1.
Sri Lanka Army
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The Sri Lanka Army is the oldest and largest of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces and is the nations army. Established as the Ceylon Army in 1949, it was renamed when Sri Lanka became a republic in 1972, from the 1980s to 2009 the army was engaged in the Sri Lankan Civil War. The professional head of the Sri Lanka Army is the Commander of the Army, however operations of the Sri Lanka Army are coordinated by the Joint Operations Command, with other two armed forces. Prince Vijaya and his followers occupied the lands of the native Veddah people, repeated incursions by South Indians, particularly the Cholas, into Sri Lankan territory occurred throughout the next few centuries and led to the engagement of the rival forces in battle. In one famous encounter, Sinhalese King Dutugemunu raised an army of eleven thousand inhabitants in his battle against the Chola invader King Elara, King Dutugemunus organisational skills, bravery and chivalry are famous and his battles have gone down in history as outstanding offensive operations. He also had the foresight to cover his defences with artillery, vijayabâhu I was another warrior king who dislodged Indian invaders and united the country. Parakramabahu the Great was a monarch of the Polonnaruwa period of Sri Lankan history, and his accomplishments as a military leader. His reign included an expedition to Burma in retaliation for indignities inflicted on his envoys. This marked the first overseas expedition in Sri Lankan military history and it is also reported that Parakramabahus fame was such that his assistance was sought by South Indian rulers who were involved in internecine struggles. Another strong ruler in the era was Parâkramabâhu VI, who defeated Indian invaders, united the island and ruled it from capital Sri Jayawardhanapura. Militias were raised as the necessity arose, and the returned to their pursuits, mainly for farming. Parts of Sri Lanka came under the control of three colonial European powers, namely the Portuguese in the 16th century, the Dutch in the 17th century and the British in the 18th century. In the beginning of the 16th century, modern Europe first came in contact with Sri Lanka, in 1505 a Portuguese fleet, while operating in the Indian seas against Arab traders, was blown off course and landed at Galle, on the southern coast of the island. In 1517 the Portuguese re-appeared, and with the consent of the Sinhalese King established a trading post in Colombo, having initiated contact with Sri Lanka as traders, the Portuguese soon made themselves political masters of the western seaboard. Numerous forts were established, and features of European civilisation were introduced. The Portuguese are credited with the introduction of European-style fortresses to Sri Lanka during this era, although some locals already possessed military training and fighting experience, there is no evidence that the Portuguese employed local inhabitants into their own forces. Thus the Portuguese were forced to restrict their presence in the due to their small numbers. In 1602 Dutch explorers first landed in Sri Lanka, which was then under Portuguese control, by 1658 they had completely ousted the Portuguese from the coastal regions of the island
2.
Air assault
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Invariably the assaulting troops are highly dependent on aerial fire support provided by the armed helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft escorting the VTOL. Air assault should not be confused with air attack, air strike, or air raid, Air assault and air mobility are related concepts. However, air assault is distinctly a combat insertion rather than transportation to an area in the vicinity of combat, Air assault operations are not merely movements of soldiers, weapons, and materiel by Army aviation units and must not be construed as such. Air assault units can vary in organization, using not only in transport but also as close air fire support, medical evacuation helicopters. Airmobile artillery is often assigned to air assault deployments, units vary in size, but are typically company- or brigade-sized units. Airmobile units are designed and trained for air insertion and vertical envelopment, air resupply, one specific type of air assault unit is the US Army air cavalry. It differs from regular air assault units only in fulfilling a traditional cavalry reconnaissance, similarly, the US 101st Airborne Division was originally classed as airborne, then airmobile and now air assault. Air mobility has been a key concept in offensive operations since the 1930s, initial approaches to air mobility focused on airborne and glider-borne troops. During World War II many assaults were done by military gliders, the World War Two era German Fallschirmjäger and Brandenburgers glider borne paras laid the foundation for modern day Air Assault operations. In 1941 the U. S. Army quickly adopted this concept of offensive operations initially utilizing wooden gliders before the development of helicopters, following the war faster aircraft led to the abandonment of the flimsy wooden gliders with the then new helicopters taking their place. Another example being the German Brandenburgers glider borne operation at Ypenburg during World War Two, in 1946, U. S. Marine General Roy S. During this time, The Commandant of the Marine Corps, Alexander Vandegrift and this board recommended that the USMC develop transport helicopters in order to allow a diffused attack on enemy shores. It also recommended that the USMC form an experimental helicopter squadron. HMX-1 was commissioned in 1947 with Sikorsky HO3S-1s, in 1948 the Marine Corps Schools came out with Amphibious Operations—Employment of Helicopters, or Phib-31, which was the first manual for helicopter airmobile operations. The Marines used the vertical envelopment instead of air mobility or air assault. HMX-1 performed its first vertical envelopment from the deck of a carrier in an exercise in 1949. American forces later used helicopters for support and transport to great effect during the Korean War showing that the helicopter could be a versatile, the first helicopter airlift and helicopter sling load mission was conducted on September 13,1951 during the Korean War. Operation Windmill I was conducted by the United States Marine Corps in support of a clearing the enemy from a series of ridges around an extinct volcano called The Punchbowl. In total seven HRS-1 Marine helicopters made 28 flights that delivered 8,550 kg of supplies and evacuated 74 seriously wounded men
3.
Kandy
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Kandy is a major city in Sri Lanka, located in the Central Province, Sri Lanka. It was the last capital of the ancient kings era of Sri Lanka, the city lies in the midst of hills in the Kandy plateau, which crosses an area of tropical plantations, mainly tea. Kandy is both an administrative and religious city and is also the capital of the Central Province, Kandy is the home of The Temple of the Tooth Relic, one of the most sacred places of worship in the Buddhist world. It was declared a heritage site by UNESCO in 1988. The city and the region has been known by different names. Some scholars suggest that the name of Kandy was Katubulu Nuwara located near present Watapuluwa. However, the popular historical name is Senkadagala or Senkadagalapura, officially Senkadagala Siriwardhana Maha Nuwara. According to folklore, this originated from one of the several possible sources. The Kingdom of Kandy has also known by various names. The English name Kandy, which originated during the era, is derived from an anglicised version of the Sinhalese Kanda Uda Rata or Kanda Uda Pas Rata. The Portuguese shortened this to Candea, using the name for both the kingdom and its capital, in Sinhalese, Kandy is called Maha nuwara, meaning Great City or Capital, although this is most often shortened to Nuwara. Sena Sammatha Wickramabahu was followed by his son Jayaweera Astana and then by Karaliyadde Bandara who was succeeded by his daughter Dona Catherina of Kandy, Dona Catherina was succeeded by Rajasinha I. Rajasinha I however, preferred to rule the country from the Kingdom of Sitawaka on the west of the island. A period of turmoil for power ended with the ascent to the throne by Konappu Bandara who came to be known as Vimaladharmasuriya I, having embraced Buddhism, he consolidated his authority further by bringing the tooth relic of the Lord Buddha to Kandy from a place called Delgamuwa. In 1592 Kandy became the city of the last remaining independent kingdom in the island after the coastal regions had been conquered by the Portuguese. Several invasions by the Portuguese were repelled, most notably in the campaign of Danture, after the Sinhalese–Portuguese War and the establishment of Dutch Ceylon, attempts by the Dutch to conquer the kingdom were repelled. The kingdom tolerated a Dutch presence on the coast of Sri Lanka, the most ambitious offensive was undertaken in 1761, when King Kirti Sri Rajasinha attacked and overran most of the coast, leaving only the heavily fortified Negombo intact. When a Dutch retaliatory force returned to the island in 1763, Kirti Sri Rajasinha abandoned the coastline, the Dutch launched a better adapted force in January 1765, replacing their troops bayonets with machetes and using more practical uniforms and tactics suited to jungle warfare
4.
Sri Lankan Civil War
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The Sri Lankan Civil War was an armed conflict fought on the island of Sri Lanka. After a 26-year military campaign, the Sri Lankan military defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009, bringing the civil war to an end. For over 25 years, the war caused significant hardships for the population, environment and the economy of the country, with an initial estimated 80, 000–100,000 people killed during its course. In 2013, the UN panel estimated additional deaths during the last phase of the war, during the early part of the conflict, the Sri Lankan forces attempted to retake the areas captured by the LTTE. The LTTE then declared they would resume their struggle to achieve statehood. Following the end of the war, the Sri Lankan government claimed Sri Lanka as the first country in the world to eradicate terrorism on its own soil. Following the LTTEs defeat, pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance dropped its demand for a separate state, the origins of the Sri Lankan Civil War lie in the continuous political rancor between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. The roots of the conflict lie in the British colonial rule when the country was known as Ceylon. However, British Gov. William Manning actively encouraged the concept of representation and created the Colombo town seat in 1920. However, in 1944 J. R. Jayawardene moved in the State Council that Sinhala should replace English as the official language, approximately over 700,000 Indian Tamils were made stateless. Over the next three decades more than 300,000 Indian Tamils were deported back to India and it wasnt until 2003–55 years after independence—that all Indian Tamils living in Sri Lanka were granted citizenship, but by this time they only made up 5% of the islands population. In 1956 Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike passed the Sinhala Only Act and this was seen as a deliberate attempt to discourage the Sri Lankan Tamils from working in the Ceylon Civil Service and other public services. The Tamil-speaking minorities of Ceylon viewed the Act as linguistic, cultural, many Tamil-speaking civil servants/public servants were forced to resign because they werent fluent in Sinhala. This was a prelude to the 1956 Gal Oya riots and the 1958 widespread riots in which thousands of Tamil civilians perished, the civil war was a direct result of the escalation of the confrontational politics that followed. In the late 1960s documents relating to a separate Tamil state of Tamil Eelam began to circulate, at this time Anton Balasingham, an employee of the British High Commission in Colombo, began to participate in separatist activities. He later migrated to Britain, where he would become the chief theoretician of the LTTE, in the late 1960s several Tamil youth, among them Velupillai Prabhakaran, also became involved in these activities. They carried out several operations against pro-government Tamil politicians, Sri Lanka police. During the 1970s Policy of standardization was initiated, under the policy, university selection was calculated based on language
5.
1971 JVP insurrection
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The revolt began on 5 April 1971 and lasted till June 1971. The insurgents were able to capture and hold several towns and rural areas for weeks until they were recaptured by the armed forces. He founded the United National Party by amalgamating three right-leaning pro-dominion parties which won a majority in parliament at the general election, the UNP was defeated in 1956 when S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike became prime minister on a wave of nationalist sentiment. His wife Sirimavo Bandaranaike entered politics following his assassination and became the worlds first female minister in 1960. Due to successive governments, varying economic polices, regular strikes the economic out look of Ceylon in the 1960s had fallen below what it was when it gained independence in 1948 and this had even lead to an attempted coup in 1962. During the late 1960s a movement named as the JVP was initiated by Rohana Wijeweera a former medical student and he had been at odds with party leaders and impatient with its lack of revolutionary purpose and formed his own movement in 1967 with like minded youth. These camps provided training in Marxism-Leninism and basic military skills, by now a special CID unit was investigating the Che Guevara clique, whom then opposition leader Sirimavo Bandaranaike had made a reference to in her May Day speech in 1970. While developing secret cells and regional commands, Wijeweeras group also began to take a public role during the elections of 1970. In a manifesto issued during this period, the group used the name Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna for the first time, although their group was relatively small, the members hoped to immobilize the government by selective kidnapping and sudden, simultaneous strikes against the security forces throughout the island. Some of the weapons had been bought with funds supplied by the members. For the most part, however, they relied on raids against police stations and army camps to secure weapons, by 1970, the JVP had started recruiting and training cadre at camps in Kurunegala, Akmeemana, Tissamaharama, Elpitiya and Anuradhapura. Classes teaching the Five Lectures where being held in parts of the island mostly in secluded locations such as cemeteries. They had raised a force of around 10,000 full-time members, the movement was based on cells of five members with a leader and there were several such cells in a police station area with an area leader. The area leaders selected a leader to head the district. The district leaders made up the Central Committee, above the Central Committee was the Politbureau made up of 12 people including Wijeweera. All communication was by code by couriers, with the district secretaries communicating the messages from the Politburo met every two months in Colombo. The cells began arming themselves with shotguns, with each member expected to have one with 10 cartridges as well as uniforms, military boots. Home made bombs were prepared, with some exploding in the process, such as on December 17,1970, when Victor Ivan alias Podi Athula lost his left hand and was critically wounded when grenade exploded while being tested
