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  • Originally posted by notorious_eagle View Post
    Sir

    This is not true. Officers from Day 1 in PMA are taught to work together with the Jawans and operate as one entity. In fact, newly commissioned Officers have to spend 6 months to a year sharing quarters with Jawans. It is not at all uncommon for Officers to visit the Quarters of Jawans and ensure that they have adequate arrangements. During the operations in Swat and SW, 1 and 2 Star Officers lead from the front sharing quarters and meals together with the troops. Corps Commanders, GOC's and even the COAS regularly visit the troops on the front line to keep their morale up.
    NE,
    I take your word for it, since you would know better. My comments were on observations made by my father during his experience in 1971 in Khula-Jessore sector and my experience on the LOC.

    Many captured PA JCOs and NCOs in 1971, were very critical of their officers, when they saw the behaviour or InA officers towards them and their own men.

    My own experience - none of the PA forward posts had officers opposite my battalion (we had two of your battalions facing us), they stayed in the comfort of the Coy HQs at the rear. This makes a very bif difference.
    Maybe they had a shortage of officiers, but then so did we.

    Those Officers with a British mindset have long retired.
    The British standard is what is followed by us.

    Cheers!...on the rocks!!

    Comment


    • Lemontree,

      Has there been any changes to the British standard, i.e., indianizing and making it your own standards?

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Blademaster View Post
        Has there been any changes to the British standard, i.e., indianizing and making it your own standards?
        There have to be, if for no other reason than the standards of living and retirement packages have changed.

        If you mean battle qualifications, I offer you the mindset of General KJ Sundarji, who has no equivalent in Western armies (ok, I'm a self admitted fan of the General).

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
          There have to be, if for no other reason than the standards of living and retirement packages have changed.

          If you mean battle qualifications, I offer you the mindset of General KJ Sundarji, who has no equivalent in Western armies (ok, I'm a self admitted fan of the General).
          I mean in concepts of warfare on strategic level and on tactical level and low level leadership training.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Blademaster View Post
            Lemontree,

            Has there been any changes to the British standard, i.e., indianizing and making it your own standards?
            Very little especially in the fight units, we follow the traditions that have been handed over to us over the past 300 years.

            Example, religion - The officers follow the religion of the troops, irrespective of his own faith and beliefs. Officiers will visit the unit temple/gurudwara/mosque/church for collective prayers on Tuesday/Sunday/Friday (as the case may be).

            The only indianization permitted (in some units) was to remove the tie (many still consider it a sacrilage to remove it) on ordinary week days for bachelor officers who lived in the officers mess, and to allow dark rum to be served in the officers mess too.

            Raising of mixed units like the Brigade of Guards, Paras/ SF etc have been some of the Indianization efforts.

            Our text books for troops are not in the devnagri script, but still in roman hindi (hindi in english alphabets).

            Cheers!...on the rocks!!

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Blademaster View Post
              I mean in concepts of warfare on strategic level and on tactical level and low level leadership training.
              Not really, we learn from our own medivial wars, and the western world.s modern concepts.
              Best practices from all over the world are picked up and implimented if it suits us.

              Cheers!...on the rocks!!

              Comment


              • Originally posted by lemontree View Post
                Very little especially in the fight units, we follow the traditions that have been handed over to us over the past 300 years.

                Example, religion - The officers follow the religion of the troops, irrespective of his own faith and beliefs. Officiers will visit the unit temple/gurudwara/mosque/church for collective prayers on Tuesday/Sunday/Friday (as the case may be).

                The only indianization permitted (in some units) was to remove the tie (many still consider it a sacrilage to remove it) on ordinary week days for bachelor officers who lived in the officers mess, and to allow dark rum to be served in the officers mess too.

                Raising of mixed units like the Brigade of Guards, Paras/ SF etc have been some of the Indianization efforts.

                Our text books for troops are not in the devnagri script, but still in roman hindi (hindi in english alphabets).
                Why the strong adherence to British practices when British was a symbol of colonialism and occupation?

                Comment


                • Since we are discussing India-Pakistan wars, this article deserves to be read. It was written by K. Subrahmanyam, one of India's best known Strategic Affairs Analysts. He passed away in 2011. The article is from 2005.

                  Guilty Gen of ’65

                  In 1965 I was deputy secretary (budget and planning) in the Ministry of Defence. It was a Sunday evening in June, shortly after the Rann of Kutch clashes. I was returning from a visit to one of the Sainik Schools — I was the honorary secretary of the Sainik Schools society — when I met M.M. Hooja, then joint director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), at Delhi’s Palam airport.

                  I had known Hooja in my earlier post as deputy secretary (joint intelligence organisation) and member of the Joint Intelligence Committee. He offered to drop me home and, in the car, told me IB had intelligence that Pakistan had raised a second armoured division by cheating the Americans. Though the army had been told, it had refused to accept this.

                  I asked him to communicate this in writing to enable me to bring it to the defence minister’s notice. The next morning I received a top-secret letter from K. Sankaran Nair, deputy-director, IB.

                  The defence secretary, P.V.R. Rao, was on four months leave. The secretary-in-charge was a new man, A.D. Pandit. I handed over the letter to H.C. Sarin, secretary (defence production), who enjoyed the confidence of the defence minister, Y.B. Chavan. He gave it to the minister for discussion in his daily morning meeting.

                  When the minister raised the issue, the army chief, General J.N. Chaudhuri argued, according to what Sarin told me, that IB was exaggerating and unable to produce credible evidence. Due to this casual attitude of the army chief, Pakistan was able to spring the surprise of 1st Armoured Division at Khemkaran and 6th Armoured Division at Sialkot.

                  That the Indian armoured brigade, under Brigadier T.K. Theogaraj, destroyed the Pakistani armoured division reflects to the credit of officers and men of the army, their guts, valour and skills. They had the full support of their corps commander, General J.S. Dhillon, and their army commander, General Harbaksh Singh.

                  Even for taking a stand at Khemkaran, General Chaudhuri had to be overruled by defence minister Chavan and the prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri. the army chief preferred withdrawal to the Beas river. The details may be found in R.D. Pradhan’s bFrom Debacle to Revival. Pradhan was Chavan’s private secretary upto end 1964 and was brought back during the war. Subsequently, he had access to Chavan’s diaries.

                  Earlier that year, General Chaudhuri had obtained cabinet orders to reduce our medium tank regiments from 11 down to four and increase the light tank regiments from four to 11. He carried this reorganisation through in spite of opposition from professional subordinates.

                  The Pentagon simulated a ‘game’ in March 1965, according to which Pakistan attacked India on September 1, 1966, and captured Srinagar, with Shastri unable to counter-attack. In reality, Pakistan attacked on September 1, 1965, and Shastri hit back very hard If Pakistanis had not been in such a hurry and had struck a year later with their two divisions of armour, India would have been in real trouble. After the war, General Chaudhuri not only had to abandon his plans for armour reorganisation, but ask the government to hastily import six regiments of medium armour — three T-54 regiments from Czechoslovakia and three T-55 regiments from the USSR.

                  General Chaudhuri, as was disclosed by Air Chief Marshal P.C. Lal in a later lecture, did not keep the Indian Air Force (IAF) informed of his intending operation in the Lahore sector. The IAF was caught off-guard and incurred avoidable losses of aircraft, including newly-arrived MIG-21s.

                  The Indian Army was surprised by the Pakistani armour’s sudden appearance through the various aqueducts under the Ichogil canal. This intelligence about the aqueducts was available well in advance, since construction plans of the canal, including the aqueducts, were obtained from the World Bank by IB and provided to the army.

                  Shekhar Gupta (‘‘1965 in 2005’’, National Interest, June 4, 2005) was not wrong in calling the war one of mutual incompetence. It so happens both Ayub Khan and General Chaudhuri were in the same batch at Sandhurst.

                  TWO months before the war, in my planning branch, undersecretary I.C. Bansal did elaborate research on the US budgetary documents and calulated American military aid to Pakistan totalled slightly below $ 900 million. When this was put up to the Chiefs of Staff Committee, they (particularly the army chief) rejected the study. In their view, the aid should have been several billions of dollars.

                  We costed the equipment and facilities and argued it could not be very much more. But it was to no avail. Subsequently it was proved our calculations in the planning branch were not very much off the mark.

                  So on the one hand General Chaudhuri refused to accept the existence of the second Pakistani armoured division. But at the same time he had an exaggerated view of US aid to Pakistan.

                  Having negotiated with the Americans on aid for six Indian mountain divisions, we were aware US policy was to provide only six weeks’ war wastage of ammunition at US rates, which were lower than our rates, to aid-receiving countries. On September 2, 1965, through a top-secret telegram, I sought information from S. Guhan, my cadremate and at that time first secretary in our Washington embassy, to check through contacts in the Pentagon what was the ammunition supply rate to Pakistan.

                  Gohar Ayub Khan’s story of a stolen war plan is probably bogus. But 40 years on, the first full-fledged India-Pakistan war is still a very real presence for many Within a few days Guhan confirmed my assumption and a copy of the top-secret telegram went to General Chaudhuri also. He congratulated me for the information. Indeed, Gohar Ayub Khan has referred to Pakistan suffering from ammunition shortage within a few days of the war beginning.

                  India had some 90 days war wastage reserves. After the war ended, it was found only eight to 10 per cent of the tank and artillery ammunition had been spent. We had to cancel an order to Yugoslavia for a million rounds of L-70 anti-aircraft ammunition. The order had been placed during the operations.

                  If the war had been continued for another week, Pakistan would have been forced to surrender. Unfortunately General Chaudhuri advised the prime minister to accept the UN ceasefire proposal since he felt both sides were running out of ammunition. This was far from true for India.

                  Let me come to some major intelligence failures, even though we were not aware of them at the time. According to an article by Altaf Gauhar — in 1965, the alter ego of President Ayub Khan — in Nation on October 3, 1999, Brigadier Ayub Awan, director of the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau, travelled to Saudi Arabia in early 1965. He contacted Sheikh Abdullah in Jeddah and told him about Operation Gibraltar. Later however, President Ayub decided against taking Sheikh Abdullah’s help.

                  This version was confirmed by the then CIA operative in Madras (now Chennai), Duane Claridge, who was deputed to meet Sheikh Abdullah and told by him of the coming war. US authorities had, therefore, full knowledge about Operation Gibraltar and Pakistani plans to use American equipment against India as early as March 1965, but chose not to warn India.

                  This information is available in Claridge’s book A Man for All Seasons. Claridge rose high in the CIA and became deputy director. He was convicted during the Reagan presidency in the Iran-Contra affair, but pardoned.

                  Pakistan was suffering from an ammunition shortage within days of the war starting. India had 90 days of war wastage reserves. If the war had continued for another week, Pakistan would have been forced to surrender. But India agreed to a UN ceasefire Following all this, the Institute of Defence Analysis (IDA) in the Pentagon simulated a politico-strategic game with Harvard University. According to this game, ‘‘played’’ in March 1965, India lost the war with Pakistan and had to accept US mediation on Kashmir, after losing Srinagar. Though Shastri was advised in the game to counterattack, he was timid and refused.

                  The verbatim proceedings of this game were published in March 1965 by Doubleday and available in US bookshops. The book was titled Crisis Game, ascribed to author Sidney Giffin.

                  But our intelligence, civil and military, did not have a clue. In 1967, I picked up a second-hand copy on the pavement outside the London School of Economics. One wonders how much this book influenced President Ayub in initiating Operation Gibraltar.


                  Strangely enough, in the book Pakistan attacks India on September 1, 1966. In reality it happened on September 1, 1965.

                  Till today, the valour and skills of the officers and men of that armoured brigade commanded by Brigadier Theogaraj and the roles of Generals Harbaksh and Dhillon in defying General Chaudhuri have not received their due credit.

                  One American academic — an assistant secretary of state in the Kennedy administration who played a prominent role in preventing India getting combat equipment — ruefully told me that on the eve of the 1965 war he was planning to write a book on ‘the war that changed the fate of the subcontinent’.

                  Thanks to the valour and tactical skills of those men who confronted the Pakistani Pattons at Asal Uttar, he could never write that book.
                  I don't know what possessed Gen. Chaudhuri to simply ignore the Intelligence Bureau's information that Pakistan was raising a second Armored division, or for that matter his proposal to withdraw behind the Beas river. His other errors are equally if not more egregious.

                  The part about "Crisis Game" is quite interesting as well.
                  Last edited by Firestorm; 06 Sep 13,, 06:40.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Blademaster View Post
                    Why the strong adherence to British practices when British was a symbol of colonialism and occupation?
                    Those practices made them a world power so it would'nt do any harm to follow them.
                    These militray tradtions build a cohesive fighting unit - nothing wrong in them.

                    Adopt best practices and dump what has out lived its usefullness.

                    Cheers!...on the rocks!!

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by lemontree View Post
                      Adopt best practices and dump what has out lived its usefullness.
                      Explain bagpipes.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
                        Explain bagpipes.
                        That feeling when you know the enemy troops are more annoyed then you.
                        No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

                        To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Firestorm View Post
                          Since we are discussing India-Pakistan wars, this article deserves to be read. It was written by K. Subrahmanyam, one of India's best known Strategic Affairs Analysts. He passed away in 2011. The article is from 2005.......

                          I don't know what possessed Gen. Chaudhuri to simply ignore the Intelligence Bureau's information that Pakistan was raising a second Armored division, or for that matter his proposal to withdraw behind the Beas river. His other errors are equally if not more egregious.
                          It is fashionable for civilian bureaucrats to put down military leaders after the fog of war has cleared.
                          In 1965, at the time of war, Pakistan had 18 armd regiments, and 6th Armd div was still under raising. 100 Independent Armd Bde was re-named HQ 6 Armd Div - it had only 3 armd regts, hence it was a division only in name.
                          (Reference: Pakistan Armoured Corps as a Case Study)

                          The story about withdrawing to the Beas river is also another baseless controversy. The counter-attack towards Lahore and Sialkot were not civilian ideas. In that war many things went right and some went wrong, and these civilian jokers catch on to the errors and make a song and dance about it. Doing a postmortem of an event is far easier than taking decisions that shape the event, the former can be done over a nice chat over tea, while the later is making decisions with whatever info is at had and lives of your troops and honour of the nation is at stake.
                          Last edited by lemontree; 06 Sep 13,, 09:52.

                          Cheers!...on the rocks!!

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
                            Explain bagpipes.
                            Cheaper than having a brass band, and secondly we could not get anything else that sounded like squeling pigs

                            Cheers!...on the rocks!!

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
                              To explore the viability of a suggestion, I ask whether the company and battalion level officers can do the job independently, not necessarily a do or die, but effectively giving battle, including surrender, if only to force the front lines to stand guard (and thus reduce their effectiveness) and reduce the speed of their advance.
                              In 1971, No. Power was concentrated too much on the top. Company and Battalion Commanders did not have the authority nor the training to carry out their tasks independently.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by lemontree View Post
                                NE,
                                I take your word for it, since you would know better. My comments were on observations made by my father during his experience in 1971 in Khula-Jessore sector and my experience on the LOC.
                                Sir

                                Your father wouldn't be wrong, not sure about your experience in LOC. By British mindset, i meant Officers used to look down upon the Jawans simply because they couldn't speak English and weren't groomed like the Officers were. Officers prided themselves on being 'Gentlemen', and looked down upon anyone who didn't fulfill that standard.

                                Originally posted by lemontree View Post
                                Many captured PA JCOs and NCOs in 1971, were very critical of their officers, when they saw the behaviour or InA officers towards them and their own men.
                                Not surprised

                                Originally posted by lemontree View Post
                                My own experience - none of the PA forward posts had officers opposite my battalion (we had two of your battalions facing us), they stayed in the comfort of the Coy HQs at the rear. This makes a very bif difference.
                                Maybe they had a shortage of officiers, but then so did we.
                                Not sure about your experience but one only needs to look at the recent conduct of PA. Officers as high as 1 and 2 stars personally lead their troops from the front lines, lived with them and shared meals with them during the operations in Swat and SW. The most Senior Officer right now in PA and most likely the next COAS Lt Gen Haroon Aslam personally lead his troops in 2008 during the Swat Operation. He was a 2 star at the time and Commanding Officer of the SSG, i have already posted pictures of him having meal with the troops and sharing quarters with them.

                                Originally posted by lemontree View Post
                                The British standard is what is followed by us.
                                I was referring in terms of the mindset, not fighting units.

                                Comment

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