Wednesday, September 14, 2011

It’s ‘Integration’ & Not ‘Integral’, Stupid!

The latest installment of the series of institutional firefights between the three armed services of India was witnessed at the Manekshaw Centre in New Delhi on September 13, with the principal sparring parties this being the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force (IAF). The occasion was a one-day seminar jointly organised by the New Delhi-based Centre for Land warfare Studies (CLAWS) and the AAC, as part of the on-going silver jubilee celebrations of the Indian Army’s Aviation Corps (AAC), and the seminar was attended by none other than Defence Minister Arakkaparambil Kurian Antony and Chief of the Army Staff Gen V K Singh, along with Admiral (Ret’d) Arun Prakash, former Chief of the Naval Staff, and Lt Gen V K Ahluwalia, GOC XIV Corps and Colonel Commandant of the AAC. Soon after the usual keynote addresses and presentations, the firefights began with the onset of the Q & A session, with the IAF claiming that its existing inventory of attack helicopters were an integral part of the Army’s ORBAT, and the Army retorting by saying that the need of the hour was the full-scale integration of such assets with the Army’s formation-level command-and-control hierarchy. During the heated arguments—of the type not normally witnessed during such seminars--it emerged that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had as far back as 1986 drawn up a time-bound plan (thanks to the efforts of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his then Minister of State for Defence Arun Singh) for not only creating the AAC (it eventually came into being on November 2, 1987, equipped with some 130 SA.315 Lama/Cheetah and SA.316B Alouette III/Chetak helicopters for battlefield observation and light utility), but mandating the change of ownership of the Mi-25 and Mi-35P attack helicopters from the IAF to the AAC. However, for undisclosed reasons, this detailed plan could not be fully put into effect. Another subject that generated heated accusations and counter-accusations concerned the employment of IAF-operated Mi-17 utility helicopters for CASEVAC sorties. While the IAF maintained that the Mi-17s could not be optimally employed for CASEVAC due to the Army’s inability to designate suitable landing sites, the Army accused the IAF’s Mi-17 pilots of cowardice when it came to the conduct of such sorties.

In between the slugfests, it was the Indian Navy which gave an objective assessment of the issue at hand—whether to rest satisfied with the existing status quo or whether to keep pressing for the full-scale integration of the existing attack helicopters with the Army’s formation-level command-and-control hierarchy. The Navy’s view is that the Indian Army’s point of view is both rational and logical. For instance, during the 1965 and 1971 India-Pakistan wars, since long-range maritime reconnaissance and air-sea rescue was carried out by the IAF’s Pune-based No6 Squadron with about six Lockheed L1049 Super Constellations, the Navy was severely restricted in terms of deriving a comprehensive and coherent maritime situational awareness in the Arabian Sea. At the end of the 1971 war, No6 Squadron’s Super Constellations had accumulated a mere 39 sorties in support of maritime operations, totalling 391 hours! Subsequently, grasping the logic of the day, the MoD decreed that such airborne assets should be owned and operated by the Navy and consequently, on November 18, 1976, the IAF handed over the five remaining Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation aircraft to the Navy’s No312 Albatross Squadron in Dabolim, Goa. This in turn raises another question: if the IAF today has no ways or means of acquiring maritime situational awareness, why should it continue to maintain a Maritime Air Operations Directorate and a combat aircraft squadron (No6) dedicated for maritime strike? No convincing answers or rebuttals came forth on this point yesterday.

And the one person who is in a position to learn from the Indian Navy’s experience and with the help of HQ Integrated defence Staff, sort out matters between the IAF and the Army in a decisive and purposeful manner—Arakkaparambil Kurian Antony—ended up doing exactly the opposite by passing on the buck to the Army and IAF and asking them to reconcile their differences internally. This is what he had to say: “Our armed forces need to adopt a holistic approach to security. No single wing of our security forces can work in isolation. The need for synergy and pooling in efforts and resources is being felt like never before. The Army and IAF must ensure that there is perfect synergy between them. The armed services will have to act in reconciliation amongst themselves so that India can have better and stronger armed forces. I will try to play a limited role in finding reconciliation”. A pathetic show by the Raksha Mantri, to say the least.

For those who may not know, the Indian Army’s C4I, ISTR and spectrum allocation networks/bandwidth have been in place since 2007 for accommodating a full-fledged Combat Aviation Brigade, which was to be raised during the 11th Defence Plan (2007-2011) as per original Army HQ projections that were approved in principle by the MoD as far back as mid-2004. Consequently, adequate infrastructural and operational-level preparations have already been made by Army HQ to utilise such a Brigade in support of offensive Corps-level or Division-level campaigns that include surgical vertical envelopment operations. However, the principal problem has been the MoD, which has not even approved even till this day the 11th Defence Plan. Which means for the past five years, thousands of billions have been allocated for defence spending on a year-by-year basis, without any medium-term or long-term articulation of how this money should be spent.—Prasun K. Sengupta


13 comments:

  1. Army is perfectly correct in demanding control of attack helicopters. It is very logical that these air assets can be better deployed if come directly under command of Strike forces.

    IAF need to shed its ego of being superior to army and work on ensuring air defense. Strategic EW & space defense are other important roles for Air force.
    It is imperative to note that air force can not have any independent role except for air interdiction. For all Other roles like CAS, strategic bombing, CAP it need to work as per operational plan of navy & Army.
    As far as navy is concerned all air assets for maritime surveillance should be with Navy & Air force need to assist it when requested.

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  2. Its upsetting to see a petty turf war going on in the armed forces..Anybody with a brain will support Army's plan to have an air wing for tactical support..Instead of ferrying Army personnel in the time of need, in ill be better for IAF to concentrate on their own objective..

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  3. Hey Prasun though old, I have a song perfectly appropriate for this story check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clIdXqN9kgY

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  4. Hey Prasun sir,I had a question.MoD has cleared 140 or so Mil Mi 17V5 medium lift helos.My question was who will use thesd machines-IAF or Army Aviation Corps?
    Thanks.

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  5. India has loosed its edge in 1962 against china due to IAF has not guarded(ground support) army in mountain region , we loosed many patriots including our land too .

    IAF things war time is like a computer game, if we are against china it will be high end brutal war scenario , so not only helicopter for army aviation we need to have atleast 5 sqns of fighter jets for immediate ground support Aviation .

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  6. Sir,I wanted to ask something.I have seen the Arjun MkI personally in DEFEXPO.It's fronal turret and hull armor is tremendously thick and as far as I heard the front turret armor defeated both IMI MkII and BM 42M lecalo 125mm rounds fired from 2A46M2 gun at point blank range.So it seems even the almighty Leopard 2A6 with its Rheinmetall L55 and DM 63 FSAPDS rounds will get a very very hard time to breech the front turret of Arjun MkI,let alone those Al Khalids.But I was dissapointed to see that two third of the side turret is very thinly armored especially where the crew sits.The Leo 2A4s ' turret side is no less than 250-300mm thick where as in Arjtn MkI,this portion is no more than 120mm.There they place storage boxes which provide no protection.That seemed a major design drawback of Arjun MkI to me.My question was that,has the DRDO solved this problem in the Arjun MkII with additional armor or not????
    Besides,there was a news in 2010 that HEMRL had developed and validated a 'hybrid armor'that can withstand multiple HEAT strikes unlike ERA.Can you please throw some light about its component and working principle??And will it be used in Arjun MkII??PLEASE try to reply. I personally in DEFEXPO.It's fronal turret and hull armor is tremendously thick and as far as I heard the front turret armor defeated both IMI MkII and BM 42M lecalo 125mm rounds fired from 2A46M2 gun at point blank range.So it seems even the almighty Leopard 2A6 with its Rheinmetall L55 and DM 63 FSAPDS rounds will get a very very hard time to breech the front turret of Arjun MkI,let alone those Al Khalids.But I was dissapointed to see that two third of the side turret is very thinly armored especially where the crew sits.The Leo 2A4s ' turret side is no less than 250-300mm thick where as in Arjtn MkI,this portion is no more than 120mm.There they place storage boxes which provide no protection.That seemed a major design drawback of Arjun MkI to me.My question was that,has the DRDO solved this problem in the Arjun MkII with additional armor or not????
    Besides,there was a news in 2010 that HEMRL had developed and validated a 'hybrid armor'that can withstand multiple HEAT strikes unlike ERA.Can you please throw some light about its component and working principle??And will it be used in Arjun MkII??PLEASE try to reply.

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  7. @ prasun da

    since this topic largely centers around helicopters i am asking a few questions

    1. Weaponized Lancers, Mi-25/35, ALH Rudra, LCH, how many attack helos do we need with each overlapping the other in purpose

    2. Once heard the ALH was rejected by IN as the blades wont fold up, my simple question is, can we deploy a tap like mechanism on top of those blades to fold them

    3. ALH Dhruv sales/talks for sales in countries (military/civilian) outside india

    4. do you think Apache 64 is better than Mi-28 for attack helos

    hope to get answers

    thanks

    Joydeep Ghosh

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  8. @Anon 4:14 PM
    There are some mistakes in your post
    1.In 1962, the IAF pressed the GoI vary tary hard to order them to attack PLA supply lines but thatpathetic fu**ing coward Nehru held back the IAF in the fear of chicom retaliation.So it was never the fault of IAF but of Nehru and GoI.
    2.India has not lost any ground as Arunachal Pradesh is still in our hands and since independence Aksai Chin was never physically occupied by India.

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  9. While agreeing with you about the army's needs, it would have been a huge snub to the airforce brass if he had agreed with the army's point of view at a public forum.

    In fact there is an acknowledgment in his words that the air force needs to pull up their game and integrate more tightly with the other forces.

    I would think he did the absolute right thing if, within a year STEPS are taken to include an air wing as expressed by the army.

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  10. To PAWAN & SAURAV JHA: Common sense dictates that utility and attack helicopters, along with light observation helicopters as well as MALE-UAVs and some HALE-UAVs (for battlefield surveillance) should be part of the Army’s integrated ORBAT, with the IAF focussing only on combat search-and-rescue (CSAR). However, as we all know and may have realised, common sense isn’t commonly prevalent, and is fast becoming an extinct quality. How else does one explain the IAF clinging on to a squadron of Jaguar IMs armed with AGM-84L Harpoon anti-ship strike missiles when the IAF possesses neither the LRMR/ASW or MRMR/ASW platforms reqd for acquiring and targetting hostile maritime targets?

    To Anon@12.57PM: Well done!

    To Anon@3.55PM: Those Mi-17V-5s are for the IAF. They should have gone to the Army. Even the heavylift helicopters to be acquired should go to the Army, since the Mountain Corps envisaged to deter China’s PLA--which is still on paper--was recommended in Gen K Sundarji’s Army Plan 2000 way back in in 1987.

    To Anon@4.14PM: India lost out to China in 1962 because of two inglorious idealists then sitting at the helm of affairs, a V K Krishna Menon and his mentor, a Jawaharlal Nehru. It was these two personalities that gifted India the military defeat suffered at the hands of the PLA.

    To Joydeep Ghosh: According to the Army Plan 2000 prepared in 1987 by the then COAS, Gen Sunfarji, and mind you this plan was then approved by the then PM Rajiv Gandhi and Minister of State for Defence Arun Singh, the aim was to raise a combat aviation brigade closely patterned on the lines of the French Army’s ALAT, i.e. up to 220 light armed aeroscout helicopters (like the AS.550C3 Squirrel), 120 helicopter gunships like the Rudra ALH, about 40 heavy attack helicopters like the AH-64D or Mi-28NE, plus 150 Mi-17 medium-lift utility helicopters and about 12 medium-lift helicopters equipped with synthetic aperture radars. The plan then was for the Army’s 54th Air Assault Division and the proposed combat aviation brigade to work together as a combined formation. The number bof helicopters required today still stands the same.
    The Dhruv ALH was rejected by the Indian Navy not because of the blades issue (which has since been resolved), but due to insufficient endurance, caused by the lack of extra fuel tanks which had the Navy wanted on board the helicopter. As for export sales, I have been stating since 2004 that unless and until the Dhruv ALH obtains FAA or EASA certification, its export sales as well as domestic sales prospects will remain extremely poor and dismal. And every HAL Chairman/Managing Director has been saying since 2005 that the Dhruv ALH will be EASA-certified. But it still hasn’t happened. Which means all these utterances of successive HAL Chairmen/Managing Directors were all false assurances, or just plain lies. As long as HAL lives in such a state of denial, don’t expect any professional achievements for this DPSU.
    Lastly, between the Mi-28NE and AH-64D, the Mi-28NE comes out tops due to its superior armoured protection (as a result of the valuable lessons learnt by the Soviets during the Afghan civil war in the 1980s) and secondly, its powerplant is identical to that on the Mi-17V-5s. This in turn will result in much reduced direct operating costs for the Mi-28NE.

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  11. To Anon@4.56PM: Firstly, it wasn’t a public forum and attendance was by invitation only. Secondly, judging by the news coverage this event has got (so far only ToI was come up with a report), it appears that the desi mass-media, although present at the event, has been unable to grasp the seriousness of the issues involved (which explains their dismally poor coverage of the event). Thirdly, the IAF never produced any convincing answers or counter-arguments during the seminar, especially since a precedent was earlier created when its LRMR aircraft assets were transferred to the Navy in the 1970s for the very same reason that the Army has been asking for the attack helicopters to be integrated with its command-and-control hierarchy. What was not said, but was evident, is that the IAF is terribly worried about the prospect of losing its entire fleet/flight expertise of rotary-winged aircraft in future, something it wants to avoid at all costs and therefore over the past few years one has heard the IAF clamouring several times about a reqmt for CSAR helicopters—which is a valid reqmt in my view. Lastly, no matter how much the RM cries hoarse about the IAF’s need to pull up its game and integrate more tightly with the other forces, in functional terms this is impossible at the moment and will be possible only if there are unified or joint theatre commands set up by the Army and IAF, which again is highly unlikely in the near future, but may happen after a decade, if we are to believe what the previous IAF CAS said in his last press conference last July. And FYI the Army already has an Aviation Corps, leave alone an air wing. What it now wants is possession of the heavy attack helicopter assets.

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  12. I think what we are observing is a classic turf war where no one wants to give to other its asset no matter how right the cause could be.

    Actually it is common and natural to have such inter-service rivalry for assets and funds but this is where the MOD should step in firmly and boldly , MOD should take the right decision keeping the interest of nation in mind and not petty rivalries on who owns what assets.

    What the MOD is saying is you fight while I watch the fun ,makes me think of divide and rule policy as if reconciling this difference would be easy and something the service would love to do and part with its assets in this case the IAF.

    BTW on the Apache and Mi-28NE issue , I think right now the Apache AH-64D is a proven and mature platform , it might lag in some areas like protection and crew safety but it more then makes it up with weapons ,electronic and sensors.

    It seems the Mi-28NE still have problems with its rotor mounted radar and that radar does not provide full 360 * capability provided it even works well.

    The Mi-28 will only mature to a level it should be when the definitive variant the Mi-28NM comes after 2015 , that is the platform which will have 360 * MMW radar , Netcentric capability new weapons and electronic capability so Mi-28 has better long term potential but right now Apache AH-64D wins hands down.

    I dont think Logistics is high on top of IAF concern list looking at its procurement policy , so Apache should win this race.

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  13. In terms of demonstrated capabilities the AH-64D LongBow Apache comes out tops.

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