by Ravi Rikhye
The Indian Army has requested tank regiments and mechanized battalions equal to convert six infantry brigades to armored brigades. It also is moving up 31st Armored Division from Jhansi in Central India closer to its wartime station as part of Southern Command. That would mean eight more brigades, or a total of 26, for 72-hours’ notice. All this assumes GOI sanctions money to make up for ammunition and spares shortages, plus increased readiness across the border. The pertinent point is that if we are talking of cross-border operations jumping off from main bases on or adjacent to the border, it would not matter if we sacrifice readiness for speed. A tank regiment of 44 tanks can wait prepare fully, or it can speedily attack with 30 tanks and have the same impact because every day that passes while we get ready is also another day conceded to the adversary to increase his readiness. So lets concede that zero warning is a bit of acceptable hyperbole, and we’re ready to go in 72-hours. So Cold Start is on? Wrong. Cold Start is off.
A diversion
By the way, apologies for being obsessive-compulsive about this, but names must mean something, and RAPID means nothing. The acronym should be retired. First, it is contrary to common speech to refer to 18 RAPID, as such. The impulse is to say “18 RAPID Division”, which is redundant. Second, there is nothing rapid about a RAPID. Most of it is infantry. Third, adding an armored brigade to an infantry division does not reorganize it. It remains an infantry division with an integral armored brigade. Fourth, making the additional armor into an armored brigade freezes the division’s configuration into 2-2-6, i.e., two tank regiments, two mechanized battalions, and six infantry battalions. This is inflexible because depending on its mission, it could require 1-2-7, 2-3-5, 3-0-7, and so on. RAPID as a term should be banished, and the division reverts to plain “infantry.” Quite incidentally, the US does not use the term ‘mechanized division.’ It’s heavy divisions with infantry lineages – 1st, 3rd, 4th – are plain infantry, even though during the Reagan buildup they had 5 tank battalions and six mechanized battalions. The other heavies were 5th, 8th and 24th Infantry, but the 5th was a 5-5-0. For the armored divisions, the ratio was reversed. Today there is only the 1st Armored as the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th were deactivated after First Gulf. Though 1st Cavalry Division was converted from air cavalry to a tank division, where it remains to this day. The US system of numbering each type of division in its own sequence is annoying. For example, during the time of the Gulf War, there was the 1st Marine, 1st Infantry, 1st Armored, and 1st Cavalry Divisions. The Indian system of keeping all divisions in one sequence is more aesthetic. Though if we wanted to be truly logical, like the Germans after World War II, we would start from 1 and continue forward with no breaks.
Moreover, and this has nothing to do with the name, RAPIDs violate the prime directive of armor: it must be used in concentrated form. The classic example of this is World War I, where assigning tanks as infantry support eliminated the possibility of decisive thrusts, and the World War II example of France and the Red Army. France had more tanks than Germany but scattered them. The Red Army had five-times the tanks as Germany, but didn’t know how to use them concentrated. Now, because of the enormous industrial capacity of the Soviet Union, actual and latent, the Red Army solved this problem in the usual unique Russian way. They produced so many tanks that they could have several tank armies as well as giving infantry corps mechanized divisions or several tank brigades. As a matter of interest, the Soviets produced 96,000 tanks 1941-45. The Germans destroyed 75% of them. That made no difference because the Red Army still had 24,000 at a time the Germans were done to 3,000 and dwindling. The Soviets had a saying: “Quantity is its own quality.” Something for the new quality obsessed Chinese Army to ponder.
In India, a mentality of paisa-wise and rupee-foolish prevails on the matter of tanks to this day. Back in the day, around the mid-1960s, equipping a mountain infantry division cost about $40-million (INR 4.76 = US$1) and an infantry division about $50-million. An armored division required a $100-million outlay. To the Indian Army, the choice was obvious: it would rather have two infantry divisions. Moreover, the Ministry of Finance would have had a fatal heart attack authorizing $100-million for just one division. Today, when we blithely talk about $100-million flyaway for a single fighter aircraft, the idea that $100-million for an entire armored division would cause MoF to keel over seems quaint. Fifty-five years ago, that was an enormous sum of money, especially since foreign-exchange was just not available. The MoF and the GOI would say “look, for $100-million we can get a 500,000-ton steel plant”. True, except had the government allowed the private sector to grow, this wouldn’t have been an either-or situation.
Do we make the most efficient use of the people’s money?
There is no dispute the Indian military is underfunded to the extent of 50%. Still, does the military make the best use of the little money it is given? Answering this requires huge and extremely complicated analysis. In the past, and even today, we have cut support manpower to strengthen the teeth, but no one seems to realize that with the tail the teeth can’t sustain themselves. Also, adopting the “leaner and meaner” meme, which is used world-wide to sugar coat real reductions in military capability, is pointless. We need numbers as well as quality. Still, some changes can be made. As suggested earlier we could, for example, add a fourth squadron, company, or battery to tank, mechanized, and artillery regiments/battalions. Another thought is that we could redefine the organization of our strike corps.
Consider combat power, in terms of firepower, mobility, and protection. A tank regiment might be rated at 3, a mechanized battalion at 2, and an infantry battalion at 1. Squaring these values to get a crude result using Lanchester’s equation, itself a crude approximation of combat power, the result is 9, 4, and 1. (For a proper discussion, read Paul Davis’s monograph,[356] which can be downloaded for free.) Now, this does not mean we can replace an entire division’s worth of infantry with a single tank regiment. It does mean, however, that we can replace the current configuration of a strike corps from 1 armored, 1 RAPID, and 1 infantry division, plus an independent armored brigade, we get a much more powerful strike force as well as free the infantry division and assign it to the northern front. Won’t this be very expensive? Actually, no.
India current has the following number of armored/mechanized formations, minus the three armored brigades for the China front: 3 armored divisions (6-4-0); 8 armored brigades in the RAPID divisions (2-2-0); nine independent armored brigades (3-1); and two mechanized brigades (1-3-0). The numbers in parenthesis are shorthand for the number of tank, mechanized, and infantry battalions in each division/brigade. This gives us 65 tank regiments and 37 mechanized battalions. Four strike corps with four each of armored and mechanized divisions, and four strong independent armored brigades (3-2-0) will take up 52 tank and 48 mechanized battalions. So: add 11 mechanized battalions, subtract 13 tank regiments, and we have four powerful, compact strike corps. Three infantry divisions with the existing three strike corps are now free for transfer to the China front; each has a tank regiment, which gives us 16 tank regiments. Give them to eight infantry divisions in XII, X, XI, and IX Corps, so that they are now 3-0-7. (Of the 16 infantry battalions freed, 11 become mechanized, leaving five for reinforcing somewhere else.) So now each of our regular infantry divisions has a brigade of 1 tank and 2 infantry battalions, with an infantry battalion in reserve. I could continue at length, but readers are probably already confused enough.
Now, using the very basic Lanchester equation, the current strike corps have 11 tank, 7 mechanized, and 15 infantry battalions. Lanchester score: 62. The new corps has 13 tank and 12 mechanized battalions, Lanchester score 39 + 24 = 63. No loss of combat power and we gain one strike corps, plus three infantry divisions. The eight “holding” divisions, if they are plain vanilla – 1-0-9 – add to 12, if they are RAPID – 2-2-6 – add to 16. The new holding divisions will be 3-0-7, or 16 each. We have a gain here.
There’s an old formula: two armored divisions in br
idgehead require five to contain. Once the two are across the water obstacle, they can strike in any direction in a 180-degree semicircle. If we use our four strike corps to attack from the very start of war and maintain the initiative, the Indian Army will, at last, have the means for decisive victories.
13.6 Is a zero-warning attack possible?
A zero-warning attack against an alert adversary is impossible. The adversary can misread warning signs, as Stalin did against Hitler and the US did against Japan. Deception is possible, as Egypt pulled off in 1973. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. You can also hope your adversary just doesn’t believe the warning signs, except we’ve noted hope is a scarce commodity in war. We’ve already noted that for India to launch a surprise attack with no warning is uncharacteristic. One of many reasons this is that modern Indians cannot bear to be labelled the aggressor. Also noted is that if we respond to a Pakistani provocation, it must be presumed that Pakistan will be on the alert. Another reason lies in history: our experience tells us that attacking without knowing what we’re getting into leads to disaster. Yet another is proportionality. The reason the 2001-02 mobilization was absurd is because a failed attack on Parliament is not a justification for risking war. Pakistan’s invasion of Kashmir 1947, 1965, and 1999 were justifications.
Let’s forget the practicalities and assume a Cold Start offensive has been ordered. The first question is: will the Navy and Air Force be taken into confidence. In 1986-87, they were not. So we had the non-edifying scene where the Navy and Air Chiefs complained to the President that the Army was preparing to start a war with no warning to them. It was, of course, the Army Chief and the Defense Minister, but that’s another long story for another time. The Army itself didn’t know it was going to war, it thought it was engaged in the largest-scale exercise that India has ever held. This was deception. It didn’t work because the US got wind of what we were up to, then we had the even more unedifying situation where President Reagan is calling Rajiv Baba and telling him in calm, measured, and affectionate terms that Rajiv’s army was up to no good. Not telling the IN and IAF means they will be caught by surprise and that is not something you do to your partners because they can suffer losses for no reason. Its treachery – to your own side.
The second question is, is GOI willing to pay the cost of keeping the military on hair-trigger alert? This means manning units at 150% so that men on leave, sick, on courses, and so on are not missed, about 33%, and the remaining 17% to man units at increased strength for reasons too complicated to go into. It also means bringing your training to full readiness, full stocks of ammunition, spares, and replacement equipment. Yes, of course, anyone can attack at 65% readiness and without extra men. It means all equipment at the ready. For example, you don’t want half your helicopters down, on the first day of war you want 90% up. It also means that you run constant Tactical Exercises Without Troops, keep your intelligence updated to the minute, have your battalions, brigades, divisions, and corps reconnaissance kept current each day, and have your supplies pre-stocked. And so on.
If you do this, you can greatly shorten mobilization times. So, what’s the problem, aside from Captain Murphy and his dismal laws? Aside from the expense – enormous – of keeping your first wave of units ready, including the IN and IAF, when you come up to a readiness permitting you to attack on six hours warning for a brigade, you also alert the adversary.
So, since the Indian Army talks of six-hour warning, the Pakistanis keep battalion-groups at four hours readiness. A battalion can delay the adversary’s brigade long enough for the rest of the brigade to deploy. No matter what the previous failure, the Indian Army says, “in that case, we have battalions ready to attack in, say, two hours.” And the Pakistanis prepare company groups incorporating anti-tank and engineer platoons on 30-minutes warning.
Well prior to 1965, the Pakistanis had begun fortifying vulnerable points between Sialkot and Suliemanke. These have grown thicker with time. Of course, we also have been doing the same thing. Just as we have done, the Pakistanis use water obstacles, primarily their extensive canal irrigation systems, and ditch-cum-bunds on which to base their obstacle belts. These consist of blockhouses invulnerable to artillery shelling, which is not to say powerful barrages cannot shock defenders to the point of temporary incapacitation, even madness and suicide; mines; fire obstacles such as barrels filed with POL and triggered by explosive detonators, wired or wireless; trees and woods specially planted to delay armored vehicles, trenches and so on, covered by machine-guns, rocket launchers, and ATGMs.
Let’s talk about mines for a minute, and I do apologize to the professional for the elementary discussion. Back in the day, mines were laid and cleared by hand. Mines are very unpleasant things because they are passive stealth killers who offer no warning. A properly laid minefield should not even be visible to the attacker – until his vehicles and men start blowing up. The commander who says he doesn’t fear stumbling into a minefield is lying. Mining and demining is a difficult job. These days – don’t we all love technology – things are much simpler, and thus much more dangerous for the attacker. You have available automatic mine-layers of various kinds that are excellent at laying fields in a very short period. Take the lovely bar anti-tank mine, for example, the British L9. A single layer vehicle, APC or truck, can lay 600 mines in one hour. The mine is 1.2-meters long, reducing the chances a tank will sail through a mine field without triggering it. It is made of plastic, so it’s not detectable. You can use three layers for a field 6-kilometers long by 1-km deep. This is purely hypothetical, minefields are designed for the tactical requirement and the contours of the land, not according to a standard formula. But this is kid stuff. Take something like the US Volcano scatter-minelayer. It is mounted on a 5-ton truck, and fires 160 canisters each with six anti-tank or five anti-tank and one anti-personnel mine. Press a few buttons, and you have an instant minefield, within minutes, a kilometer long. Moreover, you can program the minefield for the time you need – 4, 8, or 12-hours, or 15-days. The field automatically deactivates as ordered. You can also lay these mines by helicopter.
This is a particularly dangerous weapon because your UAV or other surveillance platform warns you that an armored column is heading your way. You can, among other things, lay a turning minefield: the attacker hits it, turns to avoid, and runs into your artillery killing zone or tank zone or ATGM zone or whatever you like. Now, of course, there are counters, such as mine ploughs or mine clearing explosive line charges. This helpful machinery is mounted on – say – an armored vehicle, and it fires an explosive line that looks like a fat rope 200-meters in length and blows up mines in its path. While there is no such thing as a weapon that cannot be countered, mines can delay or divert the attacker, costing him time and casualties. In 1971, the Pakistanis laid three minefields one behind the other in the Shakergarh sector. Indian I Corps has been heavily criticized for advancing just 8-kilometers in 8-days. Major AH Amin of the Pakistan Army has been particularly critical of the mistakes the Indians made in negotiating these fields. Now, no one says I Corps covered itself with glory in this matter. In a short war mistakes in abundance will be made. But before you start banging I Corps on its head with your iron skillet, put yourself in the shoes of the men that had to clear the fields. Be assured it is not a happy prospect. The defender knows his situation and can criticize the attacker for not seeing it as clearly. Except the attacker cannot see it clearly. In the Shakergarh case, on one occasion the three plough tanks engaged in clearing needed to skedaddle out of there as fast as possible because they didn’t want to be caught by Pakistani tank hunting teams after the fall of dark. Two left their ploughs behind. The solution for us to have an abundance of engineer resources, at least two engineer regiments per division. This costs money. And in the Indian Army, this is also shunned as adding to the tail. Somehow the Indian Army has not understood that without the tail the teeth cannot function.
How did the Russians handle minefields in World W
ar II and the Iranians in the 8-year war 1980-1988 with Iraq? Simple. The Russians ordered a penal battalion or two to get into a line, link arms, and start walking. Behind them, the commissar-led machine-gun units waited for any sign of hesitation. They provided “encouragement”. History says the Russians were so fatalistic, they sang as they advanced to get blown up. The Iranians excelled at this tactic. They would get their religiously indoctrinated teenagers to walk into the minefield. Possibly the children needed “encouragement,” possibly they didn’t because they were convinced heaven awaited.
Hopefully this section has convinced readers that India is neither going to catch Pakistan by surprise nor is going to rapidly slice through Pakistani defenses. The revere also holds true.
13.7 The fallacy of a short war
Ever since the Six Day War of 1967, for some reason, the concept of lightening war or blitzkrieg has fascinated Indians. Not to bore everyone, but ‘blitzkreig’ is a term likely initially created by Time magazine around the start of World War 2. The Germans never used that term, and Matthew Cooper, in an astute and pointed analysis of the German Army in Russia, has conclusively shown that the German panzer generals were not permitted to use mobile war grand tactics.[357] Instead they used the standard German doctrine of envelopment, and whenever they tried to use mobile war, they were reprimanded and forced to tie their advance to the infantry. The German soldier showed a superhuman endurance. But even if the infantry manages an average rate of advance of 30-km/day, the panzers in that time could do twice and thrice, without exhausting themselves in the process. Indians are under the wrong impression that short wars are now the order of the day. Wrong.
