'Sudarshan Shakti': Army's BIGGEST war games to date

With frontline IAF fighter aircraft such as the Sukhoi-30, AWACS and UAVs providing live feed of war games to battle field commanders, army is testing its war-fighting doctrine in the Barmer-Jaisalmer sector.

Sixty thousand troops and 300 tanks are participating in the exercise codenamed 'Sudarshan Shakti', aimed at strengthening war fighting skills of army's Southern Command and IAF's South Western Air Command by bringing together all elements including air power on one single platform, army officials said.

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Apart from 120 artillery guns and an array of missiles and rockets, the exercise involves operation by aircraft such as Su-30 MKI, Jaguars, Mig-27 and Mig-21 AWACS and helicopters.

It will also put to test the newly-inducted communication and battlefield surveillance radars by integrating them with all the war fighting assets of the army and the IAF, they said.

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Defence forces have inducted several new systems in the area of artillery, fire control system, battlefield surveillance, air support. During this exercise we will validate their integration in the new environment, the officials said.

Spread over the "huge geographical area" in the deserts of Barmer, Jaisalmer, Pokhran and Pachparda, the exercise will ensure infusion of latest technology with the weapons  and troops while providing a real-time information of the battle front to the field commanders, they said.

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The exercise will help the Southern Command to validate its war-fighting concepts while working towards 'capability- based approach' relying on a series of transformational initiatives, concepts, organisational structures and absorption of new age technologies.

New age technologies include those in field of precision munitions, advance surveillance system, space and network-centricity, they said. The exercise will conclude in mid-December.