abhik wrote:Au contraire, it seems to me you have taken it upon yourself to prove that the M777s and its purported USP of air deployment are such a great Idea. I thought it was BS and I called it out.
There is grand total of one post by you where you've done some analysis - rest every other post is on the lines of casual discussion over a cigarette at corner pan-wala. So spare me this holier-than-thou argument.
As for what I've done or not done, well, let the others decide. Unlike you, I'm not putting arguments to defend a particular position I've taken - or, I would not have put up those GE charts which clearly show that moving anything by helicopters from Indian side to Tibetan plateau in depth will be an issue. At least I'm making an effort to look at all sides of an argument and see what is likely to work best - and not make off the cuff remarks.
The idea to read other person's post, try and see if the arguments make sense, if they add anything to your position or take away from it and then reach a decision. You're going around making comments as if you do helicopter flying with under-slung loads for a living and know everything inside out. Doesn't work. All of us are arm-chair generals and whatever we write here is based on what we're read or heard or discussed - the quality of your post depends upon the depth of this exercise before you morph into keyboard ninja.
Your analysis and justifications are full of dubious assumptions. For example this:-
The guns are required for movement into enemy territory - what I showed in the GE snapshot was simply movement of guns inside Indian territory. Those guns are expected for movement inside enemy territory - all other guns are going to stay put in their locations in depth inside Indian territory - the MSC is expected to fight a battle inside Tibet. And will want an artillery which can move with it. The quantum of sch guns required will depend on how they intend to fight their battles - what depth have they envisaged and the attendant targets.
Even in case of these guns with defensive formations, you can never tell where you're going to require fire-support. And the mobility of your troops is hindered if they are expected to operate under fire-support cover fixed in terms of its range and width. And which will receive all the love and affection of enemy.
The fact that you're unable to understand this simple explanation means that you're looking at the debate from all or 'none' perspective. The M-777 simply has to go - why? Because that is your position and will be defended no matter what.
Coming to the 'dubious' reasoning - Ever heard of the concept of fire-base? The one used by US Army in Vietnam and Afghanistan? If you'd bothered to read even a tiny little bit (and Rajit O had linked a great article about issues with artillery in mountains), you'd know that because of terrain on the border and mobility issues, you're guns are going to be stuck at a given position - the movement will happen only to go to alternate firing position to protect against CBF.
And given the range of your gun and all the limitations due to geography, the guns (assume a battery) can provide Fire-Support (FS) in a given geographical area. The range of this FS Zone inside enemy territory will depend on the depth of your gun placement in own territory and geographical/climatic issues. For every kilometer that Indian troops move into enemy territory, they move one kilometer away from FS Zone.
Now, whether you want mobile artillery or not will depend upon the task and objectives assigned to the troops. If the troops are required to move only 5/10 km inside enemy territory, then IA guns placed inside Indian territory will suffice as troops will never leave the FS Zone of own guns. This is what I'd tried to show in the graphic with concentric circles posted couple of pages back.
However, if you're required to move into an area where guns placed inside Indian cannot provide you with Fire-Support, what do you do? 50 Para Bde has an integral Para Arty Regiment exactly for this purpose. Because they operate out of FS Zone of own guns, they need their organic fire-support. And they manage this with IFG which is para-dropped from aircraft and can be carried by Mi-17 type of helicopters as under-slung load.
Same thing will happen in case of MSC - depending upon what they're expected to accomplish, they will require organic mobile arty support. I've already shown that getting onto Tibetan Plateau is not an easy job - And this should answer your question about number of M-777 required and helicopters to go with it.
Maybe a certain component like a brigade in each of the two Divisions under MSC will be modeled for air-assault kind of operation. And only this component might require an arty gun of M-777 type. Further, IA may decide to add such limited capability in northern sector as well. 'Limited' here is in context with attendant helicopters which can move this gun as under-slung load.
The only way numbers of M-777 can increase substantially is if the Army decides to induct this gun for mountain formations simply because it weighs lighter than planned imported/manufactured 155/52 Cal weapons. But there is no sign of that happening anytime soon - the gun is expensive and large scale induction will eat into the budget for other components of FARP.
Vic has already pointed it out, so I'll just quote him
vic wrote:Any argument against import lobby is termed as nonsense without giving any coherent reason. The import lobby is asking us to believe that M777 will be air lifted into Tibet while rest of men, material, ammo, radars, air defense systems, ATGMs, trucks, jeeps, digging in equipment, comms, generators, tents, food etc which will weight 100 times more will move into Tibet on flying carpets. All this will happen while Chinese will be sleeping.
This quote above is the classic example of what is wrong in this debate - everyone has a position to START with and intends to stick to it. In spite of what others might be saying.
Who said anything about whole MSC being air-assault capable? Was not it discussed earlier on this thread and this point made clearer? And common sense would tell anyone that whole Corps in mountains cannot be made mobile - not even if your Uncle Sam. But if Mr. Vic had bothered to read, he would not have made this mistake - nor would you.
It would be better to dig out and put forth all data-points and then make sense of the situation.
Based on whatever I've managed to dig out and analyse, I'm convinced that in air-mobile role, M-777 can be inducted only in limited numbers along with attendant helicopters. And that while MSC will have mandate to fight inside Tibet form word go, depth that we can achieve is not going to be too great - where great is from the perspective of a jingo.
Helicopter borne troops are most likely to be used as maneuvering force in areas close to border to achieve military objectives through outflanking movements - which is otherwise not possible in mountains. Troops can also be landed in rear areas to dominate a particular supply line and disrupt the movement of enemy troops.
Another important point - may be, Indian Army should look at a souped-up version of IFG to support air-assault component of MSC. Will help to solve lot of issues. Will address this point later.
PS: Let me give you another data-point against M-777 - it required a 2-KW external generator to run the fancy electronics on that system.
