Kasrkin...I am not picking-up tangential fights...I have gone through the entire thread...
Siachin is a pain...but i know you'd have a clear-cut idea about the how strategically important holding those heights are...the Pakistanis posted in Siachin are on lower posts...and run the risk of being sniped-out by the Indians...in fact the as I read in one of the articles posted in this thread by an American journalists...the Pakistani posts are at declination of almost 80degress to the Indian ones...and that Indians can drop grenades like pebbles on the head of the Pakistanis...
now in the event of a war...the importance of holding higher ground would be indispensable...when i quoted kargil...my point was that the Pakistani experience of not being able to take up heights and being unsuccessful at trying to dislodge the Indians from the Siachin and baltoro heights...prompted a cunning mission of sending a small force with limited arms and ammunition to keep a larger enemy force at bay...till the strategic goals have been met and concrete supply lines established.
so though in the times of peace...it might look utterly stupid to send your brave men face the nature in it's most extreme atop some god-forsaken peak....it is the coming war that both sides keep in mind.
as they say "it is better to sweat in peace than to bleed in the war"
...so you can't totally ignore the importance of holding heights in Siachin.
Paritosh, you have been a guud debater, but i am really surprised at the understanding that you have shown of military matters. Holding heights at Siachen!? i mean, what's the point actually? i think you have mixed up heights and dominating features that are important when fighting battles at Plains, with fighting a war at Siachen. Let me ease it out for your assimilation:
Imagine a theater of war somewhere around your Punjab. Consider that you are holding a mole, hill, or a small cliff etc etc and the area surrounding it is plain, i mean quite low as compared to the 'heights' it surrounds. Now in this case you definitely are dominating a vast area around you as:
1) You can see much further-this can help in observation and direction of fire.
2)You can 'affect' an important landmark while staying miles and miles away from it.
3)It would be very difficult for the enemy to mount and attack on you because of the obvious reasons.
4)You have a moral ascendancy over the enemy
5)i can go on and on but i dont want to open up a tactics class here.
6)These above mentioned points hold valid mostly when a fluid battle is going on and by the virtue of your height you can drastically change the course of the battle, but if the battle is a 'static' one, the one being fought at Siachen, these heights become actually unless.
Now let's consider this in the Sicahen scenario:
1)You sit at 18000 ft and i sit at 17000 fit or may be at 17500 ft. There is a large 'La' (Balti word for way)/gap between the two ridges that we occupy, and most of the times this gap stretches for miles.
2)You cant see beyond my ridge line, i cant see beyond your ridge line.
3)You are
actually NOT dominating the area around you as the area surrounding you also have a mean height approximately the same as yourself-as it is Siachen we are talking about, not the Plains! Except a few glaciated parts and 'Las', that actually are on ground level.
4)There is no strategic road/route in that area that you can affect by the virtue of your 'more' height.
5)You have to think a 100 times before you even actually think of mounting the others height to capture it.
6)You talked about dropping a grenade just like that, sir at the most places even larger caliber direct firing weapons (which have longer range as compared to small arms) prove inefficient because of the distance between the two ridges that both the parties have occupied. Though there are instances where you can actually just drop the grenade and hit would land on the enemy's Post-and this hold guud for both the side and not only for india.
7)The battles is a 'static' one, not much of the movements, and the movements that take place are actually hidden by the terrain itself, which you can effectively engage by the virtue of your 'more' height. Moreover there is no infantry-works so the heights actually fail to achieve what they are supposed to.
8)There are many point, but i'll leave it here.
So the height dominance that you claimed of actually fails, rather adds more to your toil as more height at Siachen mean less air and very difficult logistics.
As for having a larger chunk of Siachen, i would say you could keep it as both the parties dont actually plan on moving forth their occupied areas.
These are a few points which just came to my mind randomly or should i say something that i personally feel without getting into detailed tactical analysis, which anyone with some common sense can think of. i wonder what the 'seniors' at your and my side who are actually more learnerd and experienced would be thinking about this!