New Delhi, May 30: The Indian Army is conducting a larger than usual summer collective exercise on the India-Pakistan border since the second week of May.
Over 12,000 troops drawn from the three armed forces are participating in the month long exercises Pine Prahar.
Lt. Gen. Munish Sibal, General Officer Commanding of Vajra Corps said that the exercise includes ambitious integration of all force multipliers including the air force, battlefield transparency and enhanced mobility demonstrations in sync with the requirements of the future battlefield.
A large number of tanks and artilleries are also participating in the Pine Prahar exercises.
The focus of the exercise, is inter-alia; to evaluate the various proposals put forward by the class formation study groups of the Army.
To transform itself into a more lean, agile and enabled force in order to conduct the full range of operations seeing the volatile situation in the neighbourhood, more than 50,000 troops of Indian Army are participating in an exercise named 'Vijayee Bhava'.
The month-long exercise saw the participation of Kharga Corps as entered its crucial culmination phase.
The exercise has provided an opportunity to evaluate and test new equipment technologies and concept of modern warfare, which has been the outcome of the Army transformation studies.
"Exercise 'Vijayee Bhava' will transform the Indian Army into a more agile, versatile and lethal force to give victory in war. It is culmination of training, which we have carried out in our peace stations," said General Officer in Commanding, Western Command, Lieutenant General S. R. Ghosh.
"The success of any war would be based on total integration of air and land battle, and through this exercise, we have tried to achieve this. The Indian Army has to be ready for any type of threat and this transformation focuses on conventional as well as asymmetric warfare. This transformation is going to make a huge difference, as we have taken major steps forward to integrate all our assets," he added.
Commenting on battle preparedness of the Indian Army, Lieut General Ghosh said: "My mandate is to be operationally ready to take to the battlefield at short notice and emerge victorious."
Exercise 'Vijayee Bhava' (blessed to win), which is being conducted in the deserts of Bikaner and Suratgarh near the Pakistan border in order to boost the synergy between the defence forces, is the first amongst a series of Western Command routine annual summer exercises.
Battlefield tactics for warfare are being practiced in the exercise that also aims at fine-tuning the concept of the Cold Start doctrine.
The manoeuvres are being conducted in North Rajasthan to test the operational and transformational effectiveness of the Ambala based Kharga Corps as well as validate new concepts, which have emerged during the transformation studies undertaken by the Army.
The Indian Army, which is working towards a 'capability based approach', has embarked on a series of transformational initiatives spanning concepts, organizational structures and absorption of new age technologies, particularly in the fields of precision munitions, advance surveillance systems, space and network-centricity.
