War inside Tibet - goals, strategies and equipment

[malushahi]

C'mon, was the statement actually necessary ?
Do I have to submit the paperwork to let all deceased soldiers and their families know of my intentions before I embark on an analysis?

Is there a "statement recall" button on the control panel somwhere?

In all honesty, a jingo of JaganP's stature needs no paperwork. Mea culpa - I hope I am forgiven.

[Y I Patel]

maulshahi,

If you were offended by some things I wrote into saying that one of your posts would be the last one, then I should ask to be excused for my rhetorical flourishes. One thing I have found that works on BRF to elicit responses is to use some amount of hyperbole to get people excited and involved. As you can observe from the flurry of posts, I seem to know my audience here

But poetical license aside, I do not believe we are saying things that are dramatically apart. I think we can agree that we went in without a real plan, without preparing our soldiers for what we should have considered in our contingency planning, and without any attempt to get into the mind of the Chinese as to how they would react and how they would fight. Regarding the Chinese being Rambos or an uber army, for sure they were not that. But they had honed their style of fighting the hard way in the Korean war, and they came in with a plan. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I am not aware of a single Indian general who had said at that time that the Chinese would adapt their Korean tactics for fighting in the Himalayas. Should someone have done so, like maybe Thimayya? Said luminary was with the UN peacekeeping force, and was quite voluble about a lot of things. But not about the Chinese way of fighting. Just like you said, all of this led to a massive intelligence failure.

To answer Ray sahab's question as to why the same experience has not been repeated, why, I think the obvious answer is that we may have made egregious mistakes but we certainly are capable of learning too. In any case, rather than going into those specifics, I'd rather air another pet theme of mine: to point, that IA at independence and for quite some time after it carried a British mindset. It was only due to and after repeated post Independence conflicts that our military establishment finally started thinking for themselves.

Interestingly, I believe it is the Chinese who have now lost their smriti on peoples' war and are trying to ape a western model. Given sufficient opportunities, they might even become good at that. However, considering that they have not had any opportunity to learn their lessons yet, they may be in for a few nasty surprises.

But let this not divert from what has become quite an illuminating discussion. Thanks to all, and keep going!

[RayC]

Nothing wrong in the British mindset.

It is why we survived.

Compare it with Paksitan.

It is the current mindset that is bringing us the current woes!

Think that over!

Before going ballistics over 1962 and pontificating, one must understand ground realities!

Grandstanding is great, bur reality is a different kettle of fish.

Let Dalvi and his book not befuddle the crowd!

Each brilliant piece written after 1962 debacle is a CYA.

[Victor]

Another item to consider is the comparative "youth dividends" of India and China and what that will do to the future of the PLA and IA. Today, India is the world's youngest nation that is getting younger by the day with a majority of the population between 25-40 and the trend will continue to favour India by a huge margin. The opposite is true for China.

And just as the Chinese apparatus can focus on external threats to divert attention to nominally Chinese "South Tibet", there is far more scope for Indians getting really sore about Kailash and Mansarovar. In the meantime, economic advances, even in neglected places like Assam, are causing monumentally positive changes in mindset. For eg. most of ULFA's biggest and most heavily armed unit, the 28 Battalion--all very young men and women--have called a unilateral cease fire and agreed to work for the upliftment of Assam. They are currently in camps being trained in employable skills by the IA. This is bad news for BDs but it is even worse for the PLA who should probably write off any plans in Assam and worry about well-trained ULFA guerillas supporting the IA in Arunachal. This is not as far-fetched as it might have seemed even last year.

[p_saggu]

Prior to '62 the only indigenous war that our Indian generals ever fought was '47 in kashmir. Ditto there was a hasty deployment at the last moment when the pakistanis were on the outskirts of srinagar. As expected the Pakistani's logistics ran out in the valley without any support from the other side of the Pir panjals - that is where LOC lies even to this day.
The criminal thing is that the lessons of 1947 were never imbibed into planning - a failure of the political (in keeping defence low priority, and the armed forces very tightly controlled by the political leadership for obvious fears in that era) and to some extent the military leadership. I mean when the situation started to detriorate, what stopped the army from acclimatizing the troops in high altitude. The soldiers were shifted one fine day from the plains into 9000 - 10000ft (Eastern Sector) 12-17000 ft (Kashmir) in a manner of weeks. It looks like the whole appratus woke up one fine day and then the chinese were already deployed and advancing.
It seems that a similar thing happened in Kargil. Although this time the troops were better equipped (Stress on "Better" implying that there was defenitely large room for improvement then too). The saving grace then was that the political leadership did what was expected from them in appropriately rallying international opinion in our favour, and giving the troops the time to evict the pakistanis. However the same sudden deployment pattern was repeated.
As has been posted above, '71 was one occasion when we actually prepared and waited. Key words here. There is no reason that what was acheived in 1971 can't be repeated with china in the future. The conditions in favour are
1. The tibetians can provide valuable intelligence, can harass the chinese build up to some extent.
2. Force multipliers on our side mean that human waves from the chinese can be better managed.
3. '62 has been analysed to death in many circles. The war has been refought in many minds ever since.
4. There seems to be a well planned deployment in the north east by the IAF, mountain divisions being raised etc.
Weather all these are enough, we'll see.
The negatives that I see:
1. The political leader ship has continued to drag its feet on timely aquisition of military hardware. There is still a lot of sloth around.
2. I think that the chinese moves to develop infrastructure were detected well in time - during the NDA government George Fernandes indicated as much with his potential adversary no 1 statement. India has fairly good intelligence both humint and electronic including satellite based to have detected the infrastructure development over this past decade. Question is then why did it take till the army dragged AK Antony to the border to see for himself what it was like on the other side. Clearly the government did not give due priority to this aspect all these years. Case in point, after Kargil the NDA regime gave high priority to developing the alternative route to leh via himachal. It seems that with the change of government, very little has happened on that front.
3. What else has the government goofed up on? Infrastructure and defence hardware issues are well known.

I think it not proper to dismiss alarmists like Chellany. Unless the nation's defence is not handled by highly paranoid people, we will continue to suffer. It will always be we are like this onlee.

[vivek_ahuja]

For the past few days I have been silently reading the high quality of discussion going on here regarding the 62 war and the Chinese strategy. As it just so happened, I was working through my own 1000+ page collection of material and research work on the 62 war and found some stuff that was highly relevant to the discussions here but hardly anything groundbreaking. Nevertheless, I did find some images which I figured would add more clarity to the discussions. Two of these are posted below and pertain to the logistical aspect of things from the 62 war. A picture says a thousand words, but I have added two sentences to those thousand words in case anyone wants a quick summary:



P.S.: the image on the left is extremely old, but I am not sure if it has been printed in some book or article etc. If anybody has any idea then please let me know. Thanks.

-Vivek

[negi]

vivek.. bhai

Can you drop me a mail on negi dot novino @ gmail dot com ? else post your email id (whatever works for you ).



----Sorry for OT post, will delete it shortly---

[vivek_ahuja]

Negi,

Please check mail.

-Vivek

[bhavin]

Singha, This is the right link for the IR map
All India Map

[G Subramaniam]

maulshahi,

If you were offended by some things I wrote into saying that one of your posts would be the last one, then I should ask to be excused for my rhetorical flourishes. One thing I have found that works on BRF to elicit responses is to use some amount of hyperbole to get people excited and involved. As you can observe from the flurry of posts, I seem to know my audience here

But poetical license aside, I do not believe we are saying things that are dramatically apart. I think we can agree that we went in without a real plan, without preparing our soldiers for what we should have considered in our contingency planning, and without any attempt to get into the mind of the Chinese as to how they would react and how they would fight. Regarding the Chinese being Rambos or an uber army, for sure they were not that. But they had honed their style of fighting the hard way in the Korean war, and they came in with a plan. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I am not aware of a single Indian general who had said at that time that the Chinese would adapt their Korean tactics for fighting in the Himalayas. Should someone have done so, like maybe Thimayya? Said luminary was with the UN peacekeeping force, and was quite voluble about a lot of things. But not about the Chinese way of fighting. Just like you said, all of this led to a massive intelligence failure.

To answer Ray sahab's question as to why the same experience has not been repeated, why, I think the obvious answer is that we may have made egregious mistakes but we certainly are capable of learning too. In any case, rather than going into those specifics, I'd rather air another pet theme of mine: to point, that IA at independence and for quite some time after it carried a British mindset. It was only due to and after repeated post Independence conflicts that our military establishment finally started thinking for themselves.

Interestingly, I believe it is the Chinese who have now lost their smriti on peoples' war and are trying to ape a western model. Given sufficient opportunities, they might even become good at that. However, considering that they have not had any opportunity to learn their lessons yet, they may be in for a few nasty surprises.

But let this not divert from what has become quite an illuminating discussion. Thanks to all, and keep going!

I saw a TV documentary on the Korean war

The Chinese korean war was mainly a mountainous war
A lot like the himalayas
There is a mountain range that goes down the middle of Korea
that had no roads

McArthurs army was split on the right and left side of the mountains

The chinese silently moved their army along the mountains and got behind McArthur

--

I also saw an article on a forum where RayC also posts
and there was a mini-war in 1984 between Vietnam and China which apparently PRC won using western tactics, meaning they learnt from the 1978 fiasco

--

[RayC]

The 1947 War was Mountain Warfare and would not really be High Altitude Warfare except for a small part of it around Zoji La. One wonders what lessons were not imbibed from this warfare that could have assisted in 1962.

The Threat Analysis flows out of the Political policies pursued by the Govt. It cannot be an independent thought. In those days, China was a friend and deploying troops without the consent of the govt would not have been taken kindly. Further, the Chinese could have taken it as hostile intent and that for sure was not the intent of the govt.

For instance, sound military thought, at times, advocates trading space for time. However, because no loss of territory is acceptable, the tactics and strategy has to be tailor made to suit the political directives. Even Kargil was localised because of govt directives, when it would have been easier and possibly worthwhile to “enlarge” the war, but then that is a moot point.

Therefore, unless one is privy to more details of the 1962 War, one can only conjecture.

The various J’Accuse that mushroomed after the 1962 War are hardly material to base the actualities.

Vivek,

Nice photos.

[malushahi]

RayC: you beat me to the post re: Korea being mountain warfare vs. NEFA being HA/Alpine warfare. Pedigree counts

Vivek: for people who lost their limbs to gangrene in NEFA, your pictures are a vindication of their twinkling eyes, proud moustaches and amputated limbs. Many thanks.

YIP: No worries. As jingoes we may differ on the means but certainly not the end.. What was that about "As rivers flow into the sea, losing their individuality" (required disclaimer: the intentions implied therein are thoroughly secular)

[G Subramaniam]

The 1947 War was Mountain Warfare and would not really be High Altitude Warfare except for a small part of it around Zoji La. One wonders what lessons were not imbibed from this warfare that could have assisted in 1962.

The Threat Analysis flows out of the Political policies pursued by the Govt. It cannot be an independent thought. In those days, China was a friend and deploying troops without the consent of the govt would not have been taken kindly. Further, the Chinese could have taken it as hostile intent and that for sure was not the intent of the govt.

For instance, sound military thought, at times, advocates trading space for time. However, because no loss of territory is acceptable, the tactics and strategy has to be tailor made to suit the political directives. Even Kargil was localised because of govt directives, when it would have been easier and possibly worthwhile to “enlarge” the war, but then that is a moot point.

Therefore, unless one is privy to more details of the 1962 War, one can only conjecture.

The various J’Accuse that mushroomed after the 1962 War are hardly material to base the actualities.

Vivek,

Nice photos.

I also saw an article on a forum where RayC also posts
and there was a mini-war in 1984 between Vietnam and China which apparently PRC won using western tactics, meaning they learnt from the 1978 fiasco

Can you please clarify

[Jagan]

Malushahi, consider statement revoked.

Ray, I understand the personal accounts falling in the CYA category - but what about other histories? Like the 4 Div History or the Indian Army History? What are you comments of the Official HIstory? I thought it was quite fair in its assessment.

Vivek - thanks for the images. Have any chinese accounts been published? I have seen at various times what appears to be chinese accounts on the sinoboard but they were all in chinese. Some maps were recognisable. It would be interesting to have the chinese view point of the same.

[Rishi]

Vivek - thanks for the images. Have any chinese accounts been published? I have seen at various times what appears to be chinese accounts on the sinoboard but they were all in chinese. Some maps were recognisable. It would be interesting to have the chinese view point of the same.

Chinese accounts do exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War

See footnote #5

5. Though Calvin says that no official figures were released by the Chinese, two Chinese sources viz "The Red Walls Witness" 摘自《红墙见证录》，当代中国出版社尹家民 pub 2004 and 中印边疆自卫反击作战史 History of the Sino-India Border Self Defensive War PDF pub 1993, give estimates. The Red Walls book puts Chinese casualties at 1,460, while the other puts killed and wounded figure at 2,400.

http://military.china.com/zh_cn/history ... 74607.html
http://product.dangdang.com/product.asp ... %3D8776496

I added these almost 2 yrs back. There is a wealth of Info in Chinese. Use Google translate to data mine.

[vivek_ahuja]

Vivek - thanks for the images. Have any Chinese accounts been published? I have seen at various times what appears to be Chinese accounts on the sinoboard but they were all in Chinese. Some maps were recognizable. It would be interesting to have the Chinese view point of the same.

Jagan,

As Rishi has pointed out, some websites do forward the Chinese view on things. However, in addition to that, I have what amounts to around 100+ scanned pages of articles and books collected over the years that forward the Chinese view in other printed media. I can forward them to you if you like. Some of these articles are old, others are new. One very recent and prominent Chinese view comes in the book: "Chinese Warfighting: the PLA experience since 1949" covering the entire PLA experience over the last half decade. In it there is a chapter (20+ pages) on the Chinese analysis of the 62 war with proper maps and more importantly, written in English.

The authors are a combination of Chinese and Western citizens, with the latter probably contributing in turning the book from Chinese to English. Mostly the material is the typical Chinese party line with quotes from Neville Maxwell thrown in for flavor.

Also, most of these sources deal with the Military aspect on things on the ground, but there is very little of what passes as in-depth political analysis. Mostly the authors try to piece together the political scenario on the Chinese side using the military one, and this is a reverse of what actually needs to be done as far as we are concerned.

This is probably mostly because the political aspects of things are the most difficult to analyze and create a model on with regard to the Chinese. To do that we must actually analyze the bits and pieces of contemporary information that came through in the 50s and the early 60s and use them to build a prediction model. I am working on something similar right now. Should be interesting...

Nevertheless, that particular chapter on the military aspect of the 62 war is very interesting read.

-Vivek

[G Subramaniam]

Vivek - thanks for the images. Have any chinese accounts been published? I have seen at various times what appears to be chinese accounts on the sinoboard but they were all in chinese. Some maps were recognisable. It would be interesting to have the chinese view point of the same.

Chinese accounts do exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War

See footnote #5

5. Though Calvin says that no official figures were released by the Chinese, two Chinese sources viz "The Red Walls Witness" 摘自《红墙见证录》，当代中国出版社尹家民 pub 2004 and 中印边疆自卫反击作战史 History of the Sino-India Border Self Defensive War PDF pub 1993, give estimates. The Red Walls book puts Chinese casualties at 1,460, while the other puts killed and wounded figure at 2,400.

http://military.china.com/zh_cn/history ... 74607.html
http://product.dangdang.com/product.asp ... %3D8776496

I added these almost 2 yrs back. There is a wealth of Info in Chinese. Use Google translate to data mine.

I thought the Indian casualties were also about 2000

So even with the element of surprise and overwhelming superiority, the chinese casualty rate was the same

[G Subramaniam]

China's Decision for War with India in 1962
John W. Garver
Why Did China's Leaders Decide for War against India?

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~johnston/garver.pdf


73 page document based on inside chinese sources

[Rishi]

I thought the Indian casualties were also about 2000

So even with the element of surprise and overwhelming superiority, the chinese casualty rate was the same

Not really.

Wikipedia gives:

Killed 3,128 (Indian sources)[9]
Captured 3,123[10]
Wounded 1,697[11]

I found out the Chinese cas using google translate (before that, there were no estimates). I am still not clear whether casualty = killed or killed + wounded. Also not sure whether these refer only to 1 front or both fronts.

[RayC]

Malushahi, consider statement revoked.

Ray, I understand the personal accounts falling in the CYA category - but what about other histories? Like the 4 Div History or the Indian Army History? What are you comments of the Official HIstory? I thought it was quite fair in its assessment.

Could you point me to the 4 Div history and official history? Unless Handerson Brooks report is declassified, one cannot have a balanced view.

Western authors would have their own view point to sell. Neville Maxwell's, Áfter Nehru, who? would indicate his penchant for gossip and sensationalism.

Now take this from Wikipedia:
During the period of June–July 1962, the Indian military planners began advocating "probing actions" against the Chinese, and accordingly, moved mountain troops forward to cut off Chinese supply lines. According to Patterson, the Indian motives were threefold:

1. Test Chinese resolve and intentions regarding India.
2. Test whether India would enjoy Soviet backing in the event of a Sino-Indian war.
3. Create sympathy for India within the US, with whom relations had deteriorated after the Indian annexation of Goa.

This is supposed to be the reason why India went ot war with China.

Imagine just to ''test'' the govt of India goes to war!

And yet many would find it very plausible!

I will read Garver.

[Jagan]

Could you point me to the 4 Div history and official history? Unless Handerson Brooks report is declassified, one cannot have a balanced view.

Western authors would have their own view point to sell. Neville Maxwell's, Áfter Nehru, who? would indicate his penchant for gossip and sensationalism. .

The 4th Div History and the Indian Army History were both authored by Major (Retd) K C Praval. I may be a bit prejudiced as I am a big fan of Maj Praval's books. He had written only four - The Official Regimental History of the Parachute Regt (India's Paratroopers), the Official History of the Kumaon Regt (Valour Triumphs), Official HIstory of 4 Mtn Div (The Red Eagles) and the semi-official history of the Indian ARmy (Indian Army after Independence). The books on Kumaon Regt and Indian army were written on the request of Gen T N Raina. I remember he passed away as soon as he finished his fourth and last book (Indian Army after Indep)

Additionally the MoD History is available on our site - the relevant chapter for Kameng, I have linked in my earlier post. Even though it is not the H-B report, the official MoD history has the luxury of falling back on official records and has pretty good details on the chronology of events.

Incidentally Maxwell wrote India's China War . Whereas After Nehru Who ?was by Hangen Wells. I have read both, but base my opinions mostly on Praval's , the Official History and to an extent Dalvi's book.

<unsolicited information alert!>
Other personal accounts that I have read The Fall of Tawang by Maj Gen Niranjan Prasad. Lt Gen B M Kauls Autobiography, Maj Gen DK Palit's War in the High Himalayas. Lt Col J R Saigal's The Unfought War of 1962: The NEFA Debacle also provides an interesting insight into the events that happened within the Div HQ. This book maybe a bit controversial as Col Saigal is scathing in his criticism towards all. I do not remember how much Lt Gen Harbaksh Singh wrote about the 62 War in his book but i dont believe it was much.

[Jagan]

As Rishi has pointed out, some websites do forward the Chinese view on things. However, in addition to that, I have what amounts to around 100+ scanned pages of articles and books collected over the years that forward the Chinese view in other printed media. I can forward them to you if you like. Some of these articles are old, others are new. One very recent and prominent Chinese view comes in the book: "Chinese Warfighting:

Vivek, will write to you soon for a catalog ! bear with me as I finish off some stuff at my end

[rajkhalsa]

vivek_ahuja,

Sir ji!

Can you please, please allow BR to host this treasure trove of information? Or perhaps it better yet, to put it onto a torrent so all those interested can benefit from what must have been an exhaustive effort on your part? There is such a dearth of sources of information on this conflict online, and so much disinformation. Such sources can go a long way in ferreting out the truth

Thanks in advance

[RayC]

Could you point me to the 4 Div history and official history? Unless Handerson Brooks report is declassified, one cannot have a balanced view.

Western authors would have their own view point to sell. Neville Maxwell's, Áfter Nehru, who? would indicate his penchant for gossip and sensationalism. .

The 4th Div History and the Indian Army History were both authored by Major (Retd) K C Praval. I may be a bit prejudiced as I am a big fan of Maj Praval's books. He had written only four - The Official Regimental History of the Parachute Regt (India's Paratroopers), the Official History of the Kumaon Regt (Valour Triumphs), Official HIstory of 4 Mtn Div (The Red Eagles) and the semi-official history of the Indian ARmy (Indian Army after Independence). The books on Kumaon Regt and Indian army were written on the request of Gen T N Raina. I remember he passed away as soon as he finished his fourth and last book (Indian Army after Indep)

Additionally the MoD History is available on our site - the relevant chapter for Kameng, I have linked in my earlier post. Even though it is not the H-B report, the official MoD history has the luxury of falling back on official records and has pretty good details on the chronology of events.

Incidentally Maxwell wrote India's China War . Whereas After Nehru Who ?was by Hangen Wells. I have read both, but base my opinions mostly on Praval's , the Official History and to an extent Dalvi's book.

<unsolicited information alert!>
Other personal accounts that I have read The Fall of Tawang by Maj Gen Niranjan Prasad. Lt Gen B M Kauls Autobiography, Maj Gen DK Palit's War in the High Himalayas. Lt Col J R Saigal's The Unfought War of 1962: The NEFA Debacle also provides an interesting insight into the events that happened within the Div HQ. This book maybe a bit controversial as Col Saigal is scathing in his criticism towards all. I do not remember how much Lt Gen Harbaksh Singh wrote about the 62 War in his book but i dont believe it was much.

Thanks.

I always mix up with Hangen and Maxwell since I rather forget them as fast I am reminded.

Wasn't Niranjan Pershad the General who did not really cover himself with glory in 1965 either?

Yes, Official histories make interesting reading. The Air Force's role in Kargil too makes interesting reading.

I am bit cynical I will agree.

Events that I have seen and then seen written of, makes me so.

Many things are re-engineering to suit the flavour!

Choro, Mat Maro! and Choro Mat, Maro! The comma makes the difference!

I wasn't there in 1962 but there is so much of contradictions that makes one wonder and one applies his own experience to understand the situation then. Indeed, that may not be the truth either!

[Rahul M]

vivek_ahuja,

Sir ji!

Can you please, please allow BR to host this treasure trove of information? Or perhaps it better yet, to put it onto a torrent so all those interested can benefit from what must have been an exhaustive effort on your part? There is such a dearth of sources of information on this conflict online, and so much disinformation. Such sources can go a long way in ferreting out the truth

Thanks in advance

I think vivek won't mind if his info is shared by BRFites !
here it is :
http://rapidshare.com/files/127717609/S ... M.zip.html

BTW, my advice would be to rename the files with the headers so that you can classify them for later perusal. even though the job would be time consuming, that would go a long way in finding the right files at the right time, trust me.

regards.

[vivek_ahuja]

I think vivek won't mind if his info is shared by BRFites !

Yes, that's quite all right.

But the stuff that you will be downloading from that location is for the year 1959 only. Like I told Rahul before, I haven't been able to finish organizing the massive amount of data from 1950 to 1963 in terms of years, months etc just yet.

Once that happens I can upload that stuff for sharing, but the size easily exceeds more than 1GB, so I might have to upload it year by year or something like that.

In the meantime I will keep posting the nuggets as and when I feel that they might contribute to the discussions.

Thanks.

-Vivek

[Jagan]

[
Wasn't Niranjan Pershad the General who did not really cover himself with glory in 1965 either?
!

Yes same General. That book was NP's explanation of his part in the 62 debacle. He puts all blame on the Army Commander L P Sen for the turn of events. So here we have the Bde, Div and Corps Commanders writing books on events in the same sector.

[Surya]

Vivek

Sometime back a chinese site had lots of docs on the 62 war. It showed their part in the aggresion. Some folks were saving it before it disappeared.

Do you have those?

[abhischekcc]

Vivek

Sometime back a chinese site had lots of docs on the 62 war. It showed their part in the aggresion. Some folks were saving it before it disappeared.

Do you have those?
Vivek

Sometime back a chinese site had lots of docs on the 62 war. It showed their part in the aggresion. Some folks were saving it before it disappeared.

Do you have those?

I would like to have those too.

I am about to start a study on how the chinese leadership actively deluded Indian leadership of that time - something that clearly proves their aggresive intent.

[RayC]

[
Wasn't Niranjan Pershad the General who did not really cover himself with glory in 1965 either?
!

Yes same General. That book was NP's explanation of his part in the 62 debacle. He puts all blame on the Army Commander L P Sen for the turn of events. So here we have the Bde, Div and Corps Commanders writing books on events in the same sector.

And he was silent on 1965!!

Ganging up is great!

If I wrote a book on Kargil, there would be chaos! Anyone can write a J'Accuse!

I won't.

Puriji is slowly opening up!

Did you hear him on TV about CO, 18 Grenadiers?

[Surya]

Puriji is slowly opening up!


Did you hear him on TV about CO, 18 Grenadiers?

I had to go and cool him off!

Err RayC - could you elaborate on the above?

[Vivek K]

Ray Sir,
Now that is an irresistable post! Please go on and tell us some more.

I can't ánd won't.

Salt!

[Raj Malhotra]

India needs light weight heli droppable SHORADs and Single tube rocket launcher variant of Pinaka for Himalayas

[p_saggu]

Ray Saar
Please please, let us know more

[rajkhalsa]

Vivek

Sometime back a chinese site had lots of docs on the 62 war. It showed their part in the aggresion. Some folks were saving it before it disappeared.

Do you have those?

There are a couple sites I know of. Probably the most comprehensive I've seen is:
http://bwl.top81.com.cn/war_cn/india.htm
Admin Note: This link generates a MALWARE alert - open at your own risk

Be sure to use a proxy and have a firewall, virus shield, etc. running for the above page. Perhaps some enterprising guy who better understands how to deal with malware can archive that entire website and uploaded it to rapidshare or something?

Some more resources:
http://www.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/wk_cate.asp?id=206
http://www.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/wk_cate.asp?type=rv&id=206
http://www.daichaowu.net/ztlw/index.htm

If you enter the Chinese names of the articles in google search, you can find similar sites with other collections of relevant articles. A lot of those websites have repeated the same handful, however.

[Jagan]

[
If I wrote a book on Kargil, there would be chaos!

I won't.

Puriji is slowly opening up! !

But you should - You may be modest about it but you do owe it to the Army (And to your family , grandchildren etc) (and us )to put down your experiences on the operations. Please do not think about it as 'dabba maro' - but only as recording history for posterity. My 2 pence.

[vishwakarmaa]

Nothing wrong in the British mindset.

It is why we survived.

Compare it with Paksitan.

British gave us Pakistan.

[RayC]

Nothing wrong in the British mindset.

It is why we survived.

Compare it with Paksitan.

British gave us Pakistan.

And we gave ourselves the Parliament that became a circus yesterday.

I am not saying that the British are perfect, but the system and ethos they gave us if applied correctly, does hold us in good stead.

Take the Army for instance. The more ''Indianised'' we are getting, the more warts are surfacing. Some of which are totally disgraceful.

[Rahul M]

Take the Army for instance. The more ''Indianised'' we are getting, the more warts are surfacing. Some of which are totally disgraceful.

RayC Sir, I'm a bit confused here on what you mean by Indianization ?? if you mean the scams and corruption, I have to say that those are hardly the defining features of Indianization.

[RayC]

Take the Army for instance. The more ''Indianised'' we are getting, the more warts are surfacing. Some of which are totally disgraceful.

RayC Sir, I'm a bit confused here on what you mean by Indianization ?? if you mean the scams and corruption, I have to say that those are hardly the defining features of Indianization.

I appreciate your indignation since I share the same.

Please disabuse yourself from any idea that I am an Anglophile. I am as proud an Indian as anyone else.

When I joined the Army, the emphasis was on character and moral courage.It was not the same as what I saw in my father's time! With the years, it is slowly getting dog-eared!

Today, owing to the pressures of the socio economic environment, things are so weird that I am astounded!

If suitcases decide our country's fate and that is India, why pounce on me? Sibu Soren is your hero, so be it.

Let live in my dreams of what was India. It is the India that I love best. Keep your suitcase to yourself!