India’s Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) will bid to supply electronic warfare systems for the Mi-17V5 helicopter which India has purchased from Russia.
“We are bidding for the project by the Indian MoD for requirements in regard to the Mi-17V5 fleet,” MV Gautama, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Electronics during the AeroIndia 2017 airshow Wednesday. BEL has expertise in ESM, electronic attack equipment such as jammers and radar warning systems.
In September 2015, the Indian MoD had issued an Request for information (RFI) to procure electronic warfare (EW) suite for all Mi-17 V5 helicopters restricted to Indian Original Equipment Manufacturers.
According to the RFI, the EW suite meant for Mi-17 V5 will comprise of Radar Warning Receiver (RWR), Missile Approach Warning System (MAWS) and Counter Measure Dispensing System (CMDS) and a limited number of Laser Warning Receiver (LWR) and Directed Infrared Counter Measure (DIRCM) for some Mi-17 helicopters.
India has 148 Mi-17 V5 helicopters ordered in 2012. It has further approved purchase of additional 48 Mi-17 V5 helicopters for US $1.1billion of which 16 will be used for VVIP transport.
The Integrated EW suite is intended to provide capability of intercepting, identifying, prioritizing and displaying airborne and ground based threat from radars and missiles to the pilot and effectively provide self-protection to the helicopter against radar controlled weapon and IR seeking missiles by employing different counter measures (Chaffs, flares, directed infra-red, etc.).
According to the RFI, Integrated EW Suite would comprise RWR, MAWS and cued CMDS.The RFI was reissued late 2016 as there were no response to the earlier RFI.
By Baishakhi Dutta
