by Ravi Rikhye
But for whatever reason, after 1971 we have had neither a fighting Prime Minister nor a fighting cabinet. Mrs. Gandhi herself became timid as shown in Operation Meghdoot. Arun Singh and General Sundarji had big ideas, but they had to bow to the wish of the Prime Minister, who was callow, stubborn, and inexperienced. The less said the better about Mrs. Gandhi’s successors – all of them regardless of political party. In our current government we have a political party that has traditionally talked tough nationalism, but after coming to power it has shown itself possessed of great timidity, equaled only by the previous government; worse, it refuses to increase defense spending to the point we spend less as a percentage of GDP than we did in 1962, 1.65% versus 1.9%. Reminder: 1962 was a one-front war, and it ended in the biggest disaster of Indian arms since the fall of Singapore in 1941. And we cannot take responsibility for that loss given the British controlled everything.
So, this Cold Start thing is completely uncharacteristic of Indians. Possibly after years of paranoia about Pakistan, we have understood we are far stronger as a nation than our adversary, and perhaps India’s rapid economic growth has helped us gain confidence. This is good, but we seem to have swung to the other end of the spectrum, which is contempt of Pakistan. Yet Pakistan has upped the ante by persuading China to become close allies, to the point China’s entire anti-India policy depends on Pakistan. If you are sitting in Beijing, you cannot help but notice that Pakistan ties down 60% of Indian forces. If Pakistan were to collapse, the Chinese could find themselves facing an army 50% bigger than theirs. Contempt in this situation is a dangerous thing, because China, with almost 5-times our GDP, is standing behind Pakistan.
Suppose for a moment that we do face a 2-front situation. Cold Start is inapplicable here because crises take time to build up, they do not appear unexpectedly. So, Pakistan will be on alert. This means we must defeat Pakistan before switching forces to the China front. Yet, it will take weeks to defeat Pakistan, if not months. Pakistan is not short of ground troops. It is short of airpower, air defense, and it can use help to keep the Indian Navy at bay. It also needs ammunition and replacement equipment. If China were to send – say – four fighter and four air defense brigades to Pakistan, plus marines to help Pakistan protect its part of the Rann and to repel an Indian sea invasion against Karachi, we will be unable to shift any troops to the north. It is not necessary for China to attack us to create panic for the GOI. With China’s steadily increasing mobilization capability, it is unclear if we can shift divisions from the north before China attacks.
No matter what we do, if we want a 2-front capability, we need more divisions, and we need reserves. Reserves do not mean the three strike corps. While in ordinary speech we can use the term “strike reserves” or some variant of this, the three corps are very much part of the first wave of offensive troops. True reserves are uncommitted forces to be held for unforeseen contingencies. It has been previously shown in the analysis India must have a minimum of three reserve corps, one each for the west, north, and Army HQ. The notion that a 38-division army has a single parachute brigade as its AHQ reserve is both absurd and laughable.
14.2 Force levels
These were summarized in Chapter 1.5. 54-divisions minimum for a secure defense in a 2-front war, 72-divisions to defeat China and Pakistan, and a third model with 39 strike divisions and 39 Fortress divisions to protect the front.
We should probably adopt the model now in use for most major armies, which is heavily armed independent brigade groups under a division HQ which can take between 2 and 5 brigades as the situation dictates. The brigades will be around 6,000 troops each, and the division HQ 1,000 men. Augmentation of brigades, primarily with artillery and engineers, will be done by corps. Divisions will be around 19,000 troops each, compared to 15,000-to-17,000 today. The US uses brigades of about 4500 each. Why should ours be so much bigger? Because US brigades have four battalions each of three companies plus a weapons company, and ours are four rifle companies plus a weapons company. The US configuration is the latest I have seen, butit can change any day. The Indian battalion can hold more ground in the mountains. Though intuitively I feel it may lead us to hold too much ground, that discussion can be avoided here. A US brigade looks like this:
HQ and HQ Company
1 RSTA battalion: 3 reconnaissance companies, one surveillance company, one tank company (10 tanks), one artillery battery
3 combined arms battalions with 5 tank and 4 mechanized companies between them, plus a weapons company each
1 engineer battalion of two companies, plus the signal and MI companies are under the battalion HQ
1 artillery battalion of 18 tubes
1 Forward Support Battalion with six forward support companies, one for each battalion, plus a distribution company, maintenance company, and medical company.
The FSB’s companies are composite units with all the logistic support need to supply and maintain them in the field.
We cannot work with three company battalions, particularly in the mountains. And we do need an RSTA battalion to fight modern wars. Plus, in the mountains, we need battalions with much more firepower than is the case today. For mechanized units, the current 3-companies per battalion probably suffices, but it is a waste of overhead. These battalions too should be converted to four companies each, giving them the ability to fight sustained battles while taking heavy losses. And because of the four-battalion structure, the brigade artillery regiment needs to have 24 guns. The British before their current draw-down used 32-guns per regiment assigned to a brigade.
14.3 More divisions are only a part of what’s needed for a 2-front war
We can raise more divisions, but if we continue planning only for a short war, we’re confining ourselves to yet another war where adversaries get to hit us, and if they don’t succeed, retire intact to try again. This has been the case with Pakistan since 1947. While it is true in 1962 for lack of political will we did not chase the Chinese as they withdrew, something Vietnam did aggressively, our inability to sustain a longer war would have reduced our ability to do so. A single 155mm howitzer round costs about $1500. Tank main gun ammunition can be $3000/round. One 500-lb guided bomb can cost $25,000. A Javelin ATGM round is about $200,000. A helicopter-launched Hellfire is cheaper, possibly around $150,000. The latest Sidewinder, AIM-9X Block II, is about $700,000. Advanced heavy torpedoes go for about $4-million each. And so on.
There is a saying which I utterly loathe because it is flippantly offered in reading after reading, years after year, decade after decade. You want to say: “Stop. Please, we got this 50-years ago”, but of course every year there are new people who may not have heard of it: “Amateurs discuss strategy, professionals discuss logistics”. As a generalization this is true, but if the professionals don’t also discuss strategy, nothing works. Also, while logistics is perhaps the most important of multiple factors needed for success, it is hardly the only one. What was fascinating about the World War II German Army panzer generals was the belief that operations should not be dictated by logistics. For most armies, the ability to provide logistical support to an operation is the first consideration.
14.4 March 1971, East Pakistan
It is because of logistics that in 1971 the Indian Army refused to listen to my mentor Mr. Subhramanyam when, right after the revolt broke out, he urged the two divisions that were available in the theatre be immediately ordered to enter East Pakistan. “KS” as everyone called him except me because you can’t be so informal when referring to your mentor, was right. So was the army. Here’s why. In the military, there are few cases where one party is 100% correct and the other 100% wrong, and this is what makes what the Americans call “Monday morning quarterbacking” a not very useful activity. The assumption is that football is played on Sunday night, and on Monday all 30-million people who watched on TV get into the “shouda, coulda, woulda” game. If there is a lesson I can leave for the youngsters, it is that when evaluating outcomes of military operation,
you must place yourself on the ground where you have highly imperfect information, where Captain Murphy goes enthusiastically haywire: everything that can go wrong does, and worse, you are being shot at by the other side which wants to kill you. You cannot climb to a God’s Eye View, and with retrospective knowledge at that.
Mr. Subramanyam was right because as the German generals showed every day, you must seize and maintain the initiative regardless. This meant, for example, that if you received word the enemy was approaching, you took whatever you have at hand, even if you were wildly outnumbered, and hit him in the flank. It didn’t matter that all you could find were the tattered remnants of several different formations, and the cooks and the clerks and the ambulatory wounded. Even if it was just 3 tanks and an artillery gun, you had to hit immediately to break the enemy momentum. If you wait till you have more information, or until reinforcements arrive, it’s too late, the enemy seizes the momentum. Two divisions, even if only half ready, would have sufficed to panic the one division Pakistan had in place, and given the moral support for the population to fight, armed or not.
But the COAS General Sam Manekshaw was right too. The Indian Army, and most others, are not trained to fight like this. The maneuver requires astonishing boldness, with the senior commander leading their men, and extraordinary skill. A US general like Patton could pull this off, but possibly none other Allied general. Moreover, he had the irrefutable advantage that his 3rd Army had complete confidence that he could pull off the impossible, so none of his subordinate commanders sat around arguing if this was realistic or not. He led, they followed. Ditto the German generals. They made it so. In 1971 our COAS was not about to push his troops into the uncharted wilds, with maybe a third of his heavy weapons, half his vehicles, and two-third of his units available, with the orders to his subordinate generals: “Your objective is Dacca, you decide how you’re going to do it, I will stand by you regardless, my job is to get supplies and reinforcements to you regardless of my difficulties.” His subordinates would have sadly shaken their heads, convinced their commander had lost it, and would have continued on in the methodical, plodding way they were trained.
Talking about improvisation, readers may know about the Paris taxis at the Miracle of the Marne. The German extreme right, 1st Army, was pushing forward to the east of Paris. Its commander did not know that the French had quietly assembled a scratch force grandly termed Sixth Army in and around Paris. There was insufficient transport to get troops speedily to the front – remember, in those days infantry marched on its feet. Someone had the bright idea: summon the Paris taxis. In six hours 600 taxis were lined up at the ordered locations. Five soldiers climbed into each cab. They were delivered to the front, and the taxis made a second run. Infantry equal to a division arrived, as far as the Germans were concerned, out of nowhere. Of course, there is much more to the story.[359] the taxis delivered 6000 men in five battalions, a smidgeon compared to 6th Army’s nine infantry and three cavalry divisions. These reached by rail. But a myth was created, having a powerful morale effect as well as a physical effect on the country and its soldiers. The French, suffering unheard of losses, retreating for weeks, defeated, exhausted, thirsty, and hungry were invigorated and stopped the Germans. If anyone needs reminding West Europeans are different from us Indians, the taxis fueled up at their garages, kept their meters running, and were paid by the Government when the bill was presented.
Just a small By The Way: It is usually believed that July 1, 1916, at the Somme was the worst day because 20,000 British troops died and 40,000 were wounded. The worst day was for the French, when on August 22, 1914, at the Battle of the Frontiers, 27,000 troops were killed. The battle of the Marne we are discussing saw the French take 269,000 casualties.
14.4 Loss rates
Now read the table below. [360] Most normal people have an understandable horror of statistics, but this is a simple table and important to understand when we’re discussing rapid advances. More than equipment losses due to casualties, there is loss due to breakdowns. If the attacker executes a rapid advance, in this case, a 5-day deep offensive of 75-km, the armored brigade or division only has its EME company or battalion to conduct on the spot repairs. What cannot be immediately repaired, must be abandoned in place to be retrieved by follow-on troops. The assumption is that for four days the formation is on the offense, the fifth day it has achieved its objectives and goes on the defensive. I won’t get into supply issues, which are complex and boring, but always to remember: without supply, everything stops.
Table Equipment Loss Rates (%)
4-days offense, 1-day defense
Item
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Tanks
25
25
25
25
20
IFV
25
20
20
20
20
SP Guns
10
10
10
10
10
Spt Systems
15
15
15
15
15
Mission Capable Combat Systems (End Of Day)
Tank
IFV
SP
Start
348
216
72
Day 1
274
170
66
Day 2
227
149
61
Day 3
187
128
56
Day 4
153
109
49
Day 5
137
93
45
It is assumed that of equipment rendered non-operable, 20% is destroyed and 80% repaired. Of the repairable equipment, 20% can be repaired by the unit mechanics, and another 20% by the brigade or division EME company or battalion in 24-hours. The rest is assumed evacuated to corps or base workshops. It is further assumed that no replacement fighting vehicles will be delivered except when the units go on the defensive, allowing damaged equipment to be picked up for repair. Add all this together, and it means by end Day 5, the unit has just 40% of its tanks.
The first question to ask is: is the Indian Army willing to take the casualties? For one thing, does it want to hold off a Pakistan counter-offensive with its strike corps after ours are down to 40% tank strength? Do we want to get enveloped at the head of our offensive, and have all these other Pakistan forces attacking our Line of Communications or even doing local offensives into India? My suspicion is not. If not, then we must do our offensives like everyone else: advance, protect our flanks; stop to consolidate, reorganize and attack again. Which means no blitzkrieg, just the usual slow, grinding advance; 1-5 kilometers a day. By D+45 we should start seeing substantial results, allow another 45-days to defeat the Pakistani forces. Then we can think of negotiations. To be honest, Pakistan will not agree. With its main forces destroyed, it will start guerilla warfare, and for an invader to face an enraged populace is seldom productive. Contrary to popular belief that a true national insurgency cannot be defeated – just where do people get these absurd ideas? – it is quite easy to do. But it involves shooting a lot of people in cold blood, almost all of them civilians. Even if the political leadership orders the military to do, itself an unlikely proposition, it’s not at all clear the Army will follow orders. Another weird idea is that insurgencies are won by “hearts and minds”. They never are. Efficient and extreme brutality wins them. The problem in Kashmir is not that we use too much force. It is that we use too little.
In any case, we’ve already decided that in 7-10 days foreign intervention will start. In that time, we’ve advanced a few kilometers, and 90% of Pakistan formations are intact. With the Chinese pouring in to help and attacking us in th
e north, India who will lose, which means Pakistan will win – a reverse 1965, if you will.
14.5 Indifferent armor performance
Now let’s go back to why Indian (and Pakistani) armor performed badly in 1965 and 1971.[361] (a) Following British World War 2 practice, tanks were supposed to fall back to defended positions as darkness approached. So if you’ve advanced 15-km, but your nearest defensive position is 10-km back, your net advance is cut to 5-km. (b) You’ve also lost momentum and given the enemy the opportunity to reorganize himself, so the next day is as tough a fight as the previous day. (c) Logistics support, particularly fuel, fails to reach forward units. So, there you are, in the middle of enemy territory, out of fuel, unable to maneuver. If the enemy is pressing on you, you do the sensible thing and abandon your tank and walk back. (d) If the unit mechanics don’t have the right spares or enough spares, and if the brigade maintenance company can’t get to you or is overwhelmed with work, you will not have your disabled tanks the next day. Sure, other disabled tanks can be cannibalized, which means you recover some, and the rest you don’t. (e) If you don’t have enough armored recovery vehicles, and you have a bunch of tanks bogged down in adverse terrain or disabled, the ARVs are not going to be able to recover tanks, and they are not repaired and back to their squadrons in 24-hours. (f) People misunderstand what tanks can do. They think a tank can simply bash on regardless of terrain. Wrong. Unless the route is carefully reconnoitered – which takes time – the tank can get stuck in ditches, or swamps, or throw tracks against rocks. Wooded areas can defeat it. It can be blocked by minefields and field fortifications such as concrete anti-tank obstacles. (g) We need to remember that tank formations in populated areas cannot go charging forward in the mode of horsed cavalry in open terrain. Danger lurks at every step forward, in the form of mines, hidden obstacles, ATGM teams hiding in houses, attack helicopters lurking behind tree lines and on. This requires the infantry to physically traverse the ground and clear the way for the tanks. Read this chapter[362] from the New Zealand Division’s experiences with 8th Army when the Army arrived at the Romanga Plain in the Po Valley. The Army thought its armor could now break loose and hurtle across the Plain. Keep in mind also that Pakistan Punjab in the five-rivers area is densely populated. ATGMs can be effective over 1-2 kilometers depending on the type, terrain, and weather conditions. The Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle has an effective range of 3-500 meters and a practical 2-3 rounds a minute rate of fire. Light one-shot anti-tank missiles are effective at 1-200 meters. Heavy machine guns 12.7mm (0.50 caliber) using anti-tank rounds can penetrate 35mm of armor, which means the front of a BMP-2, or the side of a heavier vehicle. An advance meeting layered resistance will have to stop and wait for the infantry and artillery to clear out resistance.
