It seems that Pakistan’s current approach to counter-unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS) involves disparate systems – both soft-kill and hard-kill – trying to stop quadcopters and loitering munitions. Moreover, the employment of C-UAS, currently at least, seems localized, but with limited upward connectivity to a broader system.
This matters because in a state-on-state conflict, the drone threat is not a localized problem as it might be in counterinsurgency (COIN) and counter-terrorism (CT). Rather, enemy states will use drones as a piece of a wider attack strategy, which could manifest in many different ways, from large-salvo strikes through a large number of loitering munitions to mixed-salvos employing both drones and missiles.
So, the threat necessitates having a strategic picture, even though tomorrow’s threats might be smaller, lower-cost, and simpler than ever. Moreover, lacking that strategic picture – and the systems to manage one’s sensors and counter-drone effectors (be it soft-kill or hard-kill) – not only leads to leakage (thereby resulting in significant damage to one’s key assets), but also to the depletion of advanced surface-to-air missiles (SAM) and/or other high-cost, high-value effectors on low-cost threats. Or, alternatively, it could lead to situations where a specific local area cannot leverage superior effector options due to the inability to alert other systems of its soft-kill or hard-kill attempts.
In addition to the aforementioned risks, integration must be the next step of Pakistan’s C-UAS programs because it is rapidly accumulating different C-UAS effector capabilities.
These include, among others, the Defence Science and Technology Organization (DESTO) Spider, which is primarily an electronic warfare (EW)-based system that targets the incoming drone’s satellite navigation and communications links (i.e., soft-kill). DESTO also has a man-portable system (i.e., SPIDER Portable). Additionally, other state-owned enterprises (SOE) developed low-level portable soft-kill systems, mainly in “gun” format, such as the SAFRAH series by the National Electronics Complex of Pakistan (NECOP).
Moreover, the Pakistan Army uses 35 mm Oerlikon anti-air guns (AAG) in the C-UAS role, serving as its primary hard-kill solution. These have been paired with the Skyguard radar. Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) also manufactures ammunition for these 35 mm guns.
Work is also underway in procuring a wide assortment of interceptor drones, i.e., basically small systems designed to individually cost less than the incoming drone threat. While these interceptor drones primarily rely on manual operators, Quwa can confirm via Pakistani industry sources that work is underway to pair these types of drones to radars via data-link so that they can automatically fly towards the threat zone.
Finally, preliminary work is underway to add directed energy weapons (DEW), especially high-powered microwave (HPM), as another C-UAS measure for handling swarming threats. Likewise, new types of soft-kill measures are also being developed, e.g., jamming via cognitive software-defined radios.
In other words, the groundwork and integration layers for an actual, cohesive C-UAS system are forming, though it is unclear if there is a unified effort to bring these all together into a strategic ‘dome’. Even if the integrated C-UAS work is not elevated to the level of a national dome, even a regional (e.g., 100-200 km) spread could provide a timely force-multiplier effect to the work being done today.
The first layer would be the local C-UAS node or platform that typically protects a specific airbase, radar, installation, ammunition depot, headquarters, or forward operating position.
This layer’s principal task would be to select the most suitable effector for the incoming threat, which can range from commercial quadcopters relying on a radio-frequency link (that can be assigned to an EW or soft-kill effector) to a drone with hardening, which would necessitate a hard-kill effector.
The second layer would connect several local C-UAS nodes to a wider geographical area, possibly at a regional level. This would combine tracks generated by longer-ranged surveillance radars as well as the local drone-detection radars, passive radio-frequency (RF) sensors, and EO systems. This layer might alert local C-UAS units that have not yet detected incoming threats through their own sensors.
Finally, the C-UAS network would have to connect to Pakistan’s wider IADS. This territorial layer would distinguish between small drones, larger one-way attack systems, cruise missiles, aircraft, and ballistic missiles, and then route each threat to the appropriate defensive system.
Basically, the C-UAS node would become the lowest and most densely distributed layer of the territorial air-defence network. The wider IADS would not need to assign an expensive SAM to every low-cost drone it detects. Likewise, a local C-UAS unit would not waste time trying to neutralize a threat that higher-level sensors or intelligence systems have already identified as autonomous.
For example, a forward-deployed unit in Balochistan or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) may not have an HPM, or even a sufficient soft-kill system on hand. It will certainly be vulnerable to an insurgent-led drone threat. However, an integrated C-UAS system could network that forward unit to a series of longer-ranged radars which, potentially, can detect the drone threat and send out (from many different locations) networked interceptor drones to intercept the attack.
Granted, the short-range manually-operated interceptor drone may not cover that reach (in fact, one would expect the frontline unit to have a few of those drones). However, the wider defence industry is working on solutions like reworking target drones into, essentially, small-scale fighter aircraft that would carry a pair of laser-guided missiles to intercept other drones. Likewise, similar drones could also be rapidly ‘scrambled’ to quickly cover urban areas and other less-defended zones.
Overall, the point is that C-UAS is no longer a standalone feature one adds for basic coverage; rather, C-UAS has become a complex discipline of air defence. Thus, just as countries need an integrated air defence system (IADS) to cross-manage different anti-air warfare (AAW) effectors, the same not only holds true for C-UAS (which is poised to use a variety of effectors), but that C-UAS will also integrate deeply into IADS alongside anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defence and AAW.
This is why, basically, there is a broader shift in the industry towards “domes” – e.g., Israel’s Iron Dome, Türkiye’s Steel Dome, and the United States’ Golden Dome. These ‘domes’ are the dense, multi-layered IADS architectures now necessary to deal with today’s and tomorrow’s aerial threats as effectively and, just as importantly, as efficiently as possible. Interestingly, in a way, the ‘domes’ are another example of system-of-systems employment where the integrated C-UAS plugs into the wider architecture.
Returning to C-UAS specifically, one example of integrated C-UAS is Türkiye’s MKE TOLGA. The TOLGA integrates sensing using a 20 km active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and an electro-optical (EO) system to multiple effectors covering different ranges – i.e., 12.7 mm for 300 m, 20 mm for 1,000 m, and 35 mm for 3,000 m. In the future, the TOLGA will incorporate DEWs and short-range missiles.
Tied together with a command-and-control (C2) system, the TOLGA is the foundation for a C-UAS suite that will gradually grow to incorporate additional counter-drone effectors. In some ways, one could argue that DESTO’s SPIDER offers Pakistan an analogous starting point – i.e., it integrates an EO tracker with EW-based soft-kill measures. So, it follows that Pakistan could add a radar (e.g., the domestically made RAAST) and integrate the 35 mm Oerlikon AAGs as well as interceptor drones for kinetic options.
