Indian Army News & Discussions - 11 June 2014

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VinodTK
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by VinodTK »

‘Army must get bulletproof jackets on time’
New Delhi: The ministry of defence “should not play with the lives of Army personnel” by denying them bullet-proof jackets on time, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on defence has said in its report tabled recently in Parliament.

The committee noted that the shelf-life of even the existing BPJs with the Army would expire by next year, and also slammed the MoD for the “alarming” delay in procurement of BPJs.

“The Committee is perturbed to find that procurement of 1.86 lakh BPJs for which the approval of the MoD’s Defence Acquisition Council was obtained on October 19, 2009, and a Request for Proposal (RFP) ... was issued on December 7, 2012, are still not procured. The Committee is not at all satisfied with the reply of the ministry ....Despite knowing the importance of such a crucial life-saving item ...., it has taken more than six years to procure after the approval of the DAC!”, the report stated.

“It is an unpleasant surprise that there has been no improvement in this regard,” it said.
Y I Patel
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by Y I Patel »

Regarding the Mountain Strike Corps, what seems to be missing is a clear doctrinal purpose - compare to the clarity of purpose for the Pakistan facing strike corps.

Let me expand - we are clear that the newly raised corps will be China facing, but in case of war, what strategic military objective would it seek to achieve? What larger political objective would besupported?

Carrying this forward, some potential objectives can be:

- Strike deep inside Tibet towards Lhasa and establish an enclave by a combined military action involving the now beefed up NE corps, the full strength MSC, and IAF. Use the enclave to install a Tibetan government and defend it against Chinese counter attacks. This draws from the historical parallel where an enclave was to be established in East Pakistan where a Mujib-ur-Rehman government could be announced. Right now, supporting a Tibetan government is nowhere near as high in priority for India, and the possibility of such a political objective becoming real is very very low. Also China is no 70's era Pakistan and ICBMs can stgart flying. So this is not a realistic politico-military doctrine based scenario for the MSC.

- If not that, then what? Teach China a lesson by intruding deep inside China and then using the territorial gains as a bargaining chip to settle the boundary issue? Seems to me that such an objective is not worth the expense of raising an entire corps. The existing China facing formations can be further beefed up if necessary to achieve this objective at far lower expense.

This is what I mean when I said that it is not clear what the doctrinal objective is in raising this corps.

While I have not been following these issues with any sort of regularity, the occasional news snippets I read while skimming BRF indicate that there has been opposition to the new raising, principally from groups objecting to the massive drain of resources such a raising represents. IA tried to have its cake and eat it too by dipping into war wastage reserves, but obviously the main question of finances was never satisfactorily answered, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

In fact, there seems to be some indication of rethinking related to Pakistan facing strike corps as well. But more on that sometime relatively soon.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by srai »

^^^

Just imagine how many generals will be needed to run the new MSC :wink:
Karan M
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by Karan M »

About the only thing CAG does well is to tabulate OFB performance.

There the disaster that is OFB keeps giving.

Around Rs 1600 Crore of ammunition, 17.5% of total Army balance is lying defective. Wonderful.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by Karan M »

BTW, total amount spent on Kaveri program till date is Rs 2100 Crore. Go figure.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by tsarkar »

Rahul,

FCNA (Force Commander Northern Areas) is commanded by a Major General and comes under X Corps, so can be considered a division.

In your map, you can see six Pakistani Corps against five Indian Corps in the Northern & Central sectors. This density historically gave them tactical advantage in the initial phases of conflict if Indian Strike Corps were not fully mobilized.

The advent of nuclear weapons has made Army sized WW2 type 2-3 major thrusts vulnerable. Instead, there would be 6-8 smaller but nimbler thrusts to capture territory to force concessions. Even if 2-3 of them are annihilated, the rest can capture significant territory to make PA lose H&D and that would be its defeat.

We need a large sized army for the following reason -

In the event of war, significant amount of irregulars would be pushed in like 1947 or Gibraltar, that would be well armed with RPG, PK-series, Anza SAMs & Chinese ATGM copies. CRPF or BSF cannot taken on such forces.

Also, to bolster defences, Pakistan will raise foreign + local jehadis who will fight hand in hand with Pakistani forces, like in Bosnia. These irregular forces can build defences within its own territory like Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Countering such forces will require manpower.

The Israeli Lebanon incursion in 2006, despite extreme mechanization & air support, did not go well because they lacked sufficient boots on the ground to take on these defences, or hold ground after mechanized & air forces have rolled ahead.

After an initial assault, forces will need to hold captured ground.

Air forces cannot hold ground because of poor endurance. Mechanized Forces, when immobile while holding ground, are vulnerable to RPGs and Molotov Cocktails.

Using tanks & ICVs as pillboxes & bunker is ineffective. Armour protection is mostly frontal & sides, and an immobile tank exposes its engine to attack. And weight & volume wise, a stone & concrete bunker is better than a steel one.

Also, mechanized forces are diverted from offensive to hold ground.

One will need to dig trenches or build or occupy former enemy stone or concrete bunkers and for that one will require regular Infantry forces.

The reason Russia is successful in Chechnya is because of boots on ground.

To sum it up, we need mechanized strike forces and infantry divisions to hold occupied territory.

Comparing numbers to US or China is meaningless. Our numbers are decided by our own defence considerations.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by ramana »

Singha wrote:the CAG report paints the expected picture of terrible shortages in ammunition vs the desired 40 day war reserve , with esp acute ones in high caliber artillery .
and the factory in nalanda continues to hang fire. first we ban denel, then imi and finally none were there to pick the ball.

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articl ... plans.html

Ordnance Factory Project at Nalanda, Bihar
(Source: India Ministry of Defence; issued Nov 25, 2014)

The project setting up the Ordnance Factory at Nalanda, Bihar was originally sanctioned by the Government in 2001 to create the production facilities for Bi-Modular Charge System (BMCS) for 155mm Artillery Gun at Ordnance Factory, Nalanda.

The contract for Transfer of Technology (ToT) of BMCS was signed with M/s Denel (Pty) South Africa by the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), Kolkata on March 15, 2002. The contract became effective from March 15, 2003 after successful trials by Army. The ToT documents were received in March 2003 and subsequently the updated documents were received in April 2004.

However, dealing with M/s Denel was put on hold by OFB, because of its debarment in April 2005 on account of its alleged indulgence in illegal gratification.

Despite tendering twice, OFB’s efforts to get the BMCS plant in place could not materialise since foreign firm M/s IMI, Israel, on whom the contract was placed to supply, erect and commission BMCS Plant as per ToT documents provided by M/s Denel, got debarred, in March 2012, for a period of ten years due to breach of Integrity Pact.

After cancelling the contract with M/s IMI, Israel for main BMCS plant, OFB has initiated the procurement action for five individual plants through indigenous sources for manufacture of BMCS. Nitro-glycerine (NG) Plant, Nitrocellulose (NC) Plant and Sulphuric Acid Concentration / Nitric Acid Concentration (Acid Concentration) Plant have been erected.

BMCS Plant: Consequent to cancellation of contract with M/s IMI, Israel for main BMCS plant, Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) initiated the procurement action for five individual plants (NC-NG Paste, Single Base Propellant, Triple Base Propellant, Combustible Cartridge Case and Charge Assembly) through indigenous sources for manufacture of BMCS.

Meetings of Project Management Board (PMB) at the level of the Ministry of Defence and the Steering Committee at the level of OFB are being held at regular intervals to monitor the progress of the project.


As on date, no timeline has been fixed by the Government for completion of construction of this factory because of uncertainties in procurement/fabrication of BMCS plants through indigenous route.


This information was given by Minister of State for Defence Rao Inderjit Singh in a written reply to Smt Renuka Chowdhury in Rajya Sabha today.

-ends-
And Smt Renuka Chowdhary was instrumental in scuttling the original BMCS plant procurement with her Denel accusations!!!!

So the timeline should be re-baselined from 2012 after IMI got debarred.

Ten plants are needed and five for basic ingredients(NG, NC, H2SO4 and HNO3 another not stated) are complete. BTW acid concentration plants are the key component in this cascade of plants.

The other five are mixing plants and its fantastic performance if you go by re-baseline which is reality.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by ramana »

So Smt RC asking for progress on BMCs is like asking for status of how well her sabotage worked..
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by ramana »

tsarkar, My argument for large forces is:

- Being the invading force India needs larger numbers. Lanchester says 2:1, Brihaspati says 1.5:1. In mountains its 10:1.
- Eisenhower shattered the Nazi lines at Normandy by invading in unexpected area, strategic deception and yet massive force ~500K soldiers.
- Bradley breached the Siegfried Line with 250k troops near Aachen. Berlin fell six weeks later.
So strength lies in numbers with strategy.
In addition IAF and IN have to do their bit to prevent battlefield reinforcements.

As long as we have struggle for parity, TSP is safe.

Mechanization allows broad front (to make it nuke proof) and speed ( to reduce the response/decision time).

In other words, India needs large and more mechanized forces. its not a guns or butter game.
Need both.

BTW hats off to you for seeing the big picture from Army and Air force point of view.

A true soldier.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by member_22539 »

^+1

It is nice to hear points that I had in my heart so well articulated by both of you.

The way I see it, westerners are making a virtue out of a vice. Due to their budgets and demographics and society, they can only wield small armies, so they make it as effective as possible for their circumstances by maximizing its mobility. The way they see it, they will only be seriously fighting against an invasion, if at all it happens. In such a case they will be on friendly ground and the most they must fear is the regular armies of other nations making rapid gains (before they get uncle to come save them). Thus they can only buy time by being as well-trained, well-equipped and mobile as they can possibly be. Matching enemy moves with their mobility and pinning them down with their firepower. Things like irregular forces across the border doesn't even come into the equation, neither does holding an enemy city (that is all uncle territory). Thus they sing paeans to their compulsions and make it sound like its the next best thing since sliced bread.

The way I see it, we need BOTH numbers and mobility. Of course, more mobility means a little reduction in the need for numbers, but nonetheless, we need both.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by ramana »

Arun Look up FSU's concept of Deep Battle. Need that for fighting nuke forces.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by tsarkar »

From an Indian context, the Battle of Basantar is illuminating, on how adequate infantry helped Indians hold ground and conversely, lack of coordination between armoured and infantry on the Pakistani side impeded them, despite Pakistani superiority in armour.

Indian armoured, infantry, artillery & engineers worked together to create the second largest defeat for PA in Western Sector after Longewala.

Here is a fairly accurate description of the battle from Pakistani sources, who call it Battle of Barapind Jarpal http://defencejournal.com/oct99/barapind.htm

One interesting fact the author states is that both in Indian & Pakistani armies, while unit level Command & Control is exemplary, at brigade & higher levels its extremely poor.
The conclusion is that both the armies failed to function as dynamic entities beyond regimental level!
Praval the Indian writer hit the nail on the head when he observed that in Shakargarh bulge the Indians failed to concentrate at any one time more than one tank regiment and that at no time was more than one tank regiment in action, or in contact with the enemy.
The Indian & Pakistani tendency is to linearly deploy forces one battalion/regiment after the other, instead of concentrating multiple battalions & regiments. For example, in India's case, 4 Hodson's Horse deployed after 17 Poona Horse, rather than both together. In Pakistan's case, 13 Lancers deploying first, followed by 31 Cavalry, followed by 27 Cavalry followed by 35 FF.

Key here was Indian Artillery, Infantry & Engineer support. Simply tanks could not have held enemy territory.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by vaibhav.n »

Tsarkar ji,

Couple of points;

1. As you said FCNA is a division equivalent and more or less is in same strength as our own 28 Div. The terrain demands these kind of troop densities besides the fact that neither can endure a loss of face here. FCNA commands around 4 Bde's in Skardu, Astor, Rattu and Gilgit. 10 Corps has its the 3 Infantry Divisions (12,19,23) with a total of around 12 Brigades along the Line of Control (LOC) give both equal parity. This from memory need to check ORBAT later.

However, the PakArmy currently remains deeply mired in CI Ops and deployed in built-up areas. Eg: Both the 1 Corps/2 Corps have its Armoured Bde's and Infantry Divisions deployed in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) alternatively. IIRC, 14 Inf Div remains deployed in South Waziristan. 10 Corps partially and 11 Corps remains completely deployed in South and North Waziristan both. This happens as they possibly do not what to disturb the balance further south with their 5&12 Corps. JMT

How much this plays onto a future conflict remains to be seen.......where by most accounts close to 100,000 combat troops remain deployed at a given time.

2. Israel-Lebanon example is frankly a poor one. There are many reasons for that stale mate and most were to IDF's own inability and possibly when objectives are not spelt out to the military command.
Before the war, Israeli planners had unrealistic expectations about armed conflict with Hezbollah. They planned for small skirmishes, not for a large-scale, conventional military campaign. Inattention by the General Staff toward Lebanon reflected Israeli assumptions about the unlikelihood of any land war on its borders. According to Maj. Gen. Benny Ganz, chief of Israel's ground forces, the government had cut allocations for training reserve units by US$800 million. Budgetary constraints also led the IDF to reduce the size of tank formations, and budgetary officials pressured the Israeli military to discontinue production of its top-line Merkava tank. Further underlying Israel's lack of preparation was the failure of its leadership to acknowledge the operation against Hezbollah to be a war rather than a retaliatory raid or more limited military action.
3. Now to tackle the question of Jehadi outfits carrying on operations for the PakArmy either on their behalf or possibly bolstering its numbers on the field. As has been discussed, the Para-Military are reasonably well equipped and in good strength. The IA additionally gets command of around 100 BSF Battalions during conflict in addition to the dual-tasked divisions on the eastern front. Moreover, if one agrees to the prenise that our wars are going to be high tempo ones then how many jehadis can the PakArmy bring into action also needs to be kept in mind. More than a fortnight and both the armies will run out of breath via lack of reserves and the strain on the economies...

4. IMVVHO, There are two ways either we except that the nuclear battlefield represents a challenge and makes large foot infantry susceptible to tactical nuclear weapons much more than mechanised forces which can expect to make their way through radiated zones a day later. Thus it becomes imperative for the Strike Corps atleast to be completely mechanised to retain manouvre and provide the option atleast.

Noone has asked for the US or PLA model to be aped but budgetary realities also which need to taken into account, which i am sure have been enumerated on multiple occasions.
Last edited by vaibhav.n on 15 May 2015 10:22, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by srai »

^^^

Regarding large manpower, it all comes down to the budget available. Current budgets (and foreseeable ones) don't support manpower increase. Revenue to Capital for Air Force and Navy is still within the limits (35:65 for Air Force and 41:59 for Navy) but for Army it is pegged at 86:14, which is grossly inadequate for any meaningful modernization.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by deejay »

^^^srai ji, The fixed costs will keep increasing in % and with Seventh Pay Commission on the horizon this is going to get further skewered. OROP will probably skewer the percentages in the same way. I am no economist so I am not confident of what I am saying.

I was looking at % allocation for defence as part of GDP and where is that % going - is it going towards 2% or 1.5%. Here, the two budgets that this dispensation has presented (one full and the other a back up recovery) shows expenditure in the range of 1.75% and holding. Unless, this goes up those numbers for Capital outlay as % will not change positively.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by VinodTK »

Why is the Indian military running out of ammunition?
The Indian army, the world's third largest standing army, is rapidly running out of bullets.

War wastage reserves (WWR) are collections of military material held in reserve in case of war. This includes bullets and other form of ammunition, as well as equipment, weapons and fuel.

In India, the norm is that WWR should last for 40 days of intense fighting, allowing time for production to be ramped up and delivered to the military.

However, according to a recent report from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), the army needs more budgetary support to reach 50 per cent of the target capacity of the WWR.

In other words, the Indian army does not yet have enough ammunition to last even 20 days, and it's not expected to have a full stock of ammunition until 2019 at the earliest.

An Agni-II nuclear missile is showed off at a Republic Day parade in New Delhi in 2006. Some types of ammunition would not even last for 10 days if a war were to break out.

The army will only have a full stock of WWR in 2019 if the targets of a £2 billion ammunition production 'roadmap' are met, something that the CAG says is unlikely.

The shortage comes at a militarily important time for India, just after the raising of a 90,000-man strong Mountain Strike Corps in 2014.

The corps are stationed in the mountainous north of the country, along the border with China and Chinese-occupied Tibet, in order to discourage any feared Chinese aggression on northern Indian territories.

India has a record of arming itself against China - a short border war in the Himalayas between the two countries in 1962 gave India the impetus to develop its own arsenal of nuclear weapons.

And India's constantly hostile relationship with Pakistan makes the ammunition shortage even more worrying for the military. Without a sufficient stock of war material, there are fears in India that the country would not be able to defend itself in the event of war.

Young Indians protest against nuclear weapons - India first developed its own nuclear arsenal in the 1960s, in response to conflict with China. The shortage of supplies is blamed on a number of factors - there have been political problems with getting funds to the military, and problems with imports from other countries. Due to bureaucratic problems, from 2008-2013 only 20 per cent of the intended ammunition import was actually imported.

The inadequate production rates of India's 39 ammunition factories is another issue.

The huge size of India's military, which has 1,325,000 members, with another 1,155,000 reserves, means that it is difficult to keep up stocks, even when the country both imports and produces its own ammunition.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year announced that India would be cutting back on weapons exports, and instead would try to become a major exporter and producer of its own weapons and ammunition - however, this ambitious plan seems to have contributed to the recent shortage.

The shelf life of ammunition is also causing difficulties - properly stored, bullets and shells can last for decades. But with large stocks of such material, ammunition can degrade unnoticed, causing problems when it is fired.

The new 'roadmap' to having a full WWR stock has been put into action, but it remains to be seen whether the targets will be delivered. In the meantime, Indian defence ministers will continue to worry about their country's war readiness.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by Karan M »

The WWR is what it is because of 3 reasons

- OFB is a disaster. 17.5% of IA ammunition is lying segregated (most of it OFB), worth Rs 1600 Crores. MOD has had no plan in place to rope in more firms to make more ammo and better ammo.

- IA Generals are more focused on getting saxy large platforms as versus making the basics fall in place. How many BPJs and 155mm rounds could have been procured for the cost of a few hundred T-90s? Which was more important, getting FSAPDS for current tanks or importing more fancy toys? IA orders piecemeal and is least bothered about the overall sustainability of what it gets. Its bureaucracy gone large, nuts. AHQ can't (won't?) call DGMF to account when hundreds of tanks imported at insane costs, don't perform as expected with their most basic issues unresolved for over a decade.

- Obsession with boots, boots, boots. MSC is a perfect example. Huge raising, with crazy projected outflow, when basics of WWR are not funded. Cynics may claim more jarnail positions open up. Others may observe that its the only way IA knows how to do things. Either ways, the obsession with manpower over ISR and firepower is not exactly a convincing way ahead.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by Karan M »

deejay wrote:^^^srai ji, The fixed costs will keep increasing in % and with Seventh Pay Commission on the horizon this is going to get further skewered. OROP will probably skewer the percentages in the same way. I am no economist so I am not confident of what I am saying.

I was looking at % allocation for defence as part of GDP and where is that % going - is it going towards 2% or 1.5%. Here, the two budgets that this dispensation has presented (one full and the other a back up recovery) shows expenditure in the range of 1.75% and holding. Unless, this goes up those numbers for Capital outlay as % will not change positively.
Sir, this % as part of GDP was really something that used to make me all concerned ages ago. But then I started seeing the % as part of budget. And that is truly a huge sum. We spend a huge amount on defence. And question is whether its well spent. Manpower split across multiple raisings - CPMF, Armed Forces, all sorts of ad hoc stuff. Training (especially state and occasionally CPMF a cropper). Training for services good, but equipment all piecemeal & purchased in ad hoc fashion. There is no integrated strategy whatsoever. We are spending a ton on defence and TBH, make a mess of it.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by Singha »

IBN , on the MSR being downsized from 90k to 30k (90k thats really 2.5 corps)

Retired Indian Army brigadier Arun Sahgal, who led the integrated defence staff's long term strategic assessments division, said the plan now was to raise a smaller rapid reaction force to be deployed on the Chinese border.

"The idea is to create an interventionist force that can operate in the mountains," he said. In the second phase, the Army will likely add air assault divisions and special forces.

"They are not winding down the corps, they are adjusting it to the right size."
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by deejay »

Karan M wrote:
deejay wrote:^^^srai ji, The fixed costs will keep increasing in % and with Seventh Pay Commission on the horizon this is going to get further skewered. OROP will probably skewer the percentages in the same way. I am no economist so I am not confident of what I am saying.

I was looking at % allocation for defence as part of GDP and where is that % going - is it going towards 2% or 1.5%. Here, the two budgets that this dispensation has presented (one full and the other a back up recovery) shows expenditure in the range of 1.75% and holding. Unless, this goes up those numbers for Capital outlay as % will not change positively.
Sir, this % as part of GDP was really something that used to make me all concerned ages ago. But then I started seeing the % as part of budget. And that is truly a huge sum. We spend a huge amount on defence. And question is whether its well spent. Manpower split across multiple raisings - CPMF, Armed Forces, all sorts of ad hoc stuff. Training (especially state and occasionally CPMF a cropper). Training for services good, but equipment all piecemeal & purchased in ad hoc fashion. There is no integrated strategy whatsoever. We are spending a ton on defence and TBH, make a mess of it.
Agreed Karan Sir, I was only writing about % of Capital Outlay and how it will either hold or further reduce.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by Austin »

It was already cleared by UPA earlier
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by RamaY »

At this point I would raise my (non-military) head and offer this (unsolicited) advise!

Our national threats/opportunities are the following
- Potential opportunity in PoK
- Potential opportunity in Sindh/Baloch
- Potential opportunity in Tibet
- Potential threat in Nepal & Bhutan
- Potential opportunity in Myanmar
- Potential opportunity in Maldeevs
- Potential threat in GCC
- Potential threat in internal security (all kinds of it)

And so on...

All these threats/opportunities require substantial number of boots on the ground and can't be sufficiently secured with hi tech gear alone. If we have to have so many armed/crpf personal in Jk then imagine how many boots we would need to keep PoK secured and so on...

Given this threat/opportunity scenario, Indian Army needs to increase & optimize it's human resources and logistics infra.

At a 6% growth (projections say it will be more) India's military budget will grow at an average $5b over next five years. I propose GoI sets aside $2B to raise new army units evey year.

It should be sufficient to raise at least 10,000 new army postings every year. This will have the following benefit.


- All these postings will be done for lower economic & social castes
- New job opportunities for youth
- They will be educated/trained in a desciplined environment
- They can be trained into various engineering corps
- After 5-10Yrs of service, they can be slowly transitioned into private industry

Imagine the benefits of military trained workforce in industrial sectors associated with national security such as electronics, energy, infrastructure and so on...
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by Karan M »

Austin wrote:
It was already cleared by UPA earlier
See the report.. it was merely passing the buck. This time Fin Min is onboard.. another Rafale like imbroglio left as an IED by UPA.. :lol:
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by Rahul M »

Tsarkar sahab, that map is about 5 yrs old. At fhe time I had no idea of fcna composition. Hence the ??
with 4 bde it is more like an oversized div.

I am still not convinced about need for inf heavy jnits for pak. I don t see a need to hold major population centres which need classical coin tactics. IA can simply control the road network while destroying pak warmaking capacity with the help of iaf. No need to fight em in tbe towns and villages.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by RamaY »

Rahul M wrote: I am still not convinced about need for inf heavy jnits for pak. I don t see a need to hold major population centres which need classical coin tactics. IA can simply control the road network while destroying pak warmaking capacity with the help of iaf. No need to fight em in tbe towns and villages.
Sir,

What happens when India defeats Paki army and controls road network leaving the towns/villages untouched? Who will take the responsibility for law & order?

Wouldn't it be similar to Iraq after US invasion & death of Saddam?
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by Rahul M »

no skin off my nose what happens to pakistan or pakistanis. India wont be going to pak to bring 'dem-o-crazy'.

objective should be simple, squeeze pak to force whoever is in charge, most probably the army to come to the discussion table with folded hands.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by RamaY »

Rahul M wrote:no skin off my nose what happens to pakistan or pakistanis. India wont be going to pak to bring 'dem-o-crazy'.

objective should be simple, squeeze pak to force whoever is in charge, most probably the army to come to the discussion table with folded hands.
That will be the costliest mistake India would make after Bangladesh war!

BD war resulted in few thousand India deaths, few hundred thousand Hindu (i mention the religion because after 40yrs of BD "liberation", GoI had to offer citizenship to BD Hindus) civilian deaths, few million rapes and few tens of millions of immigrants to India. I would put the economic cost of this war around $2-500B in today's money.

Even after incurring all that cost, India had to deal with new BD illegal immigrants, cost of demographic changes in NE and WB, islamic terrorism and so on. The recent cost of this half-a$$ work is loss of 10,000 acres of territory.

I hope Indian Army strategists learn basic lessons in cost of war to the nation and makes plans accordingly. Half-job done is worse than no-job done.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by Pratyush »

Rahul M wrote:no skin off my nose what happens to pakistan or pakistanis. India wont be going to pak to bring 'dem-o-crazy'.

objective should be simple, squeeze pak to force whoever is in charge, most probably the army to come to the discussion table with folded hands.
Wont work, the Pakistanis will have to be a given a taste of their own medicine. i.e a taste of what they fantasize about doing to Indians. They already claim that India is planing to do it to them. I see no harm in at least threatening to do it to them.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by vaibhav.n »

RamaY wrote:
Rahul M wrote:no skin off my nose what happens to pakistan or pakistanis. India wont be going to pak to bring 'dem-o-crazy'.

objective should be simple, squeeze pak to force whoever is in charge, most probably the army to come to the discussion table with folded hands.
That will be the costliest mistake India would make after Bangladesh war!

BD war resulted in few thousand India deaths, few hundred thousand Hindu (i mention the religion because after 40yrs of BD "liberation", GoI had to offer citizenship to BD Hindus) civilian deaths, few million rapes and few tens of millions of immigrants to India. I would put the economic cost of this war around $2-500B in today's money.

Even after incurring all that cost, India had to deal with new BD illegal immigrants, cost of demographic changes in NE and WB, islamic terrorism and so on. The recent cost of this half-a$$ work is loss of 10,000 acres of territory.

I hope Indian Army strategists learn basic lessons in cost of war to the nation and makes plans accordingly. Half-job done is worse than no-job done.
I don't understand.....do you propose we 'capture' Pakistan completely??

How do we accomplish that without crossing the nuclear threshold in a pure military campaign??

The military isn't designed for these fantasies....what would our political objectives be for such a foolhardy campaign...
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by member_22539 »

^It is a fantasy to think that the paki army or whoever holds power in porkistan will come to negotiate once we have the roads and open country. Quite frankly, its "no skin off my nose" for them. What do they care? All their expensive stuff is in in the cities, well-protected by their soldiers or their gunmen. As for their property in the countryside, once the IA goes back, they get that back too. So, where is the incentive to make peace with India?

Unless we have the numbers to grind all opposition into dust, there will be no change. Just the same old story of winning the battle and losing the war.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by vaibhav.n »

Arun Menon wrote:^It is a fantasy to think that the paki army or whoever holds power in porkistan will come to negotiate once we have the roads and open country. Quite frankly, its "no skin off my nose" for them. What do they care? All their expensive stuff is in in the cities, well-protected by their soldiers or their gunmen. As for their property in the countryside, once the IA goes back, they get that back too. So, where is the incentive to make peace with India?


Unless we have the numbers to grind all opposition into dust, there will be no change. Just the same old story of winning the battle and losing the war.
You are implying that even when some territory has been occupied the vanquished PakArmy will not come to the table and negotiate to provide consessions and will essentially throw its own land and people under the bus and survive any form of criticism.

Is that how statecraft works?? What is the basic premise to fight wars?
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by RamaY »

vaibhav.n wrote:Is that how statecraft works?? What is the basic premise to fight wars?
Vaibhav.n,

I already explained one fantasy India indulged in Bangladesh and the overall costs involved and still accruing.

Coming to Pakistan, we never know where & what would be the nuclear threshold. For all we know it could be capturing a specific road in a corner of Pakjab.

Indian armed forced would have to have the same fantasies as the rest of the nation and most importantly the political leadership. Here the discussion point is our military's preparedness and strategies.

You may find some answer to your above question in future strategic scenarios and strategic leadership threads.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by Rahul M »

RamaY, what we did in BD was the best possible scenario. what you are proposing should have been done is unfortunately rich fantasy.

do you know f.e that mujib had already warned India to withdraw troops in the very short period IA was stationed there ?
if we overstayed our welcome we would definitely have faced a vietnam like situation.
also, because of that judicious withdrawal, we were able to take the high road both internationally and have friends in BD (and yes, we do have them).
the failure lies solely in managing the situation in BD during mujib's death and afterwards (the fact that raaa was hamstrung by janata party govt must have played its part) NOT in the perfectly executed liberation campaign.
^It is a fantasy to think that the paki army or whoever holds power in porkistan will come to negotiate once we have the roads and open country. Quite frankly, its "no skin off my nose" for them. What do they care? All their expensive stuff is in in the cities, well-protected by their soldiers or their gunmen. As for their property in the countryside, once the IA goes back, they get that back too. So, where is the incentive to make peace with India?
:roll:
please, it's okay to be less informed about a topic but in such cases you shouldn't advertise it.

IA controlling the major arterial road network automatically means

a) PA has lost a significant chunk of its major assets because most of its formations are on the border with India. those formations would make a desperate attempt to stop IA from moving into their territory. pak is no russia which can afford to exchange land for initiative. if IA controls the arterial nodes it means most TSPA major forces have ceased to function as effective fighting units

b) IAF and IN would act similarly in bottling up all marine and air movements to and fro pakistan, and conduct a round the clock bombing of their C3I nodes, POL & ammo dumps, factories, power plants, bases etc.

c) TSPA and its jarnails would be cornered in cities and major urban centres cut-off from each other, sans any assistance, no movement of essential goods, no electricity. the public in pak cities, never the quite type would be inflamed beyond imagination.

the jarnails would have two choices, either nuke their own country, multiple times at multiple places. OR, come to India and talk concessions. now take your pick which might happen.
Unless we have the numbers to grind all opposition into dust, there will be no change. Just the same old story of winning the battle and losing the war.
see above.
again, to go back to the original point, more infantry is the LAST thing you want if you want to grind your opposition to dust.
Pratyush wrote: Wont work, the Pakistanis will have to be a given a taste of their own medicine. i.e a taste of what they fantasize about doing to Indians. They already claim that India is planing to do it to them. I see no harm in at least threatening to do it to them.
what I describe above would be medicine enough. :wink:
RamaY wrote: I hope Indian Army strategists learn basic lessons in cost of war to the nation and makes plans accordingly. Half-job done is worse than no-job done.
what you hope for can't be done as long as pak has nukes, simple as that. nuke nude pak is the pre-condition for what you as for.

personally, I think de-nuking pak should be our national priority, leveraging all forces and agencies. that, however, even in the unlikely event its is taken up would be along term plan. in the meantime the army should remain prepared for a war under the nuclear umbrella. which, by definition would be short but we have to have the most mobility and firepower to hurt pak the most in that small window of opportunity. just infantry wont do.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by RoyG »

Rahul M wrote:no skin off my nose what happens to pakistan or pakistanis. India wont be going to pak to bring 'dem-o-crazy'.

objective should be simple, squeeze pak to force whoever is in charge, most probably the army to come to the discussion table with folded hands.
Okay and then what? We nibble 30-50 km of some border area and the PA comes to the negotiating table. What kind of concessions could they possible give us?

They simply have nothing to lose, especially if the area captured is primarily outside of Punjab.

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OTOH, what if it comes immediately after a major revolution in Balochistan or some other major province? All of a sudden you've blunted the PA's ability to quash the insurrection and they will now be fighting on two fronts. It gets more interesting then. :twisted:
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by ShauryaT »

Singha wrote:IBN , on the MSR being downsized from 90k to 30k (90k thats really 2.5 corps)

Retired Indian Army brigadier Arun Sahgal, who led the integrated defence staff's long term strategic assessments division, said the plan now was to raise a smaller rapid reaction force to be deployed on the Chinese border.

"The idea is to create an interventionist force that can operate in the mountains," he said. In the second phase, the Army will likely add air assault divisions and special forces.

"They are not winding down the corps, they are adjusting it to the right size."
Some thoughts on this so called "right sizing" of the MSC. We all know mountains eat troops. The idea behind the MSC was to move our posture towards China from one of passive to active defense. A change of this posture necessiates a certain ability to take the fight to the Chinese through capabilities that enable our forces to fight on the Tibetan plateau, instead of a defense of the LAC only. China's upgrade of Tibetan infrastructure along with their overall development, defense spending and strategic ambitions in Asia - which far exceeds ours in every sense and metric, means that while China upgrades its overall preparedness with the ability to insert men and materials in strength into the TAR, these resources of China would not be committed to this front and are fungible. Fungibility of men and materials, mobility, fire power is the name of the game.

The MSC decision in 2012, coming at the back of the freshly raised infantry under 3 and 4 corps was a welcome decision, especially as it recognized the need for integrated mobility and fire power. This decision in light of the LTIPP, a 15 year integrated planning structure and the five year defense plan, both adopted by the DAC in 2012 was seen as a real welcome decision. The biggest casualty of the decision to reconsider the MSC structure is to question this long term planning process, which is a fairly elaborate exercise within the government. The inability to adequately fund leads to questions of the processes themselves and everything then becomes at the whims and fancy of the politician in power. The politician is not going to act in favor of preparedness as these decisions do not carry a political cost - unless an enemy comes knocking at the door.

We will have to become far more realistic in our strategic priorities, our capabilities, capacities, threats and opportunities to realize a few things, which should be blindingly obvious. It is impossible for India at this stage to maintain these large three strike corps arrayed against Pakistan, plus convert the pivot corps to IBG, through mobility and fire power and in addition do the same on the eastern/northern fronts, and raise new troops plus build infrastructure, invest in leading air assets, IOR ambitions, C3I and what not.

We need to get far more smarter in the policy choices we make to align with opportunities and threat assessments. LTIPP once agreed to should be carried through, or it is just another pie in the sky exercise. Cannot do it all.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by prahaar »

ShauryaTji, I am trying to understand your post. The key takeaways for me are as follows. LTIPP must be adhered to. Funding gap should not be an excuse. 3 strike corps + IBG is not feasible. Funding gap is present and real. Did I understand your suggestion correctly?
-Do not reduce planned strength, even if currently there are no funds. Augment to planned strength when there are sufficient funds.
-Dismantle 1 or more strike corps to transfer assets to IBGs.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by Rahul M »

RoyG wrote:
Rahul M wrote:no skin off my nose what happens to pakistan or pakistanis. India wont be going to pak to bring 'dem-o-crazy'.

objective should be simple, squeeze pak to force whoever is in charge, most probably the army to come to the discussion table with folded hands.
Okay and then what? We nibble 30-50 km of some border area and the PA comes to the negotiating table. What kind of concessions could they possible give us?

They simply have nothing to lose, especially if the area captured is primarily outside of Punjab.
please, look at a map (even the one I posted last page would do) and guess where area captured is likely to be.
FWIW, lahore, muridke and sialkot are some of the pakjabi cities about 20 km from Indian border.

concessions like handing over wanted key people (of course, we would understand if they wanted to keep it under wraps to save face) dismantling the terror camps.
all negotiations with the understanding that we could turn up the pain much more if we wanted.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by pankajs »

To understand if loss of a barren piece of land of say 20 km x 20 km along the border will pinch the BakMil all we need to do is remind ourselves of Siachen. It is as near we can get to the *hypothetical* shallow land grab along the border away from population centers, road network, etc.

1. Zia dismissed it as worthless piece of land where not even a blade of grass grows.
2. No road strategic or otherwise passes through that area.
3. No loss of population (or lets say near zero loss of population for I can't be sure).
4. No threat to any urban centers of Baki land.

Still the BakMil has tried its level best to wrest back the *impassable* icy desert from the Indian Army and paid a heavy price in terms of Money, Life, internal and international standing (Kargil). Seems to suggest even such distant and barren piece of land has its worth in the BakMil calculations.

Here is what Peter Lavoy edited book informs us about the impact of the loss of siachen on BakMil.
Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil
The Pakistan Army sees India's occupation of the Siachen Glacier as a major scar, outweighed only by Dhaka's fall in 1971.
Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and maybe such a grab even along the barren Rajasthan desert might invite a furious BakMil response.

The idea of the shallow land grab along the border is to hold it till we get some take as a part of give and take. If the Bakis do not come up with a reasonable trade we are better off grabbing land with zero/minimal population.
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Re: Indian Army: News and Discussions 11 June 2014

Post by vishvak »

Not an expert here, but Pakistan is not a country but what a few people could grab at end of colonization and genociding minorities to be what it is. It is a jihad country and loses nothing if it can survive to fight another war. If we can help Iraq and Syria a bit by chocking off ISIL routes (taking help of Russia, Iran as well), it can point to how Pakistani jihadis (with armed forces built up by fourfathers) will behave and readiness.
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