By Sumit Kumar Singh
Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh), Oct 20 (IANS): The Indian Army has made integrated defence locations along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh as the Chinese People's Liberation Army has enhanced military exercises across it.
These integrated defence locations is a mechanism in itself at various places across the LAC. It comprises complete communication, surveillance, operations and logistics system.
It is a total defence mechanism in itself with absolute synergy among all the support system for the troops for the battle. Big guns to military attack helicopters can be mobilised within minutes.
Such integrated defence locations are being created along the LAC across Arunachal Pradesh to thwart any kind of threat or contingencies.
Among big guns, the force has deployed upgraded vintage L-70 air defence guns, bofors and M777 howitzer.
The upgraded vintage L-70 air defence guns have enhanced target acquisition and automatic target tracking capabilities under all weather conditions with high resolution electro optical sensors.
It is effective against swarm drones, low flying objects as the upgraded gun can spew out predictive fire after automatically detecting the threat.
Talking to IANS, Indian Army's Captain Sariya Abbasi said: "The gun is able to take fire and engagement projected duration of time. It can now be integrated with tactical control radar and fire control radar."
She also said that the gun is also equipped with a Muzzle Velocity Radar for enhancing the accuracy of fire.
The BEL has upgraded around 200 L70 guns for Rs 575 crore.
The army has approximately 1,180 guns in service. These guns were first bought off-the-shelf in the late 1960s from Swedish company Bofors AB and later licensed produced by the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB).
Witnessing increased Chinese activities across the LAC, India has enhanced its defence and surveillance capabilities, and also deployed more machines and men to thwart any contingencies.
On Tuesday, Eastern Army Commander Lieutenant General Manoj Pande had said, "Taking note of all these, we have taken number of steps number of measures... foremost is enhancing out surveillance both close to LAC as well as in the depth areas now this we are doing by synergizing efforts of our all surveillance equipment -- right from the strategic level till the tactical level where our soldiers are actually deployed on the LAC."
He said that secondly, the focus is on adequacy of troops. "We have adequate forces that are available in each sector to deal with any contingency that may arise and we are also practicing and rehearsing on various contingencies that may come about in certain areas where at deployment are thin."
The officer also stated that they have strengthened the deployment but largely where the deployment was thin.
India and China are engaged in border disputes for the last 17 months at the LAC.