1965 war ?

[youngindia]

yesterday i thought i could brush up some details of the 1965 war .On many of the sites i was disappointed to see ill informed posters from both sides posting half baked knowledge to downright rubbish.sometimes ,the indian posters did not even correct obvious factual errors showing their lack of grip on the topic.on few sites, there were fortunately strategically savvy people or military professionals present who save the day. this thread can be a useful place where interested members who want to learn or contribute can post. i request that those who post informaion(instead of asking question) be atleast decently versed on the topic(atleast high level knowledge of military happenings) .

[Sir john]

i have a good story of 1965 war which is real,i in my neighbourhood there is a aunty(tayi ji) whose husband fight both the 65 and 71 war, in my village there are many soldiers who fight that 65 and 72 war,, during the tank battle,one of my village soldier(who serve in anti-tank unit) fired a anti-tank rocket to pak M60 tank,after some time a pak soldier who is driver of that tank come outside as badly injured,than my village soldier give him some water,than pak soldier say that he have 5 sons at home, and died after that,

[youngindia]

can someone give a highy level politcal and military overview? or should i start it? Pakistan had m48's and m47's pattons in the 1965 war.i am not sure if they ever got m60.

[Cricket_Guru]

i have no detailed knowledge about the 1965 war, but my grandmother told me few points, she said during the time of war, this truck came into our village, and they were collecting ration for soldiers and also about 50 people from village went to help in out of war things, distribution of all the stuff. she said everyone thought that indians were going to take over pakistan, as she has already seen the partition of india, everyone thought another disaster had arrived. during the war noor jahan read an emotional song, it was played on radio 24 hours non stop+ news's. zF97xSB2STk she said everyone was relieved at the end of war. thing like this should never happen, but people dont look beyond india/pak scanario for the sake of humanity on both sides

[Sir john]

can someone give a highy level politcal and military overview? or should i start it? Pakistan had m48's and m47's pattons in the 1965 war.i am not sure if they ever got m60.

man m47 and m48 are old version of m60,i have seen many of those tanks,there are many pak tanks which are left by pak troops,

[Tapioca]

she said everyone thought that indians were going to take over pakistan, as she has already seen the partition of india, everyone thought another disaster had arrived.

Interesting. I always thought that in Pakistan you were told that Pakistan was winning the war. The general view seems to be that neither side had much of an advantage at the time of ceasefire, but if the war went on for another week or two, Pakistan would have been in serious trouble as they had nearly ran out of resources. India brought out an official history/report of the 1965 war a few years back. The pdf of it is available somewhere online.

[Cricket_Guru]

Interesting. I always thought that in Pakistan you were told that Pakistan was winning the war. The general view seems to be that neither side had much of an advantage at the time of ceasefire, but if the war went on for another week or two, Pakistan would have been in serious trouble as they had nearly ran out of resources. India brought out an official history/report of the 1965 war a few years back. The pdf of it is available somewhere online.

during the war, it was tense and as you said neither side had an advantage, but because india had more power, more resources, thats why pakistani people were nervous, but once it ended, it was nothing less than a victory for people, a reviving victory and surviving the scare victory

[youngindia]

ok,since no one has shown interest, i will start myself. Background: At the time of 1962, The indian army was not in great shape.from the start of independence till the 62 war, it was in a state of neglect to the official govt policy which was largely limited to maintain a defensive posture vs pakistan. Despite the overhyped purchase of aircraft carrier,vikrant, the required upgrades were not being undertaken.This certainly influenced the chinese decision to goto a war they were guaranteed to win .nations that start a war do not do so on the fly.they follow well known age old dictums. war between india and china will be border wars that are confined to the high mountains. such a terrain demanded acclimatisation of soliders and winter equipment. Not surprisingly the illequipped indian army found it unsuited for warfare in the high himalayas and china won a clear victory in ladkah/aksai chin and also NEFA(arunachal pradesh nowadays) fronts . but the defeat resulted in national outrage and the disgraced govt planned a expansion program that will restore indian army to the levels expected of a big nation. in 1962, the standing army was around 400,000 when you would have expected a army of atleast 1 million. Enthusiastic youth began joining the army from 1963 for the nation. western aid started flowing in much to the consternation of pakistan which has been receiving american aid from the 50's due to joining the cento and seatto pacts and granting air bases for secret u2 flights. but the western power also pressured india into talks on kashmir. talk after talk broke down. in 1965, India started taking more steps into integrating J and K into the union without abrogating article 370. Pakistan's foreign minister ZA bhutto along with aziz ahmed of the foreign office arrived at a idea. bhutto was convinced that if pakistan had to a fight a war over kashmir, it had to be in 1965. his assessment was that india's expansion program would greatly increase the gap between india and pakistan eventually putting any military solution beyond pakistan's reach. Musa khan , the C in C of the pak army preferred 1967 when more american aid would have completed pakistan's progams. but pakistan already had significant superiority in armour both in quantity and arguably in quality as well.its air force was smaller but had advantages like air to air missiles , superior radar equipment. though india had expanded its army to 700000, almost 300000 are new recruits and unproven militarily. so musa was won over. how much the pakistani dictator,ayub khan was on board is contested in the political rivalries of pakistan. but the pro ayub side claims that ayub was won over by bhutto's logic whereas the pro bhutto side claim ayub was alway on board. A minor dispute in the rann of kutch became a testbed for the pakistan leadership. the indian army leadership decided not to escalate fight in this area due to various reasons and pakistani forces had sucess in the skirmishes .but this resulted in a positive mood in the pakistani high command. india mobilized for war in operation ablaze.but thr trigger had to be pulled by the paksitanis since it was hardly the ideal time for war from indian point of view. this encouraged the pakistani high command to carry out "operation gibraltar".This involved infiltration of guerrillas (mostly from pok) and pakistani commandos to create havoc ,confusion inthe valley and raise an insurrection. this was encouraged by the kashmiri muslim demonstrations and acrimony over the loss of a holy relic from the hazratbal shrine in the previous years. the pakistani high command wanted to undermine indian rule but without provoking an allout war on the international border(different from LOC). because in 1948, fighting was confined to kashmir only.bhutto was bolstered by chinese foreign minister chen yi that india will not attack across the international border.this proved to be the mistaken asumption that lead to the war. ayub khan had initial reservations but claims to have been won over by bhutto's optimistic picture and gave the go ahead for the fatal opeation.

[Jadoo]

^^ Waiting to read your part ii.

[youngindia]

Prelude to full scale war. Operation gibraltar As planned,operation gibraltar was launched in the first week of august 1965 almost 45 years ago. while the intruders caused some confusion with sabotage and murder, they acheived real sucess in only around 4 districts where local kashmiris revolted. in other cases, the locals infact handed over the intruders.it must be remembered that people from pok like the mirpur-kotli sectors are different from kashmiris inthe kashmir valley.as are pakistani punjabis and pathans of the regualr army. they didn't even know that kashmir used metric system. the operation failed to raise a revolt as planned. by august 20, indian forces had nailed most of the pakistanis and brought the situation under control. Indian army decided to target the key logistic area of the infiltrators that served as the supply line. it attacked the hajipur and kishenganga bulges near the uri-poonch sector and advanced to pok. The defences of 12 division of the pakistani army defending pakistan held kashmir was breached and it set panic in the high command which feared an advance towards muzaffarabad. operation gibraltar had failed. Operation grandslam. Then ayub asked major general akthar hussein malik the commander of 12 division, to go for the jugular-the akhnur bridge .The possession of akhnur would enable the attacker to threaten jammu's links to rest of india and choke the supply to indian troops in many areas of kashmir. The plan was go through chamb, akhnur,jaurian and finally rajouri. on september 1, pakistan launched an attack in the chamb sector defended by only light tanks and anti guns.after heavy fighting, chamb had fallen by evening. on september 2, akhnur looked most likely to fall since there was not enough indian strength in the area. the indian brigade defending akhnur was awaiting sept 2 with trepidation. then came the single most controversial event of the war. pakistan changed command by replacing akthar hussein malik with yahya khan(who succeeded ayub as dictator). there was no advance on sept. this gave the indian army a precious 24 hours of preparations to reinforce akhnur's defences. to this day. the issue has been hotly contested in pakistan and the real reason is unclear.MUsa khan's attempts to explain the change of command in his book "my version" has been disputed by other first hand sources like gul hassan- director of operations. one theory is ayub's loss of nerve that if they capture akhnur, india will respond with all its might on the international border. another brigadier alleges a warning by the US not escalate things further. another theory is a ayub sycophant ,yahya taking in all the glory. whatever it was, pakistan didn't take its precious fleeting chance. india's reinforced defences at akhnur contained pakistan's thrust. by then , the indian leadership had decided to launch an attack on the international border against pakistani punjab with a subsidary attack inthe rajasthan desert. some of the major pakistani sources are here. http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/sep/08war1.htm http://www.defencejournal.com/2001/september/1965.htm http://www.chowk.com/ilogs/p/65599/47736 http://www.chowk.com/ilogs/65599/47736

[youngindia]

Indian army attacked pakistani punjab in the sialkot and lahore sectors with 1 crops and 11 corps. In the initial days of the war chances for a breakthrough was missed by indian commanders. but this was the full story of the war. the attacker regardless of his nationality failed . Only defence succeeded again on both sides. Both armies suffered from higher leadersip competence because of their common roots. In the british indian army, only british officers were there beyond a level. Indian officers experience was confined to lower level. both nations had no real strategy taught. The understanding of armoured warfare in offensive proved to be poor on both sides with officers carrying infantry biased epxeriences from ww2 days. so both sides failed to see through promising offensive despite glaring advantages. The indian commander who failed on the attack at sialkot was rajinder singh sparrow who didn't know the strength of the opposing side which was just one tank regiment at gadgor . he feared an attack to his flanks and was over cautious for two costly days. They suffered a defeat at chawinda deploying the forces foolishly . this defeat enabled the pakistanis to prevent a breakthrough inthe sector and from then it dwindled into an battle of attrition till ceasefire. The lahore sector was determined by the icchogil canal(called brb by pakistan) which was an obstacle created by pakistan in the 50's and still lasts as the obstacle to an attack on lahore to this day. The key to capturing lahore was the crossing of this canal. the bridges to this canal were blown up by pakistan. Indian army had difficulties reaching the west bank on this canal.crossing only in one place, 3 jat regiment was reported to have crossed briefly into batapore, a claim denied by pakistani side. Again it turned into a battle of attrition. Pakistan launched a surprising ambitious counter offensive towards amritsar through a town named khem karan with its feared 1st armoured division which was considered superior to any india has got. this sent panic in the indian camp since fall of amritsar would be too catastrophic upsetting indian plans on all fronts. Harbaksh singh, commander of western command, states that army chief chauduri was panicky enough to consider withdrawal to th beas river. but this is denied by hostile subordinate joginder singh in his book. However , the indian forces prepared well laid ambush at khem karan and through superior tatics, pakistan lost an entire tank regiment(24 cavalry ) in a catastrophic anhilation of tanks. the area came to be known at patton nagar, with captured pakistani patton tanks displayed for public view. Now ayub khan knew there was nothing more that pakistan can achieve with the war. pakistan was running short of ammunition since USA usually supplied only a month's worth of ammuition and spares. USA had embargoed supplies to both sides during the war. pakistanis hated the US because they were hurt more badly by the embargo depending on US equipment. anti us feelings were at a height in india as well since superior US equipment was used against India despite eisenhower's assurance long ago. Countries like turkey and iran in act of bigotry, supplied ammunition to pakistan generously. but pakistan cannot depend on external supplies for too long. But intelligence on the indian side failed to assess this factor accurately. when shastri asked the army chief chauduri whether to go for more ground or ceasefire, the army chief recommended ceasefire saying india has lost ammunition as well, which proved to be a case of incompetent accounting and intelligence. Ayub and Bhutto appealed for chinese intervention as a last ditch attempt .the chinese played a very hostile role during the war with mao keen on ensuring another disaster for india. but the chinese leadership asked pakistanis to withdraw to the moutains and fight a long guerrila warfare. ayub replied pakistan cannot afford the cost of further conflict and decided to go for ceasefire . Pressure from both superpowers to end fighting was pretty heavy.kosygin invited the leaders to tashkent where ceasefire was agreed. Both sides had to return any territory gained.Giving back haji pur pass and kishenganga bulge was criticised by analysts on the indian side as they they were strategic locations. Militarily, the battles had degenerated into battle of attrition on all fronts. but pakistan was fast falling short of ammunition and spares and depending direly on external sources. Offensives by both sides were a comedy of errors barring the capture of hajipur and kishenganga bulge..both sides did well only in defence. Pakistan instigated the war to up the ante on kashmir but failed to achieve its poltical objectives. hence it has to be the losing side. 1965 proved to be the last time pakistan had some chance against india in conventional war. As bhutto predicted. the gap had grown too large by 1971. It derailed the pakistani economy which was doing well in the decade up to that point. But pakistani govt built a myth of victory declaring sept 6 as defence day.just grim survival is enough for many pakistnis to declare "victory". this only conveniently ignores how the govt blundered into a war and was left searching for a ceasfire. However after three/four decades of war, pakistanis involved in the conduct of the war like then air force chief nur khan and altaf gauhar,secretary to ayub khan, have been more forthcoming in revealing the real details. There have been books like "khaki shadows" by km arif, "memoirs of gul hassan", director of operations and articles by pak military historian Ah Amin,official hsitory by shaukat riza who have pretty much covered the main details. Musa khan also came with a biased account " my version". However in the minds of ordinary pakistani, the myth seems to perist. on the indian side, there is " war despatches" by harbaksh singh "indian army after independence" by major kc praval "Indian Army-1965 War-1971 War-Indian Military History-Behind the Scenes"-Major General Joginder Singh "missed opportunities" by maj gen lachman singh There has been some criticism over awarding of medals onthe indian side and on praise given to the likes of chauduri at that time have been questioned now. the incompetent handling of offensives has received much criticism. It has been said(harshly ) that india should have knocked pakistan in the given time but the historical context that we were expanding at that time and not in the ideal position to fight war has to be kept in mind. However some fleeting opportunties were not taken when on attack.the intelligence failed assess crucial info like the ammunition shortage on the pak side. hence it was a war of lost opportunities.

[Sir john]

all copy material,but what i said is true, check this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Hamid_%28soldier%29

[youngindia]

no, m60 are still in use by egypt and israel. however pakistan turned to china beause of the bitter experience during the war and has no record of buying m 60.

[Sir john]

no' date=' m60 are still in use by egypt and israel. however pakistan turned to china beause of the bitter experience during the war and has no record of buying m 60.[/quote'] they did't have m60 ok.but it is m47 ok,

[Tapioca]

western aid started flowing in much to the consternation of pakistan which has been receiving american aid from the 50's due to joining the cento and seatto pacts and granting air bases for secret u2 flights.

YoungIndia - can you comment on this statement. Excluding the time of the China war, did we get significant aid from USA at any other point of time ?

[youngindia]

The china war and the period after gave a momentum that saw american military aid coming in for a few years. but since USA saw no gain(and kennedy died as well) in a non aligned India that won't join american agenda, it didn't last long. Though US was not a military and stategic aid giver to india, it has been the singles largest donor to india since independence. It was a huge donor in areas like economy and food.Though the US food assistance through pl480 was said to have negative impact on our agricuture. remember we were not self sufficient in food till 1967.

[Clarke]

We forget so soon .. yesterday was Kargil Vijay Divas :isalute: Some of the weaknesses exist to this day, the govt scrapped the towed gun competition for the third time to avoid the ghost of Bofors. It has been 23 yrs since the army ordered a new artillery gun and shall be many more. Never mind the fact that the new gun packs a punch and is British owned and not run by Quattrocchi. Ofcourse, when a general was asked how would they fight a war with primitive technology, the answer is as down to earth as it can be : We fight with what we have. Off topic, but relevant.

[Mamu]

We forget so soon .. yesterday was Kargil Vijay Divas :isalute: Some of the weaknesses exist to this day, the govt scrapped the towed gun competition for the third time to avoid the ghost of Bofors. It has been 23 yrs since the army ordered a new artillery gun and shall be many more. Never mind the fact that the new gun packs a punch and is British owned and not run by Quattrocchi. Ofcourse, when a general was asked how would they fight a war with primitive technology, the answer is as down to earth as it can be : We fight with what we have. Off topic, but relevant.

Not me. My avatar is a constant reminder. Thanks to the f'ing Pakis -- his family has to live without him. But yes I am quite unsettled by how insensitive human beings are. How many of them remember what happened in Mumbai -- 2 years ago? How many of us (here ) remember what happened on 9/11. What a shame, isn't it? Source of all of the above problems -- the one and the same country and we all tolerate them!

[Cricket_Guru]

Not me. My avatar is a constant reminder. Thanks to the f'ing Pakis -- his family has to live without him. But yes I am quite unsettled by how insensitive human beings are. How many of them remember what happened in Mumbai -- 2 years ago? How many of us (here ) remember what happened on 9/11. What a shame, isn't it? Source of all of the above problems -- the one and the same country and we all tolerate them!

you people have countable events such as 26/11 or 9/11 or cargil in your mind. for us everyday is 9/11 we have innocents people too, who get up every morning to work for their kids but never return home at night. this propblem is not because by one country, or one relegion, this problem is created by every one of us, we see muslim attacking other as terrorists and israeeli's/americans targetting muslim as it is there right to defend them selves. afterall an uneducated person will take this serious and there are many in the world who would blow themselves up just because of this reason.

[coffee_rules]

^^ You have to blame yourselves for that. You people publicly donate to organisations that support terrorism in Kashmir, India .. in Mosques and other public rallies. Zaid Hamid gives a hateful speech and educated people in the audience are shown clapping hands. How do you expect anybody to sympathise with such people?