Pakistani drones could not prove effective during the recent military clashes with India as almost all of them failed to hit the targets in the rival country. At the same time, Indian drones carried out attacks on the Pakistani military sites with precision. It came as a major embarrassment to the Pakistani military as the Turkey-made and China-manufactured drones apparently turned useless. India is said to have thwarted a similar attack from Pakistan as the wreckage of the intercepted drones was seen everywhere.
Both nuclear powers launched waves of drone and missile attacks on each other amid the tension over deadly attacks on Indian tourists by Pakistan-based terrorists. International news correspondents on-ground reported the Pakistani drones that appeared as orange dots over Indian skies flashed and faded as Indian missiles intercepted them. Pakistan has a limited number of drones and is dependent on China and Turkey. However, India’s drones are far more sophisticated as they can be used in all three formats– ground, air and sea drones, said James Patton Rogers, a drone warfare expert at Cornell University.
Turkey-manufactured Byker YIHA III Kamikaze drones were easily shot down by Indian security forces using quick-reaction air-defence guns once they entered Indian airspace. To make matters worse, some Turkish drones fell inside Pakistan. “No wonder India’s air defence easily destroyed the large-scale drone attack. Turkish drones are only useful against militias, not against any country with a half-functioning air defence system,” said Paul Antonopoulos, a Research Fellow at the Belgrade-based Centre for Syncretic Studies.
Pakistani drones struggled to assault the Indian military installations even though their number dotted the skies and ended up hitting a few residential areas. “The threats were swiftly neutralised … No casualties or material losses were reported,” said the Indian Ministry of Defence on Pakistani drone and missile attacks. On the other hand, Indian drones damaged a few military stations in Pakistan, thus creating panic among people. Indian drones are based on the Israeli-made reconnaissance UAVs.
The Turkish drones used by Pakistan easily fell prey to the Indian defence system. “Around 300 to 400 drones were used to attempt infiltration at 36 locations. The Indian armed forces shot down many of these drones using kinetic and non-kinetic means. Forensic investigation of the wreckage of the drones is being done. Initial reports suggest that they are Turkish Asisguard Songar drones,” said Colonel Sofiya Qureshi of the Indian Army.
Turkish drones have been reported to be vulnerable to counter-attacks elsewhere as well. Several Turkish Bayraktar drones were shot down in Syria in 2019. UN investigators found that these drones performed poorly in Libya in 2021 and were easily destroyed in the air. “Turkey-supplied Bayraktar TB-2 unmanned combat aerial vehicles, which were vulnerable to ground attack When launched, they were easily destroyed in the air by the Pantsir S-1 air defence system,” as per the UN assessment report.
The Pakistani army had inducted three drones designed by the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group of China in 2021. However, they soon encountered a major technical snag related to the GPS functioning. Moreover, a serious fault in the High-Performance Synthetic Aperture Radar, Nitrogen leakage from cameras and a problem with SATCOM Antenna turned the drones into a non-starter. Plagued by critical failures, the Chinese drones became an issue of major concern over reliability and effectiveness in Pakistan.
India in 2024 blamed Pakistan for using drones to smuggle narcotics, arms and improvised explosive devices. About 90 such drones were shot down by the Indian forces using a hand-held static and vehicle-mounted anti-drone system. Most of these drones were Chinese, said Nitin Agrawal, the then director general of India’s Border Security Force (BSF). “The drones that we shoot down and seize are largely made in China and mostly Chinese DJI,” he said.
While Pakistan has made substantial progress in drone development, India’s advanced air-defence systems like S-400 reduce its effectiveness, said Zohaib Altaf, a Research Officer at the Washington-based Centre for International Strategic Studies (CISS). “Although Pakistan has developed drones domestically, its drone supply is still largely dependent on foreign imports and its domestic production capacity is limited by its weak indigenous drone industry. This reliance on external sources could become a vulnerability in a protracted conflict, such as a full-scale war with India,” he said.