Operation Balakot: News & Discussion

[Prem Kumar]

Did we take out an ammo dump, Brahmos or otherwise?

[shravan]

Image shows possible accident near Pakistani nuclear weapons facility after Balakot
Exclusive satellite image accessed by ThePrint shows burn marks on the earth, indicating a missile may have fallen off & the explosive burnt up.

https://theprint.in/defence/image-shows ... ot/206532/

[nam]

this was posted around 9am march14

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Sources: Indian Air Force carried out major readiness exercise last night over Punjab and Jammu in which large number of fighter aircraft participated. During the exercise, IAF jets,including frontline aircraft, flew at supersonic speeds in the border districts including Amritsar

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"bababanaras" is adamant that a brahmos missile was used on march4-5 in fort abbas region of bahawalpur and pakis with their periodic drone probes are looking at options to avenge that.

Even if we did, it is a good thing we don't openly announce it. Carry out such hit and challenge Pak to retaliate.

If Pak carries out a retaliation, then publicly announce we were attacked without reason by Pak and it is an aggression. India will respond hard. Classic victimhooding..

I am pretty sure, if India had NOT announced the Balakot strike, Pak would have hidden it! It cannot come out publicly because it's Mard-e-Abdul would call for TFTA PA to capture Delhi. PA knows it will come out badly in such an adventure..

[Singha]

good plan

and to prove we did attack them, they will have to reveal the damage. congis and BIF asking for "proof" can ask it of the pakis 24x7

[tapan]

balakot was choosen out of three possible sites..balakot, bhawalpur, Sawai Nallah ( hope i got it right). Sawai Nallah is biggest Jaish camp ... in POK, Balakot in KPK, Bhawalpur in Punjab. We apparently did not hit Bhawalpur and SN for fear of collateral damage !!! if we are so sure of our SPICE , why didnt we hit SN as well?? we had a good moment to inflict HUGEEEEE casualties if we had hit SN alongwith Balakot. SN would have been closeset to the LOC/Border as well ??

What part of "sending a message" don't you understand? Ghar mein ghus ke maarna was of paramount importance. Also, stop this whataboutery, the defence planners know more and they would have certain criteria. Also don't criticise until you have all the information.

[Karan M]

I really doubt Brahmos was used.. Pakistan would have gone insane tom tomming it to all and sundry and pretending it hit trees, escalation, nuclear flashpoint etc. Until & unless it took out a major ammo dump and they couldn't recover any fragments. But it would be a major escalation..and I doubt Modi & co would authorize it given the careful way even Pakistans counter attack was handled.

[Kashi]

I thought SN camp was easy to hit along with Balakot ...would have bagged a few hundreds more??

Can you say for sure those hundreds were actually there?

[Singha]

I really doubt Brahmos was used.. Pakistan would have gone insane tom tomming it to all and sundry and pretending it hit trees, escalation, nuclear flashpoint etc. Until & unless it took out a major ammo dump and they couldn't recover any fragments. But it would be a major escalation..and I doubt Modi & co would authorize it given the careful way even Pakistans counter attack was handled.

pakis say the fort abbas debris we saw were drop tanks. now why would fighters just drop them
- either they were running away from something
- accidental drop
- chasing something

and none of it would cause the "loud bangs".

imo they were chasing after a missile, and wanting to get supersonic, when it blew past them.

mixed in with it could the shootdown of their drone which crashed on a ridge near the village "Toba" per iaf report. that was a AAM hit.

[nam]

I really doubt Brahmos was used.. Pakistan would have gone insane tom tomming it to all and sundry and pretending it hit trees, escalation, nuclear flashpoint etc. Until & unless it took out a major ammo dump and they couldn't recover any fragments. But it would be a major escalation..and I doubt Modi & co would authorize it given the careful way even Pakistans counter attack was handled.

Well if we look at Ghafoora's tweet on 26th, IAF "dropped it's payload in hurry near muzzafarbad while running back on seeing the mighty PAF". If GoI had not annouced the strike, we would still be thinking Ghafoora was making up a cock and bull story in his tweet...

I don't know if something happened with brahmos, but it is in the interest of PA to keep quite about it...

[nam]

mixed in with it could the shootdown of their drone which crashed on a ridge near the village "Toba" per iaf report. that was a AAM hit.

This is something no one seem to ask the question. If the drone was shot down in Pak airspace, Su30 could not have used a R73, without crossing the IB!

Was a BVR used? if not did IAF cross the IB?

The fort abbas debris were definitely not drop tanks. It was a cone attached to something. And they won't crumble specially in soft desert sand, when they could survive in mountain landing during Mig21, F16 fight!

[nam]

We need GE experts scanning these areas... it will clear lot of these doubts.

[Aditya G]

.....
I am pretty sure, if India had NOT announced the Balakot strike, Pak would have hidden it! ....

If memory serves me right, that day it was ISPR who announced the strike first - India announced it later via a terse message at 11ish AM.

The same day Pak DGMO did not pick up the phone call from own DGMO. IN 2016 SS the Indian DGMO took the initiative and advised Pak DGMO that he was going to announce the strike. Thus initiative was with us - we took the wind out of the Pakistani information machinery that time.

On this occassion my impression was that ISPR controlled the narrative by being first to the press and SM. Now in all of this he made key mistake on number of pilots which is going to haunt them but our otherwise establishment was left catching up.

On our side the issue is vastly complicated by a skeptic or downright hostile english media and a bureaucracy which does not really know how to handle them. For all the hard questions our media and opposition was indulging in, no mediaman questioned ISPR for not allowing a tour of the facility for example - a clear smoking gun.

[Singha]

https://www.livefistdefence.com/2019/03 ... senal.html

readout on the changing AAM matrix

[Thakur_B]

Any major ammo dump fire in border district would be visible from our side.

[Aditya G]

Even today I am missing a technical briefing from the Air Force on operations on the 26th and 27th.

When Sqn Ldr PK Bundela shot down the Atlantic there was a press conference by the air force i remember and the air force statement was typically military like and leave no room for doubt:

http://vayu-sena-aux.tripod.com/other-a ... count.html

We need GE experts scanning these areas... it will clear lot of these doubts.

This strike exposed the limitations of GE experts in the wider analysis and press community - so called professionals. Nobody knew the effects a SPICE weapon could cause on a building.

[Shivaji]

Assuming what Bababanaras has access to inputs we do not have, what he is saying is that we have done something big against Pakis.

And we are expecting that they will retaliate and we are 100% going to respond to that retaliation as well.

We have had our preparedness exercise few days back. Paki FM is in China for 3 day visit.

On the day election schedule was announced, he had a cryptic messages that "Sir is having all stake holders meeting", followed by "Sir, you are a rambo. We will continue ops".

To me this indicates that this is far from over.

He just posted that our Ananjay post was targeted by ATGM in Poonch sector (few other sources also indicated CFV in Poonch). His latest:

https://twitter.com/bababanaras/status/ ... 9557138432

Pakistani ATGM missed the target. No casualties our side...Now boforse guns are playing its role...
Heavy shelling underway

[nam]

This strike exposed the limitations of GE experts in the wider analysis and press community - so called professionals. Nobody knew the effects a SPICE weapon could cause on a building.

The issue is around access to high quality images of such remote locations.They are not easily available. With penetrator weapons, hits are not obvious.

[Singha]

even then they were insisting the whole building be in rubble.

few if any of them have any actual military or munitions experience. building up a twitter profile and acting intellectual is what they are good at.

eg the person who runs bellingcat has zero background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Hig ... e_and_work
but he has wormed his way into the think tank/NGO/HR scene after proving himself a useful tool for western interests.

[Karan M]

https://www.livefistdefence.com/2019/03 ... senal.html

readout on the changing AAM matrix

Nice work, right? However:

If the RVV-AE is aged, then the R-27 (in all its variants) and Super 530D are positively antiquated, their semi-active guidance mechanism making their employment unwieldy and exposing the launch platform to serious risk. The former is deployed on the Su-30MKI for lack of a viable alternative; and the latter is being phased out as the Mirage-2000 fleet is upgraded.

The R-27 comes in IR variants too as the table shows, & these long burn sticks can be quite useful in the pre-merge situation.
There are some interesting tricks that can be done with even SARH missiles though, provided you are willing to fire first & salvo away.

[Singha]

ani, timesnow, bababanaras all confirm that heavy firing is underway in poonch sector after pa violated ceasefire.

the third entity above has additional detail that ATGM was fired by pa and we are responding with 155mm.

[UlanBatori]

We apparently did not hit Bhawalpur and SN for fear of collateral damage !!! if we are so sure of our SPICE , why didnt we hit SN as well?? we had a good moment to inflict HUGEEEEE casualties if we had hit SN alongwith Balakot. SN would have been closeset to the LOC/Border as well ??

"We" apparently had people who could think and read. They read the ground intel reports that showed that after Pulwama, the Pakis withdrew all important terrorist "assets" and their handlers to the "resort" at Balakot, which they thought was completely hidden, being "unused for past 2 years" and all. They had a grand goat-buggering and dinner, and went to sleep or whatever. 700+

So there was no point in doing a Bill Clinton 100 cruise missiles (@$500K ea) to hit deserted camps. 4 spices to one place was enough.

These things came out IMMEDIATELY.
Deepest apologies for making the suggestion (because it may involve reading and thinking) but I hope people take a small bit of effort to "review past work" instead of recycling the same? There is CNN forum, Rediff, NYT etc to post the thoughtless stuff.

[Karan M]

Am guessing perhaps this was the anti BAT op for which the soldier mentioned previously got SM and Rajnath Singh said 3rd op.

https://twitter.com/gauravcsawant/statu ... 0111854592

[manjgu]

1) IF the reason for not hitting SN Jaish camp was that it was in POK and/or collateral damage then I am hugely disappointed. But IF it was emptied out then its another matter. Though even hitting a empty camp would have been hugely symbolic. 2) i heard the sonic booms last night in Punjab . For a moment i thought has the ammo depot close to my house been hit because usually dont hear explosions at night ( though we regularly hear explosions during day time as they destroy old ordnance etc).

[Aditya G]

Am guessing perhaps this was the anti BAT op for which the soldier mentioned previously got SM and Rajnath Singh said 3rd op.

https://twitter.com/gauravcsawant/statu ... 0111854592

There are 2 operations which we know could be the 3rd SS:

https://twitter.com/Aditya_G_Social/sta ... 0960647168

https://twitter.com/Aditya_G_Social/sta ... 6286988288

Can you point me to the officers name or citation who got SM for the anti-BAT op

[syam]

I think the confusion is with idea of terror camp. It's not 5star place where they have some serious infra. Most of the time, it will be few sheds and 1 or 2 well furnished rooms for the higher ups. They are easily replaceable. Why waste $$$ on something like that. There is nothing symbolic to it. In fact, it looks plain stupid.

[Karan M]

Aditya, good finds.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... 694564.cms

Look for "The Shaurya Chakra has also been awarded to Captain Abhay Sharma."

Why would a patrol party carry 5x C-90s and also, how did he end up destroying 3x bunkers with a relatively short range C-90. Jay flagged this earlier & I agree with him, this was a trans LOC op in all likelihood.

Note loadout here:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 448029.cms

BTW, is the vayu sena site email working?

[manjgu]

syam.. nobody is talking of terror camp being 5 star... balakot was not 5 star save for the swimming pool and the chicken biryani. Balakot type is what we know refer to as terror camp. What u r alluding to is like terror launching pads. Any place where long term/ short term training is imparted will have concrete civil structures eg balakot.

[Aditya G]

Intriguing. Though a SF prahaar does have 1 man with RL duty. It's possible they got him to attack all 3 bunkers.

Vayu Sena email and website is - defunct - to put it plainly. Happy to talk through here or SM

Aditya, good finds.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... 694564.cms

Look for "The Shaurya Chakra has also been awarded to Captain Abhay Sharma."

Why would a patrol party carry 5x C-90s and also, how did he end up destroying 3x bunkers with a relatively short range C-90. Jay flagged this earlier & I agree with him, this was a trans LOC op in all likelihood.

Note loadout here:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 448029.cms

BTW, is the vayu sena site email working?

[khan]

Image shows possible accident near Pakistani nuclear weapons facility after Balakot
Exclusive satellite image accessed by ThePrint shows burn marks on the earth, indicating a missile may have fallen off & the explosive burnt up.

https://theprint.in/defence/image-shows ... ot/206532/

Wow! There is an understated message her which amounts to “we know where your nukes are” (look for that reference of groups of three).

[Rishi]

Interesting CT:

Check out @Editor_Orbat’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/Editor_Orbat/status ... 13256?s=09

[khan]

Interesting CT:

Check out @Editor_Orbat’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/Editor_Orbat/status ... 13256?s=09

This makes no sense. If the Bakis let Saudi have their Nukes, they lose all importance to the Umah - no one will give a shit about them anymore. Their only claim to fame is being the only Muslim Nuclear power.

[jamwal]

It's not uncommon to see even RR patrols in sensitive areas with Crl Gustav type weapons. Not too long back back, I saw a unit taking charge of a sector and laying out their weaponry in open for some reason, may be for inventory. Amazing sight as I couldn't id a fairly large number of weapons. This C-90 could be one of many such weapons which are in use but their purchase was not covered.Recently Indian army commanders were given freedom to make some purchases. Could be from such purchases.

It's common for J&K Police personnel deployed in CT ops to sometimes buy weapons seized from terrorists. Lots of strange guns can be found in homes of such officers. Army men commonly use such weapons in their Ct ops.

[Singha]

Pakis can give sauds some nukes but pak trained people still needed to maintain and operate it

Not like sauds can turn a key and its ready to roll

[Lalmohan]

^^^ the story i have heard is that the assets belong to haus_of_saud but the work is done by paks, and that the ummah knows it

[schinnas]

Pakis can give sauds some nukes but pak trained people still needed to maintain and operate it

Not like sauds can turn a key and its ready to roll

Once Barbaria has the mail and the delivery mechanism and secure control system to launch it, they can buy enough willing Pakis who are trained in it for a fraction of the cost Paki govt would demand.

If indeed India demonstrated an ability to hit nuke bunkers and damaged the devices inside of it, and which in turn caused Saudis to move some of the devices to their custody, it's game over for Pakistan as custodian of Islamic A bomb.

That explains the aggressiveness and overall panic reaction from Pakis and India's choice of weapons and it's usage (underground detonation).

[Trikaal]

Pakis can give sauds some nukes but pak trained people still needed to maintain and operate it

Not like sauds can turn a key and its ready to roll

Once Barbaria has the mail and the delivery mechanism and secure control system to launch it, they can buy enough willing Pakis who are trained in it for a fraction of the cost Paki govt would demand.

If indeed India demonstrated an ability to hit nuke bunkers and damaged the devices inside of it, and which in turn caused Saudis to move some of the devices to their custody, it's game over for Pakistan as custodian of Islamic A bomb.

That explains the aggressiveness and overall panic reaction from Pakis and India's choice of weapons and it's usage (underground detonation).

I doubt India targeted Pakistan's nuclear facility. We have an agreement, and if there's one thing I know, it's that we never go back on our written word. We consider treaties too sacrosanct.

[komal]

I doubt India targeted Pakistan's nuclear facility. We have an agreement, and if there's one thing I know, it's that we never go back on our written word. We consider treaties too sacrosanct.

I believe the point is that India did NOT target a Pak nuke facility but targeted a site that has structures similar to those at Pak nuke facilities. To demonstrate what could happen should India decide to attack a nuke facililty.

[Ardeshir]

Shooklaw comes up with some tripe now, but of course, he is just asking questions.
https://www.rediff.com/news/special/did ... 190316.htm

Army bomb experts said if the Indian Air Force had used SPICE 2000 precision-guided bombs to strike the Jaish-e-Mohammad camp in Balakot, Pakistan, on February 26, they would have utterly demolished any regular brick-and-mortar buildings they hit.
The IAF has insisted it hit its targets. If that is indeed true, then the lack of obvious damage could mean it has used a different bomb -- possibly procured secretly from Israel.

I spoke to army explosives experts to verify the IAF's claim, made anonymously to two national newspapers on March 7, that the four buildings they hit in Balakot seemed externally undamaged in satellite photos because the bombs they used contained 'only 70 to 80 kg of high explosive.'

This contention that 70 to 80 kg of explosive would spare the building is disputed by Major General Manik Sabherwal (retd), the army explosives expert who was called in to reconstruct the explosive devices that killed former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in 1995.
"A bomb with 70 to 80 kg of military grade high explosive would destroy a two- or three-storey building. Its roof would be blown off, and most of its walls," General Sabherwal said.
Describing 70 to 80 kg as "a hell of a lot of explosive", General Sabherwal pointed out that an anti-tank mine, which can rip open the belly of a heavily armoured tank, weighs just 5 kg and a 155-millimetre artillery shell, which can bring down a building, contains just 12 to 15 kg of explosives.

[Bishwa]

It's not uncommon to see even RR patrols in sensitive areas with Crl Gustav type weapons.
It's common for J&K Police personnel deployed in CT ops to sometimes buy weapons seized from terrorists. Lots of strange guns can be found in homes of such officers. Army men commonly use such weapons in their Ct ops.

The Carl Gustav has an air burst round... very useful when going after terrorists in the woods i understand...

Lt Gen Ata Hasnain had the following to say about weapons seized from terrorists "Many remain in police toshakhanas for legal requirements for couple of years. Recoveries without kills go to Ordnance Depots and are refurbished for use. Many AKs with our troops were earlier through this route."

[sudeepj]

If spice 2000 was used with blu109 type penetrator bomb.. I can see a structure surviving as the perpetrator buries itself deep in the earth. Blu109 has a 100 feet penetration into earth!