Could Decoy Drones be on Pakistan’s Roadmap?

Pakistan’s first indigenously designed medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial automobile (UAV), the Shahpar-II, is off to a promising begin. It’s being inducted by the Pakistan Military (PA) and the Pakistan Air Drive (PAF), whereas International Defence and Industrial Options (GIDS) is now advertising a Block-II model. The Nationwide Engineering and Scientific Fee (NESCOM) can also be growing a bigger and extra succesful variant, Shahpar-III.

When it comes to growing MALE UAVs, it seems that Pakistan – particularly by way of NESCOM – is making progress. In reality, the bounce from the Shahpar-II to the Shahpar-III will likely be important.

The Shahpar-III could have a most take-off weight (MTOW) of 1,650 kg, payload of 400 kg to 530 kg throughout six hardpoints, 20 hours of endurance, vary of three,000 km, and repair ceiling of 35,000 ft. Will probably be Pakistan’s largest indigenous drone to-date and a home analogue to techniques just like the Turkish Anka-S, Chinese language Wing Loong-II, and American MQ-1C.

Nonetheless, every of Pakistan’s service arms is seeking to leverage drones to reinforce – and even supplant – key points of their operations. From vertical take-off and touchdown (VTOL) UAVs to loitering munitions of assorted sizes to unmanned underwater automobiles (UUV), the crucial from all the Tri-Providers is driving the Pakistani trade to develop many options.

This work may prolong into the event of attritable unmanned fight aerial automobiles (UCAV) for the PAF. In a latest promotional video, the PAF acknowledged that growing manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) capabilities was one in all its objectives.

Whereas the PAF is probably going referring to its use of present MALE and high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) UAVs in live performance with crewed fighter plane, the MUM-T idea is evolving to incorporate many sorts of drones, from loitering munitions to an array of jet-powered techniques. The latter embrace flying-wing strike UCAVs, loyal wingman drones, and attritable decoy drones.

The PAF’s entry into next-generation MUM-T may contain the acquisition – or, doubtlessly, the event – of jet-powered attritable decoy drones. Following loitering munitions, decoy drones would possible be the lightest and lowest price items of a future MUM-T deployment.

Nonetheless, the place loitering munitions are particularly designed to establish and assault a goal, a decoy drone may undertake further roles, corresponding to digital assault (EA) or digital countermeasures (ECM), on high of being a loitering munition. Thus, like a loitering munition, a decoy is an expendable system, maybe akin to a cruise missile, however with the flexibleness of drones, corresponding to swarming. In different phrases, it’s a comparatively easy and low-cost design, one that may be inbuilt important numbers to soak up utilization (which results in attrition).

To this point, in the present day’s decoy drone applications appear to be based mostly heading in the right direction drones or air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM). For instance, the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) Tremendous Şimşek decoy drone is a direct evolution of the TAI Şimşek goal drone. The Şimşek has a MTOW of 70 kg, wingspan of 1.5 m, and size of two.3 m. It has a high pace of round Mach 0.5, service ceiling of as much as 20,000 ft, endurance of 45 minutes, and vary of over 70 km.

Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) Simsek Goal Drone

Pakistan already has two goal drone applications: Sysverve Aerospace’s Hadaf-series and the Excessive-Velocity Goal Drone (HSTD) developed by the PAF’s Nationwide Aerospace Science and Expertise Park (NASTP). The PAF didn’t launch the specs of the HSTD, however it might be much like the Hadaf-series, the specs of that are identified through the Defence Export Promotion Group (DEPO).

Excessive-Velocity Goal Drone, designed & developed by Aviation Design Institute (AvDI), Plane Division, Nationwide Aerospace Science and Expertise Park (NASTP) 🇵🇰

AvDI has developed a number of HSTDs together with M-20A, M-20B, M-40, and M-55. pic.twitter.com/12n7skrSo6

— Umair Aslam (@Defense785) Could 27, 2023

Based on DEPO, the Hadaf-1 has a wingspan of 1.2 m, a size of 1.6 m, a spread of 20 km, an endurance of as much as half-hour, and a pace of Mach 0.24. The Hadaf-2 has a wingspan of two.0 m, size of three.2 m, vary of 20 km, endurance of 20 minutes, and pace of Mach 0.32. There’s a “Hadaf Excessive-Velocity” below improvement; it has a wingspan of 1.8 m, a size of three.5 m, an endurance of 40 minutes, a spread of as much as 100 km, and a pace of Mach 0.5.

Sysverve Aerospace Hadaf-1 Goal Drone

The Hadaf-1 and Hadaf-2 might not match nicely with the Şimşek, however the Hadaf Excessive-Velocity is promising. If profitable, it might give Pakistan at the very least one goal drone platform to develop additional right into a decoy, offered it will get the requisite funding…

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