Pakistan Defence

Yes sir, as a tactician and commander he was brilliant. If only he was provided with the resources he asked for, I think he would have pushed British out of M.E and went up the Caucus to deliver a deadly blow to the Russians.

you are right, i also like rommel as a commander.

I read your post about Pakistani commanders that can be compared with Rommel or Montgomery. I think the only commander that comes to my mind is Maj Gen Tajamul Malik and his execution of Op. Grand Slam. If it was not his untimely removal and replacement with Yahya, we would pushed Indians out of Akhnor and cut them from reaching Kashmir.

PA can only execute a corps level infantry ops, so can IA. For the corps level Armoured ops, both neither have resources nor supplies nor planning. This is very disappointing. Just small level armoured attacks.

As any Armored action in Indo-Pak scenario occurred within 25 years of our Independence. The top-brass was still British trained, and they did not train them to command armies but divisions at most. I think it was more about doctrine than resources. If God forbid a larger conflict occur now, we might see larger armored ops, at least both sides have plans for that, e.g CS

Cold start is brigade level ops. Strike Corps is an example of Corps level armoured/mechanised formation but having one armoured division and one mechanised division, not much is going to be achieved. Then as the formations get bigger, more supplies are needed: more mobile workshops, more spare parts, more heavy ammunition, more fuel etc.

But you know what the problem is? no commander is brave enough to conduct such an ops and get blamed for losing hundreds of MBT's if Ops failed. Rommel wasnt concerned about this at all, he wanted to press on.

Completely agreed. But don't you think, at-least in our case, such operations in the future will be impossible. In today's age such operations without air superiority in the area is impossible, and with current PAF we can't expect them to provide much air cover. It will be turkey shoot for IAF if our armored units advance without air cover.

Even back in 71, moving without aircover was a risk, as we found it out in Longewala, no matter how exaggerated the Indian account of the action is, it was a failure on our part only because of the lack of air cover. The only time it was possible for Pakistan to launch a major Armored push was 65, when we had some air superiority in certain sectors.