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| India-Pakistan |
| Indian Army 'Cold Start' wargames in May |
| 2006-04-15 |
| The Army’s most complex offensive Corps-level exercise, to test parts of the new war doctrine that relate to Cold Start strategies, gets underway next month in Punjab by Ambala-based 2 Corps. The exercise, to be held in the general area of Jalandhar, will be the first component exercise to test newly authored strategies of the revolutionary Cold Start war ethic ingested by the force in 2004. Two years ago, the Army began to progressively indoctrinate its formations in the plains with the Cold Start strategy, a war ethic that primarily envisages lightning offensives by tri-service integrated thrust formations — so quick that they preempt a nuclear retaliation — instead of laborious and time-consuming massing of troops led by the strike corps. Considered to be the brainchild of former Army Vice-Chief Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi, in 2004 Pakistan said it had rejigged its own offensive structure to absorb the implications of an Indian Cold Start. The 2 Corps exercise, involving massive deployments, including an armoured division, an independent armoured brigade and two infantry divisions, will torture-test a part of the Army’s renewed war doctrine that propounds a short but blistering armoured and artillery assault followed by lightning infantry and mechanised infantry operations assisted by battlefield helicopter cover in a nuclear, chemical and biological (NCB) backdrop. Army Chief Gen J J Singh will visit the area during the exercise, considering that some new parts of the Army’s new doctrine were authored by him when he was commander of the Shimla-based Army Training Command (Artrac). The last Corps exercise by the Ambala-based formation was in 2003. The 1st Armoured Division, 14th Independent Armoured Brigade, 22nd Infantry Division and the 14th RAPID Division will take part in the exercise next month. The Army will have 10 days to complete the exercise — the only window it gets between harvesting and the next sowing — on the expansive plains. |
| Posted by:john |
| #9 thx John, glad you deciphered buy from but. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-04-15 18:31 |
| #8 India has purchased three Phalcon AWACS from Israel, to be mounted on IL-76 aircraft. They are supposed to be delivered bu 2008. They also purchased 6 IL-78 refuelling tankers from Uzbekistan. The IAF now wants 6 more tankers. |
| Posted by: john 2006-04-15 18:20 |
| #7 didn't they but AWACS from us? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-04-15 18:08 |
| #6 Very interesting reading. It was also interesting to read the references to the U. S. I wonder how much we're helping India with this. I wonder if the first implementation of Cold Start will be named DieHard |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-04-15 17:15 |
| #5 The Caps were in the original article titles. One thing about 'Cold Start' - it also seems designed to prevent a change of heart by Indian politicians. The terrorist attack on the Indian parliament was followed by a 1 1/2 month buildup of forces. Tempers had cooled by then and outside diplomatic pressure had its effect. A terrorist outrage sufficient to provoke war will find the Indian army striking across the Indo-Pak international border within days. There will be no cooling off period and no turning back. |
| Posted by: john 2006-04-15 17:09 |
| #4 John, You've always been a must read commenter. Don't go all Joe on us, please? |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-04-15 17:01 |
| #2 revolutionary Cold Start war ethic Bet 'moose is right. This sounds like left-over Soviet Doctrine. But perhaps the Indian Army is trying to force a higher general readiness level. |
| Posted by: 6 2006-04-15 16:28 |
| #1 They are about to learn a profound truth. That NBC is the antithesis of the timetable. The Soviets learned much the same lesson by calculating that they had only two weeks to conquer western Europe--from that time on, every additional day causing terrible degradation of their fighting forces in chemical overgarments. All the US forces had to do was delay their progress, and the Soviets would defeat themselves. In India's case, they are trying to calculate a blitzkrieg so fast that Pakistan could not launch a missile. I wouldn't count on it. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-04-15 14:20 |