DEFENSE
With personnel strength of 1.1 million soldiers (6 regional commands, a training command, 13 corps, and 38 divisions), the Indian Army has kept the nation together through various crises, including four wars since Independence, Pakistan’s “proxy war” in J&K since 1989–90, and insurgencies in many of the northeastern states.

Given its large-scale operational commitments on border management and counterinsurgency, the army cannot afford to reduce its manpower numbers until these challenges are overcome. Many of its weapons and equipment are bordering on obsolescence and need to be replaced. The next step would be to move gradually toward acquiring network-centric capabilities for effects-based operations so as to optimize the army’s full combat potential for defensive and offensive operations.

The army is also preparing to join the navy and the air force in launching intervention operations in India’s area of strategic interest when called on to do so in the future. Lieutenant General J.P. Singh (retired), former deputy chief of the army staff (planning and systems), stated in an interview with the CLAWS Journal that “the critical capabilities that are being enhanced to meet challenges across the spectrum include battlefield transparency, battlefield management systems, nightfighting capability, enhanced firepower, including terminally guided munitions, integrated maneuver capability to include self-propelled artillery, quick reaction surface-to-air missiles, the latest assault engineer equipment, tactical control systems, integral combat aviation support and network centricity.” [6] The army’s mechanized forces are still mostly “night blind.”

Its artillery lacks towed and self-propelled 155- mm howitzers for the plains and the mountains and has little capability by way of multi-barrel rocket launchers and surface-to-surface missiles. Infantry battalions urgently need to acquire modern weapons and equipment for counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations to increase operational effectiveness and lower casualties. Main battle tanks (MBT) and infantry combat vehicles (ICV) are the driving forces of India’s conventional deterrence in the plains. This fleet is being modernized gradually by inducting two regiments of the indigenously developed Arjun MBT and importing 310 T-90S MBTs from Russia. A contract has also been signed for 347 additional T-90S tanks to be assembled in India. The BMP-1 and BMP-2 Russian ICVs, which have long been the mainstay of the mechanized infantry battalions, need to be replaced as well.

The new ICVs must be capable of performing internal security duties and counterinsurgency operations in addition to their primary role in conventional conflicts. Artillery modernization plans include the acquisition of towed, wheeled, and self-propelled 155- mm guns and howitzers for the plains and the mountains through import as well as indigenous development. The Corps of Army Air Defence is also faced with problems of obsolescence. The vintage L-70 40-mm air defense (AD) gun system, the four-barreled ZSU-23-4 Schilka (SP) AD gun system, the SAM-6 (Kvadrat), and the SAM-8 OSA-AK, among others, need to be replaced by more responsive modern AD systems that are capable of defeating current and future threats.

The modernization of India’s infantry battalions is moving forward but at a similarly slow pace. This initiative is aimed at enhancing the battalions’ capability for surveillance and target acquisition at night and boosting their firepower for precise retaliation against infiltrating columns and terrorists hiding in built-up areas. These plans include the acquisition of shoulder-fired missiles, hand-held battlefield surveillance radars, and hand-held thermal imaging devices for observation at night. A system called F-INSAS (future infantry soldier as a system) is also under development. One infantry division has been designated as a rapid reaction force for employment on land or in intervention operations and will have one amphibious brigade and two air assault brigades. Similarly, the

Indian Army proposes to substantially enhance the operational capabilities of army aviation, engineers, signal communications, reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition branches in order to improve the army’s overall combat potential by an order of magnitude. Modern strategic and tactical level command and control systems need to be acquired on priority for better synergies during conventional and sub-conventional conflict. Plans for the acquisition of a mobile corps-to-battalion tactical communications system and a battalion-level battlefield management system likewise need to be hastened. Despite being the largest user of space, the army does not yet have a dedicated military satellite for its space surveillance needs. Cyberwarfare capabilities are also at a nascent stage. The emphasis thus far has been on developing protective capabilities to safeguard Indian networks and C4I2SR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, information, surveillance, and reconnaissance) from cyberattack. Offensive capabilities have yet to be adequately developed. All these capabilities will make it easier for the army to undertake joint operations with multinational forces when the need arises and the government approves such a policy option.

INDIAN DEFENSE POWER AND MISSILE SYSTEMS

• Indian Army is the 3rd biggest military contingent in the World after USA and China.
• India’s indigenous nuclear-powered ICBM (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile) AGNI-V puts India into the Elite Club consisting of USA, China, France and Russia.
• India claims AGNI-V to have a reach of 5,000 kms to which Chinese and Australian delegates and experts suspect to have a range of 8,000 kms. and that India is hiding these facts just to avoid any concern from foreign countries.
• AGNI-VI(being built) will have a range of 10,000 kms. which would give India the power to strike in any part of the world barring South America and very small parts of North America.

India’s cruise missile (being tested) NIRBHAYA is a cruise nuclearwarhead missile which when blasted, takes the form of a plane and when the target is in nearby range, attacks it with a random procedure thus eliminating the probability of it getting stopped by any anti-missile system as its process is itself not defined. In other words-unstoppable.

• In the hilly terrains, it gives an advantage as the missile goes from the side of the mountains and attacks the target from the rear side.
• The missile BrahMos-2 (built under collaboration with Russia)(under testing)(Named after its rivers Brahmaputra+Moscow) is the fastest hypersonic missile in the world travelling at a speed of Mach-7 (7 times the speed of sound in air).
• India’s INS-Vikrant (bought from the UK) is the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of India.
• The HMS Harriers(airplanes on INS VIRAAT) are one of its kind which has the ability of vertical landing and take-off.
• INS Viraat: Centaur class carrier (ex-HMS Hermes) in service since 1987.
• INS Vikramaditya : Modified Kiev class carrier (ex-Admiral Gorshkov) due in service October 2013.
• INS Vikrant: 40,000 ton Vikrant class carrier. It is being built at Cochin Shipyard and is expected to enter service in 2017.
• INS Vishal: 65,000 ton Vikrant-class carrier. Expected to enter service in 2022.
• India’s INS-ARIHANT is the first indigenous(built completely in India, by India) nuclear powered submarine in India. It has a capability to shoot missiles with nuclear war-heads even after being at some tens of kilometers beneath the water-level.
• The Sukhoi Su-30MKI, Dassault Mirage 2000, and MiG-29 serve in the Indian Air Force and are also seen as a means to deliver nuclear weapons.
• In addition India maintains SEPECAT Jaguar and MiG-27M which can be used to drop gravity bombs.
• The new in queue for the indigenous aircraft of India is HAL-Tejas
• It integrates technologies such as relaxed static stability, fly-by-wire flight control system, multi-mode radar, integrated digital avionics system, composite material structures, and a flat rated engine.
• It is a tailless, compound delta-wing design powered by a single engine.
• Indian Army is the 3rd biggest military contingent in the World after USA and China.
• India’s indigenous nuclear-powered ICBM (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile) AGNI-V puts India into the Elite Club consisting of USA, China, France and Russia.
• India claims AGNI-V to have a reach of 5,000 kms to which Chinese and Australian delegates and experts suspect to have a range of 8,000 kms. and that India is hiding these facts just to avoid any concern from foreign countries.
• AGNI-VI(being built) will have a range of 10,000 kms. which would give India the power to strike in any part of the world barring South America and very small parts of North America.
• India’s cruise missile (being tested) NIRBHAYA is a cruise nuclearwarhead missile which when blasted, takes the form of a plane and when the target is in nearby range, attacks it with a random procedure thus eliminating the probability of it getting stopped by any anti-missile system as its process is itself not defined. In other words-unstoppable.
• In the hilly terrains, it gives an advantage as the missile goes from the side of the mountains and attacks the target from the rear side.
• The missile BrahMos-2 (built under collaboration with Russia)(under testing)(Named after its rivers Brahmaputra+Moscow) is the fastest hypersonic missile in the world travelling at a speed of Mach-7 (7 times the speed of sound in air).
• India’s INS-Vikrant (bought from the UK) is the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of India.
• The HMS Harriers(airplanes on INS VIRAAT) are one of its kind which has the ability of vertical landing and take-off.
• INS Viraat: Centaur class carrier (ex-HMS Hermes) in service since 1987.
• INS Vikramaditya : Modified Kiev class carrier (ex-Admiral Gorshkov) due in service October 2013.
• INS Vikrant: 40,000 ton Vikrant class carrier. It is being built at Cochin Shipyard and is expected to enter service in 2017.
• INS Vishal: 65,000 ton Vikrant-class carrier. Expected to enter service in 2022.
• India’s INS-ARIHANT is the first indigenous(built completely in India, by India) nuclear powered submarine in India. It has a capability to shoot missiles with nuclear war-heads even after being at some tens of kilometers beneath the water-level.
• The Sukhoi Su-30MKI, Dassault Mirage 2000, and MiG-29 serve in the Indian Air Force and are also seen as a means to deliver nuclear weapons.
• In addition India maintains SEPECAT Jaguar and MiG-27M which can be used to drop gravity bombs.
• The new in queue for the indigenous aircraft of India is HAL-Tejas
• It integrates technologies such as relaxed static stability, fly-by-wire flight control system, multi-mode radar, integrated digital avionics system, composite material structures, and a flat rated engine.
• It is a tailless, compound delta-wing design powered by a single engine.