Monday, January 21, 2013

Indian armed forces losing the punch

It is my view that Indian armed forces are fast becoming unacceptably inefficient. They are losing their fighting capabilities at a dangerous rate. The latest is the way an IAF crew of 6, armed with LMG and more, shamefully abandoned a critically wounded CRPF soldier to howling Naxals. Just a fortnight back, an area domination patrol of an illustrious regiment, allowed the enemy to behead their patrol member while the rest of the patrol came back to narrate the story. Bungling at the patrol/battalion level, forced an unnecessary diplomatic crises on the country. Some years before that, about 400 elite NSG commandos ( army guys, though not under army for this operation) grappled for a few days to neutralize four ill-armed rogue adolescents from Pak. What they did in those days was a classic infantry company action of clearing a BUA (Built Up Area)and not what India's top anti-terrorist commandos are expected to do. Before that, Indian infantry fought in Kargil with practically all attacks being led by young Lts and followed by young soldiers. The oldies simply did not fight. With such a casualty rate of young officers and soldiers, we can not sustain a war for more than 6 months. By then, all our young would have died. In Kargil, IAF aircrafts dropped from the skies with no help from the enemy. Technical incompetence did them in. Prior to that, the mighty Indian army was nicely dented by ill-armed, ill clad civilian boys of the LTTE during the IPKF operations. Regiments with 200 years of history were neatly pummeled by wiry black boys of the LTTE. This is not an armed forces problem but a national problem. Pakistan has made several attempts to bite us. In all of them, he nearly succeeded in the initial operations. Finally, our superior numbers won us the day. What happens if he succeeds before our numbers can be brought to bear on him?

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