Pulwama Attack

[Singha]

for situation where trying to take terrorists alive is not the goal, a liberal dose of RPG, CG, Shipon and BMP2 cannons should be used to blow up the hiding place after evacuating nearby houses. BMP2 can be trucked in a flatbed to wherever its long gun is needed. overwhelming and brutal firepower must be used rather than grappling 1:1 on level terms with small arms.

also why cannot RR use their 81mm mortars? these can fire rapidly and lay down accurate fire.

blanket orders must be given authorising use of these weapons. "kashmiri sentiments" will be hurt - tough, let them suck it up.

the great thekedar of human rights - king khan - on any infantry or vehicle unit coming into contact with enemy bands or snipers used to go to ground and wait for a F-18 to show up with a 1000lb guided bomb. and this was in the insurgency phase not OIF.

its very hard to take any terrorist alive unless one can catch by surprise while sleeping.

[chola]

Chola saar, They must have tried to capture him alive is my theory ... and took unnecessary risk.

I think it could be something like this. Grab a live one for intelligence. Losing more is unthinkable and painful to the nation right now. I wish the leaders to prioritize killing over capture if it meant safety but they are casualties too. I can’t think this through.

[ArjunPandit]

CHetak sir,
I very well know this having worked in similar fields for almost a decade and half. Yes the sequence was haphazard, but that does not matter until we are going into "time to" kind of problems.
You mention the constraint of the approach in your response "sufficient data being available". I doubt we would have been maintaining a data tracking the events in their chronological and geospatial sequence. It would have been done through the Although that would be extremely valuable. I personally believe this would be a time drawn but fruitful exercise for a disciplined institution. More inputs can be progressively added from fence wires, bhuvan, to calibrate the patrols. In absence of data, we rely upon our experience of three decades. That said, these patterns adapt quickly. But even that is not new, very similar to fraudsters. The main thing is to use this as an additional tool, to aid the guys on front lines. That's why i suggested to go ahead with this an exercise.

[Shameek]

Looking at the picture of the house on the previous page gives an idea of the challenge faced. The terrorists have freedom of movement in the house and can bring down fire from changing positions. Lack of clarity on the number of terrorists and civilians complicates it further. And if there is a 'sympathizer' in a neighboring house relaying information on the phone/radio then it adds to the problem.

Even so, the continued losses hurt very bad.

[Y I Patel]

Heavy army casualties likely because of the importance of not letting the perpetrators of Pulwama escape. Usually army proceeds methodically when acting on a tip but may have had to act fast given the gravity of the situation.

We will know more as the situation unfolds but likely the army men will get medals for courage above and beyond.

[Vivek K]

Saurav Jha


No. Your Army will never be 'ready' if it is straddled with expensive imported systems. Its actual fighting potential will always be less than what seems and various foreign entities will not let your Army be a real tool of foreign @SJha1618

.......

Actual support for indigenization is the only real metric for patriotism going forward. Because only indigenization will help India maintain economic and social stability. Also there will be no real independent foreign policy without indigenization of weapon systems.

Exactly - in this (indigenization) will lie India's future, security and growth.

[Singha]

the IA and police looks like evacuated all civilians to a fruit orchard, but a few masked bandits among them started patharbaazi again.

its a huge murican Mcmansion type house with 2 car garage thing....must be a rich mans palace.

[ricky_v]

Slightly OT, the messages being circulated on WA are becoming more and more disjointed from reality, I have already seen one attributed to our def min stating that the armed forces have been given a free run in the valley to shoot at sight anybody who is a suspect.Hopefully, someone has an eye on the situation because the situation in the country is highly fragile, and the run away reactions would be devastating.

[Singha]

a even bigger mcmansion to right of it

[ArjunPandit]

sometimes i think this is reverse thucidyde trap by pakis or thucidydes by the chinese.
Pakis because if they dont act now, things will get progressively more difficult to move India. better let the steam off now than the pressure cooker blasting with a 40 sqnd airforce full of Su30, Tejas, Mig and Rafales that can hold PLAAF. Chinese because their growth is stalling and they need an external diversion to show reassert them as a top dog

[Singha]

WSI Rudras need to be made available for situations like this. burn them fast. no precious lives to lose. '

'all they are worth is a cheap cannon shell.

[chetak]

WSI Rudras need to be made available for situations like this. burn them fast. no precious lives to lose. '

'all they are worth is a cheap cannon shell.

when they really get going, I hear that a single bofors gun can consume 5-6 million dollars worth of ammo a night.

That's not cheap but its a price the IA is well prepared to pay

[Y I Patel]

Amidst the grief, worth remembering that catching and killing the perpetrators and a couple of days is an extremely impressive feat.

[Singha]

each 155mm shell list price is $1000 USD.
if a bofors fires 100 shells thats 70000 USD ie 50Lacs a night, plus cost of spare barrels and diesel to move it around etc.

[nam]

Reports say, they were killed in the initial firing.

The terrorist may have laid an ambush, as they were expecting RR to find them after the Pulwama incident. This group trained the suicide bomber, so they must have been ready to die themselves.

3 terrorist, stay in two different places. Hit when you see a group.

[hemant_sai]

Chinese state media reported that stop blaming Pakistan and China for terror attack. Show the proofs first.
Guys do we have any pride or not. Why can't we close relations with both of them. Chinese are even worse enemy for us. We should stop this diplomatic stuff now. Let us call enemy as enemy. No need to hide behind economic fallout.

[Singha]

the young guy "Kamran" they are showing as mastermind is probably just a shell game by the Jaish.

its hard to believe a young boy is supposedly a afghan war vet and criminal mastermind to be organising such a complex chain of events.

but its a good lollipop to induce the GOI under sickular pressure to declare the innings and go home.

[SSridhar]

Chinese state media reported that stop blaming Pakistan and China for terror attack. Show the proofs first.

I can relate to such a demand.

A few months back, some of us had a session with a Chinese 'scholar'. When discussion turned to Chinese help for Pakistani nukes, he demanded proof!! Of course, he got enough of it, that's another matter.

[vivekmehta]

each 155mm shell list price is $1000 USD.
if a bofors fires 100 shells thats 70000 USD ie 50Lacs a night, plus cost of spare barrels and diesel to move it around etc.

Not disrespecting anyone
I am dam shure we can croud fund this...

People spend crazy on games let it be a live one..

[syam]

Our soldier lives are precious to us. We shouldn't let the stone pelters aid terrorists.
Even Sri Ramachandra didn't fight this fair.

[chetak]

Strangely, small candle light processions praising the CRPF martyrs is taking place in bangalore too.

I was out shopping and would not have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes.

The place where I saw the procession is very secular, almost a designer purpose built vote bank setup with minorities well entrenched and in the numerical majority and people from the NE deliberately brought here and settled with a determined view to change the demographics.

That trick has worked well and is also very effectively managed during the elections.

something has changed this time.

[schinnas]

How can a brigade commander ,DIG and a Lt col can get injured in one encounter where you already lost a Major +4.

Capturing this terrormaster mind alive would have been a bigger coup for India than Kasab. So forces took unnecessary risk and given the emotions involved senior level officers perhaps led from the front. Very disheartening. They should have perhaps let NSG go for it. Army is trained to kill..Not capture suicidal terrorists alive.

[ArjunPandit]

Chinese state media reported that stop blaming Pakistan and China for terror attack. Show the proofs first.
Guys do we have any pride or not. Why can't we close relations with both of them. Chinese are even worse enemy for us. We should stop this diplomatic stuff now. Let us call enemy as enemy. No need to hide behind economic fallout.

are 4 father of pakistan the 4 log that we always worry about? At this stage china can do diddly squat about any action in or against pakistan beyond posturing or deploying forces along LAC

[chetak]

each 155mm shell list price is $1000 USD.
if a bofors fires 100 shells thats 70000 USD ie 50Lacs a night, plus cost of spare barrels and diesel to move it around etc.

From memory, the figures for costing that I heard were different.

only 100 shells in 8-10 hours??

It seems to have a burst capability of 3 rounds in 14 seconds, barrel life is 5000 rounds with charge 8

[vasu raya]

3 terrorist, stay in two different places. Hit when you see a group

they have used this MO before too, the cordon started around 2:30am per news reports, initial contact fire confirmed the terrorists were there and after a lull of 3 hours the assault started, perhaps morning by then, the main concern was not to let them slip away as they did in the encounter that happened before the pulwama incident, (by using a fall guy, one terrorist was killed in that encounter, even here one was available of the 3 that got killed)

NSG has those little drones for such situations, they arriving in a chopper doesn't take too long, this kind of disconnect should be addressed

or maybe place snipers either to kill or with tranquilizer bullets if wanting them to be captured alive, there could be opportunities in the extended stand off

[sudhan]

Chinese state media reported that stop blaming Pakistan and China for terror attack. Show the proofs first.

I can relate to such a demand.

A few months back, some of us had a session with a Chinese 'scholar'. When discussion turned to Chinese help for Pakistani nukes, he demanded proof!! Of course, he got enough of it, that's another matter.

SS saar, Any links on those proofs available? Would be handy in a debate.. Thx in advance

[ArjunPandit]

Just to bring some cheer to the really pregnant mood of the group
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 041543.cms
“I had never been slapped by my father, but for the first time in my life an Army jawan did so even before asking me any question,” Where's that jawan? I am sure they wont have stopped him at a slap, he just dint divulge his humiliation. At this time it would be good to bring some of that.
One of the paki were saying that he has dialysis twice a day and he's such an old guy. How can he do anyone any harm. Amazing logic. Esp for a guy who couldnt escape through a tunnel because he was fat. I think he had a good nose and had let the other guy die

[octotus]

I received a picture in one of the groups. It was a picture of a widow (of a CRPF martyr) being consoled by the RM. The pic that broke this camel's back and my heart too.

Far more informed people have made comments about this attack: technically, geopolitically, politically. Some of what I say might be a repetition. In fact, most would be. If so, forgive me - I am not plagiarizing; just pouring my heart out. All your contributions with similar ideas are duly acknowledged. My take is a lot simpler and more than a tad bit inconvenient.

Kashmir has a "Islam" problem. Terrorism and asymmetric warfare are just a manifestation of the same. Yes, I know: Not all Muslims are terrorists. But, whoever takes up the mantle of terrorism in Kashmir, do so in the name of their god. It is not a question of P(Terrorism | Muslim) but a P(Muslim | Terrorism). However, responses to this fact vary from being mildly uneasy >> uncomfortable >> extremely agitated >> Ostrich syndrome. Even in learned circles of people involved in counter-insurgency, terrorism is spoken as an abstract concept - not as something enjoined by religious edicts. It is almost like there is an unwritten unspoken code of treating it as an island of misdeeds by a group of disgruntled people. How do we even imagine winning the war against terrorists, if we can't even - in closed circles - talk about root cause without being hindered by political correctness?

In any debate, the key is to find problems in ideas and leave the people out of it. Here, wondrously, we take an exact opposite approach. Individuals and organizations take the blame but the ideology goes scot free. Jaish-e-Mohammad, Islamic State, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba, SIMI, IM - the list is endless. Somehow, it is acceptable for terrorists to invoke Islam explicitly in their names, their slogans and their deeds - but it is unacceptable for those who fight terrorism to do the same. Logically, Muslims must be happy to see that we are not blaming individuals but talking about an ideology that drives people to commit acts of terror. But, somehow, they are religious in the protection of their faith - but perfectly fine with blaming individuals. The same intellectuals won't blink an eyelid before blaming Hinduism for caste discrimination. The double standard in the treatment of Islam vis-a-vis any other social problem is the 10-ton gorilla in the room.

To paraphrase NN Taleb: Muslims are being the intransigent minority when it comes to terror, and we as a society are OK with it. We are obliging their fanaticism by giving a free pass to ideology and blaming people.

What terrorism are we going to fight, when we can't even muster the courage to call out the root cause? If we are afraid of violent backlash from 200M Muslims in India because we are fighting kafir-hatred in Islam, then the problem is obvious. Isn't it?

Net-net: we can't win a war without shooting at the right target. We think that by shooting at individuals we can subdue terrorism. IMVVHO - that is utter bullshit. What we need is a widespread movement to remove kafir hatred from their holy book. Subject the book to the same kind of scrutiny that any other text undergoes. If Manusmriti can be dissected in the light of modern policies and views, so should the Quran be.

This post may get me banned but it needed to be said. If we don't wake up and put the onus where it belongs: on Muslims, to reinterpret their religion and their own group behaviour across the globe, we are not winning this war. No amount of goodwill is going to help otherwise. In the late 1950s, France won over counterinsurgency in Algeria - almost writing the red book on counterinsurgency warfare for the world. Sixty yrs hence, France itself is fighting a multi-pronged civil war - one major component of which is radical Islam. In essence, their victory over Algerian counter Insurgency was merely an act of kicking the can down the road - for the 2010 generation of French to deal with. Those who don't learn from History, are condemned to relive it.

Question is: have we learned?

Jai Hind.

PS: Subdue Islam, and Pak will cease to be a problem. Go to the root, and the tree will be felled.

[Raveen]

Honestly I don't give a damn how much the ammo costs, as long as it saves one Indian life. We need to stop being munshis and start being yodhas.

[Joe Fernandez]

The Indian elections will decide how New Delhi responds to the terrorist attack in Pulwama.

The state of emergency and dusk to dawn curfew in Jammu Kashmir must be maintained until the elections are over and Parliament has been convened.

India must seriously consider imposing a partial naval blockade on Pakistan i.e. inspect every ship that enters and leaves Pakistan waters.

[Karthik S]

Next time hopefully we'll use LCH. Enough of this stupid policy of engaging a hours long firefight with handful of terrorists and losing our precious soldiers.

[chetak]

Honestly I don't give a damn how much the ammo costs, as long as it saves one Indian life. We need to stop being munshis and start being yodhas.

cool down, no one cares what the ammo costs. It is only a discussion.

[Joe Fernandez]

Any place which becomes the flashpoint for a terrorist attack must be depopulated and leveled to the ground for five square km.

The area must be allowed to return to nature but not become a sanctuary for terrorists. Mine the entire area. The area can be demined after 15 years but no human habitation should be allowed.

[UlanBatori]

This MO is Berkeley-Stanford IMO.
Was watching "A Bridge Too Far" this weekend. For the first hour the Germans had no hope: every attempt to cross the bridge was met with accurate fire, MANY casualties and armored vehicles littered the bridge.

Then the Jarnail said:

FLATTEN ARNHEM!

Probably he said:

EBNEN Arnhem!

From that moment on the paratroopers had no hope, and it ended with the wounded being abandoned to be captured and the others escaping in the night across the river. 10,000 went in. Under 2000 came out.

Even if IA goes barefoot (I am still not over the rage from BlueStar SNAFU) and escorts the pigs one by one in chariots and avoids damaging the paint on the houses, the pigs will still be pelting stones. So whom are they trying to please? I think all the towns and villages in the Kashmir Valley desperately need REAL development funds: as in Reconstruction, Blackwater/Halliburton style, with Waste Management/Reliance India getting the first contract for reconstruction

[chetak]

Next time hopefully we'll use LCH. Enough of this stupid policy of engaging a hours long firefight with handful of terrorists and losing our precious soldiers.

they will smuggle in shoulder fired missile systems. There are plenty of these still with the ISI which grabbed them during and after the soviet war in afghanistan and managed to "disappear" them. Thousands of them went unaccounted.

This suicide bombing is a very serious and calculated escalation especially after decades of low caliber weapons usage.

It ties in with MBS's visit and it looks like they put on a special show for him, hoping to induce/sucker us to attack.

the pakis are known for putting on such shows during high profile visits to either India or even pakistan

Hope that there is nothing planned for MBs's visit to India.

[ArjunPandit]

^^why lch when even simple flamethrower or rpgs or bmp if it can reach will do the job. the point is to flatten. Unfortunately, according to some the hold the families hostage. there is enough proof of it in movies like mission kashmir. If Lakshya starrer preity zinta has shown it must be true.

[nam]

I expect CFV from PA today, at the least.

If not more. Would allow MBS to do the equal-equal and offer for mediation.

If the dude has akal, he should stay quite and enjoy the Delhi landscape.

[syam]

deleted

[ArjunPandit]

^^syam request you to please refrain from this kind of self flagellation or inciting messages

[suryag]

Folks - please consider this a warning, no more useless overhyped criticism allowed on this thread. Further violations will result in 1 week ban without warning