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Events have raised fears that both armies could find themselves locked into a cycle of mountain-grabs — followed by the commitment of troops to hold that territory. “The sensible thing to do will be for the PLA to swap its positions north of Pangong for those India has taken south of Pangong,” a senior Government official said. “But very little China has done since April has been sensible”. {Gurus,what is the meaning of this?}
The emergency effort to expand the Army’s stockpiles of extreme-weather tents, fibre-reinforced plastic igloos and specialised snow-boots are evidence that the Indian Army is preparing to have to maintain dozens of new high-altitude positions through the winter along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.
Errr... how is this "sensible"? Green top on F4 may give them a great view, but the PLA can't really go anywhere quickly from the fingers they have occupied (due to natural obstacles - absence of a road from F4 to F3 and they are stuck in the alluvial plains between the other "fingers" to the east or on the narrow road on the coast, and there is nothing of interest upto Lukung). Whereas if they breakout from Spanggur they have multiple options to reach to the U bend of Shyok or turn south to Demchok.
Added: the author is Praveen Swami
Last edited by abhik on 09 Sep 2020 20:50, edited 1 time in total.
shyamd wrote:Looks like PLA moved in more artillery and APCs/manpower into the North Pangong ridges.
PRC-Indian diplomats are doing their prep sessions in Moscow in advance of S Jaishankar and Wang meeting tomorrow. Main message is that PRC should abide by the 1993 agreements.. Of course PRC will blame it all on IA... not sure how we fix that one. The PRC Def min said the Indian media needs to stop fanning the flames....
GOI has given full authority to local commanders to take whatever action is necessary - no more going back to check with higher ups. This reflects the seriousness of the situation..
Labourers have been rushed in to double down on the road building efforts on the border.
Washington sees this whole episode in Ladakh area as a battle of egos..
FM S Jaishankar twitter timeline is full of high profile meeting in the recent days (Tajik, Kyrgyz Republic), coupling with QUAD thing. Some offensive can be expected from diplomatic side also. May be time for Tibet to get at least get some recognition is nearing.
Recent Meeting In Iran should also be having some near term goal..what could be?
I'm expecting the Chinese to do some aggressive action before and during the S Jaishankar - Wang meeting. As an attempt to put pressure
on SJ who they know is quite powerful compared to Wang. It will of course be a miscalculation.
Nitin A. Gokhale
@nitingokhale Since then India has strengthened defences not just on South Bank of Pangong Tso but also on the North Bank. Indian troops now occupy highest points at Finger 4, stationing themselves above the Chinese presence on the lower heights of the ridge line.
PLA is now trying to come closer to the Indian positions on Finger 4 which are at a higher elevation. All the PLA deployments on the north shores of the lake are dominated by India’s latest move. In effect, the Indian Army has outsmarted the PLA on both sides of Pangong Tso
New Delhi: The situation at Ladakh's south Pangong lake "can take any trajectory" and it is the Chinese leadership and not the local commanders who are controlling the situation, top government sources have said. The sources also said there has been action in the northern bank of the Pangong lake and the Indian army now controls the strategic heights there. India, sources said, will retaliate if its defences on heights are breached, "nowhere are we under-prepared presently".
The Indian Army is now dominating the heights on Chinese deployment on Finger 4, on the north bank of the Pangong lake. Finger 4 is the where the Line of Actual Control -- the de facto border between India and China -- lies and the place where the Chinese army has been pushing in. Now the Indians occupy the heights and the distance between soldiers of the two sides is a "few hundred meters", sources said.
...
"Why the Chinese are opening so many fronts, we don't understand," sources said. The army has now put barbed wire on Indian positions. "If Chinese try to cross it'll be crossing a red-line," officials said.
......
-Ankit
Last edited by Ankit Desai on 09 Sep 2020 21:20, edited 1 time in total.
Deans wrote:Irrespective of when the pic was taken. I wonder if the Chinese realise how ridiculous it makes them look ? The hi tech army which wants to challenge the US looks like a bunch of jokers from the bronze age.
Yes, I wanted to post on this too. From the photo they look like an unseemly and loutish lot, and have no soldier-like bearing. Some fellows keep looking behind them (maybe to see how far they would have to run to get back). Plus of course the weapons they are carrying, the whole photo looks very odd. This should be circulated far and wide.
Nitin A. Gokhale
@nitingokhale Since then India has strengthened defences not just on South Bank of Pangong Tso but also on the North Bank. Indian troops now occupy highest points at Finger 4, stationing themselves above the Chinese presence on the lower heights of the ridge line.
PLA is now trying to come closer to the Indian positions on Finger 4 which are at a higher elevation. All the PLA deployments on the north shores of the lake are dominated by India’s latest move. In effect, the Indian Army has outsmarted the PLA on both sides of Pangong Tso
Yeah .... exactly what was needed and suggested in the forum.
Denis wrote:Was watching the views by Lt Gen Pannu on NewsX about comparison of Indian and Chinese forces in light of Harvard study. He made many interesting and enlightening observations.
One of them was that Chinese Industry is good and it prepares copies of latest Western weapons and ships them to PLA. But there they lie in storehouses as the officers do not have the context in which they have to be used and their soldier remain untrained. Basically saying that they get copies of latest toys but they do not have user case, context, in which to use them and those shiny toys are mostly for stage shows like parades and planned fire power demos for their awesome brochures and propoganda videos.
That holds true, as, when you are part of the design & development workflow, you are keenly aware of the use cases; since the product is borne out of these use cases. Unlike when you copy & paste, you have no clue to the thought process that went through to the completion of the project.
IOW, "korangande kaiyile poomala". Translation - Garland of flowers in the hands of a monkey.
rsingh wrote:Why use the abbrivation PLA ? Do they have many other armies? just call Chinese Army.
Technically that is not accurate. PLA swears loyalty to Chinese communist party not to the republic of China
This means that it is quite different that Indian Army. Indian Army is sworn to defend and protect republic of India, not sworn to defend and protect a particular political party or ruling class.
That is why it is called "People's Liberation Army". It is under the command of Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China. Not under the control of the Parliament or elected president or prime minister.
The Indian Army is now dominating the heights on Chinese deployment on Finger 4, on the north bank of the Pangong lake. Finger 4 is the where the Line of Actual Control -- the de facto border between India and China -- lies and the place where the Chinese army has been pushing in. Now the Indians occupy the heights and the distance between soldiers of the two sides is a "few hundred meters", sources said.
...
-Ankit
The LAC lies at F8! Undi TV back to doing what it does best
Ankit Desai wrote:India Will Retaliate If Its Defences On Heights Are Breached: Top Sources
-Ankit
- The current estimate is they have 50k soldiers in the area - this is much more than 2 divisions, closer to 4 now.
- 5-7k in Spanggur area
- "We are mirror deployed" -> Hmm... does not make any sense, we need to out deploy them, this being one of our only strengths.
- 150 aircraft in the area (I'm assuming this includes fighters, transports, helicopters and special missions aircraft).
Denis wrote:Was watching the views by Lt Gen Pannu on NewsX about comparison of Indian and Chinese forces in light of Harvard study. He made many interesting and enlightening observations.
One of them was that Chinese Industry is good and it prepares copies of latest Western weapons and ships them to PLA. But there they lie in storehouses as the officers do not have the context in which they have to be used and their soldier remain untrained. Basically saying that they get copies of latest toys but they do not have user case, context, in which to use them and those shiny toys are mostly for stage shows like parades and planned fire power demos for their awesome brochures and propoganda videos.
It is a good data point, but my humble opinion is that we should stop this PLA doesn't know to fight message. If I look at PLA, what "copied western kit" is been used by PLA? They are heavily invested in to artillery firepower, in all possible format. Are we to say PLA doesn't know how to use towed artillery, MGS, wheeled artillery, MBRL? Which western army is obsessive about rocket artillery?
If there is something in the warehouse, it just means PLA doesn't consider it worthwhile getting on the battlefield. It has adequate firepower in other means.
Okay from the PLA point of view, what can they do? Or which will be the first area that they will attack? If we can zero down the place, time and scale of Chinese offensive, we might be able to predict their actions
Btw one thing that concerns me is that these forums, social media and our mainstream media are constantly monitored by the Chinese. And they are looking for ways to exploit it to their advantage. And the way we are reacting to every piece of news from LAC either from social media or from MSM is concerning. Sometimes even jumping to conclusions before IA could clarify things. These reactions might get exploited by the Chinese to put pressure on GOI.
Tbh I am quite satisfied that most of the people are glued on Rhea, Kangana, SSR case. If the Chinese try any info warfare mischief, it may not have the required impact as most of our Janta is busy with SSR case.
Itanagar: Amidst high tension at the Indo-Sino border in Ladakh, sources have revealed to EastMojo that villagers near the McMahon Line in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh have vacated their village.Taksang village, situated almost 30-km away from Zemithang circle in Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh, was vacated by the villagers recently.
New Delhi: A day after pictures of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) armed with rods, spears and machetes surfaced, India on Wednesday raised the issue with China during the commander level talks. This comes two days after Chinese troops tried to lock down Indian posts along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) at Pangong Lake in Ladakh.
The pictures are first direct evidence of the use of such weapons by the Chinese army against Indian troops along the LAC. The September 7 "provocative" action by the Chinese forces saw them carrying "Guandao", a traditional Chinese Sword which is basically a blade mounted on a wooden or metal pole.
After the first phase deployment by infantry units at dawn on 30th Aug India managed to drive up tanks at Richin La in broad daylight that Sunday evening surprising the Chinese even more. Since then full consolidation has happened on those heights.
New Delhi [India], September 9 (ANI): Engaged in a stand-off with the Army, the Indian Army has given instructions that the Chinese should not be allowed to transgress at any cost and also directed that troops should maintain utter discipline while protecting Indian territory. The field commanders have also been told that while patrolling their respective areas of responsibility or accomplishing any task, there should not be any extra display of strength or overuse of force, government sources told ANI. On the situation along the border, the sources said that the Chinese Army is carrying out firing practice well within territory controlled by them in Tibet but it can be heard on the Indian side at many locations along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh.
Sources said the Chinese Army has deployed close to 50,000 troops along with heavy tanks and artillery. On the opposite Indian side of Chushul, the Chinese have been lining up their tanks and infantry combat vehicles within their territory near the friction areas as they have brought in a lot of heavy weaponry to the area, they said.
ramana wrote:AA, The issue is more with political experts in media who want to pretend they know more and could game India responses. Not here.
True not here. But sometimes we have also fallen for fake news. Anyway, Twitter seems to be worst of all. Worse than MSM. Everyone is a expert and everyone has a secret info about Chinese.
Yeah .... exactly what was needed and suggested in the forum.
Exactly what came to my mind when i read that. Now if there is going to be a dash for the heights, its eventually going to reach Ane la (which is on the other side of the high point of Pangong ridge/mountains). I measured the path in GE: Ane la to highest point in Pangong area is ~15km and from there its another ~8km to Green Top. Wonder how many troops the PLA are willing to commit to this. I would wager they will start doing what they do best and try to build a road to green top to cement their position there, a motorable road will give them a huge advantage in logistics and give them axis to come down to F2 in numbers.
If the ANI report is true, then:
1. Forcibly take high ground positions from the IA.
2. Use intimidation by live fire exercises, but attack in another location.
Ankit Desai wrote:India Will Retaliate If Its Defences On Heights Are Breached: Top Sources
-Ankit
- The current estimate is they have 50k soldiers in the area - this is much more than 2 divisions, closer to 4 now.
- 5-7k in Spanggur area
- "We are mirror deployed" -> Hmm... does not make any sense, we need to out deploy them, this being one of our only strengths.
- 150 aircraft in the area (I'm assuming this includes fighters, transports, helicopters and special missions aircraft).
Interesting titbit from that video Indian Army is employing/deploying mandarin speaking people from our side with loud hailers addressing the oncoming Chinese army and telling them to stay/go back. Crowd control at 20,000 ft. If it was all not so real it would be funny. Imagining Sholay dialogues. "Kutte ke aulad wapas jao".
shyamd wrote:
GOI has given full authority to local commanders to take whatever action is necessary - no more going back to check with higher ups. This reflects the seriousness of the situation..
Does this include the use of artillery & tanks? Pro-actively or reactively?
My suspicion is that the Chinese, coming worse off in any hand-to-hand or infantry-to-infantry engagement, will resort to artillery. They might try to do to us what we did to Pakis in Kargil. That might be 2 steps up the escalation ladder. It might even be timed to happen on or soon after Jaishankar-Wang meeting.
Question is: are our commanders given authority to go several notches up the escalation ladder? Example: what about bringing in the IAF if the Chinese go for artillery?
Last edited by Prem Kumar on 09 Sep 2020 23:01, edited 1 time in total.
In my opinion, China initially tried to take land the easy way and expected us to be passive. True to their expectations we were initially passive and too eager for talks. Luckily while we didnt counter attack, their reasons for moving in were not met so far - Stopping road construction (probably would have been agreed to by Congress ) and not allying with the US. The China/Russia talks is most likely to influence the latter.
The longer this has progressed the better as predicted by many of us earlier. The longer any conflict goes on the more confidence and learning the weaker side always gets. Our victory will be in not relenting through winter. We need to be careful of a few things, most caused by our mindet than anything China can do
1. Stop being obsessed about not crossing the LAC. A country and its boundary is only assured by the limitations of a neighbouring force. How many times should we learn the same lesson.
2. Dont give back in talks what the army has won on the ground. We have a history of it.
The more this goes on, the more we will push our industries to move forward. Pakistan will not be even in the radar.
Actually the best thing to come out of this is the fact that we are fighting an enemy in our weight category. Pakistan is relegated to a place where they belong - in the trash bin - in the mindspace of Indians.
Bharat Karnad said in one of his speeches (I'm assuming its his own quote): "A nation is known by the enemy it keeps"
In view of the current situation in the region, war preparations will have to be stepped up - Pakistan's Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. via Twitter
pankajs wrote:
Yeah .... exactly what was needed and suggested in the forum.
Exactly what came to my mind when i read that. Now if there is going to be a dash for the heights, its eventually going to reach Ane la (which is on the other side of the high point of Pangong ridge/mountains). I measured the path in GE: Ane la to highest point in Pangong area is ~15km and from there its another ~8km to Green Top. Wonder how many troops the PLA are willing to commit to this. I would wager they will start doing what they do best and try to build a road to green top to cement their position there, a motorable road will give them a huge advantage in logistics and give them axis to come down to F2 in numbers.
I remember our discussion.
1. When you say that the distance to the highest point in Pangang tso area ~15 km, do you mean as the crow flies or following the contours of the ridge?
2. How far from F4 on the lake is green top per you?
The moment the Chinese try bringing in reinforcement into the area between F4/5 and/or reinforce their position at green top, India too should reinforce its position along the ridge-line of F4 and at the base around F3 & F2 to be able to prevent wave upon wave of Chinese soldiers flowing down from F4. It will harden the F4 but so be it.
My guess is that we haven't occupied the highest point on the ridge but some convenient point that is higher and back of the green top occupied by the Chinese.
Davidrock wrote:New satellite image showing clear advantage to IA from Rezang La - We are in a place where we can see down.
CA is not far off, but they cant look down at our side.
Denis wrote:Was watching the views by Lt Gen Pannu on NewsX about comparison of Indian and Chinese forces in light of Harvard study. He made many interesting and enlightening observations.
It is a good data point, but my humble opinion is that we should stop this PLA doesn't know to fight message. If I look at PLA, what "copied western kit" is been used by PLA? They are heavily invested in to artillery firepower, in all possible format. Are we to say PLA doesn't know how to use towed artillery, MGS, wheeled artillery, MBRL? Which western army is obsessive about rocket artillery?
If there is something in the warehouse, it just means PLA doesn't consider it worthwhile getting on the battlefield. It has adequate firepower in other means.
Those were the views of Lt Gen Pannu, not mine. He also related a few anecdotes on this as well as his other observations on rigidity versus flexibility, amount of leeways allowed to local commanders, control & delegation etc etc. He was very factual on the characteristics of the soldiers on both sides. I tried a lot to get a link to the video, so that experts like you could comment, but I think it has still not been loaded on the newsX website yet.
