Indian Air Force celebrates its birthday on 8th October. The following article was written last year on 8th October.
Indian Air Force in the
age of Unmanned, Hypersonic, Intelligent, Stealthy, and CPGS world
We would like to wish the Indian
Air Force a very happy birthday – the IAF was born in 1932 on 8th
October – a good 15 years before India attained independence. Today, one of the
finest air force of the world is in dire need of new equipment – as the Chief
of Air Staff has been clearly telling everyone. In 2014 and beyond, however,
“the equipment” needed for the Air Force need a hard and soft relook in the
light of changes that are visible now or discernable for future.
Should IAF think about increasing
the number of its fighter aircraft squadrons as a response to increasingly
complex and dangerous set of challenges? Below we try to see what “equipment”
will be appropriate and may be needed for IAF as it faces near term and long
term challenges.
The key
changes in the war in the Air
Recent trends indicates that the
warfare in the air and space – aerospace – if one may, is seeing following five
characteristic trends
1. Conventional
Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) augmenting the nuclear armed Ballistic missiles as
a “useable” option as compared to “just threat” but non usable option of nukes
2. Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles, Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles emerging as a step-change from
the conventional piloted aircraft
3. Hypersonic
(speed of 5 times and above of speed of sound) Vehicles, Missiles and Munitions
4. Intelligent
munitions, systems and machines
5. Stealthy
systems and platforms
CPGS/CPRS
In August 2014, Amy F. Woolf,
Specialist in Nuclear Weapons Policy published a report for US Congressional
Research Service (www.crs.gov, report number
R41464) titled, “Conventional Prompt Global Strike and Long-Range Ballistic
Missiles: Background and Issues”. The summary of the report starts with,
“Conventional prompt global strike (CPGS)
weapons would allow the United States to strike
targets anywhere on Earth in as little as an hour. This capability may
bolster U.S. efforts to deter and defeat adversaries by allowing the United
States to attack high-value targets or “fleeting targets” at the start of or
during a conflict.” {Emphasis not in the original}
The CPGS is an unprecedented
capability. As envisaged and being developed through integration of “extreme”
limits of technologies – a vision that will give the sole superpower capability
beyond anything any adversary can deploy in near future. The report lists
following 8 options for US for CPGS – land based ballistic missiles, submarine
launched ballistic missiles, submarine launched intermediate range Ballistic
missiles, Long range bombers, Tomahawk Cruise Missiles, Hypersonic cruise
missiles, Scramjet technologies, and Forward based Global strike. Except for
long range bombers and perhaps forward based global strike all other options
are unmanned.
Can IAF consider these and
perhaps other options for creating a system for conventional prompt regional strike (CPRS)? Even to contemplate
this shift, IAF and DRDO will have to work together – can they work to build a new type of force?
UAV/UCAV
In a telling article in 2012, the
Economist wrote “the future belongs to Drones”. The article published was
titled “The last manned fighter” and it gave a detailed account of F-35 fighter
plane costs and defines a future direction that clearly seems to be favoring
unmanned combat aircraft. It states, “In many roles, unmanned planes are more
efficient: they carry neither a bulky pilot nor the kit that keeps him alive,
which means they can both turn faster and be stealthier. And if they are shot
down, no one dies. Even the F-35’s champions concede that it will probably be
the last manned strike fighter aircraft the West will build.” Given the promise
and capability of unmanned aircraft, and increasing cost of training pilots to
operate complex fighter aircraft, it is but foolhardy to build a future
military capability ignoring the new unmanned and remote lethality.
Is there any thinking in IAF, to
increase the unmanned component of its force? Many functions can be carried out
by unmanned aircraft – increasingly more and more functions can be given to
unmanned platforms.
Hypersonic
India is already on its way to
develop BrahMos II – a Mach 7 hypersonic cruise missile. However, due to the
MTCR constraint it has to be limited to 290 kms range. IAF should learn and
create a future force structure that will utilize more of hypersonic systems –
missiles, platforms and munitions.
What are the plans of IAF to
incorporate the hypersonic shift that the world is seeing? A roadmap for
hypersonic IAF is essential.
Increasing
intelligence of combat systems
Law of increasing intelligence of
technical systems found that human beings by collectively evolving their
technical systems, are trying to make each technical system as close to a human
being as possible - or at least a model of human being and its environment
based on the current understanding of the world (for example, understanding of
laws of physics and chemistry in making an automobile) and the current
understanding of the system called the human being. As man understands the
world around it as well as its body and its mind, it wants to create an
"ideal man" or at least an idealized human of all technical systems
it is creating. (One can download the pdf on law of increasing intelligence of
technical systems at http://aitriz.org/articles/InsideTRIZ/323031322D31312D6E61766E6565742D627573686D616E.pdf
As per the law, dumb systems
become guided systems, then smart systems, brilliant systems and genius
systems. Today, we are already in the era of smart munitions. Brilliant
munitions are emerging. Genius munitions will the next stage. What are IAF’s
plans to move on increasing intelligence of its platforms, munitions and
missiles? Perhaps a UCAV with Genius capabilities will fulfill many
requirements of a fifth generation fighter aircraft.
Stealth
The fifth generation fighter
aircraft (FGFA) being developed with Russia is supposed to have stealthy
features. US already have F22 and controversial F35 as the fifth gen fighters.
Increasing stealth in combination with the BVR combat is already a visible
trend.
It will be important for IAF to
define the stealth roadmap it should have and means to create it with
organizations existing in the country.
Key
Messages
Indian Air Force in its 82 years
of existence has not faced such technological and strategic challenges that it
is going to face in next two decades and beyond.
We have characterized these as 5
dimensional. The air war that we envisage will be more unmanned, more
hypersonic, more intelligent, more stealthy and demanding prompt conventional
global strike.
A force structure based on only
increasing the number of fighter squadrons to meet the above disruptive or
revolutionary challenges is a recipe bound to fail. We propose an integrated
roadmap on these five dimensions will be of essence for the IAF.
Wishing IAF a wonderful birthday
today.
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