Top brass of armed forces witness night-time joint operations at sea

Senior-most commanders of the Indian Armed forces, on Thursday night, boarded the sea-going aircraft carrier INS Vikrant to witness the tempo of joint maritime operations on the country’s west coast.

The three armed forces are conducting exercise ‘Tropex-25’ that entails the Navy, the Army and the Indian Air Force (IAF) to conduct joint operations including amphibious operations – which are landing a large body of troops and equipment at a designated spot.

Among the top brass on board the INS Vikrant on Thursday night were the Chief of Integrated Defene Staff Lt Gen Johnson P Mathew, Army Vice Chief Lt Gen NS Raja Subramani, Navy Vice Chief Vice Admiral K Swaminathan, IAF Vice Chief Air Marshal SP Dharkar and the Army Director General Infantry Lt Gen Ajay Kumar.

 The IAF Vice Chief boarded the Navy’s MiG 29K fighter jet that took from the INS Vikrant and did a night sortie over sea.

The Tropex-25  exercise is aimed to  checking the readiness at sea and how the three forces would tackle a threat in unison.

The armed forces officers who witnessed the exercise on Thursday night are tasked with merging the war-time efforts of the armed forces of a specified geographical area in to one unit. The concept is known as ‘theatre commands’.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has declared the year 2025 as the ‘year of reform’ and a key task is creating theatre commands.