Pakistan arms sales, ops, doctrine, etc

[Aditya G]

PAF No. 2 sqn was previously operating F-7Ps.

PAF Masroor is at Karachi, so it is expected to have a maritime role.

[Austin]

FAS: Pakistani Nuclear Forces, 2015

http://fas.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/ ... -FINAL.pdf

[nachiket]

...If you think weak leaders detract from it, then elect strong ones. That's it. That's all we can do.

MMS etc making strong statements and turning other cheek on border firing, on being pro-Pak, as versus Modi speaking little but giving Pakistan a proper slap as required.

I'd say the "signalling" is then fairly obvious.

This is not about Modi or MMS per se. There could be a UPA or Mahaghatbandhan sarkar after 4 years. We all know that there are varying sorts of opinions in the GoI establishment, and given the committee type decision making system there is a chance that the Prime Minister may be advised against Massive Retaliation (MR), and hence may not press ahead with it.

We also have to consider our second strike capability here. We have a 100 odd warheads and an unknown number of missiles. With a limited arsenal, the only two responses to any sort of nuclear strike is either massive retaliation where every major city in Pakistan is targeted or no response at all. We don't have the luxury of wasting precious warheads in limited counter-force strikes. What happens if the pakis retaliate with everything they have and we are now left with insufficient warheads to respond? We don't want to end up in a situation where all of our major cities have swallowed nukes while some of theirs are still standing. So I do believe the govt. when they say massive nuclear retaliation will be our response to any tac nuke strike on our forces. Unless they want to do nothing and face the wrath of Indian people, that is the only thing they can do.

[Aditya G]

Pak MSA has contracted for 6 new ships from China - the so called Maritime Patrol Vessels (MPV). These are going to ~500 tons.

Their current fleet is in dismal situation, probably fishermen can outrun them:

http://www.pc.gov.pk/wp-content/uploads ... 5/PC-1.pdf

...

At present, surface fleet of PMSA is comprised of 04 x Corvettes
of Chinese origin. These corvettes were procured in 1989-1990 and have been
assigned to patrol, navigate and protect around 240,000 Sq km of our EEZ, which
corresponds to 60,000 Sq km area per corvette, translating to 6000 hours of nonstop
patrolling. Being of old vintage, less tonnage and draught, these vessels are not
capable to operate beyond Sea State 3. The rough sea conditions results in heavy
wear and tear of material. In view, it is pertinent to mention that existing corvettes have
outlived their life and recurring defects have been hampering PMSA to pursue its
assigned roles and tasks

...

(2) High POL consumption and speed limitation have led to limited
endurance. This is hindering PMSA to undertake patrolling/ surveillance of vast
area of responsibility i.e 240,000 Sq km of Pakistan EEZ.
(3) Due old machinery, maximum speed of existing PMSA Corvettes have
been limited to 10 knots which is hampering PMSA to undertake assigned roles
and tasks in befitting manner. New ships will not have such speed limitation and
will increase PMSA capabilities to undertake high speed operations on high
seas:

....
Due to limited sea worthy
capabilities of existing PMSA Corvettes, PMSA is unable to operate at sea in entire
monsoon season. Keeping in view current security situation in Pakistan, exploitation of
said deficiency in monsoon season by terrorists cannot be ruled out. Therefore any
delay in induction of new ships which will be able to operate at sea in monsoon season
may have devastating effects on Pakistan

....

In total I have 19 ships on order by PN and PMSA:

02 Fast Attack Craft (Missile) - a further 2 may be constructed later on
08 'Global Response Cutter'
02 Landing Craft Mechanized
06 Maritime Patrol Vessel
01 Fleet Tanker

I dont think the 8 SSKs are signed off yet.

These acquisitions do not address the looming retirement of the Type-21 frigates, one of which (PNS Badr) has already been retired. I doubt PN will be in a position to contract any big ticket surface combatant till the submarine deal is sorted. This is unless US decides to give more OHP frigates, which can be neatly upgraded with large missile systems due to the size of the ship.

[sarang]

A question raises from the PDF,

The table in PDF shows all weapons are of 12KT (its weird though that Pakistanis dont have bigger bums), how much is destructive power of that size of weapon.

[shiv]

A question raises from the PDF,

The table in PDF shows all weapons are of 12KT (its weird though that Pakistanis dont have bigger bums), how much is destructive power of that size of weapon.

1. From Footnote 2 on that table:

2 Yield estimate is based on the maximum yield measured in the 1998 nuclear tes

2. From page 3 of the pdf:

That yield estimate accords with recorded yields of Pakistan's 1998 nuclear tests, which are somewhere between 5 and 12 kt

12kt is Hiroshima size. Pakis themselves say that Nasr is 0.5 to 5 kt. I would say it will be 0.2 to 0.5 kt

Have you seen my "educational purposes" video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxJvLNrZzdU

[shiv]

Same tank - whole and after dissection. Interesting comparison - esp turret

[tsarkar]

Ah, there is no armour inside the panels, just a façade like a false ceiling. Unless the armour was scavenged later like the optics.

[Austin]

^^ Could be spaced armour as well to defeat HESH/HEAT

Spaced armor (one layer up front, to set off the warhead, and
one layer a ways back, to give the jet time to defocus, without
having to carry the extra mass of armor in the in-between space)
is somewhat effective against HEAT. Almost all modern MBT's have
spaced armor, and almost all the rest are refitted with reactive
(explosive) armor. To counter these counters, some countries have
devised dual-warhead HEAT munitions (ie, one warhead to penetrate
the outer layer, and the other on a slight time-delay to penetrate
the inner layer). The Hellfire missile, carried by the Apache and
some other US platforms, is a dual-warhead HEAT munition.

[shiv]

Is it really spaced armour or decoration?

This one has additional spaced armour outside:


This one has additional reactive armour - which is weird

[shiv]

More images - they are all of the same tank as far as I can tell all killed by Taliban in Swat 1989 I think acc to Longwar journal. It's a T-59 inside the shell

[Aditya G]

M1 abrams from Iraq, with similar damage.



Layered composite armour with spaces

[VinodTK]

Have you seen my "educational purposes" video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxJvLNrZzdU

+++ Very good

[RoyG]

Shiv,

I was playing around with Nukemap. .5kt is perfect for usage in Balochistan. You're looking at 70-80% mortality between 400m-1km. Below 170m is close to 100%. Fallout on Punjab will be close to nothing.

[shiv]

Shiv,

I was playing around with Nukemap. .5kt is perfect for usage in Balochistan. You're looking at 70-80% mortality between 400m-1km. Below 170m is close to 100%. Fallout on Punjab will be close to nothing.

Interesting.

One of the things Saddam was accused of (probably rightly) was the use of Chemical weapons against Kurds. Saddam was not removed for that because NATO ally Turkey does not like Kurds either. Saddam was removed on a fake nuke accusation.

In the case of Pakistan the usual powers - US and China will deny that nuclear weapons have been used. Pakis will fence off the area and no one will be wiser. Maybe I should make up a story about this . Gives me an idea ..

[Aditya G]

Snippet from an article, which may explain why TNW makes sense to Pakis.

If they nuke Indian armour which is on Paki soil, they can claim that they nuked themselves only.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2015/11 ... and-debts/

.....Castrate Pakistan’s nuclear programme and weapons, especially tactical, because they are a clear and present danger to the Indian army from making any ingress into Pakistan in a conventional war that will negate their ‘Cold Start’ doctrine. We can nuke it in the small area they have entered in Pakistan and claim that we nuked our own land, not someone else’s....

[NRao]

If they nuke Indian armour which is on Paki soil, they can claim that they nuked themselves only.

The quote claims nuking their own land, not their own people.

[Guddu]

A question raises from the PDF,

The table in PDF shows all weapons are of 12KT (its weird though that Pakistanis dont have bigger bums), how much is destructive power of that size of weapon.

1. From Footnote 2 on that table:

2 Yield estimate is based on the maximum yield measured in the 1998 nuclear tes

2. From page 3 of the pdf:

That yield estimate accords with recorded yields of Pakistan's 1998 nuclear tests, which are somewhere between 5 and 12 kt

12kt is Hiroshima size. Pakis themselves say that Nasr is 0.5 to 5 kt. I would say it will be 0.2 to 0.5 kt

Have you seen my "educational purposes" video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxJvLNrZzdU

So Shiv, what I don't understand is that the pakis also know this, why would they do something so stupid. Its also not clear to me, why they spent time and effort developing it ? What am I missing ?

[sarang]

Thanks Shiv

[shiv]

So Shiv, what I don't understand is that the pakis also know this, why would they do something so stupid. Its also not clear to me, why they spent time and effort developing it ? What am I missing ?

There are several plausible explanations some of which have been discussed on the "Deterrence" thread in the other forum.

One possibility is that the Pakis (rationally, like everyone else) do not actually want to get into a nuclear war, but want to somehow scare India into not responding because of fear of Pakistan's nukes. The history of this attitude is not old - it is post 1999-2002.

The Kargil war was started at a time when the Pakis openly said that India will not be able to respond effectively because of Paki nukes. They were wrong - but after the 2002 mobilization India felt that the Indian response time was too slow. So India started throwing balloons in the air using words like "Cold start" - saying it and denying it while at the same time preparing for it, with the threat of massive retaliation if Pakistan tried nuclear blackmail

This forced Pakis into a corner; and they responded saying that they have tactical nukes and that they will respond to Cold Start like scenarios with tactical nukes. By saying this Pakis were telling us, "If you try cold start we will stop you in your tracks with small nukes inside Pakistan - doing damage mainly to your forces, and they your politicians cannot use that as an excuse to nuke the shit out of Pakistan". In other words Pakistan was saying
1. We will use small nukes on our territory so you can't claim India has been nuked
2. You will not be able to respond to that by massive retaliation
3. We will stop your attack that way and not get nuked by you
4. We will continue to use terrorism against you successfully by such means

India's response has not changed. We are saying simply "If you use big nukes against us or small nukes, use them inside your own territory or not, you can expect to have the shit nuked out of you. You will not escape"

As I wrote elsewhere on this forum - so far it is a game - and exchange of ideas of what each side says they will do. To repeat what I said - how will we know who is "winning" this game? If Pakistan continues dastardly terror attacks then it means that they are not taking us seriously. But if terror attacks tail off then they are concerned about our threat.

Other possible explanations are as RoyG said the tactical nukes will be used on their own people in Baluchistan or Sindh if a Bangladesh like situation arises which their real worry.

Another explanation is that their nukes are all small yield anyway and this is simply creative use of small nukes

Yet another possibility is that this whole "tactical nuke" business is a bluff. This is a definite possibility because it is not easy to get a good bang out of a small diameter nuke.

[shiv]

Several other problems exist regarding "tactical nukes". I could ask people to read about the technical details of small nukes - there is a lot of information out there - but there is so much info that it is easy to get muddled. I actually spent years after 1999 collecting info - I am not saying I am an expert but I do have some general idea of what info is out there.

It is not easy to make small tactical nuclear bombs. they require a very high degree of technical sophistication to make them work and the really small "less than 30 cm/12 inches" diameter ones have had very small yield of less than 1 kiloton. And despite these small yields they use up as much or more nuclear material than bigger bombs. the analogy is like lighting a campfire on a wet and windy day. It does not matter whether you want to light a small fire or a big one - you will use up a lot of matches.

After making such a nuke how do you ensure that it does not blow up in your hands. Beyond that how do you ensure that if you put a Major in charge of a battery of 4 Nasr mijjiles with tactical nukes and the man finds his life under threat - say from an intense Indian artillery bombardment of advancing Indian tanks, how can you stop him from firing off his nukes and starting nuclear war? Bluff is one thing but what if the Indian baniyas are not bluffing?

Finally if your own soldiers are bearded guys who have friends in the unofficial army the Lashkar e Toiba or LeJanghvi etc - a battery of Nasr missiles may simply vanish and be taken to hit the Kafir Americans who are killing our Muslim brothers in Syria. In fact I would be happy to see all this happening - but these are things that scare the crap out of the US. From the US viewpoint it may be OK to hit India, but if the nukes turn the other way there is a problem. But the US cannot be relied upon to control Pakis so hopefully a few Paki nukes will escape and turn towards Europe and maybe inshallah a couple turned against tarrel than mountain fliends of China.

The dilemma here is that if Pakis put tactical nukes on hair trigger alert - then all the above problems arise. if they keep them secure they the Pakis may not be able to use them in time if and when India decides to do a quick cold start style retaliation.

No. Pakis don't have it easy either. they are not going to get away lightly no matter how they fulminate

[vasu raya]

But the US cannot be relied upon to control Pakis so hopefully a few Paki nukes will escape and turn towards Europe and maybe inshallah a couple turned against tarrel than mountain fliends of China.

The dilemma here is that if Pakis put tactical nukes on hair trigger alert - then all the above problems arise. if they keep them secure they the Pakis may not be able to use them in time if and when India decides to do a quick cold start style retaliation.

a little short circuit such as the above one is a good possibility if China were to do fence sitting as it was before in the Indo-Pak wars, setting off a reaction between India and China works for both Paki's and US advantage

with such limited geography tracing the source of a nuke attack is important, is there a tell tale signature for dirty nukes?

[Lalmohan]

yes, the isotopic composition can be used to identify the source

[member_29190]

A good reference of how big ( or small?) 1kt nukes blast is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiM-RzPHyGs

There was another video on another 1kt test as well. Could not find it.

[member_29190]

It is not easy to make small tactical nuclear bombs. they require a very high degree of technical sophistication to make them work and the really small "less than 30 cm/12 inches" diameter ones have had very small yield of less than 1 kiloton. And despite these small yields they use up as much or more nuclear material than bigger bombs. the analogy is like lighting a campfire on a wet and windy day. It does not matter whether you want to light a small fire or a big one - you will use up a lot of matches.

This is what my impression has been. It is quite difficult to make a small tactical nuke. Even if you get the fissile material correct, how about the other elements like the amount of explosive required to trigger the actual fission?

I think the whole Pak Tact nuke business is their stragetic nukes blast power is of tact nukes. They are potentially talking about their Pu based stragetic assest.

Finally if your own soldiers are bearded guys who have friends in the unofficial army the Lashkar e Toiba or LeJanghvi etc - a battery of Nasr missiles may simply vanish and be taken to hit the Kafir Americans who are killing our Muslim brothers in Syria. In fact I would be happy to see all this happening - but these are things that scare the crap out of the US. From the US viewpoint it may be OK to hit India, but if the nukes turn the other way there is a problem. But the US cannot be relied upon to control Pakis so hopefully a few Paki nukes will escape and turn towards Europe and maybe inshallah a couple turned against tarrel than mountain fliends of China.

This is where i am a great supporter of more nukes for Pak. Specially sub based. Nothing like a Pak nuke sub on the loose. Would for example Israel trust a PN nuke sub in a sea near it?

[shiv]

Even if you get the fissile material correct, how about the other elements like the amount of explosive required to trigger the actual fission?

Everything is possible - but keeping the diameter down under 40 cm and weight down under 500 kg is difficult. That means bigger missiles or aircraft. They could make a truck sized bomb and simply drive the truck towards an attacking force. I wouldn't put it past the Pakis to do that. Available reading material says that the easiest is a Hiroshima type device with a 50 kg lump of enriched Uranium divided into two parts and one part - a bullet fired into another part with a hole. That device will fit only into a truck and unless shielded with a ton of lead will be radiating like the sun. And machining Uranium to get 50 kg will waste another 25 kg just like "making waste" that jewellers account for. And Pu and Uranium are much much much more expensive than Gold. I don't know exactly but we may be talking 100 times more expensive than gold. In fact Pakis could use gold shielding rather than lead and not notice the increase in IMF loans they need to do that.

[shiv]

Cross post:

Somebody must have taken away Gobar's whiskey bottle. Because he is writing sensibly, for once.

Behold the ‘beauty’ of democracy: death by a thousand debts

This is just my conjecture, but I think that the quid pro quos are obvious:

• Castrate Pakistan’s nuclear programme and weapons, especially tactical, because they are a clear and present danger to the Indian army from making any ingress into Pakistan in a conventional war that will negate their ‘Cold Start’ doctrine. We can nuke it in the small area they have entered in Pakistan and claim that we nuked our own land, not someone else’s. If we agree to this the explosion could come even before the economic meltdown reaches our kitchens.
• Ease up on our friendship with China and budding relationship with Russia.
• Come into India’s orbit of influence and let them deal with Afghanistan, the Indian Ocean and the neighbourhood.
• And, of course, help America in Afghanistan. But America seems confused: it simultaneously tells us to kill the Afghan Taliban and at the same time to bring them to the negotiating table, a crass contradiction. Then they also say that the Afghan Taliban are their partners in peace. Most confusing. Make up your minds, friends. Know what you want. Do you?

[vasu raya]

yes, the isotopic composition can be used to identify the source

thank you, I had Aksai Chin in mind when talking about limited geography.

Aren't the number of isotopes for U or Pu a very small set? if its the composition then a dirty nuke doesn't spew it in a uniform manner so sampling is probably done in the debris cloud, drones seem to be very useful for such data collection. Local made Nishant seems to be at the receiving end though even if it can be made NBC capable

if forest fires over areas spanning multiple square kilometers can be fought by aerial means, can a debris cloud be collapsed to the ground by the same technique to reduce its footprint?

[RoyG]

Shiv,

I was playing around with Nukemap. .5kt is perfect for usage in Balochistan. You're looking at 70-80% mortality between 400m-1km. Below 170m is close to 100%. Fallout on Punjab will be close to nothing.

Interesting.

One of the things Saddam was accused of (probably rightly) was the use of Chemical weapons against Kurds. Saddam was not removed for that because NATO ally Turkey does not like Kurds either. Saddam was removed on a fake nuke accusation.

In the case of Pakistan the usual powers - US and China will deny that nuclear weapons have been used. Pakis will fence off the area and no one will be wiser. Maybe I should make up a story about this . Gives me an idea ..

I was thinking the same thing too. This is getting interesting. Imagine if set those suckers to airburst. Not even a blip on the seismic readings. Satellites may read it as a large conventional explosive. Chinese would begin pushing their troops toward the Karakorum pass and push a huge naval battle group through Malacca to secure the ports and checkmate anything coming out of Diego Garcia. After 1-2 weeks the full effects of radiation sickness in the countryside will begin to take its toll. Taking out a few villages and towns will be enough to get ordinary balochis to sh*t bricks and start ratting out the insurrectionists. The PA will get some breathing room and regain deployment flexibility and shift more troops to other provinces and the Eastern border.

The world finds out the truth 3-4 weeks later but by then it's too late. The PA is in full control, India is calmer than a hindu cow as usual, and the Chinese are parked outside.

The PA blames the attack on a few "rogue" elements and promises to purge them. 3-4 months later Paki eggspurt CFaire publishes her usual rant on NYT or some other BS print stating how we shouldn't give them more aid and how they actually purged more of the lower ranking non-punjabi guys.

Oh and I forgot, Cfaire would be accurate in her assessment. After a full blown civil war the Punjabis would rid their officer corp of whatever few Balochis they have. Simply untrustworthy.

[RoyG]

I think when it comes to nuclear weapons use wrt Paki doctrine, we forget that everything outside of Punjab is a threat to Islam. I'm surprised that this angle hasn't been explored more in the public sphere. Like Shiv said, the Pakistanis know they're going to get their sh*t pushed in if they use it on us. If that were the case why not just make a full fledged weapon and stick to counter value? You'll be killing more hindus that way. There is no escalation ladder, and they know it! A .5-1 kt weapon over our strike or pivot corp taking out maybe 5-10 tanks and ~500-1000 men. What kind of idiotic strategy is this?

[shiv]

I was thinking the same thing too. This is getting interesting. Imagine if set those suckers to airburst. Not even a blip on the seismic readings. Satellites may read it as a large conventional explosive. Chinese would begin pushing their troops toward the Karakorum pass and push a huge naval battle group through Malacca to secure the ports and checkmate anything coming out of Diego Garcia. After 1-2 weeks the full effects of radiation sickness in the countryside will begin to take its toll. Taking out a few villages and towns will be enough to get ordinary balochis to sh*t bricks and start ratting out the insurrectionists. The PA will get some breathing room and regain deployment flexibility and shift more troops to other provinces and the Eastern border.

The world finds out the truth 3-4 weeks later but by then it's too late. The PA is in full control, India is calmer than a hindu cow as usual, and the Chinese are parked outside.

The PA blames the attack on a few "rogue" elements and promises to purge them. 3-4 months later Paki eggspurt CFaire publishes her usual rant on NYT or some other BS print stating how we shouldn't give them more aid and how they actually purged more of the lower ranking non-punjabi guys.

Perfect.

In fact - for the hypocritical P5 it would be very very inconvenient if they admitted that Pakis have used a nuke on their own people because that would send all the wrong signals to nations that oppose the P5 and expose their loss of monopoly. It would be much better to pretend that reports Pakistan's use of nukes are a vicious lie.

[Viv S]

Pakistan to stick with RD-93 engine for JF-17, say PAF officials

Reuben F Johnson, Dubai - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly

18 November 2015



A Pakistan Air Force JF-17 Thunder making the type's first European display at the Paris Air Show on 15 June. Source: IHS/Patrick Allen


The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) has no plans to replace the JF-17 fighter's Klimov/Sarkisov RD-93 powerplant despite Chinese suggestions otherwise, according to Pakistan Air Force (PAF) officials.

While several, non-specific statements have been made by representatives from Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) during the past few months, a PAC senior representative recently told IHS Jane's , "We are completely satisfied with this Russian-made engine.

"When we designed the JF-17 we evaluated a number of design alternatives and we determined that the RD-93 in this single-engine installation is absolutely right for this application," he said. "We worked extensively with the people from Klimov bureau in St Petersburg [Russia] and this engine turned out to be an ideal solution."

PAC representatives added that the next step is to establish a full-scale servicing and overhaul facility for the RD-93 at their plant in Kamra.

"What does this tell you?" asked one programme officer rhetorically. "If the situation was as it has been portrayed at times - that we are just utilising the RD-93 as a temporary solution until the Chinese can 'save' us with their own new engine - then we would not be expending the resources to set up this overhaul base. For us, changing to another engine would not make any sense and would be disruptive and cause a huge expense for the JF-17 programme."

PAF officials told IHS Jane's at the 2015 Dubai Air Show that improvements to the JF-17's design and the reliability of the RD-93 have attracted a number of interested parties.

"The experience at [the Paris Airshow in] Le Bourget brought about 11-12 countries that approached us with some interest in a JF-17 acquisition," said one of the officials. "Out of all of those there are today some four or five customers that we regard as being serious prospects in the near term." PAC representatives declined to name any of those countries, however.

[Austin]

So what happened to the famed Chinese engine WS-10 that was suppose to replace Russian one , looks like it didn't make the cut

[RoyG]

So what happened to the famed Chinese engine WS-10 that was suppose to replace Russian one , looks like it didn't make the cut

Say what you want about them. They have more pride in their products than we do. The PAF is serious about the aircraft and want to push it to its limits.

[Singha]

WS-13 was the analogue of RD-93.

and RoyG is perfectly right. PAF and PAC are working in sync to improve and deploy it in huge numbers. here our DM literally has to use a stick to make people fall grudgingly in line behind the Tejas.

[Y I Patel]

Some thoughts on the current state of Zarb e Azb and Pakistan's efforts against the Baaad Taliban.

* Let's begin with the Swat operation that they tout as a success story of clear and hold doctrine. The may be holding, but they have not cleared. The most prominent example of this is none other than Malala Yousufzai, who got hit in 2012 a full two years or so after the "successful" operation. Current reports keep talking about targeted assassinations by TeT, so even in the case of Swat the situation is far from stable. And all of that was before the earthquake. International press is very silent on this because no aid agencies were allowed into the region, but the few reports there are speak of heavy devastation in the Swat region. And IDPs are still in the millions

*ZeA is now slated to go on until 2019. "The Roar of the Stuffed Lions" by Ayaz Amir is a useful piece that gives a limited peek into the true goings on. Apparently there were intense operations in the Tirah and Shawal valleys with heavy casualties to the Pak Army. In this case as for such operations in general, the trick is not to search for Zarb e Azb but to search for other strings such as Tirah Valley etc. Looking directly at the object makes it fade in all the BS being printed about ZeA. Old trick of trying to decipher things - when in dark, the best way to spot something is to not look at it directly. Apparently the Pak Army operations are at the root of some of the current tensions between the two Sharifs. Can't figure out more though

* It is easy to find reports of PAF bombing terrorists in North Waziristan right into November. Apparently F-16s being put to heavy use. This seems to indicate that the Army operations were not as effective as advertised. Again, what damage did the earthquake do? Terrorists are not as dependent on regular infrastructure, and for a limited amount of time a regular army can rough it out. But in winter, among those mountains? Pak Army is under great strain, and it will not lessen over the coming several months

* Already one report of desertions from their Frontier Corps. No reports, obviously, on the morale in Pak Army. But then, sometimes silence speaks more loudly than words

* Very very importantly, reports of ISIS in Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan. Where is Nangarhar, pray tell? Right across the Durand line form North Waziristan. There is a report out there that talks about standard Islamic infiltration tactics - groups claiming to be from Pak side sought shelter as guests, then started slowly taking over. Now ISIS is in control right across the border from the most sensitive area in Pak.

What happened in Vietnam is that Kissinger used double entry bookkeeping to illegally divert bomber sorties to Cambodia. Christopher Hitchens thought that Kissinger should have been tried as a war criminal for bombing innocent farmers in a neutral country. This was done to interdict the Vietcong using the border region to infiltrate into South Vietnam. The net effect of this was to push the insurgents deep into other areas of Cambodia where they initially had no presence or support, and eventually led to the rise of Khmer Rouge. In the last few years (say 2009 onwards) Pak has become semi serious about dealing with its Frankenstein. But their solution has been to push the terrorists out of the problematic NWFP areas and hope that most of them end up in Afghanistan. But there is nothing to stop them from going eastwards, is there? Areas east of Sindhu still have terrorist production factories going full steam. So far, the Maulana Maududi inspired JeI led movements have managed to stick to Pakistani Deep State agenda, but for how long? The tinderbox is dry and full, and when it explodes it will make Syria look like a picnic.

[deejay]

^^^ I hope we have a double layered fencing on our Western border. Because, if your forecast is right, the Pakis will not stay for as long as the Syrians did. Pakis have hereditary experience in upping and becoming refugees. Also, their numbers are very large when compared to Syria and Iraq. I don't see them running to Afghanistan. Europe and Americas aren't so keen on taking refugees anymore and Pakis are being sent back to accommodate the Syrians. Chinese have tall Himalayas and deep oceans to protect them from Pakis.

There is just one place where they will run - India. They won't all run to us if we are also part of the forces attacking them. Our goal should be to help them migrate West of Indus and not Eastwards. Let them kill and bomb each other.

God Speed your forecast - AoA!

[Paul]

YIP, coming back to the question of Pak army reserves, why have they not built a force like the RR to take on the TTP and return the reserves to their peacetime locations?

It cannot be just lack of money. They are building a separate unit to protect the Chinese workforce for CPEC. Have they made something separate but is not paying off. Or is it the frontier corps that is supposed to take on the TTP and is not pulling its weight.

[rkhanna]

WHy have the Pakis not built a force like the RR to take on the TTP and return the reserves to their peacetime locations?

Apparently they are now. Read elsehwere on a Pak Fora that AAR after 4 odd years of fighting have shown the Regular PA grunt performed poorly with SSG having to be called in far more frequently then needed. Supposedly now each Regiment will have a 'Commando Battalion' geared towards COIN ops. Also the Frontier Force has stood up a "Special Operations Wing" with American Help for COIN.

As for Why they havnt returned to peacetime locations?. IMO the paki offensive while technically a Domestic Counter Insurgency Operations for all practical purposes is pretty much a full blow War for them. The Terrain / People are all alien to the Punjabi Pak Army. The NWFP is territory they have never been in before or operated out of in the past. It's pretty much being treated as an invasion of a foreign country. The NWFP might as well be Afghanistan. They are using MBTs, F-16s and Attack Helos in their fight.

[Philip]

Adit,tx for the pic of the destroyed M-1 ,esp. its composite armour. Any idea what did the damage to it? An ATGM,tank munition or IED?