Should India have a combined defense force

pavanvenkatesh

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Hey Guys,

With the recent developments and modernization of the armed forces aimed at improving the communication, offensive and defensive capabilities it got me thinking why can't the Indian Armed Forces have a combined force on the Lines of the US Marines? with more and more emphesis given to network centric warfare like the samyukta system combined artillery system and not to forget t new cold start doctraine which dictates combined assault from land,sea and air does'nt it sound feasable to have a combined force with t flexibility to perform these exact same task instead of relaying on each other for support

See the report from Rediff

With jointness in operations among the three Services still far from perfect, the Indian armed forces along with top commanders from the Integrated Defence Staff will debate and fine tune their joint war doctrine at a two-day meet beginning in New Delhi [ Images ] on Tuesday.

Defence Minister AK Antony would inaugurate the conference that will discuss the 'Joint War Doctrine' formulated in 2006 and look at resolving the irritants in the relationship among the Army, Navy and the Air Force, according to Ministry of Defence sources.

With 'jointness in operations' emerging as a crucial factor for effectively waging war in the future, the meet marks the third time the unified commanders from the IDS and the important Andaman and Nicobar Command would meet since 2006.

Each of the services have prepared and adopted their own doctrines and vision documents, and the 'Joint War Doctrine' was a baby of the post-Kargil battle churning among the country's defence planners for achieving greater integration and operational cohesiveness among the three arms of the Indian defence forces.

Faced with strong resentment among defence personnel over inadequate salary hikes proposed by sixth pay commission, the unified commanders would discuss its fall out, apart from the tri-services' demands from the Central government for a 'reasonable pay package.'

At the annual conference, the unified commanders from the IDS and the Andaman and Nicobar Tri-Services Command, would raise a pitch for a favourable response to the forces' salary demands through the defence minister , who is slated to inaugurate the two-day meet on June 10.

The Army, Navy and the Air Force have already prepared a case for a substantial revision in the salaries recommended for middle-rung officers from the tri-services and the Personnel Below Officer Rank (PBORs), and presented it to Antony after several brain-storming sessions with the minister and the ministry officials.

While the Justice Srikrishna-headed sixth pay commission had recommended salary hikes for newly-recruited Lieutenants of the Army and their equivalents in the Navy and Air Force, and provided new Military Service Pay to both officers and PBORs, there is a strong feeling that the hardship factor of the Armed Forces service had not been compensated adequately for all personnel.

The middle-rung officers and the PBORs were particularly cut up with the Sixth Pay Commission's recommendations for devaluing their status vis-a-vis officers from the civil services in the order of precedence for protocol.

The three services had come up with separate review reports of the sixth pay commission recommendations and these were presented to the defence ministry officials for preparing a joint demands list for the anomalies committee headed by Cabinet Secretary KM Chandrasekar, sources said.

The conference, sources said, would discuss issues concerning the implementation of phase II of the Ajai Vikram Singh Committee recommendations for cadre restructuring in the Armed Forces. Under Phase II, the Army, Navy and the Air Force would get over 3,000 additional Colonels, Brigadiers, Major Generals and Lieutenant Generals and their equivalent posts in the other two services.

While the Navy and the Air Force wanted a 'fair deal' in the number of higher posts, the Army had been contending that the number of posts should be proportionally distributed across the three services. The Phase I of the AV Singh Committee recommendations up to the rank of Lt Colonels were implemented in 2005.

Antony had personally taken keen interest to expedite the implementation of the Phase II of the AV Singh Committee recommendations.



So give me your opinion if it is possible or not
 

firechameleon

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im not in the defence field or anyway connected to it... so, can anyone tell me the significance or need to have more higher renking officers.?

""The conference, sources said, would discuss issues concerning the implementation of phase II of the Ajai Vikram Singh Committee recommendations for cadre restructuring in the Armed Forces. Under Phase II, the Army, Navy and the Air Force would get over 3,000 additional Colonels, Brigadiers, Major Generals and Lieutenant Generals and their equivalent posts in the other two services. ""

i think our forces are not expeditionary in nature. so, a marine-like combined force may not work efficiently.

how about instead of having army navy and airforce, all joined into one. no other force whatsoever. would it cause headache or improve fighting capability?
 

pavanvenkatesh

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thanks for the reply can you explain what expeditionary mean? and combining all forces together is same to creating a marine like force isn't it
 

Yusuf

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Jointness in operation is one thing and combining the entire force is another. All the services cannot be combined. The US Marine Corps is another branch of the US Armed forces which operates its own Air and Naval assets though its quite close to the USN and specializes in amphibious assaults. It comes under Sec Nav which overseas both Navy and Marines.

So the talk has to be do we need a separate wing added to our own armed forces in addition to the Army,Navy,AF,Coast Guard?
 

firechameleon

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thanks for the reply can you explain what expeditionary mean? and combining all forces together is same to creating a marine like force isn't it
expeditionary means an unit, organization or force primarily designed to carry out offensive operations in a territory that doesnot belong to you.


we really don't need a "marines-like" force. they wouldn't have anything to do basically.
 

p2prada

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An expeditionary force, whatever for? All our enemies are stuck with us anyways.

A combined defense force is not at all feasible as of now. We are only human, our mental capacity is not enough to carry out such massive tasks successfully and without any infighting.

A joint doctrine is more feasible as of now. This should start by establishing a tri-services command.

expeditionary means an unit, organization or force primarily designed to carry out offensive operations in a territory that doesnot belong to you.....
An expeditionary force is able to carry out operations away from their base at home or abroad and are self sustaining for a long time without the need to be resupplied immediately.

We do send expeditionary forces, the Navy does it. We just don't have the required ships or funds to compare to whatever the US Navy does. A US Marines like wing is out of the question for another decade or 2.
 

firechameleon

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"We do send expeditionary forces, the Navy does it. We just don't have the required ships or funds to compare to whatever the US Navy does. . "

never knew we had one.care to provide me some links. pretty please.:D
 

pavanvenkatesh

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well i don'nt mean to combine an existing forces but to have a seperate force other than the present forces which has the flexiblility of all the three forces they can be drawn up from existing regiments of the three forces sorry if i was not clear earlier

:icon_salut::thank_you2:
 

Yusuf

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Its based on the requirement. We dont need a marine force as we dont have any requirement for it. I mean we are not going to attack a distant land. Our enemies are at our borders and are forces are formed and trained keeping that in mind. If we just talk about amphibious assault, then our navy has a crack team for it.
 

tarunraju

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India should not have a combined force since, a monolithic organisation has a better chance at getting opportunistic (and staging a coup if it comes to that), than a well branched out defense forces. Also, spendings will be disproportional and inefficient.
 

bengalraider

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A marine force on the lines of the USMC is not feasible either economically or logistically(at the moment) for the Indian military, we do not have the ships or aircraft required.
However an enlarged marine force on the lines of the PLA marine corps may be feasible, as the Indian military moves to acquire bases & listening stations in allied nation in the IOR(Maldives, Mauritius)a future requirement of a large no. of marine personnel to serve in and guard these bases is foreseeable, the MARCOS are an elite force not required for these roles.The IN also has plans to become a true blue water navy with a significant amphibious capability based on ships like the Trenton, a large marine force is also extremely necessary in aiding victims of cyclones and other natural disasters.
 

Yusuf

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The MARCOS of the Navy is more like the Navy Seals. I think we already have a separate amphibious assault force if it come to that. We have been carrying out excercises also for the same.
 

bengalraider

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The MARCOS of the Navy is more like the Navy Seals. I think we already have a separate amphibious assault force if it come to that. We have been carrying out excercises also for the same.
Yup you're partially right the 91 infantry brigade based in Thiruvananthapuram, has been earmarked to become a marine brigade. though i believe at the moment the force is still going through the extra training required to morph itself from an IA brigade to a marine brigade.
 

F-14

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but an expedinonary unit on a Tri service model should be deployed as India's stratgic borders extend

here is a model that i planned though is incomplete i think that India can handel such a force

1st Indian Expeditionary unit

Army component

1 Armoured Division

4 Infantry Division

22 Mountain Division

Airforce Congingent

16 Wing

15 Wing


Naval condingent

10th Submarine Squadron - INS Vajrabahu @ Mumbai
15th Frigate Squadron - INS Agnivahu @ Colaba, Mumbai
19th MCM Squadron (M19) @ Mumbai - Ocean Minesweepers

Special support Detachment

INS Jyoti A58 - Replenishment Tanker

INS Shakti A57 - Replenishment Tanker

INS Nireekshak A15 - Diving Support Ship

INS Investigator J15 - Sandhayak Class (Survey Ship)

Coast Guard Detachment

750 Squadron

841 Squadron

ICG 800 Sqn

(ICGEFU)

ICGS Samrat

ICGS Jijabai 64

ICGS Chandbibi 65

ICGS Kittur Chinnama 66

ICGS Rani Jindan
 

pavanvenkatesh

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Combined defense unit

Hwever i feel that for the 4th largest armed forces in the world and the second largest standing army it is vital that we have a force which is flexible and fast even the chinese have realised it and moreover we do not even have an aviation wing in our army i mean attack and heavy lift helicopters instead of the airforce having it
 

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