The Indian Army has started installing simple yet highly effective physical barriers to counter the growing threat of hostile drones targeting forward air assets along the western borders. These structures, often described as “anti-drone cages,” use a framework of metal scaffolding covered with durable nylon netting to shield helicopters and jets from low-flying unmanned aerial vehicles.
Designed for quick deployment, a standard enclosure can be assembled by a small team of soldiers in under an hour. While the nets are not meant to stop bullets, they are strong enough to trap or damage the rotors and wings of small drones – a tactic proven successful during multiple field evaluations conducted in recent months. These tests demonstrated that such barriers can neutralise a wide variety of UAV types, including quadcopters and compact fixed-wing drones carrying small explosive payloads.
The adoption of these passive barriers follows increased reports of drone activity near military installations and the memory of past attacks that exposed vulnerabilities at key airbases. The new structures now serve as a last-line defensive layer, especially for helicopters like Chetak, Cheetah, and Dhruv operating close to the border. Larger variants of these enclosures are also being used to create covered pathways, offering additional protection to fighter aircraft positioned in exposed flight-line areas.
What makes the system particularly valuable is its low cost and operational simplicity. With no requirement for electricity, jamming equipment, or complex radar integration, these barriers offer immediate and reliable protection without interfering with electronic systems. Compared to high-end air-defence solutions or kinetic interceptors, the physical net-based system delivers substantial cost savings while providing dependable shielding against small but dangerous drone intrusions.
As drone warfare evolves and hostile UAVs become cheaper and more sophisticated, the Indian Army’s decision to adopt these easily deployable protective structures underscores a broader shift towards layered, practical, and cost-effective defence mechanisms along the western frontiers.
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