Battery Havildar Major

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Parade State

A Different Kind of Command

While commanding our Regiment – 125 Surveillance and Target Acquisition (SATA) Regiment – I attended office mostly on Friday afternoons. That was when I signed the official documents requiring the Commanding Officer’s signature, most notably the Daily Parade State.

At the time, I was a single parent CO. Marina had already migrated to Canada, and the responsibility of bringing up our two primary school–going children – feeding them, sending them to school, ensuring homework was done, making them bathe – all fell on my shoulders. Command had to coexist with parenthood.

What Is the Daily Parade State?

For the uninitiated, the Daily Parade State is a large table detailing every officer and soldier authorised and posted to the Regiment, along with their daily whereabouts. Compiled each evening by the Regimental or Battery Havildar Major (RHM or BHM), it shows the status of all personnel as of 8 AM the following morning.

The Detail Master, the understudy to the RHM or BHM, is responsible for compiling the Parade State. Typically a soldier with good handwriting and skill at mental arithmetic, he provides all secretarial support to the RHM and BHM. Battery Detail Masters prepare their Battery’s Parade State in the evening and hand it over to the Regimental Detail Master, who then compiles the Regimental Parade State.

The Challenge of Cooperation

Our Regiment was then a cooperating unit with the School of Artillery, Devlali, carrying both station commitments and training commitments – collectively called Range Detail. Unlike at many other Schools of Instruction in the Indian Army, at the School of Artillery, student officers and soldiers do not draw, clean, or maintain equipment. That responsibility falls entirely on cooperating Regiments.

Details of manpower and equipment to be provided – along with administrative arrangements such as pitching tents and preparing Observation Posts – were issued a week before the beginning of each month. Soldiers were thus well aware of their commitments and duties.

We were always short of manpower, as soldiers also needed to avail their leave. Yet our Section and Platoon Commanders managed the show admirably, often with radio operators or drivers doubling as radar operators or surveyors. Clerks were utilised as radio operators, surveyors, or kitchen assistants. Tradesmen pitched in. Even the Religious Teacher was not spared.

Failure or shortfall in Range Detail resulted in the CO being summoned by the General – the Commandant of the School of Artillery. Our RHM and BHMs ensured that all Range Details were executed flawlessly. They had their own methodologies for dealing with shortcomings. Whatever they did, I was never summoned by the General.

The Daily Ritual

Every morning, BHMs presented their Parade State to their Battery Commander, while the RHM presented the Regimental Parade State to the Adjutant, then to the Second-in-Command, and finally to the CO. The Daily Parade State is an auditable document used to account for rations drawn from the Supply Depot for the soldiers. Hence, the CO’s signature is mandatory.

Three months into command, RHM Kaptan Singh summoned enough courage and asked, “Sir, how come you do not ask any questions while you sign the Parade State? You simply tell me to turn the pages and place my finger where you are to sign. You do not even look at it.“

“Why this question now?” I asked, knowing the answer well.

“Your predecessor used to grill me for over ten minutes every morning about various figures in the Parade State – number of soldiers on leave, soldiers on various out-station duties, and so on. I know that you know about every soldier,” RHM Kaptan Singh explained.

‘Thank God! You had to suffer this agony for only ten minutes; I had to endure over thirty,‘ I thought.

A Painful Memory

My mind raced back to my Battery Commander days. Even then, I had hardly paid attention to the figures on the Parade State. But our CO then was not of the same disposition. He believed that every figure on the Parade State was gospel truth.

He summoned each Battery Commander and questioned us about the number of soldiers on leave or on out-station details. I always rattled off some numbers. Then he summoned our BHM and asked the very same questions. What a pathetic example of command!

Our BHM’s figures never tallied with mine, and the thirty-minute ordeal ended with our CO’s remark: “You do not know what is happening in your Battery.”

This continued daily, and my figures never matched our BHM’s. Other Battery Commanders, I later learned, coordinated their figures with their BHMs before being summoned. I had no such coordination. Fortunately for me, I moved out of the Regiment within two months to attend the Staff College Course.

The Explanation

Now I had to justify my blind signing of the Parade State to RHM Kaptan Singh.

“This document is a proverbial elephant’s teeth – for show only,” I began. “This Parade State was prepared by your Detail Master the previous evening, giving out the likely state of all personnel of our Regiment, including me, the next morning. He put in herculean effort, with much erasing and rewriting, to tally all the figures.

If this is accurate, then your Detail Master must be a genius – hell of a Prediction Master. Last evening, I did not know where I would be this morning. Hence these figures can never be accurate. If they are accurate, then the Detail Master must be sitting in my chair.

Do you want me to grill you on it now?”

RHM Kaptan Singh broke into his characteristic smile, saluted, and walked away – fully convinced. The Parade State continued to be signed on Friday afternoons, and our Regiment continued to function without I ever being summoned by the General.

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Light Machine Gun (LMG)

Upon completion of the Artillery Young Officers Course we, the Second Lieutenants, were appointed as the Gun Position Officers (GPO) in our Regiments. The GPO is the commander of the gun group and is responsible for the reconnaissance  and deployment of the six guns of the battery in a gun position.  With the help of his Technical Assistants at the Command Post, he is responsible for calculating and passing the technical parameters of bearing and elevation for the guns to engage targets miles away.

Deployment of a battery of six guns to engage targets in depth commences by reconnaissance (recce)   of the allotted Gun Area.  The map coordinates of the Gun Area is passed to the GPO with any restrictions on movement or administration.

On reaching the allotted Gun Area, the GPO recces the area on his vehicle to find a place suitable to deploy his six guns. When the GPO finds a suitable area, he alights from his vehicle to carry out detailed recce on foot to mark the placement of each of the six guns and the Command Post.

The moment the GPO alights from his vehicle, the driver drives the vehicle to an area which offers maximum cover, to avoid detection from air.  The LMG detachment – a Gunner and his assistant – appear in front of the GPO and the GPO deploys the LMG for protection of the Recce Party – both from air and ground attack.

The LMG detachment travels in the Battery Havildar (Sergeant) Major’s (BHM) vehicle. BHM is an appointment given to one of the senior Havildars of the Battery. He is responsible for all aspects of duty and discipline of the NCOs and soldiers in that Battery. During the deployment of the Battery, he assists the GPO.

The LMG Gunner is generally the ‘Detail Master’ of the Battery. He is the understudy to the BHM and is the soldier with good handwriting and skill at mental maths. He provides all secretarial help to the BHM and his most important task is to prepare the Parade State of the Battery the evening before, to be handed over to the Regimental Havildar Major, who compiles the Regimental Parade State after receiving the same from all Batteries.

The assistant LMG Gunner is a tradesman – the Tailor or the Janitor – who does not have any specific combat duties.

After the deployment of the LMG detachment, the GPO carries out his recce, decides on the platforms for his six guns and the Command Post and gives out orders to his party.  The Gunners now prepare their gun platforms and the Technical Assistants prepare the technical parameters.  During all these actions, everyone is expected to run and walking or slouching is a taboo, until the guns arrive and deploy.

After the guns are deployed and when the GPO confirms that the guns are correctly positioned and all technical parameters are correctly set on the guns, he gives a ‘Ready Report’ indicating that his guns are ready to engage targets.

Immediately on giving the Ready Report, there appeared Gunner Mathukutty, our LMG Gunner, with a steaming cup of tea.  That tea was the one I earned by my sweat.  By the end of the deployment, with all the running around – especially in the Rajasthan deserts, I was drenched in sweat.  The tea tasted too good to describe and it always enthused me and removed any tiredness.

During our training exercises, we had many such deployments, at times about eight in a day.  Every time the Ready Report was given, Gunner Mathukutty served me the very same tasty cup of tea.  I wanted to know as to how Gunner Mathukutty prepared the tea when he was the LMG Gunner.

During one of the deployments, I kept a close watch on Gunner Mathukutty.  He jumped out of the BHM’s vehicle with the LMG, followed by his assistant who had the stove and kettle.  After I showed him the position of the LMG, they deployed the LMG there.  While I recced the gun platforms, they both recced for a covered position to prepare the magical tea. 

After a fortnight of training, we had our final exercise which in artillery parlance is called the Practise Camp.  This exercise involves many tactical deployments of the battery culminating into a final deployment in the firing ranges.  After the final deployment is live firing to engage target as per the tactical settings.

On the final day of our exercise, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of our Division visited us in our Gun Area.  I briefed him in detail about the deployment and the tactical scenario.  He appeared satisfied by my briefing, but wasn’t all too happy about my LMG.  True Infantry General that he was, he said “Your LMG is not deployed correctly.  It needs to move 20 meter to the left.”

Captain Raj Mehta, our Tactics Instructor at the National Defence Academy (now a Veteran Major General) had taught us all the nuances of section tactics, especially the deployment of LMG.  He had drilled it in us to such details that all of us will deploy the LMG at its apt position even in our sleep.

‘I deployed it in less than ten seconds,’ I thought.  It could well be that the General did not realise that the LMG was deployed  for both air and ground attack.  I still do not know as to how Gunner Mathukutty could have identified any aircraft flying overhead to be hostile.  In case he sighted any aircraft in our vicinity, friend or foe, he might have ended up emptying the entire magazine of his LMG by firing at the aircraft.