On the night of 23/24 Feb 2022 when the Russians fired the first salvo of the current round in Russo-Ukraine war in the form of a strong pre-emptive air strike complete with strike aircrafts, cruise missiles, multi-barrel rocket launchers and more, it was mainly to kill Ukraine’s air and air defences. ^[1]

More technically, the pre-emptive air strike aimed to achieve two primary goals; 1. Kill maximum number of Ukrainian air assets on ground, eliminating/dwarfing the possibility for them to fight another day in the air either in air strike and air defence role and 2. Suppress (kill/incapacitate) adversary’s air defences on ground and sea so as to get rid of/dwarf their capability in days to come (other roles of hitting pre-planned key targets etc. not covered).

It is history that these goals could not be achieved by Russians fully for multiple reasons, a few of which include poor situational awareness, inadequate data on precise target locations, most of the Ukrainian air assets being under concrete, and most of the air defences being underground. ^[2]

What were the implications of a partially successful pre-emptive strike? Right till about mid 2024 (i.e. up till when the air defence assets were available in quantity to Ukraine) the second largest air power in the world could not achieve a favourable air situation, leave aside air supremacy. So long air defences continue to survive, the skies will remain contested; period!

There is much talk of the emergence of drones especially small drones as the most potent vehicles for the prosecution of air threat. Why so? Simply because the lack of air defences let them take the podium. Examine the following:-

• A set of just 13 DIY drones created havoc on the Russian air base at Khmeimim and Naval base at Tartus both in western Syria on 05 Jan 2018 in spite of Russian side having the deadly Pantsir S1 short range air defence system.^[3]
• Even by firing millions of dollars Pantsir missiles on cheap drones only 7 could be downed. Why? Russian side did not have the right type of air defence in terms of specific anti-drone weaponry. Pantsir S1 can take on deadly conventional air threat composed of strike aircrafts, attack helicopters and more, it is not suited for small DIY type of drones.
• A year and a half later, Azerbaijan turned the tables on Armenia using a preponderance of two types of drones, namely the Bayracter TB2 and the Israeli Horop loitering munitions. Similar pattern unfolded.
• While Armenia had the complete spectrum of conventional ground based air defences or GBAD (towed and self-propelled guns and short, and medium SAMs) it singularly lacked tailor-made anti-drone air defences. In their case, there was a double whammy. Not only they lacked ‘round pegs for round holes’, their deadly conventional air defence weapons were not even deployed tactically by leap-frogging and supporting their armour and artillery. Unfortunately they were seen packed up as convoy serials huddling along with the armour convoys and trying to engage drone threats for which they were not prepared.
• Same story was repeated in the initial months of Russo-Ukraine war. Russia is a mighty air defence power but unfortunately during those initial months of armour blitzkrieg, the convoys were not assigned specific anti-drone weaponry. Even their conventional ground based air defences suffered from communications, connectivity and air space control blues. The weapons never played to their potential. Conventional GBAD weapons and their supported armour columns took disproportionate casualties at the hand of a trio of weapons - small drones, anti-tank guided missiles and the man-portable air defence systems (MANPADs). ^[4]
• MANPADs were proliferated by Ukraine in huge numbers in the tactical battle area (TBA). So much was their preponderance in every nook and corner of the battlefield that these simply overwhelmed the detection and avoidance capability of the Russian attack helicopters (AHs). MANPADs took a huge toll of some 25 out 100 ^[5] Russian AHs That is a solid blow.
• Russia is a very strong Electronic Warfare (EW) power. Its salient weapons include radar jammers (Krashuka II and Krashuka IV), VHF/UHF jammers (RB341V, Leer3), GPS and SATCOM jammers (RH 330 ZHITEL), long range HF jammers (Murmank-BN), airborne fire control radar jammers (SPN 2,3,4) and anti-drone jammers (repellent etc.).
• One of the requirements of this deadly EW arsenal is that it needs to be deployed in a centralised manner controlled at the helm and allowed to operate in mutually non-interfering domains. This never happened in the initial months of the war. The weapon systems were deployed piecemeal proliferated along mutually interfering thrust lines. Their potential never got to be exploited as the Ukrainian air overcame them in bits and pieces.
• What happened in the Black sea? How come a nation with no Navy could damage/sink a whopping 26 vessels of all kinds in the Sevastapol- the crown jewel of Russian Navy? Again, a play of deficit air defence.
• In the initial phase of the war when the Ukrainian drones started to make a dent on the Russian armour, the drone magic was extended to the naval fleet in the waters of the Black Sea. Initial successes were humble. It was then a new weapon made an appearance; the un-crewed surface vehicle (USV) all of about 5-6 meters long with a range from 800-100km and carrying a deadly warhead of 850-1000kg. Controlled remotely, the USVs were navigable for a precise catastrophic collision with the target vessels. Two machines won the day; the Sea Baby and Magura V5. ^[6]
• What gave a hero status to USVs in the Black Sea? The lack of tailor- made defences on board the Russian vessels. These mighty platforms had huge guns and missiles and aircrafts on board, but not the hard/soft kill means to destroy the kind of humble USVs that struck them unobtrusively. ^[7]
• Coming closer and into another war zone, it is a case for a deep professional analysis as to how Iranian air defences which are known to be reasonably strong simply succumbed to the deadly aerial onslaught by Israeli air strikes on 26 Oct 2024?
• And now what is going on majorly in the Russo-Ukraine war are the air-air defence duels. Drones of all hues coupled with cruise missiles are prosecuting deadly strikes on both sides and air defences of the defenders are trying to put down maximum of them. The main war play is air-air defence.

Some Reflections

Following points emerge:-

• In the modern day combat scenarios, air and air defence duels are actually shaping the initial outcomes of wars that are eventually getting mopped up by ground forces.
• With the emergence of small drones as effective air threat prosecution vehicles, the entire scene of air-air defence duels has undergone a transformation. How?-
• Most of the GBAD arsenal of yesteryears was focussed to take on the conventional air threat consisting of deadly strike aircrafts (4-5 gen), attack helicopters armed to the teeth and capable of flying nap-of-the-earth avoiding radar detection, cruise missiles with sub-meter accuracy, anti-radiation missiles capable of taking out sensors and an entire spectrum of precision guided munitions with stand-off ranges from a few km extending to 100s of km.
• To counter the above threat, the air defence is anchored on three pillars; Sensors, Shooters and Battle Management Systems (BMS).
• The sensors comprise of all types of radars that have the capability to detect the air threat at long ranges and pass that data in near real time to the weapons. Other types of radars control the fire of guns and missiles and guide them to the targets, a separate set of radars control the ballistic missiles with ranges in excess of thousands of km.
• The Shooters comprise the fire arm starting from the terminal end with air defence guns and MANPADs and extending outwards to hundreds of km through a regime of short, medium and long-range missiles (SRSAMs, MRSAMs, LRSAMs) providing layers of overlapping fire capability.
• The BMS called the air defence control and reporting system (ADCRS) in the air defence parlance is the lifeline that controls the sensors and shooters and knits them in one seamless loop. Generation of air surveillance picture, recognising the threat as to friend or foe, prioritising the threat based on immediacy and comparative lethality and delivering seamless fire on the incoming threat vehicles shifting weapon-to-weapon in real time, all lies in the domain of ADCRS.
• All the above set up is primarily geared up to take on the threat as stated. Then emerged the game changers, the small drones. With their first documented swarm attack on Russian assets in Jan 2018, there has been no looking back. Azerbaijan- Armenia (2018-2020), Russo-Ukraine (2022 and counting) Israel-Hamas-Iran (2024 and counting) all followed notching up the threat of small drones.
• How come the erstwhile deadly arsenal of GBAD proved to be short when it came to the small drone threat? Primarily on two counts:-
1. The sensors associated with conventional GBAD arsenal were not optimised to detect small drones having a very small radar cross-section (RCS) of say 0.01-0.5 m2 (typical strike aircrafts 3-5M2). Put simply, RCS is a measure of visibility of a target. Most drones in the war scenarios mentioned above thus went undetected. If radars cannot detect and track, radar guided weapons cannot be launched.
2. The conventional missiles each costing millions of dollars imposed a heavy ‘cost of kill’ on the defender in shooting small drones worth hundreds of dollars. Besides being ineffective, this became untenable for the defender in the long run.
• What the drones required are a spectrum of sensors capable of small RCS detection. Consequently a whole regime of Electro-optical (EO), Infra-red (IR) and Radio-frequency (RF) based sensors coupled with radars became relevant
• For the kill multiple low-cost options made an appearance. These mainly included soft kill using RF jamming and laser kill, EW means like – hacking, phishing, kills using directed energy weapons like high power microwave, hard kill using small arms, MMGs, and high rate of fire air defence guns. Hybrid systems featuring soft plus hard kill on one platform were also developed.
• So long as such capabilities were missing with the defenders, drones scored disproportionate kills. Once the anti-drone systems were in place things stabilised (case in point Russia – after it took up defensive positions and petered out an entire Ukrainian counter offensive).

In this drone era, air defence from its erstwhile positioning as a reactive defence instrument is now in the ‘air denial’ mode. Strong/ undefeated air defences mean that air power irrespective of its might will be unable to establish a favourable air situation leave aside air superiority.

Such is the power of air defence.

Where Are We in GBAD?

Before answering the poser, here is a word about the GBAD in the overall air defence matrix.

• All air defences be it on land, sea, air, sea sub surface or space primarily exist for the sole purpose of countering the adversary’s air threat.
• Since air threat can manifest in any of the mediums either exclusively or in unison with other mediums, domain competent air defence arsenal exists in each medium operated by core-competent professionals from respective Services.
• While the weapon systems are vibrant and diverse in each medium, these are tied by the umbilical chord of ADCRS which controls the air defence battle as stated earlier.
• Since Air Force in our country is tasked with the responsibility of air defence of the national air space the control on all air defences is exercised by Air Force. Such a control is exercised by its control and communication network called the Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS). The IACCS connects seamlessly with the ADCRS of other two Services( Akashteer of Army and Trigun of Nvy) establishing air defence control from the highest node to the weapon end ( further details not covered),

GBAD is the ground component of the overall national air defence capability.

What is Required to Optimise the Country’s GBAD Capability?

This is a huge vertical by itself, however some crunch issues are stated. These could serve as ‘action points’ for the stakeholders.

• Most of the GBAD arsenal be it sensors or the shooters need to adjust in their ‘bias’. What does that mean? The weight of the air threat in quantum and lethality has shifted northwards. GBAD arsenal that used to be optimised for our western and SW borders needs to get redesigned and re-configured to be deployment-worthy in the high altitude areas of the Northern and Eastern Command where the new air threat looms with greater and greater ferocity. This implies the following:-
• No monoliths/weight monsters. Our systems need to be light weight to move along the narrow reaches and lower classification bridges to reach the deployment areas up North.
• Systems must possess adequate mobility to be capable of deployment and re-deployment in the type of terrain obtaining across northern/NE borders.
• The terminal end of the GBAD firearm is composed of air defence guns (L -70 and ZU 23) along with MANPADs (under a category called the Very Short-Range Air Defence Systems or VSHORADs). Both the mainframe guns are well past their obsolescence having been inducted in late sixties/ early seventies. Certain number of these weapons, which were capable of taking the upgrade have been put through. The requirement of a futuristic gun cannot be overstated. Procurement sequence is already in motion.
• The futuristic gun must have the capability to defeat the modern-day air threat. All-weather weapon system with range no less than 4 km and with a capability to fire ‘smart’ ammunition (pre-fragmented, programmable, proximity fused warhead) will be a must. For target track such a gun must feature a dual-mode electro-optical fire control system capable of defeating the swarm drone threat.
• The importance of MANPADs at the terminal end of the GBAD fire arm cannot be over-emphasised. These provide the critical gun-missile mix to take on that formidable threat which has braved through all the earlier layers of the defences or has been able to surprise by making a sudden appearance at the terminal end.
• The voids in the MANPAD domain for all the three Services (quantum classified) needs be addressed on Top Priority. We have suffered a procurement case for VSHORADs running a course of 11 years. Now is the time to fill the voids urgently. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has successfully designed and tested its MANPAD.
• DRDO’s VSHORAD must cross the path from design to bulk production quickly. Since one single agency may not be able to meet the tri-service requirements, there is a strong case to transfer DRDO technology to private industry to make the numbers in the time frame required.
• The other VSHORADs in the GBAD inventory are the air defence self-propelled (SP) weapons that support the mechanised forces in the Tactical Battle Area (TBA) by providing mobile air defence support.
• The current weapons in this class include the Schilka ZSU-23 AD SP gun system and Tunguska featuring 4 auto-cannons and 8 missiles on a single platform. Besides there are two other missile systems in the VSHORAD range; Strela 10M (4 missiles on a tracked launcher, range 5 km) and OSA AK (6 missiles on a wheeled chassis, range 10 km).
• Much like the guns all the above weapons are well past their obsolescence. Successor systems are the need of the hour. Some positive news is coming on this front:-
• Quick Reaction Surface to air Missile (QRSAM) as suited for the mobile air defence cover in the mechanised battle stands successfully developed by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL). This missile has a range of 30 km and an altitude ceiling of 10 km.
• Last year in August Army issued a Request for Information (RFI) for the procurement of 90 CADET (Carrier Air Defence Tracked) Systems. This move was to fill up the void in mobile tracked-based air defence capability both for the western, as well as, northern borders.
• In context of the above there is an urgent need to expedite the induction of QRSAM in the GBAD inventory. An equally urgent case is to make a quick progress on the CADET case. Reportedly two weapon systems are under consideration – Russian Pantsir Si and South Korean BIHO. Any one of these will provide the much needed AD SP capability for the mechanised forces in the TBA.

While the weapons described above in the SP variety are all related to the mobile air defence battle in the TBA, there are a series of SAMs that extend the fire arm along the short and medium range SAMs as stated earlier.

As regards the short range SAMs, following points are stated:-

• Akash weapon system has been a resounding success story on the make-in-India route. In addition to the current holding of two regiments, another two are on order. ^[8]
• The requirement is to build on the numbers of these Regiments in a mission mode so as to fill the voids in the Northern and NE sectors.
• As regards MRSAM, the current Barak8 MRSAM realised jointly by the DRDO-IAI of Israel already stands inducted in the GBAD arsenal. There is a requirement to build these numbers for deployment in the Northern and NE sectors.
• Reports indicate that after Ladakh, there are plans to deploy this weapon system in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh as well. ^[9]

As regards the sensors in the GBAD arsenal following points are stated:-

• Much like the shooters, the sensors also need to adjust to the new reality of the threat matrix having moved northwards. This needs to show up in lighter weights and more mobile equipment capable of quick deployments and re-deployments in the terrains obtaining in the North/NE.
• Another issue relates to the power supply equipment. This shows up as huge fuel-guzzling generators associated with sensors. Here the technology needs to play up in supplying the power using fuel-cells providing clean energy with systems mounted on-board.
• With adversary’s anti-radiation and cruise missiles getting revamped hugely, active sensors radiating huge amounts of RF energy will be at risk. The requirement is to go for passive radars that do not emit any RF energy. It is heartening to note that DRDO is actively working in this direction.
• Another future call for sensors will be hi-tech Laser based radars or LIDARs.

As to ADCRS, the communication and connectivity cutting across Service boundaries need to become more seamless and existing glitches need be removed. The positive sign is that a huge amount of work has recently been completed in ensuring seamless data flow handshake between IADCS and Akashteer of the Army. This must continue.
As to counter drone capability following is stated:-

Anti-drone systems need to be proliferated in the TBA in large numbers. DRDO-BEL made ADS as well as the ADS produced by private players (Zen Technologies Limited, Big Bang Boom Solutions etc.) have been the success stories. These are based on RF/EO based surveillance and RF (jamming based kill).
• Future kill solutions need also to find their way into our ADS arsenal. These include the laser and the high power microwave systems. As this is being written, DRDO has informed that its laser based kill system with a 30 KW laser on board has just undergone a successful trial on single and swarm drone threat destroying the same instantly. This needs to get speeded up to the stage of weapon grade equipment getting inducted in the Service. Also more progress needs to be made on high power microwave systems as well as drone killers.

The reader is now updated as to how the air defences today are coming of age in an ‘air denial mode’ and what needs to be done in revamping our GBAD arsenal.

End Notes

^[1] “Russia Ukraine war,” at www.britannica.com. Accessed on 07 Apr 2025.
^[2] One year of air and air defence war. “ at www.vifindia.org. Accessed on 0 Apr 2025
^[3] “Commentary: First ever swarm attack has happened,” at www.vifindia.org. Accessed on 08 Apr 2025.
^[4] ibid
^[5] 636 days and counting- which way the wind blows now.” At www.vifindia.org. Accessed on 09 Apr 2025.
^[6] ibid
^[7] “Russia Ukraine conflict the down end of the se saw,” at www.vifindia.org. Accessed on 11 Apr 2025.
^[8] ‘BDL receives order for Akash weapon system..” at www.bdl-india.in. Accessed on 13 Apr 2025.
^[9] “After Ladakh, Indian army to deploy MR-SAM air defence shield in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh frontiers with China,” at www.defence.in/hreads/. Accessed on 15 Apr 2025.

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