Officer of Engineers

Sir,

Cannot give orders in a house full of women. I'm physically drained from all the day's exertion and I can't think straight at the moment, not that #1 Daughter ever allows the old man some peace. Joining WWF? Only if they will help me with the horses.

Guys, I'll answer your questions tomorrow when I can think straight.

__________________
Chimo

Franco Lolan

I live in S FL. I'm going to Atlanta from Thursday to Monday for the Barkley Forum, then that week to Washington from Thursday to Monday for Gtown MUN. I hope there is an inordinate amount of snow to play with (I never have).

Officer of Engineers

I would be hesitant to include the InAF at the moment simply because the doctrine is not spelled out. However, it would seemed that neither service wants to be subservant to each other.

The InAF would love nothing more than for the army to teligraph their movements so that the Pakistanis can mass to prevent the assualt and thereby offer a big juicy target.

The InA naturally wants the InAF to perform the role of air arty and thus reduce their fire footprint and therefore, increase speed.

What you suggest is a very good compromise but the way I see it, this would only work if you have one overall theatre commander in charge of all services in theatre. Such a thing is far from happenning.

People at the BRF love to bring up the destruction of the Pak supply depot at Kragil as an indication of the InAF success. I would argue that the depot's destruction means absolutely squat if the bellycrawlers could not take the hills from the defender.

Note that in 1962, the PLA were bingo food, water, and ammunition when they retreated.

Officer of Engineers

Find the enemy. Kill the enemy. Forcing them to stand and fight is an easy way of finding them.

First, deliberately killing civilians is extremely disgusting to me and I think for the InA also. I gather it is for the Brigadier.

2nd, your suggestion is unfocussed and therefore, your results would be unfocussed. A hundred bee stings is exactly that, a hundred bee stings, not a knock out punch.

As I understand things, the military actions would not have time for the politicians to intefere. Whether or not the GoI would allow an attack into Pakistan is open to debate but an extremely focussed military operation with bold results would be attractive to say the least, if the military can present its case right.

So, you can kill the enemy. A very bloody and very expensive Capture the Flag game. However, what that would also show is that the Pakistanis would have also lost the mobilization game.

Only at the Corps level, there is a strong arguement for brigade/div level actions that are fast, bold, and decisive.

The way I see Cold Start, it's designed to kill a Pakistani army (maybe even a soft kill).

I doubt that. Kosovo.

Blademaster

I understand the distinction but what I am talking about is high value targets that could be civilian in nature such as oil depots, oil refineries, media stations, power plants, factories.

That's right. Nobody would retaliate nuclearly if it was a beesting. But a knockout punch, yeah somebody would retaliate with nuclear weapons.

For the 1 or 2 days yeah, the politicians won't intefere, but on the 3rd day and afterwards, the politicians would start intefering. The ColdStart requires at least 1 week to complete its course.

Can ColdStart accomplish that before Pakistanis unleashing the nuclear weapons?

But how can a brigade or division launch a knockout punch? InA is not US Army. The knockout punch is delivered at least at the division level, not at the brigade. To do that would require a vastly enourmous of money and resources comparable to US and USSR spending levels. InA has over 80 divisions. That means 240 brigades. I am not saying that we equip all of them for the knockout punch. But equiping 10 brigades is very expensive for India.

What is the purpose of a soft kill iin this scenario? A soft kill is a kill that prevents someone from doing certain actions. As far as I am concerned, the PA has been stymied already by the defences prepared by India. It is the night raids by small numbers of terrorists that has bedeviled India. So what is the purpose of pursuing a soft kill?

I think you misunderstood me. In Kosovo, there were no serious groundwork preparation by NATO till the last minute. In this case, there are very serious groundwork preparations underway and PA would have no choice but to respond to them, ie, massing up to meet the gauntlet thrown by InA. And when they do, we can use the bomber fleet to whack them.

Geez, this is fun even though I am badly out of my elements competing with you experience military veterans.

Officer of Engineers

You're aiming for a knock out blow. At least make life extremely uncomfortable economically for Pakistan.

Your results would also not be felt. Allow me to clarify, I'm not stating the InA march all the way to Islamabad but that the InA owns the Pakistani battlefield.

Again, depends on the OPOBJ presented. It takes 2-3 days for any order from the Capital to be executed. Remember how long it took the US to stop the Kuwait War? If the politicians loses nerve half way through the battle, the battle would have to be completed before the InA could withdraw.

It's a sucker punch. Punch drunk your oppenant and leave before he recovers his senses.

As I stated before, we will have to wait for the IBG's TOE before we can see the tactical initiatives.

Not 10, 8 and I'm not sure the InA has even asked for anymore money. Certainly these IBGs ain't nothing like the Stryker Brigades where entire brigades are based out of new technologies.

A victory is a victory. It's up to the REMFs on how to play it out.

Then, you will have situations like Kragil. Remember the 1st days of that war? It was a political disaster for New Dehli.

The time delay in such a scenario is already discussed as being disadvantageous to India as international pressure builds.

I think I created a monster. Like I said, I've got to stop posting at BRF, you guys are picking up my bad habbits.

Jay

Colonel,
The objective is very similar to Chinese WZC....aint it?

__________________
A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

Officer of Engineers

May very well be my interruptation of the facts and I'm soley alone in this thinking. I'm really an outsider looking in without the benefit of studying indepth of the InA culture and history.

We do know that both armies have studied FM 3.0 and alot of the theories at work came right out of FM 3.0. Thus, it's not surprising that there are similarities.

It remains to be seen how the InA defines their OPOBJ which is the next step in trying to deduce this doctrine.

Anoop C

I request the professionals on this board to paint a spatial and temporal picture of some combat situations for the benefit of civilians like me (if the size of the units likely to be involved in these actions are outrageous, please correct that too):

1. A river crossing by an armored regiment (~ 55 tanks), assuming a span of 500 m and greater than fording depth:

- What will be the spatial dimensions of the bridgehead, including engineering and supply vehicles - 2 km x 2 km??

- How many crossing points at a minimum?

- How many hours will it take to cross, including bridge-laying?

- What defensive measures will be taken if they come under fire?

2. Minefield - breaching operations: Assuming a minefield of 5 km (width) x 1 km (depth) needs to be breached by a mechanized infantry company that is the lead element of an armored brigade level thrust, how would it proceed?

- Sappers' platoons identify approx. 5 gaps along the width of the minefield? How is this identification done?

- Mineclearing vehicles travel along those paths, paving the way for follow-on BMPs and jeeps?

- Recovery vehicles follow?

- How much time does all this take assuming no enemy artillery?

- What additional measures are needed to allow the crossing of the tank regiments coming up in the rear?

Thanks in advance.

Officer of Engineers

DND/CF - Army Electronic Library - B-GL 360 Protection

Anoop C

Col. Yu,

Thank you. That collection is an amazing source of information. I found what I was looking for in B-GL-321-006 as far as situation (2) is concerned. I like this one much more than the US FM3.0 - too many acronyms and too few specifics there!

Officer of Engineers

Click on the tab "360 Protection"

Anoop C

I did, sir. I already got a reply to the watercrossing question from another board, so I was more curious about the minefield negotiation. It's truly a terrific resource, even if it will take me forever to read through!

Officer of Engineers

There are more FMs than FM 3.0

You need

FM 3-34 ENGINEERING OPERATIONS
FM 5-7-30 BRIGADE ENGINEER AND ENGINEER COMPANY COMBAT OPERATIONS (AIRBORNE, AIR ASSAULT, LIGHT)
FM 5-10 COMBAT ENGINEER PLATOON
FM 5-71-2 ARMORED TASK-FORCE ENGINEER COMBAT OPERATIONS

Ray

Anoop,

The Colonel is a good teacher.