March 17, 2005

The March 23 military parade is a spectacular event where the general public gets a chance to witness the various combat elements in full ceremonial display. However, as tanks roll by and aircraft roar past, not many spectators realize that hidden in this military pomp are some powerful lessons, writes Shahid Kamal Khan

While the layman may be excused for failing to understand the concept of air power, it is sad to note that there are even some military professionals who are unable to appreciate its true meaning. They, therefore, remain unconvinced about the national imperative to field a strong and potent air force.

For countries like Pakistan that lack an effective joint military structure, the armed forces compete for the defence budget by projecting their individual needs. During this process, it is often forgotten that the three services are interdependent and elements of one national military force. Any resource allocation that takes place ends up in compromise over certain aspects of the military machine. Air power and its overwhelming strengths are invariably lost in the fog of internal battles waged in conference rooms.

To gain a better understanding of air power, one need look no further than the March 23 military parade held every year in Islamabad. It is a spectacular event where the general public gets a chance to witness the various combat elements in full ceremonial display. However, as tanks roll by and aircraft roar past, not many spectators realize that hidden in this military pomp are some powerful lessons.

The first thing one notices is that the army is there in strength. Indeed, the bulk of the parade consists of men in khaki. Here is the first lesson in the attributes of an army. You need men, and lots of them, to create any effect on the ground. This large body of men needs to be in place well before the event and cannot depart until after it.

All this while, they need considerable freedom of movement to polish their manoeuvres before the final event. Roads are blocked, resulting in traffic jams, tanks and artillery pieces are parked on avenues and Islamabad is overrun by troops. This is the second lesson: an army must take over the environment and control it to be able to execute its tasks.

The third lesson is that the army consists of well-defined subsets ––– infantry, artillery, armour, etc. Each ‘arm’ has a specialized role. A tank cannot do the job of a commando unit nor can a howitzer be used as a troop transporter. Army assets are single-purpose, not multi-role.

What is also obvious is that the parade is devoid of any significant representation of the navy whose presence is limited to a smartly turned out parade contingent of men in white. No ships sail down Constitution Avenue on March 23. It drives home the point that a navy can only operate where there is an expanse of water.

And on to the air force. Just like the navy, the only visible presence of the air force is another smartly turned out contingent of men in blue parading with the army. Apart from this, there are no indications that the PAF is involved in this spectacular display, although wave upon wave of aircraft formations meet the eye briefly, only to disappear in a motion too rapid and sudden to be captured even by the most forewarned of cameramen. Within a minute or so, dozens of aircraft thunder past and vanish into the blue yonder. The moment is as impressive as it is fleeting.

The aircraft in the flypast come from the distant airfields of Shorkot, Sargodha, Mianwali, Kamra and Peshawar. Karachi and Quetta-based aircraft could also be used, but are not called for reasons of economy and operational concerns.

In the buildup to the parade, while the army units dedicate themselves to the task of rehearsing for the big day, these aircraft and their crew go about their daily business. The overall plan is formulated, squadrons are tasked, and the flypast is conducted without upsetting the routine functions of the PAF.

On March 23, single aircraft start up in locations spread across the entire northern half of the country. They taxi, take off and then come together, first in pairs then in successive ship formations of four, 12 and 16.

Flying in front of the pack, the chief of air staff leads this stunning yet potentially lethal force in tight formation across the saluting base at treetop level, hurtling through the air at high subsonic speed, crossing the base at a specified time, accurate to the second.

The aircraft then head towards their home bases. Soon, the chief of air staff, whose aircraft had roared past the dais some minutes before, joins the other two service chiefs at the saluting dais.

Air power embodies three primary attributes: mobility, flexibility and firepower.

The first attribute is best explained in the context of the flypast itself. If the flypast leader is radioed that the saluting base has shifted from Islamabad to (say, Peshawar or Lahore) another northern city of Pakistan, a simple recalculation can done enabling the leader to take his formation to a new location and carry out the flying manoeuvres without fuss. While this is an improbable situation, it does highlight the ability to engage targets at widely differing geographical locations.

Where flexibility is concerned, the F-16 that zoomed past the saluting base in Islamabad could well have conducted a naval surveillance mission over the Arabian Sea a day earlier. After landing, it could have turned around to fly a photo reconnaissance mission over the Siachen glacier at noon, while in the evening it would be executing a three-hour combat air patrol over the Pakistan-Afghan border, before carrying out a nighttime training mission. This is an example of how an aircraft can be a weapon, an instrument of defence, an early warning sensor, and much more. An aircraft is whatever a commander chooses it to be.

To understand the third attribute, firepower, the flypast can be likened to a “mass raid” which the PAF would carry out against a large enemy target such as an airfield or other military complex. Using 24 or more aircraft brought together in a manner similar to the one employed in bringing the formations over the parade, this mass raid would be capable of delivering between 40,000 to 50,000 thousand pounds of munitions with devastating accuracy in a very short time. An aircraft is precision exemplified.

This, then, is air power. Nothing can even begin to compare with this tremendous military resource. However, it is important to bear in mind that creating and maintaining air power is extremely expensive, a fact reflected in the March 23 flypast. Gone are the days when hundreds of aircraft roared overhead, when wave upon wave of majestic machines streaked across the Margalla backdrop. As economic constraints have taken hold, these ceremonial displays have had to be curtailed. The next flypast will most probably be a token representation of our total force.

*The writer is a retired air commodore.

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)