Amphibious landing exercise off Gujarat coast

Madhavpur (Gujarat), Feb 9 (ANI): The Indian Army, Navy and the Air Force today jointly conducted the largest ever amphibious exercise codenamed "EXERCISE TROPEX-2009" at Madhavpur beach in Gujarat.

The amphibious landing, the most complex of all military manoeuvres involving coordination and synergy from conceptualization to planning and final execution, was ably demonstrated on the shores of Madhavpur.

The element of Coast Guard was also a part of this short, swift and intense conflict.

The pre-assault operations of planning, mobilization and embarkation having been achieved at Karwar, the amphibious task force sailed from Karwar on February 5 and landed on the shores of Madhavpur today using the newly inducted Landing Platform Dock (LPD) INS Jalashwa, several Landing Ship Tank Large {LST(L)}, fleet ships with their integral helicopters, shore-based aircraft and submarines from the Indian Navy and hovercraft of the Coast Guard.

This is the first time the joint doctrine on amphibious warfare of the Indian Armed Forces which was formulated last year was put into practice with its full scope.

As a precursor to the present operation, a tri-service landing operation, 'TRIVENI' was conducted at Lakshadweep Islands in early January this year.

Air support is critical to any amphibious operations since mortars and artilliary are not available abinitio on landing.

HQ Southern Western Air Command deployed its Jaguars, which carry a large array of weapons. Flying at 200 feet, the Jaguars pulled up and carried out rocket attacks with pin-point accuracy on simulated enemy targets.

MiG 29 aircraft with its state of the art radar and ultra modern missiles carried out combat air patrol over Madhavpur to out-manoeuvre incoming enemy aircraft.

Tanks, armoured personnel carriers and Infantry troops of 91 Infantry Brigade of the Sudarshan Chakra Corps participated in both stand-off and hard beaching modes.

Use of deployment of troops exploiting the third dimension, that is airborne and heliborne, formed an integral part of the exercise. AN-32 aircraft paradropped Para troopers from the skies followed by slithering operations by MI-8 helicopters to deploy troops at the assault area.

Troops in waves emerged from the sea and carried out effective assaults on the beach of Madhavpur.

The defensive layout depicting the enemy were from the Golden Katar Division of the Indian Army.

The exercise exhibited high level of coordination and synergy among the Armed Forces to carry out such swift and intense conflict during military operations.

It also provided tremendous training value through the testing of human and material endurance, execution of organizational and logistics plans and finally delivering the punch in a mock battle.

The exercise was witnessed by Air Marshal KD Singh, AOC-in-C, South Western Air Command, Vice Admiral JS Bedi, FOC-in-C, Western Naval Command and Lieutenant General Pradeep Khanna, GOC-in-C, Southern Command and other senior military officers from the three services. (ANI)