BSF kills 7 Pak Rangers, one terrorist on Jammu border - Its escalating folks.

[Muloghonto]

55 minutes ago, Vilander said:

Wars are fought within theaters chinese conventional advantage has to be understood with their massive coast and littoral engagements they have more power in their nuke submarines thats a given. But they need to come to indian ocean and bob and engage india, its going to be a mountain division levl skirmish and probably will escalate to iaf vs plaf over ne and tibet. You are comparing military strength here no one will contest China is stronger but there is no way they can directly engage India alone without any pan global ramification.

My understanding is that the events leading to China's attack on India would already be having pan-global ramification. Ie, a mass scale war between India and Pakistan is a 'pan global ramification' scenario anyways.

 

35 minutes ago, Vilander said:

Again in order to be an effective offensive force china needs a far greater numeric superiority than what they can acheive across the lac their key addition is the rail network and roads till the lac they can move their divisions pretty quickly but will have to contend with waiting till plaf dominates the air space.  This is where things get interesting with s400 and akash/prithvi/barak systems come into play. There is no way china is ready to escalate border with India to the levels of its eastern and south eastern sectors. If you see india is not going full speed in deploying strike corps in ne but opening advance air strips and getting bmd there is caution yet quite confidence in it but no underestimation. 

It is not there yet. As in, right now. IA is dead-meat to PLA in mass scale war scenario. PLA has significantly better armaments, mobility and tactical advantage on ground. 

[FischerTal]

On October 22, 2016 at 0:06 PM, Muloghonto said:

China will 'attack' India in the event India attacks Pakistan on a major offensive, under the pretext of preventing war/stopping war between nuclear nations. 

As for the IAF, the IAF is about to enter its worst phase very soon. We need close to 50 squadrons to maintain a 'two-front deterrence', currently we have 41 squadrons and the number are dropping fast.

LCA is a dud because HAL cannot build more than 15 per year. By the time HAL builds 120 LCA, it would be close to 2030 and LCA would be an 'average' fighter of that day (remember, LCA is a late 1980s/early 1990s design). 

Currently IAF has 240 SU-30 (30 more to come), 3 LCA, 60-70 Mig-29, 50 Mirage 2000 and 145 Jaguars. Even if you include the Rafale, India will be looking at 600-625 combat ready air superiority/multirole fighters...which is about 30-35 squadrons. 

We are retiring 245 mig-21 by 2022 (thats less than 6 years from now), 120 Mig-27 are gone by the end of next year. 

 

The IAF will be in no position to challenge the PLAAF + PAF till 2030 at the very least, because our numbers simply do not add up. Mind you, the 50 squadron force is seen as IAF to maintain credible deterrence in our own airspace, not sustained offensive action. 

 

As for our navy, gone are the days our navy could challenge the Chinese navy. Right now, China's navy is way, way stronger.

a) it has the bigger navy than India ( it is the 2nd largest navy in the world after USN, in terms of total tonnage displaced. India is 5th largest)

b) China has : 11 nuclear subs (+5 under construction), 57 conventional subs (+5 under construction), 1 A/C with 2 under construction, 28 destroyers, 46 frigates and 228 amphibious landing ships. 

c) India has: 1 nuclear sub (+2 more under construction + 6 more planned), 13 conventional subs (with 6 more under construction & 6 more planned), 2 A/C with 1 under construction & 1 more planned, 10 destroyers (3 planned), 15 frigates (7 more planned) and 16 amphibious landing ships. 

As you can see, conflict with China, India is very far behind the quality & numbers game.

 

again, as i said, it won't be just india that faces a two-front war. the chinese will face the same problem on their eastern side. don't go simply by the numbers game. 

 

even i don't have much faith in the LCA, but as of now the upgraded LCA mk1 A version will supposedly hold the fort, atleast against the JF-17 thunder. even if LCA does not achieve the desired results, the government is in talks with Lockheed Martin to move the entire manufacturing line of F-16 to India under a "Make in India" programme. Also, this would effectively disbar the further sale of F-16 to Pakistan in the future. Saab is also offering the Gripen on similar lines. a decision on this has to be made swiftly to replace the Mig-21s. 

 

sooner or later, the govt will also have to make a decision of the FGFA proposal from Russia. they can't dilly dally on this proposal anymore. the details regarding the specifications were discussed during the BRICS summit and it should be sealed by the end of this year. 

 

50 squadrons is too much, i remember a former Air Marshal saying that to combat both China and Pak, India need around 42 squadrons. also, again chinese numerical superiority means nothing if they have to fight on two different fronts. this is where indian diplomacy will have to come through. MEA has to reach out to Southeast and East Asian nations to develop a convergence of opinions regarding China's hegemonic ambitions. Just yesterday, Japan asked India to make its views clear regarding the Senkaku islands. 

 

 

[Muloghonto]

Quote

 

^
I don't think you are understanding the scenario I am painting. 

There are two major pathways to 'war with China + Pakistan'

 

1. Global WWIII which pits India + allies vs China + Pakistan + allies

Prognosis: this scenario is extremely unlikely, as it'd be 100% guaranteed destruction of mankind. 

 

2. China joins a war India started with Pakistan, on the latter's side.

Prognosis: this scenario is far more likely. Think about it- A full scale war in the present to forseeable future, pitting India vs Pakistan makes sense only if India initiates the invasion. Pakistanis are not total morons, they are not going to invade us coz they'd get their rears handed to them within 100 kms of advance into India. Thy are happy poking as us with terrorists while hiding behind their nuclear shield. 

 

In such a scenario, where India invades Pakistan, whatever be the cause, China has a window of opportunity to jump into the fray and trumpet the 'preserving Global stability' cause. It'd give anyone pause and realistically, there are only two nations in a position to intervene on India's side: USA and Russia. 

Uncle Sam will never give precedence to India, a country it does 65 billion dollars in trade per annum, over China, a country it does 598 billion dollar trade in same timeframe. Remember, on current paradigm, US opposes practically any major expansionist power, which India would be labelled as, if it invades Pakistan. 

As for Russia- don't count on Russia. That is the lesson of this LoC cross-borer op. Russia failed to condemn LeT or JeM at the recent BRICS summit and that is entirely due to China's pressure on Russia over this issue. 

Again, it largely boils down to the money issue: Indo-Russian trade is 9.5 billion per annum while Russia-China trade is at 88 billion dollars/annum. At most Russia will continue to sell arms to India and the logistics of it are complicated without direct access between India and Russia in place. India has no solid friends in the international community who are big league players. 

[Vilander]

On 10/22/2016 at 5:26 PM, Muloghonto said:

My understanding is that the events leading to China's attack on India would already be having pan-global ramification. Ie, a mass scale war between India and Pakistan is a 'pan global ramification' scenario anyways.

 

It is not there yet. As in, right now. IA is dead-meat to PLA in mass scale war scenario. PLA has significantly better armaments, mobility and tactical advantage on ground. 

Mulog i posted a lengthy response to this a day back but lost it because of connect issues 

But the gist is such, IA is a defensive force with very shrewd force multipliers and landing strips to deter an invading force punish them and have a very strong blitz second strike(hammer). PLA does not have numeric or armament advantage that it can use to strike across Himalayas ( by armaments do you mean tactical missiles ? APC and hele's and CAS - there is pros and cons in either side in all of those with no clear winner ). PLA vs IAF will be fought on NE were india has BMD + Anti Air infra. And we are not privy to the tactical doctrines of either army to comment on tactical scenarios that will playout but can guess based on interest points/ strategic necessities of either side. say Tawang,Silliguri etc the worst choke point but how would an invading force occupy it when there is Indian forces on all high altitudes hitting it. The only way is if there is coordinated attack on Sikkim,Bhutan,Arunachal and Silliguri at the same time in the eastern sector, this would mean force movements like what have been seen last in world war 2 :) there is no tactical advantage for either side in NE at-least not when starting the war, if we loose NE altogether and are driven out then they will have the higher reaches firmly in NE then there is tactical advantage like what India has on Siachen. Its a messy equation at best for China this is reason they evacuated in 65 its a natural frontier that they are trying to keep by force, their aim is to keep India and pak firmly below in the lower slopes , India by force pak by their stupidity in ceding land.

[Vilander]

3 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

^
I don't think you are understanding the scenario I am painting. 

There are two major pathways to 'war with China + Pakistan'

 

1. Global WWIII which pits India + allies vs China + Pakistan + allies

Prognosis: this scenario is extremely unlikely, as it'd be 100% guaranteed destruction of mankind. 

 

2. China joins a war India started with Pakistan, on the latter's side.

Prognosis: this scenario is far more likely. Think about it- A full scale war in the present to forseeable future, pitting India vs Pakistan makes sense only if India initiates the invasion. Pakistanis are not total morons, they are not going to invade us coz they'd get their rears handed to them within 100 kms of advance into India. Thy are happy poking as us with terrorists while hiding behind their nuclear shield. 

 

In such a scenario, where India invades Pakistan, whatever be the cause, China has a window of opportunity to jump into the fray and trumpet the 'preserving Global stability' cause. It'd give anyone pause and realistically, there are only two nations in a position to intervene on India's side: USA and Russia. 

Uncle Sam will never give precedence to India, a country it does 65 billion dollars in trade per annum, over China, a country it does 598 billion dollar trade in same timeframe. Remember, on current paradigm, US opposes practically any major expansionist power, which India would be labelled as, if it invades Pakistan. 

As for Russia- don't count on Russia. That is the lesson of this LoC cross-borer op. Russia failed to condemn LeT or JeM at the recent BRICS summit and that is entirely due to China's pressure on Russia over this issue. 

Again, it largely boils down to the money issue: Indo-Russian trade is 9.5 billion per annum while Russia-China trade is at 88 billion dollars/annum. At most Russia will continue to sell arms to India and the logistics of it are complicated without direct access between India and Russia in place. India has no solid friends in the international community who are big league players. 

If India invades thats another story. 

 

Besides that happend in BRICS is down to Indian diplomats not knowing what is the extent Russia and China are willing to accommodate. India was simply put in its place, we need to have a much stronger economy inorder to realistically pull off what we attempted in BRICS. Expecting Russia to do anything against China at this stage when 1, India can not replace China economically for them 2, India can not exert any pressure on US to reduce tensions with Russia; is basically silly , brics just proved Indias place. We are at the place maximum allowed for our profile, a 2 something trillion growing economy with a sub global/regional strategic location top of Indian ocean with demographic advantage but lack of perennial resources. With durette defecting to china in a silly manner India is out of SCS as well i guess.