The Fateful Para-Commando Assault - 1965 War

[GHALIB]

No, that was part of the pre-war build-up, just like skirmishes that also occurred in 1965 prior to the 6th of September. The war started when India attacked the IB.

Ha ha ha ......

 

[Hamza913]

Ha ha ha ......

Keep laughing, it's all you can do.

 

[GHALIB]

Keep laughing, it's all you can do.

Your talk is funny
You say India attacked Pakistan in 1965 .

 

[Hamza913]

Your talk is funny
You say India attacked Pakistan in 1965 .

What else would you call attacking the IB on the 6th of September? You can use Operation Gibraltar as a justification, but it occurred on the LOC which was (and still is) a disputed territory, thus making any violation of it perfectly justifiable. If we apply your principle of it being unjustified, then what India did in the Siachen is also completely unjustified. Not only that, but Operation Gibraltar involved the use of covert operations, not a full-scale invasion, and you conveniently ignore other events in 1965 prior to Operation Gibraltar that also led to the attack on the IB on the 6th of September, such as the Rann of Kutch dispute.

 

[Zulfiqar]

Such BEL Ops are rare now because SSG has been thrown onto the western front for COIN war, while it was already deployed at LOC, the desert, Siachen, Baluchistan, in training, overseas and UN missions. There is a limit to which a certain formation can be stretched. SSG(N) was mainly tasked for Naval Operations while SSW was born in 2000's. Zarrar ATU being the prime AT formation is headquartered in Tarbela, considering that Police, FC and Army's LCB can tackle AT threats in all cities, Zarrar Coy doesn't need to be distributed in major cities of Pakistan.

Back to BEL Ops. SSG Ops in 80's were mainly inside Indian Occupied kashmir as well as the rest of India, while some formations made contact with Russians in Afghanistan. In 1990's the focus shifted more towards Indian occupied Kashmir. ISI and SSG worked together sometimes in foreign countries, sharing intel for Ops, but mostly Commandos were tasked individually. After 2001, the BEL Ops dried down and COIN Ops started since the regular Infantry was unable to conduct COIN Ops and FC was in miserable condition. Even though the situation for COIN is now handled by other formations, the BEL Ops have not started in full swing like they had been on-going before.

Yes, SSG was involved heavily previously which resulted in unnecessary casualties due to their use as shock infantry in many FATA ops.

However, overall COIN capability has improved a lot after improvement in FC, rangers and raising of LCBs.

Hopefully, things will improve further for all.

 

[Signalian]

Yes, SSG was involved heavily previously which resulted in unnecessary casualties due to their use as shock infantry in many FATA ops.

However, overall COIN capability has improved a lot after improvement in FC, rangers and raising of LCBs.

Hopefully, things will improve further for all.

There are TTP hideouts in Afghanistan. SSG has operated in this terrain in 1980's. There should be Ops conducted now.

 

[Saint.firewall]

Your talk is funny
You say India attacked Pakistan in 1965 .

Nop you were drunk and you have Gas in Ace, Gas out, the attack started. Rest you know what happen.

 

[blain2]

What an utter sh!t show - incredibly poor planning and management. I suggest everyone read this article. I wonder how much things have improved recently? It has been 50 years since then, so you'd hope we'd be better prepared for conflict, especially since we spent the last 15 years in a state of conflict.

I know some of the officers who participated in this mission. Before discounting this as utter "whatnot", those who were called upon to participate in the mission knew 100% that the chances of their mission being a success would be less than 5%.

The way the mission was put to the officers and men was that this was a "do or a die for the survival of Pakistan".

Given the operational secrecy needs, none of the personnel were briefed about their target sites in advance. The plans for this "contingency" ops were locked up in AHQ and communicated only on the basis of "need-to-know" and known perhaps by the CGS and the then commander SSG. The idea was that in case this had to be done, personnel would be able to execute such a plan with a little bit of advanced planning etc. That they never got the advance notice is the reason that personnel went into these missions without any of the requisite gear. The maps of the target sites were provided to the SSG teams a few hours before the launch and were dated 1959 for 2 of the airfields whereas one airfield had no maps available to it.

Even if one leaves aside the equipment, planning issues, the bigger problem with outfits like the SSG is that effective teams are formed after months and years of operating together to create the buddy system/small team impact. In this case, when the war arrived, 40-50% of the SSG manpower was on leave given that open war was declared on the 6th after Indian operations were initiated to offset the pressure from Op. Grandslam. So even many in the Army were not expecting open hostilities.

When the three teams were put together, they had officers who had never operated with those under their command because company commanders were shuffled to make up for those on leave (despite the recall, the troops were told there wasn't sufficient time to wait for officers/men to return from leave). This is a huge problem for any SF team to go into an operation with men who have not worked with each other. However, the ones making the calls to launch were not people who understood SF as most had never served in it.

The two biggest call outs that I have based on some conversations in the past with some of these officers were that:

a) The possibility of an SF operation to succeed right after the initiation of hostilities had been announced was essentially 0%. Once the war was declared, as would be expected and was known to all the officers and men involved, the Indian airfields would be on their highest state of alert. The SF teams communicated back to the command HQ for the date of the airdrops to be shifted to a later one but were declined. In hindsight, had they known about the plans in advance, the SSG would have gone in earlier to soften up the Indian airfields.

Once the war was initiated, a Pakistani Army historian (Maj Gen Shaukat Reza) mentioned that hypothetically this mission was akin to a raid on London by the German commandos or US SF doing the same in Hanoi in 1971 in terms of the difficulty and the abysmal chances of success.

b) The real deal is that not a SINGLE officer or jawan of the SSG backed out despite all the odds stacked up. 100% of those available went in! They went ahead with what they had. They did that for the survival of Pakistan because that is what they were ordered to do. No insubordination, no objectors! And this is the reason that Gen Reza actually called these a "Kamikaze" mission.

This is the single biggest reason that the guts and courage of these men should be recalled. Perhaps movies should be made about this because this mission, despite its failure, has legacy and that is if and when the backs of the Pakistani nation are against the wall, we will do what we must even if it means making the supreme sacrifice. Almost all the officers were recommended for bravery awards on account of what they had taken on but they collectively refused and suggested awards should only go to those who were martyred.

To those suggesting perhaps that planning would be better now, the underlined part is important. There is always a tendency, across the world, to misuse Special Forces. However over time, more SSG officers have gone into higher command and there is a better appreciation of the use of the SF in Pakistan Army/PAF and PN now. While that is no guarantee that failures in the future cannot happen, one must also keep in mind that many successes are also not highlighted because of the "special" nature of missions. I know for a fact that there are multiple missions conducted by the SSG in the 70s, 80s, that are still hidden from public purview given the geo-pol sensitivity around some things.

We have a 60 plus years of history with special forces missions so the hope is that people don't repeat mistakes of the past.

 

[nahtanbob]

I know some of the officers who participated in this mission. Before discounting this as utter "whatnot", those who were called upon to participate in the mission knew 100% that the chances of their mission being a success would be less than 5%.

The way the mission was put to the officers and men was that this was a "do or a die for the survival of Pakistan".

Given the operational secrecy needs, none of the personnel were briefed about their target sites in advance. The plans for this "contingency" ops were locked up in AHQ and communicated only on the basis of "need-to-know" and known perhaps by the CGS and the then commander SSG. The idea was that in case this had to be done, personnel would be able to execute such a plan with a little bit of advanced planning etc. That they never got the advance notice is the reason that personnel went into these missions without any of the requisite gear. The maps of the target sites were provided to the SSG teams a few hours before the launch and were dated 1959 for 2 of the airfields whereas one airfield had no maps available to it.

Even if one leaves aside the equipment, planning issues, the bigger problem with outfits like the SSG is that effective teams are formed after months and years of operating together to create the buddy system/small team impact. In this case, when the war arrived, 40-50% of the SSG manpower was on leave given that open war was declared on the 6th after Indian operations were initiated to offset the pressure from Op. Grandslam. So even many in the Army were not expecting open hostilities.

When the three teams were put together, they had officers who had never operated with those under their command because company commanders were shuffled to make up for those on leave (despite the recall, the troops were told there wasn't sufficient time to wait for officers/men to return from leave). This is a huge problem for any SF team to go into an operation with men who have not worked with each other. However, the ones making the calls to launch were not people who understood SF as most had never served in it.

The two biggest call outs that I have based on some conversations in the past with some of these officers were that:

a) The possibility of an SF operation to succeed right after the initiation of hostilities had been announced was essentially 0%. Once the war was declared, as would be expected and was known to all the officers and men involved, the Indian airfields would be on their highest state of alert. The SF teams communicated back to the command HQ for the date of the airdrops to be shifted to a later one but were declined. In hindsight, had they known about the plans in advance, the SSG would have gone in earlier to soften up the Indian airfields.

Once the war was initiated, a Pakistani Army historian (Maj Gen Shaukat Reza) mentioned that hypothetically this mission was akin to a raid on London by the German commandos or US SF doing the same in Hanoi in 1971 in terms of the difficulty and the abysmal chances of success.

b) The real deal is that not a SINGLE officer or jawan of the SSG backed out despite all the odds stacked up. 100% of those available went in! They went ahead with what they had. They did that for the survival of Pakistan because that is what they were ordered to do. No insubordination, no objectors! And this is the reason that Gen Reza actually called these a "Kamikaze" mission.

This is the single biggest reason that the guts and courage of these men should be recalled. Perhaps movies should be made about this because this mission, despite its failure, has legacy and that is if and when the backs of the Pakistani nation are against the wall, we will do what we must even if it means making the supreme sacrifice. Almost all the officers were recommended for bravery awards on account of what they had taken on but they collectively refused and suggested awards should only go to those who were martyred.

To those suggesting perhaps that planning would be better now, the underlined part is important. There is always a tendency, across the world, to misuse Special Forces. However over time, more SSG officers have gone into higher command and there is a better appreciation of the use of the SF in Pakistan Army/PAF and PN now. While that is no guarantee that failures in the future cannot happen, one must also keep in mind that many successes are also not highlighted because of the "special" nature of missions. I know for a fact that there are multiple missions conducted by the SSG in the 70s, 80s, that are still hidden from public purview given the geo-pol sensitivity around some things.

We have a 60 plus years of history with special forces missions so the hope is that people don't repeat mistakes of the past.

What are the odds of success in 2019 ??

 

[maverick1977]

What an utter sh!t show - incredibly poor planning and management. I suggest everyone read this article. I wonder how much things have improved recently? It has been 50 years since then, so you'd hope we'd be better prepared for conflict, especially since we spent the last 15 years in a state of conflict.

what a disgraceful operation. they didnt have the wirecutters... wtf was that... what were the carrying BB guns ?? the most embarrassing commando episode ive ever run across. 100% mission failure... atleast get them the right gear and let them destroy the basses and then surrender or die.. all of them failed. just imagined capturing one of the basses and dropping more troops to cut off enemy logistics. the war wouldve take an interesting course...

the objective shouldve always should be use enemy guns and mark the team to capture the ammo depot as a secondary target to replenish and destroy the remaining... embarrassing..

 

[Crixus]

As you said there was 0 chances of mission success and still they send the operatives ( no one can question their bravery) ...... but what you think the purpose of such raid whose failure was well known even before execution

a) The possibility of an SF operation to succeed right after the initiation of hostilities had been announced was essentially 0%. Once the war was declared, as would be expected and was known to all the officers and men involved, the Indian airfields would be on their highest state of alert. The SF teams communicated back to the command HQ for the date of the airdrops to be shifted to a later one but were declined. In hindsight, had they known about the plans in advance, the SSG would have gone in earlier to soften up the Indian airfields.

Once the war was initiated, a Pakistani Army historian (Maj Gen Shaukat Reza) mentioned that hypothetically this mission was akin to a raid on London by the German commandos or US SF doing the same in Hanoi in 1971 in terms of the difficulty and the abysmal chances of success.

b) The real deal is that not a SINGLE officer or jawan of the SSG backed out despite all the odds stacked up. 100% of those available went in! They went ahead with what they had. They did that for the survival of Pakistan because that is what they were ordered to do. No insubordination, no objectors! And this is the reason that Gen Reza actually called these a "Kamikaze" mission.

This is the single biggest reason that the guts and courage of these men should be recalled. Perhaps movies should be made about this because this mission, despite its failure, has legacy and that is if and when the backs of the Pakistani nation are against the wall, we will do what we must even if it means making the supreme sacrifice. Almost all the officers were recommended for bravery awards on account of what they had taken on but they collectively refused and suggested awards should only go to those who were martyred.

To those suggesting perhaps that planning would be better now, the underlined part is important. There is always a tendency, across the world, to misuse Special Forces. However over time, more SSG officers have gone into higher command and there is a better appreciation of the use of the SF in Pakistan Army/PAF and PN now. While that is no guarantee that failures in the future cannot happen, one must also keep in mind that many successes are also not highlighted because of the "special" nature of missions. I know for a fact that there are multiple missions conducted by the SSG in the 70s, 80s, that are still hidden from public purview given the geo-pol sensitivity around some things.

We have a 60 plus years of history with special forces missions so the hope is that people don't repeat mistakes of the past.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Ha ha ha ......

Amazing, isn't it? And so lucky that we number these types among the most bristly Pakistani hawks; imagine how tough it would get if they had rational people looking for war.

Your talk is funny
You say India attacked Pakistan in 1965 .

From this point on, you are an accessory to suicide, and that is a punishable offence.

What else would you call attacking the IB on the 6th of September? You can use Operation Gibraltar as a justification, but it occurred on the LOC which was (and still is) a disputed territory, thus making any violation of it perfectly justifiable. If we apply your principle of it being unjustified, then what India did in the Siachen is also completely unjustified. Not only that, but Operation Gibraltar involved the use of covert operations, not a full-scale invasion, and you conveniently ignore other events in 1965 prior to Operation Gibraltar that also led to the attack on the IB on the 6th of September, such as the Rann of Kutch dispute.

@GHALIB

In their fuzzy minds, they can attack border guards in the Rann of Kutch with armour, and that doesn't count; they can infiltrate major numbers of commandos into Kashmir and that doesn't count; they can attack Indian positions with armour and that doesn't count (as @Vibrio has pointed out time and again to self-deluded Pakistani college students who have opinions on military matters, the portion of the border dividing India and Pakistan that Pakistan attacked in Grand Slam was not part of the LOC but a separate extension of the International Border).

The only thing that counts is what Pakistani fan-boys can cite as aggression.

I know some of the officers who participated in this mission. Before discounting this as utter "whatnot", those who were called upon to participate in the mission knew 100% that the chances of their mission being a success would be less than 5%.

The way the mission was put to the officers and men was that this was a "do or a die for the survival of Pakistan".

Given the operational secrecy needs, none of the personnel were briefed about their target sites in advance. The plans for this "contingency" ops were locked up in AHQ and communicated only on the basis of "need-to-know" and known perhaps by the CGS and the then commander SSG. The idea was that in case this had to be done, personnel would be able to execute such a plan with a little bit of advanced planning etc. That they never got the advance notice is the reason that personnel went into these missions without any of the requisite gear. The maps of the target sites were provided to the SSG teams a few hours before the launch and were dated 1959 for 2 of the airfields whereas one airfield had no maps available to it.

Even if one leaves aside the equipment, planning issues, the bigger problem with outfits like the SSG is that effective teams are formed after months and years of operating together to create the buddy system/small team impact. In this case, when the war arrived, 40-50% of the SSG manpower was on leave given that open war was declared on the 6th after Indian operations were initiated to offset the pressure from Op. Grandslam. So even many in the Army were not expecting open hostilities.

When the three teams were put together, they had officers who had never operated with those under their command because company commanders were shuffled to make up for those on leave (despite the recall, the troops were told there wasn't sufficient time to wait for officers/men to return from leave). This is a huge problem for any SF team to go into an operation with men who have not worked with each other. However, the ones making the calls to launch were not people who understood SF as most had never served in it.

The two biggest call outs that I have based on some conversations in the past with some of these officers were that:

a) The possibility of an SF operation to succeed right after the initiation of hostilities had been announced was essentially 0%. Once the war was declared, as would be expected and was known to all the officers and men involved, the Indian airfields would be on their highest state of alert. The SF teams communicated back to the command HQ for the date of the airdrops to be shifted to a later one but were declined. In hindsight, had they known about the plans in advance, the SSG would have gone in earlier to soften up the Indian airfields.

Once the war was initiated, a Pakistani Army historian (Maj Gen Shaukat Reza) mentioned that hypothetically this mission was akin to a raid on London by the German commandos or US SF doing the same in Hanoi in 1971 in terms of the difficulty and the abysmal chances of success.

b) The real deal is that not a SINGLE officer or jawan of the SSG backed out despite all the odds stacked up. 100% of those available went in! They went ahead with what they had. They did that for the survival of Pakistan because that is what they were ordered to do. No insubordination, no objectors! And this is the reason that Gen Reza actually called these a "Kamikaze" mission.

This is the single biggest reason that the guts and courage of these men should be recalled. Perhaps movies should be made about this because this mission, despite its failure, has legacy and that is if and when the backs of the Pakistani nation are against the wall, we will do what we must even if it means making the supreme sacrifice. Almost all the officers were recommended for bravery awards on account of what they had taken on but they collectively refused and suggested awards should only go to those who were martyred.

To those suggesting perhaps that planning would be better now, the underlined part is important. There is always a tendency, across the world, to misuse Special Forces. However over time, more SSG officers have gone into higher command and there is a better appreciation of the use of the SF in Pakistan Army/PAF and PN now. While that is no guarantee that failures in the future cannot happen, one must also keep in mind that many successes are also not highlighted because of the "special" nature of missions. I know for a fact that there are multiple missions conducted by the SSG in the 70s, 80s, that are still hidden from public purview given the geo-pol sensitivity around some things.

We have a 60 plus years of history with special forces missions so the hope is that people don't repeat mistakes of the past.

I find this point of view difficult to understand.

What is glorious in dying for objectives that are unattainable from the outset? In what way did the gallantry of the troops involved affect the survival of Pakistan?

 

[Hamza913]

In their fuzzy minds, they can attack border guards in the Rann of Kutch with armour, and that doesn't count; they can infiltrate major numbers of commandos into Kashmir and that doesn't count; they can attack Indian positions with armour and that doesn't count

It counts as aggression but not as the start of a full-scale war. It just provides a casus belli, in which case, the argument becomes whether or not India's invasion was justified.

 

[Joe Shearer]

It counts as aggression but not as the start of a full-scale war. It just provides a casus belli, in which case, the argument becomes whether or not India's invasion was justified.

Who decides that? The aggressor, or the country against whom the aggression was conducted?

This is one reason why India lost faith in the UN; on an earlier occasion, the country that committed an admitted aggression was equated with the country that it attacked. Here, too, it is strange that a casus belli is not a casus belli; your words contradict themselves. It is strange that you undertake the contortions involved in stating that a casus belli should meet with a moderated response, a response moderated by the wishes of the aggressor nation.

What are the odds of success in 2019 ??

<a dead silence....>

 

[Hamza913]

Who decides that?

It's rather arbitrary, but so is almost everything in life. Ultimately, it's decided based on the current normality.

In 1965, the conflict in the Rann of Kutch was over disputed territory (and I'm not even going to get into who was at fault, that's another discussion), as was the conflict in Kashmir (the border in Kashmir isn't even recognised as an official border by either side, it's just referred to as the "Line Of Control" or "LOC"). Since India breached what is recognised by both parties as the International Border on the 6th of September (which also escalated the fighting from small skirmishes in disputed territory to full-scale operations all over the border between the two countries), that is the official start of the war, as far as I'm concerned.