Increasing Military Strength, India Deploys Drones In Border Area With China

JAKARTA - The Indian Army claims the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) has increased its offensive power near the loosely delimited Line of Actual Control (LAC), on the border of the two countries.

Responding to this, the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, General Manoj Mukund Naravane has pledged to face China's infrastructure development and deployment with equal force.

With a large force deployed bordering China, the Indian army has planned to use a drone swarm to make up for what ground-based surveillance cannot detect at altitudes of more than 4.500 meters above sea level.

The army says the drone swarm will be a force multiplier, as it gives troops capabilities beyond the visual line of sight.

"Swarm drones can be used effectively to detect enemy ground activities and target enemy ground forces, including troops, vehicles to command and control links," the Indian military said, citing Sputnik News, November 9.

A drone swarm is a group of drones operating in tandem with ground forces, which will provide air maneuverability during offensive and defensive tasks. Drone swarms can hit targets or detect enemy movement up to 50 km away.

In addition, the army said the endurance capacity of this drone would be no less than two hours in the sub-zero temperatures of the Himalayan Mountains region, where the border between the two countries in the region had warmed.

Meanwhile, military documents say the deployment will provide the inherent advantages of affordability, flexible workability, redundancy, precision, and lower risk of human causality during conventional and unconventional operations.

The Indian army has turned to a variety of new air defense systems to counter aerial threats, including swarms of drones coming out of China over the LAC.

After media reported that several drones had been used at the Malan airbase in China's Xinjiang region, the Indian armed forces added swarm drone technology to its combat potential in December 2020.

To note, the decades-old border dispute between India and China escalated into a fierce clash in June last year in which 20 Indian soldiers and four People's Liberation Army soldiers were killed in the western sector of the LAC.

The militaries of both countries have deployed more than 500.000 additional troops, advanced weapons and missiles in the Ladakh region as talks at the military commander level have so far ended without success.