Pakistan Army’s summer training begins

[mysterious]

Army’s summer training begins

By Mubasher Bukhari

LAHORE: Various units of four Pakistan Army corps have started annual summer training courses at a village on the outskirts of the city.

Inter Services Public Relations took a team of reporters to view a demonstration of exercises across waterways on Tuesday.

The media team was first taken to the Lahore corps headquarters where Colonel Nasir and Colonel Hamid Abdullah briefed them on the various military exercises conducted throughout the year. Corps Headquarters Chief of Staff Brigadier Mustafa Kausar gave a briefing on the military’s composition and its formations during peace and wartime.

Brigadier Azmat Hayat Malik received the media team at the training place and gave them a comprehensive briefing about watermanship training. “If we are well trained, it is a guarantee for peace,†said Brigadier Malik. “I can say without exaggeration that our army is professionally the world’s best force.â€

The training is divided into four phases including swimming across the water channel, construction and rowing of infantry swimming raft, transportation of vehicles across the channel and assault. Brig Malik said the training was useful for offence as well as defence.

Later, hundreds of officers and Jawans took part in an impressive demonstration. Numerous soldiers carrying machine guns and mortar guns swam across a canal 20 yards wide and occupied the territory across it. They then built a raft and carried a heavy military jeep across the canal in just four minutes. Finally hundreds of soldiers boarded huge boats, crossed the canal and launched an assault.

Colonel Muzaffar Bukhari, majors, captains and lieutenants also joined the exercise and busted the bunkers built across the canal.

Major Shahid Abbas of ISPR told the reporters that Lahore Corps Commander Lieutenant General Shahid Aziz wanted the media’s involvement in the exercises and would invite them again.

Tuesday was the sixth day of the two-week exercise.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_19-5-2004_pg7_15

Regular exercises like these really help keep the armed forces at their toes. I think PA should consider involving more sophisticated and advanced operations in such exercises to give the army a close-to-reality taste of what modern day warfare is like. :smokingc:

 

[lamdacore]

did you upload some pics of these excercises on the gallery mysterious?

 

[lamdacore]

sorry for not completing my post. I agree with you mysterious that these excercises will help PA at their toes, By the way can anyone make out the equipment that these soldiers are wearing from the pic? For some reason i still had PA's 1965 uniform stuck in my head!!

 

[mysterious]

Well unfortunately, that is the 'only' pic available at this moment. I'm hoping once the exercises are over, the media would be able to produce more pictures of 'em. Well the Pakistan Army recently had a uniform change (late last year if my memory serves me right). The new uniform is not the 'khaki' one which was there since God knows when, but its more of a mixture of greenish something (more like commando uniforms). But I'm betting that troops deployed in desert areas would still keep those 'khaki' ones because naturally they blend more comfortably (providing a better camouflage) with the desert environment. I've heard it somewhere that now that PA has been reduced by 50,000 'batmen', plans are to equip 'all' of the troops with bullet proof jackets and helmets (currently, not all troops have access to 'A' quality equipment) as well as some other equipment upgrades planned such as night-vision goggles for all, etc. :smokingc:

 

[Pathfinder-X]

from the pic the pak soldiers seem to be sticking too close together, one mortar round or grenade could finish them all off. the uniform has no camouflage pattern (but seem to blend in well wif surround in this pic), the gun is still G3, and the helmet still looks WWII style, when is the pak army gonna get kevlar or MICH helmets??

 

[mysterious]

Well, to me, they seem to be moving 'out' of a formation - like, spreading out. Yeah it is being hoped that once this cut of 50000 batmen in the army starts saving some money, Kevlar or MICH helmets would be provided along with NVGs. Well I was doing some research and it came to light that different types of troops have different uniforms within the army such as an SSG guy vs a normal trooper. And this doesnt even look like the new Pakistan Army uniform to me. Perhaps its some different unit or something. :?

 

[Pathfinder-X]

Well, to me, they seem to be moving 'out' of a formation - like, spreading out. Yeah it is being hoped that once this cut of 50000 batmen in the army starts saving some money, Kevlar or MICH helmets would be provided along with NVGs. Well I was doing some research and it came to light that different types of troops have different uniforms within the army such as an SSG guy vs a normal trooper. And this doesnt even look like the new Pakistan Army uniform to me. Perhaps its some different unit or something. :?

no they r not moving out of a position, simply advancing. u can tell by the several men in prone position providing cover fire while others do wut we called a "rush". simply technique to rapidly moving for a short distance. the formation is too close in their case, when we train in canada we stay at least 10 meters apart from each other.
they should get some camouflage uniforms, the ones they wear looks like allies from WWII. i wonder wut the pak new uniform looks lk?? can u get a pic of it?

 

[gf0012-aust]

the two that are prone are supposed to be covering their "arcs"

then the forward element covers their "arcs" while the prev group move forward.

you'd normally avoid bunching up, otherwise you become available to what is euphmistically called a "spray and wipe".

 

[Aussie Digger]

They are close together for demonstration purposes. Normally when media organisations (even "official" organisations) obtain defence photo's, they involve a good deal of showmanship and don't necessarily reflect how you would under take a "contact" in reality. They are too close, but it's probably been setup that way for the photo.

Here's a few photo's of a recent Australian Army exercise, where our Parachute Battalion tested it's long range insertion capability.

And here's a photo of a para dropped Hamel 105mm Artillery Piece.

 

[Pathfinder-X]

aussie, i been thinking about the rifles in australian army for sometimes now. juz wut is their official standard issued rifle??? i seen some wif M-16s, M-4s and Augs. kinda confusing.

 

[Aussie Digger]

The Australian Army uses the F-88A1 Austeyr rifle (a modified and Australian manufactured version (under licence) of the Austrian Steyr AUG rifle) as it's standard assault rifle. Our special forces (SASR, 1 Commando Regiment, 4 RAR Commando and support units) use F-88's, M4A5's and M16A2, (and a few other more "exotic" weapons) as required. They (like most Special Forces) are given a reasonable amount of latitude to use the weapons they feel most comfortable with. Generally most Aussie Specwarrie's use the M4. Recently we have also introduced a 40mm grenade launcher which is mounted on the Steyr (and is shown in one of the above photos). For a short period of time, before this GLA was introduced, M16/M203 rifles were re-issued to units on operations in East Timor (after being withdrawn from frontline service in the 80's, when the Steyr was introduced), to allow soldier's there to have to carry only 1 weapon system rather than the more normal carriage of F-88 Steyr and the separate M-79 Grenade Launcher. The M16/M203's were once again withdrawn when the new 40mm GLA was introduced on the Steyr. Hope this helps.

 

[Pathfinder-X]

yep it does, but y issue two rifles at the same time?? wouldn't that cause training problems and harder to maintain???

 

[Aussie Digger]

Marginally, but the M16/M203's were only issued on a small scale and for a specific reason. They use the same ammunition as the F-88 so there's no problem there. The M4A5's are issued as they are better suited to the Special Forces role than the Steyr. Again the extra effort is considered worth it. The Australian Army is very professional and doesn't have too many problems with training issues.

 

[lamdacore]

i really like the pics provided by aussie digger and indeed the Australian Army does look professional!! nice!

 

[joker]

Great pics of the Aussie soldiers. In regards to the PA the Khaki uniforms are being phased out gradually. To bad kinda liked the old British colonial era uniforms but not very practical. Introducing new cammo's is going to take time because there are currently 450,000 troops to fit out! Pics of the actual cammo's in use can be found on Pakdef.info in their PA pics sections (sorry no links am not allowed to post them here).

Cammo's vary from the new desert cammo's to temperate cammo's to jungle cammo's. Soldiers in Punjab will be fitted out with the jungle scheme. Whereas soldiers in the NWFP will be fitted out with the temperate & mountain scheme. Soldiers in Sindh and Balouchistan will be fitted out with the desert scheme. Oh and lets not forget the arctic cammo for those serving on Siachen. It really depends where they are stationed I guess.

All the Pak Marines have a pretty wierd cammo as they are expected to operate in Mangrove Swamps along the southern border areas with India.

Then of course para military units like the Rangers are fitted out with the chocolate chip cammo and the Anti Narcotics Force are fitted out with a different desert cammo to that of the PA. There's just so many it gets kinda confusing.

Fortunately troops dont need an urban cammo as most building in the subcontinent are of a sandy colour anyway unlike those in Europe or the US.

Apparently the PA is to introduce a new assault rifle (rumoured to be the Steyr) along with NVGs, body armour and a kevlar helmet (produced by AWC) as standard issue. So hopefully much of the WWII designs are going to be replaced.

The link leads to listed defence companies. Most of the stuff that the PA equips its troops with are made by the companies. Be sure to check out AWC (kevlar helmets and body armour) and EAST-WEST INFINITY (equipment that the PA is to issue troops at the platoon level)
http://www.depo.org.pk/defence.htm