India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

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abhishek_sharma
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by abhishek_sharma »

ajee kahe ko flame war start kar rahe hain....relax...cool down.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Rudradev »

Cross-posting a post by Rohitvats in the Managing Chinese Threat thread:

From Orbat.Com

Part-1
For those who like to know these things, the entire East Ladakh Line of Actual Control with China is under 3 Infantry Division at Leh. The division was hastily raised in 1962, and took over two brigades. One brigade, 114, was raised in 1959 when the East Ladakh crisis first erupted, with two battalions of locally raised troops, the Jammu & Kashmir Militia. Later, two regular army battalions were inducted. 70 Brigade arrived as a reinforcement after the war began. Later, 163 Brigade was pulled from the Pakistan border and given to 3 Division as division reserve. Still later, 121 (Independent ) Infantry Brigade was raised at Kargil, and put under the division’s command. At some point after 1963, the East Ladakh LAC was bifurcated between 22 Sector north of the Changchemo River, with 114 Brigade at Chushul and 70 Brigade at the southern end of the line at Demchok. 22 Sector has at least two subsectors, with Sub Sector North being responsible for DBO possibly down to the Galwan River.

· Strictly speaking, our intrepid South Asia correspondent Mandeep Bajwa should be telling you all this, as he knows much more about the independent Indian Army’s history that the Editor. The above is to Editor’s best recollection, but likely he’s made errors as he was always more concerned with orbats than history. Still is. But Mandeep is mad at Editor for some reason (he won’t explain why) and refuses to answer emails and chat requests. Please twitter him @MandeepBajwa and tell him to get with the program.


· Okay. In 1971 163 Brigade was withdrawn to Foxtrot Sector in the Punjab for the forthcoming Pakistan War, and it was not replaced because it was appraised there was no longer a China threat. In 1984, 102 (Independent) Brigade was raised at Thoise for the Siachin sector facing Pakistan, and 121 Brigade went under the newly raised 28 Division at Nimu. 102 Brigade was put under 3 Division.

· In 1999, on account of the Kargil War, 70 Brigade went to 8 Division, a formation brought in for the Kashmir Counter Insurgency from Eastern Command and stationed in Kashmir. 28 Division, minus 121 Brigade, went to Kupwara in the Kashmir Valley for the CI. So when the Kargil thing blew up, for operational reasons it was decided not to shift 28 Division back; instead 8 Division took over. Editor believes that 114 Brigade was also withdrawn for a time, leaving the China front denuded of regular troops. Anyway, 114 Brigade came back, and now, 14 years after leaving Demchok, 70 Brigade has come up. So you can see how seriously India was taking Chinese incursions. I.e., not at all seriously.

· To show how urgently India reacted to the threats in the decade 2001-2010, after opening DBO airfield not a single An-32 flight took place. Sub Sector North continued to be protected by outposts of the Indo Tibet Border Police, a high-altitude mountain warfare force raised after 1962 for patrolling the China border with Ladakh, Himachal, and Utter Pradesh. After the 1962 War, a new locally recruited force was raised, the Ladakh Scouts. These used to operate in companies, but after their steller performance in 1999 Kargil, they were given the status of a regular regiment and have, Editor thinks, six battalions. Sub Sector North is protected by 5 Ladakh Scouts, but till the other day this was not forward deployed. The rest of 22 Sector consists, as far as we know, by an infantry battalion, a Ladakh Scouts battalion, and a heavy mortar battery (12 x 120mm mortars), now for some peculiar reason called a heavy mortar regiment.

· After the Operation Trident fuss in 1986-87, India stationed a tank regiment and a mechanized battalion at Leh, under 3 Division; these became part of Corps troops when XIV Corps (Leh) was raised after the Kargil War. After the 2000s Chinese intrusions, India decided to sanction an armored brigade for Ladakh, which is now being raised, slowly. A T-90 tank regiment has gone to Leh and presumably it, plus the mechanized battalion, will form the nucleus of the new independent armored brigade, which will be under HQ XIV Corps as far as we know. India also okayed the raising of an infantry independent brigade group for the middle part of the Ladakh LAC with China. Something is happening, but we don’t know what since Mandeep is unavailable. Our assumption is that this will be based around Changchemo.


India is probably slowly building up to a new division HQ for North Ladakh, leaving 3 Division for South Ladakh. With these new raisings you cannot have a single division HQ controlling the entire 440-km or so Ladakh frontier. Is a third brigade being provided to bring 3 Division to strength? Don’t know – Mandeep will know, but he may not be free to speak, as the information is not released to the public. Sub Sector North also needs to become a separate sector, and the rest of 22 Sector put under a new brigade HQ with a third battalion added. Then 102 Brigade, DBO subsector, the new brigade in lieu of 22 Sector, and the new independent brigade could become part of a new division. But what the Indian Army needs and the bureaucrats agree to are two different things.
Part 2
Last Friday we detailed Indian deployments in Ladakh, current and planned. On China’s side the situation is quite simple. The Lanzhou Military Region has two army corps, one of which has been reduced to three independent brigades. The Xinjiang Military District has an unusually large number of independent formations, giving the MR 1 armored, 3 motorized or mechanized, and 1 infantry division, plus seven infantry, mechanized or motorized, and armored brigades.

· There is no particular reason why today these seven division equivalents cannot be deployed against India in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. Personally, we have doubts about the efficiency of these troops, who have spent decades in (relatively) comfortable garrisons, have no experience in mountain warfare, and except a few senior generals have never heard a shot fired in battle. But none of this matters, because China does not intend to fight India in the high mountains as in 1962.

· Primarily it counts on Indian political cowardice to forestall any aggressive action on India’s part. But should that fail, the Chinese plan to let India comes down from their mountains to the plains of the plateau, and crush them there using light and medium armor. Not a bad strategy given they lose very little if they lose their high altitude outposts, because their mountain positions are shallow.

· To reiterate, in Ladakh we had postulated that soon there will be the equivalent of two infantry divisions and an armored brigade. It may appear on the surface of it that India is outnumbered three-to-one and in a very bad situation. At least the political types and Ministry of External Affairs, who are always holding out olive branches to the Chinese, would like Indians to believe that. Impressing on the nation its weakness reduces domestic pressure to take a hard line, and lets people believe “well, we have no choice but to compromise”. Naturally, Indians who cannot remember what happened yesterday and have zero interest in tomorrow, don’t ask why after 50-years and after the creation of the world’s largest mountain warfare force this should be so. No one who operates in a western frame of logic can explain anything India and Indians do.

· In reality there is no 3-1 superiority for China because if we are talking of the Xinjiang theater, India can, without difficulty, reinforce Ladakh-Himachal-Uttarkhand with additional divisions to quickly bring itself up to parity in the theatre.

· To problem is, what then? China is not about to launch a full-scale attack on India. The Chinese are arrogant and run their mouths like sewing machines, but they are not fools. They will get nowhere with an attack because their troops will have to dismount and slog it out in the mountains, where they will be at tremendous disadvantage. India is not about to attack China because of the lack of political will.

· But, readers will object, aren’t you forgetting the highly unfavorable Indian logistical situation. So we can push additional divisions into the Ladakh-Himachal-Uttarakhand sectors, but how are we going to support an offensive? The days are gone when an Indian mountain division needed just 200-tons of supplies a day. Back in those days a Chinese division got by with 50 or less because their divisions had little artillery (in the mountains) and few vehicles. Ah yes, simpler times – Editor gets quite nostalgic. Now the division artillery alone would need 200-tons/day in the attack. Moreover, how is India going to get artillery and vehicles to the mountain passes and across down to the Tibet plateau when roads are lacking?

· And what about an even greater problem: India has almost no east-west interconnectivity because of the mountains. Every sector has deployments like the open fingers of a hand, each finger proceeding up a steep, narrow valley, but the fingers cannot switch forces between them. For the Chinese that is no problem because they are on the plateau and have an excellent east-west main trunk road, plus other roads.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by brihaspati »

Chumar is held by India from the "north-west". The "flat land" supposedly so advantageous to China is to the south and east. This can be cut off further south from the west. Moreover, we can make a lot of noise in the distant north-west corner of the Himalayas while the mountain dividing open fingers problem is reversed in far SE around AP. Even the Chinese have a problem in the bulge they are defending in occupation of Tibet. If carefully planned - that salient can be made into a problem for China.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Rudradev »

Rohitvats, this gem is more informative and useful to me than anything else posted on this thread so far:

And what about an even greater problem: India has almost no east-west interconnectivity because of the mountains. Every sector has deployments like the open fingers of a hand, each finger proceeding up a steep, narrow valley, but the fingers cannot switch forces between them. For the Chinese that is no problem because they are on the plateau and have an excellent east-west main trunk road, plus other roads.

This has huge implications. The question of building roads, airlift capacities, ALGs, airfields etc. is a question of capability and will-- at least in theory, it can be addressed over time. However, the ramifications of the above-mentioned geography are immense.

What this sort of geography means is that when IA deploys along these valleys, it is committed. Units can go up or down the valleys but they cannot easily be transported from one valley to another. The disposition of IA units in each of these "finger" valleys is something the PLA can assess relatively early, through satellite or aerial surveillance, to get a good idea of how our strength is deployed along the front. We can reinforce units into each "finger" valley or pull them back, but not shift them from one sector to another, east to west, very quickly.

In contrast the PLA has a huge advantage. Because of its network of east-west roads, and the relatively flat terrain on the Tibetan plateau, it can transfer units from one point along the front and place them somewhere else much more swiftly. It is able to dynamically change the deployment patterns of PLA units across sectors in response to perceived troop buildup on our side, to feint at one point while thrusting at another, and generally use this terrain advantage to gain immense strategic and operational initiative.

What this means for us is that we cannot hope to fight a purely defensive air war with China, limiting ourselves to CAS and near-border airstrikes... a question I had asked on page 7 of this thread. The only means we have of equalizing this terrain advantage is to fight an aggressive war for air dominance over the entire southern Lanzhou and Chengdu MRs. We have to neutralize PLA's capacity for quick east-west redeployment along the entire front by making their divisions afraid to come out into the open at all, and concentrating them at static and predictable points where they can hide behind the relative safety of massively aggregated ADS. This means that IAF has to eliminate the vast bulk of ADS that China can deploy into Lanzhou/Chengdu MRs very early in the war; interdict any logistical support or interception capacity of PLAAF across the entire theatre; and furthermore, proactively eliminate the threat of Tibet-based missiles (which the Chinese will of course concentrate on the limited number of targets represented by the "finger valleys" along which IA will be advancing.)

If we hope to win an India-China border war we cannot hope for it to be limited in any sense... the vagaries of geography, described in the above article, dictate that we must escalate to air operations deep inside Tibet as soon as hostilities begin. This is not a war that can be "contained" or "localized" if we want to win it, or even avoid defeat. The Chinese, therefore, will constantly browbeat us with small provocations, knowing that if we want to respond at all, we will have to respond in a way that will get very big very fast.

Beijing's strategy is to go "in for a penny" knowing that we can't afford to go "in for a penny" in retaliation... we have to go "in for a pound" if we go in at all, and Beijing relies on that to pinch pennies from our pockets.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by ramana »

Rudradev, If it comes to that airwar over Tibet is an allout affair. and was since the mid 80s.

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 4#p1208834

Rohitvats, Thanks for posting the detailed replies.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by hnair »

The chinese infrastructural superiority seem to always cause some defensiveness among Indian observers, but not necessarily the Indian military. The more the chinese build their Tibetan surface transport infra, the more they are dependent on fixed (vulnerable) infra and less on mobile (airlift).

eg: In the Orbat article, the "finger-like Indian side vs plateaued chinese side" theory is being seen from a "chinese always at advantage" by the orbat author. Let us say, at some point, after swishing around "happily and laterally" in the plateau using their great infra, the chinese would have to commit going into one (or few) of these fingers. A smaller Indian force can stall them in a narrow finger with relatively less resources, especially with some of them engaging the chinese from dominant ridges. This can cause stalls in their plans and even worse, Indian reserves going up a finger of their choosing, right into their side.

So yeah, they have their own set of problems :)

But I agree on the air war part. We should not have "damn! I got a lock, but they were across LOC" shyte. It should be fought only over Tibet and never over India. The Tibetans should be allowed a show they shall cheer for centuries.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Singha »

Unless protected by a chain of sam and fighter cover the famous lateral highway and smaller roads in tibet are bare bones nanga to any air attack or even disruption by small land units. Looking at the vast size of tibet i dont think they have enough sams for the job or even enough useable fighters to guarantee a full coverage.

But we will need strong set of ecm, sead and missile pgm portfolio and the willingness to use it liberally.
Keeping a bare 500 pgm kits for use in defending delhi is not the way....i dunno why such paltry interest in iaf to ramp up huge production rate of pgms we need
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by ramana »

In the 80s there were about 8 airfields in Tibet. How many are there now? Gagan can you help?
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by abhijitm »

IMO any army, when the adversary intrudes in the territory especially during the peace time, whether it is its fault, or no fault, no matter what the circumstance was
1. must be embarrassed
2. the embarrassment must be clearly visible to its citizens and the adversary

If that happens then many types of implicit messages get passed to everyone. And if it doesnt happen then also many types of messages get passed.

An embarrassment should not be hidden and considered as a weakness. A clever adversary understands that.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Philip »

The real failure is that of the GOI and IA (not pressing hard enough) to build up our infrastructure over the last decade (gross dereliction of duty by the UPA-2).,esp. when the PRC first made noises about Ar.Pradesh.A spineless PM with a cabinet of eunuchs have failed to protect the nation from its external threats,time and time again.Even if every pending file on border infrastructure was passed today,how many years will it take to materialise given the inhospitable terrain on our side? The beefing up of the IA,with extra brigades,etc. will also take time. As some have pointed out,the IAF's role is critical in the current context.It has to achieve air dominance and if a conflict occurs,the battle will neccessarily have to be spread out ,as we will have to destroy vital bases,airfields and the Tibetan railway (key bridges,tunnels,etc.).We have no alternative but to position larger numbers of troops on the ground in larger number and create more helipads,airstrips,bunkers for ammo and eqpt.etc.At the same time the IN must also be tasked with drawing up ops for interdicting and destroying Chinese shipping in the IOR should the need arise.

The ball is now in the court of the armed forces,the IA in particular ,to list out to the GOI the urgent requirements which are essential for them to defend the country.If the GOI prevaricates,then they should publicly enlighten the nation as to who is endangering its security from within.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Lalmohan »

the strategy - which is defensive - is that the chinese have to come down the fingers to make any substantial gain - and IA can move E-W along the valleys and block of which ever finger is the line of attack. now the chinese can chose not to do that and just nibble off chunks of the mountains - which is an H&D loss for India unless we eject them from there. the shift seems to be that the chinese are indicating that they are more interested in nibbling than large gains, so our strategy has to now shift to the offensive
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by shyamd »

The Curious case of Chumar post:

The tin-pot icebreaker
SUJAN DUTTA
New Delhi, May 7: One among the many whispers that cloak any deal with China is that the face-off at Raki Nala was resolved “for the price of a tin shed”.

That tin shed was set up on a hill feature at a place called Chumar in the far south-east tip of Ladakh. Sources would not confirm what the tin shed was meant for but said it was “completed” on April 18, three days after the Chinese incursion was detected.

The incursion itself was detected after an Indian patrol “found signs of a Chinese helicopter having landed” on April 15. The Indian Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police immediately set up their own camp in eyeball-to-eyeball position from the Chinese at Raki Nala.

Chumar is a hundred and more kilometres away from Raki Nala but the events had a bearing on the tin shed on a hilltop in the south-eastern tip of Ladakh opposite the Tibet boundary.

The sources would not detail what the tin shed was meant for — was it a bunker? Was it a fortification? A tin shed can hardly be any of those. So did Indian forces go into disputed territory in a flanking move and use it as a bargaining chip or did India give up a position and kowtow to the Chinese?

Enquiries by The Telegraph suggest neither.


Given its location, Chumar does not overlook either the Karakoram Highway between China and Pakistan nor does it overlook China’s Western Highway in Tibet (that connects to Xinjiang). Chumar is at least 40km as the crow flies from the Western Highway that is also flanked by a Karakoram ridgeline and is obscured from view.

But the Chumar feature is 7 to 8km from an Indian Army camp at the very limit of the line till where Indian forces patrol. Climbing up the feature and manning it 24 X 7 is a demanding task.

Two years ago, the Indian Army’s Northern Command procured more than half-a-dozen high-powered high-resolution automatic cameras. One or more of the cameras were installed on a mast in the hill feature. The cameras clicked photographs automatically and relayed the pictures back to the Indian Army camp.

The Chumar feature overlooks a Chinese army camp and a road leading to it. The camera(s) were capable of taking photographs periodically. A comparison of a series of photographs and their interpretation would enable Indian Army analysts to read the changes and the traffic in and out of the Chinese PLA camp.

Work on setting up the system in Chumar began two months ago. So, technically, sources in Delhi are correct when they said whatever was/is in Chumar was only “completed” on April 18.

Chumar is by no means the only such feature. The process began about two years ago when the Indian Army’s Northern Command headquartered in Udhampur and the Eastern Command headquartered in Calcutta established “China Study Cells”. The cells are teams of officers, each headed by a brigadier, who are dedicated to watch China.

The setting up of surveillance systems on the frontier aids in the work of the cells. But conditions on the China front are harsh.

Buffeted by high winds, the cameras and/or the mast often bent or broke. The army then built a shelter — or a tin shed — for the system in Chumar.

Is that the “tin shed” that was removed? Are the cameras still there? Watch this space.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Philip »

"Tin sheds"......public conveniences?!
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by KLNMurthy »

Rudradev, I think Beijing is after more than pinching pennies from India, their nature and methods indicate they want nothing short of vassalhood and enslavement from India. From their pov, in the worst case, if India manages to hold them at bay, they still don't lose anything more than a diminuition of their buffer.

We need to think about ways of harming core Chinese interests.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by shyamd »

PRC must be laughing at us all tying ourselves in knots as to why the PRC did what they did.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by sanjaykumar »

Really? A gauche move, that backfires in international embarrassment.

China will seek to avenge this humiliation. Hoshiar raho.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by vishvak »

After claiming Indian parts as disputed, Chinese protested tin shed in one Indian part and built tents in another Indian part. Now it is the Chinese who are feeling hurt too and scheming under the excuse of grievances.

What has Chinese got to lose in all this? Nothing. On the other hand Indians got to be quiet as well since politicians and babudum are quietly handling this. Chanakiyan indeed how?
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by rajrang »

Philip wrote:
The ball is now in the court of the armed forces,the IA in particular ,to list out to the GOI the urgent requirements which are essential for them to defend the country.If the GOI prevaricates,then they should publicly enlighten the nation as to who is endangering its security from within.
India still has to give CONSEQUENCE to China for their recent misbehavior. They broke agreements with India and arguably international law. Simply withdrawing to April 15 positions is not enough. There is no room for forgiveness. If India reacts today in "anger" China will see it as "normal" and probably cannot do much about it.

To use an analogy, this is like someone misbehaving with your sister each time you go out with her. In the past the 1 or 2 km transgressions are equivalent to some immoral hooligan whistling at her. Intruding 20 km, is like a deliberate, improper physical contact. A simple withdrawal is not enough, clear consequences are needed.

To teach China a lesson, I think with the Indian public opinion clearly shocked and angry at the moment, it is an opportunity for Defense Minister AKA to push through some re-armament for the Western and Middle sectors with China, similar to what he has done for the Eastern sector, regardless of the economic situation. If my dreams were to come true - additional mountain divisions (two more), a second MSC, two new SU 31 squadrons, self-propelled guns and last but not the least, accelerate infrastructure development. Even the present 5% GNP growth rate is more than enough to support this. SPGs can take advantage of Chinese infrastructure should India's MSC cross the LAC into Tibet! Make the Chinese look like fools (for a change) for developing their infrastructure close to the LAC (with impunity). If India had such forces today, then China would not have dared to (or been able to) intrude 20 km into Indian territory in the way they did.

When your neighbor is a rowdy there no choice but to be militarily strong.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by svinayak »

The author is a leftist and does not have a clear info on national interest but has opened the right info in this article.

http://indrus.in/blogs/2013/04/29/himal ... 24299.html

Himalayan tensions serve US’ rebalancing strategy
April 29, 2013 M K Bhadrakumar
Fuelling India-China tensions is integral to the US’ containment strategy towards the Middle Kingdom, as it would compel Delhi to coordinate its Beijing policy with Washington’s.
The ominous similarities lie insofar as the public opinion in India is immature and volatile and is highly susceptible to disinformation and xenophobia; the strategic discourses are pathetically ill informed and pedestrian in their paucity or virtual absence of scientific and rational analysis; and, even more dangerously, discourses often tend to become ideologically motivated rather than distilled out of national interests or borne out of realism – so much so that the doubts arise as to whose interests such Indian pundits are serving.
On a systemic plane, there are disquieting signs that the Indian establishment has not been pulling together on the country’s China policy and this disconnect, which has been suspected through the recent past, threatens to introduce its own disharmony. In all this, however, the silver lining has been that in comparison with the surcharged pre-1962 situation, the Indian political elites have refused to be browbeaten by the polemical and rhetorical public debate or alarmist media criticism and even among the opposition parties, there are no voices that clamour for ‘police action’ against the two or three dozen Chinese soldiers who are camping on land which India claims as its territory.
He does not connect the Indian media with the western influence to create disinformation and xenophobia
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Austin »

Times Now Reports that China Study Group told Army to shut and objected to Armys stand to take aggresive action.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by shyamd »

DNA exclusive says that Army gave CSG inaccurate reports about Chumar. Army told CSG it was tin shed, CSG independently verified to confirm that 7 structures were under construction and had cut off PRC patrols. This was in violation with 2005 border protocol.

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1832258/r ... manoeuvres
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Austin »

Ok are we to believe that the Army lied to its own Government.

CSG took inputs from RAW and IB to confront the army ?

Could me the case of GOI now using new media to discredit the Army now that China intrusion is done with to keep it in check and maintain control of ITBP patrolling those areas.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Lilo »

"China's National Humiliation Map"
Image

Labeled Years supposedly show when those territories/vassals were lost to china..
A quick google search shows that this pic is quite popular in the chinese net.
Dangerous propagandu to feed 1.4 billion I say...

https://www.google.co.in/search?tbs=sbi ... 60&bih=489
Last edited by Lilo on 09 May 2013 22:33, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Philip »

Revelations on right now on Times Now that the "China Study Group" (CSG) ,led by chief coward Shiv Shankar Menon,chickened out,got their knickers in a twist,and totally counter to the IA's strategy and ground position fed the IA the Chinese stand! "Don't upset the Chinese,they might get angry and invade further",seems to be the mindset of the CSG.This led to a "cold war" between the IA and the CSG and the Army Chief was allegedly called and told to listen to the CSG where the Chinese wanted the IA to "withdraw from the region"!

The IA had its own strategy and tactics in building up our infrastructure as close to the LOC as possible,this was under way,but the Chinesebut who well understood the myopic and servility of the MMS and UPA regime ,its total lack of military and strategic matters .has cashed in relentlessly seizing every opportunity and is now flexing its muscles and attempting to force a fait accompli on the border.

The timing of the "invasion" of 18+ km,wars have started with smaller "intrusions" than this figure,is also a massive clue to the Chinese move,right on the eve of the Chinese PM "Leaky-King",we have the Chinese literally p*ssing" on Indian territory s if by lifting his leg or dropping his pants and defecating upon Indian spoil,it makes it Chinese cabbage patch!

So now the truth has outed as to which cowards ran around like headless chickens in Delhi and betraye the nation.The Chinese "bullying" tactics as former generals have been saying on media channels,has gone unanswered.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by chetak »

India Prepares For Another Chinese Victory


May 7, 2013: The recent (April 15th) Chinese incursion inside Indian Kashmir has reminded Indian military leaders that despite over five years of brave talk and bold plans, not much has actually been accomplished to rectify the shortage of access to the Indian side of the border. It was this lack of access that played a key role in the last border war with China (in 1962) which saw better prepared and supplied Chinese forces wearing down their brave but ill-supplied Indian opponents. Indians are waking up to the fact that a repeat of their 1962 defeat is in the making.

Over the last five years India has ordered roads built so that troops can reach the Chinese border in sufficient strength to stop a Chinese invasion. The roads have, for the most part, not been built. The problem is the Indian bureaucracy and its inability to get anything done quickly or even on time. The military procurement bureaucracy is the best, or worst, example of this. The military procurement bureaucracy takes decades to develop and produce locally made gear and often never delivers. Buying foreign equipment is almost as bad, with corruption and indecisiveness delaying and sometimes halting selection and purchase of needed items.

Despite the bureaucracy, some progress has been made. Three years ago India quietly built and put into service an airfield for transports in the north (Uttarakhand), near their border with China. While the airfield can also be used to bring in urgently needed supplies for local civilians during those months when snow blocks the few roads, it is mainly there for military purposes, in case China invades again. Uttarakhand is near Kashmir and a 38,000 square kilometer chunk of land that China seized after a brief war with India in 1962. This airfield and several similar projects along the Chinese border are all about growing fears of continued Chinese claims on Indian territory. India is alarmed at increasing strident Chinese insistence that it owns northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. This has led to an increased movement of Indian military forces to that remote area.

India has discovered that a buildup in these remote areas is easier said than done. Without new roads nothing else really makes much difference. Airfields require fuel and other supplies to be more than just another place where an aircraft can land (and not take off if it needs refueling). Moreover, the Indians found that they were far behind Chinese efforts. When they took a closer look three years ago, Indian staff officers discovered that China had improved its road network along most of their 4,000 kilometer common border. Indian military planners calculated that, as a result of this network, Chinese military units could move 400 kilometers a day on hard surfaced roads, while Indian units could only move half as fast, while suffering more vehicle damage because of the many unpaved roads. Moreover, China had more roads right up to the border. Building more roads on the Indian side will take years, once the bureaucratic problems are overcome (which often takes a decade). The roads are essential to support Indian plans to build more airfields near the border and stationing modern fighters there. Military planners found, once the terrain was surveyed and calculations completed, that it would take a lot more time because of the need to build maintenance facilities, roads to move in fuel and supplies, and housing for military families.

All these border disputes have been around for centuries but became more immediate when India and China fought a short war, up in these mountains, in 1962. The Indians lost and are determined not to lose a rematch. But so far, the Indians have been falling farther behind China. This situation developed because India, decades ago, decided that one way to deal with a Chinese invasion was to make it difficult for them to move forward. Thus, for decades, the Indians built few roads on their side of the border. But that also made it more difficult for Indian forces to get into the disputed areas. This strategy suited the Indian inability to actually build roads in these sparsely inhabited areas.

The source of the current border tension goes back a century and heated up when China resumed its control over Tibet in the 1950s. From the end of the Chinese empire in 1912 up until 1949 Tibet had been independent. But when the communists took over China in 1949, they sought to reassert control over their "lost province" of Tibet. This began slowly, but once all of Tibet was under Chinese control in 1959, China once again had a border with India and there was immediately a disagreement about exactly where the border should be. That’s because, in 1914, the newly independent government of Tibet worked out a border (the McMahon line) with the British (who controlled India). China considers this border agreement illegal and wants 90,000 square kilometers back. India refused, especially since this would mean losing much of the state of Arunachal Pradesh in northeastern India and some bits elsewhere in the area.

Putting more roads into places like Arunachal Pradesh (83,000 square kilometers and only a million people) and Uttarakhand (53,566 square kilometers and ten million people) will improve the economy, as well as military capabilities. This will be true of most of the border area. For decades local civilians along these borders have been asking for more roads and economic development but were turned down because of the now discredited Indian strategy.

All the roads won't change the fact that most of the border is mountains, the highest mountains (the Himalayas) in the world. So no matter how much you prepare for war, no one is going very far, very fast, when you have to deal with these mountains. As the Indians discovered, the Chinese persevered anyway and built roads and railroads anyway and now India has to quickly respond in kind or face a repeat of their 1962 defeat.

Despite the lack of roads, India has moved several infantry divisions, several squadrons of Su-30 fighters, and six of the first eight squadrons of its new Akash air defense missile systems as close to the Chinese border as their existing road network will allow. Most of these initially went into Assam, just south of Arunachal Pradesh, until the road network is built up sufficiently to allow bases to be maintained closer to the border. It may be a decade or more before those roads are built, meaning China can seize Arunachal Pradesh anytime it wants and there’s not much India can do to stop it.

Undeterred by that the Indian Army has asked for $3.5 billion in order to create three more brigades (two infantry and one armored) to defend the Chinese border. Actually, this new force is in addition to the new mountain corps (of 80,000 troops) nearing approval (at a cost of $11.5 billion). The mountain corps is to be complete in four years. The three proposed brigades would be ready in 4-5 years. By the end of the decade India will have spent nearly five billion dollars on new roads, rail lines, and air fields near the 4,057 kilometer long Chinese border. Spending the money is not the same as actually getting the roads and railroads actually built.

All this is another example of the old saying that amateurs (and politicians) talk tactics, while professionals talk logistics. China realized this first and has built 58,000 kilometers of roads to the Indian border, along with five airbases and several rail lines. Thus, China can move thirty divisions to the border, which is three times more than India can get to its side of the frontier.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by shyamd »

Austin wrote:Ok are we to believe that the Army lied to its own Government.

CSG took inputs from RAW and IB to confront the army ?

Could me the case of GOI now using new media to discredit the Army now that China intrusion is done with to keep it in check and maintain control of ITBP patrolling those areas.
CSG probably asked RAW/IB to go find out. Surely more skeletons will tumble as both start making tit for tat statements.

I don't understand the reason for the leak by CSG, assuming they made it. The entire incident appeared to have blown over and by next week most would have forgotten. Something else going on probably
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by KLNMurthy »

shyamd wrote:PRC must be laughing at us all tying ourselves in knots as to why the PRC did what they did.
1. We know quite well why prc did this--to make India accept vassalhood.

2. Why are we bothered that prc will laugh at us? We are after preserving our freedom, not playing childrens' games.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by member_20317 »

KLNMurthy wrote:Rudradev, I think Beijing is after more than pinching pennies from India, their nature and methods indicate they want nothing short of vassalhood and enslavement from India. From their pov, in the worst case, if India manages to hold them at bay, they still don't lose anything more than a diminuition of their buffer.

We need to think about ways of harming core Chinese interests.

I have always wondered how a country as big as china can be as homogeneous as china? Only other set of people where we see homogeneity of such order are the ones that canabalized neighbouring sabhyatas. Only these are known and documented. How come china does not get spoken of in this regard. Their patience in the take over of Tibet is worthy of note.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by RamaY »

Does China have any infra, constructions in disputed area?
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Post by KLNMurthy »

ravi_g wrote:
KLNMurthy wrote:Rudradev, I think Beijing is after more than pinching pennies from India, their nature and methods indicate they want nothing short of vassalhood and enslavement from India. From their pov, in the worst case, if India manages to hold them at bay, they still don't lose anything more than a diminuition of their buffer.

We need to think about ways of harming core Chinese interests.

I have always wondered how a country as big as china can be as homogeneous as china? Only other set of people where we see homogeneity of such order are the ones that canabalized neighbouring sabhyatas. Only these are known and documented. How come china does not get spoken of in this regard. Their patience in the take over of Tibet is worthy of note.
One deep fear of China is "chaos" which they believe is synonymous with dissent, synonymous with persons pursuing their ownpath to moksha. This is a core "soft" interest that we can attack with vigor.
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Post by RamaY »

A personal attack on MMS w.r.t Ladakh episode. Per this article there is nothing to do with military in this episode.

http://newsinsight.net/TheLadakhsell-ou ... age=page-1
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Post by ShauryaT »

ramana wrote:In the 80s there were about 8 airfields in Tibet. How many are there now? Gagan can you help?
14, IIRC along with upgrades to 5 of them.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Klaus »

Singha wrote:Unless protected by a chain of sam and fighter cover the famous lateral highway and smaller roads in tibet are bare bones nanga to any air attack or even disruption by small land units. Looking at the vast size of tibet i dont think they have enough sams for the job or even enough useable fighters to guarantee a full coverage.
Am wondering if non-ballistic profile missiles delivering multiple non-nuclear EMP's to fry SAM and other electronics over Tibet needs to be in immediate priority list of DRDO?

These EMP payloads could be a mix of directional and wide-area ones so that IA can pick and choose depending on target profile and size, typically directional weapons for SAM's near the LAC.
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Post by Singha »

the pre-humiliation chinese map seems to stop at the border of new delhi itself.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Philip »

Many years ago,a well known global analyst said of the Chinese," do not believe what they say,but what they do". Reagan said something similar ,"trust but verify". In all our dealings with the PRC we have done neither of the two.last evening,one of the retd. generals put it in perspective when he said (words to that effect),"during the last decade of peace and tranquility on the border,China has steadily built up its infrastructure all along the LOC and the railway to Tibet where 8 trains daily arrive from Beijing." We see the same thing happening in the neighbouring nations of the IOR,where China has been teadily building up trade ties,providing aid,building new infrastructure projects like Hambantota Port and Intl. Airport,Gwadar Port ,Burmese Ports,and has been trying to establish a base in the Maldives too.

What has India done during all this time,or the leadership of India during the last decade? Slept on its watch.In war,sleeping on your watch carries an automatic ticket to a firing squad. What is now neccessary is for the massive buildup of the armed forces on "a war footing",to plug as many gaps as possible,so that if we are invaded by the dragon,it will prove to be a very costly affair,where we can inflict serious damage too,both militarily and more important diplomatically,by enhancing our relations with Taiwan with a view to ev eventual recognition of it,plus the assertion that Tibet is an independent nation,a protectorate of India. We must look at the huge Tibetan diaspora in India as a huge resource to use for freeing their country now in the clutches of the dragon.

Finally,the "blow-job tamasha" artistes of the MEA and MOD,who advocate surrender without a fight to both Pak and the PRC ,must be pensioned off or sent to Siachen on a one-way tkt.We cannot afford to have the rotten apples of defeatism contaminating the corridors of power.A repeat of '62 will send the nation back another 50 years in loss of confidence and ridicule from the international community which will deliver a crushing blow to our economy.The big Q is whether the eunuchs of this regime will hand over more to the dragon across the table before they are thrown out in disgrace at the next hustings.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by ShauryaT »

What did the PRC achieve? I believe they achieved "sanctity" for their version of the LAC!
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Bade »

If escalation happens in the future as response from a more stronger India, then such incursions should be met with pounding along the Karakoram pass on their road infrastructure. The only reason they want to have full control of the Aksai Chin region seems to be safe passage for G219 (?) highway, for which they are willing to hold land far far west of it. There seems to be a plateau, north of DBO of possible interest during war, though land locked by glaciers. It is not as flat as the depsang plains if I am reading the elevation of image maps right, without the corresponding raw data.
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Philip »

X-posted from the diplomutt td.

The price of inaction
Bharat Karnad
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/130509/c ... e-inaction

The little Chinese misadventure is over but only because India agreed to raze the fortified observation post at Chumar well inside its territory. The restoration of status quo based on such surrender provides China with a ready excuse to march into Indian territory again, with an undefined Line of Actual Control (LAC) legitimating armed intrusions.

Peace bought by concessions cannot last. Even so, the Indian Army is lucky because, like in 1962, it was being set up as scapegoat. Last week, a former “media adviser to the Prime Minister”, Sanjaya Baru, blamed the Army for “intelligence failure” resulting, he implied, in the Manmohan Singh government being caught unawares by the Chinese People’s Li­beration Army’s (PLA) advance 19 kms inside India. Every kilometre deep intrusion means potential loss on average of some 75 square kilometre of territory.

The former Army Chief, Gen. Ved Malik, also on the same TV programme, was so flabbergasted by Baru’s charge that he couldn’t collect his wits in time to explain that the management of the border with China is policed by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) under the supervision of the benighted home ministry. Later, on another TV show, he described this border management system as “laughable”.

While the Army conducts its own field intelligence, it is the ITBP’s responsibility to keep the government apprised of developments on the border as well as the denizens of North Block in charge. How Sardar Patel, the first and last great home minister, who early apprehended the threat posed by the Chinese occupation of Tibet must be, proverbially speaking, turning in his grave!

Of course, the anomaly of why a paramilitary force is tasked with protection of a live border with China, when the Border Security Force on the side with Pakistan — an adversary of lesser consequence — is entirely under Army command, has to be explained by the Indian government, especially since there is evidence that this fundamentally flawed arrangement isn’t working.

Such a system of border control is apparently in place because it fits in with the thinking of the China Study Group (CSG) and its Mandarin-speaking members, mostly former diplomats, who are convinced that the paramilitary forces headed by police officers, even though sub-professional and boasting of no fighting qualities worth the name, are controllable, take dictation better than the Army, and hence can be relied on in situations on the LAC, where inertness and lack of initiative are prized.

Between the CSG and the ministry for external affairs combine and its inapt tool, the ITBP, the country’s interests are in peril. The fear of escalation has become a psychosis, leading New Delhi to raise non-reaction to Chinese provocation to high principle. Situations are allowed to drift in the hope that by not responding and, therefore, not offering the Chinese “provocation” in return, Beijing will eventually pull out its troops.

This is what happened in the Rokah Nullah area this time around — it was a bigger probing action than anything the PLA has mounted recently. More such incidents can be expected, any of which, in the face of predictably meagre response, may lead to permanent realignment of LAC and cutting off of access to the Siachen Glacier.

This leaves the Army up a creek because without accessible roads it is left with no sustainable proactive strategy at all in the face of the Chinese allowing themselves the leeway to intrude at will anywhere along the LAC.

Remarkably, it is the Indian government itself that is the villain — delaying the building of an extensive network of metalled, all-weather roads up to the LAC, especially in the extended area designated “sub-sector North” radiating northwest-wards and northeast-wards from Daulat Beg Oldi that the Third Infantry Division of the Leh-based 14 Corps is responsible for. It is a sobering thought that where road connectivity is concerned the conditions have not much improved from 1958 when Jawaharlal Nehru’s “forward strategy” began to be implemented.

There may be no border roads but a number of advanced landing grounds have been spruced up in the last decade at Daulat Beg Oldi, Fukche and Nyoma in the Ladakh sector to operate frontline combat aircraft.

This is all very well except that the availability of airborne ground attack capability in no way helps 14 Corps to respond fast and in kind to Chinese actions, which requires a quick marshalling of units whenever and wherever the LAC is breached.

The Indian Air Force is unlikely, in any case, to be ordered into action short of a fairly major conflict as its use is inherently escalatory. In the event, air power cannot substitute or compensate for the lack of land power options, and can no more deter aggressive Chinese moves across the LAC than the appeasement-laced diplomatic fidgeting that passes for India’s China policy.

Even as the PLA is able to muster a rapidly deployable, airborne, Division-sized force at any point on the LAC within a couple of days, amassing a similar formation on the Indian side is beyond the Indian Army’s ken mainly because of the absence of motorable roads.

The Indian government’s lack of will to put national security ahead of lesser concerns is incomprehensible. Letters from Army headquarters to the Prime Minister and other pooh-bahs in government pleading for roads and other infrastructure are routinely ignored.

Such criminal negligence by the Indian government has led to border projects worth some `30,000 crore hanging fire because of environmental clearances and land acquisition problems. That has allowed China to whittle away Indian territory. Such laxness and complacency on the part of the government can no longer be tolerated because it permits brazen land-grabs and aggressive acts by China.

It is imperative that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh takes two immediate decisions — of handing over the charge of the China border to the Army and getting the Cabinet Committee on Security to override all objections from ministries and departments of government obstructing infrastructure development, and order construction of border roads on a war-footing.

The writer is a professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by ramana »

It would be useful to build a timeline of events to develop the correct picture. Any takers?
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Re: India-China War 2013 - Trigger: Incursion into India

Post by Lalmohan »

the importance of forward air bases is not for strike aircraft but for logistics - why is that point being missed by commentators?
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