Opinion by Lt Gen H S Panag (retd)
Chief of the Army Staff, General Upendra Dwivedi, announced the transformative restructuring of the Indian Army on 26 July, during Kargil Vijay Diwas commemoration. Rudra brigades will replace the ‘division’, which has been the default combined arms fighting formation for over two centuries.
He also announced the raising of Bhairav Light Commando Battalions— reminiscent of the German Stormtroopers of World War I; Unarmed Aerial Vehicle (UAV)/ counter UAV (C-UAV) based Shaktiman artillery regiments; a composite UAC/C-UAV battery for each standard artillery regiment; and drone platoons for each infantry battalion. These changes are part of the overall restructuring and reorganisation of the Army that began in 2018.
While I welcome the changes announced by the COAS, my grouse is the slow pace of progress. It has taken seven years for the Army to begin executing the transformation of its World War II-era structures and organisations, first conceived in 2018. Most modern armies have already switched to combined arms brigades as the basic fighting formation. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) commenced its reforms in 2015, and by 2020, it had completed the restructuring of divisions into combined arms brigades operating directly under the group army—China’s equivalent of a corps.
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