China Clones Cats Warrior Drone, North Korea Tests Hypersonic Missile, F/A-18 Hornet for Indian Navy, How is Indigenous Artillery Gun Eco System In India Developing?

China unveils ‘loyal wingman’ armed drone concept, Quite similar to our concept says HAL Partner

China on Wednesday revealed a drone concept similar in mission and appearance to the US made Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie & India’s Cats Warrior as countries race to invest in “loyal wingman” drones to help protect pricier crewed fighter jets.

The long-range FH-97 drone concept unveiled on Wednesday can carry different types of weapons, and has swarm and electronic warfare capabilities.

The FH-97 wingman appearance is nearly identical to the Kratos XQ-58A, which made its first flight in 2019. The XQ-58A has a maximum speed of Mach 0.85 and a range of about 2,200 nautical miles.

China also used the country’s biggest air show to display the weapons capability of one of its most advanced stealth attack drone projects, the GJ-11.

How is India’s indigenous artillery gun ecosystem developing?

The Indian Army’s plans to indigenously acquire over 3,000 howitzers of different types is running in the slow lane. The ‘revised modernisation plan 2017’ projected the induction of 2,700 new howitzers for Rs 22,000 crore by 2017.

These guns would be acquired in different configurations—self-propelled, tracked (mounted on a tank chassis), wheeled (on a wheeled armoured vehicle), towed (pulled by a truck), ultra-light (air-dropped by helicopters) and a Mounted Gun System (fitted on a 4 into 4 or 6 into 6 vehicle). These guns are to equip the army’s 235 artillery regiments (each with 18 guns).

From a three decade lull after the Bofors acquisition, there has been a spurt in artillery acquisitions by the Indian Army. Ultra-light howitzers have been acquired from the US and tracked guns from South Korea, but the bulk of the artillery still needs upgrading.

One of the remarkable defence industrial developments over the last decade has been the huge strides made in indigenous artillery. There are now four gun production hubs in five states in the country. Firms like L&T, Tata Advanced Systems and Bharat Forge have set up gun production lines within the country to compete with the erstwhile monopoly, state owned ordnance factories. There thus exists the capability to not just build guns within the country but also an eco-system to refit, upgrade and export them. Disappointingly, orders have been somewhat slow to come.

The army’s DG Artillery, Lieutenant General TK Chawla, recently told the media that the army was ‘hand holding’ the domestic industry to ensure indigenous projects like the Advanced Towed Array Gun System and the OFB produced Dhanush howitzer meet their requirements.

This year, as part of its defence indigenisation drive, the Ministry of Defence banned the imports of 155mm howitzers after December 2021. The army will have no choice but to turn to indigenous gun industry. For the first time in independent India’s history, it is spoilt for choice.

Boeing’s ‘Cutting Edge’ Block III Variant Of F/A-18 Super Hornets Gearing-Up For Indian Navy Carriers?

US aerospace giant Boeing has delivered its first Block III F/A-18 Super Hornet to the US Navy. The defense firm has also pitched the same fighter jets, the Block III variant, to the Indian Navy.

The F/A-18 Super Hornets have been head to head in competition with the naval variant of the Dassault Rafale for this deal, which was set at INR 24,000 crore due to Navy’s twin engine preference.

The F/A-18 Super Hornet Block III on offer to the Indian Navy is the most advanced, multi role, frontline fighter of the US Navy and is the workhorse for the fleet, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

The air superiority role of the Super Hornets is fully compliant with India’s INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant aircraft carriers.

Talking about the two-seat variant of the Super Hornet, it would provide the Indian Navy with various unique advancements such as flexibility, higher utilisation of the fleet, and opportunity to develop an interface between manned & unmanned systems in a carrier environment.

Super Hornet’s lesser costs per flight hour, 10,000 hours durability along the “world’s most powerful engine”, the GE-F414 engine, make the aircraft more suitable for the Indian Navy as compared to the Rafales.

After US Big Breakthrough With Hypersonic Technology, North Korea Stuns The World With Its Own Hypersonic Missile Test

Though some experts have doubts over the success of the test, North Korea claims that its Academy of Defense Science test fired a newly developed hypersonic missile of Hwasong 8 type in the morning of September 28.

The hypersonic missile North Korea has reportedly tested has the potential to be one of the world’s fastest and most accurate weapons with a nuclear warhead. And because of its high speed, its flight can be very manoeuvrable, making it extremely difficult to shoot down.

Like ballistic missiles, hypersonic glide weapons are launched by rockets high into the atmosphere, unlike the former whose warhead is largely powered by gravity once it begins its descent to its target, hypersonics dive back to Earth sooner before flattening out their flight path and then use internal navigation devices to make course corrections and keep it on target while traveling even up to 12 times the speed of sound.