Thaindian News

New Delhi, Nov 24 (IANS) The Indian Army’s massive exercise in the Rajasthan desert entered its crucial phase Thursday with the entire South Command gearing up to test its warfare doctrine in a simulated battlefield environment.

Sudarshan Shakti, as the two-month long war game that began last month is called, is a joint exercise of Pune-based Southern Army Command and Gandhinagar-based South Western Air Command (SWAC).

“The exercise has entered its crucial phase. The training was progressively structured to build on from the smallest unit upwards and today, it is the entire Southern Army, which is being put through its paces in a simulated battlefield environment. In this overall effort, network-centric warfare is one of the crucial aspects being validated,” Jodhpur-based defence ministry public relations officer Colonel S.D. Goswami said in a release.

“The endeavour has been to validate and integrate the use of all available assets, including satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles and human intelligence to assist commanders at all levels in taking dynamic and proactive operational action in a fluid battlefield,” he added.

Another important facet being validated is the real-time sensor-to-shooter loop, which enables commanders to take instant decisions even as information is shared among platforms and personnel to order the weapons to be deployed.

Network-centric warfare provides shared information of the battle space among armed forces and is an integral part of the ongoing transformational studies.

The Southern Army Command has deployed its most potent formation, the Bhopal-based 21 ‘Strike’ Corps, involving over 50,000 troops and over 200 battle tanks and artillery guns for the exercise, which will go on till middle of December in an effort to train the army units for future battles.