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The battlespace just above the treetops and below traditional fighter altitudes, the air littoral has become the most contested and decisive layer of modern warfare. Now saturated with drones, loitering munitions, attack helicopters, MANPADS and SHORAD systems, this altitude band has transformed from a tactical seam into a continuous combat zone shaped by sensors, data and distributed effects.
For India, whose operational environment spans high-altitude terrain, dense urban corridors and heavily surveilled borders, dominance of the air littoral is no longer optional – it is foundational. The rapid evolution of unmanned threats across India’s western and northern fronts is forcing a generational shift in how the country thinks about airpower, force protection and joint operations. And like the world’s leading militaries, India is arriving at the same conclusion: control of the air littoral will be decided not by individual platforms, but by how effectively manned and unmanned systems can team to sense, decide and strike together.
A Crowded Sky with No Sanctuary
Conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and the South Caucasus show that the air littoral has become a zone of constant contact. Small UAVs stalk armour, loitering munitions hunt air-defence radars, helicopters operate under persistent missile and drone threat, and electronic warfare attempts to blind or deceive every sensor in the sky.
Ukraine’s experience has demonstrated that survivability now comes from dispersion, deception and real-time sensor fusion, not armour or speed. AI-enabled FPV swarms launched from larger “mothership” drones, and battlefield networks that compress kill chains to minutes, show how quickly the tactical sky is shifting away from platform-centric thinking.
Why Manned Platforms Cannot Operate Alone
In this environment, helicopters and slow-moving manned aircraft face overlapping threats from MANPADS, anti-aircraft guns, loitering munitions and autonomous strike drones. The answer is not to retire crewed aviation, but to redefine its role.
Manned–Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T) has emerged as the organising principle. Crewed platforms are evolving into airborne command nodes that orchestrate unmanned teammates with sensors, EW payloads, or precision weapons. Western militaries are already rewriting doctrine around this model, from the U.S. Army’s Apache upgrades for counter-drone and MUM-T missions to the Royal Navy’s use of helicopter-launched drones to extend situational awareness without exposing crews.
India Brings the Air Littoral to the Forefront
India’s own defence ecosystem is beginning to shift in this direction and quickly.
Large-Scale Training and Threat Recognition
India’s recent biggest-ever drone exercise, focused on testing air-defence resilience and counter-UAV integration, signals an important recognition: low-altitude threats are now central, not peripheral, to India’s warfighting calculus.
Indigenous Teaming Ecosystem
Projects such as the Combat Air Teaming System (CATS), loyal wingman programmes, armed tactical UAVs, and indigenous loitering munitions show India building a distributed airpower architecture rather than relying on single, exquisite platforms.
Mobile Counter-Drone and Layered Defence
Indian forces are investing in mobile counter-UAV systems for manoeuvre units, indicating a shift from static point defence to layered air-littoral protection, exactly the model validated in recent conflicts.
Building the Sensor and Data Backbone
Perhaps most importantly, Indian R&D institutions and private industry are advancing secure data links, AI-enabled processing, and battlefield management systems designed to operate in a contested electromagnetic environment. Without this, even the best drones or helicopters cannot operate as a coherent team.
Sensor Fusion: The True Decider of Air Littoral Dominance
The centre of gravity in the air littoral is shifting toward information superiority. The force that can integrate video feeds, radar returns, electronic emissions and target updates into a single, dynamic battlespace picture will control the tempo of combat.
Recent wars have shown that drones become exponentially more lethal when plugged into battle-management systems that can prioritise targets, cue shooters and de-conflict airspace automatically. It is where India’s investments in AI-enabled fusion, secure comms and EW-resilient networks will matter far more than the number of UAVs fielded.
Air Defence: Offence and Defence Become One Fight
The proliferation of unmanned threats means even small units may face multiple drones within minutes. Effective defence now requires seamless coordination between:
- UAV reconnaissance,
- electro-optical sensors,
- electronic warfare assets, and
- short-range shooters on the ground.
In the air littoral, offence and defence are interconnected. Helicopters directing unmanned scouts, counter-UAV teams protecting manoeuvre formations, and command nodes fusing data must operate under unified logic to avoid fratricide or jamming.
Winning the Tactical Sky
The new decisive advantage lies not in speed or payload, but in the quality of the network, how well sensors, shooters and algorithms work together across manned and unmanned platforms.
Manned–Unmanned Teaming is no longer an aspiration – it is a reality. It is becoming the doctrinal backbone for operating under 5,000 feet, where threats are dense, timelines are short, and information is the key weapon.
For India, whose strategic environment compresses reaction windows and demands persistent awareness, embracing MUM-T is not just about matching global trends. It is about securing the battlespace most likely to decide future conflicts. The side that can see first, decide fastest and act as a distributed network will dominate the air littoral — and the battlefield below.
Huma Siddiqui
