vina wrote:Ladkah is a high plateau. But how do you get tanks with sufficient armour to withstand mobile anti tank weapons up there ? So a light tank wont cut it. If you finesse it and say T-72, well, if you deploy a 40 ton tank, you can deploy the Arjun as well .. Frankly, this entire T-72 class upwards tank in Laddhak is a no starter..
Unfortunately, unless you suggest dismantling the Arjun at 58 tonnes before loading it on the IL-76 with a maximum carrying capacity of ~45 tonnes, I am afraid the statement of comparing the Arjun and T-72 airborne deployments does not hold.
You will have to send in the Arjun with one flight carrying the turret, and another aircraft bringing in the hull. You would also have to assemble the two after landing in say, Leh. Bringing them out for redeployment is even more of a hassle, given the limitations on take-off at high altitudes.
Based on this idea, if the Army says the Arjun has a mobility problem as agianst the T-series tanks, they are not lying. The Army has had a lot of experience in relatively rapide deployments of the T-series tanks. It can be readily appreciated that they are looking at the Arjun as a liability as far as this particular aspect is concerned. Whether the Arjun brings in a better capability for that extra effort is another matter altogether.
As for Arunachal, tanks there are ridiculous... My grand father served in Tezpur areas in 1962 (also in Akhnoor in 1965)... I never heard him or his pals saying anything about tanks in NEFA (as that place was called back then). All of them said that the chinese manned the ridges and were shooting down, while the Injuns were fighting uphill in difficult terrain!
With all due respect, the conditions in 1962 and the conditions today are somewhat different. While it is true that in 62 you had the forward policy deployments that forced Army units to occupy politically vital but militarily vulnerable locations, the same is not true today. In 62 the IA was indeed deployed in valleys and such where the Chinese had the elevated positions surrounding them. And we all saw the results of that.
But in the future, if a war is going to be fought there, you can bet that the IA is not going to be the one exposed. The chinese will have to go through valleys and hills with the IA in the elevated positions. Infantry support by static armour is useful in a defensive battle.
Further, with large number of villages and urban centres cropping up in the region, with large mountain roads being built and so forth, the battles are not going to be all in the hills.
Fat lot of good tanks chugging up hill in low gears done you any good. A couple of Chinis hiding in the ridge and using hand held anti tank weapons would have made mincemeat of them.
nobody is suggesting movement along narrow roads during a battle. but a pre-battle deployment to assist a stronghold is better, and required, if I might add, given the numerical superirity of the chinese.
These are not conventional battlefields. And conventional tactics will not survive. I have never appreciated the massively conventional thinking of the IA during those early years. It took a war and thousands of deaths to bring non-conventional thinking to solve this problem. History is good as a reference to past mistakes, but not a manual to future battles.
Read up the experience of the Russians in Afghanistan in the Panjshir valley with massed armor.. (there are hundreds of rusting hulks still lying there) , also , Russian armored assaults on Chechya and Grozny as well (where they were simply massacred).
That is a bad example of poorly executed operations and poor tactics. The use of tanks in the above was not proper and was used as a standalone measure, not a supporting measure for standard Infantry. Lack of coordination and poor training of the relevant tank crews was paramount to the defeat there. Unless you think that the IA is built along the same lines, I would hold back such comparisons.
As for taking tanks into the Tibetan plateau, sure. (if someone even attempted such a fool hardy venture, given the ease of Chini supply lines vs ours). how do you get the tanks there , without securing the mountains to cross? Are you gonna use tanks to do that ?
No, but why would you want to move them across the hills to begin with? What if the
chinese attack
you?
-Vivek