Analysis of India's Ability to Fight a 2-front War 2018

by Ravi Rikhye

  A ~1800-km trans-Arunachal highway connecting 12 of the state’s 16 districts is allegedly set to complete by 2021, fifty-nine years after the China War.[342] The remaining four districts will be connected by 2027. Essentially the project involves two-laning existing highways. There will be the usual problems of cheaply-built two-lane highways in the mountains and heavy rainfall area, but at least something is being done. India has a plan for another 1800-km road along the Tibet border.[343] It might do the GOI good to keep in mind that the Chinese will complete their rail-line along our border in 2021, but let’s be happy and not worry. Another highway, this time along the McMahon Line, is planned at a cost of $7-billion or approximately $3.5-million/km. The Army has objected to the alignment, saying it is too close to the border to be operationally useful. This has put it at odds with the Arunachal government, which insists the project should link the state’s border villages.[344]

  The bane of our existence since the 1950s has been the lack of lateral roads on the Chinese border. In case GOI has not noticed, 67-years have passed since China invaded Tibet and the only lateral we have is Chushul-Demchok road. It looks to be more of a sand and gravel track[345] than a real road and is a backbreaking five-hour journey in a 4x4.

  Hopefully there is cell-phone coverage now, but as of end 2016 there was not.[346] In 2014, a media person travelling the area found a single telephone line at Chushul for use by civilians, and troops (presumably for making personal calls). How are civilians, troops, border police, the district administration and so on supposed to live with one phone? A real road was cleared in 2009, but the environmental clearance was received only in 2017,[347] and a rational person would hesitate to speculate on the completion date. A nice 150-km road would permit military vehicles to travel at 60-kmph – no reason with extra work it should not be 75-kmph, or 2-hours. With 3rd Division now back to three brigades, and a new armored brigade for Ladakh, at last the two forward deployed brigades (114th Chushul and 70th Dungti near Demchok) will no longer be isolated in their respective sectors. Previously, the Chinese were free to decided where they would concentrate, so

  that the Chinese could put a division against Chushul, or send the same division opposite Demchok, thus gaining a 3-1 superiority against either of our two brigades. And read the Wikipedia entry on the Manali-Leh road to show how bad things are, 53-years after the road was built as a 1-ton fair-weather open for perhaps 3-4 months.[348] Before that, the road was a mule track and a two-week journey was required. The mule track, of course, would be half the length of the road. Still, a truck with 800-kg net payload was the equivalent of 20-mules, and could cautiously travel perhaps 20-kmph, making a round trip in perhaps 6-days, as opposed to 30-days for mules. But: mostly 2-lane but at times 1 ½ lanes, which means 1 lane for trucks; dilapidated Bailey bridges, need to cross streams requiring skill in driving, flowing water cutting deep channels in the road, the usual landslides, the usual construction/repair teams, gaping potholes, snow cover for apparently 7-8 months, and many other joys and thrills. If Border Roads/Public Works

  Picture credit: Wikipedia, no author attribution. Though this picture dates to 2004, it is a common scene on India’s mountain highways

  Department cannot do the job, which appears it cannot, give it to the private sector including international companies. Doubtless it will be twice as expensive, at some places perhaps three times, but we’ll get a proper road open for the year, and one that needs only minor repairs each year and major repairs perhaps every seven years. It will be necessary to build proper retaining walls. You don’t want the cliff-side edge of your road eroding each year, and you want to minimize landslides.

  Look these photos to show how it should be done. With heavy machinery to shape stone and lay it, the job is much simpler than possible by hand. Snow sheds, built from galvanized iron pipes and corrugated iron roofing, keep the snow off the road in the stretches were fall is the heaviest, simplifying 365-day accessibility.

  These blocks are cut from stone, weigh 1-ton each, and are over 1-meter wide. They can be rapidly laid using cranes. Gravity holds the wall together, there is no cementing. Height can reach upto around 20-meters.

  Air ships and ATVs[349]

  Air ships are making a come-back. Lockheed, for example, has reliable 22-ton load + 18-passenger ships that don’t need tethering. They’re $40-million each, inexpensive to fly, and cheap to maintain. The military could recover the operating costs by selling seats for tourists. A 3- to 6-hour cruise at 100-kmph over the Himalayas would be a big attraction. Just kidding, but why not? Lockheed has a robot that travels over the envelope looking for tears and repairing them. Much bigger ships are on their way, for example with 50- and 250-ton payloads. It’s thought a 3,000-ton load ship is feasible. Unload an entire tank regiment at one go. That would be a sight to see.

  Whereas a modern airship is high tech, for “last kilometer” connectivity to forward posts a low-tech solution is available: All Terrain Vehicles with a quarter-ton load. These mountain buggies can climb rocky paths up to 70-degrees, though probably you wouldn’t want to do that with go more than 45-degrees with a payload. Here are some pictures of ATVs on mountain trails.[350] They are all weather, including snow and ice – providing the trail is properly marked. With some effort to improve trails, they can be used for patrolling. Recently the ITBP bought snow-scooters and ATVs. Good. Except they bought 25. Why not twenty-five per battalion? High grade vehicles with good tow capability cost less than $20,000 each.

  Airlift

  India is quite pleased and correctly so about its new airlift capabilities in the form of 10 C-17s (1 more will possibly arrive) and 12 C-130s.[351] [Overall, 13 are being procured, one to make up for an accident loss while on low-level practice.) The C-17 can put down a maximum of 80-tons on an unprepared 950-meter airfield, the C-130J can manage a maximum of 16-tons in 900-meters It is so versatile you can land on a beach if you want. To learn about the realities of an assault landing in a C-130, read this, and remind yourself this is without people shooting at you. These figures, as with all aircraft

  performance depends on altitude and temperature. One tends to think of these aircraft for mountain resupply, but with low-level extraction, they can be used anywhere. Envisage a scenario in which an armored brigade must stop and wait for supply to catch up. Four C-17 delivering combined ~240-tons could keep the brigade advancing for another day on a “just enough” basis. (80 tanks: each 40 rounds (80-tons), 120-km fuel (2.5-liters/km, 24-tons); 10-ton miscel. = 120-tons. (assume 60-tons per sortie.)

  80 IFV, ammunition 20-tons; fuel 12-tons; miscel 8-tons = 40-tons

  18 SP 155mm, 48 rounds each (35-tons), fuel 10-tons, miscel 5-tons = 50-tons

  Minimum support vehicles, mortar ammunition, Class I (rations, water), medical, parts = 50-tons

  This is a back of envelope calculation, for pursuit, which uses the smallest tonnage of supplies. It should suffice to keep up the momentum of the advance for 40-km, straight line distance. Assumptions: 3-km of maneuvering for 1-km advance. Similarly, four C-17 sorties could keep a mountain division supplied for a day.

  But there is a big problem: insufficiency of aircraft. With 10 C-17s, 8 will be available at any one time. This might translate into 27 relatively short sorties, say 500-1000-km radius of action. Since the air force controls the aircraft, it will give priority to its internal needs such as airfield repair, movement of engineer and security troops, emergency resupply of specialized ordnance, replacement of damaged/destroyed radars, shifting of SAM batteries, and so on. A wholly hypothetical allocation might be: IAF = 10 sorties, Army = 10 sorties; Navy, paramilitary, border forces, civil defense, etc = 7 sorties. For the Army, that would equate to 1 sortie/day per 5 division-equivalents. This is not encouraging. With the C-130s, six are for special force missions, leaving six for everyone else. Not encouraging. And we are not factoring in a reduction of sorties due to weather, accidents, and adversary air attacks. It’s worth noting another non-quantifiable factor t
hat takes over such calculations. Back in the good old days of fighting insurgents on the North West Frontier, metaphorically a soldier set out in the morning with a water canteen, a bag of beans, and a bag of bullets. When you have a new resource such as the C-17, people start assuming they now have capabilities which in practice are unavailable, such as the brigade supply calculation. This can lead to riskier planning, and the converse effect is of things going very bad. Without the C-17, the Army might not push its strike formations as hard. An advance would be more cautious and conducted in more risk averse fashion. The good thing with rosk aversion: less chance your plans will go wrong. The bad thing: we have yet another war that we don’t win. A C-17 is a high-level asset for the air force. Since so few are available, and since each time you lose one to a complete write-off, or to a repairable incident, the IAF will become more hesitant to send its aircraft into a high-risk situation.

  12.3 Interlude: Battlefield Reserves

  Handling his reserve correctly is one of the hardest tasks faced by a battlefield commander. Commit it too early, and you will have ample rue and regret as numerous situations arise needing a reserve which is not there. Commit it too late, and opportunities for victory slip away. The battlefield commander attempts, always, to maintain a 1/9th reserve: a rifle section for a company, platoon for a battalion, company for a brigade, battalion for a division, brigade for a corps, and a division for an army. If an emergency consumes your reserve, it is required you to create another one, even if it increases risks for the unit from which you are withdrawing the new reserve. The process of deploying reserves and creating new ones is entirely intuitive, which means the more experienced in war a commander is, the more correct the judgement is. In the Indian Army, the only formation with an assigned reserve is the corps, which almost without exception has one or two independent brigades assigned. In the plains, a corps usually has an armored brigade for this role. In the mountains usually, an infantry brigade is so assigned. Sometimes a corps has two reserve brigades, for example, XIV Ladakh has an armored and an infantry brigade. [That is providing the MoF has authorized the money requested by the Army: an independent armored brigade has been raised, I don’t know if the infantry brigade has.] Now, just because you see an independent brigade does not mean it is a reserve. For example, independent brigades in the Kutch, northwest Kashmir, Siachin, Himachal, and Uttarakhand defend the front and cannot be pulled out.

  The reserves discussed above are tactical. A second type of reserve is strategic, and in the Indian context, a Command, which is equal to a western army, should have a corps. Our strike reserves are not strategic because they have specific assigned missions. In this context “reserve” means only that the corps are not deployed in a holding role. But they cannot be held back for an extreme crisis. While the three armor strike corps are each usually assigned to a command – Southern, South Western, and Western, they can be used in any combination as required. For example, you could deploy one corps in Southern and two in South Western, or the other way around, or all three in South Western or Southern.

  So, what strategic reserves does India have? In the two-front war doctrine, we have zero. Take 6th Mountain Division, which my writings refer to as an Army HQ Reserve (AHQ). It has its assigned its border sector in Uttarakhand, the mission for which it was raised. But it also gets sent where the Army needs. For example, in 1986 it was tasked to North Ladakh for Operation Trident. In 1999 it was alerted for Kargil; the war ended before it was required to deploy. In 2001 it was sent to Srinagar for internal security. In 1971 HQ and two brigades went to East Pakistan, which was acceptable because India assessed there would be no trouble with China at least until late Spring 1972. After the East, it was on its way to strengthen Western Command when the ceasefire was called. Another example, 23rd Division. In 1965 it was moving into the Punjab from Eastern Command at the time of the ceasefire. This was acceptable because the danger of Chinese intervention was low, and we had enough strength in IV Corps to hold on in the case of war until it arrived back. It was positioned to protect the Bhutan flank of IV Corps; for China to violate Bhutan’s neutrality would have seriously escalated the war because the UN would have to get involved. In 1971 it went to East Pakistan, again acceptable. Indeed, India left only 4 divisions in Sikkim/Arunachal’ every other mountain division was sent to East Pakistan. By the end of the Sri Lanka intervention in 1990, HQ XXI Corps was formed from the Madras HQ of the IPKF, and it was assigned 33rd Armored plus 23rd and 54th Division. In a two-front war, it may not be possible to pull 23rd from the East, and aside from its regular assignment it may have to reinforce the new XVII Corps, leaving XXI Corps short. 54th Division has an amphibious brigade, and if as rumored we have three amphibious brigades, the HQ could be needed to control them. In which worst case, XXI Corps would have only 33rd Armored Division, plus two infantry brigades. Not a happy situation.

  50th Parachute Brigade is the sole true AHQR. In 1965 it was sent to the Kutch, which was acceptable as that was a short crisis. In 1971 it went to East Pakistan to be used for the first and only time in its true role, airborne assault. In 1986 it went to Ladakh as part of General Sundarji’s plan to recover North Kashmir, again in an airborne tole. In 1988 it went to the Maldives as India’s emergency counter-intervention force, again acceptable for a strategic reserve. It was held back as a reserve in 1999 and 2001. The difficulty is that if a parachute operation is required in a future war, 50th ceases to be a strategic reserve.

  XVII Corps is not a strategic reserve, but a mountain strike corps just like the plains strike corps. For an army the size of India’s, the strategic reserve must have a minimum of three corps: one AHQR, one mountain China front, and one mechanized Pakistan front. The AHQR corps could be used as regional intervention force when not needed in a 2-front war.

  Pakistan’s strategic reserves is an interesting case because it has three divisions available for this role: 7th and 9th under XI Corps Peshawar, and 37th Division. This last is often given as part of I Strike Corps with 6th Armored and 17th Infantry Divisions, and it can be used as such. I Corps used to have 6th Armored, 8th, 15th, and 17th Divisions until 1988, when XXX Corps was raised to take over 8th and 15th Divisions. 37th Division, put under raising November 1971, was a GHQ Reserve. There is no reason to change this, because in the Chenab – Ravi sector, covered by XXX Corps with I as Army Reserve North, four divisions in perfectly adequate to defend against Indian IX and II Corps, particularly since XXX Corps Reserve is the equivalent of an armored division, making the balance five-and-five.

  Pakistan XI Corps can be deployed anywhere Pakistan wants because after 1989 and the Soviet pull-out from Aghanistanm Pakistan has only a one-front threat. The Corps is sometimes referred to as Army Reserve Center. It could go to Kashmir, Sialkot, or Lahore as required. In 1999, 7th Division went to Force Command Northern Areas for the Kargil War, to protect against the eventuality that India, finding itself unable to clear the mountain tops at an acceptable cost, might stage an offensive against FCNA with 6th and 27th Mountain Divisions, the latter was moving to the western front.

  The natural assumption is that Pakistan XII Corps (Quetta) is in a similar position and can be counted as a GHQ Reserve. This, however, is not possible because V Corps (Karachi in peacetime) cannot protect the whole of Sindh with just 16th Infantry, 18th Infantry, 25th Mechanized divisions plus two armored and 1-2 independent infantry brigades. In theory, India can concentrate XXI Strike Corps and XII Corps, with a combined five divisions. Theoretically, Pakistan II Strike Corps, also called Army Reserve South, can be assigned to Sindh. But this would leave Multan sector with three divisions versus India’s six in I and X Corps and can be ruled out.

  Please do keep in mind that my analysis is theoretical. I believe Pakistan has 3 independent brigades in Balochistan (one) and Sindh (two), so it could concentrate the equivalent of four to India’s five in Sindh, leaving XII Corps free as a GHQ Reserve. Because Pakistan is willing to trade space for time in this sector, four divi
sion equivalents in Sindh would suffice to hold up India’s five. If I were playing Red, I certainly would use XXXI Corps to meet the Indian I and X Corps attack, giving ground, while sending II and XII Corps to envelope the Indian offensive from north and south. The point here is, what I plan is irrelevant, and likely Pakistan will be cautious about such a bold stroke, preferring to keep XII Corps in the Sindh, perhaps for a six division-equivalent offensive (five with V and XII Corps, one from the three extra brigades previously mentioned) against Indian XII and XXI Corps after India stops its Cold Start offensive so as not to force Pakistan to use N-weapons. Incidentally, no one asked me, but I would refuse to recognize any red lines while simultaneously making clear I have no territorial claim on Pakistan. This leaves Pakistan no reason to risk total nuclear destruction; at worst it may have to give up 3-4 districts in Kashmir. As an aside, we cannot take and hold Gujranwala District because we’ve never disputed it is Pakistan, and the west will force us to vacate gains here. Also, as an aside, I remain unconvinced that India will really advance 20, 40, 50, or 70-km into Pakistan.