US approves sale of 22 Guardian drones to India

[maximuswarrior]

The Americans milking these Indians endlessly LOL 2 freakin' billion dollars for 22 unarmed drones. Daylight robbery.

 

[Hulk]

You are spending 2 billion dollars on 22 unarmed drones for GOD sake at least buy Armed Ones

We are buying armed too. Just wait for next month for the announcement.

 

[deckingraj]

Unarmed drones can be more dangerous than armed ones. Why do you think the US spent billions developing Global Hawk and it's derivatives even though they're all "unarmed"?

interesting thoughts...can u plz throw some more light here?

 

[wiseone2]

WASHINGTON: The US has cleared the sale of 22 unmanned Guardian drones to India, governmental sources said today, a deal being termed as a "game changer" ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit here for his maiden meeting with President Donald Trump.

The deal, estimated to be worth USD two to three billion, has been approved by the State Department, the sources said.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...nes-to-india-sources/articleshow/59274184.cms

If USA wanted to sell they would sell Predator drones

 

[jaiind]

If USA wanted to sell they would sell Predator drones

these drones can be armed after some changes !! its not a big deal!!

 

[nang2]

US wants to make India another Japan. To help US fend off Chinese sea power from that region. It will be interesting to see how these drones are controlled since long range drone control often requires satellite data link.

Congratulations on getting new "toys".

 

[Osiris]

You are spending 2 billion dollars on 22 unarmed drones for GOD sake at least buy Armed Ones

Since Guardian is the Naval reconnaissance version of reaper.
Being unarmed has and added advantage.

Where as fully armed reaper has 14 hours of flying time.

An unarmed Guardian carries extra fuel instead and has 49 hours endurance.

As it is small payload of the weapons carried by these drones, hellfires and stingers are almost useless against naval ships.

It is better to have dedicated reconnaissance drone which can fly long distances and stay at station for long time and have a separate heavy duty fighter bomber takeover the anti shipping role.

US wants to make India another Japan. To help US fend off Chinese sea power from that region. It will be interesting to see how these drones are controlled since long range drone control often requires satellite data link.

Except USA, 8 other countries operate these drones.

Offcourse satellite uplink and downlink frequencies are shared with operation. So that they can use their own satellites to control these drones.

 

[nang2]

Except USA, 8 other countries operate these drones.

Offcourse satellite uplink and downlink frequencies are shared with operation. So that they can use their own satellites to control these drones.

Other than Dominican Republic, what other countries operate Guardian? As of using their own satellites, I am curious on how they can receive and transmit the signal securely without US opening up the protocol to them. Or simply rely on US satellites, after all, all other countries are NATO allies of US.

 

[razgriz19]

interesting thoughts...can u plz throw some more light here?

Well i was reading a book by Ben Rich, former head of the Lockheed Skunk works. U2, SR-71, and F117 nighthawk were some of the many airplanes built during his stay there. Anyway he mentioned a lot of the missions that U2 and SR71 carried out, remember both are unarmed. There was more to those aircraft than just taking photos (sattelites later took over that role) but other missions they performed have now been transferred to UAVs like Global Hawk and other platforms.
Back in the day, they used those aircraft to develop jammers, countermeasures against soviet defences. They had to fly just outside their airspace to sniff out all radar frequencies of the soviet air defences and USAF would use that to develop jammers basically rendering the system useless. Obviously there are many other things which he didn't mention in the book, but this should give you an idea.

 

[Thorough Pro]

Modi is making only Chay's in India, everything else earns a healthy kick back

India is dumping serious amount of on money on foreign defence deals. Wonder where we are going on make in India. Every now and then we are having million or billion dollar deals. Why the hell cant we invest the same money locally.


unarmed itself is costing $2 billion dollars and missiles wont come cheap any way, that will surely increase the cost by several fold. Even if they paint the missiles in different color we will have to pay higher cost.

 

[Flash_Ninja]

22 Guardian drones, even with all their fancy avionics should be going for well under $10 million a piece.

What the hell is $2-3 billion being spent on? Unless they are gold plated, India is just burning money that could be spent on more efficient drones, or investing more than enough for a local drone development program.

 

[Arsalan 345]

2 billion? Are you kidding me? 2 billion for just 22 unarmed drones? This is insane.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

What happened to Make in India?

China and Pakistan are already making their own ARMED drones.

How is India paying $2 billion for a bunch of unarmed drones.

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

The future,even if it looks costly.
They can operate from carriers too with slight modification.And have nearly the same monitoring range of the P-8I with far less operating costs and price(though less sophisticated detection and no weapons).
In land battles they will be co-ordinating our forward strike assets ,and may also be used for strikes on terror camps if necessary.Very flexible

 

[Yaseen1]

u.s giving advance technology to india will cause Pakistan to enhance its defense capabilities and as a result Pakistan will also become threat to u.s.I think india will use them against kashmir freedom fighters