But one piece of kit that has repeatedly proved its relevance is the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), a remotely piloted aircraft that circles several thousand feet over a target area, continuously relaying high-definition pictures to a monitor, far away.
The UAV has shown, in counter-insurgency and in anti-terrorist operations as much as in war, the critical importance of an "eye in the sky".
Unsurprisingly then, India's Defence R&D Organisation