DEFENCE NOTES
New Delhi, 3 April 2006
Corps of Air
Defence
CRUCIAL COMBAT ARM
IN MISSILE AGE
By B.K. Mathur
When the Corps of Air Defence, the Indian Army’s youngest
arm, celebrated its 13th Raising Day recently, mind went back to some
years after independence. It was then believed
that only “condemned” Officers of the Regiment of Artillery were sent to its Air
Defence units. Only the gunners were
considered to be true fighting personnel.
But today things have totally changed because of the changed operational
requirements and dynamics of modern warfare.
Once the operation of missiles
was made the responsibility of air defence units which have been increasingly
provided with sophisticated, state-of-the-art equipment, the bifurcation of the
Regiment of Artillery was necessitated
and a separate Corps of Army Air Defence created on 10 January 1994, headed a
Lt-General. Allotment of this Corps to
the newly-Commissioned Officers is now
considered to be a matter of prestige.
Although, the overall responsibility of air defence lies
with the Indian Air Force, it is executed jointly by the three Services. The
Corps of Air Defence is tasked to perform the critical battlefield mission of preserving the combat power and freedom of manoeuvre
of our combat forces as well as causing maximum destruction of enemy aircraft
and helicopters. It is also organized and equipped to provide close air defence
to strategic key installations of the nation.
Rapid strides in development and proliferation of missiles, UAVs, coupled with improvement in avionics,
visionics, weapon delivery capabilities, guided munitions, have made it
imperative to continuously review technology of air defence weapons and tactics
to employ them in both the rear areas
and the combat zone. Air Defence has
thus emerged as one of the principal battlefield function areas.
Effectiveness of
Air Defence guns and missiles
against aircraft in the combat zone has been demonstrated repeatedly in recent
wars between various countries. In future too, conduct of air defence will be a
critical parameter in deciding the winner in any conflict. A vibrant and effective air defence
environment backed up with low and medium level surveillance and automated
control and reporting system is essential
to preserve the key strategic installations as well as the combat potential and
freedom of manoeuvre of the fighting force. There is, therefore, the need for
the Corps to be a truly professional,
motivated and trained force, capable of meeting the challenges. To carry out
the assigned task, the Air Defence
units have been equipped with state-of-the-art radars, guns and missile systems.
This takes to my oft-repeated point made in this column and
elsewhere that while talking about the all-spectrum modernization programme for
the Army, one needs to understand the importance of men behind the machines.
Great effort needs to be made to ensure quality in-take into the forces, which
is concernedly not happening at present.
Emphasis today is on procuring sophisticated machines for every arm of the
Army. That should be, but sophisticated machines need sophisticated manpower
and training – and, importantly, thorough professionalism. Remember, Gen. N.C. Vij had stated as the
Chief of the Army Staff in his message
on the occasion of the Army Day in 2004 “….our priorities have been primarily
aimed at creating well-boned war fighting machine and facing any eventuality
with a vigour and through professionalism…”
The General had also emphasized in that message that “care of our ex-Servicemen is also very
high on my agenda.” Indeed, Vij had very
rightly diagnosed the basic problems which have today made the Indian Army
different from the one we knew during the early years of independence. At present there is lack of interest among
the youth for joining the armed forces, and more unfortunately, lack of “izzat”
of the men in olive green. Above all, there is little care of the soldiers who
retire comparative early and need a second career. Given the professional
satisfaction, we can certainly hope for a better in-take, well-trained soldiers
and commanders.
The induction of sophisticated machines along with
reorganization and bifurcation of the fighting arms, such as the creating of
the Corps of the Army Air Defence will certainly make the Indian Army a true
modern force. But plans to achieve such a goal require to be implemented, and
should not remain on paper only. This
requires civil-military cooperation and, importantly, genuine integration of
the Service headquarters with the Defence Ministry. The latter is necessary
to eliminate vested interests and to avoid delays in decision-making in view of
increasing bureaucratic hassles.
Such lacunae tackled, the third largest Army of the world could be made the
most powerful force globally.
The three Service Chiefs too have a lot of responsibility in
making the armed forces a globally powerful force, that it used to be in olden
days. In the Indian army, Officers lead
to the troops in an operation and play a major part in shaping soldiers who are
now educated unlike in the past. The commander must therefore ensure that the
forces deployment is restricted to professional
duties, and such engagements as in aid to the civil authority, must be
restricted to the minimum. In this
context, it must be remembered that the Armyman is trained to kill or be
killed. Such directions to the forces, as the present Chief has given to those
deployed for counter-insurgency operations, to be soft and considerate is not
the military ethos. Nor is a military
man expected to cry on seeing ruthless
action against any enemy.
The opposition to too much use of the Army for civil duties
(nearly one-third of the Army is presently deployed for civil duties or
counter-insurgency operations) is bad for the forces for several reasons, most
significant among them being the loss
of adequate training which the soldier presently requires to use
state-of-the-art equipment and weapon systems in today’s strategic warfare.
Instead of freeing the troops of civil deployment, the Army Headquarters has
reportedly worked another plan for “farming”. The plan is believed to have been
worked out to cultivate plants from which oil can be produced. According to sources, one-third of the gas
presently used by Army transport is proposed to be produced from the fields
through better farming methods on its land.
How far is it advisable to put the soldiers to farming and
civil duties at the cost of their training and updating knowledge in latest
operational studies and machines? The
recent Gulf war, and even other military confrontations across the world have shown that future wars are to be
fought through all kinds of missiles
– surface to surface, surface to air and air to surface. Their control and
operation is now in the hands of the Army Air Defence in collaboration with the
air force. The personnel of this new Corps
of the Indian Army are to be highly skilled in handling the machines in modern operations. That perhaps is the reason why high-grade
Gentlemen Cadets at the Indian Military Academy opt for the new Corps of Army
Air Defence. ---INFA
(Copyright, India News and Feature
Alliance)
|