El/M-2060P Airborne SAR Reconnaissance Pod

El/M-2060P Airborne SAR Reconnaissance Pod.

The EL/M-2060P is a completely autonomous, self contained, all weather, day and night high-resolution reconnaissance radar system, specially designed for combat aircraft. It produces images that approach photographic resolution. It's capabilities are sustained in poor visibility conditions, under smoke and cloud cover, and against a wide variety of man made camouflage.

The ELM-2060P produces images that approach photographic quality and operate as a true all-weather, day and night sensor capable of penetrating, clouds, rain, smoke, fog and smog. The images produced on-board are transmitted, via a built-in datalink, to the advanced GES for interpretation and extraction of valuable Image Intelligence (IMINT) data.

The data is also recorded on-board for re-transmission or further off-line exploitation on the ground

The system consists of a detachable, pod mounted Synthetic Aperture Radar, externally carried by a combat aircraft, a Ground Exploitation System (GES), and a built in bi-directional data link.

The collected SAR imagery and data undergoes on-board, on-line, real time processing, and is transmitted to the GES for further automated interpretation. As an alternative or parallel mode, the collected data is recorded on board for retransmission or later interpretation on the ground.

The operation of the pod is highly automated, minimizing the load on the pilot. Thus even a single seater aircraft can perform the reconnaissance mission. The high performance combat aircraft platform, enables real time collection and interpretation of intelligence data over more than 50,000 square kilometers per hour.

The EL/M-2060P SAR pod is installed in a standard external store, attached to the centerline hard point of the aircraft. It does not alter the basic configuration of the aircraft, and does not degrade its capability to perform its original combat missions.

In this way any standard combat aircraft can be easily and cost effectively configured for the airborne reconnaissance mission that previously required specially dedicated, extremely expensive and vulnerable airborne platforms.

The EL/M-2060P SAR RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEM can be adapted to various high performance combat aircraft such as the Su-30 MKI,  F-16, F/A-18, JAS 39, Tornado etc.

The concept, developed by ELTA, of adding SAR reconnaissance capability as a standard mission of regular combat aircraft is a break-through that has already created high interest in the defense community. As a result, an agreement to cooperate in the sale of ELTA's SAR reconnaissance system in the U.S. and other world markets was recently signed between ELTA and Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems.

Features

• Range over 300 km
• All-weather reconnaissance
• Stand-off or Stand-in (penetration) missions
• Real-time, on-board SAR imagery generation
• Long ranges and wide area coverage
• Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI)
• Efficient imagery exploitation and reporting
• Flexible mission planning, management and real-time mission re-tasking
• Self-sufficient autonomous system
• Straightforward installation on combat aircraft on existing hard points
• Minimal pilot workload for system operation
• Suited to operation and maintenance by the fighter squadron

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Remembering Captain Vikram Batra, The Smiling Hero Of Kargil

Remembering Captain Vikram Batra, PVC : The Smiling Hero Of Kargil War.

Captain Batra 

Are some people born to be heroes? Are there men, who are destined for greatness? Men who in spite of having all the qualities that would ensure them success in the world, sacrifice it all for others? Every once in while, there have been such men and women in this country's history, men and women who were born to do something extraordinary. Capt. Vikram Batra was clearly one such man - one in a billion!

As a school kid, when a young girl had fallen from his school bus, he had jumped off from the moving bus without any hesitation. Hurt, he had then taken the injured girl to a nearby hospital. He was daring, helpful, he would go out at midnight if anyone asked for his help.  

Capt. Vikram was a brilliant student, always scoring very high grades in school and college. He happened to be an exceptional sportsman, excelling in most sports, with table tennis and skating being one of his favourites. He even played nationals in Table Tennis during his school days. 

Pic from Capt. Batra’s Family Album. 

As if these qualities were not enough in one man alone, he happened to possess a magnetic personality, an aura of positivity that everyone fell in love with. His face always glowed, he was always smiling, and he had a very infectious laughter. A no holds bar laughter. Everyone in the this small town loved him.

The infectious smile of this extraordinary man was soon witnessed and felt by a nation in crises, and the nation too, fell in love. 

Capt. Vikram Batra in Kashmir.

During the Kargil invasion of 1999 by Pakistan, (at the time) Lt. Batra, 13 JAK Rifles, and his Delta Company were ordered to recapture peak 5140 on June 19, five weeks after the war began. Nicknamed Sher Sha of Kargil, Lt. Batra showed exceptional courage and intellect to capture the peak. He single-handedly killed three enemy fighters in dangerous close-range combat. Regardless of his injuries, Captain Batra regrouped his men to pave the way for Indian soldiers to advance further in the Kargil war.

One of the famous quote of Vikram Batra, PVC 

'Yeh Dil Maange More' is our company's success signal, he said to the camera with a smile. It was the confident smiling visage of this hero that calmed the nation, which made its one billion people believe that everything will be okay.  

The capture of Point 5140 set in motion a string of successes for the Indian army. A few days later Lt. Batra was assigned to an urgent mission to recapture peak 4875. With an 80-degree slope to the peak where the Pakistani army sat with a clear view of the climb, this was nothing less than a death trap. In the early morning hours of 7 July 1999, he commanded a mission to rescue an injured officer. During the rescue attempt, he pushed aside his Subedar, saying "Tu baal-bacchedar hai, hat ja peeche."(You have children, step aside) and was killed in action while clearing enemy positions. His last words were, "Jai Mata Di".

It was seventeen years ago that he lost his life fighting for our country, but heroes never die, and PVC Capt. Vikram Batra lives on. His bravery, his sacrifice, his intelligence, his charm, and that infectious smile, they all live on in our hearts. 

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EXCLUSIVE Report By Livefist : New System Spotted On Rustom II MALE As First Flight Looms

EXCLUSIVE Report By Livefist : New System Spotted On Rustom II MALE As First Flight Looms

Rustom II MALE UAV 

Not seen before on any earlier mock-up or on the single existing prototype, spotted a new sensor payload on the belly of the Rustom II MALE UAV, likely its synthetic aperture radar. This was at a two day technology seminar and exhibition, North Tech Symposium at Headquarters Northern Command, Udhampur, J&K today.

New System  (Red Mark)

The Rustom II is expected to make its first flight this month. Scooped this image of the Rustom II UAV during preparatory ground tests at its test base in Southern India, where it will make its debut flight soon.

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HARD FACTS OF INDO-PAK 1965 WAR

SOME HARD FACTS OF 1965 INDO-PAK WAR

-- By Danvir Singh, Ex Cornel, Indian Army.

Captured Pakistani Patton Tanks

History Distorted: September 06 Celebrated as Defence Day in Pakistan each year to commemorate victory in 1965 war.

Some Facts and Truth:

The 1965 Indo-Pak war saw the deadliest tank battles between the Armoured formations of these two waring nations post WWII. 

Result - Both sides claimed victory.

At the end of the war, this is what the tally looked like:

• India won 1,920 sqkm of territory; Pakistan won 540 sqkm.
• 2,862 Indian soldiers were killed; Pakistan lost 5,800 soldiers.
• India lost 97 tanks; 450 Pakistani tanks were destroyed or captured.

Battle of Haji Pir Pass, 1965 

Haji Pir Pass Under The Indian Tricolour. 

India captured the key Haji Pir Pass - "A Major ingress route for Pakistanis" - and made some big gains in Sialkot and reached the doors of Lahore in Punjab.. 

The Pakistani army managed to repulse a takeover of Lahore, made advances in the deserts of Rajasthan and came perilously close to taking over Akhnoor in the Jammu region..

Tashkent Declaration, 1966

Ayub Khan and Lal Bahadur Shastri at Tashkent in USSR.

India and Pakistan met at Tashkent in January 1966 where they agreed to withdraw to their pre-war positions.

In my opinion India won the war on the battle field but lost it on the table. Giving away Haji Pir was the gravest mistake. 

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HAL LCH - India’s Indigenously Built Multirole Light Combat Helicopter

HAL LCH - India’s Indigenously Built Multirole Light Combat Helicopter.

HAL LCH During Test Flight. 

The Kargil war gives us much lessons to the IAF to conduct not only Armed Combat air patrol, but mean time support the Friendly Troops who is fighting against the enemy in tough conditions. So IAF put an requirement of Combat Helicopters building in India, The HAL taken the decision to make the dream into reality by flying first LCH prototype by 2010, within three years of program gets sanctioned by the Government. The Indian Air Force is to acquire 65 LCHs and Indian Army is to acquire 114 LCHs.

Overview

HAL LCH on Display During Aero India. 

The LCH is being designed to fit into an anti-infantry and anti-armour role and will be able to operate at high altitudes. It has a maximum weight of 5.5 tonnes, and has a service ceiling of 6,500 metres. The LCH design features a narrow fuselage with stealth profiling, armour protection, and will be equipped to conduct day-and-night combat operations. According to reports, the LCH features a digital camouflage system. The LCH has a two-crew cockpit.

The LCH is probably the most agile design in the world because of its rotor. HAL said LCH is of 5.5 tonne class, like the Dhruv, it is powered by two HAL/Turbomeca Shakti turbo-shaft engines and inherits many technical features of the Advanced Light Helicopter. The features that are unique to LCH are sleek and narrow fuselage, tri-cycle crashworthy landing gear, crashworthy and self-sealing fuel tanks, armour protection, nuclear, and low visibility features which make the LCH lethal, agile and survivable.

Cockpit and avionics

Cockpit of HAL LCH 

The LCH is to have a glass cockpit with multifunction displays, a target acquisition and designation system with FLIR, Laser rangefinder and laser designator. Weapons will be aimed with a helmet mounted sight and there will be an electronic warfare suite with radar warning receiver, laser warning receiver and a missile approach warning system. The two pilots in the LCH sit one behind the other, compared to side-by-side in the Dhruv.

The LCH's modern sensor suite, developed in cooperation with Israel, consists of a CCD Camera, forward-looking infrared imaging sensors and a laser range finder to facilitate target acquisition in all weather conditions, including at night.

The helicopter is to be fitted with a data link for network-centric operations facilitating the transfer of mission data to the other airborne platforms and ground stations operating in the network, facilitating force multiplication.

Roles

Armed LCH 

LCH is intended for use in air defence against slow moving aerial targets (e.g. aircraft and UAVs), Counter Surface Force Operation (CSFO), destruction of enemy air defence operations, escort to special heliborne operations (SHBO), Counter-insurgency operations (COIN), offensive Employment in Urban Warfare, support of combat search and rescue operations (SAR) operations, anti-tank role and scout duties.It will also be capable of high-altitude warfare (HAW) since its operational ceiling will be 6,000–6,500 metres (19,700–21,300 ft).

Testing

LCH During High Altitude Cold Weather Trail.

LCH During Hot Weather Trial.

• The cold weather trials of the LCH were carried out at Air Force Station, Leh in early 2015. The engine starts were satisfactory in the temperature of -18 °C at 4.1 km altitude. The flights were also carried out to assess high altitude performance and low speed handling.The trials covered engine starts with internal batteries after overnight cold soak at 3 km altitude and 4.1 km altitude.

• In June 2015, the LCH successfully completed hot weather flight trials at Jodhpur with temperatures from 39 to 42 °C. The flight testing covered 'temperature survey of engine bay and hydraulic system', 'assessment of performance', 'handling qualities and loads' at different 'all up weights', 'low speed handling' and 'height-velocity diagram establishment'.

• In September 2015, the hot and high altitude trials of LCH were conducted successfully. The third prototype (TD-3) was taken to Leh for testing. Hover performance, low speed handling capability at extreme heights and temperature along with landing at forward locations were tested. The helicopter became the first attack helicopter to land in Siachen. The helicopter landed at high altitude helipads at 13,600 feet to 15,800 feet.

• The LCH completed basic performance flight testing, outstation trials, and prototype TD-3 fired 70 mm rockets in its weaponized configuration. The Next trails are ATGM firing , Air to Air rocket firing & canon firing. Those trails weapon firing trials will be held during the middle of 2016.

Specifications 

Specifications of LCH.

General characteristics

• Crew: 2
• Length: 15.8 m (51 ft 8 in)
• Rotor diameter: 13.3 m (43 ft 6 in)
• Height: 4.7 m (15 ft 4 in)
• Disc area: 136.85 m² (1,472 ft²)
• Max. takeoff weight: 5,800 kg (12,787 lb)
• Powerplant: 2 × HAL/Turbomeca Shakti turboshaft, 1,067 kW 

Performance

• Never exceed speed: 330 km/h (178 knots, 207 mph)
• Maximum speed: 280 km/h (145 knots, 167 mph)
• Range: 700 km (297 nmi, 342 mi)
• Service ceiling: 6,500 m (21,300 ft)
• Disc loading: 39.59 kg/m² (8.23 lb/ft²)
• Power/mass: 327 W/kg (0.198 hp/lb)

Armament

Weopen configuration of LCH.

• Guns: 1 × 20 mm M621 cannon on Nexter THL-20 turret
• Hardpoints: 4 (two under each wing)
• Rockets: 4 × 70/80 mm rocket-pods.
• Missiles: 4 × two-round MBDA Mistral air-to-air missiles, anti-radiation, and 2 × four-round Helina, LAHAT anti-tank missiles.
• Bombs: 4 × 250 kg (550 lb) bombs including Gravity bombs, cluster bombs and grenade launchers.

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Source : Wikipedia  (HAL LCH article)

The Incredible Story of Col. Narendra Kumar Who Secured The Siachen Glacier for India.

The Incredible Story of Col. Narendra Kumar Who Secured The Siachen Glacier for India.

Col. Narendra Kumar 

In the army, they knew him as ‘Bull’ Kumar, awed as his mates were by the strength of his thick, muscular neck. Col Narendra Kumar earned this sobriquet at the National Defence Academy, then in Dehradun, during the first boxing match he fought. His rival was a senior cadet, S.F. Rodrigues, who went on to become the chief of army staff. Col Kumar lost the bout, but the ‘Bull’ epithet stuck.

Since then, Col Kumar has done everything in his long military career to justify the name his colleagues gave him. Like the bull, he loves a challenge, sniffs it even before others can see it, and goes at it in a single-minded pursuit, indifferent to consequences, full tilt, tail up. It was these qualities of his that ensured the Siachen glacier became an integral part of India.

The heroic story of Col Kumar dates to 1978, when he took a major expedition to the inhospitable glacier. This was six years before India launched Operation Meghdoot to thwart Pakistan’s designs on the Siachen glacier. No doubt, he knew the mountains well, commissioned as he had been into the Kumaon Regiment and consequently having spent the better part of his military career surrounded by troops born and bred in the rugged hills of Kumaon. Yet glaciers aren’t just stunningly beautiful mountainscape: they can numb, daze and kill you. Col Kumar, posted as the commandant of the army’s High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) in Gulmarg then, knew he was heading into uncharted territory. “This was the first major expedition into the unknown,” he says, reminiscing about it in his flat in Delhi. “We had some reports that the Americans were showing Siachen as part of Pakistan in their adventure maps.”

Narendra Kumar tells the story of all those years in the cold

What Kumar and his team planned was to reach the glacier’s snout, its lowest point, where the ice melts into water, and then trek up the 77 km of treacherous crevasses, mountains, passes and snow-covered peaks to reach the source. The colonel knew the stakes were high, that this mission could decide the future of India’s strategic outreach and establish a critical wedge between Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and the swathe of Indian territory the Chinese had occupied in the aftermath of 1962. “Our equipment wasn’t the best, we didn’t have any maps,” he recalls. “We were going in blind and all we had was a rough idea of the peaks which had been named by the British decades ago.”

Bound to each other by thick ropes, trekking across the harsh terrain for weeks on end, Col Kumar became the first Indian to climb the Sia Kangri peak, which offers a majestic view of the Siachen glacier. But there was also a surprise awaiting the team—a Japanese mountain expedition facilitated by the Pakistan military had a presence there. After a “sit-rep” (situational report) was dispatched to the army headquarters, the team went from peak to peak, staying ahead of snow avalanches to chart the area.

Bull Kumar led other expeditions till 1984, losing four toes to frostbite. His sacrifice wasn’t to go waste.

Cut to 1984: intelligence information convinced the army headquarters that the Pakistanis were planning to militarily occupy Siachen and the heights of the nearby Saltoro ridge. There was evidence: in the autumn of 1983, a team from the Indian army’s elite Ladakh Scouts had sighted a Pakistani special forces unit from the ssg in the Siachen area. This prompted the area army headquarters to immediately draw up plans for a major operation in the summer of 1984. The fourth battalion of the Kumaon Regiment was assembled and equipped for Operation Meghdoot, which had as its bulwark Kumar’s maps, films and his knowledge of the area.

On April 13, 1984, Operation Meghdoot finally got under way. Air force choppers, their engines clattering in protest at being pushed to the limits of technological possibility at incredible heights, began to drop soldiers at Bilafond La which is today part of the Siachen Base Camp. For the first time in history, India had stamped its claim on the Siachen glacier. The sturdy Kumaonis then trekked up the glacier to secure the two major passes—the Sia La and Gyong La—even as the Pakistanis were scrambling their troops into the region. The Kumaonis moved up the Saltoro ridge, overlooking the approach from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and Sia Kangri to establish posts that would give India the command of the glacier. With hands veritably frozen around their 7.62 mm rifles, Indian troops battled the elements to establish a military foothold in what would become the world’s highest battlefield.

“At times, you face impossible choices on the glacier. We always moved in pairs, bound to each other by rope. At one point, my buddy fell into a crevasse. For 45 minutes, I grappled with the idea of dying with him or cutting him loose and saving my life or to hang with him till the cold killed us both. I am glad that I never cut the rope.” In those 45 minutes, the buddy crawled up, the duo living to continue their foray from peak to peak.

To the west of the glacier were hostile Pakistani troops; on the east and to the north stood the Chinese. Had Col Kumar been given a clearance, he’d perhaps have climbed the K2 peak in the Karakoram ranges as well. But to reach K2, he’d have had to traverse the Shaksgam valley, which the Pakistanis had illegally ceded to China. So, India halted its advance on reaching the northernmost tip of the Siachen glacier, settling in on its frozen waste.

And The Sweet Victory. 

As Indian troops established more posts, a key base on the glacier was named Kumar Base: perhaps the only living Indian army officer to enjoy this singular honour. India’s claim to Siachen was confirmed. But the “Refrigerated Combat” against the elements and Pakistan had only just begun.

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