One of the first comments made by the recently instituted Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) was the need for establishment of an Air Defence Command (ADC) in the country. This has been a surprising development for an arm, neglected since the early Nineties in India, and the think tanks in the media have started speculating as to what should be the structure of ADC in India.

Although Operation Desert Storm established the superiority of a well-established air force running through a weak air defence of Iraq post suppression of whatever air defence it had, the point for a much-needed air defence and missile defence was not lost on the gulf countries and China. The result was the shooting down of the US Navy RQ-4A high altitude Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) by Iran in June 2019. Although, the US RPA was a subsonic, non-stealth aircraft, the fact still remains that it cannot fly freely in a designated zone where advanced surface to air missiles (SAM) have proliferated. That brings us to the issue of the need for an efficient air defence system as a country.

The Union War Book in India clearly states that the overall responsibility of the defence of the Indian air space is that of the Indian Air Force (IAF), although the execution of this defence would be within the core competency of each Service to operate in its own battlefield. This owes to the uniqueness of each Service. For air defence (AD) the entire country is divided into Air Defence Zones and Areas controlled by Air Defence Control Centres and Direction Centres.

Till now, individual Services have been responsible for training and procurement of equipment which they feel is required for protecting their assets. With the authority for prioritisation of acquisition being the responsibility of the CDS, it makes sense to optimise the AD resources, procurements and have common training and equipment philosophy. This would ensure that spending is rationalised. Presently, each Service has a wide array of AD weapons sourced from different countries. The Indian Army is equipped with vintage guns sourced from Swedish Bofors (L70), erstwhile Soviet Union (Zu-23, Zsu-23-4 Schilka, Tunguska) and missiles from Soviet Union (Strella, Igla 1M, Strella 10M, Kvadrat, Tunguska and OSA-AK), indigenous missiles like Akash and recently contracted Medium Range SAM (MRSAM), a joint effort by India and Israel. The radars come from indigenously made updated USFM, Fly Catcher, tactical control radar (ADTCR) and low-level light weight radar (LLLR) and the Soviet origin radars with the missile systems. This is based on the army’s idea of protecting small and large assets by fixed systems.


The IAF has no guns and till it procures its own Close-in Weapons System (CIWS), a combination of guns and radars, the Army AD gives the IAF assets the much-needed point defence. It also has missiles from Soviet origin (SAM-2, Igla 1M and OSA-AK), Israel (SPYDER and MRSAM) and the indigenous Akash missiles. The navy also gets point defence for strategic assets from Army AD and each ship is equipped with its requirements of large, medium and small range of guns and missiles needed for its self-protection from aerial threat.