The Indian Army believes it is capable of mobilizing its troops in less than 48 hours and they are planning on finding out that by participating in the annual exercise which involves more than 10,000 soldiers in the Rajasthan-Punjab region.
Since the terrorist attacks in December 2001, the government has ordered the instant mobilization of the army. However, operation Parakram took 27 days and in this period of time, a lot of international pressure built up on India.
Since this case, the army has been constantly working on ways to reduce the mobilization time. According to sources, better road management, rail links, offloading, man-management and equipment management have reduced the time to just 48 hours.
The two-week exercise which is called Vajra-Prahar will be visited by the Ambala-based 2 strike corps, Meerut-based 22 division, Dehra Dun-based 14 division (Rapids) and the personnel of the Patiala-based 1 armored division.
Earlier, the army had the habit of launching an attack only after an entire formation had gathered, but the new approach has changed that and a lot of small battle groups with command-and-control capabilities can carry out early attacks. Training time is planned to be reduced so that the small groups can quickly get ready and launch an attack as soon as possible.
Last year, the Pakistani army held a similar exercise which involved more than 50,000 troops mobilized on the India border and they had to get from the one end of the country to the other in just 3 days. The three corps, take turns to hold war games each year. Last year the 21 corps performed their first drill which was based on nuclear warfare.
