Operation Safed Sagar

Operation Safed Sagar was the code name assigned to the Indian Air Force's role in acting jointly with the Ground troops during the Kargil war that was aimed at flushing out Regular and Irregular troops of the Pakistani Army from vacated Indian Positions in the Kargil sector along the Line of Control. It was the first large scale use of Airpower in the Jammu and Kashmir region since the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. The operation was overwhelmingly successful and played a huge role in the Indian Victory in Kargil war.

India's request to use the military version of the space-based Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation software maintained by the US government was denied. The IAF was thus constrained to use only the civilian application of the GPS, with reduced accuracy.The Indian Air Force (IAF) flew its first air support missions on 26 May, operating from the Indian airfields of Srinagar, Awantipora and Adampur. Ground attack aircraft MiG-21s, MiG-23s, MiG-27s, Jaguars and helicopter gunships struck insurgent positions. The Mirage 2000 fleet was inducted on 30 May. Although the MiG-21 is built mainly for air interception with a secondary role of ground attack, it is capable of operating in restricted spaces, albeit with limited influence, which was of importance in the Kargil terrain. Even so, the IAF's ageing fleet of MiG-21s and the MiG-27s operated without modern navigation equipment and pilots strapped GPS gadgets to their thighs or held them in whichever hand was free. The MiG fleet was tasked with dropping leftover 500 and 1000-kg bombs from the 1965 and 1971 wars and, in concert with the Army, selecting bomb impact points which would snowball into landslides or avalanches. The aim was to cut off Pak transit lines to such an extent that even the wounded could not be evacuated.

चारण साहित्य

Operation Safed Sagar