Air defence system in Lahore ‘neutralised’ by Indian Armed Forces: What does this mean?

India’s action was in response to Pakistan’s activities earlier in the day. The press release said that late on the night of May 7, “Pakistan attempted to engage a number of military targets in Northern and Western India… These were neutralised by the Integrated Counter UAS Grid and Air Defence systems. The debris of these attacks is now being recovered from a number of locations that prove the Pakistani attacks.”

The situation is rapidly developing, with the government sharing information at regular intervals.

What does it mean that an air defence system at Lahore has been neutralised? What is an “air defence system” generally, and how does it work?

What is an air defence system?

An air defence system is a series of mechanisms working in tandem to protect against enemy air strikes.

The most commonly known element of an air defence system is a surface-to-air missile (SAM) or a Ground-to-Air Missile (GTAM), which is basically a missile launched from the ground to intercept an enemy missile or aircraft. But SAM is just one component of an elaborate system. How layered the system is depends on the military capabilities of a country.

The main functions of an air defence system are identifying, tracking, and then engaging the enemy missile. Thus, radars, jammers, and air sirens are all parts of an air defence system. A radar transmits radio waves, which hit an object and come back to the radar, thus telling the radar about the incoming object.

Once a missile or aircraft has been identified, the human personnel present decide how to deal with it. This involves judging how big the incoming threat is, and which weapon system should be deployed to deal with it, where the SAM are commonly used.

A SAM can have various strike ranges. It can be launched to either hit and take down the enemy aircraft, or the ammunition the aircraft is dropping. The missile intercepts the missile or bomb or drone being dropped and makes sure it goes off in the air, before it can hit its intended target. Often, this interception happens so high up in the air that even the debris of the incoming ammunition evaporates before it can touch the ground.

Here, it is also important to understand the difference between a missile and a bomb — a missile has its own engine and follows a guided or partially guided projectile trajectory, while a bomb depends on gravity to fall down and hit its target.

Destroying a city’s air defence systems is usually done as a preparation to bombing the city, or select locations within the city.

Is there anything else?

What has just been described generally falls under Active Defensive Counter Air operations. NATO in a research paper mentions two other mechanisms.

Passive Defensive Counter Air (P-DCA)

Passive Defensive Counter Air measures are used to minimise the effects enemy raids might have. “Key facilities are hardened and protected, and may be duplicated or otherwise backed up by use of redundancy.

Camouflage, Concealment and Deception may be used to prevent direct attacks on likely targets, supported by an effective civil defence organisation to provide fire-fighting, medical, rescue and recovery services,” the research paper says.

Offensive Counter Air (OCA)

Then is Offensive Counter Air, which basically means compromising the enemy’s strike capability “through direct action”, the paper says.

Pakistan’s air defence systems have weapons bought from Turkey and China in recent times (as the bigger powers would either not sell to it or were too expensive for it) along with some older weapon systems from the US and some Soviet-era weapons.