No ‘Cold Start’ doctrine, India tells US

[Vinod2070]

More than thoughts, it will be denunciations of an army of myth against an army of resurrection.

Well, the myth are not going away in a hurry. These guys have a talent for awarding themselves a consolation prize, even from the worst defeats. ;)

[zraver]

Again - We would not be holding ground.
In the Indo-Pak context, you move in 5 Km and you have a battalion...about 8 km and you have taken out a brigade. That would be it, if the strike is fast and does not last more that a couple of days.

I do believe that will prove overly optimistic. I doubt the Pakistani army has that many troops that close to the border. if they did, India would not even need to cross the border, just use the Smerch.

IDF was fighting guerillas...
We would be fighting a regular army in prepared defended localities, with a lot of old 106 mms along wirth ATGMs.

The IDF was not fighting guerillas, they thought they were which contributed to their defeat. Hezzbollah is a well trained conventional light infantry army using traditional fortification tactics. They are more accurately described as fortress troops.

BTW, those 106mm will do very nasty things to IFV/APC's.

Do you thing we would have to move around our guns much if the target formation is max 10 km deep?
In cold start the Pak army arty would be no where around till the 2nd day if they are fast enough. By then their forward battalions would been chewed up by us.

I think you need to get deeper than 10km, the forward units are not likely to stand and fight outside of towns and villages, but try and bleed the IA via a measured retreat.

It is quite a good weapon to tie down their fwd airbases on the opening day of the offensive.

And beat on any reserves that mass, but the introduction of the A-100 promises a counter.

[Deltacamelately]

DCL,

All good points until you need your arty to be able to move fast enough to avoid CBF and keep up with mobile formations. Towed tubes have their uses, but a large mechanized battle is not their forte.

Z,

I appreciate your reasoning, however, I will try one last time to make you understand our take on this.
Even though the InA's Artillery Plan 2000 appears to give much priority to the acquisition of large numbers of SPA it would be difficult, if not impossible, to shift the onus from towed artillery to SPAs overnight. One might wonders if this says anything about InA's attitude towards warfare in general and battlefield nuclear warfare in particular, but then gone are the days when the nuclear battlefield placed less emphasis on artillery support. Many hard lessons were learnt post Kargil, that will have a direct bearing on future acquisitions and doctrinal changes.

Even going by open sources, you will find that the prevailing military doctrine emphasizes attritional warfare instead of the previous manoeuvre policy. This means that the artillery, which was earstwhile considered to be a combat support arm, is now classed as a combat arm with priorities shifting between direct support and counter battery bombardment. What it means in general terms is, the basic focus has moved from deep thrusts with mechanized forces, to maximum attrition of enemy forces, limited manoeuvre and attacks on strategic and operational targets. Towed artillery, therefore, has a central role to play in such a attrition based doctrine. Help will also be available from the new SATA batteries, as these are being supplied with battlefield surveillance radar as well as arty locating radars. This will dramatically enhance the effectiveness of the current tubes in our disposal.

To outside observers like you, there might seem too many contradictions in what has been publicly revealed about the Indian military doctrine, especially regarding the artillery, however, this space is a "must watch" and will unravel lots of information in the coming days.

[n21]

I do believe that will prove overly optimistic. I doubt the Pakistani army has that many troops that close to the border. if they did, India would not even need to cross the border, just use the Smerch.

Zraver,
PA has a strike corp and 3 holding corps based in the state of Punjab alone. If I am not wrong, all within the range of Smerch rockets!

I think more than half of PA is based in Punjab.

PA is a army of Punjab, not Pakistan Army.

The city of Lahore(the capital of Punjab, LET headquaters etc) is around 15kms from the Indian border.

[Deltacamelately]

I do believe that will prove overly optimistic. I doubt the Pakistani army has that many troops that close to the border. if they did, India would not even need to cross the border, just use the Smerch.

Z,

Close to which border? Any Indo-Pak conflict will take place, probably in one of these four major theatres.

1) Line of Control - North Kashmir.
2) Southern J&K and Punjab.
3) North and Central Rajasthan.
4) South Rajasthan and Gujarat

Now each one of these theatres have different meanings regarding closeness to the border.

I think you need to get deeper than 10km, the forward units are not likely to stand and fight outside of towns and villages, but try and bleed the IA via a measured retreat.

I would suggest you to take a second look at the borders. The Punjab sector and in areas stretching down into North and Central Rajasthan, there are a series of extremely formidable obstacle defences, heavily manned, which we call ditch-kum-bunds and which the Paks call canals. These heavily defended formations are not designed for a tactical retreat and return counter-offence but rather to stand and fight with every thing at their disposal and as per the good Colonel, that includes the kitchen sink. Infact, the PA will not cede even an inch of land in Punjab without offering battle as this will otherwise become a huge PR defeat for them.

Now combined with the existing natural ground features, these heavy fortifications make large-scale mechanized operations difficult to say the least. These linear defences are extremely formidable, since the ditch-kum-bunds are liberally laced with diffused and well concealed concrete bunkers which have considerable defensive firepower and are difficult to locate. So yes, I concur to Captain Lemontree's view, that at 10kms+ towards the river lines, you are more than likely to confront a brigade if not an entire division.

[zraver]

Z,

Close to which border? Any Indo-Pak conflict will take place, probably in one of these four major theatres.

1) Line of Control - North Kashmir.
2) Southern J&K and Punjab.
3) North and Central Rajasthan.
4) South Rajasthan and Gujarat

Now each one of these theatres have different meanings regarding closeness to the border.


I would suggest you to take a second look at the borders. The Punjab sector and in areas stretching down into North and Central Rajasthan, there are a series of extremely formidable obstacle defences, heavily manned, which we call ditch-kum-bunds and which the Paks call canals. These heavily defended formations are not designed for a tactical retreat and return counter-offence but rather to stand and fight with every thing at their disposal and as per the good Colonel, that includes the kitchen sink. Infact, the PA will not cede even an inch of land in Punjab without offering battle as this will otherwise become a huge PR defeat for them.

Now combined with the existing natural ground features, these heavy fortifications make large-scale mechanized operations difficult to say the least. These linear defences are extremely formidable, since the ditch-kum-bunds are liberally laced with diffused and well concealed concrete bunkers which have considerable defensive firepower and are difficult to locate. So yes, I concur to Captain Lemontree's view, that at 10kms+ towards the river lines, you are more than likely to confront a brigade if not an entire division.

DCL, war is politics in many ways. Giving the lack of response for Mumbai, of the GoI choose war over some future event it is a political move. Both to teach the GoP and to placate angry Indians who are finally fed up with terrorist attacks so common that they have become a way of life. In such a situation a small advance is a defeat for India.

If India only advances 10km or so, there is no punishment. When India pulls back the GoP will claim Indian forces had been stopped cold no matter the truth of the battle. Kill 100,000 Pakistani soldiers but do not advance and the end of war spin by Pakistan will be of a successful defense. Domestically, a lack of a beak through and advance will look like defeat as well. The average man on the street does not understand war except in the abstract. He wants to see India duplicate 1971 so he can feel he is on the winning side. He wants India to duplicate the US' crushing victory in Iraq.

To punish Pakistan and satisfy domestic demand, India must drive deep enough to force some of the PA's heavy formations to give battle and then be destroyed or at least mauled and forced to retreat. This means the Indian Army needs to present a credible threat to the GoP. While Pakistan might claim a major battlefield defeat is one of the thresholds I do not think it really is, but even if it is India can beat the GoP to the punch.

For India the obvious goal is to bust the border, force a major battle fairly deep into Pakistan and win decisively and do it quickly. Then declare a unilateral ceasefire and ask for UN observers/peacekeepers to move in while India and Pakistan enter truce talks before a return to antebellum status.

Once India asks for a ceasefire and truce talks, Pakistan will have a very hard time justifying a nuclear strike, and little reason to launch one since the direct threat to Pakistan is over.

India can be fairly sure that the US will support such a move as it tries to walk the middle ground between the two, and might even try to take credit for it, China will bitch but vote to send in peacekeepers and Russia will counter and say India's attack was justified, but also vote to send in peacekeepers.

Russia would love a punitive war between any two modern powers. It would lay the frame work for later Russian actions in the CSR region or Ukraine, and add legitimacy for its actions in Georgia. A war between India and Pakistan offers Russia the chance to expand her flexibility in dealing with her neighbors as well as a chance to see how Russian kit works.

China will complain, but will not be totally unhappy in private. A modern Indo-Pak war would give China access to real data on how her armaments performed against modern Russian and Indian kit as well as a first hand look at the effectiveness of the GoI, army, navy and air force under war time conditions: training, mobilization speeds, tactics, strategies etc. She will also back up Pakistani calls to make any truce talks inclusive of J/K and for herself AP.

The UK will follow the US' lead, and France will be salivating at the prospect of more arms sales.

Pakistan will be pursuing four objectives- get Indian troops off Pakistani soil, secure the continuance of the government, avoid international punishment for what ever act finally convinced India to retaliate and force the UN to intervene in the J/K issue.

[zraver]

Z,

If Indians manage to kill 100,000 Pakistani soldiers in return for a thousand casualties (in the terror attack + the counter-offensive) and end that period of conflict, most Indians would be quite satisfied.

Unless you want to lay the corpses out for display you can't prove how many you killed. The attacker that retreats is at a PR disadvantage no matter what.

Pakistanis can go and put whatever spin on it they want. In the West the body-count may no longer be a parameter for success, as you have gotten so used to racking it up and your opponent so used to dying; in the Indo-Pak it still retains is shock and morale-boosting value.

What is unknown, is not capable of shocking. Any punitive action needs hard evidence or its just rumors and innuendo and won't affect how Pakistanis see the conflict.

Rest of your scenario is too outdated and fanciful to be considered in detail. Even in 1948 Indians were already feeling that bringing in outsiders (i.e. the UN) into a sub-continental conflict was a big mistake, as it ran counter to all the "lessons learned" from the humbling episode of the previous centuries' foreign occupations. It is hardly likely they will do it now.

Later in your post you accuse me of being outdated, hello pot this is kettle, your black. if the IA is inside Pakistan then there will no no peacekeepers on Indian soil. More importantly it uses the UN and the P5 as a safeguard against nuclear gamesmanship by making use of the P5's natural and various self interested goals.

No matter how it is spun, any war between India and Pakistan launched by India to punish Pakistan faces the same questions.

A- how to hurt and embarrass Pakistan enough that her leaders swear off the use of terror.

B- How to leave Pakistan enough pride that her leadership remains relatively stable.

C- How to hit Pakistan in a way that prevents a simple tit for tat exchange.

D- make the action quick enough to avoid major economic disruptions.

India has a lot of options, few of them good enough to answer those four questions. Smerch bombardments or air strikes would do a great deal of damage, but India could be hit in turn and there is no telling when or where it stops. A full on invasion would eventually crush Pakistan but threatens her national survival aka nuclear threshold. A naval blockade is an option once the US is out of A-stan, if India feels confident it can handle the Muslim outcry and an oil embargo spiking oil prices for an extended period.

A smaller minimally deep penetration of the Pakistani border doesn't send enough of a message and may in fact send the wrong message as well as risking escalation on Pakistan's terms.

The only real option, if India can do it- is a penetration deep enough to force a major PA maneuver unit to give battle and be destroyed or forced to retreat. This would leave India in control of a portion of Pakistan likely aimed at a strategic target like Karachi, Lahore etc. No battle in war has ever been fought without an eye towards the political needs of the armies nation state.

Those who do not see the inseparable links between politics and war miss fully half the picture of any wartime event. I contend the only way for India to "win", -that being achieve her goals- is to drive deep, destroy a major formation, declare a ceasefire and then hand the whole issue over to the UN.

Once the UN is involved, Pakistan's freedom of movement is constrained, and even though India is on Pakistani soil, any Pakistani actions look like un-needed escalation. India can by assuming ad intio that any UN involvement will as a matter of course branch into the J/K and AP issues (not necessarily resolve them) and being willing to talk about them, control the direction of the talks.

You cannot look at just the military action, but must look at the political start and end games. And not just from India's POV, but also from Pakistan's. Peace is nothing more than each side getting enough of what it wants, that continuing the war is the least desirable option.

[vsdoc]

India has never gone to war with Pakistan without clear tactical and geo-political strategic objectives in the past 63 years. To assume that the India of today in 2010 would do so as an act of reprisal forced on the state by domestic public outcry and/or in order to present a healthy set of gonads to the watching world and our pesky neighbour is pretty nigh impossible. We will fight on our terms and a fight of our choosing, in a theater of our choosing, at a time of our choosing. And the next fight will be for keeps. When it comes to India and Pakistan, peace is a relative term, and more often than not simply translates to a state one step shy of an all out hot war. What our economic revival and the gaping chasm that has opened up between us and them over the past decade mainly, socially, politically, economically, and increasingly militarily, has afforded the Indian state and its successive governments is the luxury of time to put the final pieces in place to what is increasingly and inevitably being seen in my country as a zero sum game. The question is not if, but when, where, how, and how much. True peace in the region will only come when one of us can no longer wage war. We do not intend to be that side.

Cheers, Doc

[Skywatcher]

India has never gone to war with Pakistan without clear tactical and geo-political strategic objectives in the past 63 years. To assume that the India of today in 2010 would do so as an act of reprisal forced on the state by domestic public outcry and/or in order to present a healthy set of gonads to the watching world and our pesky neighbour is pretty nigh impossible. We will fight on our terms and a fight of our choosing, in a theater of our choosing, at a time of our choosing. And the next fight will be for keeps. When it comes to India and Pakistan, peace is a relative term, and more often than not simply translates to a state one step shy of an all out hot war. What our economic revival and the gaping chasm that has opened up between us and them over the past decade mainly, socially, politically, economically, and increasingly militarily, has afforded the Indian state and its successive governments is the luxury of time to put the final pieces in place to what is increasingly and inevitably being seen in my country as a zero sum game. The question is not if, but when, where, how, and how much. True peace in the region will only come when one of us can no longer wage war. We do not intend to be that side.

Cheers, Doc

And how does India intend to deal with Pakistani nukes in this "zero sum game"?

[vsdoc]

And how does India intend to deal with Pakistani nukes in this "zero sum game"?

Nuclear USA dealt with a nuclear USSR during and through the height of the cold war. Different circumstances all around sure, but its been done. Geographical borders and proximity mean little when you have ICBMS. Becomes a lot different when you talk about actual boots on the ground.

The nukes are always going to be an issue. A party pooper much as the advent of AIDS was to bohemian free sex. That said, Pakistan knows that the warm fuzzy comfort of the MAD blanket is only there as long as someone does not yank it off. Just as there is a nuclear threshold, so too is there a punitive balls-to-your-nukes threshold. And both sides are locked in that game of high stakes winner takes all poker.

But having said that, we are no mood nationally currently to call the bluff of a state that has one foot already over the precipice, the other foot standing in hip deep flood water. We are too busy making money, and lots of it, as the lumbering elephant tries to slowly but surely catch up to the dragon next door. Our national strategy would be first to secure our borders, protect our people, and grow in strength to a level where we cannot be hurt by the other side, unilaterally, insidiously.

All the time making sure that we build capability to attack, quickly and decisively, when the time comes (not if).

The other strategy, running in parallel, would be to move the theater of operational conflict away from our own doorstep. I would much rather the enemy be too busy trying to protect his own backside, rather than me trying to guard my own front door.

There is more than one way to peel an orange my friend. If you drop a frog into a pot of boiling hot water, he's going to jump out. That leaves you with a very displeased scalded frog to deal with now.

If on the other hand, you bring to boil slowly the water the frog is already inundated in, thats a whole different kettle of broiled frog ......

A new delicacy of Indian cuisine.

Coming soon to a restaurant near you.

Cheers, Doc

[Skywatcher]

You can only boil the frog if someone else isn't continuously pouring ice cubes into the pot. The Chinese will continue to prop up Pakistan and Beijing is not going anywhere, despite the pseudo pornographic scenarios of Gordan Chang, George Friedman and Lee Tung Hui.

[vsdoc]

You can only boil the frog if someone else isn't continuously pouring ice cubes into the pot. The Chinese will continue to prop up Pakistan and Beijing is not going anywhere, despite the pseudo pornographic scenarios of Gordan Chang, George Friedman and Lee Tung Hui.

I agree. But only to an extent. China is not in this because a collapsed Pakistan is a danger to them, but because a collapsed Pakistan is of no use to them when it comes to keeping India busy. Much like we would like to keep Pakistan busy elsewhere (read - their NW and Balochistan), so too would China like to keep us busy elsewhere. No malice, business as usual, and all that.

But when you talk about Pakistan, you need to realise that there are two entities here. The polity-army-fundamentalist nexus that we have to deal with, and the Pakistanis of Pakistan who also happen to inhabit the same country, as an unnecessary faceless voiceless irritant more often than not. China will continue to prop up the Pakistan that can do us harm. The other does not matter coz the PA has historically been willing to fight to the last Pakistani.

Our job is to make sure that we slow-broil one Pakistan that makes it increasingly difficult for the other to flourish.

And be ready for them when they are done with that.

Cheers, Doc

[nvishal]

vsdocji, thank you. Finally someone lays down the basics.

Deep penetration to embarrass the PA does not force it to do away with it's terror policy. We have embarrassed the PA in every single wars. Did that mend it's ways? Their ghazwa-e-hind aspirations are permanent.

A PA first strike will force a final indian reaction. Is pakistan that stupid? vsdoc is right when he says that india has no mood to call the states bluff.

Even in the aftermath of mumbai attacks, the thought of neutralizing the terror camps across the borders was raised. But since many of these camps were nomadic like and could go mobile within a few mins, the idea was scrapped. The focus as according to our leader is to get bigger and bigger. And when the times comes, we can show how big we really are.

[vsdoc]

vsdocji, thank you. Finally someone lays down the basics.

Deep penetration to embarrass the PA does not force it to do away with it's terror policy. We have embarrassed the PA in every single wars. Did that mend it's ways? Their ghazwa-e-hind aspirations are permanent.

Thank you vishal ji. One must realise that this generation of Pakistani generals, starting from Kayani downwards, is a highly traumatised one carrying a huge chip on their shoulders throughout their military careers which coincidentally started around 1971. They are driven by a burning desire for vengeance. But they are shackled by a country that is collapsing around them, as they use their arms and training to kill their own as the dogs of war unleashed by them, fed by them, now turn on them.

As for ghazwa- whatever and other gems of Pakistani collective national psyche, I am sure this thread is not the place for it, and there will be other opportunities that would present themselves down the line for more meaningful discourse on this martial "race" of all-conquering warriors.

Cheers, Doc

[zraver]

India has never gone to war with Pakistan without clear tactical and geo-political strategic objectives in the past 63 years.

I would counter that the truth is almost the exact opposite of the zip, boom, bah, rah, rah, rah, go team drivel you wrote. The only deliberate action by India was 71. 65 only goes into the win column by accident as the Indian Army got mauled only slight less so than the Pakistanis.

To assume that the India of today in 2010 would do so as an act of reprisal forced on the state by domestic public outcry and/or in order to present a healthy set of gonads to the watching world and our pesky neighbour is pretty nigh impossible. We will fight on our terms and a fight of our choosing, in a theater of our choosing, at a time of our choosing.

India would like that, but any government that derives its power from the consent of the people is vulnerable to reactionary public pressure. Once your reacting to one thing, you are effectively reacting to all things.

And the next fight will be for keeps.

Doubtful, threaten national survival and the nukes will fly. The Subcontinent will have people after a nuclear war, but most of Central and Western India will be inhabited mostly by starving tribal bands of former Indians trying to eek out a living among the blasted ruins of dead nations.

What our economic revival and the gaping chasm that has opened up between us and them over the past decade mainly, socially, politically, economically, and increasingly militarily, has afforded the Indian state and its successive governments is the luxury of time to put the final pieces in place to what is increasingly and inevitably being seen in my country as a zero sum game.

jingoistic pap a zero sum game between nuclear powers means a zero win game. So how many Indians are YOU willing to fry in the atomic pan to achieve your dream of an Indian uber alles?

The question is not if, but when, where, how, and how much. True peace in the region will only come when one of us can no longer wage war. We do not intend to be that side.

Cheers, Doc

True peace will come when both sides got off the religion and flag kicks they are on and remember that both are merely opposite sides of the same coin.