7 Jaw-Dropping ‘Jugaad’ Hacks Used by Indian and Pakistani Militaries Revealed
Chandigarh: Endemically plagued by budgetary constraints, import restrictions, and bureaucratic delays in materiel procurement, both India and Pakistan have long relied on jugaad, or locally executed battlefield improvisations, to keep their respective militaries effectively operational.
Whether it is retrofitting legacy combat aircrafts, refurbishing Cold War-era air defence systems, patching submarines, hacking together heating systems in high-altitude bunkers or adapting civilian platforms for military employment, both the nuclear-armed rivals have consistently turned inherent constraint into invention, forging capability where none existed.
Over decades, these two militaries had become adept at successfully marrying systems that were never meant to meet.
Through jugaad, field commanders, mechanics and technologists – military and civilian – have reframed the rules of physics, engineering and industrial logic to augment their respective materiel capabilities.
In executing these retrofits, they had improvised solutions in rudimentary workshops, far removed from air-conditioned and antiseptic corporate research and development laboratories and factories. But the outcome eventually enabled legacy and even a smattering of modern platforms, to perform well beyond what their original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) had envisioned.
To most Western militaries, however, jugaad was not only unimaginable but reckless and irresponsible.
Trained in precision, redundancy and systematised logistics, many Western and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) militaries regarded Indian and Pakistani ethos of battlefield improvisation with bewilderment, albeit with some riveting, but objectionable fascination.
From fitting tractor parts into tanks to splicing together mismatched electronic systems, jugaad was ingenuity born of necessity – an approach largely alien to most Western militaries. The very idea of a damaged fighter jet patched up by a local mechanic or ironmonger, or a tank or infantry combat vehicle (ICV) being jump-started by villagers, would appear absurd to NATO planners.
Yet, in the Indian and Pakistani militaries, jugaad was neither rare nor remarkable – it was routine, accepted without question, and seldom raised eyebrows. Both sides knew it defied conventional technological norms, but they also knew from hard experience that it worked where it mattered: in operational reality.
Among innumerable examples of jugaad, some that featured in last month’s Operation Sindoor stand out.
Prime amongst these were the Indian army and Indian Air Force (IAF) units’ deployment of Soviet-era – and even World War II-vintage air defence systems – which, after ingenious jugaad, delivered lethal precision, effectively neutralising incoming Pakistani missiles and armed kamikaze drone swarms.
Ranged in coordinated ambush formations, alongside assorted advanced Indigenous and imported air defence platforms, these jugaad-aided units included Pechora (NATO: S-125M) and OSA-AK (NATO: SA-8 Gecko) surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, ZSU-23-4 Shilka and L/70 Bofors anti-aircraft guns, and Igla-1E Man-Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS).
Indian army engineers, Defence Public Sector Units and private vendors had retrofitted all these vintage systems with digital fire-control and networked integration systems, electro-optical sights, thermal imagers and laser rangefinders, significantly enhancing their target tracking and elimination capability.
Their collective, flawlessly networked performance, as part of the low-level air defence (LLAD) grid during four days of Operation Sindoor, spread over a 1,500 km swathe of territory from Kashmir in the north to Bhuj in the west, demonstrated that aged military equipment did not mean obsolescence when field ingenuity jugaad was applied to meet modern combat demands.
Elsewhere, the Indian army’s Chetak and Cheetah light utility helicopters – derivatives of the 1960s French Alouette III and SA-315B Lama – continue to fly daily missions to and from the Siachen Glacier at altitudes exceeding 14,000 feet, far beyond their original design limits. Though their French OEMs had never envisaged such extreme and harsh operational conditions for these platforms, inventive jugaad has kept these rotorcraft airworthy and effective, even today.
Likewise, the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) MiG-21 ‘Fishbed’ fleet of ground-attack fighters, inducted in the early 1960s, too saw extensive retrofits in the 1990s. About 125 of these aircraft were upgraded to MiG-21 ‘Bis’ standards, by locally integrating Russian, French, Israeli and Indian avionics, sensors, radar and weapons, thereby extending their operational life by nearly 30 years. Two MiG-21 ‘Bis’ squadrons were still operational, though slated for imminent retirement, 62 years after this fighter type joined IAF service in 1963.
Even frontline IAF platforms like the multi-role Sukhoi Su-30MKIs had benefited from jugaad.
These heavy, twin-engine fighters now carried Russian armaments, alongside locally-developed Astra MkI beyond-visual-range-air to-air missiles (80–110 km range) and the Indo-Russian BrahMos cruise missile, both of which reportedly played a key strike role during Op Sindoor. IAF veteran fighter pilots agreed that this hybrid jugaad on Su-30MKIs exemplified India’s tactical adaptation under technological and fiscal constraints.
A precedent for such battlefield improvisation was set earlier, during the 1999 Kargil War, when IAF Mirage 2000H fighters were hastily adapted to deliver indigenous 1,000 lb laser-guided bombs with devastating precision on Pakistani positions in the Himalayas—an early and decisive example of jugaad in high-intensity warfare.
Indian Army field units too constantly innovated—retrofitting civilian truck parts into military vehicles, using commercial batteries for communication sets, and upgrading surveillance gear with off-the-shelf drones and thermal cameras during counter-insurgency operations. Tractor engines were cannibalised and modified to power infantry combat vehicles like Soviet-era BMP-1/2s, bunkers were reinforced with scrap metal and jury-rigged heating systems were common adaptations in high-altitude zones.
One notable example of jugaad was the Arjun Main Battle Tank (MBT) simulator, developed jointly by the army and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) using commercially available PlayStation gaming hardware. Replacing expensive imported simulators with PlayStation joysticks and graphics cards drastically cut costs, while retaining full functionality, rendering it a textbook case of jugaad overcoming procurement bottlenecks.
Jugaad also extended the life span of the Indian Navy’s (INs) aging platforms, like the Sindhughosh-class (Russian Kilo-class) diesel-electric submarines, through mid-life refits executed by Indian shipyards. Indigenous components were retrofitted to upgrade multiple combat systems and force multipliers, while naval dockyards routinely fabricated parts at little-known workshops to repair and retrofit assorted platforms.
Older warships, like aircraft carrier INS Viraat—decommissioned in early 2017—and Rajput-class destroyers had remained operational far beyond their intended lifespans, through a jugaad patchwork of indigenous spares, cannibalisation, and retrofitted electronics. State-owned naval dockyards also routinely manufactured bespoke components, modernised old sonar systems with domestic processors, and upgraded communication suites using commercial off-the-shelf technology.
However, jugaad remained banned on all US defence equipment – of which India has acquired over $20 billion worth since 2002 – due to the strict bilateral ‘End Use Monitoring Agreement’ and intellectual property protections, amongst other protective measures. This restriction limited India’s ability to modify or indigenise US platforms like transport and naval surveillance aircraft and attack and heavy lift helicopters, thereby constraining strategic autonomy and complicating maintenance, repair and overhaul all of which posed a subtle friction point in otherwise growing defence cooperation between Washington and Delhi.
Analogously, Pakistan’s state-monopolised defence industry – led by Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) at Wah, Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT) at Taxila and Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) at Kamra in Punjab province and Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works in Sindh – have long relied on reverse engineering, cannibalisation of old platforms and resourceful jugaad.
A prime example was the Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) fleet of French-origin Mirage III and Mirage-5 fighters, some dating back to the 1960s. Over the years, the PAF had acquired second-hand Mirages from countries like Australia, Libya and Lebanon and cannibalised them for spares.
Alongside this, under Project ROSE (Retrofit of Strike Element), PAC engineers not only refurbished Mirage III and Mirage-5 airframes, but upgraded the fighters with Chinese and locally sourced avionics, navigational systems, night-attack capability, and precision-guided weaponry. Some of these modernised Mirages were reportedly deployed by the PAF during Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos (Wall of Lead) – Pakistan’s riposte to Op Sindoor.
One of Pakistan’s most effective jugaad-driven capability enhancements, however, involved its Saab 2000 Erieye Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) platforms, which played a pivotal role in the recent hostilities.
Central to the PAF’s aerial defence architecture and a key force multiplier, these Swedish-origin Saab 2000 AEW&C aircraft had recently been upgraded with the Czech-made VERA-E passive surveillance systems – a sophisticated “listener” device that tracked aerial, land and maritime targets by passively analysing their electromagnetic emissions, all while remaining invisible to enemy sensors.
In addition, these platforms are also believed to be equipped with Chinese CHL-906 electronic warfare systems, further enhancing their capability for radar reconnaissance, jamming, and command-and-control, significantly boosting their effectiveness in contested battle spaces like in Op Sindoor.
According to multiple security analysts and military commentators, the Saab 2000s, augmented by these two jugaad-enabled surveillance and electronic warfare systems, likely played a pivotal role in the downing of IAF fighters during the early hours of Operation Sindoor on May 7.
In interviews with Bloomberg TV and Reuters, India’s Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Anil Chauhan, acknowledged these IAF losses last week, attributing them to initial tactical missteps which could well have encompassed ‘miscalculating’ the Erieye’s monitoring and tracking capabilities. The CDS further noted that IAF’s shortcomings were swiftly corrected within 48 hours, though he declined to disclose further operational details.
Meanwhile, the PAF’s Beijing-supplied JF-17 ‘Thunder’ fighters were themselves a patchwork of jugaad – combining a Chinese-designed airframe, Russian RD-93 engines, Western canopy glass, and a mix of Chinese and Western avionics and munitions, depending on availability and embargo conditions. Strategic necessity in the JF-17, it seemed, had met with opportunistic adaptability.
In counterinsurgency and internal security operations, the Pakistan Army frequently improvised. Workshops in Peshawar and Rawalpindi converted civilian vehicles into lightly armoured carriers or mobile gun platforms. Even Soviet-era GAZ jeeps were modified with drone jammers and commercial drone launchers. Surveillance and electronic warfare systems were often cobbled together from off-the-shelf components or adapted from Chinese kits, particularly for operations in Balochistan and along the Afghan border.
Surprisingly, the Pakistan Army still operated US-built, Vietnam-era M113 Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) from the 1960s which were kept operational through jugaad-driven retrofits.
These legacy platforms had been upgraded with locally made or Chinese-origin weapons and communication systems, allowing them to remain relevant in counterinsurgency operations. Some had even been deployed with Pakistan Army contingents on United Nations peacekeeping missions, distinguishable by their white UN livery – a testament to the platform’s adaptability and the Pakistan military’s improvisational ethos.
Furthermore, Pakistan’s MBTs like Al-Khalid (co-developed with China) and Ukrainian-origin T-80UD, were regularly upgraded, while older models like the Chinese Type-59 and Russian T-55 were cannibalised for spares and some fitted with modern fire-control systems, reactive armour and enhanced engines to keep them combat-relevant.
Even the Pakistan Navy adopted a jugaad – extending the service life of its aging Chinese and French submarines and its modest surface fleet by retrofitting them with Chinese and Turkish sensors, combat systems and weaponry.
In conclusion, jugaad endures across India and Pakistan, not merely as a coping mechanism, but as a defining ethos of military ingenuity.
It reflected each side’s capacity to improvise, adapt and overcome scarcity and turn it into tactical and operational advantage. Such spirit echoed the enduring wisdom of US General George S. Patton, who famously said: “Don’t tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity”.
The Americans and Europeans may have drifted far from this principle but desi’s on both sides of the Radcliffe Line not only continue to embody it but have made an art of improving upon it.
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