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| India-Pakistan |
| Quietly, IAF tests its sting on western front |
| 2007-09-14 |
| NEW DELHI: Even as all eyes were on the five-nation Malabar war games in the Bay of Bengal over the weekend, the Indian Air Force quietly conducted a massive 'realistic war games' exercise along the entire western front, focusing on launching a simultaneous blitzkrieg on multiple high-value enemy targets. The exercise, 'Abhyas', which was much more operationally relevant than 'Malabar', was launched on Monday with scores of fighter jets, attack helicopters, mid-air refuellers, transport aircraft and UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) taking to the skies. If the Malabar war games were all about building "interoperability" with American forces, 'Abhyas' was structured around the concept of "hitting the political will" of an adversary (read Pakistan) and ensuring "clear-cut advantages" at the termination of a conflict. Western Air Command (WAC) chief Air Marshal P S Ahluwalia "activated" almost all the airbases under him for the power-packed exercise, which ended on Thursday, said sources. The most operationally significant IAF command, WAC stretches from Ladakh right up to Bikaner, covering an area of about 4,00,000 sq km. It controls 18 important airbases, among them Srinagar, Leh, Thoise, Awantipur, Ambala, Amritsar, Halwara, Bikaner, Nal and Udhampur. Taken together with the Army's 'Ashwamedh' war games in the Thar desert earlier this year, the 'Abhyas' exercise clearly indicates that the armed forces are now testing their "pro-active war" strategies. It was 'Operation Parakram', the ten-month troop mobilisation on the Indo-Pak border after the December 2001 parliament attack, which drove home the point that slow mobilisation will just not do any longer. The idea now is to mobilise fast and strike hard. This will not only ensure surprise in enemy ranks, but also give the international community less time to intervene. During the 'Abhyas' exercise, the Red forces simulated the "mirror reflection" of Pakistan bases to take on the incoming "offensive air waves" of Sukhoi-30MKI, Jaguars, MiG-21 Bison and Mirage-2000 fighters from the Blue forces. The "military objectives" of three Army commands—South-Western Command at Jaipur, Northern Command at Udhampur and Western Command at Chandimandir—were also dovetailed into the exercise to bolster operational synergy. This is in tune with the concept of the primacy of air power in 'shaping' the battlefield in such a way that the Army, as also the Navy, can carry out theirdesignated tasks. The objective, of course, is to build an integrated air and land war-fighting machinery to take care of any exigency in the entire western theatre, with both the Army and the IAF acting in close coordination with each other as one organic whole. All this comes at a time when the IAF squadron strength is dwindling, down to just about 30 (with 12 to 18 jets in each) from a sanctioned strength of 39.5 squadrons. Pakistan, on the other hand, is getting 18 new F-16s from the US, apart from upgrades of its 34 existing F-16s, and also plans to acquire as many as 250 JF-17 'Thunder' fighters from China. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #2 This will not only ensure surprise in enemy ranks, but also give the international community less time to intervene. Sounds like they learned this lesson from last year's scuffle between Israel and Hezbollah. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2007-09-14 14:58 |
| #1 Call me when they get around to Operation Kama Sutra..... |
| Posted by: Omusoter Borgia8612 2007-09-14 00:19 |