Anoop C

Colonel,

Can the following tactics be used to overcome defences in mountainous terrain?

- Vertical envelopment by dropping heliborne forces in the enemy rear (in this case Indian territory ) to interrupt logistic supply of forward posts - a successful envelopment would cause the defenders to withdraw to the next strongly held location in the rear. Unlike the Indo-Pak border which has a very high density of troop deployment, the Indo-Chinese border is relatively scarce and troop deployment in the Eastern Sector is concentrated along a few important passes on the Sikkim-Bhutan border (a lay man's reading, of course). The problem with the terrain for the defender is that once the vantage points have been seized, recovering them is also difficult due to poor approaches.

- Use of guerilla tactics using Nepalese Maoists to thin out the Indian deployment along the Central Sector i.e. Nepal - a huge frontage on the Indian side that will suck up troops, although the PLA's access is limited to only 3 or so major passes on the Chinese border. So far, Nepal has been presumed to be a buffer zone, but in the event of a full scale war, collusion with the Maoists cannot be ruled out.

- There has to be a role for the PLA's short range conventional missile force to simultaneously attack Indian communication nodes in the rear. A combination of confusion in the rear vs. envelopment in the front-lines would be what the PLA doctor orders. would it not?

A general comment. Is the WZC, the Chinese version of Effects Based Warfare? "Shock and awe" being disproportional to the actual physical destruction i.e. rendering a Div. ineffective by attacking its HQ's protective cordon. In the Sino-Indian context, there is already historical precedent at the strategic level in 1962 - Nehru thinking Assam and Arunachal Pradesh were lost when all we lost were a few hundred square km and our main line of defences were still intact. Although, that is unlikely to ever happen again.

Your comments/corrections are welcome.