Guest Column | Col Mandeep Singh (Retd)
Answer Lies Within
The limitations of the air defence system can be handled by
correcting the C&R network
At 0100 hours on 11 December
1971, 64 Air Defence (AD) Battery was
asked by Commander 16 (Independent)
Armoured Brigade to move a troop
forward to provide AD to a tank col-
umn stuck across the Karir Nadi in the
Shakargarh Bulge (during the Battle of
Chakra as part of the overall Battle of
Basantar) while trying to cross it during
the attack on Dehira and Chakra villages.
The troop was in action at the new loca-
tion by first light and successfully ward-
ed off repeated attacks by Pakistan Air
Force. The Battery, under command the
Armoured Brigade, continued to provide
AD to the Armoured Brigade during the
Battle of Basantar. In recognition of its
service, 64 AD Battery was awarded the
battle honour Basantar River.
64 AD Battery was under command
16 (I) Armoured Brigade during the
India-Pakistan War 1971, but its oper-
ational control was exercised through
the Control & Reporting (C&R) channel.
The Battery carried out all moves and
deployments as per the tactical require-
ment, and as directed by the Armoured
Brigade Commander, and yet it was the
C&R network that controlled the gun’s
fire. Not only did the system work well
but no tank was lost to enemy air action
during the entire battle.
This needs recollection as command
and control of ground-based AD sys-
tems (GBADS) is debated in context of
the AD Command. The proposed cre-
ation of AD Command was one of the
first decisions announced by the newly
appointed Chief of Defence Staff (CDS).
To be headed by a three-star Indian
Air Force (IAF) officer, the Command
aims at integrating all the air defence
resources to ensure ‘optimisation of re-
sources’ and preventing fratricide.
One of the statements of CDS Gen. Bi-
pin Rawat on the subject that stands out
is: ‘If you have to ensure there is no fratri-
cide, for every weapon system fired in the
right time at the right aircraft, the com-
mand and control instructions should
come from one entity. As of now it’s not,’
he is reported to have said. According to
the Hindu newspaper of 2 January 2020,
Gen. Rawat made this statement in a
meeting held specifically to discuss the
creation of Air Defence Command.
42 FORCE | September 2020
AIR DEFENCE IAI’s MRSAM
The idea of creating an Air Defence
Command is not new and has been
tried out, with variations, by a number
of countries but none of the leading mil-
itary powers today have an Air Defence
Command per se. While it may not be
a reason enough for not having an AD
Command, it does warrant a rethink
over the question of creating an AD
Command to have unitary command
and control over all AD systems as the
more important issue is—should the
command and control instructions for
AD resources come from one authority
and if they do not, does it lead to sub-op-
timal utilisation of resources and fratri-
cide? The answer may well lie in history
of AD Artillery.
The common practice is to have the
AAD units and sub-units ‘under com-
mand’ the field army with the control
exercised through the C&R System. This
has been the practice since the raising
of the first Indian Anti-Aircraft (AA)
Regiment in September 1940 which de-
ployed 1st Heavy AA Battery at Digboi
soon after its raising, with the Battery
placed under operational control of the
nearest Royal Air Force Base Operations
Room. As there was no AA formation
headquarter in India as yet, the com-
mand was exercised through the local
formation headquarters.
Raising of the first Indian AA Brigade
came about only in February 1942 when
1st Indian AA Brigade was raised at
Calcutta with the No 1 Gun Operations
Room (GOR) being raised a month lat-
er. No. 2 and 3 GORs came up at Digboi
and Tatanagar respectively at the same
time, making it a total of three GORs
covering Assam and Bengal. 1st Heavy
AA Battery now came under No 2 GOR
for operational control.
With additional AA Regiments be-
ing raised, the entire country was soon
covered by 17 GORs which in turn were
linked to seven ‘filter rooms’ of the air
force, fed information by a network of
over 70 radars. Forward of the Air Minis-
try Experimental Stations (AMES) were
the Wireless Observer Units with posts
across the Manipur Road and south-
ward toward the Chin Hills as far as Ara-
kan Hill tract.
To coordinate the AA defences and
the air force, an AA officer (usually the
senior most AA officer) was designated
as the AA Defence Commander (AADC).
The air raid warning as provided to the
AA batteries by the GOR (re-designated
as AA Operations Room) which engaged
the enemy raiders as per detailed ‘fire
control orders’ issued by the air force.
One such order issued is given below:
Orders for firing by AA Guns will be as
follows:
By Day
HAA (Higher Altitude Airship): Fire
will be opened on any group of aircraft
identified as hostile or which have com-
mitted a hostile act, or when US Air
Force (USAF) Base Ops Room asks for
fire. Single ac will not be engaged except:
n When they are being actively offensive
n When there is a reasonable chance of
bringing them down,
n On the request of US Ops Room for
Pointer Rounds. AADC Digboi and
top & bottom An artist’s visualisation of land-based air defence system; and Rajendra radar for surface to air missile Akash
Dinjan will then fire four rounds from
a single selected gun.
LAA (Lower Altitude Airship): Normal
rules of engagement.
By Night — HAA: Fire will not be opened
except when permission has been ob-
tained from US Air Force Ops Room.
LAA. Fire will not be opened at night
even as above unless
n The ac is making a direct attack on
the gun, or
n Against parachute mines or flares.
Base Ops room has the right by day or
by night, to order guns to cease fire for
operational reasons.
(War Diary of 2nd Indian AA Brigade.
Accessed at History Division, Ministry of
Defence, New Delhi.)
At no stage was the issue of the fire
orders the prerogative of the AA Com-
mander with the only exception being
the permission to fire in self-defence if
the AA location was directly attacked.
A similar arrangement was followed
during all operations, including amphib-
ious operations, for which Mobile AAOR
were employed. The air force radars for
such AAORs were mobile, even fitted on
amphibious vehicles and at times, on
landing crafts. The responsibility of sur-
veillance and early warning remained
that of the air force. GL radars of
AA Artillery
were used ay
locations
with poor, or no air force radar coverage
and the AA brigades started co-ordi-
nating the siting and roster of GL sets,
networking some of them with the for-
mation AAOR and using them for early
warning. These GL sets may have sup-
plemented the radar network of the air
forces but the procedure of warning and
giving fire orders remained the same.
In time, all Indian divisions had an
integral AA Regiment and the com-
mand of these was exercised through
the formation command channel but
the control orders were passed through
the C&R network. There was never an
ambiguity about the exercise of control
of AA batteries. There were occasions
during the Battle of Burma that the AA
batteries were used in direct firing role
as per the formation plans but the em-
ployment in AA role was always
as per laid down procedures of
following the air force lead.
The Royal Air Force radars
accompanied the advancing
XIV Army, at times fitted
on to boats and riverine
crafts, DBKW amphibious
vehicles and jeeps. The
system worked with at-
tendant constraints.
As with other arms and
services, a large number
AA Artillery regiments were
FORCE | September 2020 43
Special Report
demobilised from 1945 onwards in-
cluding all the AAORs, that were raised
during the war. To exercise command
over the AA Regiments, not integral to
the divisions, an Army Group Royal In-
dian Artillery (AGRIA) was raised but
it did not exercise operational control
over the Regiments. This left a void in
the anti-aircraft defences in India as
there was no operations centre to co-
ordinate and control the operations of
the anti-aircraft regiments and batter-
ies. The immediate need was thus for
an Anti-Aircraft Operations Room each
for the Western and Eastern regions.
Accordingly, two new AA operations
rooms viz No. 1 and 2 AAOR were raised
on 22 February 1946 but they were also
demobilised before partition with an
AAOR being next raised only in 1951.
C&R Organisation
The IAF, after Independence, estab-
lished the Air Defence Areas (later
called the Air Defence Control Centre)
to exercise operational control over
the AD assets through sector opera-
tion centres and base operations cen-
tres. With time, the Joint AD centres
manned by both the IAF and army
representatives came up to control
the AD artillery assets and the C&R
system has matured since then with
clearly defined procedure of passing
HOME GROWN Test-firing of Akash SAM
44 FORCE | September 2020
Even during the
India-Pakistan War of
September 1965, Pakistan
Air Force was able to
deliver a deadly blow at
Pathankot because the
information picked up by
the radar at Amritsar was
passed on to the Base
Operations Room but not
acted upon for reason
not known. There was no
inter-service failure, but
a lapse within the same
service
information and issuing fire orders. It
is pertinent to note that ‘anti-aircraft
units whether deployed for the de-
fence of airfields or allotted in support
of the field army, always come under
the functional control of the air force.
(Maj Gen D.K. Palit, Vr C, History of
Regiment of Artillery Indian Army, Lee
Cooper, London, 1972, p 174)
The arrangement has continued
since, ensuring that while the ingress-
ing aerial platforms are suitably en-
gaged by an appropriate weapon sys-
tem, the safety of own aircraft is also
ensured. It is not to say that there are
no limitations, but they are not a func-
tion of command and control.
Identifying the Weak Link
The most critical component of an air
defence system is the C&R system that
coordinates and controls the activi-
ties of the surveillance sub-system and
the weapons systems, be it airborne or
surface based. The success of an air de-
fence engagement depends on getting
the right information to the right weap-
on system at the right time. For this a
seamless communication network is
essential that can link all the air defence
elements. Herein lies the rub for the
three services have unique communica-
tion protocols and it is this lacuna that
need to be addressed.
The reason for this logjam is that
while the IAF has its Integrated Air
Command and Control System (IACCS),
the army and the navy have Akash Teer
and Trigun respectively. The main lim-
itation of the present system is the lack
of seamless integration in the services’
C&R systems. The IACCS, which rides
on the air force (AF) net, should con-
tinue to be the national level but the
Akash Teer and Trigun systems need to
be integrated with it for the lack of inte-
gration is the main bottleneck and the
primary challenge.
One of the main reasons for failure of
air defences is the collapse of internal
checks and balances. From the incident
of Patriot missile firing at a Royal Air
Force Tornado in 2003 to the more re-
cent shooting down of a Mi-17 V-5 chop-
per of the 154 Helicopter Unit on 27
February 2019 by an IAF Spyder missile,
the fratricide incidents were a result of
intra-organisational failures. Such in-
cidents are not new. Even during the
India-Pakistan War of September 1965,
Pakistan Air Force was able to deliv-
er a deadly blow at Pathankot because
the information picked up by the radar
at Amritsar was passed on to the Base
Operations Room but not acted upon
for reason not known. There was no
inter-service failure, but a lapse within
the same service. To assume that an AD
Command will somehow correct this,
without addressing the core issue, will
be denying the realities and complexi-
ties of a functional AD system.
A Word of Caution
Air power, and by extension air defence,
can only be ignored at own peril by the
field army. This necessity, to co-opt and
integrate AD with the field formations,
is not a recent requirement but has ex-
isted since the middle of the last cen-
tury. In a way, the armies of the World
War II era understood this well and
organised their formations according-
ly. The Indian Army was no exception
and all divisions had an AD Regiment
on their order of battle, a practice that
carried on till the early Sixties when a
decision was taken to group all AD reg-
iments under independent AD brigades
to facilitate technical training and their
employment.
This move, however well intend-
ed, was a retrograde step and meant
de-linking of the AD regiments from the
field formations. There was no direct
interaction of the Commanders and
the General Staff with the AD artillery,
resulting in lack of knowledge and ap-
preciation of the nuances of employing
AD resources. An opportunity to cor-
rect this was lost in mid-Eighties, when
the Reorganised Army Plains Infantry
Division, when conceived, had its own
integral AD elements. Had the original
proposal been implemented, the AAD
would have been more integrated with
the field formations and Commanders
and the General Staff more involved in
the planning and employment of air de-
fence.
Similarly, AD Command will result in
the AAD being further delinked from
the field armies, a move that result in
an un-bridgeable chasm being created
between the two. With the air defence
of the field armies being of critical im-
portance, such gaps in understanding
air defence are too costly to be glossed
over. It will also be wise to remember
that no AD Command, from Pakistan
and Egypt to Iraq and United States
have succeeded in accomplishing their
intended role. And wisdom lies in rec-
ognising the futility of the belief that
India can succeed in this.
There is no doubt that the wise men
on the (Raisina) hill will decide upon the
correct course of action in due course of
time but it will be wise to remember the
old story from the Upanishads of the
musk deer that spent its life looking for
the elusive source of intoxicating per-
fume, not realising that the source was
within.
The main limitation of the AD system
lies within, in its C&R network. To look
for a big, bold decision that can correct
it may well prove to be akin the hunt of
the musk deer.;
(The writer is former Army Air Defence
officer. He is an author of five books.
His recent latest book Air Defence Ar-
tillery in Combat 1950-1972 came out
in April 2020)
FORCE | September 2020 45