By Vishnu Makhijani, IANS
Pokhran (Rajasthan) : Tanks rumbled across the sand, artillery guns boomed out a cacophony and combat jets dropped precision-guided bombs as India’s military staged a war game in the Rajasthan desert watched by over 100 foreign observers.
“Blazing Chariots”, as the exercise was named, saw the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force (IAF) coming together Wednesday as the Blue force to “invade” neighbouring Red land to forestall its threatened aggression.
“No, this exercise was not aimed at anyone, nor are we trying to send out a message. We are only demonstrating the synergy that exists between us and the air force,” the Indian Army chief, Gen. Deepak Kapoor, said of the day-long drill that was jointly staged by the army’s Pune-based Southern Command and the IAF’s Gandhinagar-based South West Air Command.
Most of the foreign military observers from 59 countries that witnessed the event seemed to agree, terming it an “excellent” and “admirable” effort.
Be that as it may, it was apparent that the exercise was meant to send out a strong signal to Pakistan, to other countries in India’s neighbourhood and to the world at large that New Delhi was a major player on the regional and global stage.
Reinforcing this was the fact Pakistan was not even invited to the event – while China was.
The exercise was conducted in two parts. In the first, the foreign observers were taken on a 20-km ride through a simulated desert battlefield that had been overrun by the Blue forces.
Along the way, there was live firing as the mighty Bofors 155mm field howitzers displayed their ability to quickly deploy on the battlefield, the Smersh multi-barrelled rocket launcher sent salvo after salvo into the air and the army and the air force first inserted and then extracted a commando team deep behind enemy lines.
The second part saw frontline IAF SU-30MKI and MiG-27 combat jets pulverize an enemy position before a combination of armour and mechanized infantry went in for the kill.
“We already knew India’s armed forces are very professional. The exercise has only reinforced this,” Col. Yossi Turgeman, the Israeli military attaché in India, told IANS at the conclusion of the event.
“The aim was to conduct air and land operations in a mechanized environment to deliver an integrated and lethal blow,” explained Maj. Gen. G.P. Kamath, General Officer Commanding of the Indian Army’s 12 Division that was in the forefront of the exercise.
“This is in keeping with our doctrine of moving away from attrition to manoeuvre warfare. The power of manoeuvre warfare (which essentially involves outflanking the enemy), coupled with network-centric operations enables us achieve shock and awe and degradation of a scale that there is nothing left to target,” Kamath told the observers before the exercise started.
After the smoke had cleared away, that indeed was the case.
The exercise put to test an array of the army and the IAF’s 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 closely supported the surface forces by inducting airborne troops and providing logistical support while fighter aircraft like the Su-30MKI, MiG-27, MiG-21 and armed helicopters unleashed their firepower to devastating effect.
“This synergy with the IAF highlights the shape of future operations, which would be joined and seamless,” Kamath pointed out at the conclusion of the event.
The war game also saw 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 challenged the military leadership at various levels in their ability to synergize the application of these systems for achieving optimum results,” the spokesman said.
The Indian Army and the IAF regularly conduct separate and joint war games, but this was the first time in four years they were exercising on such a large scale.