TITLE: India Inks $3.5 Billion Deal With US For 31 MQ-9B Predator Drones, Aims To Strengthen Indo-Pacific Defence Against China
https://swarajyamag.com/news-brief/india-inks-35-billion-deal-with-us-for-31-mq-9b-predator-drones-aims-to-strengthen-indo-pacific-defence-against-china
EXCERPTS: In a significant advancement for India's military capabilities, India has finalised a deal with the United States to acquire 31 MQ-9B Predator drones.
As part of the deal, India will also see the establishment of a maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) facility for the General Atomics-manufactured drones in the country.
According to media reports, the two countries are also looking to work out a technology transfer deal later. This agreement was approved by India's Cabinet Committee on Security earlier this month.
The total cost of this transaction is projected to be under $3.5 billion. The drones will be supplied by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) under a Foreign Military Sales contract
The Indian Navy is likely to get 15 of the drones, which will be the 'SeaGuardian' variant while the Army and the Air Force will be allotted eight 'SkyGuardian' Predator drones each.
In addition to its advanced surveillance capabilities, the MQ-9B is equipped with precision strike missiles, making it capable of engaging targets with high accuracy.
With these acquisitions aimed at bolstering the surveillance capabilities of the armed forces, especially along the contested frontier with China, the Indian defense forces' latest acquisitions will be stationed at INS Rajali near Chennai, Porbandar in Gujarat, Sarsawa, and Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.
TITLE: Taiwan agrees to buy nearly 1,000 US killer drones as PLA stages drills around island
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3282474/taiwan-agrees-buy-nearly-1000-us-killer-drones-pla-stages-drills-around-island
EXCERPT: Taiwan has signed contracts to purchase nearly 1,000 killer drones from the United States, bolstering its asymmetric warfare capabilities amid rising cross-strait tensions.
The announcement came a day after the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) staged massive joint combat exercises around Taiwan on Monday in retaliation for Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te’s perceived pro-independence stance.
According to a government procurement website, the Taiwanese army signed two contracts with the American Institute in Taiwan, Washington’s de facto embassy in Taipei, on Tuesday.
The contracts, valued at a total of NT$5.27 billion (US$163.9 million), involve the acquisition of two types of suicide drones: 685 Switchblade 300 loitering munitions, designed for personnel strikes, and 291 Altius 600M-V anti-armour attack drones.
The Switchblade drones are expected to be delivered by the end of November 2029 while the Altius drones are expected to be delivered by the end of 2027.
The contracts reveal that the drones will be deployed in key strategic locations, including Taoyuan in the north of the island, Taichung in central Taiwan, Kaohsiung in the south and Hualien in the east.
Both the Switchblade and Altius systems are classified as loitering munitions designed to patrol a target area and strike when a target is identified.
TITLE: Mystery Drones Swarmed a U.S. Military Base for 17 Days. The Pentagon Is Stumped.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/drones-military-pentagon-defense-331871f4
EXCERPTS: U.S. Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly wasn’t sure what to make of reports that a suspicious fleet of unidentified aircraft had been flying over Langley Air Force Base on Virginia’s shoreline.
Kelly, a decorated senior commander at the base, got on a squadron rooftop to see for himself. He joined a handful of other officers responsible for a clutch of the nation’s most advanced jet fighters, including F-22 Raptors.
For several nights, military personnel had reported a mysterious breach of restricted airspace over a stretch of land that has one of the largest concentrations of national-security facilities in the U.S. “The show usually starts 45 minutes to an hour after sunset,” another senior leader told Kelly.
The first drone arrived shortly. Kelly, a career fighter pilot, estimated it was roughly 20 feet long and flying at more than 100 miles an hour, at an altitude of roughly 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Other drones followed, one by one, sounding in the distance like a parade of lawn mowers.
The drones headed south, across Chesapeake Bay, toward Norfolk, Va., and over an area that includes the home base for the Navy’s SEAL Team Six and Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval port.
Officials didn’t know if the drone fleet, which numbered as many as a dozen or more over the following nights, belonged to clever hobbyists or hostile forces. Some suspected that Russia or China deployed them to test the response of American forces.
Federal law prohibits the military from shooting down drones near military bases in the U.S. unless they pose an imminent threat. Aerial snooping doesn’t qualify, though some lawmakers hope to give the military greater leeway.
Reports of the drones reached President Biden and set off two weeks of White House meetings after the aircraft first appeared in December last year. Officials from agencies including the Defense Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Pentagon’s UFO office joined outside experts to throw out possible explanations as well as ideas about how to respond.
Drone incursions into restricted airspace were already worrying national-security officials. Two months earlier, in October 2023, five drones flew over a government site used for nuclear-weapons experiments. The Energy Department’s Nevada National Security Site outside Las Vegas detected four of the drones over three days. Employees spotted a fifth.
U.S. officials said they didn’t know who operated the drones in Nevada, a previously unreported incursion, or for what reason. A spokeswoman said the facility has since upgraded a system to detect and counter drones.
Gen. Glen VanHerck, at the time commander of the U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said drones had for years been spotted flying around defense installations. But the nightly drone swarms over Langley, he said, were unlike any past incursion.
VanHerck, who led the military response to the Chinese balloon, ordered jet fighters and other aircraft to fly close enough to glean clues from the drones. He recommended that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin authorize a full menu of electronic eavesdropping and spycraft to learn more, though the Pentagon is limited in what it can do on U.S. soil.
“If there are unknown objects within North America,” VanHerck said, the job is “to go out and identify them.”
Solving that mystery, even for the world’s pre-eminent superpower, proved easier said than done. Local police were among the first to try.
For two nights, starting on Dec. 6, Hampton, Va., officers chased the drones, by patrol car and on foot, relaying momentary sightings along with information from Langley over police radios: One was seen in the area of Marshall Street or Gosnold’s Hope Park.
Three more appeared to land but returned to the air before officers could reach them. Another looked like it landed offshore. Police finally gave up.
Gen. Kelly, now retired, said the Pentagon was stumped, too.
What would the U.S. do, he asked, “if this happens over the National Mall?”
The drone swarm was reported to the Pentagon office of the National Military Command Center, which is responsible for dispersing emergency messages to U.S. military commanders worldwide.
A report went to the White House Situation Room, and the president learned about it in his daily briefing.
U.S. officials didn’t believe hobbyists were flying the drones, given the complexity of the operation. The drones flew in a pattern: one or two fixed-wing drones positioned more than 100 feet in the air and smaller quadcopters, the size of 20-pound commercial drones, often below and flying slower. Occasionally, they hovered.
They came from the north around 6 p.m. to traverse the base, which sits on a peninsula at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, and continued south, beyond the reach of radar. They repeated the pattern and then disappeared, typically by midnight.
Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall convened the White House brainstorming sessions. One official suggested using electronic signals to jam the drones’ navigation systems. Others cautioned that it might disrupt local 911 emergency systems and Wi-Fi networks.
One suggestion was to use directed energy, an emerging technology, to disable or destroy the drones. An FAA official said such a weapon carried too high a risk for commercial aircraft during the December holiday travel season.
Others suggested that the U.S. Coast Guard shoot nets into the air to capture the drones. An official pointed out that the Coast Guard might not have the authority to use such a weapon in this instance. Besides, the drones were too difficult to track closely.
Langley officials had called on U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships to keep a watch out for the drones with little luck. They were much smaller than military aircraft and didn’t always show up on radar. Military personnel had to recalibrate their radar systems, which were set to ignore anything that resembled a bird.
Analysts learned that the smaller quadcopters didn’t use the usual frequency band available for off-the-shelf commercial drones—more evidence that the drone operators weren’t hobbyists.
Langley officials canceled nighttime training missions, worried about potential collisions with the drone swarm, and moved the F-22 jet fighters to another base. Base residents shared their sightings at the local Starbucks and posted blurry photos of the drones on private Facebook groups.
On Dec. 23, the drones made their last visit.
U.S. officials have yet to determine who flew the Langley drones or why.
“This isn’t a tomorrow problem, this is a today problem,” said Tom Karako, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national-security think tank in Washington. “It’s not an over-there problem—it’s an over-there, over-here and everywhere problem.”
U.S. officials confirmed this month that more unidentified drone swarms were spotted in recent months near Edwards Air Force Base, north of Los Angeles.
SEE ALSO:
Honeywell’s SAMURAI System: Revolutionizing Defense Against Drone Swarms
https://uasweekly.com/2024/10/14/honeywells-samurai-system-revolutionizing-defense-against-drone-swarms/
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