Islamabad/New Delhi: More than 50,000 Pakistani troops backed by tanks and artillery and air force elements on Saturday began their biggest ever wargames codenamed Azm-e-Nau 3 along the eastern border with India.
Azm-e-Nau (New Resolve) 3 exercise is aimed at training troops for the threat of a conventional war with India, military officials said.
The wargame, to continue till May 13, will be the largest manoeuvres conducted by the Pakistan Army since the Zarb-e-Momin exercise in 1989.
"These exercises will be focussed only on conventional war on (Pakistan's) eastern border," Maj Gen Muzammil Hussain, the Director General of Military Training, told the media earlier this week.
The six-week field exercise will involve troops from all arms and services and aircraft and equipment of the Pakistan Air Force. It is being conducted in Punjab and Sindh provinces, which border India.
The manoeuvres will also test the army's "preparedness to face new challenges and give the soldiers a real feel of a warfare mission," state-run APP news agency reported.
The exercise is also the culmination of a process of wargames, discussions and evolution of a concept of warfare that is "fully responsive to a wide menu of emerging threats," the report said.
The training will be mission-oriented and based on the prevailing security environment. The Pakistan Air Force's ongoing High Mark 2010 exercise will be fully integrated with the army wargame.
The exercise is also aimed at validating and refining concepts formulated during the year of training initiated by army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
Pakistan has already informed India about the manoeuvres. The Pakistan Army has traditionally perceived India as its main threat though security experts, including those from the US, have said the force now needs to focus on tackling the Taliban and other militant groups active along the western border with Afghanistan.
Indian Army's wargame
The Army will hold a month-long war game in the Rajasthan desert along the border with Pakistan to validate its battle concepts including to plug gaps in the night vision capability of its mechanised forces.
Codenamed Yodha Shakti, the annual exercise will also validate its post-Op Parakram 'Cold Start' war doctrine that envisages swiftness in inflicting maximum damage to enemy forces.
"Yodha Shakti will be held for a month from mid April to mid May in the Pokhran ranges and it will validate battle concepts of a Strike Corps with use of its mechanised troops and close air support from IAF's fighter aircraft and attack helicopters," Army officers said here Monday.
Strike Corps are the most potent force of the Army and in Yodha Shakti, the Army will involve its Mathura-based 1 Corps to practice battle manoeuvres.
The exercise would test out the troops' ability to carry on the battle under darkness, particularly its tanks and Infantry Combat Vehicles, as 80 per cent of the mechanised vehicles suffer from night blindness, a fact admitted by former Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor in his annual press conference January this year.
The Army exercise under the Jaipur-based South Western Command comes at a time when Pakistan is already conducting a large air force war game of its own, under which the use of ground troops is envisaged during the last phase.
"About 5,000 troops, which is about one-third of a Division, would be participating in the exercise that would be held in a digitised environment to test the Army's capability to carry out a network-centric operation," the officers said.
Army's T-72 and T-90 tanks apart from infantry combat vehicles would be part of the exercise in which a Pivot Corps from the South Western Command would also participate.
The troops would simulate enemy forces and a battle scenario would be tried out to see how the formations perform in both holding territory and in carrying out surgical strikes deep inside enemy territory, apart from capturing and destroying strategic assets of the enemy.
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