http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040725/asp/nation/story_3539783.asp
India in US wargame ‘doctorate’ sight
SUJAN DUTTA
New Delhi, July 24: The US defence establishment is working to involve the Indian Air Force with its most modern aircraft, the Sukhoi 30MKI, in high-level wargames called the Red Flag Exercises. The Red Flag Exercises are reckoned by air forces as the “doctorate of wargames”.
“I would be glad to see the Indian Air Force’s Sukhoi 30MKI in the Red Flag Exercises”, air attache in the US embassy here, Colonel John Albert Hill, said.
The Red Flag exercises held at ranges in Nevada are based in Nellis Air Force base. Its purpose is to train pilots from the US and Nato countries for real combat.
The exercises are carried out using “enemy” equipment and live ammunition.
At the core of a Red Flag exercise is the simulation of the first 10 days of a real war that has employed big forces.
During the exercise, fighters would be tasked to attack targets in the range such as mock airfields, tanks, parked aircraft and convoys.
A contingent of six Jaguars, two refuellers and transporters is currently in the US participating in Exercise Cope Thunder. This is the first time the Indian Air Force has sent fighters to the US.
Earlier, in February, IAF fighters and US Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) fighter participated in an exercise called Cope India in Gwalior.
But before the IAF and the USAF get cracking the Red Flag Exercises, the India-US executive steering group — one of the bodies under the Defence Policy Group that oversees and determines military relations between the two countries — will be holding its next meeting in Hawaii.
The Cope India exercise, in which IAF and USAF fighters participated for the first time in 40 years, is likely to be followed up in 2005 with even bigger wargames that could involve a full squadron of fighters and AWACs apart from mid-air refuellers.
The possible inclusion of an IAF contingent in the Red Flag exercises would also mark a shift in the military-to-military ties between India and the US.
While it is mostly with the US Pacific Command that the Indian military engages, the Red Flag exercises are conducted by the USAF Air Combat Command.
Last month, it was a general of the US Air Combat Command who acknowledged that the Americans had learnt a lesson or two during their sorties in Cope India in February.
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