I thought I'd repost my thoughts on what India might be doing if war breaks out. I put this up about a week and a half ago. This Daily Telegraph piece appears to be in line with my thinking, only I didn't anticipate an airmobile assualt on the Karakorum Pass.
Sounds like a good idea. I simply think that this is being leaked by the Indians to encourage the Pakistani General Staff to believe that the Indian assualt will be a "hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle" assault. As you can see below, I believe the Indians have different plans.
All ya gotta do is look at the map....
Be Seeing You,
Chris
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Well, I know it sounds like things might be calming down over there, but don't get your hopes up too high. Remember that although the New York "operation" didn't lead to an uprising among the Islamic umma, the Bin Ladenists still have some tricks up thier sleeve. The Kashmir is their hole card.
You'll recall that several months back there was a vicious attack on the Indian Parliament House. That attack had all the trademarks of Al Qaeda. Recently, "Kashmiri Militants" raided an Indian military outpost and killed 31 soldiers and family members. This smells of Al Qaeda, and I think that the Jihadi are going to do what they can to stoke tensions in the area and provoke India into war for the following reasons:
1. The millenialists who run Al Qaeda want to bring down Musharraf.
2. They want a Pakistani warhead or two. Might come in handy later.
Now then, suppose there is a war. Suppose the AQ is able to pull this off. Well, the Indians would know that AQ is part of the problem, and they would also want to deal with the Kashmiri seperatists. In the following paragraphs, I'll try to give you all my take on how the war would go, given the balance of forces and the following political and military assumptions.
The political assumptions behind an Indian offensive are:
1. Pakistan is isolated politically because Indian diplomacy has successfully painted the Kashmiri/AQ axis as "terrorist", thus making American efforts to be "evenhanded" difficult.
2. The Great Powers (U.S., Russia, China, France, the UK, the Continent, and Japan) remain neutral.
3. The Arab League remains neutral.
The military assumptions behind the invasion are as follows:
1. Despite the present sabre-rattling, nuclear weapons will not be used, simply because Indian aims will be limited, the Pakistanis know they will be limited, and American pressure on both powers will be enormous.
2. India will blockade the port of Karachi, in case political assumption "3" above is in error.
3. India will have air supremacy after five days of fierce Pakistani resistance. There will be no American spare parts for the F-16's.
Let's take a look at a U.N. map of Jammu and Kashmir....
On the eastern side of the "Line of Control" are between 400,000 and 700,000 Indian Army troops. West of the LOC are between 75,000 and 300,000 Pakistani Army troops.
Notice the salient jutting out of Indian Kashmir towards the Indus River. There's a road network that runs out of the provincial capitol of Srinagar. Indian leg, panzergrenadier, and panzer formations will assemble, in all probability, just south of Srinigar in the Vale of Kashmir area, shielded by the Pir Panjai Range to the West. To the northeast of Srinigar, another Indian Army group will assemble along the LOC, probably in three or four infantry corps (addendum, 6/5/02): perhaps five or six corps, depending on how the Indians define a "corps"), along a jump off line running from Srinigar in the South to the Saltoro Range in the North.
The model for the Indian attack will be the German Sichelschnitt operation of May, 1940. Sometime before D-Day, Indian Special forces will attack nuclear installations and other important outposts, such as C3I assets. At H-hour itself, a tremendous artillery barrage will signal the advance of "Army Group North" along the Eastern Indus and Shyok rivers, with the tactical objective being Skardu. It is assumed that fierce Pakistani resistance will increase as the Indian Army advances along these river valleys.
Meanwhile, back at the assembly area, the commander of "Army Group South" will probably wait as long as 24, perhaps even 48 hours in the hopes that the Pakistani Army will be suckered into a big fight in the northeast (along with as many militants and Al Qaeda that the ISI and the Jihadists can muster). Then the Indian Air Force, which had been covering the northern advance, will swing south and start deep strike raids all over Pakistan. They will studiously ignore the rather quiet area opposite the salient west of Sopur.
Once Indian air superiority has been achieved, the trap will be sprung. Indian leg infantry and mech infantry will advance due north out of the assembly area accross the bridges at Sopur and Baramula. They will advance towards the Pakistani town of Kel and the hill country due west of the town. It will be important for any of you watching this war, should it occur, to notice the presence of any bridgeing equipment and combat engineer units in the van of the Indian advance. Their first job will be to establish at least two, preferably three, pontoon bridges over the Jheam river. The Indians, I'm convinced, are going to try to duplicate von Rundstedt's feat of 1940 by cutting the Pakstani Army in Kashmir off from the rest of the country; that's where positioning and logistics will come in, and the Indian General Staff is mindful of this, I am sure.
Once over the Jheam, the mech infantry and panzer troops will move on towards the Indus River. The first phase of the operation should be completed in 48 hours. The most critical phase will occur as the Pakistani Staff realizes that the battle in the south is not an Indian probe but is the schwerpunkt of the whole offensive. For the time being Musharraf will convince his staff that the day can be salvaged and he will begin to assemble Pakistani units from the rest of the country into an assembly area north and west of Islamabad for a counteroffensive.
I'm betting that the Indians have already gamed this out. Here's what they'll do. Go back to the map. Indian leg infantry and mech troops will advance ahead of the Panzers towards the Indus river, with the strategic objective being the highway running along the Indus and the mountain pass at Babusar. They have to sieze that pass and capture the town of Chilas. Many of the Indian armored units will pivot and face southwest to beat back an expected Pakistani counteroffensive (which will be led by armor- the army in the northeast is probably made up of leg infantry, mountain troops, and artillery rigiments.). Indian armor will line up from the schwerpunkt at Kel all the way up to the Babusar pass.
Once again, the combat engineers and logistics units will throw bridges over a river, only this time it will be the Indus. That being done, the full scope of the Indian plan will become clear to Pakistan: Indian troops intend to cut off Jammu and Kashmir from Pakistan altogether by siezing the mountain passes in the northwest on the border of Pakistan proper. If they can apply enough pressure up here, they could get to the passes with mountain troops before the Pakistanis can reinforce these "rear area" garrisons. Meanwhile, Indian mechanized infantry, with a few panzer companies for heavy gunfights, will advance due north up the Indus highway towards Baltit. It is hoped that this move will seal the fate of the northern Pakistani Army, still engaged with (and pinned down by) Indian Army Group North. The Pakistani Army in the north will thus be in a kessel, and, depending on how much pressure the Indians can put on them, suddenly out of a line of supply.
It's about this time, when it's almost too late, that the Pakistani Army will begin an uncoordinated armored offensive on an axis running from the area between Islamabad and the Tarbela Resevoir to the bridgehead at Kel. They will try to duplicate what the Germans attepted to do at Mortain, cut off the neck of the advancing enemy army. However, Indian artillery and panzer troops will hold defensive positions and, in combination with the Indian Air Force, conduct a static defense of the Indian left flank. They will succeed, but by the time the Pakistani counteroffensive gets under way, the war will be all but over.
Militarily, it will be game, set, match.
The Indians assume that the Great Powers would be able to convince Pakistan of limited Indian aims (we kill the Jihadists, then we withdraw to the LOC, and we hope you have learned your lesson) and will apply unbelievable pressure against Pakistani first use. The Chinese will be ruthlessly abrupt with Pakistan, promising (in exchange for Pakistani concessions) Chinese help at the Peace Conference. The wild card here is Pakistani nuclear weapons release protocol. If some hothead missile regiment commander can initiate a strike, then just light a match and burn up the whole gameboard, so to speak, 'cause some no-account bird colonel is going to send India and Pakistan straight to hell. Again, a big "if". From a strictly military point of view, as long as the Indians don't get bottled up in mountain battles and bypass obstructions while sticking to the river valleys, I don't see how they can lose this thing.
My two cents, for what it's worth, as another Islamic Army gets outwitted. The good thing for the Pakistanis is that they're Punjabis, not Arabs, so they have a lot of fight in them. They won't fold up like a cheap card table, but they will be put to bed.
Be Seeing You,
Chris