A percentage of Indian armour (tanks) already has the capability of firing missiles from the gun tube apart from conventional munitions. This capability should also be introduced in future ICVs and tanks. The DRDO should take up a project for precision munitions for small arms which would enable our soldiers to engage enemy snipers hiding in trenches, behind walls or inside buildings.

A Precision-Guided Munition (PGM) also termed as “smart munition,” is a guided munition intended to precisely hit a specific target, and to minimise collateral damage. It is well known that the damage effects of explosive weapons fall off with distance, thus even modest improvements in accuracy enable a target to be effectively attacked with fewer or smaller bombs. The creation of precision-guided munitions resulted in the renaming of older bombs as “gravity bombs,” “dumb bombs” or “iron bombs.”

Advantages of PGMs

Precision munitions give a decision-maker the confidence of contemplating the use of force in circumstances where collateral damage would be unacceptable or call into question the viability of continued military action and hence may preclude the use of force as an option. Thus precision technologies have been used to design munitions which could be employed to overcome such inhibitions.

In low intensity conflict operations like counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism and even in high intensity conventional conflicts, attitudes towards both own and enemy causalities have changed. This has come about because of negative publicity regarding the use of heavy weaponry which results in a large number of civilian causalities and which has serious implications for public opinion and policy. This is more so in democratic countries where the political leadership is often at pains to explain the necessity of use of force. Moreover, due to availability of excellent communications worldwide, it is not possible to hide excesses anywhere, and in a seamless world adverse global opinion can have an adverse impact both internally and externally.

Changed Nature of Warfare

Additionally wars and warfare have changed considerably. Andrew Marshall, the former Director of the Office of Net Assessments in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, had stated in the late 1990s that profound changes were occurring in the nature of warfare brought about by the innovative application of new technologies which combined with dramatic changes in military doctrine and operational and organisational concepts, have fundamentally altered the character and conduct of military operations. The use of precision munitions falls within this mould.

It is in this context that Richard P. Hallon in his article “Precision Guided Munitions and the New Era of Warfare” (ASPC Paper No 53) states, “There has been a generalised lack of appreciation of how warfare has changed since the Second World War. On the eve of the Gulf War, for example, critics of proposed military action posited scenarios where tens of thousands of Iraqis would be killed by largely indiscriminate air attacks that would ‘carpet bomb’ population centres, particularly Baghdad. To give viewers some idea of what a ‘modern’ air war might be like, commentators, ironically, ran footage of Berlin and other German cities after Victory in Europe (VE) Day. In fact, of course, coalition leaders had no intention whatsoever of using such a level of force against an opponent, recognising that, given the moral climate of the present day, this use of power simply would not be tolerated by the world community or even the population of a coalition nation that engaged in such action. But after being briefed on the air campaign plan for the Gulf War, coalition political and military leaders were very comfortable with the notion of using precision weapons in attacks deep in the midst of major cities, once they had been assured that the accuracies claimed for such weapons were realistic and not the stuff of an overenthusiastic trade-show sales briefing. On ‘opening night’ of the Gulf War, for example, Baghdad was struck by two kinds of precision attackers: ship-launched cruise missiles, and airlaunched laser-guided bombs. Later, the extensive use of precision weaponry in the NATO air campaign in Bosnia without (to the author’s knowledge) any collateral losses, affirmed again that this kind of attack offers decision-makers an option to exert force in circumstances that just two decades ago, they would not have considered possible.”

The capability of launching precision attacks via drones flying overhead has been fully exploited by the US in Afghanistan and Pakistan where Predators (UCAVs) with Hellfire missiles have been employed extensively to get at Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders who otherwise would have been inaccessible. Thus, decision-makers now have the freedom to use military force in built up areas (cities and towns) in an enemy homeland or in enemy-occupied territory without risking their own troops and without the fear of causing collateral damage. In a strategic sense, this capability can act as a powerful deterrent to an aggressor who thinks that the danger of collateral damage will discourage an attacker in using force in areas where his armed cadres have mingled with the local population. Hence both strategically and tactically, precision munitions give a military enhanced capability to not only destroy the adversary’s vital combat elements, but also impart deterrence to the force which possesses such weapons and munitions.

Air and Space Aspects

With the advent of precision guided munitions combined with accurate reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition systems and GPS-aided navigation systems; modern technology has given airpower, the capability of destroying targets with single digit CEP and with least amount of collateral damage. Given the wherewithal, these characteristics endow air power with the ability to psychologically and physically imbalance an opponent and achieve strategic aims set by the national leadership with highly selective employment of land forces. The effects are fundamentally greater than before. Air power has become the decisive force in war, allowing air power to shape the battlefield before committal of ground forces. In highintensity combat, the main role of land forces would now be to secure a victory, rather than achieve it.

It is becoming increasingly evident that in the long-term, manned fighters will give way to unmanned combat. The transition from operating UAVs as sensor platform to employing them as weapons carriers is seen by analysts as the logical outcome of the available technologies and the extensive use of Predators mounted with Hellfire missiles in the Af-Pak region proves the efficacy of this concept. The US Air Force has armed its Predator and Global Hawk UAVs with precision weapons. The US Congress has mandated that a third of all US deep-strike aircraft in the future will be unmanned. In the future, manned fighters may be used for only a limited number of roles, whereas stealthy unmanned combat aircraft, together with low-observable long-range stand-off munitions, will lessen the need for manned aircraft to penetrate enemy defences. These factors raise the question of whether and for how long manned aircraft will be needed for the delivery of precisionguided munitions.