Unmanned, Unforgiving: How India, Pakistan Fought A Drone-Only Battle Across The Skies During Operation Sindoor

(Combo Picture) DGMO Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai shows 'Pakistan Armed Drone Destruction: 10 May' during the press briefing on Operation Sindoor at National Media Centre in New Delhi. (File photo: ANI)

New Delhi: An unrelenting hum, a metallic whine and then silence, broken only by the sound of steel crashing from above. May nights in South Asia have never before echoed like this. Between May 6 and 10, India and Pakistan fought something neither side had openly acknowledged before: a war almost entirely driven by drones. There were no tanks charging through valleys and no fighter jets caught in dogfights. Therev were machines in the air and the systems trying to bring them down.

It began with the blood spilled in Pahalgam on April 22. That terror attack triggered India’s precision and caliberated response – Operation Sindoor. For the first time, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were not supporting roles in a border skirmish. They were the war.

India’s strikes were sharp and deliberate. Pakistan’s approach was sheer volume. That difference defined the skies.

A Sky Swarmed with Machines

The numbers were unlike anything seen before in South Asia. In a single night (May 7 into May 8), Pakistan launched 350 to 400 drones, part of a larger wave of over 600 in a few days. The payloads were aimed at India’s military and civilian assets.

Turkey’s Byker Yiha Kamikaze drones were among the frontline swarms. So were the compact Asisguard Songar machines, designed for fast and close-in attacks. The tactic was to overwhelm India’s defences with sheer numbers.

But the response was waiting.

India’s air defence network was awake and ready. The Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS) of the Indian Air Force linked hands with the Akashteer network run by the Army. From the S-400 Triumf system to Barak-8 missiles, from L-70 guns to the vintage ZU-23 twin barrels, India threw up a shield, and most drones never made it past.

What did break through was quickly avenged.

India’s Eyes and Fangs in the Sky

India did not flood the skies. It picked its targets. Strike drones honed in on three key locations inside Pakistan.

Harop drones zeroed in on military infrastructure. Harpy drones cleared the way, silencing air defences. Made with Israeli help, Sky-Strikers blew apart terror launch pads as the first act of Operation Sindoor.

India’s drone forces are not patchwork. They are layered and maturing.

There is the Nagastra, a home-grown loitering munition. The Rustom, Nishant and Lakshya-1, all developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), handle reconnaissance. Then come the imports – IAI Searcher, Heron, Harpy and Harop. All Israeli and tested.

What began as imports is now evolving into joint ventures. Originally Israeli, the Sky-Striker now rolls out of facilities in Bengaluru, co-produced by Elbit Systems and Alpha Design.

By conservative estimates, India’s arsenal holds 2,000 to 2,500 drones. That number is about to rise. Orders are pending. Production is being ramped up. A mega-deal with the United States in 2024 locked in 31 MQ-9B Predator drones. Delivery is due within four years.

Volume and Velocity

Pakistan’s approach to drone warfare is not built around precision. It is a doctrine of mass.

From the Burraq, Pakistan’s first attack-capable drone developed with Chinese help, to the Shahpar, a long-endurance and heavy-payload UAV, it is a fleet built for persistence and saturation.

Pakistan's drone command centre lies at Murid in Chakwal district of Punjab province. That is where the Shahpur, Burraq and Bayraktar drones are kept. And that is exactly what India hit.

Reports say Murid’s infrastructure took direct hits. Strikes there disrupted drone command-and-control setups. It delivered a message that not even the origin points are safe anymore.

Beyond homegrown machines, Pakistan’s fleet pulls heavily from China and Turkiye. Chinese CH-4s, Turkish Bayraktars and the familiar Byker Yiha Kamikaze and Asisguard Songar, it is an alliance of imports, stitched together for rapid deployment.

Though estimates vary, Pakistan’s drone count reportedly crosses 1,000 units.

South Asia’s New Normal

Drones are no longer the future. They are the battleground of now.

Operation Sindoor exposed vulnerabilities, and at the same time, it redefined the war map. Drones, which are cheaper, faster and unmanned, are now central to India-Pakistan escalation. With minimal human risk and dual-use capability for spying and killing, they offer both countries a tempting military lever under the nuclear threshold.

India’s current edge lies in technology, precision and integration. But Pakistan’s alliances with China and Turkiye bring scale, financing and battlefield volume.

What South Asia just witnessed was not a limited skirmish. It was a glimpse of how war will be fought next. The sky is no longer silent. And what flies above is not always alive. But it can kill.

The game has changed. And there is no going back.