The customary press conference given by
the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) of the Indian Air Force (IAF) every year prior to Air Force Day (which falls on October 8) by and large targets
contemporary issues on the balance-of-airpower in the subcontinent and the more
glamorous and glitzy issues regarding the IAF’s on-going force modernisation
efforts and future plans. However, issues regarded as ‘esoteric’ by the
mainstream media in India are very rarely raised and explored. This was exactly
the case on October 3, when not a single question was asked, for instance,
about the IAF’s thinking and desired forcer posture regarding theatre missile
defence (TMD), or about the fate of the An-32RE tactical transport aircraft
upgrade, or about the IAF’s roadmap for the large-scale induction of various
types of simulation systems and part-task trainers for both frontline combat/transport
aircraft and helicopters, as well as those related to standoff precision-guided
munitions (PGM). Nor did the CAS, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, bother to throw
any light on such issues through his prepared narrative that was read out by him
prior to the question-and-answer session.
Therefore, this is a honest effort by
your’s truly to throw some light into the issues concerning the IAF’s desired
TMD force posture, and future prospects for inducting into service an
IAF-specific version of the LCA (Navy) Mk1 MRCA, along with the Rafale M-MRCA. But
first, a few words about how the IAF failed on October 8 to undertake a
successful perception management exercise. While the IAF has rightly touted its
Su-30MKI heavy-MRCAs as being air-dominance platforms, this fact-of-life was
totally missing in the IAF’s giant billboard that was displayed on the parade
ground at Hindon on October 8. What was shown through an illustration was a
Su-30MKI armed only with R-27R and R-77 BVRAAMs—no R-73Es, no Litening-2 LDP,
and no PGMs.
This is inexplicable, given the fact
that in successive Aero India and DEFEXPO expos since the previous decade, both
HAL and BrahMos Aerospace have repeatedly displayed scale-models of the
Su-30MKI armed with both AAMs and PGMs! So what prevents the IAF from
showcasing similar exhibits? Your guess is as good as mine.
TMD
Developments
Though the IAF had decided to acquire
TMD assets way back in 1996, it was the MoD-owned DRDO that first got into the
act of proposing a homegrown solution, for which it initiated the development of
the PAD/PDV family of exo-atmospheric interceptor missiles and AAD family of
endo-atmospheric interceptor missiles. For target acquisition-cum-engagement,
two EL/M-2080 ‘Green Pine’ active phased-array L-band long-range tracking
radars (LRTR) were ordered in late 1998 from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI),
along with two THALES-built Master-A MFCRs, and a TMD simulation testbed from
Israel’s Tadiran Electronic Systems.
The primary threats—both then and now—stemmed
from the Pakistan Army’s 80 solid-fuelled single-stage M-11
(Hatf-3/Ghaznavi/CSS-7 Mod 1/DF-11) 280km-range TBMs that were inducted into
service on February 22, 2004, and 60 liquid-fuelled single-stage
Hatf-5/Ghauri-1/Nodong-1 IRBMs of North Korean origin, was inducted into
service on January 8, 2003 under the 47 Missile Group of the Pakistan Army’s
Strategic Forces Command (SFC). Presently, the Pakistan Army deploys two Missile
Groups each of the Ghauri-1 and Ghaznavi (grouped under two separate Artillery
Brigades, these being the Hyderabad-based Missile Brigade South comprising
Missile Groups 25, 35 and 40; and the Sargodha-based Missile Brigade North
comprising the 14, 28 and 47 Missile Groups).
During hostilities with India, all these
missiles will be armed with conventional HE or FAE-based warheads. Each such Missile
Group comprises 18 Ghaznavi TELs each with one ready-to-fire missile and two
reloads, and 18 Ghauri-1 TELs each with two ready-to-fire missiles and two
reloads. A Group can also be divided into three Batteries (with six Ghaznavi
TELs and six missiles plus two reloads and six Ghauri-1 TELs with 12 missiles
and 24 reloads). Presently, Batteries of the Ghauri-1 and Ghaznavi are deployed
at Gujranwala, Okara, Mangla Multan, Jhang, Sonmiani, Quetta and Dera Nawab
Shah.
Unfortunately, despite 19 years of R
& D effort, the DRDO has to date been unable to even offer a fully
functional TMD system, leave alone a networked TMD network. The main problem
has been the DRDO’s inability to develop hypersonic interceptor missiles and
their internally-mounted Ka-band active phased-array radars for terminal
guidance. Only homegrown X-band and Ku-band radar seekers have been designed
and tested without demonstrable success.
And that is precisely the reason why,
two years ago, when a combined team from IAI and Russia’s JSC Almaz-Antey MSDB made
an unsolicited presentation to the IAF on an improved version of the S-400 ‘Triumph’
LR-SAM (a generation ahead of what has been sold to China) that would make use
of IAI’s latest EL/M-2090U UHF-band active phased-array LRTR, the IAF began
making hectic plans for procuring such a system for TMD within the foreseeable
future.
Presently, the S-400 makes use of four
different types of supersonic endo-atmospheric interceptor missiles (top speed
of 4.8km/second): the 40N6E, the 9M96E2, the 48N6E3 and the 48N6E2, all of
which are armed with HE-fragmentation warheads. What Russia has proposed for
the IAF are two HYPERSONIC missiles, the exo-atmospheric 77N6-N and the endo-atmospheric 77N6-NI, having top speeds of 7km/second and also being the first SAMs of
Russian origin to possess INERT warheads, i.e. warheads that do not contain any
explosives and instead, are ‘hittile’, meaning they will destroy inbound TBMs,
IRBMs or MRBMs by sheer force of impact.
The most revolutionary element of the 77N6-N
and the 77N6-NI hypersonic LR-SAMs will be their on-board nose-mounted, Ka-band
millimeter-wave active phased-array radar
seekers and their real-time discrimination algorithms required for fire-control
and guidance of hit-to-kill interceptors. To this end, the radar seekers have been
designed with a rigid mount and narrow beam to provide precise angle metric
accuracy. The combination of metric accuracy, wide bandwidth, and high
Doppler-resolution capabilities makes them excellent sensors for real-time
discrimination, for they can provide extremely accurate identification-processing
estimates of motion differences caused by mass imbalances on real and threat-like
targets.
The 300-tonne EL/M-2090U ULTRA C-22 LRTR
features an array of 22 UHF-band transmit-receive
modules (TRM) in a single clustered unit that has been
designed so that modules can be easily swapped. Using UHF, rather
than the higher frequency bands, has particular application at long ranges
since it suffers from less signal loss in the atmosphere. A discriminating
innovation of the ELM-2090U is the digitisation of the signals at the TRM-level, which allows more flexibility in
beam-forming and shaping. For TMD along a sectoral footprint, IAI has
developed the EL/M-2090U’s ULTRA C-6 version, which has
six TRM clusters. Each cluster can
electronically steer its beam through +/-60 degrees in azimuth and across a
40-degree sector in elevation. In all cases, the array can be mechanically
tilted through 30 degrees in elevation to provide a total elevation coverage of
70 degrees. The larger C-22 version comes mounted on a rail assembly that can
be mechanically slewed through +/100 degrees to give 320-degree coverage.
As per the IAF’s
projections, there exists a requirement for 12 Batteries of the S-400 (each
Battery using four TELs each housing four cannister-encased LR-SAMs), plus 12
C-6 LRTRs and two C-22 LRTRs. In other words, as per the IAF’s appreciation, a
total of 11 strategic sectors are required to be protected against inbound
TBMs, IRBMs and MRBMs.
But does this all mean
that the procurement of S-400 LR-SAMs is a foregone conclusion? Absolutely not.
Significant questions still remain over the yet-to-be-demonstrated
effectiveness of the hypersonic 77N6-N and the 77N6-NI missiles. In addition,
a lot will depend on Russia’s ability/inability to ramp up series-production of
such missiles over the next five years. Also, exercising the Russian option means that
India will have to invest cost-prohibitive financial resources on deploying a
network of space-based early-warning satellites, since Russia has diminished
capacities in this arena. But most importantly, the US is not sitting by and
let Russia and Israel have the cake and eat it as well. Since 2012, the US has
been taking keen interest in India’s plans for acquiring exo-atmospheric/endo-atmospheric
interceptor missiles, especially after the latter officially decided not to
field a new generation of solid-fuelled tactical ballistic missiles—be they
conventionally armed or nuclear-capable—for replacing the liquid-fuelled
Prithvi-1 NLOS-BSMs of 1990s vintage. What this essentially meant, was that unlike
Pakistan, India will not use ballistic missiles of any type that are
conventionally armed, since such weapons have zero counter-force/counter-strike
value. Pakistan, on the other hand, views conventionally armed ballistic missiles
as weapons that can be employed as ‘terror weapons’ against civilian targets
like large Indian cities as part of an effort to demoralise the civilian
population residing in cities that are either India’s financial hubs, or
technological hubs.
Therefore, if Pakistan
wants to secure the deterrent value of its strategic WMD arsenals against an Indian TMD
shield, it can only do so if it formally adopts a ‘no first-use’ doctrine with
universal applicability, at least for its strategic WMD inventory, if not for
the short-range TNWs that are presently intended for use only in battlefields within
Pakistan. Whether Pakistan will be willing to, or forced into adopting such a
posture following the forthcoming meeting between US President Barack Obama and
Pakistani Prime Minister Mian Mohd Nawaz Sharif (slated for October 22),
remains to be seen. Prior to this meeting, however, there will be a series of
meetings held in Washington DC between the Pakistan Army’s COAS, Gen Raheel
Sharif and his SPD Director-General on one hand, and their counterparts from
the Pentagon.
If Pakistan decides
against adopting the a ‘no first-use’ doctrine, then the US will have two
policy options to act upon: firstly, degrade and diminish the credibility of
Pakistan’s nuclear WMD assets by offering to supply India with the hypersonic
(Mach 8.2) Theater High-Altitude Air-Defence (THAAD) TMD system that has been
jointly developed by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon; and secondly, initiate
contingency planning along with India, the UK, Afghanistan and possibly Iran,
for physically confiscating or destroying Pakistan’s entire arsenal of nuclear
WMDs.
It is in this light that one
ought to view the symbolism of Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s meeting with
the Chairperson of Lockheed Martin, Ms Marillyn Hewson, in New
York on September 24, 2015. That India’s national security decision-makers will
favour the THAAD over the S-400 is hardly in doubt, since they are already
convinced about the superior performance parameters of the US-origin TMD
solution. At the military-industrial level too, both Lockheed Martin and
Raytheon have already established their reputations in India as worthy
industrial offsets partners and leading network-centric solutions providers.
For instance, the systems integration software for the Indian Navy’s
Gurgaon-based, Rs.452 crore state-of-the-art Information Management
and Analysis Centre (IMAC), which was commissioned on November 23, was
provided entirely by Raytheon, with the computing servers coming from
CISCO. In future, the IMAC will morphe into the ‘nodal fusion centre’ of the
Navy’s Rs.1,003 crore National Command Control Communications and Intelligence
Network (NC3I).
For the IAF’s
countrywide, quick-reaction TMD network too would such a ‘nodal fusion centre’ be required, along
with the requirement for networking with the vast array of space-based early
warning satellites that the US presently deploys. Therefore, if the IAF opts for
the optimum TMD solution that makes use of THAAD, then India for sure will be
required to ink the Basic
Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-Spatial Cooperation (BECA), which is
the key to securing access to ballistic missile early warning alerts from
the US Air Force Space Command’s satellite networks.
Next Thread: How
& Why The IAF’s Force Structure Planning Process Went Awry 30 Years Ago