POST EXERCISE THOUGHTS
Wg Cdr Saumitra Tamaskar, Exercise Director, said, “Having set out with well-defined objectives, the IAF contingent’s efforts over the past month have ensured that they take back important lessons which will help undertake operations across a wide and diverse spectrum and meet any future challenges.”
The IAF contingent began de-induction on May 14, 2016, and are planned to return to India in the last week of May 2016. On their way back from Alsaka, the Su-30s of the IAF will participate in Exercise Desert Eagle II with the UAE Air Force. While in the second round of Exercise Red Flag, the IAF once again emerged with flying colours, there is an urgent need to take stock and introspect even though all the elements of the participating team earned the well-deserved accolades from the hosts. The first time the IAF participated in Exercise Red Flag was way back in 2008 when it was held at the USAF airbase at Nellis. As participating in Exercise Red Flag proved to be an expensive affair, the Government of India decided to permit the IAF to take part in this international exercise once in five years. The IAF could not take part in Exercise Red Flag in 2013, five years after the first round in 2008, as it was cancelled by the US.
Nearly two months prior to the sojourn in Alaska this year, the IAF staged Exercise Iron Fist at the Pokhran firing range in Jaisalmer district of Rajasthan. Compared to just 12 aircraft participating in Exercise Red Flag, the firepower demonstra- tion at Pokhran had over 180 aircraft of the IAF taking part. These included fighter jets, transport aircraft and helicopters. Of course Exercise Red Flag was conducted over a period of 16 days whereas the firepower demonstration at Pokhran lasted only for a day. Prior to Exercise Iron Fist, in a media briefing, a senior functionary of the IAF had said “Numbers in the IAF were not adequate to fully execute an air campaign involving a two-front war”. The reference was clearly to the alarming erosion in the operational potential of the combat fleet of the IAF. There is undoubtedly an urgent need for the government to address this problem without further dithering or delay.
The objectives of the two exercises were completely different. While Exercise Iron Fist was to showcase a wide range of operational capabilities of the IAF covering six segments of the force both by day and night, Exercise Red Flag was meant to give exposure to selected parts of the IAF’s combat fleet and supporting elements exposure to operational philosophy, tactics and best practices of the USAF and the US Navy. It is now left to the IAF to benefit from the experience and make qualitative changes in the currently followed operating philosophies and procedures where considered appropriate.
While the aim of Exercise Iron Fist was to apprise the nation of the level and range of capability of the IAF, one of the aims of Exercise Red Flag is to project ‘Military Diplomacy’ as this serves to consolidate relationship not only between the two air forces but between two nations as well!