Loitering Munitions

Bridging Sensor to Shooter Voids in Artillery Fires by Precision

Abstract

Artillery fires are aimed at crippling the enemy's war-waging machinery. Such operations are time-sensitive since they need to ensure that the enemy is engaged effectively and sufficiently degraded at critical points in time and space to achieve combat superiority. A robust, persistent, and seamless sensor-to-shooter link ensures the shortest loop between acquisition and targeting. Loitering Munitions if inducted into the Indian Artillery will be a gamechanger in this field and will fill the existing voids in surveillance-cut precision engagement capability between 40-200 km. In view of this, the paper examines the capability voids to suggest a solution based on the employment of Loitering Munitions to fill such lacunae—both in lethal and non-lethal domains, taking into consideration the present and the future security paradigm in the region.