Mihir Paul

While the Indian Navy witnessed a slew of long-pending acquisitions being fast-tracked in 2018, there are still some crucial procurement programmes that are lagging behind and need to be expedited at the earliest.

MH-60 Romeo multi-role helicopter deploying a sonobuoy

With China increasing its maritime activities in the Indo-Pacific region, an increased Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) has become a dominant factor driving planning and acquisition moves for the Indian Navy in recent years. Effective MDA is vital for maintaining maritime and coastal security. Now that Chinese submarines are making regular forays into the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), keeping tabs on our littoral waters has become more important than ever. This further strengthens the argument to have effective reconnaissance and surveillance aerial assets in the navy’s inventory.

Just like the ever-growing technology-driven evolution of airborne and sea-borne assets, Maritime reconnaissance, too, has evolved over the years. It is no longer limited to simply surveillance and reconnaissance. Maritime reconnaissance now includes Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), anti-surface warfare, anti-ship warfare, and intelligence gathering.

According to former Flag Officer Naval Aviation, Rear Admiral Sudhir Pillai (retd), MDA is critical to naval forces. Towards this, rapid and accurate information gathering is important, and aircraft are central to this effort with the advantages afforded by height (increased radar and visual search horizon), speed (rapid and efficient search and patrol of large areas), and range (to cover large distances from coast or from forces operating at sea).

In terms of rotary-wing assets capable of performing surveillance and reconnaissance, the Indian Navy presently has depleting fleets of ageing SeaKing, Kamov 25/28, and Chetak helicopters. These assets have not only reached obsolescence but are also nearing the end of their service life which brings their replacements into question. The Indian Navy’s urgent requirement for newer Naval Multi-Role Helicopters (NMRHs) and Naval Utility Helicopter