news details |
|
|
| MiGs, tankers at finger areas along Pak, China | | | ET DESK
Jammu, Oct 4: Getting cautiously yet aggressively defensive against its unfriendly and uncertain neighbours India is putting in place the warfare paraphernalia along borders with Pakistan and China.
While MiGs are stationed along the Pakistan border in a state of preparedness for quick launch, the country is planning light tanks for deployment along Chinese border as also Pakistani order.
Reports say that the Indian Air Force has decided to station all its MiG 29 squadrons at Adampur, the second largest Air Force base in the country. The Adampur Air Force station, which is also known as home of MiG 29s, already has two frontline fighter squadrons and will see another squadron moving from Jamnagar in Gujarat soon.
“We consider ourselves to be a strategic air power establishment of the IAF in the western sector, ever ready for operations. We are fully geared up to operate in any given time frame like any other Air Force stations of the country,” Air Commodore HS Arora, Air Officer Commanding of the Adampur air base is quoted as saying
To extend the service life of MiG 29 by 25 to 40 years, the RAC MiG aircraft corporation signed a contract with the Ministry of Defence to upgrade over 60 fighters in service with the IAF since the 1980s.
“We are looking forward to induct upgraded Mig 29s which will happen sometime next year. The Ministry of Defence and Air headquarters is monitoring it,” Air Commodore Arora said.
He said six MiG-29 fighters are being upgraded and flight-tested in Russia and the remaining aircraft will be overhauled in India with the aid of Russian experts, and added that IAF pilots and technicians are already undergoing training there.
“The upgraded MiG 29 fighters will have better radar systems and avionics to help fighters, a new weapon control system, modernised RD-33 engines, which would increase the aircraft hitting capability from long ranges,” Air Commodore Arora added. The first batch of upgraded fighters will arrive in the second half of 2010 and Russia will complete the upgradation of 60 MiG-29 fighters by 2013.
Meanwhile, Army is planning to acquire 300 light tanks for deployment in the mountainous regions of the border with China and Pakistan, a move seen as part of efforts to beef up capabilities on the frontiers. Process for acquisition of the tanks has been initiated with the Request for Information (RFI) being issued for the same.
The tanks are intended to be deployed in the mountainous region of Jammu and Kashmir in the north and Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in the north-east, army sources said. The tanks are expected to weigh around 22 tonnes and be capable of operating at heights of over 3,000 metres in hilly terrain, they said. The light tanks are being considered for deployment as part of mechanised force in the high altitude regions as heavy tanks cannot reach there, they said. The army wants the tanks to be able to penetrate highly protected armoured vehicles and Main Battle Tanks of the enemy from a distance of more than two kilometres and also be able to fire high explosive anti-tank shells and guided missiles.
Conventionally, tanks are deployed only in plains and it is very rare to station such armoured detachments in mountainous areas.
Heavy tanks face problems in mobility as narrow and spiralling roads make their movement very slow and the bridges there are also not built to bear those heavy loads of above 40-45 tonnes, they said.
At present, the only mountainous region in India where tanks are deployed is the ‘Finger Area’ in Sikkim along the China border.
The army has been maintaining a squadron of heavier T-72 and T-55 tanks here since mid-80s.
‘Finger Area’, a few kilometre tract, has been known to have witnessed incursions by Chinese army. In one such incident last year, Chinese troops had threatened to destroy a structure of stones erected by India there.
India had protested the Chinese aggression and the matter was raised at the flag meeting between the two armies.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
