ‘Bharat Shakti’, at Rajasthan’s Pokhran Range on 12 March to display indigenously-made weapon systems. This is the first time that all three forces will present endemic equipment. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in attendance.
One of the highlights of the exercise will likely be a display of the Indian Army’s Integrated Drone Detection and Interdiction System Mark-I, made by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) And Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL).
The Army has inducted seven of these systems in the recent past.
This is an active and passive detection system for low radar cross section aerial targets along with hard kill and certain soft kill options, integrated through a suitable command and control system, as per the ministry of defence.
The system has the ability to track 100 aerial targets at a time and engage the target at 800 metres. The range that the system will be able to detect a target at is 8 km. It can also track individual targets up to 4 km.
Sources in the defence and security establishment told ThePrint that this aligned with the Army observing 2024 as the year of “tech absorption”, as announced by Chief of Army Staff General Manoj Pande during the annual press conference.
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They said the firepower demonstration would demonstrate how all three services were capable of thwarting the enemy, in case of conflict.
The display will take place at a time when the three defence forces were increasingly looking to implement theaterisation, wherein their individual resources would be pooled in for combat.
The exercise will include a live as well static display of weapon systems.
In the last one year, the Indian Army has signed 150 contracts with the country’s defence manufacturing industry. Of these, 79 projects approximately worth Rs 3,39,284 crore, have been granted the Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for acquisition.
Among the weapon systems that will also be displayed are aircraft, helicopters, torpedoes, and unmanned and counter-unmanned aerial vehicle systems and other intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms.
The Army’s artillery guns — Dhanush, Pinaka and K9 Vajra — will fire together during ‘Bharat Shakti’. The Indian Navy will carry out a live demonstration of anti-ship missiles (short range).
In the static display, the Navy will also showcase the autonomous weaponised boat swarm. The Air Force will carry out firing from LCA Tejas, LCH as well as ALH Mk-IV. An air-launched Brahmos missile will be part of the static display.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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