Military platforms, drones and new weapons

Prelims and Mains

The Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) is India's planned fifth-generation fighter, a stealth design. The engine is the part it cannot yet be given at home, and in August a partnership to develop one was announced.

• Reliance Industries and Rolls-Royce announced plans to design, develop and manufacture an indigenous engine for the aircraft.
• They will also explore an aerospace gas turbine complex in India as a centre for propulsion technology.
• Bids for the AMCA's development were extended to 30 October 2026.

Prelims and Mains

A drone or a compact missile needs an engine small enough to carry and cheap enough to lose, which is a different problem from powering a fighter. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research's National Aerospace Laboratories (CSIR-NAL) unveiled three indigenous engines of that class.

• The NJ-05, NJ-50 and NJ-100 are rated at 5, 50 and 100 kg thrust.
• They are meant for tactical unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), drone interceptors and compact missiles.

Prelims and Mains

An ordinary engine burns its fuel steadily; this one sets off a shock wave and keeps it running round in a circle. An Indian startup demonstrated one at a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) facility in Hyderabad.

• A rotating detonation engine (RDE) burns fuel in a continuous detonation wave travelling around a ring shaped chamber, rather than by steady combustion.
• In theory its thermodynamic efficiency is 10 to 25 per cent higher, which suits rockets and hypersonic missiles.
• Sustaining a stable detonation, and finding materials that survive the heat, remain hard.
• Every such engine is still in research.

Prelims and Mains

Watching an ocean is a matter of endurance rather than speed. India is taking that endurance on lease rather than buying it.

• The Ministry of Defence signed a contract with General Atomics to lease two MQ-9B Sea Guardian drones for the Navy, for 30 months.
• They are high altitude long endurance (HALE) remotely piloted aircraft, built to loiter at height for very long sorties and carrying advanced sensors.
• They are to strengthen maritime domain awareness and surveillance across the Indian Ocean Region.

Background reading: PIB, 17 Aug 2026: MQ-9B Sea Guardian drones leased for the Navy (opens in a new tab)

Prelims

A diving support vessel is built around pressure rather than firepower. Its work is to keep divers alive while they are down, and to be overhead when a submarine cannot come up.

• Indian Naval Ship (INS) Nipun, the Navy's second Nistar class diving support vessel, was commissioned.
• It follows INS Nistar, and like it was built by Hindustan Shipyard Limited.
• It supports saturation diving, so divers can work on the seabed for days at a time.
• Its hyperbaric lifeboat evacuates divers still under pressure, so an emergency does not force a rapid decompression.
• It is the mother ship for a Deep Submergence Rescue Vessel (DSRV), which rescues the crew of a disabled submarine.

Mains

The kill chain runs find, fix, track, target, engage and assess. Its weak point was always the human capacity to fuse imagery, signals and other intelligence fast enough, which is the gap artificial intelligence now fills. A one way attack drone flies to its target and destroys itself. Akashteer is India's indigenous automated air defence control and reporting system.

Prelims

Project 17A is the Navy's class of seven stealth frigates, designed by its Warship Design Bureau and built at Mazagon Dock and Garden Reach with more than 75 per cent indigenous content.

Prelims

The Mahe class craft hunt submarines in coastal waters too shallow for larger ships; sixteen are being built at two shipyards.

Prelims and Mains

The Mk II is DRDO's airborne early warning aircraft built on a converted A321 airliner, with the radar and mission systems developed in India.