India’s VSHORAD Modernisation Programme Yet to Take-off

[Zarvan]

Russia's Mechanized IGLA VSHORAD System

India may have signed a few big-ticket defence deals recently for the IAF and the Indian Navy but, it’s now half a decade old VSHORAD modernisation program for which the Indian Army would have been the biggest beneficiary appears to have been put on the back-burner once again, mostly because of the contrary views being generated within the Army on meeting the different provisions of the GSQRs (General Staff Qualitative Requirements).

It may be recalled that the Indian Army and the IAF have been fielding the old Soviet supplied Igla MANPAD systems to meet their respective short range point defence requirements against aerial threats. These systems are almost four decades old and need urgent replacements in both the services as part of the overall modernisation programs for the entire range of air defence weapons. The respective successive Chiefs of both the Army and the Air Force in fact have been harping for many years, pointing out that more than 90 per cent of India’s air defence weapons systems were obsolete.

In response to the RFP issued by the Indian Government in 2010 for a massive deal involving replacement of over 800 launchers and 5,500 to 6,000 missiles to meet the combined requirements of both the services, initially a lot of interest was shown globally by the OEMs from different countries that may have also included a South Korean company, LIG Nex1 offering its CHIRON system, but by 2012 when the field evaluation trials began, three major contenders were left in the fray for the mega then Rs 27,000 crore ($5.2 billion) competition. These were the French MBDA , Rosoboronexport from Russia and Saab from Sweden, each exhorting the merits of their respective systems. The missiles offered were Mistral 2 by MBDA , Igla-S (SA-24) by the Russians and Saab offered its next-generation RBS-70 NG. Brief descriptions of various systems with respective companies’ claims are given in a Box below, as also a Table which compares the missiles’ specifications.

The trials for all three systems had commenced in 2012 which took a couple of years to complete. In 2013, while the trials were still midway, there were strong rumours that India had halted the procurement process for the VSHORAD system as the MoD was considering a Raytheon proposal to sell the Stinger on a G2G (Governmentto- Government) basis. The Stinger was to be part of the deal for the 22 Boeing Apache attack helicopters the IAF had selected and the additional 39 which were to go to the Army at a later date. Although never admitted by the Raytheon officials it supposedly had even proposed a possible joint development of the Stinger VSHORAD system with India’s state-owned Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) in India.

Notably, the Stingers to be provided in the Apache deal are to be of the ATAM (Air-to-Air Missile) variety with the IAF also considering its adoption on its 200 plus fleet of different versions of Mi-17 helicopters.

However, notwithstanding the rumoured (or actual) interruptions, the trials of the three bidding systems continued in Rajasthan (hot weather trials), Visakhapatnam (coastal environment trials) and Ladakh (highaltitude, cold weather trials). Finally, systems trials of sighting systems and sensors were also completed in Bangalore and Dehradun and by March 2015 decks had been presumably cleared for the commercial phase of the massive acquisition program to begin. It has been stated the Russians were initially reluctant to be part of the open competition being used to direct arms sales to India without user trials for decades in the past. But after the initial ‘no show’, they did participate in the trials as required. A few anomalies noted vis-à-vis compliance to the individual sub-systems like weight distribution etc were corrected by the affected vendors to bring them at par with the GSQR specifications.

It is more than six months now since field evaluation trials were completed, but since then hardly any movement has been noticed in the VSHORAD procurement program and it appears the MoD has put it on the back burner for sometime while priortising the other big-ticket procurement for the modernisation of the armed forces.

In the meantime, the weapon systems fielded so far have demonstrated several capabilities during trials, including multiple target detection and tracking by day and night, providing target acquisition to the munition, engagement of aerial targets, etc with each vendor highlighting the special advantages their respective systems offer for use by the Indian armed forces.

For example, the Russians see the IGLA-S (SA-24) as a natural replacement for the earlier supplied IGLA (SA-18) MANPADS to the Indian Army and the IAF especially with the improvements offered as described in the box above.

MBDA is hopeful of winning the VSHORAD competition stating that with Mistral having been already selected to arm India’s Rudra (armed version of Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopters), it makes sense to make use of the advantages the missile offers as a ground-based air defence weapon in terms of ‘supply logistics’ and ‘service and maintenance benefits’. It is also emphasised that MBDA already has a production line for Milan missiles established in India by Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL), where Mistral missiles could also be produced, if the company wins the program – though somewhat ambiguous claim as Milan is an ATGM (Anti Tank Guided Missile) with very different role and operational characteristics.

Saab, on the other hand, says it relies on the superior performance and weapon accuracy of its latest RBS 70 NG missile. The Bolide missile used in RBS 70 NG system travels at twice the speed of sound (M 2.0), has a range of 8 km and can engage targets from almost ground level up to a height of 5 km (beating the competition by a wide margin, as can be seen from the ‘Specifications Table’).

While the outcome of the VSHORAD competition is still awaited, the battle between the heat-seeking missiles and the beam riders continues to be raged. MBDA spokespersons think the heat-seeking capability of the Mistral gives it advantage of being a ‘Fire & Forget’ missile, ready to take on other targets soon after the previous launch. Saab counters this argument by pointing out that heatseeking homing guidance systems are susceptible to deception by countermeasures dispensed by target aircraft, like chaff or flares. But, how can a laser beam be jammed? Another disadvantage of IR Homing guidance system according to Saab is that they are ineffective within 20 degrees of the position of the sun, leaving a cone of ineffectiveness from the position of the operator with an angle of 40 degrees, which would create a circle of ineffectiveness of around 13 sq km in the sky at a range of 6 km. That is a big hole in the sky compared with a laser-guided line-of-sight system with only 1-2 degrees of ineffectiveness around the position of the sun.

The RBS 70 NG systems also work in clusters being controlled and coordinated by a command and control centre and search radar, which means multiple targets can be engaged simultaneously by judicious assigning of targets thus nullifying the marginal advantage of a fire & forget system. But, according to Saab, where it scores over the heat-seeking systems is the fact that none of its Bolide missiles need to carry separate seeker heads, a great advantage not only in terms of operational maintenance but also in terms of acquisition costs.

In the end what matters is the ‘kill’ effectiveness of the weapon system and the consistency with which the claimed ‘kill probability’ is achieved in realistic operational scenarios. This, it is assumed would be analysed in depth by the field evaluation teams to fill the selection matrix for proper comparison of the competing systems.

Be that as it may, what must be remembered is that with each passing day the existing outdated VSHORAD systems of the Army and the Air Force are sinking deeper and deeper into the wells of obsolescence and that there is an urgent requirement to take prompt decisions to put the program back on track.

According to sources, Indian Army alone would need 5,175 VSHORAD missiles with 800 launcher systems. The figure could easily touch 6,000 missiles and 900 to 1,000 launchers by adding the IAF requirements. While the missile acquisition plans include direct import of a little over 2,000 missiles, the remaining will be assembled/license-produced within the country. The Government also needs to take a call whether these will be produced by BDL alone or the production could be split between public and private sector companies.

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