Indian military pares down its Predator drone requirement to 18 from 30

Instead of each of 3 services acquiring 10 Predator drones each, the new projection is six each for Army, Navy and Air Force.

Published on: Apr 13, 2023, 10:00:30 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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After conducting detailed operations research system analysis (ORSA), the Indian armed forces have pared down their requirement for acquisition of US MQ-9B Predator high altitude long endurance (HALE) armed drones from 30 to 18 platforms and have projected their necessity to the Narendra Modi government.

As first reported by the Hindustan Times, instead of each of the three services wing acquiring 10 each of Predator drones, the new projection is six platforms each of Indian Army, Navy and the Air Force to cater to their specific requirements. The deal after approval from the government will be done with the US on a government-to-government basis.

While the government is in constant touch with Predator manufacturer General Atomics, the need for a top of line proven armed drone was felt as the PLA is constantly upgrading and cementing military-infra along the 3488 km Line of Actual Control (LAC) and has a developed armed drone capability. To make matters worse, China is supplying the same armed drone Wing Loong II to its client state Pakistan.

The Indian Navy already has two unarmed reconnaissance versions of General Atomics drone from 2020, the lease of which is expected to expire in 2024. Based at Rajali Naval base in Tamil Nadu, the two Sea Guardian drones have generated exceptional data and maritime domain awareness from Aden off Africa to the Lombok straits in Indonesia.

The need for a hunter-killer drone like Predator has been felt as India only has medium altitude long endurance drones without armed capability. The Predator can carry four Hell-Fire air-to ground missiles and two precision guided ammunition to take out high value targets. Apart from the armed capability, the drone has top of the line radar surveillance capability and can give real time information to commanders on ground about Chinese or Pakistan unilateral moves on the border. The same drone can be used to force multiple Indian Navy capabilities in the Indo-Pacific to counter the rising Chinese Navy challenge with President Xi Jinping in the middle-kingdom imperial mode against the QUAD.

The renaming of 32 places in Arunachal Pradesh post 2017 Doklam friction, the May 2020 transgressions in East Ladakh and the naming of sub-surface features in the Indian Ocean all add up to the Chinese belligerence akin to the British imperial Navy in the 19th century. The big imperial picture emerging from China is that Modi’s India needs to be prepared for a military challenge at any point, particularly in the eastern sector. It is in this context, that stand-off weapons like Predator drones and conventional missile deterrence will work for India.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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