How Kargil was defused - Testimony from Pakistan Embassy in Washington

[i!i!i!i!i]

About the bold part.

You are referring to the same Benazir who lost our East Punjab intiative ? When India was threatened with a huge population (Punjabi) revolting ?

When India had NOT introduced it's economic reforms and didn't have the diplomatic or the economic clout that it has today ?

Kargil and hence Kashmir would have been a good possible win when our enemy's supplies were squeezed and supply lines under threat via punjab.

The rest as they say is History.

Sorry to hijack this thread but can someone point/put more details regarding this ? I have no idea if there was anything like that in Benazir time or by pakistan army.

I would really appreciate if someone could give me a link or more details in some other thread.

Thanks

 

[notorious_eagle]

a distinguished officer; under what circumstances do you know of him?

My grandfather was his CO, and ever since he has joined PTI i have met him on many occasions.

as for air force - I dont think PAF was taken into confidence because of the western-imposed sanctions which rendered a good % of our air force as 'grounded'; their lack of involvement however in providing defensive aerial cover is a matter of disappointment - speaking in hindsight. But then again, my less 'militant' colleagues and friends tend to disagree with me on that.

Neither the PAF nor the PN, in fact not even the entire Army was taken into confidence. The bad blood between PAF-PA existed for a long time, credit goes to COAS Kayani and ACM Rao Qamar for breaking the dead lock.

ground based air defence guys did secure some kills (i think the indians claim that one of the downed aircrafts was due to tech. failure though i have my own views about that)

Actually the Ground Based Defence was quite adequate, there was no precedence of IA calling in on the IAF to deliver punitive blows on enemy positions. In the past, they always used the artillery to pound enemy positions. Nobody thought that the IAF would be able to mount precision strikes from high altitudes, it was indeed a shock and a new phenomena in South Asia when the IAF Mirage 2000's delivered LGB's from high altitude.

 

[arp2041]

Actually the Ground Based Defence was quite adequate, there was no precedence of IA calling in on the IAF to deliver punitive blows on enemy positions. In the past, they always used the artillery to pound enemy positions. Nobody thought that the IAF would be able to mount precision strikes from high altitudes, it was indeed a shock and a new phenomena in South Asia when the IAF Mirage 2000's delivered LGB's from high altitude.

Sir, what do you mean by "In The Past??", In all wars, both AFs have participated, right??

& how come PA "assume" anything before launching any operation??? A nation will utilize whatever resources it has to defend it's territory, even IN was ready to launch an attack in case Kargil war extends any further.

Don't you think this "assumption" cost PA dearly??

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

Sir, what do you mean by "In The Past??", In all wars, both AFs have participated, right??

& how come PA "assume" anything before launching any operation??? A nation will utilize whatever resources it has to defend it's territory, even IN was ready to launch an attack in case Kargil war extends any further.

Don't you think this "assumption" cost PA dearly??

Lessons are always learned and one is always prepared to deal with any future threats

 

[notorious_eagle]

Sir, what do you mean by "In The Past??", In all wars, both AFs have participated, right??

There was no precedence of IA asking the IAF for carrying out strikes to weaken the enemy position, the IA preferred to do it their way with the good ole artillery guns and it was also an ego thing too.

& how come PA "assume" anything before launching any operation??? A nation will utilize whatever resources it has to defend it's territory, even IN was ready to launch an attack in case Kargil war extends any further.

Don't you think this "assumption" cost PA dearly??

It surely did, and the results are right infront of you. A brilliant tactical plan was lay to waste due to poor strategic planning.

 

[Contrarian]

There is also no precedence of using LGBs on such a high altitude. It was a first in that aspect as well.

 

[ares]

There was no precedence of IA asking the IAF for carrying out strikes to weaken the enemy position, the IA preferred to do it their way with the good ole artillery guns and it was also an ego thing too.



It surely did, and the results are right infront of you. A brilliant tactical plan was lay to waste due to poor strategic planning.

Air strikes against primary targets(enemy bunkers) at those heights, sharp peaks in rarefied atmosphere with concealed enemy positions were ineffective..of all bombs dropped only 8 bombs fell somewhere near the enemy positions and there were no direct hits .

It was Indian army's use of mass artillery fire(more than 100 guns firing at one time on a single peak) at a high elevation angle(more than 70 degrees) were used to carpet bomb the peaks.

Even the artillery was inaccurate due to rarefied atmosphere but a fortunate spin off was the increased range, A bofors gun which could lob a shell up to 24 Km at sea level could achieve 40 Km range in Kargil.

Another major advantage with artillery was opportunity of trial and error, which is not present with an airstrikes.

Airstike were used on secondary targets like enemy logistic trails and ammunition dumps in addition to recce missions.

 

[EyelessInGaza]

I used to think that Kargil was brilliant in its execution for the following reasons:

1. The fact is that PA managed to fool Indian intelligence over a sustained period of time into thinking that the NLI troops massing across the border (and preparing to go in) were irregulars. Thus, even as they were preparing for the op in Pakistan, they were in civvies, their wireless communications abjured all military lingo.

2. Then to get their troops on peak after peak so close to Highway 1 without being detected is a masterpiece of logistic and operational execution.

However, I changed my opinion when I read Musharraf in his memoir (Page 91) and his claim that the Indians "overreacted" in Kargil.

Forget strategy. To say that the enemy "over reacts" to your initiative is not even bad strategy- it is bad tactics at a very basic level. You are expected as a commander to anticipate the quality and quantity enemy's response on the battlefield. This is tactics, not strategy.

In sum: earlier I believed Musharraf showed brilliant tactics and bad strategy in Kargil. Now I question whether even the tactics were sound.

Now on another topic:

Sorry to hijack this thread but can someone point/put more details regarding this ? I have no idea if there was anything like that in Benazir time or by pakistan army.

I would really appreciate if someone could give me a link or more details in some other thread.

Thanks

It was Benazir Bhutto who is said to have "turned the tap off" on supporting Punjabi/ Sikh terrorists back in the 80s.

How effective it was we will never know- Benazir claimed that her support was significant in helping India finish off terrorism in Punjab, Indian officials (AFAIK) claim otherwise.

Please see this link:

'I kept My Word, Rajiv Didn't' | Neena Gopal

 

[EyelessInGaza]

Air strikes against primary targets(enemy bunkers) at those heights, sharp peaks in rarefied atmosphere with concealed enemy positions were ineffective............

It was Indian army's use of mass artillery fire(more than 100 guns firing at one time on a single peak) at a high elevation angle(more than 70 degrees) were used to carpet bomb the peaks.............

My opinion too.

I am not sure I agree with people here when they say (assuming I read them right) that IA's LGB, along with the arty, were decisive against PA combat troops on the mountain tops.

From what I have read arty- and direct fire at that- was the decisive battlefield factor.

The LGBs were apparently not that effective against PA sangars and positions for the reasons you stated. They were more useful as you said- against enemy the logistic train.

I recall reading the book written by the then Indian COAS, and while he may be biased, he spoke about the significant majority of PA casualties coming from arty.

 

[ares]

My opinion too.

I am not sure I agree with people here when they say (assuming I read them right) that IA's LGB, along with the arty, were decisive against PA combat troops on the mountain tops.

From what I have read arty- and direct fire at that- was the decisive battlefield factor.

The LGBs were apparently not that effective against PA sangars and positions for the reasons you stated. They were more useful as you said- against enemy the logistic train.

I recall reading the book written by the then Indian COAS, and while he may be biased, he spoke about the significant majority of PA casualties coming from arty.

Yes that is true.
Pakistan planed Kargil on an assumption that Indian army will simply be not able deploy enough guns in Kargil to be an effective counter, due to limited deployment space and threat of a looming full scale war.
But Indian army deploy more that 400 guns, 130 of which were 155 mm Bofors.

Also artillery was used in an innovative manner, in fact there was an article on BAE website, praising the way, how their gun were used in unprecedented manner in Kargil.

Usually a gun is suppose to lob a shell on a targets in front of them(which will usually be many miles away)..but in Kargil this space was not available.
Hence gun was placed right next to a peak and fired at a very high inclination to lob the shell at an overlooking peak.

Even the gun shells were as inaccurate as the the bombs dropped from the aircraft due to modified ballistic characteristics in thin mountain air. Hence a very large number of gun had to used to envelope a single target to give an MRSI effect(Multiple round simultaneous impact).

More than hundred gun would lay suppressing fire on a single peak for 5-6 hours, while the infantry men crawled up the peaks, the firing would only cease when Indian soldiers were only few hundred yards and then hand to hand combat ensued to displace the enemy.

 

[Mujahid]

Malik Zahoor Ahmad did his best from his butt to gain points by writing an anti-musharraf/army article

 

[notorious_eagle]

In sum: earlier I believed Musharraf showed brilliant tactics and bad strategy in Kargil. Now I question whether even the tactics were sound.

This was not Musharraf's tactics, the plan was devised in the 70's and i believe Brig Ghulam Muhammad played a major role in designing this plan. It was supposed to be a tactical effort part of a much broader strategic war. Musharraf blundered big time by thinking that he could execute this tactical plan without any sound strategic plan. There was no contingency planning and threat perception of the IA was not factored in at all properly.

 

[rockstarIN]

My grandfather was his CO, and ever since he has joined PTI i have met him on many occasions.



Neither the PAF nor the PN, in fact not even the entire Army was taken into confidence. The bad blood between PAF-PA existed for a long time, credit goes to COAS Kayani and ACM Rao Qamar for breaking the dead lock.



Actually the Ground Based Defence was quite adequate, there was no precedence of IA calling in on the IAF to deliver punitive blows on enemy positions. In the past, they always used the artillery to pound enemy positions. Nobody thought that the IAF would be able to mount precision strikes from high altitudes, it was indeed a shock and a new phenomena in South Asia when the IAF Mirage 2000's delivered LGB's from high altitude.

LGBs by M2K was indeed a deadly surprise, but involvement of IAF was never in doubt otherwise they would not carry stingers in every peak. And Pakistan strongly protested and asked not to involve air power at the early start of the conflict.

 

[Contrarian]

This was not Musharraf's tactics, the plan was devised in the 70's and i believe Brig Ghulam Muhammad played a major role in designing this plan. It was supposed to be a tactical effort part of a much broader strategic war. Musharraf blundered big time by thinking that he could execute this tactical plan without any sound strategic plan. There was no contingency planning and threat perception of the IA was not factored in at all properly.

However kargil episode has turned out as positive for india.
It has led to an overhaul in military after the kargil committee report and GoI went on a military spending overdrive.

Secondly it is because of kargil that IA had the political capital to say NO to GoI over siachen withdrawal. Manmohan has been pushing for it like there is no tomorrow. It was because of kargil that MoD said no withdrawal without joint authentication of AGPL.

Had there been no kargil, IA would have had to vacate siachen.

 

[Chak Bamu]

Well, I have spoken to my elders who were uprooted from Punjab, and non-relatives who left Sindh more amicably, as children. Their view, despite being informed by personal experiences, was far from what you mention. When their families had lived there since time immemorial, obviously they felt hurt seeing what had earlier been brothers, seek to expel them violently from their ancestral lands. But I've never heard one of them holding an ill intention towards Pakistan as a state or its people. Most felt the happenings to be God's will and nothing more, so they accepted their fate, be it sleeping with empty stomachs on railway tracks or seeing their relatives murdered before their eyes.

Those generations moved on, as is evident through their actions upon your state's creation. I need not remind you who initiated all the wars as you can refer to Asghar Khan or any neutral source of the time. Even before Pakistan was created, Jinnah all the way up to '46 was pushing for the cabinet mission plan, whereas Nehru & co. repeatedly refused and preferred partition. So after seeing who wanted what, it is more likely that Jinnah hearts of heart did not want what happened rather than Congress not accepting Pakistan after giving its share of the treasury and refusing other options on the table.

But it helps many in Pakistan to sleep better at night thinking that India does not accept your existence, hence you are threatened and occupy the moral high ground in any pre-emptive measures to secure your "survival". Believe what you want, but I hope you realize how ridiculous it is for India to not accept its neighbour as a state when it is a reality and fact that came about as a result of our own decisions, good or bad. The sentiment here is unreservedly that we want to live peacefully and focus on our masses, not be irritated on occasion by invasive attempts to ensure your uncompromised "existence". Live and let live.

I don't think India wants to annex anybody, just that it prefers positive relations which rule out war or other distractions and allow us all to focus on the common person's misery for once. The majority of our people were left so economically deprived at partition, that they, neither then or now, cared about 'influence', 'politics' and other things which interest relatively well off people like you or me, but just want to get on with life uninterrupted and see their children happy.

Wonderful post. We should have more like these. Your elders and my elders, both sets of people suffered the partition by loosing thier homes, land, loved ones, etc... But life moves on.

We have our differing POVs. Future shall show how it goes. For now it is enough for me that there are peace-niks across the border.