Comment by Riaz Haq on October 7, 2020 at 7:27am

Riaz Haq has left a new comment on your post "Technology Transformation of 21st Century Warfare ...":

Deepfakes, AI & Digital Soldiers: Challenges of Cross-Domain Coercion for Pakistan

http://pakistanpolitico.com/deepfakes-ai-digital-soldiers-challenge...

Let’s begin by asking a question: Why would ANY state not want to achieve capabilities where it could advance its strategic interests by evading attribution or risk of escalation (at least initially), without firing a single conventional shot? As Bob Dylan would say, the times they are a-changin.

https://tnsr.org/2020/07/wormhole-escalation-in-the-new-nuclear-age/

I have formulated my response to this question in the light of Rebecca Hersman’s incredibly brilliant articulation of the new nuclear paradox in her article ‘Wormhole Escalation’. She explains the new nuclear paradox as follows:

“As states drive to compete and win at the sub-conventional level — in the gray zone — the risk of strategic crisis may increase, even as the risk of conventional conflict between nuclear-armed states declines.”

She looks at the changing landscape of escalation and how it will come about and be perceived between adversaries, and questions the validity or utility of Herman Kahn’s 44-rung escalation ladder, which until now was continuous and linear. The gray zone, in which AI generated, fabricated, deep fake news operates, complicates the universally shared conceptions of deterrence. Across the full spectrum of conflict, the cross-domain coercion tools available to states are numerous and impactful: through digital soldiers, “nuclear powers can now engage their adversary’s core strategic interests directly, coercively and below the traditional form of armed conflict as we all know it or have theorized about.”

1.The character of conflict is changing: Growing asymmetry between states who are advancing towards acquiring disruptive technologies will upset the levels of conflict and our understanding of it: sub-conventional tactics that are non-nuclear, information based, have the potential to achieve strategic objectives. The conflict is no longer about only territorial claims or land grabs inviting direct contact with the enemy. The conflict in the cyber domain is non-linear and has the potential to dissuade your adversary to choose a particular action, whereby it places you in coercion dominance. Your defined thresholds are bound to change. If your adversary is able to achieve strategic objectives, through contactless, human proxy-less (digital soldiers are proxies too), non-nuclear, technology, how would that shape your definition of armed attack or act of aggression? Pakistan’s nuclear thresholds, would need to be redefined and re-studied in that context to include how disruptive technologies will impact Pakistan’s conventional and nuclear responses. Offensive posturing or strategy against hostile use of technologies will need to be developed. Not only will the character of conflict change, but the size of conflict, and the nature of its destruction will also change. So Pakistan would need to think how to counter-strategize against this one in particular.

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 7, 2020 at 7:27am

Deepfakes, AI & Digital Soldiers: Challenges of Cross-Domain Coercion for Pakistan

http://pakistanpolitico.com/deepfakes-ai-digital-soldiers-challenge...

2.The changing nature of warfare: Hypersonic weapons, networked militaries, advanced sensors, technologies that can disrupt your conventional and nuclear situational awareness, drone swarms, robotics, lasers, 5G/6G technology, quantum computing, big data analytics, algorithmic warfare, network centric cyber attacks, autonomous surveillance and weapons systems all are contributing to the changing nature of warfare and have in fact revolutionized it. A combination of these disruptive technologies will make crisis unpredictable. Most if not all of these disruptive technologies are dual-use. While they have the capability to blur the lines between conventional and nuclear use, and your enemy’s perception of it, the efficiency, accuracy and speed they provide to offensive military systems and weapons will dilute traditional deterrence. Therefore, once this understanding is achieved that the nature of warfare is altered due to advancements and inductions of these disruptive technologies or a combination of them, doctrinal changes would need to be made in order to enhance the credibility of one’s deterrence. Not only that, new forms of deterrence are being created, through cross-domain coercion for example, which would require capabilities that can strengthen the eroding or fragile deterrence. Pakistan would need to undertake a very critical situational analysis of India’s capabilities as it sets out to acquire disruptive technologies, the ones India can induct and employ against Pakistan, which have the potential to provide it cross-domain coercion.

3.Eroding Models of Crisis Management: Layers of complexity has been added into the traditional models of crisis management. Since the crisis itself and its triggers are becoming unpredictable, since the 44 rungs of escalation ladder is no longer linear, since gray zones created by disruptive technologies have added invisible rungs to the traditional ladder, having the potential to create strategic blindness, the nature of management of such a crisis will also become more complex. The tools to generate and shape a crisis through manipulation of information, or creation of conflicting data points, is bound to create a crisis of communication, which can erode a country’s confidence, thus pushing it to adopt, hastily acquired, escalatory measures, before a third party has a chance to intervene. If a country is pushed into a corner where it is made to believe, through fabricated, deep fake information, disrupting its entire communication ecosystem, that the first move is its only move, and if it does not act now then all will be lost, you can imagine the aftermath.

In view of these three areas of analysis, strategic stability in South Asia which already was fragile has become more precarious. I see strategic stability as a combination of deterrence stability and crisis stability, and disruptive technologies disturb both, deterrence and crisis stability.

Pakistan needs to undertake doctrinal changes to redesign its conventional and nuclear thresholds. I believe that given how far countries have already gone to acquire an edge over the other with respect to the acquisition of disruptive technologies, has already out-dated the doctrines, policies, and strategies of all strategic organizations and actors involved, and Pakistan is not unique to it.

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 16, 2020 at 4:37pm

China Tests Massive Suicide #Drone Swarm Launched From A Box On A Truck. #China test demonstrated its ability to rapidly launch 48 weaponized drones from the back of a truck, as well as from helicopters. CH-901 has pop-out wings and folding v-tail. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37062/china-conducts-test-of-...

China recently conducted a test involving a swarm of loitering munitions, also often referred to as suicide drones, deployed from a box-like array of tubular launchers on a light tactical vehicle and from helicopters. This underscores how the drone swarm threat, broadly, is becoming ever-more real and will present increasingly serious challenges for military forces around the world in future conflicts.

The China Academy of Electronics and Information Technology (CAEIT) reportedly carried out the test in September. CAEIT is a subsidiary of the state-owned China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), which carried out a record-breaking drone swarm experiment in June 2017, involving nearly 120 small fixed-wing unmanned aircraft. Four months later, CAEIT conducted its own larger experiment with 200 fixed-wing drones. Chinese companies have also demonstrated impressive swarms using quad-copter-type drones for large public displays.


We don't know the name or designation of the drones CAEIT used in its September test, or that of the complete system being employed. However, video footage, seen below, shows that the unmanned aircraft are very similar in form and function to more recent models of China Poly Defense's CH-901 loitering munition.


When the tube-launched CH-901 first emerged in 2016, it featured a pair of pop-out wings, as well as a folding v-tail. More recently, that design has evolved and replaced the v-tail with another set of pop-out wings and folding twin-tail arrangement, similar to the drones we see in the CAEIT test video.

Of course, designs featuring two pairs of folding wings are very common for tube-launched drones and loitering munitions, including the Switchblade suicide drone from U.S. manufacturer AeroVironment. The unmanned aircraft CAEIT employed in its experiment is also reminiscent of American defense contractor Raytheon's Coyote.

The Coyote comparison also extends to launch options CAEIT demonstrated in its recent test. The 48-tube ground-based launcher, which is mounted on a modified 6x6 version of the Dongfeng Mengshi light tactical vehicle, is similar in some respects to multi-tube trail-mounted launchers that the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research used to launch Coyotes as part of its Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology (LOCUST) effort, as seen in the video below. Poly Defense has also shown at least a mock-up of an array of tubular launchers for the CH-901.


It's worth noting that any of these box-like launchers could also be installed on ships, as well as deployed in a static position on the ground.

CAEIT's test also involved at least one drone launched from a tube mounted on a Bell 206L helicopter, as well as one that popped out of a tube dropped from a what appears to be a Robinson R-series helicopter. A portion of the 206L's tail boom was blurred out in the video footage for unclear reasons. Coyote is notably capable of being air-launched, as well. The U.S. Navy has also experimented with dropping swarms of Perdix drones, which also feature two pairs of folding wings, but are much smaller, from F/A-18E/F Super Hornets.

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 16, 2020 at 4:51pm

U.S. Army’s New Drone Swarm May Be A Weapon Of Mass Destruction

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2020/06/01/why-new-us-ar...

‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’ is a term used in arms-control circles signifying something capable of damage on a large scale and subject to international treaties. Analyst Zak Kallenborn argues in a recent study for the U.S. Air Force Center for Strategic Deterrence Studies that some types of drone swarm would count as WMD. The argument might seem like the theoretical arms control equivalent of angels dancing on the head of a pin — except that the U.S. Army is working on a lethal swarm which fits Kallenborn’s description.

Current drones like the MQ-9 Reaper are controlled remotely, with a pilot flying the aircraft and a payload operator aiming and launching missiles. A battery of other personnel, including military lawyers and image analysts, look over their shoulders and argue what is or is not a valid target. (The movie Eye in the Sky brilliantly captured the military-political-legal wrangling during drone operations). Future drones may have more autonomy, flying and fighting with much less human supervision, in particular when many of them work together as a swarm.

Kallenborn, an expert in unmanned systems and WMD, describes one type of swarm that he calls an Armed, Fully-Autonomous Drone Swarm, or AFADS. Once unleashed an AFADS will locate, identify, and attack targets without human intervention. Kallenborn argues that an AFADS-type swarm is a genuine Weapon of Mass Destruction because of the amount of harm it can do and because of its inability to distinguish civilians from military targets. This is the type of swarm in the fictional 2017 viral video Slaughterbots released as a warning against autonomous weapons.

Like Terminators, such drones may look like science fiction. But the U.S. Army has been working on a Cluster UAS Smart Munition for Missile Deployment which looks like a real-world embodiment of AFADS.

The Cluster Swarm project is developing a missile warhead to dispense a swarm of small drones that fan out to locate and destroy vehicles with explosively formed penetrators or EFPs. (An EFP spits a high-speed slug of armor-piercing metal some tens or hundreds of meters). This is similar in concept to the existing CBU-105 bomb, a 1000-pound munition which scatters forty ‘Skeet’ submunitions each over the target area, each of which parachutes down, scanning the ground with a seeker until it finds a tank and fires an EFP at it; the picture above shows one test. CBU-105’s dropped by B-52 bombers successfully knocked out entire Iraqi tank columns in 2003, leading them to be termed ‘Cans of whup-ass.’ The Cluster Swarm would be vastly more powerful.

The Cluster Swarm involved drones packed into the Army’s existing GMLRS rockets, which carry a 180-pound payload and have a range of over 70 kilometers, or ATACMS missiles that carry a 350-pound payload over 270 kilometers. The original idea was that the missile payload would be quadcopter drones encased in an aerodynamic shell that would disperse them over the target area. However, the challenges of unfolding quadcopters mid-air may have been too great, as the Phase II development, recently completed, went to AVID LLC, who have a slightly different approach.

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Would such a swarm constitute a WMD?

“The weapon could plausibly be classified as a weapon of mass destruction,” Kallenborn said. “However, it would depend on the number and payload of armed UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles] within the swarm.”

Kallenborn says that as a rough rule of thumb, a swarm with munitions equivalent to a thousand M67 hand grenades would likely be in the WMD class. If it meets this threshold, then according to his new paper the swarm could be subject to international arms control law.

“Certainly off-course drones would have potential for considerable damage if they identified civilian vehicles as military ones,” says Kallenborn.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 13, 2020 at 10:16am

In Nagorno-Karabakh, drones gave Azerbaijan huge advantage and showed future of warfare - The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/nagorno-karabkah-drones...

In a matter of months, however, Nagorno-Karabakh has become perhaps the most powerful example of how small and relatively inexpensive attack drones can change the dimensions of conflicts once dominated by ground battles and traditional air power.

It also highlighted the vulnerabilities of even sophisticated weapons systems, tanks, radars and surface-to-air missiles without specific drone defenses. And it has raised debate on whether the era of the traditional tank could be coming to an end.

Azerbaijan used its drone fleet — purchased from Israel and Turkey — to stalk and destroy Armenia’s weapons systems in Nagorno-Karabakh, shattering its defenses and enabling a swift advance. Armenia found that air defense systems in Nagorno-Karabakh, many of them older Soviet systems, were impossible to defend against drone attacks, and losses quickly piled up.

Franz-Stefan Gady, a research fellow on the future of conflict at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said traditional military equipment such as tanks and armored vehicles will not become obsolete.

But Nagorno-Karabakh has shown “the ever-increasing importance” of using armed drones along with other weapons and highly trained ground forces, and “the exponentially more devastating consequences of failing to do so in future wars,” he said.

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https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/azerbaijan-armenia-israel-kamika...

https://youtu.be/KDmDi_QN3kE

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 22, 2021 at 2:07pm

#Military #Drones Tip the Balance in #Ethiopia’s Civil War. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed pulled off a stunning reversal in the year-old conflict with the help of armed drones supplied by the #UAE, #Turkey and #Iran. #Africa #AbiyAhmed #Tigray #TPLF https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/20/world/africa/drones-ethiopia-war... .

“Increasingly, unmanned systems are becoming a game changer,” said Peter W. Singer, an expert on drone warfare at New America, a research group in Washington. “It’s not just about the raw capability of the drones themselves — it’s the multiplying effect they have on nearly every other human and system on the battlefield.”

For Mr. Abiy, the drones arrived just in time.

He launched a military campaign in Tigray in November 2020, a year after he won the Nobel Peace Prize, in coordination with the leader of neighboring Eritrea. But his forces suffered a humiliating defeat last summer when Tigrayan rebels forced them from Tigray, then started to push south. By late November the Tigrayans were approaching the city of Debre Birhan, about 85 miles north of Addis Ababa.

But they could go no further. Swarms of drones appeared overhead, striking soldiers and supply convoys, Gen. Tsadkan Gebretensae, a leading Tigrayan commander, said in an interview with The New York Times.

“At one time, there were 10 drones in the sky,” he said. “You can imagine the effect. We were an easy target.”

Mr. Abiy built his drone arsenal by tapping the sympathy of foreign autocrats and a booming segment of the global arms trade.

Even as he talked about negotiations, Mr. Abiy was turning to other countries to bolster his military. Nearly every day, cargo flights arrived from a military base in the United Arab Emirates, one of Mr. Abiy’s closest allies.

The Emiratis had trained Mr. Abiy’s Republican Guard and provided crucial military support at the start of the war, running drone strikes that took out Tigrayan artillery and weapons depots, a Western official and a former Ethiopian official said.

The Emirati strikes stopped in January after President Biden came to power, under pressure from Washington. But they have resumed in recent months, largely in the form of the latest Chinese-made drones, the officials said.

The Emirati drone strikes, under the direction of the national security adviser Tahnoun bin Zayed al-Nahyan, appear to be a snub to American diplomatic efforts to end the war. American officials say they are trying to draw the U.A.E. into peace efforts as an ally, but that cooperation is limited.

In a meeting with the United States regional envoy, Jeffrey Feltman, earlier this week, Sheikh al-Nahyan denied that his country was shipping weapons to Ethiopia, an American official with knowledge of the meeting said.

By contrast, Mr. Abiy’s dealings with Turkey have been relatively open.

He signed a military pact in August with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose Bayraktar TB2 drone played a decisive role in Azerbaijan’s victory over Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh. It is manufactured by a company run by Mr. Erdogan’s son-in-law.


Turkish drones are attractive to many African countries seeking battle-tested, relatively cheap hardware with few strings attached. “Even in Africa, everywhere I go, they want U.A.V.s,” Mr. Erdogan boasted in October after a tour of Nigeria, Togo and Angola. (Drones are also known as unmanned aerial vehicles).

After Bayraktar drones appeared in Ethiopia recently, Turkish officials insisted the drone sale was a purely commercial activity — defense and aviation exports to Ethiopia rose to $95 million this year, up from $235,000 in 2020, the Turkish Exporters Assembly reported.

But in recent days, Turkish officials have privately claimed to have frozen exports to Ethiopia, apparently in response to international pressure over a war that has become a byword for atrocities and starvation.

At least 400,000 people are living in famine-like conditions, according to the United Nations.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 1, 2022 at 7:56am

#China deploys armed robotic ground vehicles during standoff with #India to deal with cold, difficult terrain. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) acquired the vehicles – known as the Sharp Claw and the Mule-200 – as early as 2014 | Fox News

https://www.foxnews.com/world/china-unmanned-vehicles-armed-robots-...

Reports from India claim that China has started to deploy armed robotic vehicles to handle the altitude and terrain that has proven too difficult for its troops.

China and India clashed in Sept. 2020 during a border dispute along the southern coast of Pangong Lake in an area known in China as Shenpaoshan and in India as Chushul, but the armies continued their standoff along the two nations' borders throughout 2021. China has now reportedly deployed unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) to the region of Tibet to strengthen its position.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) acquired the vehicles – known as the Sharp Claw and the Mule-200 – as early as 2014, but they have not seen much deployment until now. The Chinese military has deployed around 120-300 Mules to Tibet, the majority of them stationed near the border, WION News reported.

Operators can control the Claw wirelessly, but it can also move on its own, according to National Interest. The Mule can serve as either an unmanned delivery truck or utilize weapons, such as mounted guns.

The PLA has deployed around 88 Sharp Claws into Tibet, with 38 of them in the western part of the province close to where the Indian and Chinese armies maintain a standoff, Times Now News reported.


The region in which the vehicles may have deployed is described as exceedingly arid, remote, and largely inhospitable. The area mainly serves as access for a few commerce routes to cross the desert.

The PLA has also deployed the VP-22 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle, which can help move troops through the difficult terrain or serve as an ambulance. Most of the 70 units reportedly deployed to Tibet have also focused in the western sector.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic have called on world governments to halt the development of war robots for almost a decade, but efforts continue.

Tech company Zhong Tian Zhu Kong Technology Holdings developed the Mule, which has a range of roughly 31 miles (50 km)and can carry up to 440 pounds (200 kg) of ammunition, supplies or weapons.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Chinese Defense Company NORINCO (China North Industries Corporation) developed the Sharp Claw for reconnaissance and limited engagements. The operator wears a small control unit to utilize the vehicle, Army Recognition reported.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 21, 2022 at 5:47pm

Does Pakistan Have Any Countermeasures?
This begs the question- what strategies and weapons does Pakistan have in its arsenal to counter the S-400s?


https://eurasiantimes.com/challenging-s-400-missiles-pakistan-says-...

Peshawar-based journalist and editor of Global Conflict Watch, Farzana Shah told The EurAsian Times that the “S-400 acquisition by India is a continuation of Delhi’s drive to project her military power in the region. This system will boost Indian air defense capabilities. However, this acquisition was planned and so Pakistan was aware of it.”


Shah said that as an answer to India’s acquisition of this system, Pakistan has inducted a system of similar capability in the form of HQ-9B. “Pakistan Air Force is also evaluating another high-altitude long-range SAM system. S-400 is an expensive ABM system so using it as SAM will be expensive and counterproductive,” she opined.

Mid-October last year, Janes had reported that the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistani military, had issued a press release stating that the Pakistan Army’s (PA) Air Defence forces had inducted a variant of the Chinese-made HQ-9 SAM system in their service.

The HQ-9/P is capable of operating as part of an integrated air and missile defense network. The ISPR noted that the system would be used to “significantly enhance” the ‘Comprehensive Layered Integrated Air Defence (CLIAD)’ along the frontiers of Pakistan.

This system’s engagement range against cruise missiles and aircraft is over 100 kilometers with a claimed high “single-shot kill probability.” However, it is believed that this range actually applies only to aircraft. Engagement ranges against cruise missiles and other such targets are thought to be close to 25 km.

Pakistani journalist Syed Ali Abbas, Managing Editor of Global Defense Insight, said that while Pakistan cannot afford to buy a costly missile defense system like S-400 due to economic constraints, the country already has the tools to counter India’s S-400 acquisition in its inventory.


“For instance, Pakistan’s missiles have the capability to penetrate the S-400; MIRV technology can have a substantial impact on S-400. Moreover, with drones coming to assist on the battlefield, and proving to be notably effective in neutralizing various air defense systems, Pakistan also has the option of the Pakistan Air Force acquiring Turkish Bayraktar drones, coupled with its indigenous armed drone inventory,” he explained.

In July last year, it was reported that Pakistan was looking to acquire armed drones from Turkey, while simultaneously seeking to deepen the already strong bilateral cooperation with Ankara.

Shah highlighted other strategies that the PAF has to deal with the S-400. “Options range from suppressing S-400 radar using stand-off jamming capabilities to taking it out using saturated drone attacks. The system’s radar can pick hundreds of targets but each regiment has only a limited number of interceptor missiles.“

Another weapon that Pakistan could potentially use to deal with the S-400 is the ZF-1 stealth drone. This drone was made specifically to attack heavily defended targets. The drone was promoted at Pakistan’s biennial arms exhibition IDEAS in 2018 by UAS Global.

According to some experts, Pakistan might also benefit indirectly by holding joint military exercises with friendly countries, which already possess the S-400, such as China and Turkey. Such drills might assist in helping Pakistan identify the system’s strengths and weaknesses.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 28, 2022 at 10:22am

#China may sell or help #Pakistan develop its own HGV (Hypersonic Glide Vehicle) or sell #hypersonic DF-17 #missile. It's in response to #India's #Russian S-400 acquisition which may limit Pakistan's use of its own airspace, given its geography/proximity https://www.hindustantimes.com/videos/china-may-sell-pak-its-df-17-...

Pakistan and China have come up with a new strategy in wake of India flexing its military muscle. Experts suggest that China is likely to equip Pakistan with its DF-17 hypersonic missile system in a bid to counter India's S-400 air defence system. Richard D. Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center in an interview has claimed that China is likely to sell the DF-17 or assist Pakistani HGV like it has supported North Korea’s new hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) missile warhead. Hypersonic weapons, which travel at Mach 5 speeds (five times the speed of sound), are difficult to track and engage for air defence systems like S-400, that both India and China possess. Pakistan sees India's acquisition of the S-400 as a threat because of the system's versatility, which allows it to shoot down planes even in Pakistani airspace. A notable element of the S-400 is its potential offensive capabilities, which would limit an adversary's usage of its own airspace. The defensive system can cover a huge portion of Pakistan because of the country's terrain and lengthy border with India.

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https://eurasiantimes.com/china-to-equip-pakistan-with-hypersonic-d...

Richard D. Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, testified before the US Congress about China’s military advances and has written extensively about the People’s Liberation Army.

“To the extent that China has supported North Korea’s new hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) missile warhead, it has or will similarly assist a Pakistani HGV, or just sell the DF-17,” he told Defense News.

Given the air defense system’s superior sensors and the array of missiles, the Indian Media has referred to the S-400 as a “game-changer.” The S-400 employs four different types of surface-to-air missiles having a range from 40 to 400 kilometers.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 12, 2022 at 8:55pm

Turkish Aerospace, Pakistani institution to jointly produce UAV parts

https://www.dailysabah.com/business/defense/turkish-aerospace-pakis...

One of Turkey’s leading unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) producers, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), has inked a contract with Pakistan's National Engineering and Science Commission (NESCOM) to produce components for TAI's medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) combat drone, Anka.

TAI and NESCOM will be jointly responsible for employment, resource and technology transfer within the scope of the agreement that was inked to expand the markets for the Turkish drones, an Anadolu Agency (AA) report said Saturday.

TAI General Manager Temel Kotil said, “The contract we made with Pakistan within the scope of our Anka UAV systems will provide significant gains to the UAV industry. This acquisition, especially with Pakistan’s National Engineering and Science Commission, will strengthen our UAVs.”

The Anka UAV performed its maiden flight in September 2016 and entered serial production in 2017.

The drone, which is manufactured locally, is currently in active use by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), the Gendarmerie General Command and the National Intelligence Organization (MIT).

Anka can stay in the air for more than 24 hours at an altitude of 30,000 feet (9,144 meters) with a payload capacity of 250 kilograms (550 pounds).

Anka has three configurations. The Anka-S configuration has Beyond Line Of Sight (BLOS) capability through satellite links and is being used by the TSK and the Gendarmerie units. The Anka-B configuration can use Link Relay capabilities and is also used by the TSK and the Gendarmerie The Anka-I, which is the configuration that performs signal intelligence, is used by the MIT.

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