The Hindu : National : INS Dronacharya ties up with School of Artillery

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INS Dronacharya ties up with School of Artillery

S. Anandan

“It has enormous operational significance”

Kochi: The Army and the Navy are set to cement the spirit of jointsmanship, with INS Dronacharya, the Navy’s premier gunnery and missile weapons training establishment based here, getting affiliated to Army gunners’ alma mater, the School of Artillery, Deolali.

The affiliation ceremony parade on August 16 will be jointly reviewed by Commanding-in-Chief of the Southern Naval Command, Vice Admiral Sunil K. Damle, and Colonel Commandant of the Corps of Artillery, Lieutenant General P.K. Singh. The tie-up will open an era of professional interaction between the two institutions with focus on air defence, naval gunfire support and amphibious operations besides training on small arms and land fighting.

This will also give rise to sharing of new operational concepts, training methodology, infrastructure and faculty, besides bolstering camaraderie between the two professions of arms.

“The association of Navy units with regiments of the Army is a time-honoured tradition, but in the modern day tri-services environment, this also has enormous operational significance,” informed sources told The Hindu.

While INS Dronacharya trains gunnery officers and sailors of the Navy and the Coast Guard by way of hands-on practical exposure to live equipment, simulators and emulators, the School of Artillery, with a legacy dating back to the pre-Independence era, is the seat of learning for all aspects of artillery warfare of the Army.

INS Dronacharya was the test site for the naval version of surface-to-air missile Trishul which was tested here as a ship-borne weapon in 1998. Efforts are under way at the School of Artillery to set up a faculty of missiles and rockets, with state-of-the-art simulators.

Previously, JAK LI regiment of the Army got affiliated to INS Ganga, the Maratha Light Infantry to INS Mumbai and more recently, the Grenadiers to INS Beas.

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