Ejército Indio: Infantería hacia el 2030.

By Col Danvir Singh
Issue Net Edition | Date : 25 Nov , 2013

As India surges ahead in underscoring its strides into the Asian age. It is steadily strengthening the fundamentals of strong Armed Forces, swinging into a modernizing overdrive. The Navy and the Air Force have taken a major share of big ticket purchases. The INS Vikramaditya, INS Arihant, MMRCA, FFGA, Globe Master and the Agni V&VI are some of those platforms that give an insight into the future role of our Armed Forces. Credible blue water capable Navy with continental reach of the Air Force will allow India to project its sovereignty in the whole of the Indian Ocean region and beyond. The role of India’s Armed Forces will extend beyond the protection of SLOC (Sea Lanes of Communications) and domination of the Indian Ocean. The Joint Force tasking will involve protection of Indian economic interests on lands that are far beyond the Indian sub-continent. The Indian Army in this joint effort will play a major role and the INFANTRY will occupy the centre spread in countering threats over the complete spectrum of conflict beyond 2030.


Geo-Strategic Underpinning
The world order in the twenty first century is entering into a phase of multi-polarity.  India and China have already signalled the coming of the Asian age, emerging as the fastest growing economies of the world. A transformation from developing countries to the developed ones would mean a huge requirement of natural resources, the engines of economic power. These countries will be the world’s largest consumers of oil and natural gas, essential for propelling their economies. The quest for securing natural resources has already driven them beyond their territorial limits into the darkness of the African continent, desolate regions of Central Asia and the contentious South East Asia.


India’s national interests in the coming decades therefore may not remain confined within the territorial limits, but stretch beyond, into the non-territorial arena. A rising China and its intense drive towards its armed forces modernization in the back drop of disputed borders with India, alongside the dysfunctional Pakistani state, will continue to present a great challenge to our country. Asymmetric and hybrid nature of future warfare along with extended neighbourhood add to the existing complexities in this challenge.


India’s growing economic needs and interests thereon will result in a continuous shift and changing profiles of threat and power equations. Its area of interest will expand way beyond the borders right up to Antarctica in the South, Africa to the East, CAR (Central Asian Region) in the North and South China Sea to the South East.  Safe guarding economic interests in these regions, both at sea and on the land, India would require a joint force with a sizable component of the Army. Requirement of boots on the ground will make Infantry pivotal in any role and task envisaged.


Threat To Capability

Transformation of the Indian Army from existing threat based to capability based force, which will see through India’s interests beyond 2030, will have to be expedited. And in this, the Infantry will continue to dominate the milieu of our Land Forces, hence its evolution and modernization is extremely essential.



The task of the Infantry will range from traditional Border Management, Counter Insurgency, Internal Security duties, Disaster Management and relief operations to stabilization efforts through bilateral and regional cooperation in India’s area of interest.


Thus a force structure of Infantry formations and units which will evolve will have to be responsive and effective.  The future Infantry Divisions, Brigades and Battalions will be flexible in organizations that are amenable for grouping and regrouping. They have to be a versatile mix of capability with equipment that is lethal, agile, adaptable and responsive.
The existing standard Infantry battalions will be transformed into specialized outfits with full spectrum flexibility and augmentation.  The Infantry soldier of the Indian Army who will be a system of systems will be equipped and trained for operating in all types of geographical terrains and climates to support any future role of the Army as part of a joint force in fulfilling national strategic and operational commitments.



Characteristic of the Future Battles

The future battles will be short term, fluid, intense and swift. The forces involved may be of a very large size or they may just be those in a special operation involving a few highly skilled soldiers. The advance technologies will be exploited and the entire range of terrains and weather will be incorporated in to the plans. The typical linear battlefield will be replaced by combat situations with a 360 degree threat. These future battles will be network centric with potential for new high tech weapons, NBC arsenal and use of all instruments of national power including the non-stateactors. The future hybrid nature of warfare in full spectrum of conflict will be effect based rather than massing of effects.



Infantry in the Entire Spectrum of Conflict

The role of Infantry has been depicted in the figure below which suggests a lesser role at the higher end of the spectrum. In a multi polar world military strategies will be dictated by economic interests of a nation. The world will witness more of the conflicts in mid and lower portion of the spectrum. Thus the role of infantry will be dominant in safeguarding the nation’s interests in future.


The specialized units of Infantry with developed core competencies that can address different bands of the threat spectrum will be the concept in this metamorphosis of force from threat based to a capability based arm.


Infantry Force Structure

The Infantry Divisions of the present day Indian Army operating with fixed formations and units should soon be the thing of the past.  Nature of future battle fields will require these Infantry Divisions to be modular and operate as plug and play formations. For a mission these Divisions will be assigned a suitable combination of Brigades and battalions capable of undertaking the task. These Infantry Brigades will have to be versatile and adaptive combat formations capable of deployment singularly or in a group. They will always be ever ready for employment in a variety of designs as self-contained modules over a widely dispersed area.


Infantry Battalion

The standard Infantry battalion will also get transformed into a more flexible and a modular organization. These units will be capable of undertaking independent tasks as a battalion group. There inherent capability of attaching and detaching specialist elements in a grouping for any particular task anywhere in the nation’s area of interest will be a force multiplier.


An Infantry battalion’s primary mission however will continue to be as historically identified with it. Their mission will continue to close-in and destroy the enemy through close quarter violent combat in any operations of war. An Infantry battalion will achieve force effectiveness by exploiting the abilities of its skilled soldiers and capable leaders. In addition to the human dimensions, rapid tactical mobility, force protection, lethality and survivability by enhanced situational awareness and sound logistics will enable an Infantry battalion to maintain force effectiveness in all types of contingencies.


Future Infantry Soldier

In a futuristic force structure of Infantry, build to counter the 360 degree threats in full spectrum of conflict, the soldier itself will undergo a radical transformation in terms of equipment and training.  Infantry soldier in future will be a system in systems, which is effective, efficient and task oriented. He will be required to accomplish various tasks with economy of effort. His adaptability and survivability in the entire spectrum, over all types of terrain and climate will have to be of a very high order. The future Infantry soldier as a system will be designed to deliver lethality with high accuracy and effectiveness. His ability to remain situationally aware and self-synchronized will enable him to fight coordinated integrated battles. In the networked environment, this ability of a soldier will enable the commanders to multi task not only the sub units and units but also an individual combatant more effectively and decisively.


Focus Areas

The Infantry in future will be optimally configured to conduct operations across the entire spectrum of conflict at a short notice. Therefore the modernization will be based on five cardinals and they are Lethality, Survivability, Mobility, Situation Awareness and sustainability.


Lethality

The “Future Soldier as System” programs are underway in many countries. The Land Warrior Integrated Soldier System of USA, IDZ of Germany, FELIN of France, FIST of UK and F-INSAS program of India are such project in that direction. This would involve a fully networked all terrain, all weather personal equipment along with enhanced fire power and mobility for digitized battlefields of the future.

The future Infantry will be equipped with mission oriented equipment fully integrated with all the systems, sub-unit and the unit in the overall C4I2 (Command Control Communication Computers Information and Intelligence) environment. This will dramatically increase the lethality of a soldier who will be a self-contained fighting machine.

Col Danvir Singh
Former Commanding Officer, 9 Sikh LI

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/indian-army-infantry-beyond-2030/