rkam98

I am doing a presentation on the sino-indian war. I will be examining the war from a military stand point. I would greatly appreciate any articles which disscuss the military analysis of the war, either comparitive capabilites in 1962, as well as tactical mistakes made by the Indian army or strategic errors by Nehuru.

badguy2000

1,the roads in indian frontier was poorer than that in tibet.

2,the deployment of indian army was just more a political pose to comfort Indian people's patriots mood ,than a military preparation for coming conflicts.

3,the crappy indian commander in the east frontier .he was more like a politicians than a career armyman.

4,the only road to Indian plain was cut by a PLA troop by a shortcut.

Ray

Have a look at

War in the Himalayas: 1962 Indo-Sino Conflict

it might help!

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

texasjohn

Ray,

Could you lend some insight as to why India never used it's Air Force during the conflict?

Ray

I really don't know.

What is said is that Nehru the pacifist and international do gooder was scared that it would escalate the war and his image would take a greater beating.

1962 was the beginning of the end of Nehru!

However, 1962 was also a wake up call for not making coffee machines in the defence factories and instead arms and ammunition. It also allowed the modernisation, albeit still in a tardy manner, but in a much better frame of mind beyond the pacifism of Gandhism, which was the mantra of the govt!

One must thus thank Mao and Chou for shaking India from its ridiculous complacent slumber into the modern age!

lemontree

Could be because NEFA was air supplied and Nehru must have thought that if the PLAAF came in the supply flights would be shot down by PLAAF Mig-15s.

Just my thought.

__________________

Cheers!...on the rocks!!

badguy2000

very simple,at that time,Mg15 and mg19 were still advanced aricraft.
And PLAAF had 3000+ Mg19 and mg15 and was the third biggest airforce in the world.

If indian airforce had took part in the war,it would had be blown up easily by PLAAF.

The power of PLA,including PLAAF , hit its peak in 1960 or so.At that time,Soviet was still Chinese ally ,and PLA's equipments/weapons was almost as advanced as Soviets Red army.

After Sino-soviet split in 1960's,China lose the supplies of advanced weapons from Soviets and chinese defence industry was still not mature enough .So during 1960's -1970's,PLA's weapons became more and more outdated.
When sino-Vietnam war broke out in 1979,PLA found most of its weapons were even outdated than Vietnam and its capacity were even weaker than it was in 1950's because of the disorder in the Great cultural revolution.

During 1980's-mid 1990's,Chinese defence industry in fact got much more consolidated .but due to lack of fund,most new tech were kept in labs.PLA's weapons were not upgraded .

after 1990's,China started to pump its money to PLA. PLA's capacity has been being improved rapidly,until now.

Ray

The location of Chinese airfields in Tibet at the time?

Effective combat range of these Chinese aircraft?

Effective payloads that could have been lifted by these aircraft i.e. the all up weight? The point to note, I believe is that the all up weight is reduced by say 2/3 in a high altitude airfield.

Effect of such a payload at the target end which were high altitude mountains?

So, what would have been the effect of the Chinese AF?

The IAF would have been operating from airfields at sea level.

Garuda

Ray Sir,

I was about to post what you've said. PLAAF birds could never have provided support to the PLA columns after the formations crossed the border. The range and altitude ceilings would never have made it possible. On the other hand, IAF squadrons operating out of Tezpur, Bagdogra, Hasimara etc. would have taken just few minutes to beat the crap out of the PLA columns.

IIRC from my dad's account, Dakota's flying out of IAF Central Command used to air drop supplies to NEFA. IAF had heavies like the Canberra's and Packet's in the service then, sharing the same bases with the Dakota's. They could have carpet bombed the PLA jokers if they wished.

badguy2000

India's NEFA is not far away from Yunnan Province,where PLAAF can be mass-deployed.

Garuda

And what was PLAAF infra and deployment there in 1962?

Why didn't PLA move in from areas adjoining Yunnan province then? If Yunnan was deficient in terms of military infra for PLA, then the same reason should hold good PLAAF too.

OTOH, IAF had fully functioning bases like Tezpur, Chabua, Jorhat, Dinjan, Shillong, Digaru etc. in the area even then. Chinese position with respect to air support was even more precarious as we move westward.

Real reasons however are that IAF was not geared for such action in NEFA jungles. They didn't have the training or experience to conduct such operations. It was the problem of lack of training and doctrine.

We had the air bases there and Gnats and Hunters have proved their worthiness in capable hands.

PLAAF might or lack of it was not the deciding factor.

OoE might be able to throw some light on status and deployment of PLAAF squadrons at that time.

Officer of Engineers

The main reason is that the PLA is not an aviation army, even today. They don't think air support. They think ground based artillery. 90%+ of their successes in the Korean War against Allied Air Forces was using Anti-Air Artillery, not Air-to-Air contests. So, why would they even think of moving MiG-15 squadrons around?

__________________
Chimo

Blademaster

Perhaps PLA is not an aviation army because the air force was never intergrated with the army in the first place like the US Army was before WWII. During WWII, the Air Force was part of the Army. It was only after WWII that the Air Force became a separate force. But still, the Army was ingrained with the lessons of WWII and Korean war to appreciate close air support. To have close air support, it was necessary to dominate and control the airspace above you and surrouding airspace in the vicinity. US Army understood that well. Perhaps PLA did not because of the lack of lessons learned in WWII and Korean War.

Officer of Engineers

You can't use what you don't have. The CCP during WWII had no airplanes and their pilots during the Korean War sucked. It took Soviet pilots to reverse the trend in the skies.

digvijay

Rkam,
The fundamental reason why India lost was because of these two people:
i) Jawahar Lal Nehru
ii) Krishna Menon

These two gentelmen "did not believe", let me repeat "DID NOT BELIEVE" china would attack India, despite ominous buildup by Chinese forces across our border. Consequently Indian forces were not prepared to fight this war. They did not have enough bullets!

President John F. Kennedy flew non-stop flights to India which carried guns and ammo.

You can read about some of the courageous who lost there lives in defending India here: (chronologically organized starting from the Pakistani conflicts so you will have to scroll down a bit in each of these sections).
PVC Winner
MVC winner

-Digvijay