IAF to acquire more teeth through AWACS and mid-air refuellers
The ministry of defence is set to take up a proposal for acquisition of six more Embraer aircraft from Brazil for conversion to Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) using DRDO developed Netra Mark 1A mounted AESA radars in a move aimed at plugging key capability gaps and building conventional deterrence, people familiar with the matter said.
The proposal will be brought before the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh shortly, they added, asking not to be named.
In addition, while the government has approved wet lease of one KC-135 mid-air refueller from US-based Metrea military contractor, it has also pressed the pedal on the acquisition of six more mid-air refuellers on the basis of an RFP floated by the acquisition wing of the Defence Ministry. India at present has six Russian refuellers.
The urgent need for AEW&C aircraft was felt because the Pakistan air force has eight SAAB-2000 aircraft fitted with the Erieye radar system plus four Chinese ZDK-03 aircraft used for electronic warfare and electronic support measures. PAF also has three Dassault Falcon DA-20 aircraft, which are being used for electronic warfare. After Operation Sindoor, Pakistan has seven SAAB-2000 Erieye AEW&C aircraft, as one was shot down by the Indian S-400 air defence system from a distance of 314 kilometres during the four-day high-intensity skirmish. The AEW & C aircraft is used to look into enemy territory from a distance of as much as 350 km away to identify incoming enemy aerial platforms as well as artillery firing from across the border.
Pakistan also has four Russian refuellers of the same IL-78 M variety as India.
After the military chiefs and national security planners met to discuss learnings from Operation Sindoor on June 7, 2025, a consensus has emerged that India needs to build better and more lethal capabilities, as Pakistan will acquire more capabilities from China . China is providing Yuan-class diesel submarines, frigates and armed drones to Pakistan, while Turkey is building corvettes, upgrading Augusta 90B submarines and providing spare parts for F-16 aircraft for the Islamic nation.
In this context, the Indian military is also getting the weapons recovered from the skirmish, namely Chinese made PL-15 air to air missile, Fatah rockets and Turkish built YIHA drone reviewed by top Indian technology experts. India is now the only country that has war data on Chinese weapon systems like J-10, JF-17 fighters, HQ-9 air defence systems, SH-15 howitzers as well as performance of its own Rafale fighters in live conditions.
India's post-Sindoor Indian assessment , HT learns, does not rule out a mass casualty attack from Pakistan-based jihadist groups in the future, with the Pakistan military better prepared next time to meet the expected Indian response to terror.
Between the launch of the operation in the early hours of May 7 and the ceasefire on the evening of May 10, Indian forces bombed nine terror camps in Pakistan and PoK and killed at least 100 terrorists. The Indian Air Force also struck targets at 13 Pakistani airbases and military installations.
On Tuesday, it emerged that India's targeting of locations within Pakistan during the May 7–10 clash was more extensive than previously known, with a Pakistani document acknowledging that Indian drones had struck locations ranging from Peshawar in the northwest to Hyderabad in the south.
Pakistan's Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos, which was mounted in response to Operation Sindoor, 'folded in eight hours' on May 10, belying Islamabad's ambitious target of bringing India to its knees in 48 hours, Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan said on Tuesday.
Operation Sindoor was India's military response to the terror strikes at Pahalgam that killed 26 people.
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Russia launches 500 drones at Ukraine in biggest overnight bombardment of the war
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Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday that there are 'no longer any range restrictions for weapons that have been delivered to Ukraine — neither by the British, nor by the French or by us, and not by the Americans either.' 'That means Ukraine can also defend itself by, for example, attacking military positions in Russia. Until a while ago, it couldn't … it can now,' he said. It was not clear if Merz was referring to the easing of restrictions on longer-range weapons late last year. Before becoming chancellor, Merz called for Germany to supply Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Kyiv, something his predecessor, Olaf Scholz, refused to do. Commenting on Merz's statement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a decision to lift range restrictions was 'quite dangerous' and 'contrary to our efforts to reach a political settlement.' 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Other Chinese auto and tech companies are offering affordable EVs with FSD-like technology for a relative pittance. China's Leapmotor and Xpeng, for instance, offer systems capable of highway and urban driving in $20,000 vehicles. A slew of Chinese firms are chasing the same technology, an industry push backed by China's government. BYD's assisted-driving hardware costs are far lower than Tesla's, according to analyses performed for Reuters by companies that dismantle and analyze vehicles for automakers. The comparisons, which have not been previously reported, show that BYD's costs to procure components and build a system with radar and lidar are about the same as Tesla's FSD, which doesn't have such sensors. That undercuts Tesla's unusual technological approach, which aims to save costs by nixing such sensors and relying solely on cameras and artificial intelligence. The rising competition from Chinese smart-EV players is among the chief problems confronting Tesla CEO Elon Musk after his rocky tenure as a Trump administration advisor as he refocuses on his business empire - as Tesla vehicle sales are tanking globally. The stakes are made higher by a moment-of-truth challenge this month in Tesla's home base of Austin, Texas, where it plans to launch a robotaxi trial with 10 or 20 vehicles after a decade of Musk's unfulfilled promises to deliver self-driving Teslas. Tesla did not respond when reached for comment about its Chinese competitors. Previously, Musk has described Chinese car companies as the most competitive in the world. Chinese competition was one factor driving Tesla's strategic pivot away from mass-market EVs last year, when Reuters reported it had killed plans to build an all-new EV expected to cost $25,000. Musk has since staked Tesla's future instead on self-driving robotaxis, the hopes for which now underpin the vast majority of the automaker's stock-market value of roughly $1 trillion. Now Tesla faces the same stiff competition on vehicle autonomy from many of the same Chinese automakers who undercut its affordable-EV plans. Adding to the challenge are tech firms including Chinese smartphone giant Huawei, which supplies autonomous-driving technology to major Chinese automakers. Short of full autonomy, today's driver-assistance systems offer a critical competitive edge in China, the world's largest car market, where Tesla sales are falling amid a protracted price war among scores of homegrown EV brands. Tesla is further handicapped by China's regulations preventing it from using data collected by Tesla cars in China to train the artificial intelligence underpinning FSD. Tesla has been negotiating with Chinese officials, so far without success, to get permission to transfer such data back to the United States for analysis. Tesla's competitors in China do benefit from subsidies and other forms of policy support from Beijing for advanced assisted driving technology. Their advantages also stem from another consequential factor: cut-throat smart-EV competition that has characterized their industry over the past decade. The resulting EV boom created economies of scale and the industry's tendency to forgo some profit margins to expand new technologies' market penetration quickly, leading to lower manufacturing costs. BYD investor Ogan, of Shenzhen-based Snow Bull Capital, has a front-row seat to China's autonomous-tech battleground. He recently drove several BYD models equipped with God's Eye, he said, and didn't have to take over driving in any of them while traveling the congested streets of Shenzhen, a bustling southern China megalopolis of 18 million people. Another notable smart-EV player in China is Huawei, experts say. Huawei lends its technology and branding to a half dozen automakers including heavyweights Chery, SAIC and Changan, and has lower-profile partnerships with more than a dozen other carmakers, Huawei representatives said. Reuters journalists rode in an Aito M9 — a luxury electric SUV from Seres with Huawei driver-assistance technology — as it navigated Shenzhen roadways in April. With a driver's hands off the wheel, the vehicle exited a highway seamlessly into a congested urban zone, where the M9 proceeded cautiously and slowed to a crawl as a construction worker appeared like he might walk into the roadway. At one point the vehicle turned right and slowly drifted left to avoid two men unloading boxes from a parked truck. The vehicle then parallel parked itself at Huawei's Shenzhen headquarters. Huawei was among several Chinese companies, including automakers Zeekr, Changan and Xpeng, that touted progress towards fully-autonomous cars at April's Shanghai auto show, even as Beijing announced a new marketing crackdown on terms such as 'smart' and 'intelligent' driving in the wake of a deadly crash in a Xiaomi vehicle involving driver-assistance technology. Huawei said it's ready to undergo a new validation regime being developed by Chinese regulators to certify so-called Level 3 driving systems, meaning they are capable enough to allow drivers to look away unless notified by the system to take over. Zeekr, a luxury brand of China auto giant Geely, also plans to soon sell cars with Level 3 systems. Tesla has yet to release such an "unsupervised" version of FSD because its technology needs more training to operate without a driver's hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. Tesla plans to launch self-driving robotaxis in Austin this month. Little is known about its plans. The company has said it aims to initially deploy between 10 and 20 fare-collecting driverless robotaxis in restricted geographic areas of the city, which Tesla has not publicly identified. Chinese EV makers are moving quickly to develop driver-assistance systems in a market where car-buyers are demanding them at a faster pace than in other regions, analysts say. Their ability to do so at lower costs poses the biggest threat to Tesla's new autonomy-based business model. BYD buyers can get an FSD-comparable version of God's Eye as a standard feature in cars priced at about $30,000. The cheapest FSD-equipped Tesla in China is a Model 3 selling for about $41,500. According to an analysis by A2MAC1, a Paris-based tear-down firm that benchmarks components, the mid-level God's Eye version most comparable to Tesla's FSD runs on an Nvidia computing chip with data collected through 12 cameras, five radars, 12 ultrasonic sensors, and one lidar sensor, at a cost of $2,105. That compares to $2,360 for Tesla's FSD, which uses cameras without sensors and two AI chips, the firm estimates. Cameras, radar and ultrasonic sensors are 40% cheaper in China than comparable devices in Europe and the United States, A2MAC1 estimates. Lidar sensors cost about 20% less, the firm says. Sensor costs have fallen because China's EV boom created economies of scale, said A2MAC1 engineer Elena Zhelondz. The fierce competition also pushed carmakers and suppliers to accept lower profits on driver-assistance equipment, she said. BYD's 22% gross margin will likely fall as it gives away God's Eye but it will benefit from a vehicle-sales boost, said Chris McNally, head of global automotive and mobility research for advisory firm Evercore. MORE CARS, MORE MILES, BETTER AI Falling behind the Chinese brands on driver-assistance technology would compound Tesla's challenges in China, where it's already losing market share to rivals including BYD, which sells an entry-level EV for less than $10,000. The growing scale of BYD and others could also provide a technological advantage: Racking up more miles on China roads helps train the AI technology needed to perfect automated-driving systems. BYD has a 'clear and ongoing market-share driving advantage' over Tesla in gathering such on-road data to refine God's Eye, Evercore's McNally said, adding that advantage might only increase as offering God's Eye for free helps sell more BYD vehicles. BYD's scale also helps lower costs by providing uncommon leverage over suppliers. In November, a BYD executive in charge of passenger-vehicle operations wrote to suppliers telling them that the automaker sold 4.2 million vehicles last year because of 'technical innovation, economies of scale, and a low-cost supply chain.' The executive noted the new year would likely bring more growth, but also fiercer competition. Without specifically mentioning God's Eye, he ended the letter by asking the suppliers for an across-the-board 10% price cut on all parts and systems starting on January 1, calling the new year a final 'knockout round.' This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
