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China-wary Army for mountain strike corps

It doesn't matter what military developments large or small in North East India are being done China simply has the edge because of geography, China could easily pour 400,000 troops into Arunachal Pradesh in less than 2 weeks. India should opt for a mountain strike corps based in Himachal Pradessh and Uttarakhand so that if any Chinese offensive into AP happens a counteroffensive into Aksai Chin/TAR can be used.

Chinese are more likely split those forces, with some of them maintained at Askai Chin front, some towards Sikkim front.

They can't afford to lose those areas unguarded.
 
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It doesn't matter what military developments large or small in North East India are being done China simply has the edge because of geography, China could easily pour 400,000 troops into Arunachal Pradesh in less than 2 weeks. India should opt for a mountain strike corps based in Himachal Pradessh and Uttarakhand so that if any Chinese offensive into AP happens a counteroffensive into Aksai Chin/TAR can be used.

Your ASSERTION is WRONG and factually INCORRECT AmericAN
 
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China's economy,,infrastructure,manufacturing...are several times better than India,do you accept that fact??that's the base to support a war.

Indeed, they do, but you have nicely skipped out terrain, whether and experince.

Terrain and whether conditions sometimes make more difference, example Vietnam war, current Afghan war.

As for experience, when was last time China participadted in mountain conflict? 1962.

India participated more recently, Siachen and Kargil war.


as for military,your generals state the fact clearly.

Indian military generals become credible when they speak what appeals to you
 
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IF India ventures into Tibet,they will say goodbye to their Whole North Eest for ever.
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You do realize the mountain surrounding Sikkim are average 6000m.

If PLA troops somehow overwhelm Sikkim and make it into Siliguri Corridor, they face massive Indian reinforcements, not only troops but also mechanized infantry.

Plus the effectiveness of Chinese troops in Siliguri Corridor is reduced as they have descended from a higher altitude.

Finally there is no retreat for Chinese troops from Siliguri Corridor, its either death or surrender.
 
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LOL..I'm really amazed how few chinese guys issue some warning here just like their rotten government..india is just preparing themselves for any misadventure by china and thats it.they are not invading,you fool..counter offensive will be the option when india is already under heavy attack..also,just dream about N-E India under "Great Middle Kingdom",but this ain't happening..i wonder how China will face mechanized and armoured force and how they will mobilize their mechanized army through the treacherous mountain passes???fanboys never give it a thought,just issue a warning..but agains,its just another day in defence.pk.. :welcome: :pdf:
 
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Fact is the Chinese are afraid to know they cannot hold the land they fought in 1962 and went back and now these guys here are trying to show some delusions :lol:
 
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Fact is the Chinese are afraid to know they cannot hold the land they fought in 1962 and went back and now these guys here are trying to show some delusions :lol:

Chinese lost the advantage they had in 1962, as by 1971 India had more than million troops.
 
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Your ASSERTION is WRONG and factually INCORRECT AmericAN

Do they teach geography in Indian schools? the only thing connecting North East India to the mainland is the siliguri corridor or the chicken's neck an area that isn't even more than 300km wide. like i said all China needs to do is cut of that corridor and North East India will fall
 
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stop this war mongering u idiot, the possibility of a full fledged war between India n China is very less due the possibility of a nuclear holocaust effecting atleast 50% of world's population, at max the will be some border skirmish for wish we r taking protective measures. we r not planning to invade China or something but just making our guards strong enough to answer any stupid misadventure...:)

if war doesn't break out, it won't be due to the nuclear assets on both sides because it is far more economical for china to intercept the limited number of warheads from india than for india to intercept chinese missiles. but war won't break out because it is too hard and uneconomic to fight a conventional war, and when china wins, it becomes actually more uneconomic for china to support the billions of wretched, destitutely poor and famished indians.

a limited conventional war that decapitates india at the chicken neck is an ideal solution and would leave india still as the biggest subcontinental power but too humiliated and weakened to threaten even BD.

in diplomacy we must never say never to either war or peace.
 
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Do they teach geography in Indian schools? the only thing connecting North East India to the mainland is the siliguri corridor or the chicken's neck an area that isn't even more than 300km wide. like i said all China needs to do is cut of that corridor and North East India will fall

To reach Silliguri Chinese PLA would have to cross Himalayan passes severely restricting their movement and what India needs to do is sent in troops from Assam, Bihar and Bengal via train to overwhelm what ever PLA is able to make up to the other side of those passes and into Sikkim braving harsh weather, terrain and walking... transport and cargo planes would be checked well by IAF and Army Air defense.

While we can assume IA to have its mechanized divisions butchering whatever PLA sends in through those passes into Silliguri... the PLA troops would have hard time carrying their LMG through those passes where oxygen content is low and mountaineering enthusiasts prefer oxygen cylinders.

It would be a huge disaster for PLA if it tries such misadventure... allowing a huge boost of moral on Indian side which could result into a disaster for its hold on TAR if the western units make any decisive gains in the western sector... allowing a mechanized roll out from aksai Chin.
 
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In 1999 Kargil war, Indian soliders struggled with pakistani irregulrs and took 25+ days to defeat them.
 
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Instead of a weak point... this Chicken's neck could prove to be a crucial point of war where thousands of PLA troops would be butchered by Indian mechanized and artillery divisions once they reach silliguri... resulting in a severe blow to Chinese PLA moral and specially the Chinese people most of who would have their only son dead.
 
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China is well positioned and well established in Tibet,if a war breaks out it should be two fronts strike,and New Delhi is not really far from the border.
 
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China speeds past India's slow train to Himalayas
By Sanjeev Miglani

KATRA | Wed Aug 17, 2011 11:54am IST
(Reuters) - India's struggle to build a railway to troubled Kashmir has become a symbol of the infrastructure gap with neighbouring China, whose speed in building road and rail links is giving it a strategic edge on the mountainous frontier.

Nearly quarter of a century after work began on the project aimed at integrating the revolt-torn territory and bolstering the supply route for troops deployed there, barely a quarter of the 345-km (215-mile) Kashmir track has been laid.

Tunnels collapsed, funds dried up and, faced with the challenge of laying tracks over the 11,000 foot (3,352 metre) Pir Panjal range, railway officials and geologists bickered over the route, with some saying it was just too risky.

The proposed train, which will run not far from the heavily militarised border with Pakistan, has also faced threats from militants fighting Indian rule in the disputed region, with engineers kidnapped in the early days of the project.

China's rail system has been plagued by scandal. A bullet train crash in July killed 40 people and triggered a freeze on new rail project approvals, but the country managed to build the 1,140-km (710-mile) Qinghai-Tibet line, which crosses permanently frozen ground and climbs to more than 5,000 metres above sea level, in five years flat.

It has also built bitumen roads throughout its side of the frontier, making it easier for Chinese troops to move around -- and mass there, if confrontation ever escalates.


Indians have long fretted about the economic advantages that China gains from its infrastructure expertise. But the tale of India's hardships in building the railway line also shows how China's mastery of infrastructure could matter in the territorial disputes that still dog relations.

Both train networks, China's running far to the north and India's hundreds of miles away in the southern reaches of the Himalayas, reflect the desire to tighten political and economic links with their two restive regions - the Tibet Autonomous region in China's case and Kashmir for India.

But they would also form a key element of military plans to move men and armour in the forbidding region in a time of conflict.

Should India-China relations ever deteriorate to the verge of military confrontation and if riots in Tibet erupt, the People's Liberation Army's mountain brigades can rapidly deploy to the region. Railway and road construction have been China's Himalayan strategy for decades.

"China outstrips India in at least three respects: the ability to execute large and complex projects; rapid implementation; and - importantly - the foresight to embark upon these projects for economic and strategic purposes," said Shashank Joshi, at London's Royal United Services Institute, who has written extensively on India-China ties.

He also said China was also more proficient at concealing its failures because of its closed political system and excellent information management.

On the other hand, India hasn't yet determined its priorities in the region, which shares borders with both Pakistan and China.

"India has to decide what it wants to be. If integrating Kashmir is a top national priority, then the project should have moved on a war footing long ago," said one visibly exasperated military commander in Kashmir.

SIGNS OF STRUGGLE

Here in the lower stretch of the line, workers are struggling to build tunnels through soft mountains to bring the track from the railhead in Udhampur, 25 km (15 miles) away.

Of the seven they built over the past four years, one has collapsed and the other is seeping water. Now engineers have gone back to the drawing board to figure out an alternative route.

"That is the way the project has been undertaken. You tunnel and then you find it is not holding. You then try and skirt around it like a bypass surgery," said Chehat Ram, chief administrative officer of Northern Railway.

This is only the first of the tough stretches of the network that will run through some of the world's most spectacular mountains and gorges, offering an alternative to the single highway that connects Kashmir and is vulnerable to bad weather.

Bigger challenges lie further down the track, including building the world's tallest single-span bridge over the river Chenab at an elevation of 387 metres (1,270 feet), higher than the Eiffel Tower at 324 metres.

Across the valley floor are signs of the struggle to build a network that even the country's former British rulers gave up on after briefly considering it in 1898 because of the forbidding and often uninhabitable terrain.

A tunnel built into a cliff edge has been abandoned near Tikri in the lower section, at another place work has been stopped after workers found that the section in the hills they had blasted and drilled through had become waterlogged.

The train station built at Katra in anticipation of the line is looking worn out, with paint peeling off and moss growing on the building, two years after it was completed.

Local herdsmen leave their ponies to graze in the grounds around the eerily empty building.

"People have lost their land, there are no jobs and there is no train," said Lal Chand, a herdsman.

The deadline for completion of the project was August 2007, but it has been pushed back to 2017, and even that is seen as an optimistic assessment. Cost estimates have jumped, from 45.5 billion rupees ($1.0 billion) in 2002 to 195.6 billion today.

China, meanwhile, began work last year to build a rail spur that will connect the Tibetan capital of Lhasa with Shigatse, the monastery town that is the seat of the Panchen Lama, the second-most powerful figure in Tibetan Buddhism.

Joshi said China was in a position to bring far greater resources to public sector investment than India. For instance, Indian investment in railways in 2010 was about $9-10 billion. In China, it was $118 billion.

"If the Chinese had to build the Kashmir track, they'd do it faster and better than the Indians - but it might still fail, and they'd plough much more into it.

UNFAIR COMPARISON

For the hard-hatted men tasked with building the railway line, comparisons with China don't sit easily.

"These mountains are full of surprises. Normally you would survey one to two kilometres and then, based on the results, extrapolate the geological pattern for the rest of the stretch, but here it changes every 50 metres," said chief engineer L. Prakash.

Most of the line runs either through tunnels totalling 109 km (68 miles), the longest of which is 11.4 km (7.1 miles), or across more than 780 bridges, many of which span deep gorges.

"The comparison with the Tibet railway is overstated. The Tibet line is largely flat, only 10 percent passes through mountainous terrain and the rest is through plateau," said Northern Railway's Ram.

"It is not to belittle the challenges they faced. To build a network at that altitude and with those kind of weather conditions is creditable. But the comparison doesn't stand. They had to do a lot less tunnelling, far fewer bridges."

(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley in Beijing and Ashok Pahalwan in Jammu; Editing by Nick Macfie)

China is much better positioned and prepared than India.

 
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