India's 31 Predator Drones to Initially Utilize US Weapons to Expedite Agreement Finalization Before Oct 31

In an effort to bolster its long-range unmanned surveillance capabilities, India is aiming to finalize a substantial Rs 32,000 crore deal to acquire 31 MQ-9B drones from the United States by October 31.

The urgency stems from the impending expiration of the American proposal, which, if not signed by the deadline, would necessitate fresh proposals and paperwork, potentially causing significant delays.

The Indian Navy is spearheading efforts to expedite the agreement, aiming to secure all necessary approvals within the given timeframe. The initial intent to procure these 31 High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) UAVs was announced during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to the US in June 2023.

While plans are in place to eventually equip the Predator drones with indigenous weapons during their assembly in India, these have been temporarily put on hold to avoid any potential holdups in the acquisition process.

This decision comes amidst the American manufacturer's reluctance to transfer technology to Indian firms, offering instead consultancy services for future indigenous HALE drone production.

The strategic deployment of these advanced drones will involve three hubs located in the northern, northeastern, and southern parts of the country, with the maritime surveillance hub based at INS Rajali near Chennai.

The tri-service Integrated Defence Staff has conducted a thorough assessment to determine the precise number of drones required to meet surveillance needs along the sensitive borders with China and Pakistan.

 

[NSR]

On the first go, it is not a good idea to go for integration of Indian armaments at all as India needs them very badly.

Instead, India should bargain for as much local production/assembly and TOT as possible and then slowly and surely make plans for upgrades of armaments in the long run.

Once India gets enough expertise then it can also do the integration and tests by itself too.

Addendum -

MQ-9Bs can also drop sonars in far away places to ferret out enemy submarine locations.
We need them badly because of the way criminal china is behaving and also the way they are arming and probing us on a daily basis.

On the other hand, I encourage India to keep investing heavily in Tapas-BH and Archer NG UAVs to fructify them soon.
But for the present we need them to prevent future Yangtze types of invasions.

 

[Instant Karma]

This deal must be cancelled. Very costly and very useless drones. Indian drones companies can build better drones if given a chance.

 

[Instant Karma]

On the first go, it is not a good idea to go for integration of Indian armaments at all as India needs them very badly.

Instead, India should bargain for as much local production/assembly and TOT as possible and then slowly and surely make plans for upgrades of armaments in the long run.

Once India gets enough expertise then it can also do the integration and tests by itself too.

Addendum -

MQ-9Bs can also drop sonars in far away places to ferret out enemy submarine locations.
We need them badly because of the way criminal china is behaving and also the way they are arming and probing us on a daily basis.

On the other hand, I encourage India to keep investing heavily in Tapas-BH and Archer NG UAVs to fructify them soon.
But for the present we need them to prevent future Yangtze types of invasions.

These drones don't have anything special. They have some sensors which can be purchased from other manufacturers and assembled. Paying so much for the drones is a nonsense decision.

someone wants to make money in the deal.

the equivalent Russian offer is better.

 

[sanket]

selling Drone is one Time profit but selling weapons is all time profit , second they are charging too much for Indigenous weapon Integration & testing /certification , US want Bharat to rely on them for life time of Drone to purchase weapons if Brahmos can b integrated on Su-30 MKI with Minimum charges why not Drone ...............???

 

[kurtwallis wallis]

Then 100% no any chances of GE engines to be delivered to HAL from USA....

 

[Shiva]

This shows poor design and decision making , before taking a decision to purchase such product, which is not adaptable to Indian Indigenous systems.
If such things are identified well before of purchase, then we could had even avoided purchasing such products.
when other country (why not US/Russia / or any other) offers something new, then it means, it could be provided to us as a competitor for a possible alernative Indigenous product, which if produced, would had developed state of art facility in certain technology and such country dont want our country to have such technology so early.
so, when such offers India receive, then India has to check, why not we product similar technology , without purchasing such offers.

 

[NSR]

These drones don't have anything special. They have some sensors which can be purchased from other manufacturers and assembled. Paying so much for the drones is a nonsense decision.

someone wants to make money in the deal.

the equivalent Russian offer is better.

No IK,

MQ-9Bs can also drop sonars in far away places to ferret out enemy submarine locations.
We need them badly because of the way criminal china is behaving and also the way they are arming and probing us on a daily basis.

On the other hand, I encourage India to keep investing heavily in Tapas-BH and Archer NG UAVs to fructify them soon.
But for the present we need them to prevent future Yangtze types of invasions.

 

[kurtwallis wallis]

selling Drone is one Time profit but selling weapons is all time profit , second they are charging too much for Indigenous weapon Integration & testing /certification , US want Bharat to rely on them for life time of Drone to purchase weapons if Brahmos can b integrated on Su-30 MKI with Minimum charges why not Drone ...............???

Can buy equivalent Israeli MALE and HALE attack drones next... Pak have a very very strong line up of Turkiye's HALE attack drones now; which can carry nuclear warhead armed Babur missiles also!

 

[Instant Karma]

No IK,

MQ-9Bs can also drop sonars in far away places to ferret out enemy submarine locations.
We need them badly because of the way criminal china is behaving and also the way they are arming and probing us on a daily basis.

On the other hand, I encourage India to keep investing heavily in Tapas-BH and Archer NG UAVs to fructify them soon.
But for the present we need them to prevent future Yangtze types of invasions.

Do you know how much 3 billion dollars is? It is 25500 crs for 30 drones. With that much money, we can build 100 to 200 Naval vessels, each armed with anti submarines torpedoes and also armed with guns, missiles, sonars. Our local shipyards will build them.

 

[Leo red]

For delivery of one engine they are crying and now we want to buy drones which is directly interference of us due to data link is also associated with them. We should focus on domestic development for drones atleast. Anyways this drones can easily be targeted by sams.

 

[Apocalypse gupta]

it is ok. These drones will mostly by used for surveilance. These kinds of drones are not very survivable hence wont be used for combat vs Pakis or chinese. They can be used to take out terrorists, and for that purpose, few missiles are required.

 

[NSR]

Do you know how much 3 billion dollars is? It is 25500 crs for 30 drones. With that much money, we can build 100 to 200 Naval vessels, each armed with anti submarines torpedoes and also armed with guns, missiles, sonars. Our local shipyards will build them.

Sir, I understand and we have spent even more than that on so so Israeli UAVs too and most of them without armed ones.

Now we have no friends in our neighborhood bar perhaps Bhutan but it may checkout towards criminal china anytime it pleases now.

criminal chinese naval ships and submarines are foraging into our seas and Indian Ocean at will so MQ-9Bs helps keep track of them with signals from the sonars they drop in oceans.

Best regards.

 

[beencensured]

If we cannot integrate our weapons then this system is total junk and deal should be cancelled.

 

[Anant]

Do you know how much 3 billion dollars is? It is 25500 crs for 30 drones. With that much money, we can build 100 to 200 Naval vessels, each armed with anti submarines torpedoes and also armed with guns, missiles, sonars. Our local shipyards will build them.

100 to 200 multi-purpose naval vessels for 3 billion USD? If you want 100 vessels for 3 billion USD, you can probably get 100 small patrol vessels displacing 300-ish tons each with a 30mm gun and a few smaller guns. No larger guns, no missiles, no torpedoes, no sonar, and no top-class radar.

3 billion is a large amount, but it isn't a world-shaking amount.

 

[Instant Karma]

100 to 200 multi-purpose naval vessels for 3 billion USD? If you want 100 vessels for 3 billion USD, you can probably get 100 small patrol vessels displacing 300-ish tons each with a 30mm gun and a few smaller guns. No larger guns, no missiles, no torpedoes, no sonar, and no top-class radar.

3 billion is a large amount, but it isn't a world-shaking amount.

Mantainance cost of the drones is very high. Those 200 small Naval vessels can also be used for fishing purposes. So we can also earn money by selling fish. Those will be dual purpose vessels. They will hunt submarines also.

 

[Instant Karma]

Sir, I understand and we have spent even more than that on so so Israeli UAVs too and most of them without armed ones.

Now we have no friends in our neighborhood bar perhaps Bhutan but it may checkout towards criminal china anytime it pleases now.

criminal chinese naval ships and submarines are foraging into our seas and Indian Ocean at will so MQ-9Bs helps keep track of them with signals from the sonars they drop in oceans.

Best regards.

We don't need any friends. We India as a country is huge. We can create a Army of 20 million soldiers within a month if war broke out. We can directly attack China and can take control of Tibet within weeks.

 

[Sandeep]

Looking at the comments it amazes me that everyone are blaming the government when in fact the real culprit is the USA.

This is a very clever ploy by the USA to keep India hooked into buying their weapons for the next 30 years by hiking up the price to a very large amount just to install and certify our own indigenous weapons. They would be charging a huge price for something that they could easily do with minimum effort. Unfortunately the sad reality is that the navy needs these for ASW and maritime surveillance.

The best solution now is to develop our own indigenous drones. Our key focus should be on developing our stealth UCAV Ghatak which is the best solution now.

 

[Rajesh]

Dont know why people r crying upon weapon integration and the charges associated because we did it with rafale a few years back similarly. A huge cost project with not much impact so better buy some 6-8 of them for navy and spend the rest in an open tender to private companies to make similar drones in india.

 

[Anant]

selling Drone is one Time profit but selling weapons is all time profit , second they are charging too much for Indigenous weapon Integration & testing /certification , US want Bharat to rely on them for life time of Drone to purchase weapons if Brahmos can b integrated on Su-30 MKI with Minimum charges why not Drone ...............???

Because we aren't building those drones ourselves in order to make the structural changes, and perhaps because the relatively small order doesn't get us much, if any, access to software interfaces?