Troops of the Southern Army have already reached the desert for their annual training exercises. This training will commence at the subunit and unit level and progress to formation level exercises to give a feel of actual command in the field to the commanders at each level and culminate in a major exercise in December 2011.

Exercise Sudarshan Shakti is being held in November-December 2011 to validate the operational preparedness of the Southern Army in a Tri-Service environment. More importantly, it will be based on the Integrated Theatre Battle concept under the Southern Army Commander Lt General A.K. Singh with 21 corps in the lead, supported by all other relevant elements of Southern Army.

Theatre Battle in Indian Context

The Army has underlined that the exercise is based on the concept of integrated theatre battle. What precisely does it mean? So far in the Indian Army, the highest level of tactical battle is planned and fought at the Corps level. A Strike corps is the highest level field formation in the Indian Army which is capable of independently conducting offensive operations in the field. There is no fighting formation higher than the Corps. Hence an Army Commander (General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of a Regional Command) is loosely termed as a theatre commander because there are no integrated (tri service/bi-service) theatres except the Andaman and Nicobar Command, which hardly has any troops at present.

An Army Command may have two or more corps under it, but the army commander is not a field commander in the strict sense of the word. He does not get involved in tactical battles and generally plans the theatre military strategy and evolves the operational art to be applied in a particular campaign at the theatre level and is therefore more concerned with the conversion of the Chiefs of Staff Directive into military aims and objectives within the command in order to achieve the political aims of war. The Army Commander gives out his intention, his military objectives, his vision of the campaign, and specifies the military end state of the campaign. He is more concerned with the allocation of resources to the Corps and the planning required to achieve the political and military objectives of war. In the Indian context, detailed planning and conduct of tactical battles to achieve the laid down military objectives is done by the commander of the Strike Corps in consultation with his subordinate commanders and staff. However, the Army commander keeps himself well informed of the planning and intervenes where necessary. During the conduct of battle, he keeps abreast of the progress of battle and intervenes when a situation so demands. Some situations which may demand his intervention include adjustment of boundaries of formations in the field as the battle progresses, change of command and control of subordinate formations due to changing tactical situations, and release of reserves of troops, weaponry and logistics. Therefore, when the Army says that this Southern Command exercise is being planned on the basis of a theatre battle, it is far more than the mere phraseology that the media is proclaiming.

Aims of a Theatre Offensive

In any offensive operations planned on the subcontinent, the aim would either be to capture the territory or destroy enemy forces or a combination of both. Any territory captured across 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 would also not be realistic. 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 imply that an Army Commander acting as a theatre commander would have to have a tactical headquarters fully staffed with the necessary communications to all strike and pivot formations of the Army in that region, and to the concerned Indian Air Force (IAF) headquarters, which in this case would be either South Western Air Command (SWAC) or the Western Air Command (WAC), or elements of both air commands. 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 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, and intra theatre (within a theatre) between the pivot and the strike corps of that theatre (command), or inter-theatre (inter-command) between the strike corps of two adjoining theatres of operations along with their IAF counterparts. The tactical headquarters of the Army would have to suitably locate itself to orchestrate and conduct the battle of destruction of enemy forces. If this is what is being planned in this exercise, then it would be the first time that a theatre battle concept is being physically tried out. However, we wonder how useful it will be with only one command (Southern Army) on the ground. To derive maximum advantage and to bring realism in planning, from such a large scale exercise, at least two command headquarters should have been positioned on the ground.