Illustration for representation. (© India Sentinels 2026–27)
New Delhi: The Indian Army has begun raising dedicated drone units within its armoured regiments. The drone units would be embedded at company level alongside tank troops in what marks a significant doctrinal shift in how the Army intends to fight future land wars.
The units, named Shaurya Squadrons, follow the integration of drone sub-units in the infantry and artillery, and represent the extension of that model into armoured warfare. Each squadron is expected to comprise 20–25 specially trained personnel and field a mix of surveillance drones, attack drones, and loitering munitions, giving frontline tank commanders real-time reconnaissance, targeting, and precision-strike capability without having to route requests up the chain of command.
The structural logic is deliberate. By placing these assets at the same level as armoured companies – formations that typically consist of around a dozen tanks and upwards of 100 personnel – the Army seeks to eliminate the lag between spotting a threat and acting on it. Officials have described the intended effect as “see deeper, strike faster”.
Among the systems being considered are first-person view drones capable of striking enemy armour and logistics nodes. The concept, however, remains in its early phases and will be expanded incrementally.
Lessons drawn from Ukraine and Gaza
The initiative reflects a broader rethinking of armoured warfare that has been gathering pace since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the fighting in Gaza. Both conflicts demonstrated that conventional tank formations are acutely vulnerable to cheap, proliferated drone technology – whether commercially available quadcopters modified for grenade drops or purpose-built first-person view (FPV) drones capable of threading into vehicle hatches and engine compartments.
Ukraine, in particular, has seen armoured advances stalled and vehicles destroyed at scale by drone operators working in small, agile teams close to the front. The counterlesson drawn by many armies, including the Indian Army, is that the answer lies partly in providing armoured units with their own drone capabilities, rather than relying on higher-echelon air support that may not be available at the critical moment.
First unit already operational
The White Tiger Division, under the Bhopal headquartered XXI Corps, which is also named Sudarshan Chakra Corps, has already raised the first Shaurya Squadron. The unit was recently exercised during Exercise Amogh Jwala at the Babina field firing ranges in Madhya Pradesh, where it demonstrated real-time reconnaissance and coordinated strike drills alongside armoured elements.
The Sudarshan Chakra Corps is one of the Army’s principal strike formations and holds responsibility for a segment of the western front facing Pakistan. Its selection as the site of the first such unit suggests the Army views the drone-armour integration as a priority for high-intensity conventional scenarios.
Scale of the armoured fleet
The Indian Army maintains 67 armoured units, including the President’s Bodyguard, the oldest and most ceremonially prominent. Its operational tank fleet stands at roughly 5,000 vehicles across three main platforms: the Russian-origin T-90 Bhishma, the older T-72 Ajeya, and the indigenously developed Arjun-Mk1A. Rolling out Shaurya Squadrons across that force will take time, and officials have indicated the expansion will proceed in phases.
The Army has in recent years also been pushing drone integration through its “integrated drone grid” initiative and has used various exercises to test autonomous and semi-autonomous systems in contested environments. The Shaurya Squadron model is consistent with that broader effort, though it represents a more organic and distributed approach – putting the capability in the hands of the unit that needs it most, at the moment it needs it.
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© India Sentinels 2026-27
