AFVs will endure the changes in the nature of future wars. However, they must not be seen in isolation as stand-alone weapon systems, but as part of an all arms group enabling and sustaining decisive manoeuvre and high intensity battle at close quarters through superior survivability against precision attacks and dumb munitions.

In order to examine the effectiveness and employment of armour in future conflicts, it will be prudent in the first instance to understand the basic characteristics of an armoured fighting vehicle (AFV). the characteristics which aFVs give to ground forces enable the latter to conduct decisive manoeuvre as well as direct high intensity offensive action in order to surprise, paralyse and dislocate an enemy. in open terrain (plains and deserts), armour predominant combat forces are employed to lead the advance of offensive formations, to cut off enemy lines of communication or to occupy key terrain in enemy held area in order to dislocate the enemy and destroy him at a time and place of own choosing.

Nature of Future Wars

Analysis of current and past conflicts, emerging technologies, geostrategic environment and the emerging challenges indicate various trends in future wars. While the details of evaluation and appraisal differ in their content and quality, some shared conclusions with regard to the future trends emerge quite clearly. The main conclusion is that major state to state wars will be a rarity and low intensity conflict will prevail. Thus many professionals in the armed forces all over the world feel that the days of large-scale armour employment are over because of the focus on low intensity operations. In India, due to the heightened employment of the Indian Army in counter-insurgency and other low-intensity operations in the past two decades or so, similar beliefs are held by many officers. They are of the opinion that conventional wars of the past are unlikely to be fought due to the changed nature of future conflicts. However, most of the military analysts differ on this issue. They feel that the geopolitical and geostrategic environment in South Asia or even in the larger region which is termed as Southern Asia (the arc extending clockwise from North Africa, West Asia and South East Asia to the Indian Ocean) are such that limited conventional conflicts cannot be ruled out. They point towards the Kargil War in 1999 and the military standoff between India and Pakistan in 2001-02, after the attack on Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001.

India in fact is facing a dual challenge/threat, in the western theatre from Pakistan and in the eastern theatre from China and these challenges/threats cannot be ignored because of the dubious conduct of both adversaries and the obvious collusion between them.

The fallacy of the belief that conventional conflicts are unlikely has also been amply highlighted in Israeli conflict against the Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. David E. Johnson of Rand Corporation took stock of the Israeli response to the war in Lebanon, in 2006, in a new monograph, Military Capabilities for Hybrid War: Insights from the Israel Defense Forces in Lebanon and Gaza. He has written that the Israeli defence forces (IDF) had such difficulties with the organised and well-trained Hezbollah forces in part, because in the preceding years, the IDF focused so much of its training on countering the irregular threat presented by Hamas in Gaza. The IDF focused roughly 75 per cent of training on “low-intensity conflict” and only 25 per cent on combined arms and manoeuvre—a decision that had grave consequences in the valleys of southern Lebanon. This resulted in the Israeli Army’s lack of coordination in joint combined arms fire and manoeuvre. The IDF failed to properly integrate its air, ground, and fires assets when encountering organised Hezbollah units. After these, the IDF reversed its training ratio to focus more on combined arms tactics, while scaling back on irregular skills.

In view of the foregoing, there is a need to discuss and debate the issue of employment of armour in the future, in general terms, in the Indian context, so as to enable professionals to appreciate the future of armour which could also result in some useful deductions regarding the design features of future tanks.

Geographical Realities

Fortunately, most of the senior hierarchy in India’s armed forces is more pragmatic in this regard keeping in mind our likely adversaries, Pakistan and China, their equipment pattern, and the geographical realities of the subcontinent. Our borders with our two major adversaries comprise of varying terrain patterns. In the western theatre against Pakistan, we have glaciated terrain in Siachen area, mountainous terrain in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, plains in Punjab and semi-desert and desert terrain in Rajasthan. Thus extensive armour employment is possible in the Jammu region, in Punjab and in Rajasthan. In the eastern theatre, the terrain opposite Tibet Autonomous Region of China comprises of high mountains where limited employment of armour is possible in certain sectors only. However, in the mountains also, innovative employment of armour, where terrain so allows, can result in gaining advantages which are out of proportion to the force employed.

Transformation of the Army

Recently, Exercise Sudarshan Shakti was held in the Rajasthan desert. The aim it seems was to test the transformational concepts of the Indian Army and integrated theatre concept of operations was practised. Military officers are aware that in any offensive operations planned on the subcontinent, the aims would either be to capture territory or destroy enemy forces or a combination of both. Any territory captured across the international boundary would invariably have to be returned, though it could temporarily be used for post-conflict bargaining. The territory captured across disputed border like the line of control, may be retained, though in the present global environment that too would be unrealistic. Hence destruction of forces would be a more important objective which would have a long-term economic impact on the adversary.

Integrated Theatre Concept

For destruction of large armoured and mechanised forces, battles will have to be planned and orchestrated according to an integrated theatre plan so that larger forces comprising more than one strike corps can be employed synchronously from one theatre or from two different theatres to cause maximum destruction of enemy forces. This would involve large-scale employment armour and mechanised forces and close synergy between strike and pivot formations of the Army and the combat aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF). The IAF will have to play a dominant role in the destruction of enemy mechanised and armoured forces on the battlefield and therefore joint planning between the Army and the Air Force will be essential. It is here that a truly integrated theatre would be very useful. The success in this battle will depend upon the synergy and close coordination achieved by the Army and the IAF; intra-theatre (within a theatre) between the pivot and the strike corps of that theatre; inter-theatre (inter-command) between the strike corps of two adjoining theatres of operations along with their IAF counterparts. Such operations can only be achieved by the armour and other mechanised components of the Army.