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PDF THINK TANK: CONSULTANT
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- Posting excerpts from the report, complete report could be downloaded from the link:
http://www.princeton.edu/sgs/faculty-staff/zia-mian/Limited-Military-Utility-of-Pakistans.pdf
Authors
A.H. Nayyar: Visiting Researcher, Program on Science and Global Security, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 221 Nassau Street, 2nd floor, Princeton, NJ 08542, USA. Email: nayyar@princeton.edu.
Zia Mian: Research Scientist, Program on Science and Global Security, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 221 Nassau Street, 2nd floor, Princeton, NJ 08542, USA. Email: zia@princeton.edu. Web: The Program on Science and Global Security
=============================================
The Limited Military Utility of Pakistan’s "Battlefield Use" of Nuclear Weapons in Response to Large Scale Indian Conventional Attack
'If' Pakistan Goes Nuclear
There have been some suggestions of where Pakistan may first use its nuclear weapons. They imagine large Indian armored formations and ground forces threatening to take further territory or inflict further defeat on Pakistani conventional forces. A nuclear strike by Pakistan on Indian forces in Pakistani territory, when there is no conventional response left to Pakistan, might be aimed at preventing imminent conventional defeat rather than fighting and winning a nuclear war. The goal might be to use nuclear weapons to support conventional forces and as the U.S. army manual suggests to “dramatically increase the possibilities for sudden alterations on the battlefield, which attacks can exploit.”
One analysis argues that Pakistan would initiate the use of nuclear weapons on Pakistan‟s own soil against Indian attacking forces, and then use them against military targets in India near Pakistan border and finally attack cities. Another historian of Pakistan‟s army and its wars suggests that “If India‟s two armor-heavy mechanized infantry strike corps managed to penetrate to the line joining Gujranwala-Multan-Sukkur and to the outskirts of Hyderabad in the South, then it is likely Pakistan would have to accept defeat or employ nuclear weapons.” These cities are roughly 50 km, 190 km, 90 km and 130 km respectively from thenearest points on the border with India
In the late 1990s, US military war-gaming of a possible conflict between India and Pakistan involved a situation, where after several days of conflict, “Pakistani forces in the north were defeated and Indian forces moved quickly across the Thar desert toward the Indus River” and Pakistan responds with “four nuclear weapons.” The war-game imagined Pakistan using three 20 kiloton nuclear weapons aimed at “halting invading Indian forces on the border” and the fourth against a rail hub. In the game, India retaliates by launching twelve nuclear weapons at Pakistan‟s nuclear and command facilities, including near the capital Islamabad.
Battle-field Use of Nuclear Weapons
Indian military exercises have simulated attacks on Pakistan involving over 1000 tanks and armoured vehicles. The 1986 exercise Brasstacks involved 1300 tanks. The 2001 Poorna Vijay military exercise involved 1000 tanks and armored vehicles. Details of the deployment within the exercise are not available. The Indian army order of battle has been suggested as comprising regiments of 55 tanks, with six tank regiments in an armoured division. This suggests that several divisions were involved in the exercises simulating war with Pakistan.
The United States planned for large tank battles in the early stages of a war with the Soviet Union in Central Europe. It was expected that a heavy division would defend a standard front 25 km wide. These deployments became much closer when units were attacking, with the operational front for an armoured division being roughly 8–10 km. For the United States an armoured formation for “deliberate attack or breakthrough” used vehicles spaced 50 meters apart in each row, and the rows were set 200–250 meter apart. This is equivalent to 80 armoured vehicles per km2
.
The density of 80 armoured vehicles per km2 is equivalent to that of a triangular lattice with points spaced about 120 meters apart. Soviet armoured vehicles were typically spaced 100 meters apart. If they were in a triangular formation, they would have an effective density of 115 vehicles per km2. Increasing the spacing to 200 meters reduces the density of vehicles to below 30 per km2. A density of 3 vehicles per km2 is achieved by spacing them about 540 meters apart. This kind of density has been reported for US and Soviet divisions in Europe.
Nuclear weapons produce three important immediate destructive effects: blast, heat and prompt radiation in the form of gamma rays and neutrons. All three effects are expressed equally in all direction and decrease with distance. To estimate how many tanks and crews may be affected by each of these, it is worth noting that for separation of d meters between neighbouring tanks, the number of tanks in a circle of radius r meters is 3.6(r/d)2.
A standard description of the effects of nuclear weapons notes that a 1 kT explosion at a height of about 150 meters produces overpressures of 45 psi at horizontal distances from ground zero as large as about 170 meters.
(comment: Hataf IX Nasar missile is believed to carry nuclear warhead of blast yield varying from subkiloton up to 5 KT)
The distance l ratios scale as the 1/3 power of the ratio of yields. This means that a 15 kT burst at a height of about 400 m would generate an overpressure of 3 atm up to a distance of about 420 meters, i.e., over an area of 0.55 km2. The number of tanks, N, in this circular area varies as the inverse square of the inter-tank distanced and is approximately given by (800/d)2.
For a tank spacing of 100 meters, one 15 kT weapon could destroy about 55 tanks. To destroy this many tanks if they were spaced 300 meters part would take 8 weapons of 15 kiloton yield each. To destroy by blast alone roughly half of a force of 1000 tanks that were well dispersed would require on the order of 100 nuclear weapons of 15 kiloton yield.
http://www.princeton.edu/sgs/faculty-staff/zia-mian/Limited-Military-Utility-of-Pakistans.pdf
Authors
A.H. Nayyar: Visiting Researcher, Program on Science and Global Security, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 221 Nassau Street, 2nd floor, Princeton, NJ 08542, USA. Email: nayyar@princeton.edu.
Zia Mian: Research Scientist, Program on Science and Global Security, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 221 Nassau Street, 2nd floor, Princeton, NJ 08542, USA. Email: zia@princeton.edu. Web: The Program on Science and Global Security
=============================================
The Limited Military Utility of Pakistan’s "Battlefield Use" of Nuclear Weapons in Response to Large Scale Indian Conventional Attack
'If' Pakistan Goes Nuclear
There have been some suggestions of where Pakistan may first use its nuclear weapons. They imagine large Indian armored formations and ground forces threatening to take further territory or inflict further defeat on Pakistani conventional forces. A nuclear strike by Pakistan on Indian forces in Pakistani territory, when there is no conventional response left to Pakistan, might be aimed at preventing imminent conventional defeat rather than fighting and winning a nuclear war. The goal might be to use nuclear weapons to support conventional forces and as the U.S. army manual suggests to “dramatically increase the possibilities for sudden alterations on the battlefield, which attacks can exploit.”
One analysis argues that Pakistan would initiate the use of nuclear weapons on Pakistan‟s own soil against Indian attacking forces, and then use them against military targets in India near Pakistan border and finally attack cities. Another historian of Pakistan‟s army and its wars suggests that “If India‟s two armor-heavy mechanized infantry strike corps managed to penetrate to the line joining Gujranwala-Multan-Sukkur and to the outskirts of Hyderabad in the South, then it is likely Pakistan would have to accept defeat or employ nuclear weapons.” These cities are roughly 50 km, 190 km, 90 km and 130 km respectively from thenearest points on the border with India
In the late 1990s, US military war-gaming of a possible conflict between India and Pakistan involved a situation, where after several days of conflict, “Pakistani forces in the north were defeated and Indian forces moved quickly across the Thar desert toward the Indus River” and Pakistan responds with “four nuclear weapons.” The war-game imagined Pakistan using three 20 kiloton nuclear weapons aimed at “halting invading Indian forces on the border” and the fourth against a rail hub. In the game, India retaliates by launching twelve nuclear weapons at Pakistan‟s nuclear and command facilities, including near the capital Islamabad.
Battle-field Use of Nuclear Weapons
Indian military exercises have simulated attacks on Pakistan involving over 1000 tanks and armoured vehicles. The 1986 exercise Brasstacks involved 1300 tanks. The 2001 Poorna Vijay military exercise involved 1000 tanks and armored vehicles. Details of the deployment within the exercise are not available. The Indian army order of battle has been suggested as comprising regiments of 55 tanks, with six tank regiments in an armoured division. This suggests that several divisions were involved in the exercises simulating war with Pakistan.
The United States planned for large tank battles in the early stages of a war with the Soviet Union in Central Europe. It was expected that a heavy division would defend a standard front 25 km wide. These deployments became much closer when units were attacking, with the operational front for an armoured division being roughly 8–10 km. For the United States an armoured formation for “deliberate attack or breakthrough” used vehicles spaced 50 meters apart in each row, and the rows were set 200–250 meter apart. This is equivalent to 80 armoured vehicles per km2
.
The density of 80 armoured vehicles per km2 is equivalent to that of a triangular lattice with points spaced about 120 meters apart. Soviet armoured vehicles were typically spaced 100 meters apart. If they were in a triangular formation, they would have an effective density of 115 vehicles per km2. Increasing the spacing to 200 meters reduces the density of vehicles to below 30 per km2. A density of 3 vehicles per km2 is achieved by spacing them about 540 meters apart. This kind of density has been reported for US and Soviet divisions in Europe.
Nuclear weapons produce three important immediate destructive effects: blast, heat and prompt radiation in the form of gamma rays and neutrons. All three effects are expressed equally in all direction and decrease with distance. To estimate how many tanks and crews may be affected by each of these, it is worth noting that for separation of d meters between neighbouring tanks, the number of tanks in a circle of radius r meters is 3.6(r/d)2.
- Blast
A standard description of the effects of nuclear weapons notes that a 1 kT explosion at a height of about 150 meters produces overpressures of 45 psi at horizontal distances from ground zero as large as about 170 meters.
(comment: Hataf IX Nasar missile is believed to carry nuclear warhead of blast yield varying from subkiloton up to 5 KT)
The distance l ratios scale as the 1/3 power of the ratio of yields. This means that a 15 kT burst at a height of about 400 m would generate an overpressure of 3 atm up to a distance of about 420 meters, i.e., over an area of 0.55 km2. The number of tanks, N, in this circular area varies as the inverse square of the inter-tank distanced and is approximately given by (800/d)2.
For a tank spacing of 100 meters, one 15 kT weapon could destroy about 55 tanks. To destroy this many tanks if they were spaced 300 meters part would take 8 weapons of 15 kiloton yield each. To destroy by blast alone roughly half of a force of 1000 tanks that were well dispersed would require on the order of 100 nuclear weapons of 15 kiloton yield.
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