Dec 21, 1998
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DEFENCE Future Combat To keep up with the digital age, the Army conducts Exercise Shiv Shakti, the biggest in the decade. By Manoj Joshi
The Indian Army brass' rationale for the exercise was to validate new concepts that have emerged from changes in the battlefield environment and by the induction of new technology. What differentiates Shiv Shakti from previous exercises in the '90s is, of course, the nuclear environment. But army officials are at pains to stress the exercise did not involve any mock attack or defence against nuclear weapons. According to Lt-General M.M. Khanna, the general officer commanding-in-chief of the Southern Command which supervised the event, one of the major aims of the exercise was to demonstrate that conventional war "is as much important as it was earlier, if not more". A key element of Shiv Shakti was the integration of the Indian Air Force (IAF) into the war game. Every level of the simulated combat closely linked the operations of the army with that of the IAF. For the 1,700 or so officers and 70,000 junior commissioned officers and other ranks involved, the exercise was not about Pokhran and Pakistan but the craft of war which is rapidly changing as newer and more capable equipment makes the battlefield more lethal and unforgiving. According to Manavendra Singh Rathore, brigadier (general staff), a major departure from the past is the movement towards shifting the main thrust of fighting to the night. Night attacks, as any veteran of the 1965 and 1971 wars knows, were a chancy affair that caused chaos and confusion and ended in failure rather than success. Fourth generation night-vision equipment like thermal imagers and image intensifiers mounted on Mi-35 attack helicopters, T-72 M tanks and BMP infantry combat vehicles turn night into day and enable them to move swiftly, with relative immunity from air attacks. Cheap global positioning system (GPS) receivers have made navigation in the desert -- a major headache earlier -- much simpler. In the last couple of years, the army had also inducted a lot of new equipment -- 2S6M Tunguska, the world's first gun/missile self-propelled air-defence system, the Prithvi missile, Stentor battlefield surveillance radars and a new generation of electronic warfare equipment that can intercept enemy communications or jam them. The latest in the line of hi-tech equipment the army used was the Searcher Unmanned Aerial Vehicle obtained from Israel. This 327 kg aircraft with a 47 hp engine has a range of 200 km and can stay aloft for 12 hours. Its digital datalinks provide TV-like pictures of the scene below, be it day or night. The war games were designed to put the equipment through its paces and test the army's skills in using new technologies. To do this the two opposing armies were divided into "Blueland" and "Redland", the former representing the home forces and the latter the enemy. As per plan, Blueland was the attacking force, 55,000-strong with additional logistics support. Redland was a shell outfit of some 5,000 spread out to represent a division. Being in semi-desert terrain, the Redland forces were deployed in a set of strong interlocking nodes, essentially places where the road or desert tracks cross and along which enemy movement could be expected. The Redland commander spaced his artillery to give support to these positions and dug in a lot of his second-line tanks with bunkers prepared by his forces. Battlefield surveillance radars were placed on the high sand dunes to give some warning of the adversary advance. Aware that the numbers did not favour him, he deployed his electronic warfare companies in the most crucial areas to disrupt Blueland communications. But the actual timing of the attack was a surprise. Instead of the traditional pre-dawn move, the Blueland forces launched themselves across the "boundary" at 10 p.m. on December 2. IAF Jaguars and MiG-27s streaked low over the sky and began a simulated bombardment on Redland air bases. To protect them against Redland Mirages, MiG-29 aircraft flew protective sorties with them. Aircraft used cameras instead of guns to decide the winner in an engagement. Blueland's combat teams comprised night-vision-equipped attack helicopters and tanks that used GPS receivers to navigate across the trackless desert. Using Jaguars and MiG-27s and his own considerable firepower, the Blueland commander "struck" at three major nodes, preferring to leave the smaller ones for the infantry divisions that followed, and moved swiftly deeper into Redland territory. While all the combat was simulated, Blueland's logistics and communications went through a real test. All the fuel, food, water and ammunition that would be needed by a real force were actually moved in the five-day advance, often on specially laid metalled tracks to ensure they did not get stuck in the soft desert sand. Likewise, jamming was used to realistically test the army's mobile communications network used by Blueland. Though it is supposed to simulate war, the exercise is really a big game with a massive umpire organisation monitoring the show and deciding who wins or loses. "The umpire organisation is the key to the exercise," says Rathore. Thousands of umpires headed by a major-general were spread out among the opposing forces evaluating every aspect of the exercise. But the performance of the equipment will be done by the respective arm of the service itself and the staff officers will file reports on it to the higher authorities. "Redland" and "Blueland" are traditionally used in military literature to define two fictional adversaries. It takes little common sense to know who is who. For this reason, Indian officials informed their Pakistani counterparts about the exercise and its rough location more than two months before the movement actually began. The Pakistan Army and its intelligence no doubt kept a close tab on what was happening. In addition to moving troops they also declared a special alert in a 30 km belt along the international border. Now, as Indian forces wind up their exercise, the Pakistan Army is readying to begin its own. Imitation, they say, is the best form of flattery. |
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Maybe it was the name. Or the size perhaps. But India's decision to conduct a war
game near Barmer in Rajasthan last week led to the alarm bells clanging in Pakistan. Its
Foreign Ministry officials at first claimed it had not been informed, then declared that
Exercise Shiv Shakti was "provocative" and soured the conducive atmosphere for
talks. But Pakistan was only being prudent. Though the war game was taking place in
India's traditional exercise area near the Pakistan border in Rajasthan,
"Shakti" had been the code name for the May 11 Pokhran tests. Besides, there had
never been as massive an exercise in the '90s, involving four divisions and 72,000 men, as
the one that took place between December 2-7. 
