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Military 2021 – Yearbook
2022
SP’S MILITARY YEARBOOK 2021-2022 CONTENTS HEREWITH
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IN THIS ISSUE
PAGE 4 Lessons from the Ukraine War
August-September 2023
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Learning from the battlefield by the Indian Army on the Evolution and Effectiveness of Artillery in Modern Conflict Lt General P.C. Katoch (Retd) PAGE 5 Army Guns for 400 Artillery Pieces
From Analog to Digital, Artillery Systems in the Army are being modernised for the New Age Ranjit Kumar PAGE 6 Indo-Pacific Summit 2023 – A Vision for Global Security
Indo-Pacific Armies Chiefs Conference (IPACC), Indo-Pacific Armies Management Seminar (IPAMS), Senior Enlisted Leaders form (SELF) – 2023 recently concluded in New Delhi, marking a significant milestone in international efforts to promote peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region Neetu Dhulia PAGE 9 Advancements in Night Vision Devices
Night vision devices are an essential tool for militaries around the world, providing soldiers with the ability to see and operate at night in any weather conditions Rohit Goel
Artillery modernisation got a shot in the arm with the induction of M777 Ultra Lightweight Howitzers
Equipping the Indian Army – Artillery Modernisation On Gunners Day, we look at India’s Artillery Evolution and Modernisation, paving the path to Strategic Autonomy MAJOR GENERAL ATANU K. PATTANAIK (RETD)
Introduction
Two recent conflicts impart many significant military and geopolitical lessons. One is the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict which raged from September to November 2020 and has again flared up in September 2023 pushing over 70,000 Armenians residents in the enclave back into Armenia. The other is the ongoing Russian special operations launched in February 2022 that has largely devastated Ukraine. Azerbaijan’s combination of drones and artillery in its 2020 offensive effectively targeted Armenia’s high-value military assets, most notably in attacks on T-72 tanks and S-300 air defences. In particular, strikes on air defence units constrained Armenia’s ability to counter Baku’s UAVs, amplifying their e ffectiveness. They
illustrate that while individual weapons systems will not revolutionise the nature of warfare, the synchronisation of new weapons like drones, shoot-and-scoot long-range artillery and short-range tactical missiles makes the modern battlefield more lethal.
Lessons from Global Conflicts
It is too early to take away any definitive lessons from the Ukraine war, but it is possible to start identifying and asking some key questions. One is the fallacy of ‘short and swift war’ that would be forced to a quick closure through international pressure and mediation. The Ukraine war continues through crests and troughs even after 20 months despite being under the most intense international glare and constant push by the west in all kinds of fora like the G7, G20 and the UN apart from periodic optimistic platitudes by the NATO
bureaucracy. This has brought to fore a hitherto well-established norm of maintaining robust war reserves which came under the scalpel using the ‘short & swift’ argument. Ukraine was heavily militarised after 2014 by the NATO allies through variously obfuscating nomenclature programmes to take on Russia. It is therefore understandable that Ukraine continues to be fully dependent on the NATO for its tanks and guns, arms and munitions as well as air assets including F-16s and drones apart from intelligence. Hence the fact that it finds itself terribly short on military hardware and artillery munitions hardly raises an eyebrow. But more significant and surprising is the fact that Russia which initiated the war by launching the ‘special operations’ to protect its Russian speaking people in the Donbas region as well as the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea is also terribly
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