By IANS
New Delhi : Military observers from 94 countries, including China, will witness a joint war game to be conducted by the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force in the deserts of Rajasthan next week – but Pakistan has not been invited.
“China will be there, Pakistan will not be there,” an Indian Army spokesman said Thursday of Exercise Brazen Chariots to be conducted at the Pokhran firing range March 19.
“The CBMs (confidence building measures) with Pakistan are not what they were,” the spokesman added.
“Brazen Chariots has been conceptualised for exercising combat groups consisting of tanks, infantry combat vehicles and infantry in high mobility vehicles, ably supported by air power,” the spokesman said.
“This will be complemented by weapon platforms of supporting arms to fine tune essential tactical applications on the battlefield,” he added.
The exercise will be conducted by an Indian Army desert formation that together with the IAF will put to test an array of their latest weapon systems like the state-of-the-art missile firing T-90 tanks, all-weather air defence missile systems and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), as also other electronic sensors and surveillance equipment.
“The IAF would closely support the surface forces by inducting airborne troops and providing logistical support while fighter aircraft like the Su-30MKI, Jaguar, MiG-27, MiG-21 and armed helicopters would unleash their firepower to devastating effect,” the spokesman said.
“The synergy with the IAF would highlight the shape of future operations, which would be joint and seamless,” he added.
The war game will also see the deployment of comprehensive communication and data linking systems like the Battlefield Surveillance System (BSS) and the Force Multiplier Command Post (FMCP).
“Hi-tech weaponry and war fighting support systems are essential pre-requisites to success in battle. Thus, the exercise will challenge the military leadership at various levels in their ability to synergize the application of these systems for achieving optimum results,” the spokesman said.
While the Indian Army and the IAF regularly conduct separate and joint war games, this is the first time in four years they will be exercising on such a large scale.
According to the spokesman, major military campaigns in the recent past have shown that the success rate is the highest when a force is logically balanced with components of aerospace, surface and sub-surface forces.
“Such a force applied in a coordinated manner and keeping the tenets of all
the components in mind offers a decisive advantage,” he pointed out.
“All militaries strive to achieve this through jointness. The Indian armed forces too are alive to this situation,” the spokesman added.