Army measures to mitigate aerial threats

New Delhi: Strengthening the air-defence network of the country, Indian Army is undertaking a slew of measures including procurement of state-of-the-art simulators and training systems to mitigate threats from flying objects which can be used by the non-state actors.

Addressing a conference on `Air and Missile Defence` here today, Director General (DG) of Army Air Defence (AAD) Lt Gen Kuldip Singh said the 9/11 aerial attack on US and and LTTE using small aircraft to target military bases in Sri Lanka were grim reminders of the potency of such aerial threats.

"Emergence of asymmetric air threat from non-state actors has recently gained prominence in our context. Today each flying object, whether civil or military, is a potential threat, if it is in a wrong hand. The 9/11 incident and the use of small aircraft by the LTTE are the grim reminders of the potency of this kind of threat", he said. Gen Singh also stated that air defence of assets vulnerable to such type of threats is going to be a round-the-clock job "blurring the lines between the war time and peace time deployments".

Stressing that AAD is taking steps to handle the emerging air threat, he said, "Modernisation of the inventory is an important task in hand. Modernisation of training simulators and acquisition of state-of-the-art training equipment and target system are a priority area in our training philosophy".

The Corps of Army Air Defence is also in the process of developing a "fully-automated control and reporting system" for generating and disseminating real time air surveillance picture of desired locations both during peace and war time. "The state-of-the-art facility is being created at the College of Air Defence. Another focus area is to develop or acquire advanced target system, pilot-less target aircraft, advance tracking systems to track efficacy of the Air Defence firing systems", he said.