Israel-Iran clash reinforces need for solid air defence
NEW DELHI: Missile defence is technically complex, and very expensive. It’s virtually like firing a bullet to stop an incoming bullet. But with the sheer operational criticality of air and missile defence systems being reinforced by the tit-for-tat attacks between Israel and Iran, India needs to majorly crank up efforts to make its airspace as impregnable as possible.
India has taken some strides in the arena but much more clearly needs to be done for an effective multi-layered integrated air and missile defence shield, with an overlapping network of early-warning and tracking sensors, reliable command and control posts, land and sea-based batteries of advanced interceptor missiles.
Unlike India, Israel of course has only a small territory to defend. And it did so effectively on April 13, thwarting Iran’s mass missile and kamikaze drone attack with its wide array of defence systems, from the short-range Iron Dome to long-range Arrow, as well as help from some others like the US.
India’s air defence systems are geared towards protecting only some vital areas and installations. “India is simply too vast to be effectively protected from all kinds of aerial threats. But yes, apart from buying bullets, we need to invest much more in bulletproof jackets as well. Missile defence is now an overwhelming tactical necessity rather than a strategic one,” a senior officer said.
For one, India needs to get cracking on operationally deploying its indigenous two-tier ballistic missile defence (BMD) system, which as per DRDO is designed to track and destroy nuclear and other ballistic missiles both inside (endo) and outside (exo) the earth’s atmosphere at altitudes from 15-25 km to 80-100 km for “a higher kill probability”.
After “successfully completing” a series of tests for Phase-1 of the land-based BMD system quite a while ago, the DRDO also conducted the maiden flight-trial of a sea-based interceptor missile in April last year.
The govt, however, has so far not sanctioned full-scale deployment of the BMD system at any vital location. This could be due to the exorbitant costs involved or a few technological gaps, or even strategic calculations that it may provoke Pakistan to go in for a larger nuclear arsenal and countermeasures to defeat the BMD system, as reported by TOI earlier.
IAF, of course, now has three squadrons of Russian S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile systems, which can detect, track and destroy incoming strategic bombers, jets, spy planes, drones and even some intermediate-range ballistic missiles at a range of 380-km. They are deployed in north-west and east India to cater for both China and Pakistan.
Delivery of the remaining two S-400 squadrons, under the $5.4 billion contract inked in 2018, has been delayed to 2025-26 due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
Parallelly, India is developing its own long-range surface-to-air missile (LR-SAM) system under the ambitious Project Kusha. With an interception range of around 350-km, this air defence system should be ready by 2028-29.
Then, there is the Barak-8 medium range surface-to-air missile (MR-SAM) systems, with an over 70-km range, jointly developed with Israel. After the Navy and IAF, Army in Feb last year operationalised its first `Abhra’ MR-SAM regiment in the 33 Corps, which defends the frontier with China in Sikkim and the Siliguri Corridor.
Army and IAF have also inducted in large numbers the indigenous Akash air defence missile systems, with an interception range of 25-km, while a new-generation sleeker version is also now ready for user trials.
The armed forces also have a variety of shorter range air defence weapons. These range from the older Russian Igla-1M (5 km), OSA-AK-M (10 km) and Pechora missiles and upgraded L-70 anti-aircraft guns (3.5 km) to the newer Israeli low-level Spyder quick-reaction anti-aircraft missiles (15 km range) and Russian man-portable Igla-S (6 km) systems. DRDO is also testing the indigenous very short-range air defence system (VSHORADS) missiles, which has a range of up to 6 km.