NEW DELHI – The 13-day long mega military exercise by the Indian Air Forceachieved more than its stated “objectives”, Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoasaid today, indicating its readiness to deal with a hostile Pakistan andChina almost simultaneously.
Two days after curtains came down on Gagan Shakti — the biggest exerciseby the IAF link> in three decades — AirChief Marshal Dhanoa said over 11,000 sorties were carried out by combat,transport and rotary wing aircraft of the force to test its combatreadiness, PTI has reported.
“All men and women of the IAF link>rose tothe occasion and achieved things beyond our stated objectives,” the IAFlink> Chief told PTI in an interview.
As part of the massive drill from April 8 to 20, the IAFlink> deployed its entire war wagingmachinery for the pan-India exercise with fighter jets, equipped withstrategic weapons like Brahmos and Harpoon anti ship missiles, carrying outdeep penetration strikes to revalidate its strategic reach.
“We achieved relocation and rebalancing of assets from one sector toanother in 48 hours,” Dhanoa said. “The overall objective of Gagan Shaktiwas fully achieved,” he said without elaborating.
Explaining the significance, a senior IAFlink> official said the objective of therebalancing and relocation was to quickly flatten the enemy in one frontand redeploy the assets in another sector within 48 hours — in a possibletwo-front war scenario.
Dhanoa said the IAF link> achieved allparameters of serviceability, surge operations, relocation of resources andjoint operations with the Army and Navy during the exercise which werecrucial aspects of the war fighting machinery.
The combat drill was carried out at a time when China was increasing itsassertiveness along the borders with Indialink> and while Pakistan has beencontinuing its skirmishes along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.
The exercise covered all terrains including desert, high altitude areaslike Ladakh, maritime sphere and almost all possible war scenarios wererehearsed on a real time basis.
“We carried out the exercise thinking as if we are going to fight a war,”said a senior IAF link> official.
When asked about reports of theIAFlink> havingcarried out “strikes in the Malacca Strait, Dhanoa categorically denied it.Officials said the IAF link> demonstratedits ability to reach maritime targets as far away as 4,000 kilometers in the
Malacca Straits but the force stuck to the targets provided by the IndianNavy, none of which were in the waterway around Malaysia, Singapore andIndonesia.
The exercise also focused on flexible use of airspace, joint maritime airoperations with the Indian Navy, joint operations with the Indian Army,simulated combat search and rescue for effective extraction of downedaircrew behind enemy lines among others.
Officials said the aim of this exercise was to ensure real timecoordination and deployment of air power in a short and intense battlescenario and the objective was fully achieved.
They said the concept of network centric operations and long range missionswere tested effectively.
They said Pakistan and China were informed about the mega exercise.
The officials said state-run defence organisations such as Defence Researchand Development Organisation, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, Ordnance FactoryBoard etc also provided adequate support. They said Defence Minister
Nirmala Sitharaman was impressed by the ordnance efficiency.