Kargil War Thread - VI

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manjgu
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by manjgu »

i welcome to meet him chetak...and mind ur language.
manjgu
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by manjgu »

mail me at manjgu2010@yahoo.com and i will tell u his name..
chetak
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by chetak »

manjgu wrote:mail me at manjgu2010@yahoo.com and i will tell u his name..
not happening.

Please move on and don't take names in a public forum.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by chetak »

manjgu wrote:i welcome to meet him chetak...and mind ur language.
re read all the posts and see who has to mind the language. :)
manjgu
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by manjgu »

chetak bhaisaheb ..i am not disclosing his name on this thread..i said send me a mail and I will tell u. He is retired now and a coursemate of ACM Dhanoa. and if u in delhi ..i invite to wedding of his son on 10th Dec. And yes..check posts and see who has to mind the language. u need to loosen up...dog..broken record and your shrill tone is not very parliamentary.
chetak
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by chetak »

manjgu wrote:chetak bhaisaheb ..i am not disclosing his name on this thread..i said send me a mail and I will tell u. He is retired now and a coursemate of ACM Dhanoa. and if u in delhi ..i invite to wedding of his son on 10th Dec. And yes..check posts and see who has to mind the language. u need to loosen up...dog..broken record and your shrill tone is not very parliamentary.
let us agree to disagree and move on before someone swoops down and takes a hard bite.
nam
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by nam »

ramana wrote:
nam wrote:By not crossing the LOC, we made it difficult for us to cross the damn LOC in the future.

Now if we do a Kargil on the Pakis, they will run off to US and shed crocodile tears.

Our leaders will meekly ask our troops to come back.

Only for leaders who want excuses. Every situation requires appropriate response.
Same response all the time is predictable.
The Americans forced Pakis to retreat after it become apparent that India was on the verge of expanding the war. Pakis were in no mood to retreat till then. Why would they retreat for loss of 300-500 men and winter about to set it?

For almost a month & half we went on a useless moral grandstanding and send fine men up hill to certain death. Not even giving them a chance fight the enemy.

We could have told the Paki publicly on day 1, retreat by tomorrow or we are doing a 65. The US would have forced the Pakis to retreat on day 3 when our bombs would have been falling on their airbases.

Because we did not cross the LOC, Pakis was able to drag the war. For all the claims about Pakis isolation during Kargil, they are now better off with 31 billion dollars and brand new F-16s...

We are predictable in that we will never attack Pak, even if they kill our kids like in Kalchuk.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Aditya_V »

I have a different take, the Pakis and Americans pulled out when it apparent Pakistan has militarily lost and remaning Paki soldiers will only be slautered. By Jul9 Iaf had perfected its bombing techniques, Indian artillery had perfected its precision and logistics, Indian soldiers were acclamitized and all the key areas where in Indian Hands. This so called withdrawal is just a face saver. And unlike NATO our leaders did not ensure no boobytrap clauses etc. But quite frankly our miltary capability was also pretty poor in 1999.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by nam »

500 causalities makes no difference to PA. PA did not accept publicly their troops crossed LOC, so there was no pressure on them to publicly declare a retreat. Which is what they were doing until Sharif's trip in July. Sharif must have gone, once it became fully clear, we are expanding the war.

Given our moral grand standing, we would not have captured areas across LOC. So other than dead men, PA had nothing to pay for this adventure. In return by winter, they could still be holding some peaks.

The fight across the LOC continued even after the July "withdrawal".
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by nam »

To add to my above comment, we probably realized this, and I think which is why during the Parliament attack we ordered mobilization right away.

This forced the US to twist Mushraff's ears resulting in the television address. Why would Mushi otherwise do a tele, when so far Pakis were claiming nothing to do with Parliament attack?

The same thing would have happened during Kargil.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by nachiket »

Aditya_V wrote:For those Outside India what does it say for these coordinates 34°31'32.0"N 75°48'18.1"E ?
Inside India.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by viveks »

folks....if you study human behavior there are 3 different behavioral patterns to witness. "inclination", "compelling outlook" and "strategy that is driven by inclination to produce a compelling outlook". Its like how you want to derive a compelling assumption from the facts presented to you. All murderers are formed from these notions...including Gen. mushrraf who is a mass murderer. Even Indian government responded the way it did to the kargil event within the domain of these ideas. This is the source of all the blood shed that was given out. I dont want to make a further comment on it. As you already know what it leads to.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by A Deshmukh »

Kargil must be seen in the backdrop of nuke tests.
US and world was against a new upstart nuclear power.
They would have done anything to de-nuke India, by declaring that IndoPak is a nuclear flashpoint.

Not crossing LOC was a deliberate decision, to disarm any such possibility.
Aditya_V
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Aditya_V »

nachiket wrote:
Aditya_V wrote:For those Outside India what does it say for these coordinates 34°31'32.0"N 75°48'18.1"E ?
Inside India.
Thanks
ramana
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by ramana »

A recent Vayu circa 2015 had an article on air support in Kargil, Number of sorties and tones of bombs dropped.
Will post a link to that.
Karthik S
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Karthik S »

Ashima Singh @AshiQuotes
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During Kargil war, leather shoe companies of Kanpur Mirza Tanners & Superhouse Tannery refused to make mountain shoes for our Army to fight battle.
Did anyone else hear about this? Such things should come under "aiding the enemy".
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Vips »

IIRC the Owner of this company was the chairman of Council for Leather exports (CLE) for many years and has been on many other Sarkari committees for formulating policies.
manjgu
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by manjgu »

a bit premature to reach conclusion abt 'aiding the enemy'... without knowing the full facts. what was the reason... maybe they dont have tech / knowledge about mountain shoes... i would reserve my judgement.
Karthik S
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Karthik S »

manjgu wrote:a bit premature to reach conclusion abt 'aiding the enemy'... without knowing the full facts. what was the reason... maybe they dont have tech / knowledge about mountain shoes... i would reserve my judgement.
I'd like to think like you. But you can look up the tweet and replies to it, it might provide more info on this.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Rakesh »

https://twitter.com/livefist/status/939173882434551808 —> Great display of equipment, ammo & items recovered from Pakistan Army posts in the Kargil War. On display at the #MilitaryLitFest in Chandigarh.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by viveks »

Sorry for coming up with something after so long. But I had totally not pictured this and forgot about it. I heard something from a poster that Gen Musharaf needed to be secret in the planning of Kargil. I have not a single dot in my mind that he and has top brass are not mass murderers.

Had he wanted secrecy, he could have used his position there too. Let me bring to light the cuban missile crises. President John F Kennedy secretly and personally telephoned a pilot who was to go and perform reconn mission over cuba. He could not trust the data that was presented to him and so wanted to hear the reports first hand from the pilot who did the mission, by-passing chain of command. This was done to make sure he is taking the correct call in that situation.

This was done in the 60s.

"Doosron se kabhi itcha nahi hui seekhne ki...jo itne jaano ke mallik ban baithe sahib" Sala hehe! Inki kursiyan bahut achi garam thi lagta hai...hehe
Last edited by viveks on 12 Dec 2017 10:30, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by tsarkar »

Karthik S wrote:
Ashima Singh @AshiQuotes
Follow Follow @AshiQuotes
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During Kargil war, leather shoe companies of Kanpur Mirza Tanners & Superhouse Tannery refused to make mountain shoes for our Army to fight battle.
Did anyone else hear about this? Such things should come under "aiding the enemy".
Stupid scaremongering by uninformed Ashima Singh.

Leather is inappropriate for extreme cold weather and all cold weather boots are made of felt or specialised proprietary materials like Gore Tex. Hence why would Army or MoD ask a leather company for felt or Gore Tex boots, that is an entirely different material?

I don't think any Indian company manufactures felt / Gore Tex shoes and all shoes for Kargil & Siachen are imported.

It is possible the said Kanpur company was asked for import substitution but they refused because of lack of know how for felt & Gore Tex boots.

Shows the ignorance and stupidity of folks indulging in needless scaremongering on social media completely unaware of materials used in extreme cold weather.

https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/topics/c ... ering-boot
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by sum »

^^ Have we indigenised it now or still its all imported given large orders due to year long deployments unlike earlier?
wig
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by wig »

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation ... 71024.html

Colonel M B Ravindranath, Vir Chakra of the 2nd Battalion, The Rajputana Rifles passed away
Col MB Ravindranath, the then Commanding Officer of 2 Rajputana Rifles that wrested Tololing Top from Pakistan intruders during the 1999 Kargil conflict, passed away following a heart attack in Bengaluru on Sunday. The capture of Tololing was one of the most important breakthroughs in the conflict.
The 59-year-old officer had been decorated with the Vir Chakra for gallantry during the conflict. Though he had taken premature retirement from the Army, he was a regular speaker at some training and educational institutions.
During Operation Vijay in 1999, he had been tasked with capturing the strategic heights of Tololing, Point 4590 and Black Rock in the Drass sector that dominated the Srinagar-Leh Road.
According to his citation, he personally led the reconnaissance teams of his battalion under enemy artillery and small arms fire. During the assault on June 12, 1999, at Tololing, the troops were under constant enemy artillery shelling and heavy automatic fire. Realising the gravity of the situation, Colonel Ravindranath reached the spot and quickly restored the situation by his personal influence, which ultimately led to beating back the enemy counterattacks and consolidating the hold on Tololing and Point 4590.
The battalion was again tasked with capturing area Black Rock on the night of June 28, 1999. During the attack, the assaulting company lost both its officers. Colonel Ravindranath personally led the assault once again and was instrumental in capturing area Black Rock.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Austin »

Vande Mataram: The Kargil War

Austin
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Post by Austin »

The official citation for the Ashoka Chakra Award reads:

IC-58660 MAJOR SANDEEP UNNIKRISHNAN BIHAR REGIMENT/51 SPECIAL ACTION GROUP (POSTHUMOUS)
Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan led the commando operation launched on 27th November 2008 to flush out terrorists from Hotel Taj Mahal, Mumbai in which he rescued 14 hostages.

During the operation, his team came under intense hostile fire, in which one of his team members got grievously injured. Major Sandeep pinned down the terrorists with accurate fire and rescued the injured commando to safety. In the process, he was shot in his right arm. Despite his injuries, he continued to fight the terrorists till his last breath.

Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan displayed most conspicuous bravery besides camaraderie and leadership of the highest order and made the supreme sacrifice for the nation.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Vips »

The need to remember Kargil.

Even as India’s attention focuses on the ceasefire at the LoC/IB and the suspension of operations in Jammu and Kashmir’s hinterland, social media is abuzz with the remembrance of Kargil of 1999. Various acts of valour form the deserving narrative of honour. However, it is the big picture, the collective one, which is rarely explained or examined in the public mind. An informed idea of what really happened at the lofty heights in mid-1999 will help India’s current generation and many more to appreciate some of the nuances of how Kargil really occurred and how it was handled. Indian military literature on this is limited but currently, opinion in Pakistan is having a field day.

Two recent books have discussed and exposed issues concerning the Kargil episode. Nasim Zehra, a Pakistani journalist, has released her book ‘From Kargil to the Coup’, and there is ‘The Spy Chronicles’, a joint effort by two former Chiefs of India’s and Pakistan’s premier intelligence agencies, which has some discussions relating to the misadventure. Zehra calls it the handiwork of a clique of generals and not of the Pakistani army. She terms it a disaster because it undermined the honest efforts of the Lahore Agreement of February 1999 which attempted to overcome some of the mistrust arising out of the nuclear tests of May 1998. Comments of Pakistani panellists at some of the book’s launch events reveal Pakistan’s continued mindset. One of them stated that Pakistan owed no apologies to India for Kargil because India, too, deceived Pakistan on Siachen and did not follow the Shimla Agreement while occupying it. A consensus opinion was that the planning and execution in isolation was a disaster and made the operation an adventure rather than an aimed and planned effort. In fact, a Pakistani general believed “had there been proper planning and full logistical support, the operation could have delivered the desired results of clogging the support line of India in Kashmir” (Miya gire toh gire, lekin tungdi phir bhi unchi ki unchi). Nawaz Sharif also came under criticism for his unplanned rush to Washington and yielding to Bill Clinton’s pressure to vacate the remaining intrusion. Obviously, little regret and even lesser remorse make up Pakistan’s opinion on Kargil. (Hence Pakistani's need to be kicked everyday to remind them of their real aukaat)

Asad Durrani, former DG ISI, in the jointly written book, ‘The Spy Chronicles’ expresses his perception that Pervez Musharraf as Pakistan’s DGMO was obsessed with the Kargil plan which was rejected by then PM Benazir Bhutto. The opportunity came when Musharraf was elevated to the position of the Pakistani army chief. How much of this intent and plan was known to his then mentor, Nawaz Sharif, will always remain cloaked in doubt, an issue also inconclusively analysed in Zehra’s book. However, 1998-99 provided the opportunity for the execution of the plan through the winter. Prime Minister Vajpayee’s Lahore Bus Yatra on February 21, 1999, offered scope for enhanced deception.

A brief explanation will clarify many of the issues above. The road from Srinagar to Leh enters the Ladakh sector after crossing the Zojila pass. Along the 100-km distance from Zojila to Kargil, major segments are overlooked by Pakistani posts across the LoC at a short distance. In winter these were vacated every year as were the Indian posts opposite them. Beyond Leh, a road leads into the Nubra Valley across the Ladakh range; the Army’s base camp is housed here for the defence of Siachen glacier. The Indian occupation of the latter in a coup de main operation in May 1984 put Pakistan at a huge strategic and psychological disadvantage. Musharraf, as a younger officer with Pakistan’s Special Forces, was known to have personally led failed assaults to evict the Indian Army from the Saltoro Ridge in 1987. The Kargil plan was a classic employment of manoeuvre which envisaged choking the Zojila-Leh road by an early winter occupation of vacated posts of both Pakistani and Indian armies, preventing the logistics resupply of Ladakh (and thereby Siachen) by interdiction and making the Indian Army’s defence of Ladakh untenable. An alternative supply artery to Leh existed from Pathankot via Manali but it was comparatively fragile and undependable due to heavy snow accumulation and road closure for extended periods. Discovered quite accidentally in May 1999, the Pakistani intrusion at the Dras and Kargil heights did embarrass the Indian Army whose attention was focused on the Kashmir Valley and south of Pir Panjal where militancy was fast spreading. It was as much an intelligence failure as an ‘intellect failure’ as India did not ever assess the nuisance potential of Kargil in a low-intensity war. Without an idea of the extent and depth of penetration, India attempted to locally restore the situation. When that failed, it inducted additional troops with 8 Mountain Division, then deployed in North Kashmir, to take on the mantle of restoration. The restoration operations fought at lofty heights were based upon company and platoon battles against entrenched Pakistani troops with some valorous feats by Indian junior soldiers and officers. Initial support by the Indian Air Force was helpful but difficult to execute. Later medium artillery (Bofors) became the backbone of fire support. Having recaptured a large chunk of the intrusion, India allowed diplomacy to play its role; that saw Sharif’s rush to Washington.

Kargil’s impact on the Valley was indirect as large tracts of North Kashmir were vacated and progressively occupied by our troops from elsewhere. It may never have been Musharraf’s intent, but this situation provided the space for a spurt in terror activities in Kashmir, including the infamous suicide ‘sneak attacks’ (sometimes erroneously called fidayeen). Kashmir witnessed the highest casualties among civilians and soldiers/policemen in 2001 and the tenuous situation on the counter-terror grid remained in place almost till 2003.

A major lesson emerged from Musharraf’s failed exploits – that initiation of operations could be brilliant but without an accompanying termination plan suited to various contingencies, success would invariably be elusive; he underestimated the resilience of the Indian Army and its sense of honour as had many of his predecessors. In her book, Zehra quotes a Pakistani major – “We said a two rakaat prayer of gratitude to Allah,” once Pakistan’s decision to vacate the remaining occupied heights was announced.

Siachen was the actual reason for the Pakistani misadventure at Kargil. When people today question the Indian Army’s continued insistence on remaining deployed at the Siachen glacier, as against mutual withdrawal along with the Pakistan Army, they need to be reminded of two things. First, in military standoffs trusting the adversary is suicidal, just as Kargil’s annual winter vacation exemplified. Second, if Siachen is to be vacated, it will only be one army which will withdraw. Unknown to the Pakistani people and largely to the Indian public, the Siachen is firmly in India’s grip with no Pakistani presence which can even glimpse the glacier.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by nam »


Comments of Pakistani panellists at some of the book’s launch events reveal Pakistan’s continued mindset. One of them stated that Pakistan owed no apologies to India for Kargil because India, too, deceived Pakistan on Siachen and did not follow the Shimla Agreement while occupying it. A consensus opinion was that the planning and execution in isolation was a disaster and made the operation an adventure rather than an aimed and planned effort. In fact, a Pakistani general believed “had there been proper planning and full logistical support, the operation could have delivered the desired results of clogging the support line of India in Kashmir”
Nawaz Sharif also came under criticism for his unplanned rush to Washington and yielding to Bill Clinton’s pressure to vacate the remaining intrusion. Obviously, little regret and even lesser remorse make up Pakistan’s opinion on Kargil.
Lately I am not fully convinced that Kargil was about Siachen. I am not sure why Mushraf expected India to surrender Siachen so easily, just because he could shell NH1. We can reduces troop level and supply by air if required. Unless Pak applies airpower, they cannot dislodge us on Saltaro. Siachen is far off. Why did Mushraff assume, we could not do a reverse- Kargil on on other parts of LoC?

NH1 was under constant artillery attacks for 2 months during Kargil. How did it effect Siachen supplies? Not much.

We are making a mistake of observing Kargil in isolation. Kargil was a battle in the larger war from early 90s, which ended in 2003. The war was going on for a while and India & Pak had kept it localised on LoC and not escalated to open war with air power. Moreover nuke test also prevented a larger war.

So Pak preparation was adequate to keep it localized. It is not like we will never find out PA infiltrated. We would have found in summer. Pak assumed the reaction would be localised, like their reaction to our attacks on Neelam valley. The objective would have been to hold the peaks against Indian reaction and make it permanent.

So why Kargil. I am thinking Salami tactics.

1. Capture heights permanently.
2. allow for infiltration, so pressure from North Kashmir and Pir Panjal regions. With heights like Tiger hills, you could provide artillery support for long range infiltration.
3. Needle Siachen supplies, in return for our attacks on Neelam valley.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by ramana »

Think 1998 tests and aftermath, The numerous CENTCOM visits.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by shaun »

Karthik S wrote:
Ashima Singh @AshiQuotes
Follow Follow @AshiQuotes
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During Kargil war, leather shoe companies of Kanpur Mirza Tanners & Superhouse Tannery refused to make mountain shoes for our Army to fight battle.
Did anyone else hear about this? Such things should come under "aiding the enemy".
During the Kargil war, when the Army was planning an attack on the peaks, they encountered a unique problem. Due to their quick-climbing abilities, soldiers from Gorkha regiment were called to complete the Kargil mission. But the Gorkhas could not climb the mountains as Army was facing a shortage of small-sized mountain shoes. It had a stock of only large-sized shoes of numbers 7, 8, 9 and above.

No supplier was ready to complete the order in a short span of time. This was when MKU got This was when MKU got the emergency order of 10,000 mountaineering boots.

After three other Kanpur companies refused to take the order, we got this order to supply mountaineering boots on immediate basis. We supplied 10,000 boots despite the company’s monthly capacity of 8,000 units,” MKU Managing Director Neeraj Gupta said.



https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 469992.cms
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by wig »

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/tft/revis ... adventure/

this is a write up by the then USG ( United state Govt) Ambassador, one William Milam to Bakistan,
the baki dgmo states the mil formation engaging our forces
Within a day or two, my embassy’s military attaches along with those from the UK embassy were called in by the army’s director general of military operations who told them explicitly that the battle in Kargil was between elements of the 13th Mountain Light Division, a regular Pakistan Army unit, and the Indians. The attaches reported this to me immediately and we reported it to Washington.
and this is the reaction of the Baki Foreign Office type when the US Ambassador meets him
I went to see the officer in charge of Indian affairs and when I repeated my instructions, he replied that it was Mujahideen fighting at Kargil, over which the Pakistan government had no control. I told him that we had learned from the Pakistan army itself that this cover story was not true, that it was regular Pakistani troops fighting there. I will never forget the look on his face as I said it; he looked stunned, as if I had struck him. It was clear that he had not known until then. I cannot say whether higher levels at the Foreign Ministry such as the secretary of foreign affairs or even the foreign minister were informed by this time, but I suspect not.
here is a description of the criminal minded then COAS Baki army .
The final scene that will live forever in my memory is really the denouement. Toward the end of June, President Clinton sent General Zinni, to see if he could persuade Musharraf to withdraw. At their meeting, it was clear to me that Zinni needn’t have come – Musharraf was already persuaded. His body language told me so. I am convinced that he knew the gambit had failed by then and the Pakistani forces in Kargil were slowly being rolled up by the Indians. He wanted to cut his losses but wanted the prime minister to take the blame. He deferred to the prime minister on any decision to withdraw
and here is the finale
More compelling was his action to ensure Zinni met with the prime minister, whose office was stonewalling us for some reason. We met with the prime minister the next morning and after playing coy for a while, he suddenly agreed to withdraw. We were not sure we had heard him right when we left. I figured out later the reason he agreed so readily – the Pakistanis believed their back-channel dialogue with the Indians had succeeded and that there would be an agreement with India on a ceasefire and withdrawal. It turned out that that was wrong. The PM was supposed to stop in Delhi to sign it on the way to Beijing, but he did not, and when he came back from Beijing he made the famous call to President Clinton to get whatever political cover he could before pulling out.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by ramana »

Another article:

Vips wrote:The need to remember Kargil.

Even as India’s attention focuses on the ceasefire at the LoC/IB and the suspension of operations in Jammu and Kashmir’s hinterland, social media is abuzz with the remembrance of Kargil of 1999. Various acts of valour form the deserving narrative of honour. However, it is the big picture, the collective one, which is rarely explained or examined in the public mind. An informed idea of what really happened at the lofty heights in mid-1999 will help India’s current generation and many more to appreciate some of the nuances of how Kargil really occurred and how it was handled. Indian military literature on this is limited but currently, opinion in Pakistan is having a field day.

Two recent books have discussed and exposed issues concerning the Kargil episode. Nasim Zehra, a Pakistani journalist, has released her book ‘From Kargil to the Coup’, and there is ‘The Spy Chronicles’, a joint effort by two former Chiefs of India’s and Pakistan’s premier intelligence agencies, which has some discussions relating to the misadventure. Zehra calls it the handiwork of a clique of generals and not of the Pakistani army. She terms it a disaster because it undermined the honest efforts of the Lahore Agreement of February 1999 which attempted to overcome some of the mistrust arising out of the nuclear tests of May 1998. Comments of Pakistani panellists at some of the book’s launch events reveal Pakistan’s continued mindset. One of them stated that Pakistan owed no apologies to India for Kargil because India, too, deceived Pakistan on Siachen and did not follow the Shimla Agreement while occupying it. A consensus opinion was that the planning and execution in isolation was a disaster and made the operation an adventure rather than an aimed and planned effort. In fact, a Pakistani general believed “had there been proper planning and full logistical support, the operation could have delivered the desired results of clogging the support line of India in Kashmir”. Nawaz Sharif also came under criticism for his unplanned rush to Washington and yielding to Bill Clinton’s pressure to vacate the remaining intrusion. Obviously, little regret and even lesser remorse make up Pakistan’s opinion on Kargil.

Asad Durrani, former DG ISI, in the jointly written book, ‘The Spy Chronicles’ expresses his perception that Pervez Musharraf as Pakistan’s DGMO was obsessed with the Kargil plan which was rejected by then PM Benazir Bhutto. The opportunity came when Musharraf was elevated to the position of the Pakistani army chief. How much of this intent and plan was known to his then mentor, Nawaz Sharif, will always remain cloaked in doubt, an issue also inconclusively analysed in Zehra’s book. However, 1998-99 provided the opportunity for the execution of the plan through the winter. Prime Minister Vajpayee’s Lahore Bus Yatra on February 21, 1999, offered scope for enhanced deception.

A brief explanation will clarify many of the issues above. The road from Srinagar to Leh enters the Ladakh sector after crossing the Zojila pass. Along the 100-km distance from Zojila to Kargil, major segments are overlooked by Pakistani posts across the LoC at a short distance. In winter these were vacated every year as were the Indian posts opposite them. Beyond Leh, a road leads into the Nubra Valley across the Ladakh range; the Army’s base camp is housed here for the defence of Siachen glacier. The Indian occupation of the latter in a coup de main operation in May 1984 put Pakistan at a huge strategic and psychological disadvantage. Musharraf, as a younger officer with Pakistan’s Special Forces, was known to have personally led failed assaults to evict the Indian Army from the Saltoro Ridge in 1987. The Kargil plan was a classic employment of manoeuvre which envisaged choking the Zojila-Leh road by an early winter occupation of vacated posts of both Pakistani and Indian armies, preventing the logistics resupply of Ladakh (and thereby Siachen) by interdiction and making the Indian Army’s defence of Ladakh untenable. An alternative supply artery to Leh existed from Pathankot via Manali but it was comparatively fragile and undependable due to heavy snow accumulation and road closure for extended periods. Discovered quite accidentally in May 1999, the Pakistani intrusion at the Dras and Kargil heights did embarrass the Indian Army whose attention was focused on the Kashmir Valley and south of Pir Panjal where militancy was fast spreading. It was as much an intelligence failure as an ‘intellect failure’ as India did not ever assess the nuisance potential of Kargil in a low-intensity war. Without an idea of the extent and depth of penetration, India attempted to locally restore the situation. When that failed, it inducted additional troops with 8 Mountain Division, then deployed in North Kashmir, to take on the mantle of restoration. The restoration operations fought at lofty heights were based upon company and platoon battles against entrenched Pakistani troops with some valorous feats by Indian junior soldiers and officers. Initial support by the Indian Air Force was helpful but difficult to execute. Later medium artillery (Bofors) became the backbone of fire support. Having recaptured a large chunk of the intrusion, India allowed diplomacy to play its role; that saw Sharif’s rush to Washington.

Kargil’s impact on the Valley was indirect as large tracts of North Kashmir were vacated and progressively occupied by our troops from elsewhere. It may never have been Musharraf’s intent, but this situation provided the space for a spurt in terror activities in Kashmir, including the infamous suicide ‘sneak attacks’ (sometimes erroneously called fidayeen). Kashmir witnessed the highest casualties among civilians and soldiers/policemen in 2001 and the tenuous situation on the counter-terror grid remained in place almost till 2003.

A major lesson emerged from Musharraf’s failed exploits – that initiation of operations could be brilliant but without an accompanying termination plan suited to various contingencies, success would invariably be elusive; he underestimated the resilience of the Indian Army and its sense of honour as had many of his predecessors. In her book, Zehra quotes a Pakistani major – “We said a two rakaat prayer of gratitude to Allah,” once Pakistan’s decision to vacate the remaining occupied heights was announced.

Siachen was the actual reason for the Pakistani misadventure at Kargil. When people today question the Indian Army’s continued insistence on remaining deployed at the Siachen glacier, as against mutual withdrawal along with the Pakistan Army, they need to be reminded of two things. First, in military standoffs trusting the adversary is suicidal, just as Kargil’s annual winter vacation exemplified. Second, if Siachen is to be vacated, it will only be one army which will withdraw. Unknown to the Pakistani people and largely to the Indian public, the Siachen is firmly in India’s grip with no Pakistani presence which can even glimpse the glacier.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Rakesh »

https://twitter.com/indiandefence11/sta ... 9843113984 ---> Indian Army Soldiers carrying MILAN 2 and 9M113 KONKURS missile launchers during the 1999 Kargil War where Anti-Tank missiles were used to target Pakistan occupied bunkers. They were employed on battalion level, while infantry platoons were equipped with Carl Gustavs and C90.

I am assuming the author meant the C90-CR (M3) --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C90-CR_(M3)

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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Rakesh »

The day my father went to war
http://www.opindia.com/2018/06/the-day- ... nt-to-war/

By Rohit Vats, 13 June 2018
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Rakesh »

https://twitter.com/zone5aviation/statu ... 8975104005 ---> Nearly 20 tonnes of bombs dropped in under a week, over half of which was in a single day — on the supply camp at Muntho Dhalo. A lot of them looked like this one!

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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by VKumar »

The making of the Kargil disaster, a book " From Kargil to the coup, events that shook Pakistan " by Nasim Zehra, excerpts on dawn.com are a must read.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Manish_P »

Rakesh wrote:The day my father went to war
http://www.opindia.com/2018/06/the-day- ... nt-to-war/

By Rohit Vats, 13 June 2018
Thanks for sharing, Rakesh ji.

Miss his posts here..
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by Aditya_V »

VKumar wrote:The making of the Kargil disaster, a book " From Kargil to the coup, events that shook Pakistan " by Nasim Zehra, excerpts on dawn.com are a must read.
Why? I dont think she will any key miltary details, she will just have justification for thier behavior. Truth be told it was a pretty good tactical move, only thing is the grit/capabilities the of Indian Army , Indian Airforce and Indian Navy in enforcing a blockade like situation on Karachi was shown to be far superior to its junk adversary. Also, if a different Indian political dispension was on top they might have agreed for a redrawn LOC rather than calling in the Airforce.

So now where was the operation doomed from the start.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

Post by nachiket »

Aditya_V wrote:
VKumar wrote:The making of the Kargil disaster, a book " From Kargil to the coup, events that shook Pakistan " by Nasim Zehra, excerpts on dawn.com are a must read.
Why? I dont think she will any key miltary details, she will just have justification for thier behavior.
Just read it. Quite a lot of juicy details in there. Especially about how much Nawaz Sharif and his ministers knew and their different reactions.
Truth be told it was a pretty good tactical move, only thing is the grit/capabilities the of Indian Army , Indian Airforce and Indian Navy in enforcing a blockade like situation on Karachi was shown to be far superior to its junk adversary. Also, if a different Indian political dispension was on top they might have agreed for a redrawn LOC rather than calling in the Airforce.

So now where was the operation doomed from the start.
How could it have been a good tactical move when they failed to anticipate what India's response would be? And failed to make any preparations to deal with it. The Air Force and Navy weren't even consulted. Same mentality as 1965 with deluded paki generals having dreams about bringing India to its knees. Didn't work then and it certainly was never going to work in 1999. The "tactical brilliance" nonsense was Musharraf's attempt to salvage his reputation after the whole thing blew up in his face.
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Re: Kargil War Thread - VI

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