Nearly a decade after India first asked the United States about procuring armed Predator-type drones, the two countries signed a $3.8 billion deal for the supply of 31 General Atomics Inc. MQ-9B SeaGuardian and SkyGuardian drones for India’s armed forces. Under the government-to-government contract, the drones will begin delivery in four years or less, with 16 SeaGuardian drones going to the Indian Navy and eight SkyGuardian drones each to the Indian Air Force and Indian Army.
The Indian Ministry of Defence said in a social media post today that it had “inked a contract with the US Government for tri-service procurement of 31 MQ-9B Sky/Sea Guardian High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS). Another contract has been signed with General Atomics Global India Pvt Ltd for performance based logistics for these RPAS through depot level maintenance, repair & overhaul in India.”
In 2017, the Trump Administration had come close to clearing a deal for General Atomics Avenger drones for India. India’s requirements and the deal itself meandered and drifted over a variety of issues from Indian concerns over cost to U.S. Congressional reservations on the sale of such equipment to India, bureaucratic hurdles and more.
The India-U.S. deal comes less than a month after one of two MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones on lease to the Indian Navy and operated by General Atomics Inc. crashed off the coast of Chennai following a technical failure. The drone is believed to have been deemed a write-off and is shortly to be replaced by a second leased airframe. The pair of leased SeaGuardians have performed missions across the navy’s requirements in the Indian Ocean region, including ocean surveillance, sub-surface tracking, anti-piracy missions in the Persian Gulf. Additionally, the drones have pitched in with surveillance duties over India’s restive eastern Ladakh sector to keep tabs on Chinese deployments that sparked a major (and continuing) standoff in 2020.
The SeaGuardian/SkyGuardian drones will be India’s first armed drones. While no public documentation currently lists the weapons package chosen by India, it is likely to include AGM-114 Hellfire guided missiles. For the anti-submarine role, the drones are capable of also deploying a set of sonobuoys. Separately, the Indian Navy has begun inducting India-assembled Israeli Hermes 900 drones, which are capable of deploying weapons, though the Indian airframes haven’t been armed so far.
In the context of the Indian Navy, which gets a lion share of these the U.S drones, the SeaGuardians will plug into an expanding ecosystem of American hardware in its arsenal, including P-8I Poseidon long range surveillance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft and MH-60R Sea Hawk anti-submarine warfare helicopters.