by Ravi Rikhye
5. Each of the new armies is fully motorized or mechanized. In the old army, most everyone walked.
6. The old army was organized for regional defense; for the first time, China has the transportation capability to training to shift armies to where they are needed.
7. The old army, into the first decade of the 21st Century, was equipped mostly with obsolescent equipment, and most formations required a major influx of reservists to bring them to strength, plus lengthy training for combat effectiveness. Much of the force, at 24 and then 18 armies, was of low capability. The new army is increasingly getting up to date equipment, and while it will still need recall of reservists to reach 100- to 110% of strength, it is likely every new army will be manned at 60% to 85% strength. For example, China now has only 1500 T-59s MBTs left in its inventory.
8. The old army had a huge number of reserve formations which lacked the equipment and training to make a useful contribution in modern warfare. The new army integrates active and reserve formations in a way that is not quite equal to the US “One Army” but uses the reserves to give more punch to the active forces. For example, reserve logistics brigades now routinely assist the active army on exercises. During the Doklam confrontation, China activated reserves in Tibet. The Tibet Military District has a reserve infantry brigade.
9. The reserve combat formations will have better equipment compared to the junk they used. China is a long way from equipping reserves just like active duty formations, as done in the US case, but its heading that way. They will also be better trained. An important note: for some years China has been regularly exercising its regulars along with reserve logistics brigades to supplement regular units. It has also been mobilizing civilians who can provide medical care, motor transport, road engineer, and telecommunication units based on civilian structures.
10. The Chinese have adopted the US Stryker Brigade philosophy of entire brigades using 8 x 8 combat vehicles. I am dubious about such units because they are essentially “see and flee” when up against real opposition, but these units could have some utility in Tibet if they are not within sight of Indian armored brigades. The US concept is built on incorrect assumptions, and aside from fighting rag-tag opponents will be near useless in conventional war. At least the US has started upgunning Stryker with 30mm guns, but in a showdown with Russians, Chinese, or North Koreans, the Stryker brigades will be like tin cans. The vehicle with extra ceramic armor plates can handle 14.5mm hits. This vehicle-mounted heavy machine gun is widely used by Russia and its client armies. Now, if the Chinese are to use their light mechanized brigades as group army reconnaissance brigades, there is some point to them. The British are fond of the light reconnaissance role, possibly it nostalgically reminds them of the North African campaign, but the US heavy reconnaissance concept was best. It provided the ability to stand and fight when needed. The US has seen the error of its ways and added one tank company to its heavy brigade reconnaissance battalions. The old ACR had three reconnaissance squadrons battalions, a tank battalion, and an SP artillery battalion. The attraction of the 8 x 8 is that it requires less than a quarter the maintenance of tracks. And it’s a good thing to have for battalion/regimental reconnaissance.
With this admittedly sketchy background on the PLA, hopefully, readers understand that the PLA is certainly not better than the Indian Army, and considerably worse off in many respects. Of course, given the Indian habit of shooting themselves in both feet, hands, and head, unless GOI wakes up and does its job in seriously upping the defense budget, we will be in very serious trouble a short while down the road. This is especially because the Chinese have a clearly defined diplomatic and military doctrine, they know what they want to do, and after years of experimenting, thanks to their vast economic resources, they will buy what they need. It is not going to match the US, but no one can match the US because they love war and are willing to spend the needed money.
The point, put simply, is that if they can send as many corps to Tibet and Sinkiang as they think they need, and that since their units have stepped up real training, and they have the equipment and all the supplies they need, unless we act the gap between the Chinese Army and will close to the point our higher skills won’t help. A simple example. They can fire 1000 medium-range missiles at us, each with a 250-kg to 800-kg warhead, even if half miss, that’s going to cause serious damage to our HQs, airfields, transport nodal points, and supply bases, precisely because we are refusing to invest in anti-missile defense. [The Chinese have added four new missile brigades in the last three years, I don’t have information as to what type; but since China keeps its N-force at stable levels, it is possible some of the new brigade are tactical missile. This will increase the number of missiles they can fire.] Moreover, that’s nice we have a few Brahmos regiments and will likely get more, plus the non-strategic Agnis, but we certainly cannot fire 1000 missiles back, nor do have the reconnaissance/surveillance assets need to neutralize their missile brigades. 1000 missiles are what they can do now. Tomorrow, if they want, including cruise they can do twice as much. Another example. They essentially already have at 24 attack helicopters per corps, 24 transports, and 24 scouts/light helicopters. This will increase to 100 per army, about what the US has per division. Of course, the US divisional combat aviation brigade is a much heavier and of greater sophistication. The US heavy divisions aviation brigade has 48 AH-64, UH-60 types, and 12 CH-47s for a total of 110 machines. What do we have to match? A squadron of 12 junk light helicopters per corps, at least 15-years past last expiry dates, plus 12 Mi-17s from the IAF, and slowly increasing numbers of light attack helicopters to the tune of 12 per corps. That’s 36 per corps, soon 100.
That’s great we now have three armored brigades for the north. But the notion we will be able to shift Pakistan-committed armored/mechanized brigades to the northern front falls under the category of magical thought, and I’ll explain this in detail. Any day of the week, our mechanized troops are twice as good as theirs. But they will have 12, 18, 24 heavy brigades. Are we four, six, eight times as good? Obviously not. They will bring as much armor as they need by rail. What will we do? Send our imaginary brigades via our imaginary rail-lines?
Chinese Army Logistics
Logistics were primitive, and a weak point in the army’s capability. Since about 2010, however, a major push for improvement has been underway. [206]
Now the Chinese are at the stage expected for the Indian Army. For example, when on deployment, local militia units were to feed the troops, and the quality of the food in terms of nutrition was low. Now the army uses modern field kitchens. The army logistics brigade holds the main capability and provides support down to brigade level, though the new Combined Arms Brigade does have a maintenance company in its logistics battalion.
A development that I have long advocated for the Indian Army with no results is taking place in China: tracked logistic vehicles with onboard cranes. This allows POL, ammunition, and other deliveries right up front, without concern for the state of the roads. Medevac is by armored tracked vehicles, and the Chinese use the usual 4-tier system: battalion, brigade, army, and general hospital. With the increase in tracked and wheeled vehicles, maintenance has become an issue and China is responding appropriately.
Engineer vehicles such as bulldozers for obstacle breaching/creation and mine line charge projectors are in use.
China now has a joint logistics force, but caution is suggested. Declaring one has such a force is a long way from making it work properly.
For more details on Chinese military changes, read Saunders and Wuthnow. [207], [208]
9. Comparing the Armies
9.1 Strategic style
9.2 India
9.3 A brief overview of land balances
9.4 Pakistan
9.5 Tactical Style: Fazilka and Poonch 1971
9.1 Strategic Style
The three potential belligerents have different strategic styles but share some common features. (a) None is of a ‘fight-to-
the-death mindsets; they realize that the costs of war can far exceed any rational benefit. China and India’s existence is not at stake in the event of war, so they will work to limit war. Pakistan’s situation is somewhat different. Because of its lack of depth, its existence is threatened in a war with India. An Indian offensive that reaches the line of the River Indus effectively ends Pakistan. The loss of Sindh alone would diminish Pakistan; yet, India should understand that Pakistan Punjab by itself will be one of the world’s most populated states. It will have a 2017 population of 110-million, and an area of 205,000-km2, putting it in 10th position after Russia in population, and 79th in the area after Great Britain. Nonetheless, China will certainly not stand-by if India makes major headway.
Pakistan’s claim against India is limited to Kashmir, and vice versa. While India would like to straighten out the Shakergarh salient to provide for a firmer defense of south Kashmir, India will not be able to hold on to any other territory it might conquer because we have no legitimate claim to it. Pakistan might like to capture Indian Gurdaspur, and Fazilka districts, which it believed were stolen from it by Mountbatten (which is untrue, not that it matters) since it accepted the Radcliffe line it has no further legal claim. It might be stated that Pakistan has no legal claim to Kashmir either because under the terms of Partition the ruler of a kingdom could choose which side he wanted, subject to contiguity. Which, just to bore readers to death was not a requisite under the Partition of India Act 1947 but cooked up by Mountbatten and Nehru. Since I am a “possession is 10-10ths of the law” person, what Nehru and Mountbatten did is of no interest. Further, I believe Partition was illegal under the UN 1944 Human Rights Convention. And the Viceroy did have very wide powers, and probably could have argued successfully that he could not leave behind two Balkanized states. But whether we like it or not, Pakistan has a very strong moral claim, because of Junagarh. India took Junagarh because, it said, a Muslim ruler could not decide for a Hindu majority. That seems reasonable, except India should have followed the same principle in Kashmir. I suspect had Pakistan not made the mistake of attacking Kashmir aiming to annex it, a Kashmir election would have decided for Pakistan, and I believe Nehru would have honored the people’s verdict. This is just a historical note; I have found no Indian under the age of 80 who has much interest in the history part of modern India’s greatest tragedy.
Pakistan has the means only for a short war. We should appreciate, however, that with China in the picture, material is no longer an issue. And please no one say that we’ll close the Karakoram Highway by air attack, because China will blockade India by sea, continuing to supply Pakistan while blocking our sea-lanes. Pakistan is mentally conditioned to short wars, as is India. The 30-year phase of the Kashmir war 1987-2018 is a long war but sustained by Pakistan only because it costs, probably, <$100-million/year as a direct cost, and a few score annual casualties. These anyway occur in cross-border firing independent of the infiltration issue.
India has convinced itself a war will not be longer than 7-10 days before foreign intervention arrives. Since nothing can be achieved in so short a time, perhaps we should ask GOI what is the point of war as a national security tool. Perhaps we should fully disarm, and whenever there is a problem with Pakistan, we can challenge them to a step-dancing contest or a pillow fight. How about backward races in high-heels? Endless possibilities.
9.2 India
This is a very brief survey of how casually we treat our military crises.
1947-48: we didn’t have enough troops to retake Pakistan Occupied Kashmir; the government did expand army by 120,000 in 4-years. But we had maybe 1-million veterans demobilized 1945-1947. No one thought of calling 180,000 men immediately for six more divisions so that in 1949 we could have won the war. Indeed, GOI knowingly against its own interest, put things in the UN hands. Since Pakistan refused to heed the UN and did not leave Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, that ended the matter. And gave the ever-legalistic Indians an excuse to postpone the referendum. Good job, as always, Pakistan messing things up for itself. We aren’t the brightest lamps in the store; thank goodness Pakistan is even dimmer.
1959-62: The Army repeatedly told GOI that we had insufficient troops to support forward policy and that six more divisions were needed. GOI authorized one division extra. The Army was at fault too, but the Prime Minister had told the Army that he was handling China policy, that there was no threat from China, and that they were not to question him on China. At one stage the three service chiefs were ready to resign, the Prime Minister emotionally blackmailed the Army Chief to withdraw the paper because a resignation would make the PM look bad, after which there was no point in the air and naval chiefs handing in their papers. No comment is required on how that war ended up.
1965 Spring. In the Rann of Kutch, we made no headway against Pakistan and had to agree to British-led negotiations. Can there be anything more humiliating than turning to your former colonial master for help against a country a fifth your size and economy? If GOI/Parliament felt humiliated, they’ve managed to keep it secret from the historical record.
1965 Late Summer. One smart thing the Army did was not withdraw the formations it mobilized in case the Kutch crisis escalated. Also, thanks to the post-1962 buildup, which was only partially complete, for once India had solid numerical superiority. So, when Pakistan invaded Kashmir, even though it is declared a policy that an attack on Kashmir is an attack on India, we confined ourselves to fighting back only in Kashmir. Had Pakistan not rashly attacked us in Chaamb, we would not have expanded the war, and after the last Pakistani raider was captured, would have sat on our hands and not punished Pakistan for its aggression. When we did attack, within a week, we are imploring the US to persuade Pakistan to accept a ceasefire because we were fearful China would attack. India the Brave and the Bold we were not.
1967 Nathu La. Very well handled by the Army, but only after GOC 17th Division refused to obey orders to withdraw his troops to the next defense line. 27th Division did follow orders. Regardless, GOC XXXIII Corps and GOC Eastern Command were quick enough to reverse course and support their division commander. Was it a coincidence, perhaps, that these three generals in 1971 were primarily responsible for the East Pakistan victory? I don’t think so.
1971 The plan was to attack in the west and the east. 48-hrs before the western offensive was to jump off, on direct orders from the Prime Minister, the western offensive was canceled because the Soviets working with the US have accepted East Pakistan will be gone, but India was not to be allowed to recover Kashmir and destroy Pakistan forces. USSR and US bluffed India: the US had zero interest in a real intervention against India. India had already gone wobbly when the Soviets told us to forget the western offensive when the US ordered TF 77 to the Indian Ocean we totally collapsed.
1984 We started the job to win back a big chunk of the Northern Areas, Mrs. Gandhi went wobbly even before the operation began and forced Army to limit itself to Siachin. Leaving us going nowhere.
1986-87 We are ready to take back North Kashmir and should Pakistan retaliate in the West, to go on the offensive there too. The US learned what we are up to, came down on us, the operations are aborted.
1987-1990 Sri Lanka. The less said, the better. Please to notice that Mrs. Gandhi wanted to keep the US from Sri Lanka. No problem, US merely got her son to intervene and do the US bidding. We gained nothing, and today China is busy taking over the country.
1999 Kargil. The US tells us not to escalate; it will handle things. It does. It gets Pakistan out, saving the country and its military yet again.
2001-02 We mobilize. We sit. The US tells us not to do anything, Washington will sort things out. It does so by immobilizing us and saving Pakistan.
2008 This time we don’t even bother mobilizing, we let the US take care of things. Which the US does, denying access – forget extradition – of the main planner, a US citizen of Pakistani origin. The US says it wants him because of the murders of a handful of its citizens. We had 20-
times more citizens killed; instead of standing up for our rights and demanding custody, we meekly say nothing.
2016 We make the smallest possible strike against Kashmir based terrorists, after getting the US okay. We kill 30 odd mercenaries and 2-3 Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan continues its low-level war against India.
2017 Doklam: we claim victory to cover out backing down.
2018: more Chinese permenant intrusions, including a military camp in Arunachal, and two segments of roads that when linked will allow China/Pakistan to outflank Siachin. As the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles used to say, “No problemo, dudes.” After all, not a blade of grass grows there, or something.
There is a pattern here. We avoid conflict unless it is forced on us, thus marching to the enemy tune. We are terrified of the escalation that might follow our seizure of the initiative. We constantly worry about foreign intervention and give up before we even begin to fight. A current example of this we have decided in a Pakistan war, we must not go more than 20-50 kilometers deep, in part not to provoke Pakistan to use N-weapons, and in part, because within 7-10 days, foreign powers will make us stop. How do we know this will happen? And why do we have to listen to foreign powers? Going to war with the expectation we will be defeated by foreign powers in a few days: must be some kind of innovative strategic thinking superior to anyone else’s. In 1779, John Paul Jones, commanding the USS Bon Homme Richard engaged in a fight off Flamborough Head with the Royal Navy’s HMS Serapis. The latter used its heavier firepower to demolish Jones’ ship. But when the British captain called to Jones to surrender, Jones replied “Sir, I have not yet begun to fight,” lashed his ship to the enemy’s, boarded and defeated Serapis. Where is this spirit in our leaders? It is not as if it has been historically absent. As an example, during the British period alone, a casual search turns up Shivaji, Tippu Sultan, Ranjit Singh, and Laxmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi, who resisted to their last strength. Laxmi Bai, a tiny slip of a woman, died in battle against the 8th Hussars. Which modern Indian leader has such courage, fortitude, and spirit of do-or-die? Moreover, no one is asking pur leaders to take to the battlefield. Our leaders cannot even be armchair heroes.