Pakistan’s maritime strategy is the essence of simplicity:
- Protect its coast with a combination of Arabian Sea and attacking the Indian Navy as close to its home bases as possible.
- destroyers in the second-line, ranging upto 250 kilometers or so from the coast.
- torpedo and missile boats in the third-line, operating close to the coast.
- maritime reconnaissance aircraft, anti-submarine helicopters, and strike aircraft operating in conjunction with the surface forces.
- Keep its larger Indian opponent off balance by using its small submarine force to threaten Bombay High and Indian shipping.
This is clearly a strategy of sea denial.
India, on the other hand, will seek to impose its naval will on Pakistan, a strategy of sea control by:
- Aggressively seeking to attack all Pakistani coastal bases and targets, including the landing of amphibious forces to help the Army achieve strategic results.
- Seeking to clear the Arabian Sea of all Pakistani shipping, military or civilian.
The dominant reality of the naval balance between the two countries is that sea-denial (Pakistan’ s strategy) is far easier and cheaper to achieve than sea-control (India’s strategy). The situation may be linked to that between Germany and the Allies in World War II. With a much smaller investment in men and equipment, the German Navy neutralized the much larger Allied fleets for almost five year;
Today the major naval bases of Karachi and Gwader are well protected by anti-ship missiles. A small but adequate, reconnaissance element exists as well. Sea King holicopters, capable of anti- submarine warfare (ASW) and anti-ship missile strikes are available. Long-range strike elements of PAF equipped with AShMs are there. All this makes simply sailing in and blasting Gwader or Karachi impossible.
Today a repeat of 1971 may prove, more expensive to IN than to PN. If IN sends twenty warships to sink three Pakistani warships, and damage the port, but lose four or five of its expensive ships in return, the exchange ratio cannot be considered favorable.
A point to be kept in mind regarding PN's old destroyers equipped with anti ship missiles is that the sophistication lies in the missile, which is basically an inert round till fired, not in the ship.
If IN wants to fight the Pakistan Navy in its home waters, then even the otherwise insignificant Chinese missile boats become deadly. The Pakistan Navy may not be able to attack, except with submarines, but it certainly can defend.
The problem with defending against submarines is that the cost- benefit ratio favors the submarine. This has led the submarine to be a preferred weapon of the weaker naval power. As with any other weapon, no matter how good, numbers themselves are the best force multiplier, and Pakistanis submarines today present a threat more than twice its four, submarines presented in 1971.