The conduct of the 14-day EX Gagan Shakti full-spectrum air-exercises by the Indian Air Force (IAF) from April 8 till 22, 2018 served as the first declaratory signalling by India that a coherent politico-military policy has at last emerged with regard to determining the final status of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK). It has thereby added the much-required teeth to India’s national endeavour, which was undertaken on February 22, 1994 when India’s Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution that firmly declared that the State of Jammu & Kashmir (J & K) has been, is and shall be an integral part of India and any attempts to separate it from the rest of the country will be resisted by all necessary means, and that Pakistan must unconditionally withdraw from PoK, which it had forcibly occupied through military means.
This parliamentary articulation of a position hitherto implicit or left understated was, in fact, a tectonic change that many at that time had failed to grasp. But while India’s armed forces had grasped and understood the full politico-military implications of this resolution, it was the succeeding political leaderships of the country that had until the recent past failed to muster the necessary will and grit required for wresting back PoK from Pakistan through the conduct of a ‘just vAirLand military campaign, i.e. a full-scale high-intensity limited war with limited objectives under a nuclear overhang.
Under the leadership of Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh ’Tony’ Dhanoa, the IAF had over the past eight months geared up for undertaking joint effects-based AirLand campaigns along with the Indian Army (IA). The five principal doctrinal underpinnings of the IAF were exercised and validated, these being persistence, persuasion, compellence, endurance and jointness. Consider the following:
1) The IAF for the first time carried out duck-drops, an air-mobile operation, of military boats and special operations forces over the country’s highest dam for drills to use waterbodies to infiltrate into enemy territory and launch attacks on their bases. The reservoir of the Tehri dam in Uttarakhand was used for the exercise by the IAF’s Western Air Command for simulating a waterbody acting as a border between India and its neighbor Pakistan. The IAF used its C-130J-30 Super Hercules transports from the Hindon air base, which first dropped a rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB), followed by a team of Garud personnel who used the waterbody to launch attacks on enemy bases in order to make inroads into their areas. The C-130J-30s, flying at low-level, were also used for air-dropping the IA’s SF (Para) forces at low heights to the waterbody in a window of 30 seconds to a minute. These sorties were all provided air-cover by escorting MiG-29UPG medium-multi-role combat aircraft (M-MRCA).
This operation is identical to the one that is likely to be undertaken by a joint IA-IAF air-assault strike force in the event of the order being given to capture the Marala Headworks north of Sialkot along the Sialkot-Chhamb sector of operations.
2) In another drill,eight Mi-17V5 medium-lift helicopters was used to rapidly deploy troops to the Nyoma heli-base, a few kilometres from the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh and Tangste valley at an altitude of 13,500 feet.
This operation is identical to the one that is likely to be undertaken by a joint IA-IAF air-assault strike force in the event of the order being given to capture certain critical hel-bases like the one at Goma in PoK.
3) In another high-voltage operation, the Gaggal airport near Dharamsala was simulated as a hostile advanced landing ground (ALG) beyond India’s border that had to be captured and used as a forward air base for the IAF and as a firm base. A small team of 14 heavily-armed Garud commandos first neutralised the enemy personnel based there under the cover of darkness.The entire simulated attack was carried out at around dawn to catch the enemy by surprise and within 30 minutes, the whole ALG was sanitised. The Garuds then used a high-tech SATCOM radio to signal the follow-on C-130J-30s and An-32REs, which were orbiting in friendly airspace loaded with SF (Para) elements, to arrive at the ALG and launch their ground-attacks.
This operation is identical to the one that is likely to be undertaken by a joint IA-IAF air-assault strike force in the event of the order being given to capture critical airports like the ones at Rawalakot and Skardu in PoK.
4) In another joint operation, the IAF and a Battalion of the IA’s Agra-based Parachute Brigade carried out an airborne assault with 560 patatroopers and wheeled light combat vehicles loaded on GPS guided palletised packages in the desert sector on the night of April 12. The air-assault force was dropped behind simulated enemy lines to soften up the likely resistance prior to the pred-dawn commencement of an armoured offensive by a Brigade-sized integrated battle group (IBG). This operation was provided hardened and dynamic air-dominance by Su-30MKI H-MRCAs.
This operation is identical to the one that is likely to be undertaken by a joint IA-IAF air-assault strike force in the event of the order being given to capture certain critical areas within the Chicken’s Neck area straddling southern J & K..
Decoding The IAF’s Mobilisation & Sustained Surge Matrix
(To be concluded)