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Friday, September 4, 2020

From Establishment 22 To Special Frontier Force: The Phantom Warriors

Who would lead such a force? What was needed was a senior Indian military officer who could win the confidence of the Tibetans, embracing their independent nature and promoting a semblance of discipline without resort to a rigid military code. And he would need to have a bent for the unconventional—something that was then in short supply, as the trench mentality in the Himalayas had dramatically proved. As the roster of available officers was scoured, one name caught their eye: Brigadier Sujan Singh Uban, until recently the commander of the 26th Artillery Brigade in Kashmir. He was in New Delhi after having just processed his retirement papers. Forty-eight years old, he had been an artilleryman all his career, first under the British colonial system and then with the Indian Army after independence. Normally, this would have provided little room for innovation, but Uban had spent much time with mountain units and was familiar with fighting at high altitudes. And during a stint as an artillery instructor for jungle warfare units, he had earned the nickname ‘Mad Sikh’ for his flair and drive. That small detail was enough for the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which flashed an urgent message summoning the Brigadier. On October 26, 1962, Uban was sitting in the Raksha Mantri’s office. The situation on the border—and the status of Krishna Menon and Gen B M Kaul—had already reached a critical point. With China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) still inside Indian territory, Uban was given sketchy details of the proposed behind-the-lines guerrilla missions. Working with the Tibetans would not be easy, warned Gen Kaul. Disciplining them, he said, would be like taming wild tigers. As a sweetener, the Brigadier was promised a second star in due course. Uban was hooked and he grabbed the assignment without hesitation. Now that the guerrilla force had a leader, there remained the job of signing on Tibetan volunteers. To help, the Indians sent an emissary from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to Darjeeling to fetch His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s elder brother, Gyalo Thondup. After years of attempting to court the Indian leadership—who were often sympathetic but never committal—Gyalo relished the moment as he sat in front of a select group of senior intelligence and military officials in the capital. Speaking in theoretical terms, his hosts asked whether he could organise the needed volunteers. Of course, replied Gyalo. When asked how many, he conjured a robust, round figure. Five thousand, he said. Next came a key question. Would Gyalo prefer that the IB or the MoD be involved? Based on his earlier contact with IB Director Bhola Nath Mullick and his current cooperation with the US Central Intelligence Agency (through Lhamo Tsering), the decision was easy. “Not MoD” was his indirect answer. Despite India’s woes—and her newfound interest in the Tibetans—most of Washington DC took little notice. For, half a world away in the waters around Cuba, nuclear brinkmanship was being taken to the limit as President Kennedy demanded a withdrawal of the USSR’s nuclear warhead-armed ballistic missiles from that island. Not 28 October 28 did the world breathe a sigh of relief when Moscow agreed to withdraw its weaponry. With that crisis over, the Sino-Indian conflict belatedly leapfrogged to the top of Washington’s foreign policy agenda. On December 13, the Kennedy Administration approved the provision of training assistance to Uban’s projected tactical guerrilla force.

Gyalo’s task was not particularly complicated. As with the Nepal-based Mustang contingent, he was partial toward recruiting Khampas. Finding willing takers was no problem, as the patriotic call to duty—and the chance for meaningful employment—held great appeal among the Tibetan refugee population in India. With word quickly spreading, volunteers by the thousands stepped forward over the ensuing weeks. Gyalo also sought four political leaders who could act as the force’s indigenous officer cadre. Given his seniority, ethnicity, and proven aptitude in Dharamsala over the previous two years, Jamba Kalden was an easy first pick. By early November, an initial contingent of Tibetans, led by Jamba Kalden, was dispatched to the hill-station of Dehra Dun. Once popular with India’s royalties because of its mild climate, it later served as a key British educational centre and military base. More recently, it was host to the Indian Military Academy, a number of Regimental barracks, and several prestigious boarding schools. Jamba Kalden had little time to appreciate Dehra Dun’s climatic appeal. On hand to meet the Tibetans was Brig Uban and a skeleton staff of officers on loan from the Indian Army (IA). While a transit tent-camp was set up on the edge of town to process the 5,000 promised volunteers, on November 14 the Indian cadre and four political leaders shifted 92km northwest to the village of Chakrata (now un Uttarkhand). Situated along a ridge and surrounded by forest glades, Chakrata had been chosen for good reason. Home to a thriving population of panthers and bears, it had once boasted two training centres for a pair of Gurkha Regiments. Since 1960, however, both Regiments had relocated to more favourable locations. With almost no local residents and a set of vacant cantonments, Chakrata had both ready-made facilities and the seclusion needed for the covert operations-related activities. Brig Uban and his team settled in to await the arrival of the rest of the 5,000 volunteers by the year’s end and began mapping out the process of moulding them into effective guerrilla combatants. For B N Mullick, the Chakrata project signalled a new sense of militancy regarding Tibet. This was communicated in strong fashion on December 29 when Mullik—through Gyalo Thondup—told the Dalai Lama that New Delhi had now adopted a covert policy of supporting the eventual liberation of his homeland. Although the US government did not match this with a similar pledge, the CIA wasted no time making good on its promise to help with the various Tibetan paramilitary schemes.

As a start, Jim McElroy was dispatched to India in early January 1963. He was escorted by IB liaison officers to the IA Paratroopers’ Training School at Agra, just a few kilometers from the breathtaking Taj Mahal. Because aerial methods would be the likely method of supporting behind-the-lines operations against the PLA, McElroy began an assessment of the school’s parachute inventory to fully understand India’s air delivery capabilities. He also started preliminary training of some Tibetan riggers drawn from Chakrata. McElroy’s deployment paved the way for more substantial assistance. Stepping forward as liaison in the process was 47-year-old Indian statesman Biju Patnaik from Odisha. Everything about Patnaik, who stood over 2 metres tall, was larger-than-life. The son of a State Minister from Odisha, he had courted adventure from a young age. At 16, he had bicycled across the subcontinent on a whim. Six years later, he earned his private pilot’s licence at the Delhi Flying Club. Joining the Royal Air Force at the advent of World War-2, he earned accolades after evacuating stranded British families from Burma. Other flights took him to the Soviet Union and Iran. Patnaik also made a name for himself as an ardent nationalist. Following in his parents’ footsteps—both of them were renowned patriots—he bristled under the British yoke. Sometimes his resistance methods were unorthodox. Once while flying a colonial officer from a remote post in India’s western desert region, he overheard the European use a condescending tone while questioning his skills in the cockpit. Patnaik landed the aircraft on a desolate stretch of parched earth and let the critical Englishman walk. For actions like this, Patnaik ultimately served almost four years in prison. He was released shortly before India’s independence and looked for a way to convert his passion for flying into a business. Banding together with some fellow pilots, he purchased a dozen ageing transport aircraft and founded a Kolkata-based charter company. He dubbed the venture Kalinga Air Lines, taking its name from an ancient kingdom in his native Odisha. Almost immediately, Patnaik landed a risky contract. Revolutionaries in the Indonesian archipelago were in the midst of their independence struggle, but because of a tight Dutch blockade, they were finding it hard to smuggle in weapons and other essentials. Along with several other foreign companies, Kalinga Air Lines began charter flights on their behalf. It was Patnaik himself who evaded Dutch combat aircraft to carry Muhammad Hatta (later Indonesia’s first Vice President) on a diplomatic mission to drum up support in South Asia. It was also through Kalinga Air Lines that Patnaik had his first brush with Tibet. By the mid- 1950s, he was looking to expand the airline through the acquisition of a French medium-range transport, the Nord Noratlas. He intended to use this aircraft for shuttles between Lhasa and Kolkata, having already purchased exclusive rights to this route. Before the first flight, however, diplomatic ties between India and China soured; Patnaik’s flight-plan for going to Lhasa was cancelled, and the air route never opened. Other ventures were more successful. Patnaik established a string of profitable industries across eastern India. And, like his father, he entered the government bureaucracy and eventually rose to become Chief Minister of Odisha. Patnaik was not the only one thinking along these lines. On November 20, Mullick had notified PM Jawaharlal Nehru that he wanted to quit his post as Director of the IB in order to focus on organising a resistance movement in the event of China pushing further into Assam. Nehru refused to accept his spy-master’s resignation and instead directed him toward Patnaik, with the suggestion that they pool their talent. Meeting later that same afternoon, Mullick and Patnaik became quick allies. Although their resistance plans took on less urgency the next day, after Beijing announced a unilateral cease-fire, Patnaik offered critical help in other arenas. Later that month, when the CIA wanted to use its aircraft to quietly deliver three planeloads of supplies to India as a sign of good faith, it was Patnaik who arranged for the discreet use of the Charbatia airfield in Odisha. And in December 1962, after the CIA notified New Delhi of its impending paramilitary support programme, he was the one dispatched to Washington DC on behalf of Nehru and Mullick to negotiate details of the assistance package.  Upon his arrival in the US capital, Patnaik’s primary point of contact was Robert ‘Moose’ Marrero. Thirty-two years old and of Puerto Rican ancestry, Marrero was aptly nicknamed: like Patnaik, he stood over 2 metres tall and weighed 102kg. He was also an aviator, having flown helicopters for the US Marines before leaving military service in 1957 to join the CIA as an air operations specialist.

While Patnaik was discussing these aviation issues in Washington, the CIA’s Near East Division was forging ahead with assistance for the Tibetans at Chakrata. Initially, the Pentagon also muscled its way into the act and in February 1963 penned plans to send a 106-man US Army Special Forces detachment that would offer overt, but hopefully unpublicised training in guerrilla tactics and unconventional warfare. The CIA, meanwhile, came up with a competing plan that involved no more than eight of its advisers on a six-month temporary duty assignment. Significantly, the CIA envisioned its officers living and messing alongside the Tibetans, minimising the need for logistical support. Given India’s sensitivities and the unlikely prospect of keeping an overt US military detachment unpublicised, the CIA scheme won. Heading the CIA team would be 45-year-old Wayne Sanford. By now a Marine Colonel, Sanford was still in London when the PLA attack against India materialised and CIA paramilitary support for India was approved in principle in December 1962. Early the following year, after the CIA received specific approval to send eight advisers to Chakrata, Sanford was selected to oversee the effort. He would do so from an office at the US Embassy in New Delhi while acting under the official title of Special Assistant to Ambassador Galbraith. As this would be an overt posting with the full knowledge of the Govt of India, both he and the seven other paramilitary advisers would remain segregated from David Blee’s CIA Station in New Delhi. Back in Washington, the rest of the team took shape. Another former Marine, John Magerowski, was fast to grab a berth. So was Harry Mustakos, who had worked with the Tibetans on Saipan in 1957 and served with Sanford on Da Chen. Former smoke jumper and Intermountain Aviation (a CIA proprietary) rigger Thomas ‘T. J.’ Thompson was to replace Jim McElroy at Agra. Two other training officers were selected from the US, and a third was diverted from an assignment in Turkey. The last slot went to former US Army Airborne officer Charles ‘Ken’ Seifarth, who had been in South Vietnam conducting jump classes for agents destined to infiltrate the communist North. At the outset, there was little for Sanford to report. Waiting for their gear to arrive (they had ordered plenty of cold-weather clothing), the team-members spent their first days agreeing on a syllabus for the upcoming six months. One week later, their supplies arrived, and six of the advisers left Sanford in New Delhi for the chilled air of Chakrata. The last member, Thompson, alone went to Agra. Once the CIA advisers arrived at the mountain training site, Brig Uban gave them a fast tour. A ridgeline ran east to west, with Chakrata occupying the saddle in the middle. Centred in the saddle was a polo field that fell off sharp to the south for 600 metres, then less sharply for another 300 metres. North of the field was a scattering of stone houses and shops, all remnants of the colonial era and now home to a handful of hill-tribesmen who populated the village. To the immediate west of the saddle was an old but sound-stone Anglican church. Farther west were stone bungalows previously used by British officers and their dependents. Most of the bungalows were similar, differing only in the number of bedrooms. Each had 18-inch stone walls, narrow windows, fireplaces in each room, stone floors, and a solarium facing south to trap the heat on cold days and warm the rest of the drafty house. Each CIA adviser and IA officer took a bungalow, with the largest going to Brig Uban. East of the saddle was a series of stone barracks built by the British a century earlier and more recently used by the two Gurkha Regiments. These were now holding the Tibetan recruits. There was also a longer stone building once used as a hospital, a firing range, and a walled cemetery overgrown by cedar. The epitaphs in the cemetery read like a history of Chakrata’s harsh past. The oldest grave was for a British Corporal killed in 1857 while blasting on the original construction. Different Regiments were represented through the years, their soldiers the victims of either sickness or various campaigns to expand or secure the borders. There was also a gut-wrenching trio of headstones dated within one month of one another, all children of a British Sergeant and his wife. Once fully settled, the CIA team was introduced to its guerrilla students. By that time, the Chakrata project had been given an official name. A decade earlier, Brig Uban had had a posting in command of the 22 Mountain Regiment in Assam. Borrowing that number, he gave his Tibetans the ambiguous title of ‘Establishment 22.’

In reviewing Establishment 22, the US team-members were immediately struck by the age of the Tibetans. Although there was a sprinkling of younger recruits, nearly half were older than 45; some were even approaching 60. Jamba Kalden, the chief political leader, was practically a child at 43. As had happened with the Mustang-based guerrillas, the older generation, itching for a final swing against Han China, had used its seniority to edge out younger candidates during the recruitment drive in the refugee camps. With much material to cover, the CIA advisers reviewed what the Indian staff had accomplished over the previous few months. Uban had initially focused his efforts on instilling a modicum of discipline, which he feared might be an impossible task. To his relief, this fear proved unfounded. The Tibetans immediately controlled their propensity for drinking and gambling at his behest; the Brig encouraged dancing and chanting as preferable substitutes to fill their leisure time. He had also started a strict regimen of physical exercise, including extended marches across the nearby hills. Because the weather varied widely—snow blanketed the northern slopes, but the spring sun was starting to bake the south—special care was taken to avoid pneumonia. In addition to exercise, the IA officers had offered a sampling of tactical instruction. But most of it, the CIA team found, reflected a conventional mindset. This combination—strict exercise and a crash course in guerrilla tactics—continued through the first week of May 1963. At that point, classes were put on temporary hold in order to initiate airborne training. Plans called for nearly all members of Establishment 22 to be qualified as paratroopers. This made tactical sense: if the Tibetans were to operate behind enemy lines, the logical means of infiltrating them to the other side of the Himalayas would be by parachute.

When told of the news, the Tibetans were extremely enthusiastic about the prospect of jumping. There was a major problem, however. Establishment 22 remained a secret not only from the general Indian public but also from the bulk of India’s armed forces. The only airborne training facilities in India were at Agra, where the CIA’s T J Thompson was discreetly training a dozen Tibetan riggers. Because the Agra school ran jump-training for the IA’s Independent Parachute Brigade, Thompson had been forced to keep the 12 well concealed. But doing the same for thousands of Tibetans would be impossible; unless careful steps were taken, the project could be exposed. Part of the CIA’s dilemma was solved by the season. The weather in the Indian lowlands during May was starting to get oppressively hot, making the dusty Agra drop-zones less than popular with the Parachute Brigade. Most of the Tibetan jumps were intentionally scheduled around noon—the least popular time slot, because the sun was directly overhead. The IB also arranged for the Tibetans to use crude barracks in a distant corner of the air base, further reducing the chance of an encounter with inquisitive IA paratroopers. As an added precaution, a member of Brig Uban’s staff went to an insignia shop and placed an order for cap badges. Each badge featured crossed Kukri blades with the number 12 above. The reason: after independence from the British, the IA had inherited seven Regiments of famed Gurkhas recruited from neighbouring Nepal. Along with four more Regiments that transferred to the British Army, the Regiments were numbered sequentially, with the last being the 11 Gorkha Rifles. On the assumption that most lowland Indians would be unable to differentiate between the Asian features of a Gurkha and those of a Tibetan, Establishment 22 was given the fictitious cover designation ‘12 Gorkha Rifles’ for the duration of its stay at Agra. To oversee the airborne phase of instruction, Ken Seifarth relocated to Agra. Five jumps were planned for each candidate, including one performed at night. Because of the limited size of the barracks at the air base, the Tibetans would rotate down to the lowlands in 100-man cycles. With up to three jumps conducted each day, the entire qualification process was expected to stretch through the summer.

All was going according to plan until the evening before the first contingent was scheduled to jump. At that point, a message arrived reminding Brig Uban that the IA and the Indian Air Force (IAF) would not accept liability for anyone older than 35 parachuting; in the event of death or injury, the Govt of India would not pay compensation. This put Uban in a major fix. It was vital for his staff to share training hazards with their students, and he had assumed that his officers—none of whom were airborne qualified—would jump alongside the Tibetans. But although they had all completed the ground phase of instruction (which had intentionally been kept simple, such as leaping off ledges into piles of hay), his men had been under the impression that they would not have to jump from an aircraft. Their lack of enthusiasm was now reinforced by the Govt of India’s denial of compensation. When Uban asked for volunteers to accompany the guerrilla trainees, not a single IA officer stepped forward. For Uban, it was now a question of retaining the confidence of the Tibetans or relinquishing his command. Looking to get special permission for government risk coverage, he phoned Mullick that evening. The IB Director, however, was not at home. Taking what he considered the only other option, Uban gathered his officers for an emergency session. Although he had no prior parachute training, he told his men that he intended to be the first one out of the lead aircraft. This challenge proved hard to ignore. When the Brigadier again asked for volunteers, every officer stepped forward. Uban now faced a new problem. With the first jump set for early the next morning, he had a single evening to learn the basics. He summoned a pair of CIA advisers to his room in Agra’s Clarkes Shiraz Hotel. Using the limited resources at hand, they put the tea-table in the middle of the room and watched as the Brigadier rolled uncomfortably across the floor. Imaging the likely result of an actual jump, Seifarth spoke his mind. At 47 years old, he was a generation older than his CIA teammates and just a year younger than Uban. Drawing on the close rapport they had developed over the previous weeks, he implored the Brigadier to reconsider. The next morning, May 11, a Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar crossed the skies over Agra. As the twin-tailed transport aircraft came over the drop zone, Uban was the first out the door, Seifarth the second. Landing without incident, the Brigadier belatedly received a return call from Mullick. “Don't jump,” said Mullick. “Too late,” was the response. In the weeks that followed, the rest of Establishment 22 clamoured for their opportunity to leap from an aircraft. “Even cooks and drivers demanded to go,” recalled Uban. Nobody was rejected for age or health reasons, including one Tibetan who had lost an eye and another who was so small that he had to strap a sandbag to his chest to deploy the chute properly. Nehru, meanwhile, was receiving regular updates on the progress at Chakrata. During autumn, with the deployment of the eight-man CIA team almost finished, he was invited to make an inspection visit to the hill camp. The IB also passed a request asking the PM to use the opportunity to address the guerrillas directly. Nehru was sympathetic but cautious. The thought of the PM addressing Tibetan combatants on Indian soil had the makings of a diplomatic disaster if word leaked. Afraid of adverse publicity, he agreed to visit the camp but refused to give a speech. Hearing this news, Uban had the men of Establishment 22 undergo a fast lesson in parade drill. The effort paid off. Though stiff and formal when he arrived on November 14, Nehru was visibly moved when he saw the Tibetans in formation. And knowing that the PM was soft for roses, Uban presented him with a brilliant red blossom plucked from a garden he had planted on the side of his stone bungalow. Nehru buckled. Asking for a microphone, the PM poured forth some ad hoc and heartfelt comments to the guerrillas. “He said that India backed them,” said Uban, “and vowed they would one day return to an independent country.”

For the eight Indians—six from the IAF, two from the IB—even a van ride had become an abject lesson in the finer points of tradecraft. Sent to Washington in mid- March 1963, they were to be the cadre for the covert airlift cell conjured earlier by Biju Patnaik and Bob Marrero. For the first two weeks, Marrero, who was playing host, arranged for briefings at a row of CIA buildings near the Tidal Basin. By the beginning of April, the venue was set to change. A van pulled up to their Washington hotel in the dead of night, and the eight Indians plus Marrero piled into the back. All the windows were sealed, and the Indians soon lost their bearings as the vehicle drove for an hour. When they finally stopped, the rear doors opened nearly flush against a second set of doors. Hurried through, they took seats in another windowless cabin tucked inside the belly of an aircraft. Landing at an undisclosed airfield—only years later would they learn that it was inside Camp Peary—the Indians were taken to an isolated barracks. Over the next month, a steady stream of nameless officers lectured on the full gamut of intelligence and paramilitary topics. There were surreal touches throughout: their meals were prepared by unseen cooks, and they would return to their rooms to find clothes pressed by unseen launderers. The leader of the eight Indians, Laloo Grewal, had a solid reputation as a pioneer within the IAF. A turbaned Sikh, he had been commissioned as a fighter pilot in 1943 and flew over 100 sorties during World War-2 in the skies over Burma. Immediately after independence in 1947, he was among the first transport pilots to arrive at the combat zone when India and Pakistan came to blows over Kashmir. And in 1952, he was in the first class of Indian aviators selected to head to the US for transition training on the C-119 transport. When the call went out for a dynamic IAF officer to manage a secret aviation unit under the auspices of the IB and CIA, Grewal was the immediate choice. Following the training stint at Peary, six of the students returned to New Delhi. The two most senior members, Grewal included, remained for several additional weeks of specialised aviation instruction. Marrero, meanwhile, made arrangements in May to head for India to conduct the comprehensive aerial survey broached with Biju Patnaik in their December 1962 meeting. Joining Marrero would be the same CIA air operations officer who had been involved with the earliest drops into Tibet, Gar Thorsrud. Much had happened to Thorsrud since his last involvement with Tibet. In the spring of 1961, he was briefly involved in Latin America. Later that summer he shifted to Phoenix, Arizona, and was named president of a new CIA front, Intermountain Aviation. Among CIA air proprietaries, Intermountain was in the forefront of innovation. With its main operational base at Marana Air Park near Tucson, Arizona, the company specialised in developing new aerial delivery techniques. It was Intermountain, for example, that worked at perfecting the Fulton Skyhook, a recovery method that whisked agents from the ground using an aircraft with a special yoke on its nose. Intermountain experts also experimented with the Timberline parachute configuration (a resupply bundle with extra-long suspension lines to allow the penetration of tall jungle canopy) and the Ground Impact system (a parachute with a retainer ring that did not blossom until the last moment, allowing for pinpoint drops on pinnacle peaks). It was this eye for innovation that Thorsrud carried with him to India. For three months, he and Marrero were escorted from the Himalayan frontier to the school at Agra and to the Tibetan training site at Chakrata. Much of their time was spent near the weathered airstrip at Charbatia, where they were feted by the affable Patnaik. He offered use of Charbatia as the principal site for a clandestine air-support operation and immediately secured funds from the PM for reconstruction of the runway. Patnaik also donated steel furniture from one of his factories, cleared out his Kalinga Air Lines offices to serve as a makeshift officers' quarters, and even loaned two of his Kalinga Captains.

Returning to New Delhi after nearly three months, the two CIA men were directed to a hotel room for a meeting with a representative of the IB, T M Subramanian. Known for his Hindu piety and strict vegetarian diet, Subramanian had been serving as the IB’s liaison officer at Agra since November, where he had been paymaster for amenities offered to the USAF crewmen rushing military gear to India. He was also one of the two intelligence officers who had been trained at Camp Peary during April. In the ensuing discussions between the CIA aviators and Subramanian, both sides spoke in general terms about the best options for building India’s covert aviation capabilities. In one area the US officers stood firm: the US would not assist with the procurement of spare parts, either directly or indirectly, for the many USSR-origin aircraft in the IAF’s inventory. A subject not discussed was which US aircraft would be the backbone for the envisioned covert unit. Earlier in the spring, this had been the subject of serious debate within the CIA. Wayne Sanford, the senior paramilitary officer in New Delhi, had initially proposed selection of the C-119. This made sense for several reasons. First, more than 50 C-119 airframes had been in the IAF’s inventory since 1952; it was therefore well known to IAF pilots and mechanics. Second, beginning in November 1962, the Indians had ordered special kits to add a single Orpheus J-39 jet-pack atop the centre-wing section of half their C-119 fleet. The added thrust from the Orpheus, tested in the field over the previous months, allowed converted C-119s to operate at high altitudes and fly heavy loads out of small fields. The US pledged in May 1963 to send another 24 Flying Boxcars to India from reserve USAF squadrons. Other CIA officials in Washington, however, were keen to present the Indians with the C-46 Commando. A workhorse during World War-2, the C-46 had proved its ability to surmount the Himalayas while flying the famed ‘Hump’ route between India and China. More important, other CIA operations in Asia—primarily in Laos—were making use of the C-46, and the CIA had a number of airframes readily available. There were drawbacks with the C-46, however. It was notoriously difficult to handle. Moreover, the IAF did not operate the C-46 in its fleet, which meant that the pilots and mechanics would need a period of transition. When CIA HQ sent over a USAF officer to sing the praises of the C-46 in overly simplistic terms, Grewal cut the conversation short. Recalls Sanford: “He flatly told the US officer that he had been around C-46s longer than the American had been in the air force.” In the end, however, the Indians could not protest CIA largesse too loudly. When Marrero and Thorsrud had their meeting with Subramanian, selection of the C-46 was an unstated fait accompli. The next day, Subramanian returned to the two CIA officers with a verbatim copy of the hotel discussion. “Either he had a photographic memory,” said Thorsrud, “or somebody was listening in and taking notes.” Both Americans signed the aide-memoire as a working basis for cooperation.

As a final order of business, Marrero asked for an audience with Mullick. With the Charbatia air base—now code-named Oak Tree 1—still in the midst of reconstruction, the first aircraft deliveries would not take place until early autumn. This did not dampen Marrero’s enthusiasm as he recounted the list of possible cooperative ventures over the months ahead. The aloof Mullick replied with an indifferent stare. “Bob, we will call you when we need you.” Despite Mullick’s lack of warmth, efforts to create the covert air unit went ahead on schedule. On September 7, 1963, the IB officially created the Aviation Research Centre (ARC) as a front to coordinate aviation cooperation with the CIA. Grewal was named the first ARC Operations Manager at the newly completed Charbatia airfield. He was given full latitude to handpick his pilots, all of whom would take leave from the military and belong—both administratively and operationally—to the ARC for the period of their assignment. In New Delhi, veteran IB officer Rameshwar Nath Kao took the helm as the first ARC Director. A Kashmiri Brahmin like Nehru, 45-year-old Kao was a spy in the classic sense. Tall and fair skinned, he was a dapper dresser with impeccable schooling; he was a Persian scholar and spoke fluent Farsi. Dignified and sophisticated, he had long impressed the officers at the CIA’s New Delhi station. “I had the opportunity to drive with him from Kathmandu back to India,” recalled one CIA official. “At each bridge we crossed, he would recount its technical specifications in comparison to its ability to support the heaviest battle tank in the PLA inventory.” To assist Kao and Grewal, the CIA dispatched Edward Rector to Charbatia in the role of Air Operations Adviser. Qualified as a US Navy dive-bomber pilot in 1940, Rector had joined Claire Chennault’s famed Flying Tigers the following year. He would later score that unit’s first kill of an Imperial Japanese aircraft and go on to become an ace. After switching to the US Army Air Forces (later the USAF), he retired as a Colonel in January 1962. Rector came to Oak Tree-1 with considerable Indian experience. During his Flying Tigers days, he had transited the subcontinent. And in late 1962, following his retirement from military service, he had gone to India on a Pentagon contract to coordinate USAF C-130 flights carrying emergency assistance to the frontlines during the war with China. Now serving with the CIA, Rector was on hand for the initial four aircraft deliveries within a week of ARC’s creation. First to arrive at Oak Tree-1 was a pair of C-46D Commandos; inside each was a disassembled U-10 Helio Courier. A five-seat light aircraft, the Helio Courier had already won praise for its short takeoff and landing (STOL) ability in the paramilitary campaign the CIA was sponsoring in Laos. Without exaggeration, it could operate from primitive runways no longer than a soccer field. More aircraft deliveries followed, totalling eight C-46 transports and four Helio Couriers by early 1964. Under Rector’s watch, the CIA arranged for the loan of some of the best pilots from its Air America roster to act as instructors for the ARC crews. Heading the C-46 conversion team was Bill Welk, a veteran of the Tibet overflights. For the Helio Courier, Air America Captain James Rhyne was dispatched to Oak Tree-1 for a four-month tour. During this same period, T J Thompson, who had been assisting with the Tibetans’ jump training at Agra, began work on a major parachute facility—complete with dehumidifiers, drying towers, and storage space at Charbatia. “By the time it was finished,” said Thompson, “it was larger than the facilities used by the US Army in Germany.” Under the tutelage of the Air America pilots, the ARC aircrew contingent, including two Captains on a one-year loan from Kalinga Air Lines, proved quick studies. By the close of 1963, transition training was nearly complete. For a graduation exercise, a demonstration was planned at Charbatia for January 2, 1964. Among the attendees would be Pandit Nehru himself. Arriving on the assigned day, the PM took centre-seat in a rattan chair with a parasol shading his head. On cue, a silver C-46 (ARC aircraft bore only small tail numbers and Indian civil markings) materialised over Charbatia and dropped bags of rice and a paratrooper. Then a Helio Courier roared in and came to a stop in an impossibly small grassy patch in front of the reviewing stand. An ‘agent,’ hiding in nearby bushes with a bag of ‘documents,’ rushed aboard the Helio. Showcasing its STOL ability, the aircraft shot upward from the grass and over the stands. Pandit Nehru, at once impressed and confused, turned to the ARC and CIA officials in attendance and asked: “What was that?”

While the CIA assistance at Chakrata and Charbatia was transpiring under the auspices of the Near East Division, a separate Tibet programme had been taking shape since December 1962 under the Far East Division. This programme called for the training and infiltration of at least 125 Tibetan agents. But whereas the Near East Division was giving support to what were essentially Indian projects, the roles were reversed for the Far East Division’s project—at least as it was originally conceived: the Indians would provide some minor assistance, but the Far East Division would call the shots. It was not long before the CIA saw the inherent weakness of this arrangement. India, after all, would be party to the recruitment of Tibetan agents on its soil and would likely be expected to provide rear bases and staging areas. This greatly bothered the Special Group (as had been the case with Uban’s Chakrata force), which was leery of authorising paramilitary assistance to a project potentially subject to an Indian veto, especially if New Delhi grew weary and withdrew its commitment following a future rapprochement with Beijing. To allay the Special Group’s concerns, the CIA worked safeguards into the Tibetan agent programme. Agent training would focus on producing self-sufficient three-man radio teams that could infiltrate Tibet, find support, and build a local underground that could feed and shelter them for extended periods without having to rely on lines of supply from India. Just as with Establishment 22, Gyalo Thondup was quick to buy into the programme and went off to recruit. The CIA, meanwhile, reopened Camp Hale to handle the expected influx. Scrambling to piece together an instructor staff, it found a willing volunteer in Bruce Walker, the great-grandson of Methodist missionaries in China. Walker’s moneyed parents were family friends of Frank Wisner, the CIA’s influential Deputy Director for Plans between 1952 and 1958. Joining the CIA with Wisner as his mentor, Walker spent his first four years in Latin America before joining the Tibet Task Force in January 1960. Once there, he proved adept at winning choice assignments. The CIA paid for him to spend almost a year at the University of Washington’s newly organised Tibet programme to learn that country’s language and history. In March 1962, the CIA again sponsored him for language classes, this time at Sikkim’s Namgyal Institute of Tibetology. In India, meanwhile, a search had commenced for suitable translators. All but one of the previous Tibetans serving in that role were unavailable. One of the new candidates, Wangchuk Tsering, was the nephew of a former Trade Commissioner at Kalimpong. An English student since 1956, he had been writing for the Tibetan Freedom Press in Darjeeling when Gyalo made a recruitment pitch in December 1962. Along with 45 agent trainees, Wangchuk immediately left for New Delhi in a bus. Unlike the earlier shadowy exfiltrations across the East Pakistan frontier, this time they departed with Indian escorts from the capital’s Palam Airport.

After further negotiations, a breakthrough finally came in September 1963. Still looking to draw New Delhi into a substantial role, the CIA now had India’s agreement to open a Joint Operations Centre in New Delhi that would direct the dispatch of agents into Tibet and monitor their activities. The revised plan scrapped parachute insertions in favour of overland infiltrations and called for about 20 singleton resident agents in Tibet, plus (to sweeten its appeal to New Delhi) a pair of road-watch teams to report possible Chinese Communist build-ups and another six border watch communications teams to take up positions along the frontier. Radio reports from the agents and teams would be received at a new communications centre to be built at Charbatia. With the first group of 40 Hale graduates scheduled to return to India in November, the secret struggle for Tibet was starting to simmer. The CIA and IB held widely disparate views on Mustang, which was home to 2,030 Tibetan irregulars as of early 1963. Less than half of them had been properly equipped during the two previous CIA airdrops. Realising that the unarmed men were a ball and chain on the rest, the CIA devised a plan to parachute weapons to an additional 700 men sent to ten drop-zones inside Tibet. The purpose of this was two-fold. First, it would force them to leave their Mustang sanctuary and take up a string of positions inside their homeland. Second, it would go far toward rectifying the disparity between armed and unarmed volunteers. When this plan was taken to Mullick, his reaction was poor. Just as the Indians had balked at aerial infiltration for the Hale agents, they preferred no Mustang drops by Indian aircraft (ARC was close to formation at the time), for fear of provoking China. When the CIA proposed that US aircraft do the job—but insisted on Indian landing rights—New Delhi was again reticent. Frustrated, the CIA in the early fall of 1963 hastily arranged for an airlift company to be established inside Nepal. Allocated a pair of Bell 47G helicopters and two US rotary-wing pilots—one of whom was released from Air America for the job—the Kathmandu-based entity, called Air Ventures, theoretically could have solved the airdrop problem by choppering supplies to collection points near Mustang. As it turned out, there was no need for Air Ventures to fly any covert missions. By September, at the same time agreement was reached on establishing a Joint Operations Centre in New Delhi, the CIA and IB came up with a new plan for the unarmed men at Mustang to be reassigned to Establishment 22 at Chakrata. It was also agreed that nonlethal supplies for the armed portion of Mustang—which was estimated at no more than 835 guerrillas—would go overland through India and be coordinated through the New Delhi Centre. In addition, some of the Hale graduates would go to Mustang to assist with radio operations.

The Joint Operations Centre—-dubbed the Special Centre--was formally established in November 1963. To house the site, IB officers arranged to rent a modest villa in the F block of the posh Haus Khaz residential neighborhood. On January 4, 1964, he was joined by a sharp Bombay native nicknamed Rabi. A math major in college, Rabi had joined the police force upon graduation but soon switched to the IB. He had been assigned to its China Section and spent many years operating from remote outposts in Assam and NEFA. Now chosen as the Indian representative to the Special Centre, he internally transferred to the ARC. More than merely an airlift unit, the ARC was now acting as a Section of the IB that would work alongside the CIA on joint efforts with the Tibet agents and guerrillas at Mustang. One of the Special Centre’s biggest challenges was keeping its New Delhi activities secret from the Indian public. In the midst of residential housing, the presence of foreign nationals—both the Tibetans and Knaus—was certain to draw attention. To guard against this, Knaus (who normally came to the Centre three times a week) was shielded in the back of a jeep until he was inside the garage. Similar precautions were taken with the Tibetans, who were ferried between a dormitory and the Centre in a blacked-out van. “We were not allowed to step outside,” said one Tibetan officer, “until 1972.” in the spring of 1964, most of the 135 agent trainees had returned to India from the US. Two dozen were diverted to Establishment 22 at Chakrata, and another eight manned the radio sets at Charbatia and the Special Centre. The remainder—slightly more than 100—were taken to a holding camp outside the village of Joelikote near the popular hill-station of Nainital. Built close to the shores of a mountain lake and surrounded by pine and oak forests, Joelikote once hosted Col Jim Corbett, the famed hunter who tracked some of the most infamous man-eating tigers and leopards on record (two were credited with killing more than 400 villagers apiece). As the agents assembled at Joelikote—where Rabi promptly dubbed them “The Joelikote Boys”—they were divided into radio teams, each designated by a letter of the alphabet. The size of the teams varied, with some numbering as few as two agents and several with as many as five; contrary to the previous year’s plan to dispatch lone operatives, none would be going as singletons. As their main purpose would be to radio back social, political, economic, and military information, the CIA provided radios ranging from the durable RS-1 to the RS-48 (a high-speed-burst model originally developed for use in Southeast Asia) and a sophisticated miniature set with a burst capability and solar cells. The teams would also be charged with gauging the extent of local resistance; when appropriate, they were to spread propaganda and extend a network of sympathizers. Although they were not to engage in sabotage or other attacks, the agents would carry pistols (Canada-made Brownings to afford the US plausible deniability) for self-defence.

During April, the first wave of ten radio teams began moving from Joelikote to launch sites along the border. Team A, comprising two agents, took up a position in the Sikkimese capital of Gangtok. Team B, also two men, filed into the famed colonial summer capital of Shimla. Just 80km from Establishment 22 at Chakrata, Shimla had not changed much since the days the British had ruled one-fifth of humankind from this small Himalayan settlement. Three teams—D, V, and Z—were sent to Tuting, a NEFA backwater already host to 2,000 Tibetan refugees. Two others—T and Y—crossed into easternmost Nepal and established a camp outside the village of Walung. Another two teams went to Mustang to provide Baba Yeshi’s guerrillas with improved radio links to Charbatia. The tenth set of agents—two men known as Team Q—headed into the Kingdom of Bhutan. The Bhutanese, though ethnic kin, harboured mixed feelings toward the Tibetans. With only a small population of its own, Bhutan had attempted to discourage further refugee arrivals after the first influx of 3,000. Then in April 1964, the country’s Prime Minister was killed by unknown assailants. Coincidentally, this happened at the same time Team Q was crossing the border, sparking unfounded rumours that the Tibetans were attempting to overthrow the Kingdom. As the rumours escalated into diplomatic protests, the two agents were quietly withdrawn, and Bhutan was never again contemplated as a launch site. Aside from the stillborn Team Q and the two others at Mustang, the other seven teams had been briefed on targets before departing Joelikote. These had been generated by the CIA and IB; Knaus had access to the latest intelligence for this purpose, including satellite imagery. He and Rabi then consulted with Kay-Kay, who endorsed the missions. All involved testing the waters inside Tibet to determine whether an underground could, or did, exist. During the same month the teams headed for the border, Gyalo Thondup established a political party in India. Called Cho Kha Sum (Defence of Religion by the Three Regions, a reference to Kham, Amdo, and U Tsang), the Party promoted the liberal ideals found in the Tibetan constitution that had been promulgated by the Dalai Lama the previous spring. Part of Gyalo’s intent was to develop a political consciousness among the Tibetan diaspora. But even more important, the Party was designed to reinforce a message of non-communist nationalism that the agent-teams would be taking to potential underground members inside Tibet. Gyalo even arranged for a Party newsletter to be printed, copies of which would be carried and distributed by the teams in their homeland. Getting the agents to actually cross the frontier was a wholly different matter. By early summer, three of the teams—in Sikkim, Shimla, and Walling—had done little more than warm their launch sites. A second set of agents in Walung, Team Y, had better luck. One of its members, a young Khampa going by the call sign ‘Clyde,’ headed alone across the Nangpa Pass for a survey. He took a feeder trail north for 50km and approached the Tibetan town of Tingri. Located along the traditional route linking Kathmandu and Lhasa, Tingri was a popular resting place for an assortment of pilgrims and traders; as a result, Clyde’s Kham origins attracted little attention. Better still, Tingri was surrounded by cave hermitages that offered good concealment. Returning to Walling with this information, Clyde briefed his four teammates. Three—Robert, Dennie, and team leader Reg--were fellow Khampas; the last—Grant—was from Amdo. Following the same route used during the survey, the five arrived at the caves and set up camp. Tingri, they discovered, was ripe for an underground. Venturing into town to procure supplies, the team took volunteers back to its redoubt for ad hoc leadership training. They debriefed the locals for items of intelligence value and used their solar-powered burst radio to send two messages a week back to Charbatia. Settling into a routine, they prepared to wait out the approaching winter from the vantage of their cave. Good luck was also experienced by the three teams operating from the border village of Tuting. Team D, consisting of four Khampas, arrived at its launch site with one Browning pistol apiece and a single survival rifle. Their target was the town of Pemako, 80km to the northeast. Renowned among Tibetans as a ‘hidden heaven’ because of its mild weather and ring of surrounding mountains, this area had been the destination of many Khampas fleeing the Chinese invasion in 1950. The PLA, by contrast, had barely penetrated the vicinity because no roads could be built due to the harsh topography and abundant precipitation. That same rainfall made the trip for Team D a slog. Covering only part of the distance to their target by late in the year, most of the agents were ready to return to the relatively appealing creature comforts in Tuting. Just one member, Nolan, chose to stay for the winter. Wishing him luck, his colleagues promised to meet again in the spring of 1965. Much the same experience was recounted by the five men of Team Z. Targeted toward Pemako, they conducted a series of shallow forays to contact border villagers and collect data on PLA patrols. Finally making a deeper infiltration near year’s end, they encountered some sympathisers and the makings of an underground. By that time, most of the agents were eager to return before the approaching winter. Just as with Team D, one of its members, Chris, elected to stay through spring with his embryonic partisan movement. The final group of agents from Turing, Team V, was targeted 80km west toward the town of Meilling. Located along the banks of the River Brahmaputra, this low-lying region featured high rainfall and lush forests. Many locals in the area, though conversant in Tibetan, were animists, with their own unique language and style of dress. Despite such ethnic differences, one of Team V’s members, Stuart, had a number of relatives living in the vicinity. With their assistance, the team was able to contact a loose underground of resisters. Shielded by these sympathizers—who even helped them steal some PLA supplies when their cache was exhausted—the five men of Team V radioed back their intent to remain through the winter. Reviewing their progress in November 1964, Knaus, Rabi, and Kay-Kay had some reason for cheer. Of the ten teams dispatched to date, four had at least some of their members still inside Tibet. All four, too, had identified sympathetic countrymen. Encouraged by these results, the Special Centre representatives penned plans to launch a second round of nine teams the following spring, when the mountain passes would be free of snow. Slowly, the secret war for Tibet was shifting from simmer to low boil.

India's more permissive attitude allowed for increasingly sensitive India-US joint intelligence operations. Some efforts were in conjunction with the Republic of China (Taiwan), which was one of the few nations that equaled even surpassed India and the US in its seething opposition to Beijing. Taipei, for example, was allowed to station Mandarin translators at Charbatia to monitor PRC radio traffic. RoC intelligence officers were even permitted to open remote listening outposts along the India-Tibetan frontier. This last effort was highly compartmentalised, even within the CIA staff in India. Wayne Sanford, the CIA's paramilitary officer in New Delhi, was shocked when Indian officials escorted him to one of the border sites. He recalls:Subramanian took me to the main listening post on October 10 (1965] , which is the big Ten Ten holiday on Taiwan. The Chinese commander saw me and asked if I had ever been on Da Chen island. I said, 'Yup.' He then asked if I had been aboard a PT evacuation boat from Da Chen. I said, 'Yup.' We then got drunk together to catch up on old times.

Some of the most tangible India-US cooperation was in the expansion of the ARC fleet at Charbatia. By 1964, a total of ten C-46 transports and four Helio STOL aircraft had been delivered to the Indians. Late that year, they were augmented by two more STOL airframes that were a unique adaptation of the Helio. Known as the Twin Helio, these looked exactly like the single-engined version, but with two propellers placed above and forward of the wings. Developed in 1960 with the CIAs war in Laos in mind, the Twin Helio's engines placement allowed for unrestricted lateral visibility and reduced the possibility of propeller damage from debris at primitive airstrips. Only five were ever built, with one field-tested in Bolivia during the summer of 1964 and another handed over to the CIAs quasi-proprietary in Nepal, Air Ventures, in August. Of the aircraft delivered to the ARC, several received further modifications in India. To provide for an eavesdropping capability, CIA technicians in 1964 transformed one of the C-46 airframes into an electronic intelligence (ELINT) platform. This platform flew regular orbits along the Himalayas, recording Chinese telecommunications signals from inside Tibet. For some of the nine remaining C- 6 transports, ARC became a testbed during 1966 for a unique adaptation. Much like the jet-packs strapped to the C-119 Flying Boxcars during 1962, four 1,000-lb rocket boosters were placed on the bottom of the C-46 fuselages to allow heavy loads to be safely carried from some of India's highest airfields.

Ambassador Chester Bowles was no stranger to the subcontinent—having served as Ambassador to India a decade earlier. He had replaced Galbraith in the summer of 1963. The two differed in several important ways. Galbraith, the consummate Kennedy insider, left India on a high note after winning military assistance in New Delhi’s hour of need. Bowles, by contrast, was a relative outsider (he reportedly made Kennedy ‘uncomfortable’) who arrived just as the post-November 1962 honeymoon had run its course. The two also differed in their attitude toward the CIA. Initially a die-hard opponent of CIA activities on his diplomatic turf, Galbraith had reversed his position during the 1962 war to become an open—if not outspoken—proponent of the CIA’s activities in the subcontinent. Bowles, who inherited the CIA’s cooperative ventures already in progress, was largely silent during his first two years in New Delhi. Wayne Sanford, the CIA paramilitary officer who had provided regular updates for Galbraith, had not even met Bowles for a briefing by the summer of 1965. But with India-US tension gaining momentum, Bowles became more conscious of the damage being done to bilateral intelligence cooperation. In a bid to reverse the estrangement, he lent his support to a September 1965 CIA proposal to provide the ARC with three C-130 transports, an aircraft the IAF had been eyeing for five years. The offer came at a particularly opportune time. At Charbatia, Ed Rector had finished his tour and been replaced as Air Adviser by Moose Marrero, who had a long history of contact with Biju Patnaik and the original ARC cadre. As it turned out, Marrero’s past ties had only minimal effect. The C-130 deal encountered repeated delays, largely because an irate India did not want to remain vulnerable to a fickle US spare-parts pipeline. In a telling request, it even asked Marrero to vacate Oak Tree-1 and relocate to an office at the US Embassy compound in New Delhi. Still attempting damage control, the CIA in early 1966 offered a quiet continuation of supplies for its paramilitary projects. As Washington had officially cut all weapons shipments to India and Pakistan following the 1965 war, this was a significant, albeit secret, exception. Four flights were scheduled, all to be conducted by a CIA-operated B.727 transport staging between Okinawa and Charbatia. India listened to the offer and consented. But in a reprise of conditions imposed on the flights of 1962, the Govt of India insisted that the flights into Oak Tree-1 be made at low-level to avoid radar—and to avoid any resultant publicity from the resurgent anti-US chorus in New Delhi’s political circles.

The ARC operation at Charbatia was not the only CIA project encountering difficulties. Throughout 1964, IB Director Mullick had been pushing for infiltration of all the Hale-trained agents to establish an underground movement within Tibet. By the year’s end, the Special Centre saw its limited inroads—elements of four teams operating inside their homeland—as a glass half full. Mullick, by contrast, saw it as a glass half-empty. Whereas he had once held excessive expectations of a Tibet-wide underground creating untold headaches for China, he now saw the limitations of overland infiltrations—especially by Khampa agents moving into areas where they did not have family or clan support. By the beginning of 1965, Mullick lashed out, claiming that the Tibetans were being coddled by the CIA. Part of the problem was that Mullick himself was vulnerable and under pressure. In May 1964, an ailing PM Nehru had died in his sleep, denying the 14-year spymaster his powerful patron. That October, colleagues (and competitors) saw the chance to ease Mullick out of the top intelligence slot. They succeeded, but only to a degree. Although he gave up his hat as Director, he retained unofficial control over joint paramilitary operations with the CIA. That position—which was officially titled Director-General of Security in February 1965—answered directly to the PMO and oversaw the ARC base at Charbatia, the Special Centre, Establishment 22, and operations of the nuclear-powered sensor mission of Nanda Devi. With Mullick growing impatient, the Special Centre readied its agents for a second season inside Tibet. Arriving in late 1964 as the new CIA representative at the Centre was John Gilhooley, the same Far East Division officer who had briefly worked at the Tibet Task Force’s Washington office in 1960. The Indian and Tibetan officials at the Centre warmed to their new US counterpart. “He was a free spirit, very good-natured,” said Rabi.

Cordial personal ties aside, little could spare Gilhooley from the dark news filtering in from Tibet. As soon as the snows cleared in early 1965, members of Team D had departed Tuting and headed back across the border to rendezvous with Nolan, the teammate they had left behind for the winter. Only then did they discover that he had already died of exposure. The remaining three agents returned to India and did not attempt another infiltration. Much the same was encountered by Team Z. Departing Turing to fetch Chris, they learned that he had been rounded up during a winter PLA sweep. Radio intercepts monitored at Charbatia later revealed that Chris had refused to answer questions during an interrogation and been executed. Team Z’s bad luck did not stop there. Entering a village later that summer, the men were sheltered in a hut by seemingly sympathetic locals. While they rested, however, the residents alerted nearby PLA militiamen. As the PLA started firing at the hut, the team broke through the rear planks and fled into the forest. One of the agents, Tex, died from a bullet wound before reaching the Indian border. Better longevity was experienced by the members of Team V, all five of whom had successfully braved the winter near Menling. By the spring of 1965, four elected to return to India, but Stuart, who had relatives in the area, stayed and was given permission to lead his own group of agents, appropriately titled Team VI. Two new members—Maurice and Terrence—were dispatched from Tuting for a linkup. By that time, Stuart was living in his sister’s house north of the Brahmaputra. During his regular crossings of the river, he used boats in order to avoid PLA troops guarding the bridges. The new agents, however, chose the bridge option, ran into a PLA checkpoint, and panicked. Drawing their Brownings, they got into a brief firefight before being arrested. The PLA quickly isolated Maurice and forced him to send a radio message back to India claiming that he had arrived safely. This was a ploy used to good effect by the Chinese, Soviets, and North Vietnamese; by capturing radiomen and forcing them to continue sending messages, communist intelligence agencies duped the CIA and allied services into sending more agents and supplies, with both deadly and embarrassing results. In the case of North Vietnam, some turned agents continued radio play for as long as a decade. The PLA was not as fortunate with Maurice. On his first message back, the Tibetan included a simple but effective duress code; he used his real name. This was repeated in two subsequent transmissions, after which his handlers ceased contact for fear the PLA would triangulate the signals coming from Charbatia and expose the base to the world media. A warning was then flashed to Stuart, who was able to get back to India.  Team Y, the last of the 1964 teams still inside Tibet, had a similar experience. After successfully living alongside sympathizers near Tingri through the winter, the five agents lobbied the Special Centre in early 1965 for permission to rotate back to India. Agreeing to replace them in phases, the Centre authorised two of the veterans—Robert and Dennie—to make their way out to Walung. At that point, the Special Centre was in for a rude surprise. Due to operational compartmentalisation, it was unaware that Establishment 22 had started running its own fledgling cross-border programme. Using Tibetan guerrillas from Chakrata, a pilot team had been staged from Walung with a mandate to contact sympathisers near Tingri. It came at a bad time. To great fanfare, China was preparing to inaugurate the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) that fall. After nine years of ruling Tibet under the PCART, the name-change signified that Beijing deemed the Communist Party organs in the region fully operational. To coincide, China began a more forceful programme of suppression, purging Tibetan collaborators, establishing communes, and increasing military patrols. Not only was the Establishment 22 team caught in one of these sweeps, but Robert and Dennie ran headlong into the dragnet as well. Ditching their supplies, both agents veered deeper into the hills as they evaded toward the Nangpa Pass on the Sino-Nepal border. Unfortunately for the two, the Nangpa is notoriously treacherous through late spring. Given its high elevation, it is not uncommon for entire caravans to be wiped out from slow suffocation as piercing winds blast fine powdery snow into the nose and mouth. Dennie ultimately reached Nepal; Robert did not. Back at Tingri, the rest of Team Y faced the same PLA patrols. Two replacement agents had already arrived by that time. In need of supplies, team leader Reg left their cave retreat to procure food. Captured upon entering a village, he was forced to lead the PLA back to the team’s redoubt. In the ensuing firefight, all were killed except for the lone Amdo agent, Grant. A subsequent sweep rounded up the dozens of sympathisers they had trained over the previous year.

The news was equally bleak for the new teams launched in 1965. At Shimla, the two-man Team C endured a deadly comedy of errors during its first infiltration attempt. Looking to cross a river swollen by the spring thaw, agent Howard fell in and drowned. His partner, Irving, spent the next three days looking for a better fording point, Cold and hungry, he chanced upon an old woman and her son tending a flock. They led him to an isolated sheep enclosure, then alerted the PLA militia. Irving was soon heading for Lhasa in shackles. Another trio of agents, Team X, was deployed to easternmost India and targeted against the town of Dzayul, renowned as an entomologist’s dream because of its rare endemic butterflies. The CIA was eyeing Dzayul because the surrounding forests supposedly hosted displaced Burmese insurgents who could potentially be harnessed against the Chinese. Team X, however, found nobody of interest and came back. More bizarre was the tale of Team U. The five-man team staged from Towang, the same border town that had factored into the Dalai Lama’s 1959 escape and the 1962 war. Three members headed north from Towang toward Cona, where one of the agents had family. Upon reaching their target, they were immediately reported by the agent’s own brother. Arrested and bundled off to Lhasa, they were not mistreated but instead were shown films of captured RoC agents, then photos of the captured and killed members of Team Y. After less than a month of propaganda sessions, all three were given some Chinese currency and escorted to the border. After a final warning about ‘reactionary India,’ they were allowed to cross unmolested. Sometimes the agents were their own worst enemy. The two members of Team F, which staged from Walung to Tingri, constantly quarrelled with each other and with local sympathisers. After the more argumentative of the pair was replaced by a fresh agent, the two rushed to cache supplies for the coming winter. A final pair of Tibetans, Team S, also reached Tingri during the second half of 1965. These two agents, Thad and Troy, had better rapport with the locals than did their peers in Team F. So good was their rapport, in fact, that a local sympathiser offered them shelter in his house until spring. It was with these two Tingri teams in place that the Special Centre awaited its third season during the 1966 thaw.

Although the Special Centre’s agent programme had little to boast about, it looked positively dynamic compared with the paramilitary army festering in Mustang. A big part of Mustang’s problem was that it was being managed from afar without any direct oversight. The Special Centre had assumed handling of the programme, but none of its officers had ever actually visited Mustang. The closest they got was when CIA representative Ken Knaus twice visited Pokhara in 1964 to meet Mustang officers, With no on-site presence, the CIA and IB had to rely on infrequent reporting by the Tibetan guerillas themselves. From what little was offered, it was readily apparent that the by-product from Mustang was practically nil. For the taciturn Mullick, disenchantment with Mustang was starting to run deep. By late 1964, he was alternating between extremes—first insisting that the guerrillas be given a major injection of air-dropped supplies, later throwing up his arms and demanding that they all be brought down to India and merged with Establishment 22. In January 1965, the pendulum swung back—with a twist. Now Mullick was proposing that Mustang be given two airdrops to equip its unarmed volunteers. These weapons would be given on the condition that the guerrillas shift inside Tibet to two operating locations. The first was astride the route between Kathmandu and Lhasa. The second was along the G-219 border road running west from Lhasa toward Xinjiang via the contested Ladakh region. The choice of these two locations was understandable. In late 1961, China had offered to build for Nepal an all-weather road linking Kathmandu and the Nepalese border Pass at Kodari, one of the few areas on the Tibet frontier not closed by winter snows. Work was continuing at a breakneck pace, with completion of the route expected by 1966. India, not surprisingly, was concerned about the road’s military applications; by putting a concentration of guerrillas astride the approach from the Tibetan side, any PLA traffic could be halted. Similarly, a guerrilla pocket along the Xinjiang road would complicate China’s efforts to reinforce Ladakh. As before, Mullick was reluctant to use the ARC to perform the supply drops. Knowing that the CIA would be equally reluctant to use its own assets—that would defeat one of the main reasons for creating the ARC in the first place—he offered two sweeteners. First, he promised that the US aircraft could stage from Charbatia. Second, he would allow one ARC member to accompany the flights. This revised proposal went back to Washington and was put before the members of the 303 Committee (prior to June 1964, known as the Special Group); on April 9, the Committee lent its approval to the airdrop and Mustang redeployment scheme. Mullick, it turned out, was a moving target. As soon as he was informed of Washington’s consent, he reneged on the offer to allow an ARC crew-member on the flights. The CIA fired back, insisting that the Indian member was a prerequisite for the missions to go ahead. To this, Mullick had a ready counter-offer: he would provide a cover story if the flight encountered problems. As Mullick ducked and weaved, Ambassador Bowles urged the CIA to accept the proposal. Bowles was acutely aware that relations with New Delhi were already growing prickly on other fronts, and they were not helped when the unpredictable President Lyndon Johnson unceremoniously cancelled a summit that month with the Indian PM. Just as he would later support the stillborn C- 130 deal, the Ambassador felt that a compromise with Mullick was a way to keep at least intelligence cooperation on a solid footing. The CIA agreed; the flights would proceed on an all-American basis.

Now that the mission was moving forward, the CIA had to decide on aircraft and crews. Looking over the alternatives, the CIA had only limited options. One logical source of airlift assets was Air Ventures, the Kathmandu-based company. Back in 1963, the CIA had helped establish the company; two of the airline’s pilots were on loan from the CIA, and its lone Twin Helio airframe had been obtained with approval. But once the airline began operations, the CIA station in Nepal kept its distance; Air Ventures worked almost exclusively for the US Agency for International Development and the Peace Corps. Moreover, the Mustang guerrillas were being handled by New Delhi; in the interest of compartmentalisation, the CIA Station in Kathmandu was kept wholly segregated from the operation. Another logical source of air support was the CIA’s considerable airlift presence in Southeast Asia. Heading that effort was the proprietary Air America, as well as select private companies such as Bird & Son, with which the CIA had special contracts. Both flew airdrops under trying conditions as a matter of course. But because CIA paramilitary operations in Laos and South Vietnam were escalating by the month, aircraft were stretched thin; the CIA managers in those theatres, as a result, tightly guarded their assets. There was also the untidy matter of the press getting whiffs of the CIA’s air operations in Southeast Asia; should one of these aircraft be downed in Tibet, a viable cover story would be that much harder to concoct. By process of elimination, the assignment was sent all the way to Japan. There the CIA operated aircraft under yet another of its air proprietaries, Southern Air Transport (SAT). Unlike Air America, which frequented jungle airstrips and braved anti-aircraft fire over places like Laos, SAT flew regular routes into major international airports. Its cargo was sometimes classified, but its method of operation was overt and conventional. In handing the task to SAT, there was some reinventing of the wheel. Four kickers were diverted from Laos and sent to Okinawa for a week of USAF instruction in high-altitude missions, including time in a pressure chamber, turns on a centrifuge, and classes on cold-weather survival. The rest of the crew came from the SAT roster in Japan; none, with the exception of the primary radio operator, had been on the earlier Tibet flights. Taking a page from the past, SAT decided that the drop aircraft would come from its DC-6 fleet. This was the civilian version of the C-118 that had performed the Tibet missions in 1958; the only difference was a smaller cargo door in the rear. Because the smaller door meant that the supply bundles would also need to be smaller, mechanics fitted the DC-6 with a Y-shaped roller system to double the number of pallets loaded down the length of its cabin; after the first row of cargo was kicked out the door, pallets from the second row would be kicked. It was further decided to carry all the supplies aboard a single plane, rather than fly two missions as originally proposed by Mullick. In another refrain from the previous decade, SAT made a perfunctory attempt at sterilizing its plane. External markings were painted over, but the numbers quickly bled through the thin coat. Inside the aircraft, most—but not all—references to SAT were removed. “The safety belts in the cockpit still had the letters SAT stitched into the material,” noted auxiliary radioman Henri Verbrugghen. Early on May 15, the DC-6 departed Okinawa and made a refuelling stop at Takhli, Thailand. The CIA logisticians had packed the cabin to capacity, leaving little room for the kickers. Based on requirements generated by the Special Centre, most of the bundles were filled with ammunition and pistols, plus a small number of M-1 carbines and solar-powered radios. There was also a pair of inflatable rubber boats, to be used for crossing the wide Brahmaputra during summer. Because of the large amount of supplies involved, it was decided to make the drop inside Nepal and within a few kilometres of Tangya rather than at the more distant Tibetan drop zones used during the previous supply missions. Once at Oak Tree-1, the aircraft was taken into an ARC hangar for servicing away from prying eyes. Wayne Sanford had arranged for the provision of fuel and support for the crew. He had also requested the Indians to temporarily suppress their radar coverage along the corridor into Nepal during the final leg of the flight. For two days, the weather proved uncooperative. Not until the night of May 17 was the full moon unfettered by cloud cover. Not wasting the moment, the heavy DC-6 raced down the runway and lifted slowly into the northern sky.

At Tangya, Baba Yeshi had gathered his officers earlier in the week for a major speech. He was a master of delivery, his voice rising and falling with emotion as he told his men that the CIA had decided to give them enough weapons for the next fifteen years. A massive airdrop was to take place in a valley just east of their position, he said, and each company would be responsible for lifting its share off the drop zone. Although Baba Yeshi had been informed of the quid pro quo conjured in New Delhi—weapons in exchange for a shift to positions astride the roads in Tibet—this was not mentioned in his speech. Not surprisingly, pulses began to race as word of the impending drop flashed through the guerrilla ranks. With soaring expectations, the officers hurriedly left Tangya to assemble the necessary teams of yaks, men, and mules. As the DC-6 headed north at low altitude, Captain Eddie Sims sent regular signals back to Oak Tree-1. After each one, Charbatia sent a return message confirming that he should continue the mission. Sims, who was in charge of senior pilots among all the Far East proprietaries, was held in particularly high regard by the crew on this flight. This stemmed from his role in settling a salary dispute shortly before departing Japan. As a cost-cutting measure, SAT had deemed that none of the DC-6 crew members were eligible for the bonus money regularly paid to Air America crews during paramilitary missions. After several crewmen threatened to walk out, Sims successfully lobbied management to have the extra pay reinstated. Crossing central Nepal, Sims took the aircraft up to 4,848 metrrs (16,000 feet). The rear door was then opened, allowing frigid air to whip through the cabin. Sucking from oxygen bottles, two of the kickers positioned themselves near the exit; the other two moved to the back of the first row of bundles. Looking for one final contact with Oak Tree-1, Sims sent his coded signal. The radioman listened for the customary response, but none came. Again Sims sent the signal, but only static crackled over the set. After several minutes of agonizing, Sims elected to proceed without the last clearance. Ahead, a blazing letter signal lit the drop zone in a small bowl-shaped valley. Dropping into a steep bank, the DC-6 came atop the signal and then pulled up sharply. In the rear, the four kickers worked furiously to get the loads out the small door. Only a fraction had been disgorged when they had to halt to allow Sims to make a sharp turn and realign. It would take yet another pass before the entire cabin was emptied. On the ground in Mustang, the guerrillas spent the next day collecting bundles scattered across the drop zone, in the next valley, and in the one after that. Several were never found, and rumour had it that the two rubber boats were recovered by local residents and taken to the Crown Prince at Lo Monthang. Even more harsh than the complaints over the wide disbursement was the disgruntlement over the content of the bundles. Taking Baba Yeshi at his word, those assembled at the drop zone had expected a lavish amount of weapons, enough to fight for 15 years. Dozens of yaks and mules had been organised in what was envisioned to be a major logistical effort. “Just one plane came” lamented officer Gen Gyurme, “and it delivered mostly bullets and pistols.” Disillusioned, the company commanders took their allotments back to their respective camps and returned to their earlier inactivity. Radio messages were placed to Baba Yeshi over the following months, calling on him to make the shift inside Tibet, but all were answered with delays and excuses. By the end of that calendar year, few cross-border forays of any note had been staffed. As far as the US and Indian representatives at the Special Centre were concerned, Mustang was living on borrowed time.

In March 1966, PM Indira Gandhi arrived in Washington on her first official foreign trip. Exuding both tact and charm, she earned Johnson’s strong support for a major food aid package in exchange for market-oriented economic reforms. With the Washington summit a success surpassing all expectations, India-US relations got back some of the luster lost during the previous year’s Kashmir crisis. Sensing an opportunity, the CIA on April 22 asked the 303 Committee to approve a major US$18 million Tibetan paramilitary package. Part of this was earmarked to maintain the Mustang force for a three-year term. The package also included two C-130 aircraft as ELINT platforms to augment the lone ARC C-46 flying in this role, as well as funding for a 5,000-man increase in Establishment 22. Most remarkable was the argument the CIA was using to justify its proposal. Moving beyond the lip-service paid by Mullick in earlier years, the CIA claimed that the IB had drawn up plans in 1965 calling for the liberation of Tibet. Reading into this, the CIA suggested that India might be willing to commit Establishment 22 to a second front in the event circumstances in Vietnam sparked all-out hostilities between the US and China. In making a linkage between Tibet and Vietnam, the CIA was being politically astute. Rather than justifying the Tibetan operation solely on its own merits, the CIA was now trying to loosely fix it to the coattails of Indo-China policy—a topic that resonated at the top of the Johnson Administration agenda. All this smacked of geo-political fantasy. If Mullick, just a few months earlier, had baulked at making airdrops to Mustang, it was a good bet that New Delhi would not willingly invite Beijing’s wrath by sponsoring a Tibet front if the US and China went to war over Vietnam. Even Ambassador Bowles, an ardent proponent of intelligence cooperation, quickly backpedaled on the Vietnam link. There was a strong possibility that India would be willing to commit its guerrilla forces against Tibet, he wrote in a secret cable on April 28, but only if Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, or maybe Burma were attacked by China. There was another problem with the CIA’s April proposal. With few exceptions, the projects it sought to maintain had been proved ineffectual. Confirming as much was Bruce Walker, the former Camp Hale officer who had arrived that spring to replace John Gilhooley as the new CIA representative at the Special Centre. In many respects, Walker was presiding over a funeral. Making a token appearance at Hauz Khas once a week, he had few remaining agents to oversee. “The radio teams were experiencing major resistance from the population inside Tibet,” he recalls. “We were being pushed back to the border.”

A good case in point was Team S. Agents Thad and Troy had started out well, identifying a sympathetic Tingri farmer and bivouacking at his house since the onset of snow the previous winter. Thad had gotten particularly close to his host’s daughter; by early spring, her abdomen was starting to show the swell of pregnancy. This sparked rumours among suspicious neighbours, who reported the case to district officials. Alerted to the possible presence of an outsider, a Tibetan bureaucrat arrived that May to investigate. Quizzed about his daughter’s mysterious suitor, the farmer folded. He brought Thad out from hiding, and they took the bureaucrat into their confidence and begged him to keep the matter a secret. Feigning compliance, the official bade them farewell—only to return that same night with a PLA squad. Thad was captured immediately; Troy, concealed in a haystack, surrendered after being prodded with a bayonet. Giving the PLA the slip, the farmer managed to flee into the hills. Nearby was a cave inhabited by Team SI, which also consisted of two agents who had spent the winter near Tingri. Linking up, the three attempted to run south toward the Tibet-Sikkim border. Just short of the frontier, the trio encountered a PLA patrol and was felled in a hail of bullets. That left just one pair of agents still inside their homeland. Team F, consisting of Taylor and Jerome, had occupied yet another Tingri cave since the previous year. Even though they kept contact with the locals to a minimum, word of suspicious movement in the hills eventually came to the attention of the Chinese. On 2 November 1966, the PLA moved in for an arrest. The Tibetans held them at bay with their pistols until they ran out of ammunition; both were subsequently captured and placed in a Lhasa prison. As Team F’s radio fell silent, the Special Centre was at an impasse. After three seasons, the folly of attempting to infiltrate ‘black’ radio teams (that is, teams without proper documentation or preparation to blend into the community) was evident. Earlier in the year, this growing realisation had prompted the Centre to briefly flirt with a new kind of mission. Four agents were brought to the Indian capital from Joelikote and given instruction in the latest eavesdropping devices, with the intention of forming a special wiretap team. For practice, they climbed telephone poles around the Delhi cantonment area by night. In the end, the wiretap agents never saw service. In late November, the Special Centre put team infiltrations into Tibet on hold. Aside from a handful of Hale-trained Tibetans used for translation tasks at Oak Tree-1, as well as the radio teams already inside Nepal, Joelikote was closed, and the remaining agents reverted back to refugee status. “I was saddened and embarrassed,” said Indian representative Rabi, “to have been party to those young men getting killed.”

The Special Centre had also reached an impasse with its other main concern, the paramilitary force at Mustang. Despite the May 1965 arms drop, Baba Yeshi and his men had resisted all calls to relocate inside Tibet. Though frustrated, the CIA had continued financing the guerrillas for the remainder of that year. This funding flowed along a simple but effective underground railroad. Every month, a satchel of Indian Rupees would be handed over by the CIA representative at Hauz Khas. From there, two Tibetans and two Indian escorts would take the money to the Nepal frontier near Bhadwar. Meeting them were a pair of well-paid cyclo-drivers also on the CIA’s payroll. They hid the cash under false seats and pedaled across the border, where they handed the money over to members of the Mustang force. The money would then go to Pokhara, where foodstuffs and textiles were purchased at the local market and shipped to the guerrillas via mule caravans. By the time of the 303 Committee’s April 1966 meeting, the CIA was still prepared to continue such funding for another three years. In addition, the CIA had not ruled out more arms drops in the future. The catch: Baba Yeshi had one final chance to move his men inside Tibet. Perhaps sensing that his financiers had run out of patience, the Mustang chieftain was jarred from complacency. Employing vintage theatrics, he gathered his headquarters staff in late spring and announced that he would personally lead a 400-man foray against the PLA. “We begged him not to do anything rash,” said training officer Gen Gyurme. “Tears were flowing as he began his march out of Kaisang.” Travelling north to Tangya, the chieftain and 30 of his loyalists canvassed the nearby guerrilla camps for more participants. Another 30 signed on, including one company commander. Though far short of the promised 400, 60 armed Tibetans on horseback cut an impressive sight as they steered their mounts toward the border. Once the posse reached the frontier, however, the operation began to fall apart. A 15-man reconnaissance party was sent forward to locate a suitable ambush site, and the rest of the guerrillas argued for two days over whether Baba Yeshi should actually lead the raid across the border. After his men pleaded with him to reconsider, the chieftain finally relented in a flourish. Armed with information from the reconnaissance team, 35 Tibetans eventually remounted and galloped into Tibet. What ensued was a defining moment for the guerrilla force. Apparently alerted to the upcoming foray through their informant network, PLA soldiers were waiting in ambush. Pinned in a valley, six Tibetans were shot dead, including the company commander. In addition, eight horses were killed and seven rifles lost. In its six years of existence, this was the greatest number of casualties suffered by the project. As word of the failed foray filtered back to New Delhi, the Special Centre finally acknowledged the limitations of Mustang. On the pretext of not provoking a PLA cross-border strike into Nepal, the guerrillas were “enjoined from offensive action which might invite Chinese retaliation.” Any activity in their homeland, they were told, would be limited to passive intelligence collection. The guerrilla leadership, never really enthusiastic about conducting aggressive raids, offered no resistance to their restricted mandate. By process of elimination, the only remaining Tibetan programme with a modicum of promise was Establishment 22. Not only did this project have India’s strong support, but it was the linchpin in the CIA’s April pitch to the 303 Committee about a second front against China. Even before the Committee had time to respond, the CIA was bringing in a new team of advisers to boost its level of assistance to Chakrata. Replacing Wayne Sanford in the US Embassy was Woodson ‘Woody’ Johnson, a Colorado native who had served in a variety of intelligence and paramilitary assignments since joining the CIA in 1951. Working up-country alongside Establishment 22 was Zeke Zilaitis, the former Hale trainer with a taste for rockets, and Ken Seifarth, the airborne specialist on his encore tour with Brigadier Uban’s guerrillas.

Boosting its representation a step further, the CIA that summer introduced 49-year-old Tucker Gougelmann as the senior adviser for all paramilitary projects in India. By the time Gougelmann got his India assignment in mid-1966, he had a full plate. Part of his time was devoted to managing the mountaineering expeditions aimed at placing a nuclear-powered sensor atop the Nanda Devi summit. Even more of Gougelmann’s time was spent arranging assistance for the guerrillas at Chakrata. The Indians were eager to double the number of Tibetans at Establishment 22 and were even calling for the recruitment of Gurkhas into the unit. Reflecting bureaucratic creep, Director-General of Security Mullick had come up with a new, more formal name for the outfit—the Special Frontier Force, or SFF—and had given Uban an office in New Delhi. The SFF had matured considerably since its humble start. One hundred twenty-two guerrillas made up each of its Companies, with five or six Companies grouped into Battalions commanded by Tibetan political leaders. Though expanding the size of the SFF would be easy in one sense—with thousands of idle refugees eager for meaningful employment—there were problems. Most of the training was being handled by Uban’s seasoned cadre; aside from perfunctory oversight provided by Seifarth and Zilaitis, the CIA was relegated to funding and bringing in the occasional instructor from Camp Peary for brief specialist courses. One such instructor, Henry ‘Hank’ Booth, was dispatched in 1967 to offer a class in sniping. The six-week programme went well, with the Tibetans proving themselves able shots with the 1903 Springfield rifle. For graduation, Uban held a small ceremony, during which Booth awarded his students a copy of the 1944 US Army field manual for snipers. What came next was a telling indictment of the relationship between the Tibetans and their Indian hosts. Late that same evening, a fellow CIA officer took Booth to a hill overlooking the SFF cantonment. Below were lights burning bright at five separate camps. The Tibetans were in the process of translating the field manual into Tibetan, with each camp doing a section of the manual. Multiple copies were being made—including hand-drawn reproductions of the diagrams—and exchanged by runners. By sunrise, as Booth departed for New Delhi, each unit had a complete copy of the book, and the Indians moved in to confiscate the manual.

Not helping the relationship between the Indians and the Tibetans was the decision to add Gurkhas to their ranks. The Indians saw this as a means of expanding the mandate and abilities of the force beyond things Tibetan. The Tibetans, however, bristled at the ethnic dilution of their unit. Brigadier Uban recognised the delicacy of juggling two different cultures. “The Tibetans were more ferocious,” he reflected, “but the Gurkhas were more disciplined.” Wayne Sanford, who had returned to India for another CIA tour in New Delhi, was less generous in his assessment of the Gurkhas. “We would kill off their leaders during training exercises,” he said. “The Tibetans were natural fighters and would move the next best guy into the leader’s slot and keep on operating; the Gurkhas were clueless without leadership.” To keep peace within the force, a cap was set at no more than 100 Gurkhas. In addition, the two ethnicities would not be mixed; the Gurkhas would be segregated into their own ‘G Group’ at Chakrata. Though given the same paramilitary training as in the previous SFF cycles, G Group was relegated primarily to base security and administration. The Tibetan majority, meanwhile, was being rotated along the Ladakh and NEFA borders in company-size elements. Several ARC air bases were established specifically to support these SFF operations. In the northeast, the ARC staged from a primitive airstrip at Doomdoomah in Assam. For northwestern operations and airborne training, it used a larger air base built at Sarsawa, 132km south of Chakrata. To feed the remote SFF outposts along the border, the CIA had enlisted the Kellogg Company to help develop a special tsampa loaded with vitamins and other nutrients. Not only did this appeal to Tibetan tastes, but it allowed for healthy daily rations to be concentrated in small packages that could be airdropped from ARC aircraft.

Not all the SFF missions were within India’s frontier. Back in 1964, an Establishment 22 team had staged a brief but deadly foray from Nepal toward Tingri. In 1966, the force inherited the wiretap mandate originally conjured for the special team selected from Joelikote. There was good reason to target China’s phones. Nearly all the communications between China and Tibet used over-ground lines supported by concrete or improvised wooden poles. The CIA, moreover, had already started a successful wiretap programme in southern China using agent teams staging from Laos. Placing the taps posed serious challenges. The lines paralleled the roads built across Tibet, most of which were a fair hike from the border. Once a tap was placed at the top of a pole, a wire needed to run to a concealed cassette recorder. Because the recording time on each cassette was limited, an agent had to remain nearby to change tapes and then bring them back to India for CIA analysis. The SFF proved up to the task. In a project code-named GEM1NI, it began infiltrating from NEFA with recording gear during mid-1966. To supply the guerrillas while they filled the tapes, an ARC C-46 was dispatched to an airfield near Siliguri. Taking off during predawn hours, the aircraft would overfly the Sikkimese corridor and be at the team’s position by daybreak. Flying with the rear-door open, the kickers briefly took leave of their oxygen bottles and shawls to push the cargo into the slipstream. On the way home, they would hang a bag of soft drinks out the door in order to have chilled refreshments by the time they returned to base. The results of GEMINI were mixed. Although the SFF guerrillas were able to exfiltrate without loss of life, the project was put on hold near the year’s end after a Kolkata-based newspaper reported the mysterious flights over Sikkim. “We got miles of tapes,” recalled New Delhi officer Angus Thuermer, “but much of it was useless, like Chinese talking about their families back home.” Deputy Chief of Station Bill Grimsley was more upbeat in his assessment: “One never knows where the intelligence will lead in these matters.” The 303 Committee apparently agreed. On November 25, after repeated failed attempts during the first three quarters of the year, the CIA put a small portion of its $18 million Tibet package before the Committee for endorsement. It totaled just $650,000, most of it going to pay for Mustang. This time, the policy makers offered their approval for the paramilitary programme to proceed.

The Chinese, however, were not taking notice. In mid-1966, Beijing had reached a turning point. Its Great Leap campaign toward rapid industrialisation and full-scale communism, launched by Chairman Mao with much fanfare late the previous decade, had been such a failure that its third Five-Year Plan had to be delayed three years. The country had also suffered a series of foreign policy setbacks, including the annihilation of the Communist Party in Indonesia—which included some of Chinass closest political allies in Asia—allowing an abortive September 1965 coup. And with Mao both ageing and ailing, there were questions about who would succeed him. Reacting against all this, Mao formally proclaimed a Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in August 1966. In what was part ideological purge, part power struggle, part policy dispute, Mao steered the nation toward a destructive campaign of sophomoric Marxism and paranoid suspicion, ostensibly to cleanse its rotten core. Leading the charge was disaffected youth gathered into a mass organisation dubbed the Red Guard. These teenagers joined with the PLA and attacked allegedly anti-Mao elements in the Communist Party, then hit the party machine as a whole. Three months before the Cultural Revolution was proclaimed, Red Guards had already started arriving in Lhasa from Beijing. As the revolution’s goal was to wipe out divergent habits and cultures in order to make all of Chinese society conform to a communist ideal, minorities were a prime target. Tibetans, predictably, suffered tremendously. Thousands were jailed by marauding Red Guard gangs. Monasteries were emptied, monks publicly humiliated, scriptures burned, and priceless art treasures destroyed. Belatedly realising that he had lost control, Mao in January 1967 attempted to soften his rhetoric and asked the military to intervene. This had little effect in Tibet, where the empowered Red Guard took on the PLA in street battles across Lhasa through the spring and summer. As China descended into this orgy of violence, India watched with understandable concern. With nobody in clear control of Beijing (Mao was prone to prolonged absences from the Capital, apparently for fear of his life), the Chinese were more dangerous neighbours than ever. Making matters worse, they had successfully tested a nuclear-tipped medium-range ballistic missile in October 1966. In years past, such conditions might have made India’s covert Tibetan assets appear all the more relevant as both a border force and a potential tool to exploit China’s turmoil. By the spring of 1967, however, New Delhi had irreversibly soured toward most of its joint paramilitary projects. After all, the black radio teams inside Tibet had already been cancelled, and the Mustang force hardly inspired confidence. The Indians were also nervous about media revelations concerning the CIA. In March 1967, Ramparts, a liberal US magazine critical of the government, published an expose on covert CIA support for various private organisations, including the Asia Foundation (originally known as the Committee for a Free Asia). Because numerous US educational and voluntary groups were active in India, this sparked an anti-CIA furor in the Indian Parliament. Never openly embraced, the CIA now had few advocates on the subcontinent. Mullick, who had chaperoned the Tibet projects since the beginning of Indian involvement, had already given up his seat as Director-General of Security in mid-1966. His replacement, Balbir Singh, had an independent and forceful personality but only limited clout with the PM. For her part, Mrs. Gandhi showed little appreciation for the CIA or its assistance. “We became a tolerated annoyance,” summed up Woody Johnson. If any tears were being shed at the CIA, they were of the crocodile variety. Back in June 1966, the CIA Director’s slot had been filled by Richard Helms. Coming to the office with extensive experience managing clandestine intelligence collection, Helms was known to be highly skeptical of covert action like that attempted in Tibet. However, he was being counselled otherwise by Des FitzGerald, his deputy for operations and longtime proponent of activism in Tibet. Unfortunately, FitzGerald dropped dead while playing tennis in July 1967. “When Des died,” said Near East chief James Critchfield, “the oomph for the programme quickly dissipated.” Even before FitzGerald’s death, the CIA had taken measured steps to disengage itself from Tibet. In the wake of the March Ramparts revelations, President Johnson had approved a special committee headed by Undersecretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach to study U0S relationships with private organisations. Katzenbach’s findings, released later that month, recommended against covert assistance to any American educational or private voluntary organisation. Following this finding, the CIA terminated funding for the third cycle of eight Tibetans undergoing training at Cornell University. They were repatriated to Dharamsala in July, and no further students were accepted. Though the agency contemplated a continuation of the programme on a smaller scale at a foreign university, this never came to fruition. Other changes came in rapid succession. In Washington, the Tibet desk, which had been under the Far East Division’s China Branch ever since its establishment in 1956, was transferred to the Near East Division. John Rickard, one of four brothers born to missionary parents in Burma (three of whom went to work for the CIA), headed the desk during this period and changed his divisional affiliation to reflect the shift. More than just semantics, the change underscored the fact that the remaining Tibetan paramilitary assets, with rare exception, would probably not be leaving Indian soil. Apart from a single representative at the Special Centre, the Far East Division had been completely excised from the Tibet programme. The CIA also reduced its links to the ARC. Although attrition was starting to take a toll on the aircraft delivered during 1963 and 1964—the latest casualty, a Twin Helio, crashed in 1967—no replacements were budgeted. More telling, after the CIA removed the C-130 from the limited proposal passed by the 303 Committee the previous November, the Indians opted in 1967 to add the USSR-supplied Antonov An-12B transport as the new centerpiece for its ARC fleet. For the Tibetans, the biggest blow took place in the spring of 1967. Ever since arriving on Indian soil, the CIA had secretly channeled a stipend to the Dalai Lama and his entourage. Totaling $180,000 per fiscal year, the money was appreciated but not critical. Most of it was collected in the Charitable Trust of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, which in turn was used for investments, donations, and relief work. To their credit, the Tibetans had worked hard to wean themselves off such handouts. “Financially underpinning the Dalai Lama’s refugee programmes was no longer warranted, “ said Grimsley. Gyalo did not see it that way. Sullen, he made the assumption that all money would soon be drying up. He was not wrong. Gyalo proved his abilities in another CIA-supported venture. Because the Dalai Lama had long desired the creation of a central Tibetan cultural institution, the CIA supplied Gyalo with secret funds to assemble a collection of wall hangings—called thankas— and other art treasures from all the major Tibetan Buddhist sects. A plot of land was secured in the heart of New Delhi, and the Tibet House—comprising a museum, library, and emporium—was officially opened in October 1965 by the then Indian Minister of Education and the Dalai Lama. It remains a major attraction to this day.

India-US intelligence cooperation experienced major changes in structure and personalities. In June 1968, David Blee departed as the New Delhi Station Chief after more than six years in the post. Replacing him the following month was John Waller, the Deputy Station Chief in India between 1955 and 1957. A consummate blend of scholar and spy, Waller had spent the intervening years pursuing his passion for Tibetan history. In 1967, he had published an authoritative book on Sino-Indian relations, much of it devoted to Tibetan issues. That same year, he had written an article for the Foreign Service Journal about US diplomacy and the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. He had also completed a draft of a book about exploration in Tibet. Once in New Delhi, Waller had little time to pursue his glorified research hobby. Within two months after his arrival, he was confronted with a new counterpart organisation. Intentionally patterned after the CIA, the Research and Analysis Wing (R & AW) was officially unveilled on September 2. Both the foreign intelligence desk of the IB (now downgraded to domestic activities) and the paramilitary projects of the Director-General of Security would fall under R & AW’s control. Selected as the first R & AW Secretary was R N Kao. Previously head of the ARC, the debonair Kao had a long history of close cooperation with US officials. Despite this warm past, Kao was faced with India-US relations that were again on a downward spiral. In November, Richard Nixon won the US presidential election. Like his predecessor Johnson, Nixon was fixated on bringing the unpopular war in Vietnam to an end. Not only was South Asia far from Nixon's mind, but many Indians recalled his pronounced slant toward Pakistan when he was Eisenhower's Vice President. Behind the scenes, intelligence cooperation toward Tibet remained only a shadow of its former self. Arriving in June 1968 as the new CIA representative at the Special Centre was John Bellingham. Much like Bruce Walker had presided over a funeral, Bellingham was there for the same extended wake. He arrived at the Centre each Friday afternoon, but there was little for him to do aside from delivering the monthly payments for Mustang. On two occasions during Bellingham's watch, the Special Centre looked to break from its freefall. The first concerned a programme to infiltrate singleton resident agents into Tibet. This had been proposed back in 1967 as the long-range replacement for the cancelled radio teams. There was a significant difference between the two: the teams had gone in black; the resident singletons, by contrast, would merge directly into society. The two programmes required different kinds of people. The teams had been composed of men versed in paramilitary skills and expected to live in concealment under rugged conditions. Singletons required the intelligence and wit to operate as classic spies. Doing so was complicated by the Cultural Revolution; deep paranoia and suspicion had taken root across Tibetan society.

Although finding a suitable singleton candidate would be difficult, one possibility had been identified back in 1967. That year, an uninvited visitor in his early thirties had arrived at Mustang. Amdo Tsering claimed to be a Muslim from the Amdo city of Sining. He had fled his hometown and supposedly escaped to Nepal via an extended trek through Xinjiang and western Tibet. Incredulous, Baba Yeshi’s men sized up the interloper. Because he looked Chinese and spoke some Xinjiang dialects, they began to suspect that he was a plant dangled by Beijing. Gearing up for a rather unpleasant interrogation, they suddenly found themselves on the receiving end of a verbal flogging from the spirited Amdowa. Uncertain what to do, Mustang flashed a message down to the Special Centre. Equally uncertain, the Centre sent back orders for Amdo Tsering to be escorted to New Delhi. There he languished for over a year; not until the spring of 1969 was it decided to use him as the first in the proposed resident singleton programme. Code-named ‘Red Stone,’ Amdo Tsering was given extensive training in secret writing techniques. The CIA also forged a set of Chinese travel documents showing that he worked in westernmost Tibet but was going to Xinjiang on holiday. Once in Xinjiang, he was to head for Lop Nur and attempt to collect dirt samples. Lop Nur was the location of China’s primary nuclear testing facility, and the dirt would be analysed to determine levels of radioactivity. In September 1969, Red Stone took a train to Siliguri. Escorting him was Tashi Choedak and the senior Indian representative at the Special Centre. Heading north through Sikkim, they came to the Tibetan frontier and watched Red Stone gallop across the border. The two Special Centre representatives returned to New Delhi to await news of his progress. They did not have to wait long. After just a couple of days, they received word that a nervous Red Stone had attracted attention and been arrested before boarding a bus at Shigatse, the town midway between Tingri and Lhasa. The singleton programme subsequently went into remission.

The second project initiated by the Special Centre was the activation of special refugee debriefing teams. For years, the radio agents posted along the Tibet-Nepal frontier had been collecting low-level information from pilgrims and traders. Building on this theme, in late 1968 the Centre dispatched a five-man team to Kathmandu to debrief cross-border travellers. The Nepalese capital was a fertile recruiting ground for several reasons. First, Nepal was the only nation still allowed to maintain a Trade Mission and Consulate General in Lhasa. Second, there was a substantial community of ethnic Tibetans who had opted for Nepalese citizenship after 1959, and China had decreed that these Nepalese passport holders were allowed to visit their families or conduct business in Tibet once a year. In locating sources, the Kathmandu debriefing team had competition from an unlikely source: the Republic of China, or Taiwan. Until that time, Taipei had never had much success recruiting a network of Tibetan supporters, mainly because the Kuomintang firmly agreed with the PRC about China’s right to rule Lhasa. Efforts to sign up agents from Kalimpong late the previous decade had fallen flat. So, too, had a brief attempt to fund information-gathering forays by Nepal-based Tibetans beginning in 1962. In 1968, Taipei tried again. This time, it was looking to exploit the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. There were also indications in February that the RoC leadership might be prepared to endorse Lhasa’s independence, a shift that would have made its support more palatable to Tibetan patriots. Late that year, Taipei dispatched a pair of Hiu Muslim recruiters to Kathmandu in its latest bid to seek Tibetan sources. The recruiters, both former residents of Kalimpong, dangled financial incentives and the chance for scholarships on Taiwan. The Special Centre’s team, meanwhile, sought volunteers through nationalistic appeals. “We only had a little money to cover operational expenses,” said team leader Arnold, a former Hale translator and Cornell graduate, “so we looked for good Buddhists who respected the Dalai Lama.” By 1969, Arnold and his men were claiming some success. Despite numerous attempts, they were never able to recruit a Tibetan staff member working at the Nepalese Consulate in Lhasa. They were, however, able to network among dozens of Nepalese passport holders returning from their annual leave in Tibet. The team debriefed the travellers in Kathmandu and dispatched frequent reports to the Special Centre via the mail or messengers.

Although the information from the Kathmandu team was welcome, John Bellingham’s main focus was on managing the denouement of Mustang. Earlier in 1969, India had made it apparent that her contingency plans no longer involved any participation by Tibetan guerrillas in Nepal. The CIA was of a similar mindset. When it came time for the 303 Committee to review Tibet operations on September 30, it endorsed a provision to scale back Mustang to a token force. The Tibetans learned of this pivotal decision indirectly. In early October, Bellingham arrived at the Special Centre with the monthly funds for Nepal. As was customary, Kay-Kay and Tashi Choedak came to witness the transfer. Turning to the Indians as he left, the CIA representative offered a comment in passing: “I guess this is one of the last.” Kay-Kay froze. “It was my darkest moment,” he later said. No matter how poorly it had fared in the field, the Tibetan leadership had looked on Mustang as the symbolic paramilitary arm of its government-in-exile. A Royal Nepal Airlines flight took Kay-Kay and two junior officers from the Special Centre to Pokhara, where they mounted horses and went to bring the news directly to the guerrilla leadership. They arrived at Kaisang in driving rains and found Wangdu in his office. After explaining the decision, Kay-Kay paused for comments, but Wangdu offered only a silent gaze. Reduced funding was only part of Mustang’s troubles. After spending the summer and fall stewing at Pokhara, Baba Yeshi had enticed a company of loyalists to move east to Nashang. Tempers were starting to flare between the two factions, leading to the death of two Baba Yeshi followers and five horses. Vowing to expel dissidents, Wangdu placed Baba Yeshi’s sympathetic assistant, a hulking Andowa and Hale graduate named Abe, in detention. Abe, in turn, got possession of a razor and committed suicide by slicing open the vein in his neck. Incensed, Baba Yeshi retreated to a house in Kathmandu and began plotting his revenge. In 1970, Lhamo Tsering returned to New Delhi after his prolonged deployment to Nepal. Waiting for him at the Special Centre was John Bellingham, who was anxious to finalise a formal demobilisation plan for Mustang. Until that point, the CIA was still funding 2,100 guerrillas at a cost of $500,000 a year. Pressed for time, Lhamo Tsering outlined a schedule whereby the force would be cut by a third over each of the next three calendar years. Without delay, Bellingham approved the scheme. Part of the demobilisation plan involved a rehabilitation programme for the guerrillas, to ensure that they would be able to support themselves. Members of the Special Centre were immediately deployed to Kathmandu and Pokhara to oversee this programme. Their purpose was to ensure that rehabilitation funds would be wisely invested in self-generating enterprises. Although the demobilised guerrillas had few marketable skills, existing Kathmandu-based projects funded by the Dalai Lama and foreign aid groups demonstrated that Tibetan handicraft and carpet factories were profitable ventures. Drawing on this precedent, the first third of the rehabilitation funds was channelled into two carpet-weaving factories in Pokhara. Part of the money was also used to break ground for a 30-room budget hotel in the same town. With a third of the guerrillas dutifully filing out of the mountains to take up employment at these sites, demobilisation appeared to be progressing according to plan.

At Tangya, not everybody was embracing the conversion to civilian life. Wangdu, for one, was game for alternative forms of funding that would allow him to maintain some of his men under arms. In early 1971, he received word that interest was being expressed by an unexpected source—the Soviet Union. This was not the first time Moscow had flirted with the Tibetan resistance. In 1966, Soviet intelligence officers had approached Gyalo in New Delhi with a proposal to assume support for Tibetan paramilitary operations. During the course of eight meetings over the next three years, the Soviets spoke fancifully of establishing a joint operation in Tashkent; from there, they promised, Tibetan agents could be parachuted back to their homeland. Intrigued but non-committal, Gyalo requested that Moscow, as a sign of good faith, first raise the Tibet issue at the United Nations. Do not make pre-conditions, the Soviets sniffed, and ultimately ceased contact. In 1970, Moscow showed renewed interest in Tibet. This followed the USSR’s brief border war with the PRC in 1969, prompting it to re-explore paramilitary options against China in the event of renewed hostilities. Rather than approaching Gyalo—who in any event had moved to Hong Kong and washed his hands of resistance operations—this time Moscow looked toward Nepal. Leading the effort was Col Anatoli Logonov, the Defense Attaché at the USSR Embassy in Kathmandu. Named a Hero of the Soviet Union in 1944 while an armour commander, Logonov had already been expelled from Canada for espionage activities and reprimanded by the Nepalese government for bribing a military officer. Undaunted, the brash Logonov approached the US Defense Attache, William Stites, at a diplomatic function. Sauntering up to the American Colonel, he left little doubt about his focus of interest. “What do you have on Tibet?” he asked. Stites was not amused by the bold pitch; nor was he pleased to hear that the Colonel had invited his assistant to dinner and asked the same question. Though he came up short with the American officers, Logonov had better luck with the Tibetans themselves. Cornering a Khampa shopkeeper in Kathmandu, he conveyed word that he sought contact with the Mustang leadership. As news of this reached the Tibetans at the Special Centre, Tashi Choedak quietly rushed to Nepal, linked up with Wangdu, and rendezvoused with the Colonel in the Nepalese capital. Matching his direct personality, Logonov’s house was functional and unsophisticated. “It had no carpets,” said Tashi, “but plenty of Johnny Walker and a refrigerator stocked with boiled cabbage.” Coming to the point, the Colonel asked for information on the size of the Mustang force. Over the course of three subsequent meetings, the Tibetans brought photograph albums (created for accounting purposes during the phased demobilisation) that contained a portrait of each guerrilla still under arms. Logonov took copies of the albums and promised to quiz Moscow about assuming financing for the force. One month later, Logonov returned with an answer. Although funding for Mustang was not feasible at that time, he offered payment for specific items of information, such as the location of PLA border-posts and the deployment of aircraft at Tibetan airfields. Accepting this limited offer, the Tibetans prepared a sampling of information for the Colonel. In return, Logonov paid the equivalent of $1,800. Convinced that this sum was hardly worth the effort, Wangdu unilaterally terminated further contact.

During 1965, Moscow offered—and New Delhi accepted—a pair of Mi-4 helicopters for the ARC. Ironically, the CIA did not necessarily see Soviet inroads into the subcontinent as a bad thing. By keeping the Soviets on-board in India, the CIA ensured that they were a counterweight to the Chinese. Such realpolitik led to previously unthinkable levels of cooperation regarding support to the ARC. With an ageing C-46 fleet (We squeezed as much life from them as possible) and no C-130 ELINT platforms forthcoming, the ARC inventory by 1967 was dominated by the Mi-4s and An-12Bs. Whereas this transformation might have had the CIA howling in earlier years, the Agency was now perfectly willing to assist the Indians with their new USSR-supplied hardware. In 1968, for example, CIA technicians installed oxygen consoles in the unpressurised An-12B cabins for use during SFF parachute training. Because this aircraft had an extremely fast cruising speed—more than double that of the C-46—a CIA airborne adviser was dispatched to India that spring to train an ARC cadre in high-speed exit techniques. Two years later, CIA technicians were back in India to modify an ARC An-12B with ELINT gear. CIA support for the SFF, meanwhile, was declining fast. One of the last CIA-sanctioned operations took place in 1969, when four SFF commandos were trained in the use of sophisticated impulse-probe wiretaps. Buried underneath a telephone line, the tap transmitted conversations to a solar- powered relay station established on a border mountaintop in NEFA, which in turn relayed data to a rear base farther south. Although several taps were installed successfully, two SFF members disappeared on a 1970 foray, and further infiltrations were halted. By the following year, the PLA detected the extent of the tampering and started rerouting its lines away from the border.

By early 1971, direct CIA contact with the SFF was almost non-existent. the Govt of India was quietly supporting scores of resistance fighters from East Pakistan. Playing a major role in this was Maj Gen Uban (he had finally gotten his promised second star), who was now considered one of India's most seasoned unconventional warfare specialists on account of the nine years he had spent with the SFF. Taking temporary leave of his Tibetans, he was placed in charge of a guerrilla training programme for 10,000 East Pakistani—soon to be called Bangladeshi—insurgents. Uban made room at Chakrata for a training site for the Bangladeshis. By that time, the SFF had grown to 64 Tibetan Companies; most were divided into eight Battalions of six Companies apiece, with the remainder going into support units. Despite this increase, the force had not seen any serious combat since its inception. Worse, Uban learned that seven Companies were being misused for traffic control in Ladakh. Protesting this abuse of his elite unit, Uban lobbied to incorporate his men into contingencies against East Pakistan. By fall, the Indians were already well on their way to completing plans for a major combined arms campaign—one of the largest since World War-2—to liberate that territory. Though Uban made a strong case for the SFF's inclusion—his men could act as guerrillas with plausible deniability, he argued—such a decision would be controversial. Until that point, there had been an unwritten rule that the SFF would not be used for anything other than its intended purpose against China. There were also Tibetan attitudes to consider. Tibet, noted several members of the force, had no quarrel with Pakistan. Rather, Tibet had benefited from assistance offered by the East Pakistani authorities, recalled ranking political leader Jamba Kalden. As word flashed to Dharamsala, senior Tibetan officials were in a quandary. If they did not agree with Uban's proposal, they feared that the Indians would see them as ungrateful; with CIA support largely dissipated, they could ill afford to alienate their primary benefactor. Although some in the Dalai Lama's inner circle felt that they should demand a quid pro quo—participation against East Pakistan in exchange for Indian recognition of their exiled government—the idea was not pushed. Quietly, Dharamsala offered its approval. By late October, an ARC An-12B airlift began shuttling nearly 3,000 Tibetans to the Indian border adjacent to East Pakistan's Chittagong Hill tracts. To reinforce their deniable status, the guerrillas were hurriedly given a shipment of Bulgaria-made AK-47 assault rifles. At the border, they assembled at Demagiri. Normally a quiet frontier back-water, Demagiri by that time was overflowing with refugees. As the Tibetans turned it into a proper military encampment, they made plans to divide into three columns and initiate operations. Their exact mission had been the subject of prior debate. India's military staff had wanted them to perform surgical strikes, such as destroying the key Kaptai Dam. Uban, in contrast, saw them doing something more worthy, such as joining forces with his Chakrata-trained Bangladeshi insurgents and seizing Chittagong port. This was vetoed by the top brass because neither the SFF nor the Bangladeshis had integral heavy weapons support. After further discussion, it was decided that the SFF would be charged with staging guerrilla raids across the Chittagong Hill tracts, known for their thick jungles, humid weather, and leech-infested marshes. This promised to be a difficult mission for the mountain-faring Tibetans.

The hills held another, more deadly, challenge. Based along the tracts was a Pakistani composite Brigade, including part of a Battalion of elite commandos, the Special Service Group. Not only did this Brigade threaten the flank of one of the IA Corps massing to move against Dhaka, but it could conceivably open an escape route to nearby Burma. At the beginning of the second week of November, the SFF began OP MOUNTAIN EAGLE. Taking leave of Demagiri, the guerrillas used 19 canoes to shuttle across the Karnaphuli River and steal into East Pakistan. Coming upon an outpost that night, the Tibetans overran the position while the Pakistanis were eating. Boosted by their swift victory, they made plans to hit the next post the following morning. Listening over the radio, Maj Gen Uban was anxious. As he moved into Demagiri to coordinate both the SFF and his Bangladeshi force, he had few qualms about the Bangladeshis—they were native boys and could live off the land–but he knew that the Tibetans were untested under battle conditions and careless in open march. Very quickly, his fears were confirmed. On November 14, the lead element of Tibetans came running back toward the Indian border. Dhondup Gyatotsang, Uban learned, had been shot dead. The cousin of Mustang commander Wangdu and a Hale graduate, Dhondup had been one of the most senior political leaders in the force. Realising that he could lose momentum, Uban got on the radio and barked at the Tibetans to resume their advance. “I told them not to come back until the position was taken,” he said. The strong words had an effect. Reversing course, the SFF split into small teams and curled behind the Pakistanis in classic guerrilla fashion. Using both their Bulgarian assault rifles and native knives, they smashed through the outpost. “After that,” remembers Uban,”they were unstoppable.” By the time all-out war was officially declared early the following month, the SFF had been inside East Pakistan for three weeks. Multiple IA Corps blitzed from all directions on December 3, forcing Pakistani capitulation within two weeks; Bangladesh’s independence would soon follow. At the time of the ceasefire, the Tibetans were within 40km of Chittagong port and had successfully pinned down the Pakistani Brigade in the border hills. Taking leave of their normal anonymity, the SFF paraded through Chittagong to ecstatic Bangladeshi masses. A total of 23 Indians and 45 Tibetans of the SFF would be awarded for their gallantry; 580 Tibetans received cash bonuses. Their victory had had a cost, however. Forty-nine Tibetans had paid with their lives for the birth of a nation not their own.

Fallout from the Bangladeshi operation was swift. The CIA lodged a protest against R & AW over the use of Tibetans in OP MOUNTAIN EAGLE. Kao hardly lost any sleep over the matter; with US financial and advisory support to the SFF all but evaporated, the CIA's leverage was nil. Bolstering his indifference was the diplomatic furore over deployment of the US Navy aircraft carrier Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal during the brief war. Although Washington claimed that the vessel was there for the potential evacuation of US citizens from Dacca, New Delhi suspected that it had been sent as a show of support for the Pakistanis. Bilateral ties, never good during the Nixon Presidency, ebbed even lower. More serious were the protests against OP MOUNTAIN EAGLE from within the Tibetan refugee community. In this instance, it was Dharamsala that was under fire, not R & AW. Facing mounting criticism for having approved the deployment, the Dalai Lama made a secret journey to Chakrata on June 3, 1972. After three days of blessings, most ill-feelings had wafted away. As this was taking place, John Bellingham was approaching the end of his tour at the Special Centre. He had just delivered the second installment of rehabilitation funds, which arrived in Nepal without complication. With this money, two Pokhara carpet-weaving factories had been established, and construction of a hotel in the same town was progressing according to plan. Another carpet-weaving factory was operating in Kathmandu, as was a taxi and trucking company. By the summer of 1973, with one-third of the funds still to be distributed, the CIA opted not to deploy a new representative to the Special Centre. Because Bellingham had moved next door as the CIA's Chief of Station in Kathmandu, and because he was already intimately familiar with the demobilisation programme, it was decided to send him the Indian Rupees in a diplomatic pouch for direct handover to designated Tibetans in Nepal. Although this violated the CIA's previous taboo against involving the Kathmandu station, an exception was deemed suitable in this case, given the humanitarian nature of the project. The money was well-spent. That November, ex-guerrillas formally opened their Pokhara hotel, the Annapurna Guest House. Bellingham and his wife were among its first patrons.

Harsh treatment was meted out to the Tibetan agents captured by Chinese authorities. In prison for almost two decades—much of it in solitary confinement—they were offered unexpected freedom in November 1978 as part of Beijing’s slight softening in policy toward Tibet. The years had taken a toll. From Team S, agent Thad was still alive; his teammate Troy had been executed for bad behaviour. From Team F, Taylor was released, but his partner, Jerome, had died in detention from a prolonged illness. Team V1’s Terrence had his freedom, but teammate Maurice had been executed for provoking fights in jail. Irving, the agent from Team C turned in by the old lady and her son, survived his incarceration. So did Choni Yeshi, the sole survivor of the team parachuted into Amdo, and Bhusang, the only living member of the team dropped at Markham in 1961. Two others remained in detention. Amdo Tsering, the restive Muslim singleton who was supposed to collect dirt at Lop Nur, stayed behind bars because of an unrepentant attitude. Grant, the lone survivor of Team Y, was sickly and opted to stay in prison voluntarily. Not until 1996 did both finally leave their cells.

Among the CIA advisers who served in India, Harry Mustakos and T J Thompson, the latter would later become a world-renowned parachute designer. In 1981, he returned to Charbatia on a CIA-sanctioned trip to inspect the state of the ARC rigging facility he had helped establish two decades earlier. “Not only was the facility in great shape,” he said, “but there were still some of the Tibetan riggers I trained in 1963.” Among the Indian veterans of the Tibet project, R & AW Secretary R N Kao rode Indira Gandhi’s skirt to great influence. In the wake of the successful Bangladesh operation, as well as the assistance R & AW lent Mrs Gandhi during her 1969 political struggles against party stalwarts, Kao was elevated to the additional post of Cabinet Secretary (Security). When Gandhi briefly fell from power in 1977, her intelligence supremo was shunted aside, only to return as National Security Adviser when she regained power three years later (B N Mullick was then still functioning as the DGS). Although the Tibet operation was downgraded during his watch and with his concurrence, Kao would later disingenuously lay blame solely on the US. “The Tibetans were looking for somebody to hold their finger,” he later commented, “and the Americans dropped them like a hot potato.” Laloo Grewal, the first ARC Manager at Charbatia, went on to become Vice Chief of Staff of the IAF. Maj Gen S.S. Uban retired as Inspector-General of the SFF in January 1973. A deeply religious man, Uban delved into various esoteric beliefs. More than anything, he became a devotee of Baba Onkarnath, a popular Bengali mystic whose prophecies, say followers, are invariably accurate. During one sitting with Onkarnath, Uban claims that his guru predicted the Bangladesh war a year in advance. On another occasion, Uban was present when the seer was asked whether Tibet would become free. Yes, said Onkarnath confidently, Tibet would gain its independence. His audience, eager for details, pressed the Bengali for details as to when liberation would take place. To this, the prophet offered no insights. Among the Tibetan members of the CIA’s covert projects, those assigned to the Special Centre in Hauz Khas continued working alongside their Indian counterparts after the departure of John Bellingham. In 1975, they attempted to deploy a singleton agent without US participation. Code-named ‘Yak,’ he was a native of Yatung (Yadong) near the Bhutan-India-China trijunction. On three occasions over the next year, he was dispatched back to his hometown to collect information from family-members. Suspected of embellishing his tales, Yak was dropped from the Special Centre’s payroll. Apart from this brief flirtation with running a bona fide agent, the Centre spent most of its time tasking and debriefing Tibetan refugees going on pilgrimages or visiting family-members. This continued until late 1992, at which time the Hauz Khas villa was closed after almost three decades and Tibet operations began running out of R & AW headquarters. Within the SFF, Jamba Kalden retired as its senior political leader in 1977. Much had happened to his force since the Bangladesh operation. Looking to patch over its earlier protests regarding OP MOUNTAIN EAGLE, the CIA deployed two airborne advisers to Chakrata in the spring of 1975 to instruct the Tibetans in jumping at high altitudes. Drop-zones in Ladakh, some as high as 4,848 metres above sea level, were used for these exercises. Two years later, one of the same advisers, Alex MacPherson, returned to India to test a special high-altitude chute specially designed for SFF missions. Though exposed to such expanded training, the SFF was seeing less action in the field. In 1974, the unit had been guarding the border near Nepal to stem an influx of China-trained insurgents. Following Kathmandu’s suppression of Mustang, however, it was feared that the SFF might stage reprisal forays against Nepal. To prevent this, India pulled its Tibetan SFF combatants away from the border. The following year, a second ruling prohibited the SFF from being posted within 10km of the India-Tibet frontier. This came after a series of unauthorised incursions and cross-border shootings, including a four-hour firefight in Ladakh during 1971 that resulted in two SFF fatalities.

By the late 1970s, the future of the SFF was no longer certain. With India-China tensions easing somewhat, there was criticism that maintenance of a Tibetan combatant force was an unnecessary expense. However, the SFF was soon given a new mission: counter-terrorism. Because the Tibetans were foreigners, and therefore did not have a direct stake in Indian communal politics, they were seen as an ideal, objective counter-terrorist force. In 1977, R & AW Secretary Kao deployed 500 SFF combatants to Sarsawa for possible action against rioters during national elections. After the elections, which went off without major incident, only 60 Tibetans were retained at Sarsawa for counter-terrorist duties. Three years later, when Indira Gandhi (and Kao) returned to power, the SFF’s war against terrorism received a major boost. On 1981, over 500 trainees, mostly Gurkhas, were sent to Sarsawa for counter-terrorist instruction. Upon graduation, they formed the SFF’s new Special Group (SG). Significantly, no Tibetans were incorporated into this new group within the force. In 1982, the DGS launched Project Sunray, under which it tasked a Colonel of the IA's 10 Para/Special Forces to set up the SG with 250 officers and men—all Gurkhas and Indians—in commando companies 55, 56 and 57. The SG was then housed in tents at the IAF’s Sarsawa air base near Saharanpur. They underwent special counter-terror training in Israel for over three weeks in 1983 in the recreated landscapes having busy streets, maze of buildings and vehicles. This training came useful when the combatants of 56 Commando Company entered the Golden Temple at 10.30pm on June 6, 1984. The Tibetan mainstream of the SFF, meanwhile, continued to see action closer to the border. Companies from its eight Battalions under the control of the DGS rotated along the entire frontier. In 1978, three additional Tibetan Battalions were raised at Chakrata; under the operational control of the IA, these three Battalions were posted to Ladakh, Sikkim, and Doomdoomah air base in Assam. Seventeen members of the Ladakh-based Battallion were killed while fighting Pakistani troops on the Siachen Glacier in 1986; as after the Bangladesh operation, there were protests against Dharamsala for taking losses outside of the battle to liberate the Tibetan homeland.

From Shadows To The Limelight

The SFF shot into the limelight when Company Commander Nyima Tenzin, 51, of the 7 VIKAS Battalion, attained martyrdom after stepping on an old mine (laid during the 1962 war), while his subordinate, Tenzin Loden, 24, was critically injured in the same explosion, and is currently undergoing treatment at the military hospital in Ladakh.

Presently three VIKAS are each deployed in Ladakh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, with more reinfoircements on the way to Ladakh as of now. Principal mission of these Battalions is to act as the vanguard force that has been tasked to occupy all the dominating heights throughout the northern, eastern and southern portions (totalling less than 30) that are located not within the India-controlled portions of real estate, but within the India-claimed portions that hitherto were only subjected to periodic but seasonal patrolling by the IA and ITBP.

Consequently, for all intents and purposes, India has now pushed its controlled areas (through 24/7 physical occupation) further eastwards out to a distance of almost 5km (see the green line on the slide above), starting with the Chushul sector (the so-called pre-emptive counter-occupation stratagem), just like the PLA had advanced westwards by almost 8km from Finger-8 till Finger-4 in the northern bank of the Panggong Tso Lake.

             Future Roles & Missions

199 comments:

DAshu said...

I was looking for this thread. Thank you, Sir.

KIDDO said...

Dear Prasun

Wow. Thanks for that fantastic account of India's covert operations history!!

I'm glad that the SFF has remained such a secretive group. Hope the ignorant and hyper-jingoistic media is not able to bring them into the spotlight too much.

Can't wait to read the rest of it, especially as regards the ways in which the IA would use these troops in any future conflict with China - Im hoping that the moment any hostilities commence, members of this group would be covertly infiltrated straight towards Lhasa to spread some merry hell within the PLA's supply lines, airfields and C&C nodes.

My question is do u think that some SFF members are stationed for extended periods in border regions of Nepal-Tibet border - like Manang, Mustang, Rolwaling, Dolpo etc. Having travelled extensively in these trans-himalayan regions, I know that the people and cultures of these areas are distinctly Tibetan as opposed to the various Nepali ethnic groups - making it very easy for people of Tibetan origin to settle here for extended periods of time and also garner local support. In fact there are still numerous remnants of Khampa guerilla settlements along many popular trekking trails in Nepal. Would this even be possible without Nepal's (or at least Nepalese Army) knowledge and consent?

And if a wider conflict does ensue between, India and China, what do u think will be the reaction of Tibetans settled in Nepal - any chance of them assisting us in any manner?

Thanks as always.

PramodW said...

Thanks for the replies sir,

1) Are the jammers on the spectra EW suite, AESA or PESA?

2) Aside from not having DIRCM, would you agree that the spectra is basically capable of handling any threat to a rafale?

3) How much coverage do pod based jammers like el/l 8222 offer? Hemi spherical or spherical?

4) What advantages to jammers of EW warfare suites like DASS and Spectra provide over bolt on jamming pods, if any?

5) You said that in order to have 360 degree coverage EW suites will need 6 RWRs, LWRs and MAWS. Spectra doesn't have a count of 6 for any of these. Yet it advertises 360 degree coverage. Have the french found a different way or does the suite lack 360 degree coverage?

6) What is the difference in capabilities between El/l 8222 wide band jammers and elta's new aesa jamming pod?

7) Does x-guard decoy possess suppression, deflection and seduction capabilities like the ale-55?

8) What major uses other than deceiving hom on jam missiles does towed decoys bring to the table? I've heard it's particularly effective in tackling MANPADS and Air to air missiles shot from within no escape zone. Can you please throw some light on that?

Thanks.

Magicbullet said...

Sir
You had claimed that in your remote viewing sessions you saw takeover of POK but you never spoke of Tibet.. Could you share now what you seeing

Vinod J said...

Prasunda,

There are reports that after approval of additional F16 fighters, Taiwan may sell its entire fleet of Mirage fighters. Would it be feasible/worthwhile for IAF to operate itfor a decade till MWF is inducted

Unknown said...

Prasunda, ignore my stupidity for some time, when we have Ghatak, why this halla gulla with AK 203? If we are getting 21 more MIG 29 in UPG standard, and as you told before Rafael count will go at least 86, and MKI to 350. Ignoring Tejas counts, will it not be sweet to purchase 52 Mirages from Taiwan. Reason being, till recently Taiwan was not sure to get any jets from US soon, so those will be in a better condition. And IAF likes those jets. Will it be costly to upgrade or do they have meaningfull life in them to serve for 20 years after upgraded. Or these jets if taken will be at cost of Tejas program , so should be avoided?

TheHundred said...

Did these deals for spare parts and planes get done Prasun?

"While France is “gifting” 31 Jaguar airframes, the UK is charging Rs 2.8 crore for two twin-seat jets and 619 lines of rotables. Like France, Oman too is giving two airframes, eight engines and 3500 lines of spares for free."

https://www.thestatesman.com/india/iaf-chief-comments-on-obtaining-spares-for-jaguar-fleet-from-retired-jets-1502665930.html/amp

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To DASHU: VMT. I have uploaded additional slides above that clearly explain what the IA’s stratagem has been since August 29, i.e. a counter-occupation tactics that effectively pushed the India-controlled LAC further 5km eastwards. This is well within the India-claimed portions of real estate, which go out a further 13km eastwards. But since the ‘desi patrakaars’ don’t understand the difference between Indua-controlled territory & India-claimed territory, they are getting terribly confused by India’s statement about the IA still being located well within Indian territory. Here are 2 latest examples of the utter confusion prevailing among the ‘desi patrakaars’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aWK_kc44yQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwZ9EyVaHcY

And here are more videoclips of the SFF combatants:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuobdBs0BZ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPy5rk0Bhi8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWOjMo_fpqM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv1DeLQKcpc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlZ8mifGRbA

Martyred SFF Company Commander Nyima Tenzin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cWcnbDyHo8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI7YQACfne0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV1ui_GSg5I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymvc_0Hkp4g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKIMwOjfV5s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqPSKUwiQbs

To KIDDO: VMT. With time, people also change & hence one must be very careful about loyalties & mindsets, as the narrative above has revealed, i.e. several of the covertly infiltrated Tibetan teams were betrayed by their own folks due to differing sectarian & clan affiliations. In addition, the missions of the 1960s & 1970s were geared toward stoking civil upheavel through guerrilla warfare operations. In today’s scenario, the missions of the SFF are totally different, with the emphasis being on only information-gathering through long-range recce & consequently the principal missions will be sabotage of critical infrastructure, communications & logistics hubs & nodes, with almost ZERO contact between the SFF combatants & the loval inhabitants of TAR.

To PRAMODW: 1) They are exactly like those employed by the ELT-568 & D-29 jammers, which were explained & illustrated in previous threads. 2) The Rafale does not have laser warning receivers & is therefore vulnerable to laser-guided MANPADS. 3) All pod-origin jamming is hemispherical & omni-directional. 4) They are one & the same. Those aircraft that have available internal volume can house them & those aircraft that don’t have available internal volume have to carry it externally within a pod. 5) The Rafale does have six apertures. 6) AESA-based jammers are used more for directional jamming, not omni-directional jamming. 7) X-Guard is on par with the best there is in this category of self-defence systems. 8) Towed-decoys aren’t used against MANPADS or SHORADS, but against MR-SAMs & LR-SAMs.

To MAGICBULLET: Tibet’s future was remote-viewed way back in 2009 itself when the US announced its ‘Pivot to the Far East’ policy.

To VINODJ & UNKNOWN: IDIOTIC reports from IDIOTIC sources. The RoCAF is already negotiating a deep upgrade package for its Mirage-2000-5s with France’s DGA.

THEHUNDRED: All those were concluded long ago since such hardware after being decommissioned has only scrap value for their original owners.

Satya said...

Prasun sir,

1) Can Tejas MWF be ready for induction by 2028 when Mirage 2000 will complete it's service life?

2) Given the state of Indian economy, can we afford to buy additional Rafales in the foreseeable future?

3) Rheinmetall wants to sell Lynx and South Korea is offering K21 to India. An indigenous design is unlikely to come so can one of these become the next ICV of IA after BMP-2 is done away with?

4) After 8-10 years can IAF pursue it's own design specific FGFA based on Su-57 once again after it enters service with Russians with its new engine and all the advanced 5th gen features that it currently lacks?

5) When will the IA and IAF start inducting Barak-8 and Barak-8 ER? It was supposed to start at the end of this year but might get delayed because of Covid. I know some batteries have perhaps already been deployed on the China border on fast track basis but when will the induction begin?

6) Rajnath Singh met his Chinese counterpart in Moscow. Now S Jaishankar has also made it clear that the issue will be resolved through diplomacy and that he will be meeting with Chinese FM next week. Talks with China have never yielded result for us nor will it in the future. While all these talks are good for symbolic purposes but i hope GOI don't end up making the same mistake of trusting these CCP thugs again.

7) Now that IA has the edge in Pangong sector, can similar preventive action be expected in Depsang, Hot springs and Demchok sectors?

8) Once we are done with the Chinese in the coming months, may be by end 2021, can we expect a military expedition to POK at least in Baltistan or Haji pir before 2024?

Millard Keyes said...

Prasun did you hear about the biggest of fake news sucked up by the Indian media as gospel truth - I am talking about Chinese Su35 shot down by Taiwan! Even the Taiwan FM clarified that it is fake news. So no wonder this story about Mirage 2000 would be floating in the air.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To SATYA: 1) Everything is possible, provided SOUND COMMON-SENSE is applied. 2) Of course. The good monsoons this year will boost rural incomes. 3) The German, South Korean & Israeli ICVs are all tailored for warfare in built-up areas & are not well-suited for the kind of terrain, topography & weather conditions prevailing in the Indian sub-continent. In addition, using the combination en mass of MBTs & ICVs without integral attack helicopters or Tank Support Vehicles is fraught with grave danger in the modern battlefields. 4) FGFA or AMCA? The IAF has clearly leaned in favour of the latter, even though no institution in India has carried out either mathematical modelling or RCS reduction-related R & D work on low observable techniques/technologies. 5) Induction is already in progress & the 1st squadron in Pune is already operational. 6) No one, including India, will trust China anymore, rest assured. That’s why even Russia conducted naval exercises with India in the Andaman Sea 2 days ago. 7) IA has perched itself atop hilltops in the Chushul sector as well as in Demchok. This now needs to be repeated in the Hot Springs & Depsang sectors. 8) Haji Pir can be captured in a mere 8 hours. Pok will definitely be in need of possession by India before 2024.

To MILLARD KEYES: Looks like most of non-English Indian TV channels really sucked up to that FAKE NEWS. In any case, such channels have for the past 2 weeks been clamouring for WW-3!!! But there indeed was an air-crash & this videoclip shows an injured pilot wearing what looks like PLAN aircrew clothing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iamCvrfU6g

Meanwhile, China’s President, it seems, has cancelled his trip to Pakistan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn_9uHicdok

And here's two 'desi patrakaars' airborne over Panggong Tso Lake in a B.747-400 without any IAF airborne escorts & without being detected & engaged by any PLAGF or PLAAF air-defences:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eukXsMuHC74

Senthil Kumar said...

Dear Prasun,

Facebook BANS Praveen Mohan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vztV5grZwi4

Whenever someone tries to dig the ancient past and comes with truth, Illuminates and free masanories will try to suppress it. This time it happens to Praveen Mohan.

Please comment.

Thanks & Regards
Senthil Kumar

just_curious said...

Prasun,
1-thx for the detailed article... why weren;t they used more actively in the previous decades is something worth pondering.. I hope they are ably equipped ..w ith these folks in our ranks why was the mountain corps mooted? anything diff they wud have done or was planned for them?
2- The possible sale of old mig 29 frames to India.. murmours around them being equipped with the zhuk aesa radar & rd33mk engines essentially maing them the IAf verison of mig29k's .. how true are these since India is unlikely to buy the mig 35.. a win wi for both india -who will get a near mig 35 jet @cheaper cost while mig gets to make saless of equipments which it intends to sell thru the mig 35 jets
3-what is this about ..http://idrw.org/drdo-developing-supersonic-star-sea-skimming-target-drones-for-indian-navy/ .. can you pls share what projects are these ?
4- Nato dithering to punish turky.. how will the Mediterranean crisis evolve?

Unknown said...

Pransuda, I am just an enthusiast in defense matter. I have gone through your precious narratives, and it makes sense, for centuries Kailash is part of our tradition, and why it's in China? Second why China has deployed MRSAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqSBep4lyKE ? Practically speaking, will Kailash will be part of India in any future? Since for China Kailash is all about Mansarovar as Kashmir is all about water resource for Pakistan. Neither Pakistan wants Kashmiris without water nor China wants Kailash without Mansarovar.
Is any other plan regarding the water going on in China's book as we have been taught, many southasian rivers comes from Mansarovar?
Regards, Debaryya

asd said...

Dear Prasun,

1.Now the meeting between two defence ministers of China and India is over, what can we expect? China told that it wouldn't lose an inch of land against India. Does this statement imply that an high intensity war is imminent?

2. Further, in the meeting Chinese defence minister was surrounded by defence officials; whereas Indian counterpart has only civil officials. Your comment please.

Sangos said...

The overt use of SFF seems deliberate. Of course they have specialized skills but seems more to come. What would be next events at ground zero? Any military part of 'US involvement' as Trump hinted?

AniOne said...

Prasunda,

Very much thanks for your last reply.

1. I was going through the Chinese statement after the defense ministers meeting. Chinese were very quick to release the statement as if they not even bothered to take any feedback from the meeting and the statement was prepared before hand only and was to be released immediately after the meeting. Which makes me wonder why they were so interested to talk to Indian side ASAP when FM Jaishankar will be meeting his counterpart next week and he is the single point contact for all of this. This was after all the 3rd attempt when they wanted to talk to Rajnath Singh.

2. Interestingly they referred to Xi Jinping as Chairman and not the president. In one of the WION news bit, they mentioned officially there is no such title as President and Xi is interested in bringing back the chairman title held by Mao. This madness is already out of hand now. Time for God of yolks to intervene in their ways?

Lastly, Global Times farce in this tweet reveals how much anxious they are to reverse the situation.
https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1302184752880005120
Do they realize that they are only helping BJP with these kind of tweets and making things worse from them.

Regards,

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To SANGOS: Of course the publicity being given to the SFF since July 5 has been a deliberate move by India & has now reached its zenith for obvious reasons: India wants to show to the world & especially to China that the advancements into China-claimed areas beyond the IA’s perception of the LAC are being undertaken not by an Indian, but by the Tibetans themselves, i.e. the world ought to see such moves as acts of territorial liberation being undertaken by the Tibetans themselves. This in turn, hopefully within a fortnight will re-open the wounds among the Tibetans now residing throughout TAR as word of this get out in audio-visual format, and this in turn will stoke widespread civilian unrest & civil disobedience of the kind that is now being witnessed throughout Inner Mongolia, where the local natives of that piece of real estate are going on mass strikes & demonstrations in protest against China’s language policy. As of yesterday, the paramilitary People’s Armed Police (PAP) had to deploy APCs on the streets of all cities of Inner Mongolia in an attempt to quell the unrests. Now, if the Tibetans get inspired by such unrests & decide to follow suit, then the entire belt stretching from Xinjiang in the west all the way eastwards to eastern TAR will be up in flames for at least the following 8 months. And that will be the time when forces like the SFF will be able to operate inside TAR with impunity since they then will be enjoying widespread sympathy from the local inhabitants of TAR. One can now only hope & pray that this is how things turn out to be in the times ahead.

The first publicity given to the SFF was on July 5 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw6uPC5bzQ0

To ANIONE: 1) In my view, the PLA delegation was interested in meeting its Indian counterpart to convey its dismay over the contents of media-reporting by the ‘desi media’. It is obvious that China does not relish such reporting & wants to sweep all such news under the carpet, lest they demoralise the PLA & the wider citizenry of China. And that’s because the way in which it lost territory to India between August 29 and 31 speaks volumes about the sheer unprofessionalism of the PLAGF’s senior commanders. 2) WION has gone on an overdrive against everything from/about Mainland China because China’s MFA has blacklisted WION & hence WION since then has been seeking revenge. 3) A country whose army relies overwhelmingly on conscripts & when such an army pledges political allegiance to only 1 political party & not to the country, such an army with no warfighting experience over the past 41 years can easily be psychologically wrecked & made to flee the battlefield. The over-hyping of the PLA stems largely due to staged-managed parades & events. The reality is something very different as shown in this videoclip describing how difficult it is to service the ZTQ-105 MBTs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rRIeZyyjH0

In fact, the air-defence systems of both the PLAGF & PLAAF are so bad that neither of them can even shot down these two ‘desi patrakaar’ arseholes who were ‘overflying’ the Panggong Lake area & that too with a large-RCS-generating aircraft like the B.747 (after of course screwing up an IN-owned P-8I LRMR/ASW platform):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs462LpyEHE

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To RAD: Profile of the Chengdu F-7G L-MRCA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25soMIKeeEQ

The above narrative is part of a series of monologues that I have been drafting about the SFF, SSB & ARC. The Union Cabinet Secretariat is headed by the PM at the political-level and the Union Cabinet Secretary at the administrative-level. There are three Secretaries: Secretary (Security), an IPS officer; Secretary (Coordination, an IPS Officer; and Secretary R & AW, who since the early 1990s has also been functioning as the Director-General of Security with command-and-control of the Special frontier Force (SFF), Special Services Bureau (SSB) and the Aviation Research Centre (ARC). Under Secretary R & AW are the Special Secretary, Additional Secretary, Joint Secretary, Inspector-General of SFF (equivalent to a Maj Gen or OF-7), Director of SSB and Director of ARC. The SFF is 10,000-strong and comprises seven Battalions each with six Companies, with 123 men in each Company. There are also 700 Gurkhas and 250 Indians forming up the counter-terror Special Group (formerly 4 Vikas Battalion). All SFF personnel are paratroopers and become parachute-qualified after five jumps, with three refresher jumps being conducted every year thereafter.

All US-origin ARC-operated aircraft to this day are sent to Tainan, Taiwan, for periodic servicing & refits. The work is undertaken by AIR ASIA, which originally was set up by the CIA as a front company for servicing all CIA-operated aircraft in South & Southeast Asia since the 1950s. Today, the CIA has divested from this company & it is now a publicly-listed MRO company, but its association with the ARC continues. Prior to sending its aircraft to this facility, ARC used to remove all its on-board sensors & these were re-installed after the aircraft returned back to India. I have had some MRO-related business dealings with this company, whose website can be assessed here:

http://www.airasia.com.tw/index.php?option=module&lang=en&task=showlist&id=517&index=2

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To SENTHIL KUMAR: LoLz! I think we can care less about such issues & focus on the more important ones, like the US lifting its arms embargo on Cyprus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp-KSsjWZfM

To JUST_CURIOUS: 1) The SFF is not a regular infantry force, nor it it like the Ladakh Scouts. Instead, they were trained for covert guerrilla warfare deep behind enemy lines, but as the narrative above reveals, this is far easier said than done & unless backed up state-of-the-art comms gear & infiltration/exfiltration platforms, they will be dead-ducks inside TAR. 2) The second-hand MiG-29 airframes in Russia that are sought by the IAF will all be upgraded to MiG-29UPG standard, i.e. no AESA-MMR & existing Zhuk-M2E MMrs will be made use of. 3) LoLz! If the BrahMos-1’s warhead section is removed to make way for data-links to be installed, then that missile too can function as a supersonic target-drone. No supersonic ASCM can be sea-skimming. 4) The US has just lifted its arms embargo on Cyprus.

To ANUP: The deal wwas never signed & hence the question of aborting its procurement does not even arise.

To UNKNOWN/DEBARYYA: There are no SAMs deployed anywhere near the Lake Mansarovar area, rest assured. Instead, the latest SAM site to come up (since 2019) is at Pagri, where a HQ-12/KS-1A MR-SAM Battery is now on station & it is located here northeast of Doklam: 27.695213 N, 89.148195 E.

I have even uploaded an image of that site above. Now, one can expect the band of 'desi patrakaars' & their fraudulent satellite imagery interpreters to make use of this data & spin their own conspiracy theories over the next 48 hours.

The PLAAF already has MR-SAMs & LR-SAMs deployed at the dual-use airports of Ngari-Gunsa, Shigatse & Lhasa-Gonggar & to now fill the gap in the Chumbi Valley, the Pagri site is now coming up. While the Ngari-Gunsa & Shigatse airports can be struck by Rafales taking off from either Ambala & Gorakhpur (restorting to terrain-masking flight-profiles while cruising through the Lahaul-Spiti valleys & valleys along the Uttarkhand-Nepal border, the Chumbi Valley flight-route from Hasimara air base can be used by Rafales bound for Lhasa-Gonggar.

To ASD: 1) LoLz! China has already lost close to 60 sq km of its claimed area due to the recent IA-initiated pro-active counter-occupation. It can be clearly seen in the official IA map whose image I have uploaded above & it can be viewed here:

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ik8ouAIZP20/X1PQiGyG2eI/AAAAAAAAUac/w-fjAHp1zisaYGlpEf8b5Rj9g7Fowm37wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1024/IA%2BMap.jpg

Contrary to speculation, this is not a SECRET map, since it is just displaying navigational datums & locations. It would have been SECRET had it contained directions & locations of the IA’s unit dispositions & movements. 2) Because it was just a meeting for holding discussions & exchanging views/opinions. It was never meant for holding any negotiations.

asd said...

Dear Prasun,

Your writing describes your excitement. As the elephant has crushed the dragon, how would you rate the Modi government and MoD regarding dealing with the issue in a scale of 10? Is it justified to say Modi has "56 inch ka chhati"?

Sangos said...

VMT. What is your RV assessment of US military role here. The sudden re-emergence of SFF as potent expeditionary force has changed the dynamics completely. Correct me but only the US military has the capabilities to mopup Tibet.
Can the US say legitimize an alliance with TGIE after it passes Tibet Independence Bill in Senate. It serves US interests to have future military bases in an independent Tibet.

rad said...


hi prasun
congrats on the very nice write up of the SFF, in fact many like me are clue less about its function and its deployment . just like china parades all its military ware in hope o f scaring the indians , they will have a dose of their own medicine after the exposure and training of the SFF , at least to the common grunt . i did read thatthe chinks did acknowledge the massive amount of trained mountain warriors.
why is htere a counter trror unit after all it is a offensive unit? Do the tibetians join the pla army ? given all this i think xi jinpng has wound himself up in a corner . any military action would be disastrous for his standing in the party. so he wont risk it .
thanks for the chengdu f-7 write up . is the f-7 that has been modified with a cranked delta better than the bis in turn rate? they seem to be well maintained inspite of being old . will the chinks have the the guts to throw the f7 against us in war?
air asia a front for the cia ? surprising , what a scoop . who was their front man
The nne of the hour is more EW warfare aircraft having jstars type of antenn . But there was another view that having the el 2060 pod was better as the fighters can go more close to the border and have a better view than the jstars type of ac as they have to fly deep in friendly airspace.? has a newer version of he 2060 appeared so with AESA antenna? the Israelis will not let go of that opportunity?.
I feel this is a good time to get close to taiwan and get help in electronics and other tech stuff . especially in making PC and cell phones>


just_curious said...

Prasun,

1- Rajnath;s tehran drop in vist + discussions with uzbek, tajik & kazaks , all countries close to afghanistan .. anything cooking?
2- Cyprus is anyways split between pro greek & pro turkish parts.. and that pro turkish grps also have a say in govt .. will lifting of arms embargo help?
3-carcal carbines - fast track prj stuck in time .. classic babudom? or something more .. not the right time to upset UAE
4- More on SFF-- since they are ethnic tibetians .. how much of influence do they have in tibet or in combination with the tibetian govt in exile?
5 did the russians force the warring sides to come to the table? as reports were hat Rajnath was to specifically avoid the pakis n their new sugar dad.. also the russian explicit mention of not selling arms to pakis .. can you help join the dots

Anonymous said...

While Indian army seems to be on its way to sort out issues in infantry, Artillery and even air defence.
The armoured corps seem to be lost. Why is it this way ?

Same with Drones, this is a new area. Hopefully they decide quickly between themselves & IAF.
Any progress on this on structure of handling this area ?


Regards
Venky

Technology, Photograpy and Travel said...

Prasun Da,

Are MIG29's being acquired ? are the ones which algeria has sent back !!



Varun said...

Sir, thank you for this thread on SFF. These bravehearts have done so much for the defence of the nation but never got their due. I'm glad that the masses will finally coming to know about them because of the lime light. Hope GOI will also acknowledge and honor SFF matyrs by adding their names to the National War Memorial. I feels sad for them the pain of loosing their homeland is still afresh in the hearts and minds of the Tibetan community. I can imagine how fierce they must have been on the night of 29-30 against the Chinese Han invaders who captured their country 70 years ago. Hope one day they are able to go back and live in free and independent country of Tibet. Hope that day will come in our lifetime. Salute to Hutatma Nyima Tenzin and prayers for Tenzin Loden.

Govind said...

Dear Prasun da,
Please provide your valuable assessment regarding the following news article:

https://www.news18.com/news/india/landmark-achievement-india-becomes-4th-country-to-successfully-test-hypersonic-vehicle-2856077.html

VIKRAM GUHA said...

PrasunDa,

Today, DRDO test fired the Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle. The video released (link below) did not show the launch of the hypersonic vehicle.

Please share your thoughts about this HSTDV.

https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1651956

Thank You

Rajesh Mishra said...

Now why India itself should not attack China as per a well planned tactics. What stops it?

PramodW said...

Thanks for replies sir,

1) What are the differences in uses between directional and omnidirectional jamming for aircraft electronic warfare? Which is better?

2) Is Spectra capable of jamming seekers of Air to air missiles that have achieved terminal lock, such as amraams and Chinese pl series?

3) Considering it will take another 15 to 20 years alteast for AMCA to be inducted (regardless of what HAL says), would it be prudent for India to invest in about two squadrons of su-57? Does the Su-57 provide enough advantages over rafale to justify that?

4) Indian Navy had ordered 6 active towed sonars in 2015. How many ships have so far been fitted with those and which are they?

5) When will the upgraded ka-28 ASW helicopters begin arriving? And when will all ten of them arrive?

6) What will be the operational configuration of the hypersonic vehicle tested today? Will it be a re entry vehicle for ballistic missiles os a cruise missile?

7) How much of this weapon is truly indigenous by drdo?

Thanks

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To ASD & RAJESH MISHRA: There is neither any cause for excitement nor for depression; neither for chest-thumping nor for demoralisation. Instead, realistic & objective assessment is called for, which has not yet been forthcoming, and instead tit-bits like these are giving only half the report:

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/indian-offensive-retake-chinese-seized-territory-hidden-story

For instance, on the very same night of August 29/30, the IA had tried a similar operation in the Depsang Plains & the PLA in response had fired tracer rounds. But it is not yet known whether it was a deliberate IA-initiated feint, or whether this mission was aborted. Similarly, the place where the SFF combatant was martyred was not in Helmet Top or Black Top or anywhere near the southern bank of Panggong Tso Lake. Instead, he got martyred atop Gurung Hill. And ever since then, the PLA-BDR detachments out of the Moldo Garrison have been trying to scale the Magar (Shenpiao) & Gurung (Go Piao) hills, but have had to withdraw due to the IA firing warning tracer rounds from atop these 2 hills, even as late as yesterday at dusk-time.

And to get an idea of the loss of pasture land in Changthang for the Ladakhi nomads due to the ongoing mirror deployments, do watch these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voGAOfSYBCA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59XT_-dsRE0

And the Govt of India does owe an apology to these former Indian citizens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUN02gUnyxc

Therefore, the need of the hour is to stay sober, composed & in a state of mental equilibrium & listen to these Tibetan songs for relaxation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXIHVrrp4fI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWVRBcmG5Wg

To SANGOS: The US has ZERO experience in high-altitude plateau warfare, just like the PLAGF. Only the IA & the SFF have such experience since the IA has several units raised out of volunteers hailing from high-altitude areas of J & K, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim & Arunachal Pradesh, apart from the Gurkhas from Nepal. Hence, if it comes to high-intensity mechanised manoeuvre warfare anywhere inside TAR, the PLAGF will be swept away because of their soldiers’ sheer inability to sustain themselves at such high altitudes. One must also note that the currently deployed formations from Xinjiang hail from the highlands & are not used to operating at high altitudes. And adding to their troubles will be the fast approaching wintertime (the snowfall already began 3 days ago at altitudes of 20,000 feet & above. Here is an assessment of the troubles the PLAGF will face as winter approaches:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0JfCL_9FMM

And here are more videoclips of the SFF:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU7KTeBtMKI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8m2Mn_Tayg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLod-_Eg4kU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKs0vaUErGk&t=59s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c9Ql8Of3zE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwZw8JXDiOg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrECffjSaO8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t--nES8TVk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqaWW4hIDAs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMKLT49mGQE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxRT4jB6SGg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XgTCJtTbyY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gA_5J87eBA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPZH1xU-Bwc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iluFmj_CcEQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsOhxDKfcdc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmo1LDw9OtU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xJURI7mc44

Protests inside Inner Mongolia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLSLsX-lotM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txXhrHISHKQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYpKgCbmPoc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S1pjnPpIdE

Mood in Tawang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peTE0oKeUhs
Mood in Zimithang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv83wKzk-Ac

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To RAD: VMT. The SG within the SFF was created to act as a counter-terror force before the creation of the NSG. First glimpses of this unit appeared in the media during the funeral procession of Mrs.Indira Gandhi, when the SG personnel were seen escorting all the VVIPs who were following the funeral cortege. Back in 1981 it was felt that the SG composed of non-Tibetans like Gurkhas will be perceived by Indians as a neutral force whenever they were to be used in forced entries into religious shrines. Meanwhile, yesterday was celebrated as Pakistan Air Force Day & here are the various programmes to observe the day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayLc7n5rl90
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlbT7Fu5E7w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxNxlpww41c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSVqh-31-fY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZYz8xlp904
PAF Academy Risalpur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF3bKPgoTec
PAC Kamra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9fQfDC9dqY
JF-17 Thunder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB-AZsV7Mkg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMIexJh5MTI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAk8NOfIt4k
Battle of Burki: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wef2NDC-59w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcuNjmHXvjE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykQHjnL92ZQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_inZL7M12Q
Pakistan Navy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF-5Nhwvh0w
PAF Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-IRQtxBvtY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koh1j4JrIVM

To JUST_CURIOUS: 1) Nothing out-of-the-ordinary. They were mere formalities. 2) Heard the Turkish Ambassador to India say to someone 2 days ago that Turkey will officially not up the ante against India for now & will instead wait for the Indian Supreme Court’s verdict on the various petitions lodged against the termination of application of Articles 370 & 35A on J & K. But my reading of the writing on the wall states that while some of these petitions will be withdrawn by the petitioners themselves, the rest will be ruled as being inadmissible by the Supreme Court. 4) That is indeed a grey area, for there will certainly be no dearth of ‘traitors’ who will betray the SFF were the latter to seek assistance from TAR’s local inhabitants. Such such treachery could be conducted in the 1960s * 1970s, then it can be conducted even today. 5) No, the Ruskies never forced anyone to do anything. The meeting was held just for the sake of clinging on to niceties under the auspices of SCO.

To VENKY: Not at all. Here’s the EoI that was issued yesterday:

https://indianarmy.nic.in/writereaddata/RFI/734/EOI%20ARMT%20UPGRADE%20upload%20MoD%20website-converted.pdf

To TECHNOLOGY, PHOTOGRAPHY & TRAVEL: Yes. The MiG-29SMTs that will be customised to MiG-29UPG standard.

To VARUN: Regretably, the SFF combatants will not be part of the War memorial since they are not Indian citizens & neither are they a part of India’s armed forces. They are refugees given sanctuary by India. But since most of them serving today were born in India, they can be given Indian citizenship on a retrospective basis & only after this is done can they become Indian martyrs. However, a separate memorial can be built for them in Chakrata or Ladakh.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To GOVIND & VIKRAM GUHA: Most of the info on the HSTDV is available here:

http://trishul-trident.blogspot.com/2019/06/drdos-hstdv-project-multinational-r-d.html

As one can see, it has been a multinational effort & so far only the generic vehicle has been flight-tested. The next step will be to weaponise it by adding the navigational & warhead sections, which are the more difficult tasks. This kind of hypersonic vehicle can reach Mach 8, but Russia’s Avanguard on the other hand is claimed to have a top speed of Mach 27. At the same time, one needs to see similar progress being achieved with the Reusable Launch Vehicle or RLV, like the Boeing X-37B unmanned space shuttle. This is because the RLV is the optimum vehicle for lauhching in a staggered manner the next generation of low-earth orbiting mini-sattellites to be used for providing persistent ISR coverage.

Meanwhile, looks this this case has now been resolved:

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/kochi-electronics-stolen-aircraft-carrier-project-two-accused-held-1718853-2020-09-05

To PRAMODW: 1) Omni-direction jamming is hemispherical, whereas directional jamming is against a particular emitter at a particular location. 2) Yes. Even the D-29 & EL/L-8222 can do it. 3) Not at all. Instead, investments must be made on the MWF project. 4) The fitments are still underway on the 3 Project 15 DDGs & 3 Project 1135.6 Batch-1 FFGs. . 5) Over the next 3 months. 6) Any hypersonic vehicle with its own scramjet cannot re-enter in any ballistic mode. Ballistic missiles go up to 120km in altitude & then their warheads re-enter as glide vehicles at hypersonic speed but are not manoeuvrable. Vehicles with scramjets go out to only 30km altitude & then begin re-entry in a gradual inclined manner so that thehe vehicle can remain manoeuvrable for evading ground-based air-defences. 7) All that info is here:

http://trishul-trident.blogspot.com/2019/06/drdos-hstdv-project-multinational-r-d.html

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To BUDDHA & RAJESH MISHRA: Another kind of phenomenon has been underway along the LAC since the early part of this decade. In early 2013, some Hindu pilgrims on their way to Mount Kailash from the Lipulekh Pass came across strange lighted triangular craft in the sky. The local guides while inside Tibet told them that this was nothing new and is a normal phenomenon from Kongka La Pass area to the northeast of the Hot Springs area. Such craft silently emerge from underground and move almost vertically up. In August 2013, an ITBP border patrol force saw and reported more than 100 movements of luminous objects at a height of 40km around the Lagan Kher Area in Demchock, Ladakh. The IA & ITBP refer to them as ‘Unidentified Luminous Objects’ (ULO). Between August and October 2018, the ITBP garrison posted at Thakung on the south bank of the Panggong Tso Lake reported more than 100 ULO sightings visible both in daytime as well as night. These objects, spherical in shape, appeared to arise from the horizon on the China-occupied side and slowly traversed the sky about 40km above for three to five hours before disappearing. The ITBP’s report was accompanied with some hazy photographs taken by the ITBP, which proved their point. To find out more, the IAF moved a 3-D CAR/Rohini mobile ground-based radar and a spectrum analyser (a to pick up frequencies emitted from any object) to the Finger-3 top. However, the radar failed to detect the mysterious objects that were being tracked visually. Likewise, the spectrum analyser failed to detect any signals being emitted from those objects. The IAF also flew a Heron-1 MALE-UAV towards the objects, but it proved ineffective because after the Heron-1 reached its maximum operating altitude, it lost sight of the ULOs. Later, a team of astronomers from the Indian Astronomical Observatory at Hanle, 150km south of the Pangong Lake, studied the mysterious airborne phenomena for three days. The astronomical team spotted the ULOs, and established that they could be non-heavenly objects but could not identify them.

Kongka La is the area where the Eurasian and the Indian Tectonic plates have converged to create convergent plate boundaries. This is one of the very few regions in the world where the depth of the earth’s crust is almost double than the normal depth. This enables the creation of underground bases deep into the tectonic plates. Though ULOs have been sighted throughout Ladakh and Aksai Chin areas, the maximum ULO cluster formations happen around Aksayqin Hu Lake, which is just 112km to the east of Kongka La in the Aksai Chin area.

AD said...

Dada,

1. Can you explain the difference between HSTDV, RLV and HGV-202F (purportedly first Indian HGV like Avangard)

2. How far China has advanced in Hypersonic area?

3. In terms of speed it seems DF-ZF is comparable HSTDV. How does DF-ZF fare if pitted against HSTDV?

3rd ~ EyE said...

What exactly is Irans role in India China stand off ? seems our Def Min , Jaishankar are all making 'refueling' stop overs at Tehran while flying back from Moscow ! is something cooking ?

Kaustav said...

Prasunda

This is interesting. So why are soldiers firing warning shots or over the heads of the enemy PLA?! What's up? The ULO base theory very intriguing! Is PRC really a enemy or an unfortunate misunderstanding https://medium.com/storymirror/kongka-la-pass-and-its-ufo-activities-af7bed440589

AMIT BISWAS said...

My only concern is IA facing the wrath of PLAF artillery and IAF facing SAM ...how are we planning to nullfify these threats

rad said...


hi prasun
i wonder where the radar or eo guidance package will be placed given the shape of the nose cone and air intake ?.of the scram jet? or ist going to be hit to kill vehicle.?
how is possible to reach mach 27 on an air breathing engine as the russians claim? i understand no man made marterial can stand the temperatures that encountered at that speed? and on;ly ablative material canbe used like in the re entry vehicles?

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To AD: The term HGV means hypersonic glide vehicle. Even the HSTDV qualifies as an HGV. China began research into HGVs 20 years ago & has so far fielded only 1 operational HGV (the DF-17) that is mounted on a DF-16 BM. The DF-ZF is still under development.

To The 3rd EYE: Both Iran & India have a vested interest in keeping Afghanistan afloat & stabilised while stoking instability inside Balochistan. You may have noticed that off late, leading Afghan politicians have begun talking aloud about the unacceptability of the Durand Line as the IB. They are even saying that Peshawar used to be the winter capital of Afghanistan.

To KAUSTAV: That’s because the PLAGF has been totally outmanoeuvred in arenas of mountain warfare & high-altitude plateau warfare. Have you ever come across any mountaineer from Mainland Communist China who has enjoyed international fame? How many international mountaineering expeditions have been launched to date by China? If the answer to both is NONE & ZERO, then it was to be expected that such a fate would befall the PLAGF in Ladakh, especially since has such assets:

https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/sep/04/colonel-ranveer-singh-jamwal-mountaineer-who-helped-soldiers-gain-heights-in-spanggur-gap-2192269.html#:~:text=Home%20Nation-,Colonel%20Ranveer%20Singh%20Jamwal%3A%20Mountaineer%20who%20helped,gain%20heights%20in%20Spanggur%20Gap

To AMIT BISWAS: Both such installations in high-altitude plateaux are highly vulnerable to rear-attack attacks mounted by special operations forces & air-assault forces like paratroopers. Also, if you notice the commissioning no of the martyred SFF combatant Nyima tenzing, you will see that it is 64911. Since he joined the SFF 33 years ago, it is logical to infer that the latest entrant into the SFF will have the commissioning number somewhere near 90000. What this means is that the SFF can mobilise a strength of close to 10,000 combatants inclusive of reservists—more than enough for wiping out an entire air-defence artillery Brigade & a divisional artillery formation when attacking from the rear.

Sangos said...

VMT. Am sure you would have read this. Thoughts...

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/could-us-b-2-stealth-bombers-take-chinese-air-defenses-167008

It's interesting you say..."SFF &India Military can sweep out PLA from Tibet". Is this possible with the current levels of quantity and quality of operational firepower? Or would this hypothetically have to be a say 'QUAD OPS' or need similar support from friendly powers.

asd said...

Dear Prasun,

Thank you very much for your advice. I always get swayed by emotions. I hope to overcome it with wisdom.

1.However, may you please share your views on the future planning of IA? Will the IA keep the ~30 number of dominating heights forever or release it once the situation improves till backstabbed again.

2. As of now the weather has started detoritating, how will the SFF comandos survive there if they continue to stay over the hill tops? Please enlighten about the future tactics of IA.

Anonymous said...

Lot of focus on Ladakh sector now.
What about others like Sikkim (some 3 Chinese citizens were “lost” and found last week)
And Arunachal Pradesh (5 Indians “lost” and handed back by PLA) ?
Do satellites show build up in these areas Or intention of PLAAF cause mischief ?

In Ladakh, we are talking of manoeuvres, not possibilities of using PLA artillery/PLAAF.
During Kargil,
IA had to use artillery very close to peaks to hit Pak. Not sure how effective were Rockets.
IAF found only specialised PGM effective.

Regards
Venky

Unknown said...

Hello sir,
If we see in Google Earth, we can find a "Road" on Eastern slope of Back Top, connecting the 'Chinese post on the valley' between blacktop & the other mountain. So, how come we manage to occupy Back Top before Chinese, despite them having direct road connectivity to the Back Top? (You said, BackTop is not scratched by anyone yet, but one can see Read on it.)
Please clarify.

Magicbullet said...

Sir
Could you please shed light on the role of Russia in this entire episode
More than 70% of our hardware is of Russian origin and they do as a result have us by our balls... So what are they pushing us for

Ganesh said...

Hello Prasun,
Thanks for updates. Per you on the Depsang plains, are there any vantage points relevant to control. Without seeking operational details, can there be a counter action on the Han deployments where the weak spots can be extrapolated to our advantage, since their attempts to retake the lost positions in the Southern bank of the lake.
Do you see any progression in propaganda or informational warfare; it seems (to me) that Han information reaches (Indian presstitutes) first and then a belated response comes in from our establishment.
Do you see any possibility of Myanmar coming under Indian influence in near future, for starters trade and then others, since personally believe that country is the key to making sure Hans do not get full control of Bay of Bengal
Do you see the army of Sun(n)i Sunayi hui people, Riasat-e-Madina! poking their nose in light of the tension in Ladakh region.
I tend to agree with your point of view that by 2024 Gilgit, Baltistan and beyond will be part of Indian Union, since the current dispensation has nothing else to show per economic progress
No offense meant, however, if the Indian and US intelligence contacts being purged by mid-1960s or may be later is a failure of Indian forces and do not agree with the point of view that Tibetians are traitors to their own kind who moved to India along with their spiritual head. It is more of excuse for incompetence.
Your thoughts of Han foreign minister asking for reconciliation owing to incoming winter; per me, it sounds of promise of more intrusion than anything else.
Thanks, Ganesh

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To UNKNOWN: I have uploaded slides above showing the IA camps perched on the ridgeline of HELMET TOP, which is 5km ahead eastwards of the India-controlled LAC. The IA has now advanced eastwards almost 5km ahead of BLACK TOP. The road you are referring to is in the BUSH AREA (refer to the IA map already uploaded above).

To MAGICBULLET: Russia is siding with India & that's why emergency ammo stockpiles continue to pour in from Russia.

To SANGOS: In my view, since the battlefield AAA assets are essentially ground-based when deployed in support of land-based formations, it is the ground forces themselves that are best positioned for knocking off such AAA sites--this is exactly what Israel's IDF-Army does, thereby leaving the LR-SAMs of an air force to be neutralised by the IDF-AF. In the IA's case too, it should be the IA that ought to be using Harpy & Harop drones for destroying PLAGF-operated AAA networks, and not the IAF. Since the PLAAF-operated LR-SAM sites are all static, the IAF's Spice-2000s or even BrahMos-1s & SCALP-EGs can easily knock them out of action. BTW, early this morning the IAF Rafales flew their first sorties over Ladakh. It was just an airspace familiarisation trip & no landings or touch-n-gos were conducted.

To ASD: 1) This type of warfare is known as GREY ZONE OPERATIONS, i.e. deploying in & dominating the contested real estate. There is no question of giving such real estate back. 2) If the IA can stay perched at an altitude of 20,000 feet along the Siachen Glacier, then surely it can stay atop the hilltops now under its occupation that are between 16,000 feet & 18,000 feet altitude.

To VENKY: The tyranny of the terrain dictates that no land offensive by the PLAGF is possible in either Sikkim or Arunachal Pradesh, since the IA in such areas is sitting on all the dominating heights & can therefore launch artillery fire-assaults on any roads or approaches located alongside all the river-valleys leading into both Sikkim & Arunachal Pradesh.

Anonymous said...

Prasunda,

Can PLA artillery firepower (like 300mm MBRLs) dislodge us from our positions at Black top and nearby areas ? Especially since we have'nt fully built up defences there yet ? Gen. Panag predicts a PLA counterattack in the next few days, saying that if they do not do it now, they never will, and we would have carried the day.

Satyaki

BHVK said...

Sirji,
Great thread. Please further suggest some books on SFF and CIA & IB activities in the 1950s-60s.

Rajesh Mishra said...

Wow! Tibetan music, sound and voice were rarely heard and really soul piercing. I felt like sleeping. I will try for more.

BTW, how is the relationship between the Chinese authorities and the Aliens in Tibet. I may try my remote hand if possible.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To RAD: The sensors will distributed among multiple apertures, i.e. on both sides & as well as on the bottom & will be blended within ther airframe,e skin. New-generation alloys made of rare earth combinations have been used on the Avanguard. Here’s a discussion on HSTDV:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBEJxFAvE5Q

To GANESH: The essentials were already explained by Lt Gen H S Panag here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILgDZVXUr1Y&t=32s

The IW domain can be effective only if India understands why do different statements emanate about a single issue from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from the Ministry of National Defense & from the HQ of the PLA’s Western Theatre Command. As for your other queries, they have been answered here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-hcb9BKlac

That the PLA excels in propaganda is best explained by this staged event in the Gobi Desert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY4LPP8wzRw

To SATYAKI: Not quite, since MBRLs are typically used for saturation fire-assaults over flat terrain. For precise fire-assaults over hilltops, the MBRL rockets require course-correcting or sensor-fuzed munitions of the type the PLAGF lacks. In addition, UAV surveillance of the targets to be hit will be unavailable since the IA has already brought along Igla-1 MANPADS along for deployment along the dominating mountain ridges.

To RAJESH MISHRA: The ‘aliens’ living below Kongka La are neutral & do not take anyone’s side, AFAIK.

Civilian Porters of Chushul: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YedHSwzS9E

Kunal Jadhav said...

Can indian army take back finger 4 that was occupied by PLA?

Unknown said...

Hello sir,
I'm not talking about Bush area Road.
I'm talking about the road connecting Black Top (33°37'22"N 78°46'18"E) & Chinese post (33°37'37"N 78°47'18"E). If you zoomIn at a large scale in Google Earth, you will find a light road connecting back top & Chinese post, which may not be made for vehicles but troops walkover like a walking in park (33°37'34"N 78°47'11"E this is a small pin on that road for you to indefinitely immediately).
That's why I asked how come we manage to occupy it before Chinese.

One more doubt is,
33°45'11"N 78°46'05"E This is the location of post on the ridgeline connecting finger 3 & finger 4. Are these Chinese or Indian?
If these post can be seen in Google Earth, then how old are these posts?
Please clarify, waiting for your reply sir. 🙏

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

Amrullah Saleh’s Remarks on Durand Line: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVF3m71jG_o

Pakistan Navy Documentary on ASW Against Indian Navy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gksOCvV3nQ4

Harsh said...

Sir, is this paki navy documentary true to facts or another self deluded supremacist propaganda piece?

Manivannan Sermaiya said...

Dear sir,

During World War 1, British forces were firing Sharphenel rounds to damage the barbed wire fences of German forces. In today's case which type is effective against barbed wire fences.

Ganesh said...

Hello Prasun,
Thanks for the YouTube link of East India company mouth piece NDTV, where the learned general confirms that the possibility of attempts by the han army to take India's positions. I am sure the operational commanders on the ground have the required brains to do the needful; however, my question is on other areas of relevance from India's point of view that can be taken over and fortified in the similar lines in the case of Kala pahad and Gurung hill. I believe it is in India's operational interest to create more prick points to annex relevant swaths of land possibly move up on the Korakoram range beyond Daulat baig oldie ALG
Thanks, Ganesh

The Engdoc Society said...

Great great info dada
Also just saw the PNs documentary
Did we really get caught off guard
Why INs submarine was surfaced
Or was it some other confusing data collection by pair of submarines

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To ANUP: The next step is to await the certificate of airworthiness from CEMILAC. Then the weaponisation will follow, including the installation of chin-mounted FLIR turret, plus RWRs/LWRs/MAWS & countermeasures dispensers. Thus, so far it is only a job half-done.

To GANESH: https://theprint.in/opinion/india-sits-on-black-top-with-helmet-under-its-boots-a-1962-tactics-by-china-is-now-likely/498462/

And the following should be connected to the recent utterances of Amrullah Saleh:

https://theprint.in/opinion/india-sits-on-black-top-with-helmet-under-its-boots-a-1962-tactics-by-china-is-now-likely/498462/

And this is why India is hated so much as per China's nationalist narrative:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/when-indian-soldiers-went-to-china-to-crush-a-rebellion/articleshow/77972235.cms

To THE ENGDOC SOCIETY: The IN SSK was snorkelling, i.e. recharging its batteries in international waters.

To HARSH: Of course it is a cooked-up propaganda narrative.

Millard Keyes said...

The Retired Lt Gen Panag is correct in saying India should not sit on its laurels because the Chinese are unpredictable and treat their manpower expendable hence they will retaliate to teach a hard lesson no matter the cost. This is why India should not start another Vijay Diwas when the enemy is like a sea wave both China and Pakistan. What you said Prasun India missed it again- horizontal escalation to vacate Pakistani positions just to further demoralise Pakistan and dent CPEC. Without this the Chinese are acting as the moral fillip to Pakistan who thinks it can take advantage of India under pressure from the Chingkuo. As all motivational speakers will tell you- think BIG. India has a problem of self belief and once again as Lt Gen Panag said in that article, made an error of judgment which China has taken advantage of. This time India needs to think big and push on and then hold on territories on the West and North.

joydeep ghosh said...

@prasun da

1. i really feel same as Gen Panag, that we made big error in judgement by not advancing south of pangong till IB instead stopping at our perceived LAC giving han panda chance to come up to us with sword/blade and spikes, pick axe ass the pic shows.

2. now is the time to push back in depsang and if limited war happens in east ladakh launch attack from Arunchal for jelep la, from sikkim for Naku la and chorten nyima la, taklakot from uttarakhand

3. i am hoping we will see surge in recruitment of TibetanS in SFF

4. any chance of reaching mouth of galwan river by IA

thanks

Joydeep Ghosh

Ganesh said...

Hello Prasun,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. Couple of thoughts (1) learned general Panag says practical things; however, what stands out for me is Indian forces are inferior or his words Chinese forces superior to Indian forces will respond. This is the kind of language used by the previous dispensations - East India Company aka Congress. We should all piss in the pants that Chinese will counter attack, disband the army, convert all defense industries to take care of the basic needs of this poor country and only grandstand on past glory and preach moral values to the aggressor as our Bharat ratna Chacha Nehru did and also to Ordinance Factories after independence. The thought I get is the learned general thinks all the best of Indian army has retired along with him and his successors in the field are useless and incompetent to say the least. Like in Indian movie, I hope learned general dons his uniform again and annihilates the Han army in under two hours alone. Another trait of traitors - Congress.
Bit sarcastic here, thanks for highlighting the past glories and achievements, does it make sense to look forward and bring in characters like Biman Bose the revolutionary/reactionary ilk still alive to bring forth the propaganda for Indian narrative, unless he has also reached first floor (dead). He is also jobless now and as part of Atmanirbhar Bharat, he is first in the line for propaganda secretary of India cabinet aka politburo.
Nevertheless, my gratitude to portray the correct perspective like the latest, advocating counter annexation of real estate and holding them for good.
Thanks, Ganesh

asd said...

"I foresee a repeat of 1962, with a counter-attack to regain Black Top and then evict us from Helmet and Gurung Hill. Simultaneously, the PLA would attack and capture Rezang La and Rechin La, and then proceed to clear Mukhpari and Magar Hill. Up to end August the PLA had only limited troops in Spanggur Tso area. I assess that the PLA’s reaction will come as soon as its reserves are moved forward because it does not want our defences to become stronger. With 11 days gone, I expect the reaction any time hereafter."

Prasun Sir,

This is the above narrative by General Panag. So it's evident that we should brace for a limited high intensity war in the Chushul sector.

What's worrying is that PLA has advantageous position in some Kailash range area. So is it easy for them to march towards DBO? This is what the worrying explanation by General Panag. He is expecting the repeat of 1962 i.e. Chinese dominance again. May you please share your views?

Ujjwal said...

Prasunda,
1. You have repeatedly said that PLA has inadequate seasoned soldiers for a sustained high altitude warfare. But, in 1962, they launched devastating offensive upon IA at the same places and that too in chilling cold of October-November. How was it possible ?
2. If newly acquired M777 howitzers are deployed in the contested areas?
3. As K-9 Vajra howitzers are being made in L&T facility, is K-10 ammo resupply vehicles are also being manufactured? I have never seen any such news in commercial media? If procurement of K-10 is included in the original contract ?
4. Is there any chance of attack from pakistani side at present ?
Thanks,regards

VSJ said...

1) Interesting contradictions. Gen Panag and vets arguing on twitter that we hold black top and few so far reliable people like Nitin Gokhale claiming we don't.
Regardless some theorized it could be plausible deniability as it is held by SFF?

2) Even if it ends in our favor,the chinese could simply trot back in 2023. Would this mean permanent deployment of 4 divisions in Ladakh even if not on LAC?

3) Thanks for info about reliability of MBRL etc in mountains. How devastating are they to ridges and mountain top if they manage to land? We did use them in Kargil but surely we would be located on reverse slope with counter battery fire ready.

4) With modern additions like SAR/ISR, Drone surveillance, guided munitions do we still have to follow defender attacker ratios like 1:3 and for mountains 1:8?
We never get such higher attacker ratios except like 1:1.7 east pakistan and higher in kargil war (due to their own self isolationist limited front stupidity)
Never in west Pakistan.
Thanks

Pratap said...

Sir, in your reply to VENKY you said that no Chinese ground invasion is possible in Sikkim and Arunachal because IA is sitting on dominating heights. Am I to assume that any Chinese invasion of Sikkim and Arunachal will not only be defeated and beaten back but the IA can actually go across and capture some real estate in occupied Tibet? Second, which side dominates the border in Himachal and Uttarakhand, India or China?

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To MILLARD KEYES, GANESH, JOYDEEP GHOSH, ASD & VSJ: LoLz! I’m afraid Lt Gen Panag too has gotten carried away. He has been commenting only about the IA’s options & operations, whereas in reality it will be a joint warfighting scenario in which the IAF will be an active participant. Hence, Lt Gen Panag’s assessment would have been an objective one had he solicited the views of a senior IAF official before drafting that assessment. And more importantly so, because back in 1962 the IAF was not allowed to participate in the war.

To UJJWAL: 1) Back in 1962 the PLAGF had plenty of soldiers who were vererans of the Korean War of 1950-1953 & these very soldiers were employed against India. Today the PLAGF does not have such a luxury. 2) Not at all. They are need more for Sikkim & Arunachal Pradesh. For Ladakh the Bofors FH-70Bs & M-46s will be more than sufficient. 3) The IA has not ordered even a single K-10. 4) No, because if such an attack surfaces, then the Haji Pir Pass will be for India forever.

To VSJ: 1) This map of the IA explains it all:

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ik8ouAIZP20/X1PQiGyG2eI/AAAAAAAAUac/w-fjAHp1zisaYGlpEf8b5Rj9g7Fowm37wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1024/IA%2BMap.jpg

Helmet Top is bang on the LAC line as defined by India, whereas Black Top is 4.5km east of Helmet Top. But of course, it is only to be expected that the ‘desi patrakaars’ cannot do even elementary map-reading! 2) No. Instead quick-reaction air-mobile or heliborne IA Brigades will have to be pre-positioned in Ladakh throughout the year. 3) They were useless back in 1999 & they remain useless even today when used against any portion of any mountain, period. 4) Yes, unless the ground forces are backed up by readily available fleets of LUHs, medium-lift & heavylift helicopters.

To PRATAP: It will not be worthwhile to capture any territory north of Sikkim or Arunachal Pradesh as the terrain there is either flat or a gradual slope that will be vulnerable to artillery fire-assaults. Instead, the only worthwhile territory worth capturing is along the eastern part of Sikkim, i.e. the Chumbi Valley, which can be protected by the IA that is perched atop both flanks of the Valley. In both HP & Uttarkhand, the IA occupies all the dominating hilltops & ridgelines.

To JOYDEEP GHOSH: Even those Tibetans born in India are still refugees in India & therefore they cannot choose the kind of employment options that they prefer. Consequently, their only job option is to join the SFF for financial security purposes. Hence, there cannot be surge in the SFF ranks since the supplies are limited, especially after China totally sealed the Indo-Tibetan & Sino-Nepali borders by 2008.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

Pak Assessment of Sino-Indian LAC Standoff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE7Ao9N9XvY

IAF Terrain-Masking CAPs over Ladakh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UttBom2R8_M

IAF Apaches Using Kisthwar Heliport in Jammu:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CdFHoM5jeE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbBFmpJhKq0

The PLAGF Exercises in South Xinjiang Last March Prior To Their Dash Towards the LAC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUF4JFJ04ZQ

More M4 Carbines Smuggled In from the Kathua-Samba Axis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OezL9XqjWg

Horrifying to Know That the NIA Decided to Forensically Examine the Confiscated Cellphones of the Pulwama Terror Participants a Full 8 Months after The Confiscation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DGxrfAu72c&t=6s

PLAN's Appreciation of the IN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1Z2C0Z06Zk

Tibet's Musical Tribute to India: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9IYAiw4AZs

https://www.indiannavy.nic.in/sites/default/files/tender_document/RFI%20FOR%20PUV%20EOD.pdf

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/india-gaganyaan-mission-russia-zvezda-6589334/

TheHundred said...

https://m.hindustantimes.com/india-news/new-military-doctrine-to-be-submitted-in-october/story-S0payhw9CgFs5FfeMqAMyI.html

"India’s Defence Planning Committee (DPC), headed by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, is expected to submit the National Security Strategy (NSS), effectively the country’s military doctrine, to the government in October, focusing on future war fronts, the requirement (if any) of naval expeditionary forces, and the projection of comprehensive national power."

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

Another interesting appreciation by Lt Gen H S Panag:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzxVIkeH9UI&t=2s

However, for a holistic appreciation, a senior retired IAF official too should have been interviewed so that a coherent AirLand Battle scenario could emerge. The bloody 'desi patrakaars' will never learn the right way of doing things, I guess!

Excellent appraisal on the foundational weaknesses of the PLA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whqMOlqMVUs&t=27s

buddha said...

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/lac-standoff-massive-chinese-build-up-again-in-finger-area-of-pangong-tso-lakes-north-bank/article32560349.ece?homepage=true
Sir it seems they are in no mood of calm down..
Xi Jinping Is Risking Everything For Success In Ladakh
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L81-aywdbEw

If Ladakh Stalemate Continues, A Two Front Scenario Is Possible
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o-hcb9BKlac&t=295s

https://theprint.in/defence/china-wanted-no-escalation-on-hotline-call-in-the-day-tried-to-capture-territory-at-night/499341/

https://theprint.in/defence/this-is-what-led-china-to-open-fire-in-ladakh-on-monday-for-the-first-time-in-45-years/498363/

https://m.thewire.in/article/security/india-china-tibetan-special-frontier-force

Sir is India after 4 months playing its card right..
After Indian army capturing the hights on August night ..No movement or aggressive steps taken in other sector so far...
Is Russia playing neutral role
Sir looking at the Dire state of Indian economy and GDP can India sustain long haul army deployment and emergency weapons purchase saga..
Is Certificate and Weaponised process for LUH gonna take more than one year or more..
Can guided pinaka rocket and artillery play decisive role in forcefully evicting the Chinese from occupied territory..

just_curious said...

prasun,

what sort of mental illness has gotten into the likes of some ex supreme court judges ---
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/retired-supreme-court-judge-to-depose-in-favour-of-nirav-modi-in-uk-court/articleshow/78032483.cms ditto for the other guy who was made to pay a penalty.. the UK judiciary & bureaucracy is full of slimy b****ds who just need an excuse to holds on to these assests who then divert their ill-gotten money in the queen's service.. that how the Uk runs ... they have no manufacturing , no service sector so to speak of neither are the endowed with natural resources.. while the judiciary does have its flaws but to use it against the nations interest is terrorism. these Bas***ds conveniently forget that they are themselves a part of the rot & that they have encouraged it.

Kaustav said...

Prasunda

As you so subtly hinted at....In case of a reverse Kargil with IA on heights, PLA Artillery Strikes (Guns, Rockets Missiles) & PLAAF Airpower could we protect our Assets?

Ganesh said...

Hello Prasun,
For a change the learned general Panag talks complete sense avoiding the insinuating language of loosers of East India company.Thanks a ton for that to him.
Do you see a possibility of high mobility sweep of the fortified areas in Ladakh to unsettle Han army if the first bullet is fired. I understand that is escalation; however, with the arrogance and showmanship of these, it makes sense of a sweep. I remember your comment of Mongol king/general taking about taking over a big chunk to Han slicing/nibbling.
I personally still believe pushing the border forward will help eventual annexation of Tibet and independence to Turkestan. Currently, India is now in the phase of consolidation after the deep slumber since 1947 owing the long string of Bharat ratnas ruling the country. If the momentum is maintained, in 5 to 8 years the required will be achieved.
Thanks,Ganesh

joydeep ghosh said...

@prasun da

1. Indian Armed Forces captured 14 dominating positions near Finger-4 and Finger-5 in Eastern Laddakh. We have not suffered any damage in this operation which lasted for 3 hours last evening. how true??

2. whats the point in asking for status quo ante april if thence we will have to vacate these newly captured ridgelines

thanks

Joydeep Gosh

joydeep ghosh said...

@prasun da

now that we have surrounded Moldo will we can expect China to vacate it, bcoz its becoming literally useless to holdon on i think

thanks

Joydeep Ghosh

asd said...

Dear Prasun,

1. As a strategist how will you rate IA's LATE action against PLA? You were earlier too much annoyed with ostrich attitude of our military and political leaderships.

2. Further, if the PLAGF and PLAAF have lost edge against IA and IAF, will PLAN do anything play any major role? Will China succeed in this? Being a layman and ignorant I'm asking you such questions although you have many times clarified about the short comings of PLAN.

KIDDO said...

Dear Prasun - would really appreciate ur thoughts on the following;

1) Looks like some PLA action is now inevitable. What is ur assessment on what could lie in store in the next few weeks and months.

Do u agree with Gen Panag that the Chinese will attempt to dislodge IA from the High ridges - like Black Top - in the next few days before we have a chance to consolidate our new positions .

2) On a more general note, do our armed forces also have institutional concepts for deep deception on the ground level- like the Russian MASKIROVKA methods.

For example I remember during the Crimea annexation, Russians had placed many sets of inflatable balloons which were made to look like tanks, artillery and SAMs (even S-400 balloons!!) near their borders.

Would love to know what measures IA or IAF would use to hide movement/presence of tanks/guns/air assets etc. and what surprises they may have in store for the Chinese (without giving too much away of course)

Thanks

just_curious said...

Prasun,

1-logistics agreement with Japan signed .. and one with Russia to be signed soon.. that leaves UK as the only major power with deep interests in the IOR region to not have an agreement with us .. shouldn't that happen too? add Vietnam, Philippines too
2- why is Australian still not formally invited for malabar exercises while we seem to thrive in having trilaterals in all combinations involving Australia
3- another one to add to nail the pakis @fatf? http://idrw.org/pakistan-main-force-behind-drive-to-create-so-called-khalistan-canadian-think-tank/.. Now that the chinese will try to prop up 2 more paki allies turkey + who? malaysia? how to get @this 3 country blockade rule? is there a limit to how many times a country can saved? Also has malaysia learnt its lesson?
4- Another attack on the afghan V-P .. nobody seems to be bothered.. another one to be highlighted @FATF?

সুমন্ত নাগ said...

Prasun Da, what is your view regarding this below mentioned link rubbishing claim regarding Chinese war cemetery ?

https://www.altnews.in/india-today-group-times-now-air-old-images-of-pla-cemetery-as-graves-of-chinese-killed-in-galwan/

Does this alt news has enough credibility ? Its founders go against So called all knowing Rightist media but never bother to get hold of ill informed leftist media ?


BTW, I believe in capacity of Chinese propaganda machine.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To BUDDHA: These 2 separate statements from China say it all:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EhltYVfXcAAMw0M?format=jpg&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EhlfCIXXYAEIZHy?format=jpg&name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EhlfCIWWoAAnnef?format=jpg&name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EhlfCIWXYAAq2_T?format=jpg&name=large

Conclusions:
1) Both statements make no mention of de-induction for de-escalation. They speak on only disengagement. Hence, China is saying that whatever it has got hold of in terms of territory now belongs to it, while it will negotiate on what India’s got.

2) The separate statement issued by China’s Embassy in India repeats what it had said all along before, i.e. India should accept China’s claim to all territories it has occupied since mid-May 2020 but it says nothing about whether the same principle applies to all areas now controlled by India after mid-May 2020.

3) China is now saying that the forthcoming meeting between the two Corps Commanders will discuss only on ways & means of formalising what has been been stated above in Points 1 & 2.

4) Both statements, as in previous statements, go out of the way in distancing Chinese President Xi Jinping from the current military faceoff by stating again & again that President Xi Jinping’s strategic guidance (agreed after the Wuhan & Mallapuram summit meetings with NaMo) still have relevance. What this means is that if the PLA’s strategems fail in the medium- & long-term, then the blame will be put on the PLA for such failures, leaving Xi’s political reputation intact.

India is by no means in dire economic state & of the total spending on the extra deployments of the armed forces, only 30% of the money will be spread on imports, while the rest of the expenditure will be incurred from investments made domestically in terms of orders for hardware placed & new transportation infrastructure being created in Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Sikkim & Arunachal Pradesh. These in fact can well give a critical boost to India’s manufacturing & service sectors.

The best way now to redeem India’s national honour is not by engaging the PLA in direct combat, but by nibbling away at more & more territory now lying within the grey zone along the LAC, i.e. occupying those areas where both countries have territorial claims.

And here’s the extreme winter clothing meant for the IA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57KYeSd9bmc&t=22s

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To ANUP: It can be achieved within 1 calendar year. More than the certification of the airframes, it is the certification of the industrial production facilities that consumes far more time.

To KAUSTAV: Of course, because this time the IAF’s offensive airpower is available in terms of both fixed-wing MRCAs as well as attack helicopters, plus a variety of surface-launched & air-launched standoff cruise missiles.

To GANESH: A frontal assault on any China-occupied position will be most foolhardy & instead India’s national honour is not by engaging the PLA in direct combat, but by nibbling away at more & more territory now lying within the grey zone along the LAC, i.e. occupying those areas where both countries have territorial claims.

To JOYDEEP GHOSH: 1) 100% true but they were never captured, just occupied by the IA since no one else was there. 2) A new LAC has already come into being as I had repeatedly explained before & all talk of status quo ante is now obsolete & mjust be junked forever. 3) Why should China vacate Moldo?

To ASD & KIDDO: 1) The action by the IA wasn’t late at all, since the IA had to muster sufficient forces into the theatre before mulling any offensive action. Now, since China has been the first to violate all existing LAC-related agreements & CBMs, India must continue creeping eastwards until the Indian version of the IB has been reached. 2) Even as of now the PLAGF is deployed all along the LSC in only defensive mode & has not assumed any offensive posture. 3) For India to ensure long-term conventional deterrence along the new LAC, investments will have to made in aerial logistics tools like additional Mi-17V-5s & CH-47Fs, plus increasing the size of the attack helicopter inventory by procuring both additional AH-64Es & the HAL-developed LCH & LUH/RSH.

To JUST_CURIOUS: The next Malabar naval exercise is due next year & hence there’s plenty of time for extending invitations.

To SUMANTA NAG: LoLz! The question to be asked is: did only 108 PLA soldiers die in the 1962 war? Because much later certain Chinese military historians themselves had admitted that more than 800 PLAGF soldiers were killed in the Galwan River Valley alone back in 1962. And that site in southern Xinjiang is a ‘war memorial’ & is not a burial ground. And the marble epitaphs are therefore not tombstones. Only the Muslim military personnel are buried, whereas the non-Muslim Han Chinese dead are always cremated.

asd said...

Dear Prasun,

Don't you think that PM Modi shouldn't have made a irresponsible statement like "China hasn't transgressed into our territory". So Chinese got an opportunity to claim the area as theirs. Modi surrendered earlier before aggressive posture later on. Do you agree? Your view please.

Manivannan Sermaiya said...

Dear sir,

Today indian PM called Saudi crown prince. Recently Indian defence minister visited Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan around SCO submit. Is something cooking in POK Or is just to avoid two front war. Can we expect something from Indian Army to retake POK in following weeks.

Prranshu Yadav said...

A few questions sir,

1. How fast can satellite imagery be obtained for targeting enemy air bases? Is it worth having stealth UAVs that could send real time imagery of an enemy airbase, showing the number and type of aircraft there? Or are satellite images obtained fast enough to be actionable and UAVs are not needed for this role?

2. Suppose satellite imagery of an enemy airbase shows aircraft parked on the tarmac, or signs of aircraft inside HAS sites. If this enemy airbase is targeted with say Brahmos or Pralay missiles, what are the chances that those aircraft will still be there when the missiles hit the airbase?

3. Is it possible for Brahmos to use its onboard radar to detect large aircraft like mid air refuellers parked in the open on the tarmac? Or will Pralay carrying prefragmanted submunitions be more useful for this task?

Ganesh said...

Hello Prasun,
I agree it does not make sense to start a fight and take the Han army head-on. It is advantageous to chip away real estate of relevance without a confrontation. I am sure required emphasis is on making sure that cleared areas are amply fortified and held permanently.
I am happy with the belated diplomacy of the present dispensation; instead of caving in and humiliating the army's bravery and throwing the advantages away in the meeting table, at least until now, there is no sign of cheating the armed forces for personal glory. I am also wrong to say that the present dispensation is a dead horse and flogging it would not bring it back into action; glad I am wrong in this regard; thanks to you.
My earlier point was when there is a skirmish wherever, I believe, makes sense to sweep through the defenses of the enemy and annex where possible.
Does it makes sense to develop Ladakh region in a holistic manner, since Solar power can be the future and if any rivers flow there (even if it is seasonal), can those be harnessed for sustenance of the local population that is appropriate at those heights.
Thanks, Ganesh

buddha said...

Look, the LAC has Disappeared
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n7s-llqrkYk
Has recent meeting Indian FM surrendered all due claims ...? Or he is harping same china sponsored lines..

https://theprint.in/defence/words-need-to-turn-into-action-soldiers-not-impressed-by-china-peace-talk-with-jaishankar/500560/

rad said...


hi prasun
are the paf f-16 data linkled ? as claimed by an PAF officer ? i dont think they were given the link -16 capability?
have the long bow radar and MMW equiped hellfire been delivered to the IAF?
why cant we equip our soldiers with shields and spears to thwart eh medivial wepaons that the chinks are ratting around . they are not the only maritial race in the world? they will get
the lesson that we can always do what they can do. Also i feel the present frontline chinks are trained martial artists , after having learnt a lesson from galwan encounter.
we have to b prepared !.
thoughthe rafales are not fully ops and as the pilots need to learn , is it a big deal to do a radar sweep and fire off meteors against the f-16s?

Kaustav said...

It actually boils down to what Prasunda has already said. A question of perspective of Prasunda saying glass half full & Pravin Sawhney saying half empty but the conclusion is the same. The LAC is now redundant. Both sides will try to claim as much territory as it can

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To ASD: There was no need for making any statement in-person by anybody from the Govt of India after the all-party meeting. Instead, the spokespersons of different political parties should have given their own respective statements. Unfortunately, the prevailing political culture strongly encourages one-upmanship & this in turn spawns contradictory political narratives even in times of national crisis. And then there’s the non-coherence due to lack of understanding about military power & military force. For instance, while the ‘netas’ have claimed that the IA crossed over into PoK in September 26 to destroy the terror launch-pads, the press-conference co-chaired by the Indian MEA & the IA’s DGMO stated that such launch-pads had been destroyed ALONG (and not beyond) the LoC. Similarly, NaMo totally misunderstood what the IAF had meant about bad/adverse weather conditions prevailing over Jabaa Top/Balakot, KPK on the night of 26-2-2019. It is obvious that he was referring to the un-employability of the PopeyeLite/Crystal Maze PGMs that make use of IIR sensors & closed-loop navigational guidance & which were not launched on that night, but instead the autonomous Spice-2000 PGMs were used with IRNSS/NAVIC-based navigational systems & IIR terminal sensors. In addition, while the IAF is mounting round-the-clock CAPs over the skies of eastern Ladakh, from Pakistan there are regular flights of Hexacopters dropping small-arms supplies inside the plains of Jammu by overflying the WB along Chicken’s Neck area, i.e. blatant violations of Indian airspace that cannot be deterred by the IAF.

To MANIVANNAN SERMAIYA: Those meetings & consultations are all about Afghanistan & possibly the heating up of the Durand Line & thus have nothing to do with PoK.

To PRRANSHU YADAV: 1) Such imagery can be obtained once every 52 minutes, But the time-consuming effort is for imagery interpretation. Stealthy UAVs are stealthy only in the RF-based detection domain & they are fully visible to optronic sensors. 2) That depends on what time the imagery was acquired & at what time the PGMs were launched. It is the known as the sensor-to-shooter loop. 3) It is possible, because the BrahMos-1’s seeker is an X-band imaging seeker, like a profiling radar.

To BUDDHA: There are now 2 different LACs: one over which the IA is in control & another over which the PLAGF is in control. And between these 2 LACs lies a buffer zone that can now be formalised through a bilateral disengagement process by both sides, provided both are agreeable to such a methodology & ground situation. In any case, the PLAGF's human resources have been trained for combat at heights of up to 11,811 feet ASL only, whereas the IA's human resources have been at it since April 1984 at heights of 19,685 feet ASL. Therefore, the PLAGF will never try to physically dislodge the IA from the now-occuiped forbidding heights through any physical assaults, rest assured.

To RAD: The PAF’s MRCAs are all data-linked to ground receiving stations only & hence none of the PAF’s MRCAs can share situational awareness data with one another while they are airborne. There are videos replete with images of LongBow-equipped Apaches of the IAF flying over Pathankot & eastern ladakh since last June. Since this is 2020 & not the medieval era, it is far better to use weapons developed over the last 2 decades. The IAF rafales can fire off Meteor BVRAAMs even today BUT ONLY IF the IAF’s AEW & CS combat-support platforms are airbiorne to conduct airborne battle management tasks.

To KAUSTAV: PLAGF Hexacopters For Battlefield Logistics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2UBsQnnyd8

Although it is a given that this will not be possible on the battlefield due to the extreme EW environment, which will jam the data-links between such UAVs & their ground-control stations.

Video-clip of a Pre-June 15 Clash in the Galwan River-Valley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVEHZ5fVzeQ

Newcomer said...

I think it's a combination of two or more videos...
The first one was older and the second one was newer.. or vice versa not sure...
First one Chinese soldiers are on the other side and video shot by Chinese soldier and in the last one India. Soldiers are on the other side...

Kaustav said...

Prasunda

This is why your reading of the situation & Force Magazine the most credible magazine on Defence Reports & Analysis & ofcourse on a lighter note Mr.Pravin Sawhney, so disliked or misunderstood.

As you have repeatedly pointed out, both sides will now seek to approach & occupy their definition of IB. However, it does seem Win some lose more for India though. It's just that Sawhney's way of saying it gets the hackles of nationalist jingoes up. OTOH, you are more even handed. The politics of this aside, does this herald the demarcation of an International Border.

http://forceindia.net/cover-story/from-line-to-zone/

rad said...

hi prasun
can you confirn that the spice 2000 have the navic gps on board as well? wouldnt be beetr off to drop ammo and first aid rather than water by drones?
iS THE BNET going on board all the IAF fighter including the su-30? will it enable the phalcon to relay data and targettting cues at last?

Unknown said...

Was impressed with the above message and to learn about the creation of SFF and the great son of India, Biju patnaik. His adventurism is rare example of a any daring person. He was both a tall political leader and military adventurist.

just_curious said...

Prasun,

1- Need to take the fight china outside of the militry domain too ..this article throw light on areas which have never been explored --https://defenceupdate.in/rare-earth-elements-indias-critical-strategic-deficiencies-and-chinas-dominance-problems-and-solutions/
2- Seems India has not been able to attract any major co out of china as yet...why so... Vietnam does not have all that of a great infra, why then is it been preferred? this govt has been making some efforts in addressing ease of doing business & the tradionally bimaru states are ripe for these kind of investments & opportunities
3- Shouldnt India get into a co-design & development of railguns with either UK, France or the russians to give the IN warships a edge in the Indo pacific region.. it is inevitable that more PLAN ships will prowl the IOR. Drdo claims to be making some efforts i this direction not sure how much of it is mature enough

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To KAUSTAV: VMT, but an IB is out of the question since, as I have explained several times before, China does not have even a single customary or historical documentation to prove its claims of territorial ownership, whereas India has all the reqd documentation. And that's precisely China backed off from the 1960 exercise to delineate the IB, as I had highlighted through a scanned page from M K Rasgotra's memoir in a previous thread. So, as per international law, no claim can be pressed forward in the absence of documentation. Hence, India will be fully justified by law in creeping forward as far eastwards as possible to conform to the territorial boundaries drawn up by McCartney-MacDonald-Johnson in the 19th century & this applies not only to eastern Ladakh, but also to southern Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh & Uttarkhand, with the forward movement stopping just along the Kailash Mansarovar mountain range. The LAC with China should thus ride the crest of this range & should end at the China-India-Nepal trijunction.

https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/files/pdf/20200820_Khalistan_Air_India_Milewski_PAPER_FWeb.pdf

To RAD: NAVIC isn’t GPS, but a regional satellite-based navigation system. As for BNET-AR, do go through a previous thread dealing with its installation on the IN’s fixed-wing & rotary-winged platforms.

hoods007 said...

Hi Prasun

Can the DRDO's SAAW be used as a anti armor weapons system like the british spear 3/2. i know that the name SAAW itself indicates it is a anti airfield weapons aka. to target static targets but can the warhead and guidance system be changed to target moving tanks?

Sangos said...

That would be heartbreaking for PLA, to miss fresh hot bat soup during wartime... damn the Indian EW assets. But seriously why have'nt we activated some at Paki border?
Also now as we push our own LAC, can we re-delimit your earlier war gaming scenarios of 18km incursions? To widen the ops frontage. VMT

Magicbullet said...

Sir
As per your remote viewing sessions how would the situation unfold on the LAC/LOCin next three years..in 2017 you had said that GB,POK will see action.

hoods007 said...

prasun

what new or different operational concept is russian army adopting for which they have introduced 2 new types of IFVs. Kurganets-25 IFV and T-15 heavy IFV.i know T-15 has common platform with T-14 MBT but why then introduce Kurganets-25 which at 25 ton is medium or light weight. what do they intend to do? build armored brigades around T-14 MBT and T-15 IFV and build mechanized brigades around T-90/T-73 B3 and Kurganets-25?

Kaustav said...

Prasunda,

Thanks again for the reminder. That is sad though. Hope regime change occurs in PRC then! BTW, I did read about the Canadian PDF report on Khalistani activities sponsored by the ISI & their dead on arrival Referendum. Paxtan seems to be at the end of it's games & rope too. If PRC doesn't prop it up, it's going to be in deep shit

Ashish Gautam said...

Is he correct? I suspect he is also from bunch of clowns called defence journalist's in India...
https://twitter.com/VishnuNDTV/status/1304752125235195904?s=19

AMIT BISWAS said...

https://twitter.com/nontsay/status/1304716951445360640?s=20

What's mounted on wingtips??

Manivannan Sermaiya said...

Dear Sir,
If China doesn't value IB with India, why should India do?, are we of some hope that one day Taiwan will return to main land China with all historical documents regarding Indian IB, and we can make peace with them? Even when our government currently didn't acknowledge Taiwanese government openly.

If PRC doesn't acknowledge IB with India in Ladakh, doesn't this apply to whole Indo-China border including NEFA, Sikkim, Assam as they don't have the documents. That means whole India-China border is borderless.

Why doesn't our government taking it seriously? Two nuclear powers without definite border, who also eyeing for regional dominance in South Asia?

If India doesn't solve it's border Issue with China before 2025 (when it's first goal is annex Taiwan with main land China) , I doubt it will take another 30 to 50 years, Until India gets enough resources including militarily and economically (As a part of coalition force against Chinese empire...!)

bhoutik said...

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/09/07/national/germany-wary-japans-patrol-plane-project/

* which mil. type certification is being talked about here? is it NATO? assuming the aircraft has Jap. mil. type certification since it is in service with them, why is that not accepted by Germany?

https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/russia-begins-manufacturing-of-space-suits-for-india-s-gaganyaan-mission-120090701597_1.html

* can't even make our own space-suits? is it that hard? why could it not have been done in-country?

https://www.wionews.com/world/china-carries-out-secretive-launch-of-reusable-experimental-spacecraft-325258

* news reports speculating of a RLV launched by china. if true, did they conduct secret tests earlier? i don't see reports of them going through with sequential testing regime like with the Indian RLV program.

https://twitter.com/gbrumfiel/status/1303770864232599552

* is the runway here a prelude to a full-scale spaceplane as the author speculates?

buddha said...

https://m.tribuneindia.com/news/editorials/offensive-edge-139039

https://m.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/pangong-tso-action-represents-a-doctrinal-shift-140089

https://m.economictimes.com/news/defence/india-china-troops-within-shooting-range-at-spanggur-gap/amp_articleshow/78078291.cms

https://m.timesofindia.com/world/south-asia/us-signs-defence-cooperation-deal-with-maldives-amidst-chinas-growing-presence-in-indian-ocean/articleshow/78075612.cms

1967, Nathu La: When India Gave China A Bloody Nose
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=APBfSw7MJyU

https://m.economictimes.com/news/defence/govt-constitutes-egom-headed-by-defence-minister-to-oversee-ofbs-corporatisation/amp_articleshow/78064783.cms
Some highlights of good news and related matters..
Sir you said Indian army should take control of grey areas in India china border..What are these areas and how many sector needed to be gained control..
Will chinese responds such action..
Are chinese also capturing those grey areas..
Can America bring Russia in good book so that Russia comes out of chinese economic relationship so that china left alone completely..
Will Pakistan try to do some misadventures to destabilise India or try to infiltrate arms and terrorists
...As news comes of arms dropping via drone..
Nepal sector seems to be silent suddenly
Will this state collapse within a decade or china will not let that happen..
News read that America is dismantling some of its old attack helicopter namely Apache ..:Can India buy them in large number in low cost.and upgrade them..

asd said...

Dear Prasun,

1. As PLA is using militia to fight IA, how will IA fare against them? Will they pose any big challenge for us? Because they are also Tibetan and trained by PLA.

2. Further PLA has combat units good in martial art. Is IA capable of making them bite the bullet?

3. Despite the meeting between FMs at the sidelines of SCO, still PLA is massing troops there in Spangur gap. IA is too making mirror deployment. Do you expect any skirmish like June 15 again?

just_curious said...

Prasun,

1-http://www.indiandefensenews.in/2020/09/itbps-extra-high-tech-proposal-for-uavs.html .. will these be emergency purchases or are there some indigenous products on offer?
2- The joint 5 pt mechanism like buy time activity by the chinese and seems more like the chinese got their way with the jt stmt content... when we have all the boundary documents/maps why are we even bothering to budge? still not learnt to stand up to a bully
3 Will weapons like mbda brimstone2/3 loaded on lch be good for ladakh? brimstone 2 has a range of 50 kms brimstone3 has 100kms & can attach moving targets
4 with the threat of the OFB strike .. what is making this govt confident of pressing ahead with the 'corporatisation'

bhoutik said...

RLV-TD's landing experiment was supposed to have been conducted in mid 2020. can't help but notice the timing here. one-upmanship at play perhaps...

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To HOODS007: The SAAW will eb far too big for any armoured vehicle. Instead, weapons like SANT (comparable to Brimstone) will be far more economical & effective. As for Russia’s future manowuvre warfare doctrine, it was explained in detail here:

http://trishul-trident.blogspot.com/2016/10/gloves-are-finally-off-against-those.html

To SANGOS: The IA is now awaiting the arrival of Israel-based RAFAELs Spike-FIREFLY weapon system, a lightweight loitering munition.

https://www.rafael.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/FIREFLY.pdf

But even such PGMs can’t go beyond 13,000 feet ASL.

To KAUSTAV & BUDDHA: Here is a more even-handed assessment of the MEA’s latest failure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB-0p9xCavM

PLAGF Defensive Exercises North of Arunachal Pradesh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYZya5fvLoA

Remembering Past Sino-Indian Battles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJgJjeSRDno&t=25s

Between 2000 & now, India made a fundamental military mistake of not securing eastern Ladakh in strength before she attempted to improve her border infrastructure in sensitive areas. Consequently, the PLA pre-empted India & forced her India in a catch-22 situation. However, the saving grace this time is that at each of the seven intrusion points in eastern Ladakh, the PLAGF has deployed a Combined Arms Brigade with one Infantry Battalion up-front and the remainder Brigades in the rear as defensive reserve forces, supported by MBTs and field/rocket artillery, totally accounting for approximately 35,000 troops from the South Xinjiang Military Region. In other words, the PLAGF deployment is by no means offensive enough for scoring any decisive victory anywhere & hence the penny-packet dispositions. Where the IA has sprung a surprise is in the high-altitude warfare domain & this was only to be expected, since 45% of the IA’s manpower hails from India’s mountainous areas. It is now evident that the PLA’s Western Theatre Command failed to factor in this reality & hence it has been condemned to suffer a series of tactical reverses in the past 2 weeks.

To ASHISH GAUTAM: That ‘Bandalbaaz’ is exporting his bandalbaazi from New Delhi, while some other ‘desi patrakaars’ are doing the real reporting from Ground ZERO, as shown below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8WvZ86yObA&t=23s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKCNsv9DJrw&t=16s

I will anyday tend to believe what’s being shown from ground ZERO.

To AMIT BISWAS: Vympel R-73E SRAAMs.

To MANIVANNAN SERMAIYA: Indeed, the entire India-China frontier is not delineated or demarcated & hence cannot be labelled as the border & that’s why in 1993 both countries decided that they would call the farthest perimeters under their respective control as the LAC. India had all the time in the world from 1963 till the year 2005 to make as much territorial gains as she ought to along the LAC, but she did not do so, even at a time when there was hardly any military or economic asymmetry between the 2 countries. Now it is too late to reverse the timeline.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To BHOUTIK: 1) What is being talked about is the airworthiness certification of the airframe & the certification of Kawasaki’s manufacturing facilities. Only then comes the certification of the fully integrated weapons platform. For any airborne manned military platform, these 3 phases of certification are MANDATORY. 2) How can anyone in India make any spacesuits when no one from ISRO has to date sent any animal or dummy-human into orbit for studying the radiation patterns in space? All those countries that sent human beings to space had conducted such experiments prior to sending human-beings into orbit. 3) The China Aerospace Science & Technology Corp (CASC) flew its first unmanned reusable Spaceplane for the first time on September 4, 2020. The Spaceplane landed on September 6 at an air base at Lop Nur (40 47 10.17 N, 89 15 55.90 E). In 2016, began China constructing an enormous, 5km-long runway at that site. Plans call for such vehicles carrying Taikonauts and freight into space by 2025. The China Academy of Launch Technology (a CASC subsidiary), which has developed the Spaceplane, has said that another two-stage spaceplane that is now under development will be rocket-powered at first, and will be able to fly off a runway at hypersonic speeds to near space. It will then detach a reuseable second-stage rocket that can carry passengers and cargo and reach an altitude of 310 miles in orbit. In line with previous spaceplane plans, CASC will fly a scramjet-powered version of the first-stage carrier by 2030, thus increasing the second-stage payload. Apart from CASC, the China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp (CASIC) too is developing a Spaceplane. CASC also has equally ambitious plans for deep-space exploration. Key among these plans is for a nuclear-powered spacecraft, which is slated to enter service in 2040, most likely to support a manned Chinese Martian mission. CASC also has plans for China to engage in deep-space economic activity, like building orbit solar power plants, and mining asteroids and the moon. To launch the thousands of tons of payload required to execute these plans, CASC is planning to make its rockets all completely reusable by 2035, from the small Long March 6 all the way to the giant Long March 5. The Long March 4B will test grid fins in 2019 (grid fins on reusable rockets like the SpaceX Falcon are used to control flight during the high velocity portion of the descent phase) and vertically land a Long March 6 rocket in 2020. Also, the heavy Long March 9 rocket, which can carry 130 tonnes into low-earth orbit, or 50 tonnes into lunar orbit, will make its first flight by 2030. The Long March 9 will likely be used for manned missions to the moon as well as installing orbital solar power plants. Its massive payload capacity would also support Chinese plans to explore Jupiter, Saturn and its moons, and other celestial objects beyond the asteroid belt.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To ASD: 1 & 2) Any militia won’t last for even a minute when the IA’s combination of 7.62mm MMG & AGS-30 AGL open up. 3) Skirmishes? Yes, probable. Limited War or Total war? Definitely not, as I have explained above to KAUSTAV & BUDDHA.

To JUST_CURIOUS: 1) I don’t recknon any foreign OEM will offer the kind of UAVs being sought by the ITBP simply because no one makes such UAVs that are able to operate at altitudes that the ITBP wants them to. However, the BOSS LORROS that was shown at DEFEXPO-2020 will be ordered since it is already in use there. 2) Here is a sober assessment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB-0p9xCavM

3) Brimstone isn’t as yet qualified for use at such high altitudes. Even HELINA isn’t. Only the Hellfire is as of now, but only up till 14,000 feet ASL. It is EXTREMELY SHAMEFUL that to date, neither NAG nor HELINA have been test-fired over high-altitude terrain by the DRDO. 4) Some folks never learnt from past failures, like the failed corporatisation of BSNL.

Meanwhile, the flogging of a dead horse continues unabated:

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/agustawestland-scam-cbi-seeks-prosecution-sanction-against-former-cag-shashi-kant-sharma-four-iaf-officers/story-J0Jp9wf9se0SCoShND0jtJ.html

And this is why India has been finding it difficult to fulfill its part of the deal at Chabahar FTIZ:

https://theprint.in/india/governance/chabahar-faces-more-delay-as-india-junks-deal-with-china-crane-supplier-floats-fresh-tender/501226/

asd said...

Dear Prasun,

If winter comes, will the PLA leaves the plateau that it has captured? As you told IA will keep on holding the dominant heights it has captured, if PLA leaves during winter we can recapture them. Is this what going to happen? Please explain IA strategy during winter.

asd said...

Dear Prasun,

Further to my queries, I have few more:

1. If war doesn't happen, then it's advantage China as it has captured 1000 square kilometres area from India. Has IA any strategy to take it back and bring back LAC before the April 2020.

2. As you have been telling a new LAC has come up, then who has gained and who is at loss? I'm certain it's our country only. Because it has captured those heights only within the ambit of our perception of LAC. But PLA has captured area beyond their perception of LAC.

Conclusion is that China won the mind game again by making India bite the bullet.

DAshu said...

What could be the possible reason of MEA's surrender in that Joint statement when IA gave some tactical advantages? Chinis don't possess any documents to define border still India is surrendering? why?

Millard Keyes said...

already one idiotic YT channel India Defence News is spreading rumour that a Rafale crashed during training exercise!!!

just_curious said...

1-had put a question to you on logistics agreement pacts with UK & Vietnam recently .. now this --http://idrw.org/india-in-talks-for-logistics-pacts-with-russia-u-k-and-vietnam/.. if true would be great. Should extend it to the Philippines too
2- the US is now equipping its Poseidon aircrafts with long range LRSAM antiship missiles.. act to follow
3 any chance of procuring the light wt pegrience missile from raytheon ? seems to be a pretty good one .. its probably the lighest in it class .can be used on LCH/Apaches
https://www.flightglobal.com/raytheon-unveils-peregrine-new-medium-range-air-to-air-missile/134340.article#:~:text=The%20Peregrine%20is%20half%20the%20length%20of%20the%20AMRAAM.&text=The%20missile%20gains%20its%20manoeuvrability,)%2C%20according%20to%20the%20USAF.

joydeep ghosh said...

@prasun da

1. looks like decks are being cl;eared for Greece to offer its Mirage 2000 to IAF as it has decided to buy Rafale, afaik Greece is not in econmic condition to maintain both Rafale and Mirage 2000

2. i feel praveen sawhaney is singing chinese tune

3. isnt moldo well inside Indias IB & LAC and now we have surronded it on 3 side, i feel mattre of time before India captures entire Spanggor tso only that will give chance to IA to entend LAC towards Kailash mansarovar

4. looks like Iran is all set to but Mig 29s and Su 30 sm FROM Russia, AND NOW I FEEL THIS WAS THE REASON USA was hell bent on leaving JCPOA as it will create problem for iran snd i think if Iran gets these 2 jets it will virtually become impossible for any nation to attack Iran

5. why did India accept chinese term of branding the 5 Arunachal youths as spy

thanks

Joydeep Ghosh

Hardik Thanki said...

Hi Prasunji,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUCS7r2Tkm0

Please comment on this

Thanks & Regards,

Hardik Thanki

Ganesh said...

Hello Prasun,
Please let me know do you concur that any infrastructure initiative for defense should always be intertwined with return of investment, so that future forward movement to annex additional real estate is possible? It is good that India has moved towards phase of holding the real estate and not meekly surrendering it as done historically. Whatever happened in 1999, the fighting force should have gone back to their original Finger 7 and beyond since they fought well and hardy. Now, please comment on the possibilities that can be harnessed to get profit along with return of investment for those investments that are being made in Eastern sector. This is should be possible owing to Ladakh being a UT. It is imperative that local human resources are employed and kept them in good humor so that it is a win-win situation
Now on the western front; could you please let me know, can the time period of November on wards could be used to regain control on Gilgit Baltistan and Shaksgam valley, since the Eastern border will be under the blanket of snow. Utilizing fully acclimated fighting force would be great and will help the forward momentum and pare the expenses. I do not understand the weather of that region; just my thoughts.
Thanks, Ganesh

Ganesh said...

Hello Prasun,
Couple of more thoughts, it is an irony that the current dispensation is bearing the Riasat-e-Madina's (Pakistan) antics which is still fomenting terrorism, it is difficult to fathom that bleeding by thousand cuts is accepted as way of life instead of completely finishing the enemy at the first available opportunity. The country will never be fully ready to achieve complete dominance against the enemy; if that is true then the adversary will never consider being trouble to one-self. The analogy is similar to a person saving money to buy house without resorting to loans; by the time he has enough money the prices would have sky rocketed and the opportunity would never come to buy the house of choice with his savings alone. It does not make any economic sense to bear with such a neighbor. Bringing in peace at one border at a time by concentrating the pressing and comparatively weaker neighbor is good for starters and then tackle the others. Please let me know your thoughts.
I believe, Russian Federation's approach in Georgia and Ukraine (Chimea) makes sense and gets the approach results. It is the now to take the initiative when the world is favorable dispensed towards India.
Thanks, Ganesh

BHVK said...

Sirji,

1) Army has a dedicated air defence corps and people become a part of it at start of their careers. How does IAF recruit people for its Air Defence unit and where does it train them ?
How will this change in the joint air defence command ?

2) Are all warships slated to get the VLSRSAM ?

3) Do you think chinese did not anticipate indian counter action in Ladhak and now do not know how to respond ? Do you think this has exposed their poor experience ?

Ayush said...

This fake news was peddled by Chinese communist rag called The Hindu. This 1000 sq km land is on Chinese side of LAC. As for these two arseholes, they were kicked out from their channel and started licking PA ass on YouTube. Now both of them were hired again by another channel for which Lt Gen Asim Pizza Bajwa (R) congratulated them.

Srinivasa Nanduri said...

Hi Prasun,

Based on Pakistani narrative, India surrendered to China at Moscow. According to bhadrakumar, we just came from brink as we never had the strength to fight Chinese and should now reset relationship with China by accepting new realities and raise of China:

https://asiatimes.com/2020/09/an-india-china-reset-is-still-possible/?_gl=1*137t7s8*_ga*MTk5NTc5NzUxMC4xNTU5NTc4MzQw

Is this what really what's happening. Now that there are reports of China invading Bhutan, and war gaming at Arunachal Pradesh, what options does India gave.

Regards,
Ramanujam Nanduri

Kapil said...

Prasun da,

1) How good is the LUH compared to foreign equivalents? You did a thread where you advocated for collaboration with American companies for inclusion of dual ducted-fans and co-axial rotors in the LUH design. Buy it fell on deaf ears. Why did HAL and service users didn't thought about it?

2) Where does Russia fits into our plans for Indo-Pacific region and our overall resist China project? You have said many times that Russia is worried about the rise of China and about possible Chinese expansion into Russia's far east region. You also said that Russia is siding with India by continuing supply of spares, but should that be taken as an expression of support? Russians supplied China with S-400 and Su-35. Russia is also helping China develop a missile early warning system and heavy military transport helicopter. Both have united to counter the US and Russia has accepted it's junior partner status. While India Russia relationship today is nothing more than a buyer and seller relation.

3) Will the recent Anti-Shia rallies in Karachi lead to another bloody phase of sectarian violence in Paxtan? It would be great for India if that happens especially in the occupied Gilgit Baltistan region. Hope those pictures and videos of ocean of Sunni muslims shouting kafir kafir Shia kafir were seen in Iran.

4) There are media reports that China is eying Bhutanese territory. Can Royal Bhutan Army hold on its own against PLA? Are there any Indian army troops deployed inside Bhutan to defend against possible land grab attempts by PLA?

5) In replies above you have said that India holds all dominating features along the Indo-Tibetan border in Sikkim, Arunachal, Himachal and Uttarakhand. You also said that PLA attack on any of these states would be an invitation for slaughter. Since IA has the advantage, is it possible to reclaim all the territory up till Gartok that General Zorawar Singh captured by mounting an expedition from Himachal And Uttarakhand?

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To ASD: 1) How can the IA capture those areas now occupied by bthe PLAGF even during wintertime & even if they are unoccupied when it is India that is constantly calling for restoration of status quo ante, i.e. leave such areas unattended as no-man’s land? 2) I don’t know from where this figure of 1,000 sq km originated. In Panggong Tso it is only about 60 sq km of area that is under China’s occupation since mid-May this year, while in Depsang Plains less than 10 sq km is under China’s control as of now. The IA on the other hand through its vantage positions at higher altitudes can now provide fire-directions for field artillery over an area exceeding 120 sq km in eastern Ladakh. 3) From the figures I’ve just given, you can easily do the math to determine who has won or lost.

To DASHU: Only the China Study group (CSG) can answer that, since it is the CSG that has landed India in such a situation ever since the CSG was created in 1976. In my view, there was just no need for any joint statement & instead an individual statement from the Indian MEA should have sufficed.

To JUST_CURIOUS: 2) The LRAASM & JASSM are one & the same. In fact, they are like the SCALP-EG of the IAF Rafales. 3) The SAAW with pop-out wings too can be armed for striking high-valiue ground-based targets & can also be used as a miniature air-launched decoy.

To JOYDEEP GHOSH: 1) This is what France has stated:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKC_qbWwy8

In other words, Greece’s intention for procuring 18 rafales is confirmed, while anything else regarding Greece’s Mirage-2000s remains either your fantasy, or a figment of your imagination, or FAKE NEWS being peddled by you. You can thus rest assured that if Greece’s Mirage-2000s are for sale, then Taiwan will grab them & in my view, even India should sell its Mirage-2000s to Taiwan so that more Rafales can be procured. 2) As long as the tune is melodious, there’s nothing wrong in it, for as long as the lyrics do not portray China’s PoV. 3) Do refer to ISRO’s BHUVAN to find out whether or not Moldo falls within India’s LAC. 4) Didn’t the PAF try to attack India on the morning of February 27, 2018 despite India possessing MiG-29UPGs, MiG-29Ks & Su-30MKIs? If yes, then what will stop anyone else from attacking an Iran armed with MiG-29s & Su-30s? 5) India did not accept any such claims made by China. India only accepted the return of here citizens who had wondered across the LAC. The question you be asking is why did China not legally prosecute the five men if it was convinced that they were spies.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To HARDIK THANKI & AYUSH: LoLz! That imbecile making such ludicrous claims hails from Muzaffarabad, but is settled down in Lahore. Hence, what more can you expect from him!!!

To GANESH: Any infrastructure development activity must NEVER be of sole-use, bit of dual-use. In fact, if any such infrastructure is to be undertaken in any border area, officially the reason for it should be the promotion of economic activity, tourism, etc etc. NEVER must it be stated that those are of strategic significance or for use by the armed forces. This is where China scores over India, with the latter always shouting that such road/rail infrastructure are meant for use by her armed forces!!! For it is always a given that any such infrastructure has dual-use applications. In addition, India too should initiate her historical claims over the entire area stretching from Himachal Pradesh/Uttarkhand all the way eastwards out to Kailash Mansarovar, and even to Kasghar, where there are several ancient Buddhist relices. And do watch this informative piece of news about China running out of state-of-the-art microchips of imported origin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL4zyNN8MVU

To BHVK: 1) IAF ground-based air-defence human resources are recruited from within its own rank-n-file & training is done at Surya Lanka in coastal Andhra Pradesh. 2) Yes, since most of them already have Barak-1 PDMS. 3) Yes, because the PLAGF has ZERO experience in high-altitude mountain warfare, just like the PA. Both cannot fight beyond an altitude of 16,000 feet ASL. And that’s precisely why the PLA has so far not released any videoclip of its attack helicopters undertaking terrain-masking flights at such altitudes, unlike the IAF’s AH-64E Apaches.

To SRINIVASA NANDURI: LoLz! It will be premature to jump to such a conclusion & instead i8t will be better to wait for the outcome of the forthcoming Corps Commanders’ meeting.

To KAPIL: 1) The LUH is a good flying machine, but it still awaits weaponisation. As for innovation, there can never be any innovation emanating from any state-owned industrial entity. This has been globally proven time & again. 2) Russia is not only helping India, but Vietnam as well. Hence, when push comes to shove, Russia will stick to having only a mercantile relation with China. 3) That is a given & in fact it will make Iran angrier than anyone else. 4) The IA has for decades been on standby for such a scenario & even now stands ready with two of its Mountain Divisions ready for rapid deployment into Bhutan if the need arises. In addition, the US & UK too will enter the fray, with the USMC’s MV-22 Ospreys providing India the necessary airlift capacities from the ALGs located in Arunachal Pradesh. And that’s precisely why India will very soon sign the BECA as well to supplement the LEMOA & COMCASA agreements. 5) Yes indeed, but not just a verbal claim. Words need to be backed up with firm demonstrable actions.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To MILLARD KEYES: Not only that channel, but also the ones like NEWSNATION, TV9 BHARATVARSH & AAJ TAK are constantly rambling about the onset of World War-3! And then we have idiotic sermonising like this:

https://www.thequint.com/news/india/dragon-on-the-dialogue-table-what-jaishankar-wang-yi-meet-implies

Claim: India and China signed the historic Panchsheel agreement on 29 April 1954 which enshrined the five principles of mutual co-existence. That certainly didn’t help build any bridges and couldn’t stop the Sino-Indian war of October 1962 that killed hundreds on both sides.
Reality: Why not tell the readers that the Panchsheel Agreement had a validity of only 8 years & was never a perpetuially binding agreement???

Claim: The immediate task New Delhi feels is to ensure a comprehensive disengagement of troops in all the friction areas. That is necessary to prevent any untoward incident in the future.
Reality: Total baloney & in fact untoward incidents can be prevented only by punishing the initiators, i.e. using the combination of 7.62mm MMG & 30mm AGS-30 AGL from dominating positions.

Claim: Indian Army doesn’t want to escalate and has no intent to change the status quo but shall defend its territory, come what may, without an offensive intent.
Reality: If the IA does not want to change the existing status quo, then how will status quo ante be restored, which officially remains the Indian MEA’s stated objective?

Claim: By late afternoon of 30 August, specialised equipment and ammunition including tanks were also pressed at those heights.
Reality: Really? Tanks atop all the heights now occupied by the IA? How did the tanks reach such heights in the absence of any roads leading to the hilltops?

Claim: Even though SFF has made many sacrifices in the last many decades, their operations and existence has mostly remained a mystery.
Reality: It remains a mystery only for those who choose to remain ignorant.

Claim: Sources in the national security apparatus in New Delhi indicate that Indian Army in the last few days has further strengthened its position on several peaks on both North and South of the Pangong Tso even though there has been stiff resistance from the Chinese PLA.
Reality: Total bullshit. The IA seized the initiative by pre-emptively occupying the dominating heights when the PLAGF was not even contemplating doing the same & hence all areas now hositing IA troops were totally unoccupied before, i.e. there was ZERO opposition from anyone.

Claim: On the other hand, the shrill media posturing from China and its loud statements indicate that both countries are at the brink of a war.
Reality: Since the past 2 weeks, it is the Hindi-language TV channels like NEWSNATION, TV9 BHARATVARSH & AAJ TAK that have been constantly rambling about the onset of World War-3!

Claim: For now diplomacy is the way forward but the two months to the onset of winter shall remain critical to decide the future of India-China relations that have taken a nose-dive and New Delhi’s fresh punch to the CPC may end up in unforeseeable outcomes.
Reality: The road for diplomacy is now closed forever, especially after China through its pre-emptive military deployments has totally junked all the previous agreements & CBMs that were labourously drawn up by the MEA & its CSG between 1993 & 2013.

Millard Keyes said...

It is so disappointing that people are hell bent on making a farce of what is a serious but by no means doomsday scenario. Those so called reporters who have never even spent a day in the Army or front line calling for a world war III are so beyond any words! Do they not realise the first casualty of any war would be them? Like you said Tanks on top of peaks! Perhaps light tanks air dropped might be an option on some peaks but otherwise do they expect the soldiers in their tanks to nosedive in the air and suicide in the name of defence?

The Sanatani Bhartiya said...

Prasun Your kind opinion regarding this article please!
https://m.hindustantimes.com/world-news/covid-19-made-in-wuhan-lab-controlled-by-china-govt-claims-virologist-offers-evidence/story-JJTyD7Ts61FLOzPvEQHHQL.html

dilbert said...

Hi Prasun,

Aapke muh me ghee-shakkar From your lips to God's ears!! I really hope you are right about these predictions:

"The road for diplomacy is now closed forever, especially after China through its pre-emptive military deployments..." I would hate to see matters turned over to those incompetent idiots in the CSG.

"The IA has for decades been on standby for such a scenario & even now stands ready with two of its Mountain Divisions ready for rapid deployment into Bhutan if the need arises. In addition, the US & UK too will enter the fray, with the USMC’s MV-22 Ospreys providing India the necessary airlift capacities from the ALGs located in Arunachal Pradesh."

"... India will very soon sign the BECA as well to supplement the LEMOA & COMCASA agreements."

The Sanatani Bhartiya said...

Prasun,
Please comment on the reasons behind the Chinese actions in junking all previous agreements and engaging in warlike behaviour!

Anonymous said...

Totally agree with your statement,"Any infrastructure development activity must NEVER be of sole-use, bit of dual-use".

I am from Arunachal Pradesh. These statements that, infrastructure development for defense being touted by the mainland media really baffles us. Forever we the people of this land have been looked at as cattlefodder for the defense of the mainland. How about infrastructure development for the people of this land?? No phone towers, no good roads, no electricity and the list goes on. Half the border regions is out of bounds for tourism.

AMIT BISWAS said...

How could greece get first rafale jet by mid 2021 whereas IAF yet to get half of 36 even after 4 years??

PramodW said...

Prasunji

1) How effective is the SAP514/518 EW system on the su-30mki in countering Chinese radars? Can it jam the s-300/400 and their knockoffs in plaaf service?

2) How does the SAP514/518 compare with the prowlers and growlers of the US Navy?

3) Roughly how many SAP514/518 systems does the IAF have?

4) Is the news of a rafale crashing last week, true or fake? There were only 4 rafales that I could count during the induction ceremony.

5) How many TELs are there per squadron in the S400 systems we have bought?

6) Is there any hope of iaf signing 114 mrfa deal before 2025? If yes which jet do you reckon is the frontrunner?

7) Considering, so many Pakistani fighters like mirage 3 and 5 and Chinese mig 21 knock offs are over 30 years old, do you reckon they will approach block obsolescence in the 2020s? If so will the PAF of 2030 be smaller than its 2020 version?

8) How long will it take for India to finish construction of the 108 blast pens for the iaf that it started last year?

9) Don't other bases in iaf along the western and Eastern borders have blast pens of any kind at all?

10) Since the blast pens under construction are meant for the large sukhois, can't they accommodate the smaller rafale and mirages etc?

11) Between omnidirectional jamming of SPJ pods and directional jamming of aesa jammers like the ones on the spectra system, which is better and how?

12) Considering rafale has spectra and mig29upg has the d29 system, do they still need external jammers like elta el/m 8222?

Thanks

FAA said...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=emb_logo&time_continue=110&v=Xj_ZHtA0A1g

Who do you think has best shot at developing indigenous fighter aircraft engine India or Turkey

Ron

asd said...

Dear Prasun,

Many a times, you have said good words on journalists like Aditya Raj Kaul, Rahul Pandita etc. I don't understand why you described his last writing as idiotic. BTW sir everybody is human being; so you may agree or disagree, but criticism with pinching words are somewhat not digested easily ;)

DAshu said...

True this CSG seems to be making more harm than good for India. Must be an all IAS/IFS folks & our excellent politician grouping.

Pratap said...

Hi Prasun,

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/india-says-china-laying-cables-to-bolster-communications-at-border-flashpoint/articleshow/78108478.cms

About the new on China laying fibre optics for communication. Isn't it open to sabotage by special forces. I thought military communication on the front were all wireless :-)

Regards,
Pratap

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To MILLARD KEYES: And here’s another IDIOT who was showing a signage of the Govt of India inside Thaksin village in Arunachal Pradesh, but ended up portraying it as a signage installed by China & all the participating Lt Gens got sucked into it like idiots & started chest-thumping & huffing-n-puffing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsybvkJDpZ4

Anmd here’s some PAID NEWS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oid5rF03wPg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovsV1XSQlFU

To: THEINDIAN: Here is the full interview of the whistleblower:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lq3_rsBJ9w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl4hwjq7cAo&t=34s

And here’s the PLA’s top bio warfare expert under whom all the R & D was conducted:

Maj Gen Chen Wei: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sqDWi0Jn7w

https://www.timesnownews.com/international/article/china-appoints-terminator-of-ebola-in-wuhan-major-general-chen-wei-chinas-foremost-bio-warfare-expert/554930

Between 1979 & to date, there have been 5 (FIVE) viral outbreaks as a result of bio warfare R & D. Thje first global outbreak was in 1979 & it led to the CONJUNCTIVITIS infection of the eyes. This virus was leaked from Guangzhou. Then came the SARS in 2003 & a few more related strains till the COVID-19.

If you want to know what are China’s grand designs on Ladakh & what for, then do see this webinar that comprehensively explains it all & what’s in store for India in future:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FYnbPnYB18

To ANON@5.04PM: I blame it squarely on the total lack of coordination between various organs of the Govt of India, especially those Depts responsible for telecommunications & defence. Why? Simply because when 4G cellular communications was ushered into India, there should have been convergence between these 2 departments so that both could make use of the common infrastructure, but with different spectrum channels. That way, both the civilians & military would have benefitted from it even in the remotest of areas along India’s borders/IB/frontiers & the military would have had their equivalent of mission-specific networks like battlefield management system, tri-services ELINT/SIGINT sharing network, tactical communications network, & tri-services battlefield surveillance system. Only now is this realisation dawning:

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/as-china-nepal-tensions-rise-this-is-how-uttarakhand-is-upgrading-defence-infra-on-the-border-6596005/

It is indeed amazing how rampant & widespread the non-application of sound common-sense is within India!!!

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To AMIT BISWAS: Because Greece has not specified any customer-specific enhancements & has instead for the same version of Rafale as that for Egypt.

To PRAMODW: 1, 2 & 3) How many times do I have to repeat that those Russia-origin pods were never acquired by the IAF for any of its MRCA platforms? 4) What do you think? Will such a crash go unreported or unpublicised? 5) Refer to the thread dealing with S-400 LR-SAM. 6) It will never be inked. 7) Of course. Had explained in all in 2018 itself in the thread dealing with EX Gagan Shakti. 8) About 2.5 years. 9) Different types of combat aircraft have different kinds of blast-pens since none of the combat aircraft have same length, width & height. 10) Yes. 11) Both are reqd. It is not an either-or scenario. 12) Only if they are reqd to do escort jamming. EL/L-8222 is for self-protection & cannot handle the entire jamming reqmts of a strike package comprising four or even eight combat aircraft.

To FAA/RON: Neither of the two.

To ASD: Are you saying that once good then always good? What kind of a reasoning is that? Do you reckon that someone claiming that MBTs have been deployed on mountain-tops is not being IDIOTIC? Anyone thriving & making money in any public space must also be held accountable for his/her actions/deeds/utterances, especially the ‘desi patrakaars’. If not, then they will ceaselessly end up making India the world’s laughing stock, as they are still doing 24/7. That’s why you now have half of India’s TV channels claiming that the IA is not sitting atop BLACK TOP & HELMET TOP, while the other half are claiming that both are in the IA’s possession. Similarly, all are claiming that Type 15 light tanks are in Chushul Moldo when this is a blanant lie & only Type 88C MBTs of the PLAGF are present there, while the ZTQ-105 light tanks are located on areas north of Bhutan & Arunachal Pradesh. Hence, yes, if I pinch, then the idea is not cause its digestion, but instead it ought to cause such enormous pain that the person will next time think 10 times before wagging his/her boneless tongue.

And this is how non-jingoistic reporting must be done:

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/ladakh-galwan-valley-army-china-fingers-pangong-lake-6594873/

https://www.newsweek.com/chinese-army-flops-india-what-will-xi-do-next-opinion-1531170

To DASHU: Yes indeed & they are now hitting back through opinions like this:

https://theprint.in/opinion/india-waving-sff-and-tibet-card-wont-scare-china/501826/

Deputy Leader Tsering Dhondup: My life in Special Frontier Force:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9CPp2OPf38

To PRATAP: Yes, they are vulnerable for as long as they are left unguarded. The PLAGF prefers fibre-optic comms networks because they are paranoid about RF emission-control practices & in addition, such cables connect the various remotely-sited surveillance sensors (optronic & ELINT/SIGINT) to their garrison HQs in the rear areas.

IA AC in Ladakh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMetFMiV-ts

PLAGF Exercises North of Arunachal Pradesh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rrhaCPucOg

PLAGF Type 88C MBT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kotyuqH70-A

ZTQ-105 Tank in Exercises North of Arunachal Pradesh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93-FeziqiLA

PLAGF Paradrop Training: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQb24aCUDbM

Tibetan Village: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkhbPPP3eVk

China-Appointed Panchen Lama Touring TAR at PLA’s Behest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oDmJc9c-ns

US-Maldives Defence Deal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB9tngAV4vQ

asd said...

Dear Prasun,

Thanks for the rebuttal. Your answer was eye-opening as usual. I wish our culture of journalism evolves ethically. I'm thankful to for sharing other links especially the interview of general V P Malik.

I have one query. Can't IA play spoil sport to China by trying to make Tibet Independent in case of any limited high intensity war? What should be the strategy?

Further how much are you happy with the way political and military action taken against the Chinese infiltration in a scale of 1-10? Where could we have done more? What would be your strategy had you been looking after the issue?

Rajesh Mishra said...

Things are getting entangled in a crisscross manner. It is the frustrated Pakistan666 that is moving towards the Starter push button.

Kaustav said...

Prasunda

The U.S. Air Force has secretly designed, built and flown a prototype of its enigmatic sixth generation fighter jet, confirms a top US official. Well, now our AMCA will now be a 6th generation on the drawing board..... tee hee

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/09/usaf-jet/168479/

Sudipto said...

Prasun : I have been reading your blogs and I am really impressed with your depth on things.

What is your view on the current troops build up by Chinese on the arunachal border... In arunachal/east we have the disadvantage of chicken neck area near the bhutan Bangladesh border which china may try to choke.

just_curious said...

Prasun,

1- Pakistan brazen fingering @sco using their "new" map.. should India threaten to withdraw from SCO alternatively how do we ensure punishement to porkis
2- did ATAGS have a barrel burst issue too> OFB to blame??
3- do we now have 3 separate hypersonic projects 1) frm drdo, 2) frm isor & 3) ToT frm russia for Bramhos 2
4- Read drdo made smart glide bombs have completed their trails. they seem to have been kept away frm media glare.. can you share more details on them along with pics, if any

SUJOY MAJUMDAR said...

Prasun Da,

Media is reporting that Garuthmaa guided glide bomb with 100 km range has been successfully integrated with IAF Su-30MKI. Can this munition be integrated with Mig 29 and Rafael as well?

Thanks, Sujoy

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To ASD: As I have repeatedly stated, China does not want war & that’s why it sent only two Divisions—1 motorised & 1 mechanised—to take up positions along the LAC. So for the Nth time, I’m stating yet again that there will no war—neither high-intensity limited not total conventional war. Most people are UNAWARE till this day that the last military standoff between India & China had taken place in Sumdorong Chu in Arunachal Pradesh & the standoff commenced on June 16, 1986, and the de-escalation began only a year later, while the last part of de-induction of forces from both sides took place nine years later on August 25, 1995. Now sit back & enjoy the battlefield & rear-area logistics arrangements made by the IA & IAF for the Ladakh-based XIV ‘Fire-n-Fury Corps & XVII ‘Brahmastra’ Corps:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwYgDNz4o04&t=25s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRDPKuJV53s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPJcGcsDb80

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0CvYRJ5O0I&t=26s

Kestrel 8 x 8 Fitted with 12.7mm RCWS (same as that on Arjun Mk.1A MBT) Arriving in Ladakh for User-Trials:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8a3dDbmPpE

To KAUSTAV: LoLz! If the US publicly acknowledges that it has tested a Gen-6 MRCA technology demonstrator, then we all can rest assured that the Gen-7 MRCA has already passed the detailed-design stage! It is just like the US contemplating the introduction of 6-G cellular communications networks when it already has developed the micro-processors for 9-G networks. This should not be surprising at all, since the US Defense Dept’s annual ‘black budget’ exceeds the sum of US$500 billion. And folks like me are wondering why the hell no one in India has been able to develop as yet the kind of extreme cold-weather clothing that are now being imported en masse from Switzerland & Scandinavia, despite India gaining priceless operational test-point data on such matters since April 1984 & after sending scientific expeditions to both the Arctic Circle & Antarctica!!!

And despite all the big talk since 2016 about AI, disruptive technologies etc etc by almost every Tom, Dick & Harry from the DRDO & NITI Aayog, I’m still at a loss to get answers from anyone about why the hell did DRDO labs like the CAIR never even bothered to develop even rudimentary EXOSKELETONs that might have come in handy now for those Ladakhi porters ferrying supplies to the mountain-tops for the IA & SFF:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWnXOh4r6Dw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIQJKePalto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgcvZtxSU4Q&pbjreload=101

I guess all these ‘loudmouths’ only have the perception of being blessed with all-knowing wisdom, whereas in reality all they excel in are theatrics!!!

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To SUDIPTO: This no Chicken’s Neck area in the Siliguri Corridor anymore, since the road transportation infrastructure in Sikkim has improved a lot since 2017 & now M777 UFHs located along along eastern, southern & northern Sikkim will make mincemeat of out any PLA formation that even tries to approach Batang La, leave alone Siliguri. In arunachal Pradesh, the PLA is deeply worried about the IA & IAF conducting a joint air-assult aimed at retaking Longju. That’s why the PLA has been carrying out firing drills (not exercises) at a location some 150km north of Arunachal Pradesh since last July, whose videoclips are regurgitated time & again by CCTV to give the impression that such drills were of recent origin. Here are a few of them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQY_ccYfZqc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=619_OTiaP_c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZiAsOz7MdE

To JUST_CURIOUS: 1) My best recommendation is to conduct a non-stop 6-hour fire-assault on Haji Pir & capture it over the following 3 hours. That will compel the PA to adopt a far more sober attitude. 2) Never. But actually, it will be good if a barrel bursts as that will indicate what is the precise service-life of the barrel. That is the only universal way of determining the barrel’s service-life. 3) There are only 2 hypersonic vehicle R & D activities in Indi8a: one with the DRDO & one with ISRO. There’s nothing left to develop the BrahMos-2 since it has already been fully developed as the RIRCON by Russia’s NPOM. 4) They are mere technology demomstrators & there’s no operational reqmt from the IAF or IN for such glide-bombs. And that’s why they have never been shown at any expo before. The only mission-mode sanctioned R & D projects involve the PG-HSLD, the SAAW & the LGB-NG.

To SUJOY MAJUMDAR: GARUDA & GARUTHAMA are mere technology demonstration projects that will never be inducted into service. No one today uses MRCAs to carry 1,000kg or even 500kg bombs. Instead, the trend is to go for a maximum 450kg weight & lower that are precision-guided (preferably dual-mode guidance like laser/TV guidance coupled with navigational cues from constellations like the IRNSS/NAVIC), leaving the heavy weighlifting to be done by NLOS-SS-BSMs like BrahMos-1 or Pralay. In the meantime, it looks like the DRDO can no longer distinguish between Dhruvastra & MP-ATGM, going by the contents of page 4 of this publication:

https://www.drdo.gov.in/sites/default/files/newsletter-document/NL_August_2020__for_web.pdf

Or, maybe that’s why the MPATGM has a greater length than that of the Javelin & Spike-MR missiles! The DRDO must have mistakenly used the Dhruvastra’s airframe specifications for fabricating the MP-STGM’s airframe! Only that can explain why a 2.5km-range ATGM will have such a long missile-body.

rad said...


hi prasun
i am infact shocked that the garuthama and the other glide bomb are only tech =demos ? the world over glide bombs are the in thing, ie JDAM and many of its variations
as well as many variants in the chinese and pak army. I am given to understand that glide bombs are always safe to be fired from a stand off distance the same way the spice family.
Are you saying becasue they are too heavy or some thing else? will it be ok if we make 250 kg glide bombs sothat many can be fired at stand off distance ?

The days of dumb bombs are no more . I dont fancy sending an LCA to use dumb bombs at a height of 1000ft over enemy isntallation and risking getting shot down .so what is the real problem ?.After all shooting Brahmos and pralay are extremeley expensive
. I do think that after some time we will easily get a CEP of 5 mtrs forglide bombs given the WASS capability over india as well as the FOG coupled with the desi military grade NAVIC.
the HSLDB nad the lgb -ng are all short range bombs. what ever happene to the sudarshamlaser bomb? after all the LGB -ng is onlya screw driver bomb of the griffin variety from israel?
Is the model of the zircon AKA the brahmos 2 a fair depiction of the realmissile exhibited in aero india ?? Is the small booster enough to propel it to mach 4+ so the the scramjet may take over ?

AMIT BISWAS said...

Why iaf hasn't requested for more f8ers from russia and France on temporary basis...in case two front starts in ladakh frontier how will iaf manage..hope they have factored this shortage andwand scenario while allocating resources

just_curious said...

So why is there no orders for BMPT terminator considering there is a need for such vehicles in great numbers? There are none such weapon on offer within India or from any other country except Russia.

AMIT BISWAS said...

So by September end Leh Manali highway will stop and by November end zozilla pass..hope they have stocked enuf food, ammo and oil for harsh winter ahead

Kaustav said...

Prasunda,

Thanks indeed & a tragi-comic state of affairs for our RDC India. More on the same line, where we are unable to either efficiently Make In India or unable to import efficiently in case of such easily available low tech items like Carbines or Quick Reaction Tracked short range antiaircraft Gun Missile systems. Both can be made easily by India or both could be imported & done without fuss. Infact between 3 calibres of Assault Rifles & some avg carbines too like Amogh, JVPC , de we need one more carbine? So Sir, what's the way forward now?! Do we or don't we?
https://m.economictimes.com/news/defence/carbines-anti-air-systems-for-indian-army-to-be-made-in-india-after-mod-cancels-import/amp_articleshow/78141347.cms?

hoods007 said...

hi Prasun

according to you which should be the most optimal upgrade from 120 and 125 mm tank canons? 130mm, 140, or 152 mm.? Rheinmetall just tested their 130mm canon and the sabot round of that gun is huge. anything above 130mm sabot looks like a overkill, not to mention the number of rounds penalty that larger canons and their proportionally larger rounds carry.can the T-14s 2A82-1M canon be fitted on T-90 AM/MS?

Anonymous said...

1:Today newspapers are reporting 2 contrary News
- caracal carbine & Mobile anti aircraft system is cancelled. Replaced by make in India
- carcacal will be signed by year end.

2 : Do we have both system local design available ?

Regards
Venky

just_curious said...

Prasun,

1 has the MoD cancelled the car 816 deal & biho deals?? if yes, its a serious setback to bi lateral relations esp UAE.. this random style of working will make India lose friends and no co will want to work/partner/participate again.. won;t it create a serious trust deficit given that all these co spent time & money for al these years for nothing... The carbine move move suspiciously tails the takeover of PLR by adani grp .. coincidence?
2 Why is Whap mounted only with a 12.7mm gun and not the std 30mm
3 You mention heavy glide bombs are not in vogue, but then we used one in balakot & have brought some from Israel

Sumit sen said...

Dada if we cancels the car 816 and biho systems what will be the substitutes? And when can we expect the repeat orders of Apache and chinook?

asd said...

Dear Prasun,

Like other aircrafts, after how many years Rafale will be ready to take offensive role for the IAF? I mean it will be able to enter the enemy airspace.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To KAUSTAV: Where was there any need to import additional carbines from another foreign OEM when the IA’s & Assam Rifles’ Ghaatak platoons have already been equipped with Switzerland-based Brügger & Thomet’s MP9 carbines? As for terminal air-defence systems for shooting down subsonic PGMs like glide-bombs equipped with range-extension kits & sliding wings, the best option is still the one I had suggested years ago, i.e. using the Tulamashzavod JC’s AK-630M six-barrelled cannon (that is licence-built by OFB) & integrating it with a fire-control system that uses a variant of the ‘Uttam’ AESA-MMR for target acquisition/target engagement. While 1 truck will house the cannon (not the ridiculously configured version suggested by BEML), the other will house the containerised command-n-control shelyer, with the ‘Uttam’ fire-control radar coupled to an IRST sensor being mounted atop the shelter. And this same configuration can aloso be used in conjunction with laser-based DEW used for shooting down UAVs. Simple common-sensical solutions that have been staring at our faces for the past 5 years & don’t require much deep analysis.

With No-First Use Doctrine India’s Redlines In Nuclear Domain Are Very Clear:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x0145tro5U

Sikhs Leading Khalistani Movement Swear Undying Loyalty To Pakistan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2fjP7i6XiA

To VENKY & SUMIT SEN: Where was there any need to import additional carbines from another foreign OEM when the IA’s & Assam Rifles’ Ghaatak platoons have already been equipped with Switzerland-based Brügger & Thomet’s MP9 carbines?

To ASD: It takes a minimum of 3 years for Rafale pilots to achieve fully qualified status after they finish launching the entire range of weapons specified for the Rafale.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To RAD: LoLz! How can such gliding bombs be developed when their range-extension kit (REK) with sliding wings has not even been developed? Majority of the glide-bombs used worldwide have been used over areas with no air-defence systems & no combat aircraft to oppose them. On the other hand, when REK-equipped bombs were used in Jammu on 27-2-2019, they failed to cause any damage whatsoever simply because they were launched from contested airspace & the PAF pilots panicked & could not launch their glide-bombs in optimal conditions. Hence, the lesdson here is that such bombs cannot be effectively employed against sites/targets that have multi-layered air-defence networks & SAMs. To date, of all the gliding PGMs & turbojet-powered PGMs launched by the IDF-AF over Syria over the past 3 years, only 40% have managed to hit their targets, with the rest all being shot down by Syrian systems like the Pantsyr-S1. Hence, against the Pakistan such subsonic PGMs that always have to be launched from medium- to high-altitudes will work since neither the PAF nor the PA possess dense multi-tiered air-defence systems, but against China the effectiveness of such PGMs will be greatly diminished. Hence, the solution is to go for PGMs that are supersonic & employ multiple modes of guidance, like the RAMPAGE from IMI. The solution is rather simple, i.e. using existing MBRL rockets & rquipping them with mini-ramjets for supersonic flight. This can be done even with existing 214mm Pinaka MBRL rockets & this is exactly what I had suggested back in 2008, since such standoff supersonic PGMs will offer far greater chances of penetrating dense ground-based multi-tier air-defence networks.

The BrahMos-2 shown by BrahMos Aerospace to date is only a scale-model & not the full-scale model.

To AMIT BISWAS: The PLAGF is not that idiotic so as to launch a ground offensive against Ladakh with only two Divisions—one mechanised & one motorised. Winter-stocking for entire Ladakh UT will be completed by the end of this month.

To JUST_CURIOUS: Because the IA has still not finalised the composition of its Integrated Battle Groups for the plains & for high-altitude plateaux. And where was there any need to import additional carbines from another foreign OEM when the IA’s & Assam Rifles’ Ghaatak platoons have already been equipped with Switzerland-based Brügger & Thomet’s MP9 carbines? The Biho-type SPAAG is ineffective against subsonic PGMs. The Kestrel with RCWS is only for user-evaluations in an APC configuration. The ICV variant has the same turret as that of the BMP-2K.

Ganesh said...

Hello Prasun,
Solicit your thoughts on the following
1) It is now proven and is in the midst of Indian presstitutes also that Hans want to keep those real estate they have usurped and only interested in negotiations to push India back on our gains. Does it make sense for India to move forward in another contested albeit, unoccupied areas in Ladakh.
2) With only two divisions worth of Han fighting force with irregulars extra. In addition, the exhibition firing sessions North of Arunachal Pradesh, are there any movement of so-called fist forces (storm troopers) anywhere in Tibet or Turkestan along with their unified supply chain management forces. I believe, this will give clue to understand where their next occupation efforts are possible.
3) I am afraid of the narrative that Chinese are not ready to fight. This is the same mistake that Indian policy makers did since 1947. Will the internal Indian politics create any impediments for Indian fighting forces to proactively handle the developing situation in the border
4) Do you see any signs of so-called aggressive patrolling taking place by India to usurp and annex real estate in near future since it does not make sense for India to play nice old over-grown boy in world fora. All the investments made should be made good, otherwise keeping fighting forces at the border is futile
5) With so many pinpricks and precarious situation of Riasat-e-Madina (Pakistan), any momentum forward to create HUMINT and making use of them to the fullest extent to disrupt their subsistence. When they can create space for disruptive elements to disturb India, should it not be in our interest to make sure their strengths (in Western Punjab) is handicapped and utilize the fault lines existing or newly created to begin the disintegration
Thanks, Ganesh

Sangos said...

The deployment of the Brahmastra Corp is ominous.The huge logistics buildup exceeds defensive ops. Will there be offensive ops before November? The onset of winter provides strategic opportunities like moving in on H219!

Ujjwal said...

Prasunda,
1. Interesting analysis
https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/burst-ccps-balloon
Your view please.
2. As you have mentioned earlier that days of PRC as of current form is numbered.If I imagine a condition that after a few years CCP's rule have been collapsed and a democratic govt have been established in china. In that scenario, how much change would be possible in the policies of their new leadership regarding India ? I know that it would be premature to comment on this as politics is ever changing. But kindly give some idea.
3. If upcoming Spike ATGM from Israel is optimised for use in extreme cold of Ladakh?
4. Why IA has not ordered any K-10 ammo reloading vehicle? It wound be very effective in intense fighting scenario.
5. What options PLAGF may exercise to save their face after the debacle of 29-30 August night ?
6. Is PLA really considering for an exit plan ? What is the current tune inside CCP regarding the ongoing Ladakh incidents ?
Thanks, regards.

bhoutik said...

* what new features / capabilities / improvements is the US Gen-6 tech demo carrying / likely to carry?

* https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/how-pla-tortured-indian-citizen-arunachal-man-recounts-his-experience-1722112-2020-09-15

the treatment meted out to the Indian citizen above - has that been going on for a while or is it new? stark contrast to how we treat people coming from chinese controlled territories. this cannot be allowed why is there no noise from the GoI about this?

joydeep ghosh said...

@prasun da

1. Pak is likely to make GB a state, what are the implications?

2. can China open a new front with Bhutan?

3. you once narrated a incident of suicide attacker in kashmir (i think srinagar cant) who sprang up after hiding in bushes when the senior army officers came to inspect the aftermath of a terror attack, i think a brigedier or major gen rank officer was injured. which yr did it happen

thanks

Joydeep Ghosh
thank

Ayush said...

Sir, a non military question, but something with huge implications and that cannot be overlooked. What impact would a collapsing economy have on India's great Asian power aspirations? The LAC standoff amid crashing economy, migrant crisis, job loses and a raging pandemic has created a very big problem for the govt. Loss of political capital and electoral setback is not something that Modi can afford at a time like this. So when will the economic growth and job numbers hit the desired level? Already congress and the leftist communist media like the Wire and Hindu and others are working full time against the govt by spreading fake news - first by peddling Chinese line on Galwan, then fake news of loss of 1000 sq km of land, now latest is the loan from Asian infrastructure investment bank which they are spining as a borrowing from China. If the situation doesn't improve within a year or so, than we might have a soft on China leftist coalition govt in 2024 led by the clown prince.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To GANESH: As I had explained before, the PLAGF never came to annex any territory nor did it advance to fight. And that precisely explains why China for the past 2 months has been harping about India’s need to see the ‘big picture’, which in China’s definition means accepting the BRI & by implication the CPEC, and giving up all hopes of liberating PoK. This option was presented to India in Mamallapuram last October, but was rejected by India.

To SANGOS: LoLz! If you would have read the pages of historical factoids that I had scanned & uploaded in an earlier thread, you would have realised that back in 1962 too the IA was asking for 4 Brigades for the defence of Ladakh, but had eventually ended up with only 1 Brigade. Hence, the PLAGF then mustered a 10:1 superiority, i.e. for evey Company of 120 soldiers of the IA, the PLAGF deployed 1,200 troops. The same proportion prevails even tgoday & so if the PLAGF has mustered two Divisions along the LAC, then the IA being the defender during the winter months requires four Divisions for the defence of Ladakh & hence two Mountain Divisions each with each of the two Corps now in Ladakh.

To UJJWAL: 2) Just as the USSR broke up in 1991 into several independent states, when the PRC breaks up it too will be broken into several smaller countries. 3) Not at all, since only the IA requires such wqeapons for such high altitudes. Amd yet, the DRDO till to date has not fired a single NAG or HELINA missile anywhere inside Ladakh or even Sikkim. 4) Because of a stupid & idiotic attitude, known as ‘thrifty’. 5) No kinetic military options at all. 6) Of course. For it knows that neither its personnel nor its equipment can survive the harsh winters of Aksai Chin & ladakh.

To JOYDEEP GHOSH: 1) As I had explained before, the PLAGF never came to annex any territory nor did it advance to fight. And that precisely explains why China for the past 2 months has been harping about India’s need to see the ‘big picture’, which in China’s definition means accepting the BRI & by implication the CPEC, and giving up all hopes of liberating PoK, so that Pakistan gets to keep it while declaring GB as its 5th province. This option was presented to India in Mamalapuram last October, but was rejected by India. 2) Never. 3) That wasn’t me.


To AYUSH: Well, the simplest answer will be: one must then put one’s head between the legs & kiss the arse goodbye.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

Type 022 Hobei-class Catamaran of PLAN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sEDiOL_Mzc

Vi8deos of PLAGF Exercises north of AP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_XB_TUtdoo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU4dtv-82cE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrDeiT49DUQ

China’s Space Capabilities & Japan’s Responses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfYPC8P8zMo&feature=youtu.be

Unknown said...

Prasun-da,

You have written,

"As I had explained before, the PLAGF never came ......... rejected by India."

Just speculating about the issue. Is it a possible solution that China recognizes the claims of India (recognizing the map of J&K in 1947 Oct) and settles the boundary issue for once & all. In return, India accepts BRI partially and allows China to use the roads (G219, CPEC etc & others) for a toll fee for some period (30 yrs or so) ? Regarding the part in PoK, China can have a 'provisional arrangement' that if India regains it, China can use it for toll fee, that too for commercial purpose only ? BTW, in this arrangement, India will be allowed to use these roads & BRI network as well.

Such an arrangement can settle many things.


regards

Chakraborty

Ashish Gautam said...

Sir ap kitni bar bol chuke hai that plagf is not their for any offensive operation but still people keep on asking same thing with different ways,.. kya yr...
Vaise what will be our condition if china goes for full fledged war with us in all domains?? Then Pakistan joins it too... I mean worst case scenario... nuke launch will b approved?

The Sanatani Bhartiya said...

Prasun,
What does China now wish to achieve having now failed to achieve its objective of browbeating India to accept BRI?Is it possible for China now to withdraw from its occupied areas during winter without loosing face?

Ganesh said...

Hello Prasun,
Why do you think that Pakistan and India's lost territories of Gilgit, Baltistan and beyond is important for China to negate the gains of economic relations thus far, since they have a favorable surplus and scope for growth is more and bother only about CPEC. Something is amiss and does not add up. For India, it however makes sense to annihilate the new converts of our own friend turn foe and simultaneously concentrate on the real enemy, Pakistan and China respectively. There is sense of pessimism that India is loosing the plot as far as Pakistan is concerned.
If learned general Panag is correct that India did not cross the LAC and capture Black top and helmet top hills, he reeks hipocracy on India saying Aksai chin belongs to it and not crossing LAC
Your thoughts please, thanks Ganesh

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To UNKNOWN/CHAKRABORTY: You will have to read the 2 threads on CPEC that I had done years ago to understand what CPEC is really all about & why for China it is IMPERATIVE to have geographic contiguity with Pakistan. Consequently, the question of China agreeing to accept India’s sovereignty over PoK does not even arise.

To ASHISH GAUTAM: If the PLAGF weas indeed made up of tenacious fighters, then by now don’t you think it would have first invaded some of the outlying islands of Taiwan? In reality, the PLAGF is dead-shy of dismounted operations & prefers to stay mounted on armoured vehicles. You will also note from the videos I’ve weblinked above that the PLAGF does not even have full-mission flight simulators for any of its helicopters & the same goes for the PLAAF’s MRCAs. All they have are fixed-based cockpit procedures trainers, while for MBT crews, the PLAGF can’t even provide platoon gunnery training simulators. The PLAAF on the other hand does not possess even a single rangeless ACMI training system for both WVR & BVR air combat. The situation therefore is quite bad for the PLAAF & PLAGF in terms of training & battle proficiency & hence you can rest assured that the PLAGF & PLAAF won’t even dream about taking on India in full-contact kinetic operations. That is the hard reality on the ground.

I hereby challenge any internet fanboy to show me even a single slide or poster of full-flight simulators & platoon gunnery simulators in use by the PLAAF & PLAGF.

To THEINDIAN: If China fails to get India’s consent for the BRI & CPEC & yet decides to retreat for the winter, it will do so in such a way so as to be able to be back next year. Meanwhi8le, do watch this:

India’s ‘Subversive’ Activities Inside Gilgit-Baltistan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPqdtXZTg0Y

To GANESH: Because China was unrestricted geographic contiguity with Pakistan & the reasons for that were explained by be in 2 earlier threads dedicated to the CPEC. In addition, China has made a calculated move by factoring India’s economic dependence on China. And I must say that it was India that in a way handed away the funds reqd for implementing CPEC on a silver platter. Between 2004 & 2014 the trade surplus in favour of China cumulatively amounted to US$157 billion & between 2014 & now the per annum trade deficit in China’s favour has been more than US$50 billion. So, in a way India has been financing the entire CPEC as well as other BRI-related projects throughout the Indian Ocean Region—about which the mandarins of the Indian MEA’s China Study Group choose to remain mum!!!

3rd ~ EyE said...

Quiet a lot of media coverage on deployment / testing of WhAP icv /Kalyani Mil Vehicles/LUH etc during the stand off. Is this a media hype on normal routine testing or have we learned to make use of this situation to test/market our platforms ?

SUJOY MAJUMDAR said...

Prasun Da,

China has deployed Type-928D assault boats in Pangong lake. It is equipped with a 12.7mm machine gun (in RWS) & two 7.62mm MGs

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2020/09/china-strengthens-inland-navy-on-indian-border/

How should the Indian Army counter these assault boats?

Thanks

Ashish Gautam said...

Ok sir, tysm for answer.
Sir for financing CPEC I will but blame more on INC & coalition instead. Coz imo they are main responsible for this coz they were in govt at that time, n if am not wrong CSG etc work under govt instructions... But yes CSG is responsible for not telling (if so) present govt about all this.
Question:
1) even after so many violations of border why Taiwan doesn't engage/shootdown PLAAF aircraft whenever they cross border??
2) if PLAAF/PLAGF aircraft crosses LAC in n travels say 10 km Inside or more/less will India shoot it down or simply deploy planes n push them back?? If push back then why, why not shoot down??

Anonymous said...

IA is one of the few land forces that has a requirement of Hi Alt Plateau warfare, so cant we organize IA into heliborne division, Airborne or Paratrooper corps,Air mobile corps and Riverine and underwater forces that use alternate routes just like "War of Movements" in mountain as done by Gen Jake during 1971 campaign and rest consisting of wheeled divisions or lighter/ Stryker type divisions/IBGs and Heavy mechanized divisions/IBGs. IA Air corps should include customized BAe Hawk for Hi alt ground attack and large no.of killer drines of tactical/subtactical and long range types, Hi Alt Pseudo Satellites which can be used for ISTAR and beyond LOS communication being airborne for few weeks given battles will last 15 days max

Ujjwal said...

Prasunda,
1.You have earlier mentioned that fuel cells may be a good option as power pack at high altitude areas like Ladakh. Is there any initiative at now regarding this matter ? If a modified version of the NMRL developed and L&T built phosphoric acid fuel cell ( intended to be used as AIP for SSKs of IN) could be a viable solution ?
2. If IA uses any assault boat against assault boats of PLAGF in Pangong Lake? If yes, what type of boat is currently in use ?
3. As PLAGF is doing psychological game in eastern ladakh ( playing punjabi songs, propaganda lectures by loudspeakers etc.) Should IA exercise similar psychological game to demoralise PLAGF ? What type of contents would be useful?
4. What was the actual story behind recent ATAGS barrel burst ?
Thanks, Regards.

Ganesh said...

Hello Prasun, thanks for your continued comments and responses to my queries; it is fine not to be precise to the points on the queries. The point of view that China puts premium to physical continuity of land access with respect to trade and clout that it gets with India is a suspect. I understand Han exports to India is just two percent and it may not sound too much; however, it has pushed India to take steps to realize and take care of its interests in trade, military relationship, self-sustenance and promotion across the board; in short become pro-active. Why would Han people need a challenger in their midst when they have their hands full. Your thoughts here.
India, I believe has the golden opportunity to make good of the situation and make sure Gilgit , Baltistan and adjoining areas are ripe to be re-taken. This wil put the real pain in Han's economy, army since the investments made in Riasat-e-Madina will go kaput and Hans should look for alternative route through Afghanistan and or former Soviet republics.
Thanks, Ganesh

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To 3RD-EYE: The WhAP variant deployed to Ladakh for user-trials is the APC variant, not the ICV variant as the ‘desi patrakaars’ are claiming it to be. Now is the best time subject all these vehicles to fioeld trials under operational conditions since there’s no lack of manpower reqd for such trials there at the moment.

To SUJOY MAJUMDAR: here is the answer:

https://www.dockstavarvet.se/products/combat-and-patrol-boats/combat-boat-90-h/

I was on board some of them operated by the Royal Malaysian Navy several times since the early half of the previous decade. They were then used for counter-piracy missions in the waters between East Malaysia (Sabah coastline) & Mindanao in the southern Philippines.

To ASHISH GAUTAM: 1) LoLz! Because the PLAAF & PLAN aircraft NEVER cross into Taiwan’s airspace as is being claimed by the ignorant ‘desi patrakaars’. Instead, they only breach what is known as the ADIZ or Air-Defence identification Zone. Here is Taiwan’s ADIZ:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EiNYkonUYAAx10x?format=jpg&name=medium

2) If the PLAAF platforms intrude into India-controlled airspace along & above the LAC, then that will be considered an act of war & they will be engaged. Presently, both countries are adhering to the 1996 CBMs & platforms of both air forces are maintaining a distance of 10km away from the areas through which the LAC runs.

Meanwhile, as I had predicted, Mother Nature has begun showing her colours:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHeRYlihumE

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/altitude-begins-to-take-a-toll/story-uSlcDjGzhv6QetoEetlrwI.html

To UJJWAL: 1) Viable? Yes, but PROVIDED they are properly engineered solutions, which is not the case now & it will take years for such solutions to be perfected in India. Meanwhile, several such truck-mounted & backpack-mounted solutions are already available from North American & Scandinavian OEMs. 2) This is what is required:

https://www.dockstavarvet.se/products/combat-and-patrol-boats/combat-boat-90-h/

3) The IA too play pre-recorded messages aimed at psychologically dislodging the PLAGF units deployed there. 4) Nothing, as I had explained earlier. Such firings are always carried out to determine the barrel’s service-life.

To GANESH: Because the appreciation in Beijing is that India does not pose much of a challenge to China, thanks to the strategic restraint posture adopted by India since 1954. Secondly, the other appreciation is that the Indians like to go down fighting, instead of fighting in a manner that enables the Indian warrior to stay alive to fight for another day & emerge victorious. Take, for instance, the motto of the IA’s Para (SF), which is BALIDAAN (sacrifice or martyrdom). In all the emotional din generated within India, what always gets overlooked is that the military is a profession. Death does not bring glory, but only winning does. We ought to want every man and machine to perform well, our military to stay strong and fight with pride and enjoy the glory.

The Sanatani Bhartiya said...

Prasun,
All the media din aside the amount of damage that Jaishankar party has done to the country is incalculable!The armed forces are being starved of vital prerequisites for war on the premise of development and the funds saved are being wasted on cheap populist gimmicks based on whatever the earlier government was doing!Has Modi lost control or is it that our reading of him has been wrong throughout?Instead of dealing with the vital issues of rejuvenating the economy there is such a song and dance of totally useless political gimmicks!Prasun do you really think that this government can pull the country out of the economic talespin that COVID19 has brought it into?

Millard Keyes said...

I reckon Indians should start broadcasting the evils of communism, freedom of democracy and India can provide a passage for PLA robots to start their freedom by deserting PLA and being welcome in India to apply for refuge in the West or anywhere they are safe.
Why doesn't IA's Para change their motto to Pratidaan - rendering instead? Why assume if they are part of the Para they will be killed? They MIGHT be - which is the risk one takes in the military but why assume the only reward is death?

just_curious said...

Prasun,

1- https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/agustawestland-case-cbi-files-supplementary-chargesheet-names-christian-michel-2297884?pfrom=home-topstories ------- anything expected to come out of this? I think you had mentioned in your prev threads that this was more of a wild goose chase by the govt.. has anything changed? or is it a diversion trick?
2-Your reply to ganesh shows how poor have the MoD & the associated depts been in assessing security issues.. seems like they have been acting like the proverbial ostriches burying their heads in sand hoping that the problem goes away. Since GB is under paki control & that CPEC is being built, why the need to get India to agree? is any action in GB immenient now?
3- IN chief insisting on a 3rd aircraft carrier? reasonable?
4- Madivies signing pact with the US and eurasiantimes reporting that they will have to relenquish an island to china to pay their debts.. whats happening here
5- Oli still around in nepal and needling us.. where is this headed to

Millard Keyes said...

is this the same upgrade as Super Sukhoi? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jiKBgVc3NU

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

Yet another video proving that the PLAAF does not possess full-mission flight simulators:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3_uYz83Ark

Nimmu-Padam-Darcha & DSDBO Roads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jo3IL8yobI

This video shows the kind of unattended surveillance sensors that the PLA-BDR had installed atop HELMET TOP & which were dismantled on August 30 by the Indian Army:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ_F-f2PNDw

Excellent documentary, aired yesterday, on China's 3 possible Taiwan invasion scenarios & Taiwan's counter-invasion strategy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkuNWDG3yNM

Harsh said...

Sir, pardon my ignorance.

isn't the A-330 a too huge platform for mounting AWACS?

I studied details of other platforms on which the current AWACS like E3 & phalcon are based. A-330 is 20-40% bigger in size in their comparison.

asd said...

Dear Prasun,

Thank you for sharing a great documentary on China's 3 possible invasion on Taiwan. So conclusion is that China has an upper hand now against Taiwan. Then why isn't it taking back Taiwan by force like Russia did with Crimea. It was a golden time and opportunity for China to do it. In the future too it would cite Russian invasion regarding the same to shut up the international community. What's your take in this?

joydeep ghosh said...

@Prasun da

1. I told you Praveen Sawheney is singing Chinese tune, now says India should remove CDS and other snr officers, shut down CT ops and prepare for real war as this war is already lost?2.

2. Has India lost 1000 sq kms in Depsang

3. Is Indian Army unable to move from DSDBO tri junction towards Raki nala and bottle neck

4. Pak stops envoy Khobragade, is he related lady with same name who was accused in USA of slavery

5. Is it true Indian army unable to patrol pp 100 to 14

thanks

Joydeep Ghosh

Psr said...

Sir
1. if china is neither capable nor interested in war/doesnt lok like a even a low intensity (considering how PLA soldiers are being carried on strecthers) at such time. Then why is govt wasting so much resources, why deploy so much force,dont u think going by half of it is enough to deter the PLA. Save money and better invest in permanent infrastructure for the next season.

Secondly now if we have such a set up now, is it possible from the location our forces are deployed to capture Haji Pir or any area of Glgit Balistan or we need an entirely different setup or can any improvisation make that possible.

3. may be NSA to PM have some other plans, this can be just a diversion tactic to not ring the bell at gilgit baltistan border and take advantage. this might be like how part of 370 removal came as a surprise.

4. Like the internet was developed by DARPA , Dark Net sponsored mostly by US navy ,IIBR of Israel , AMS china etc military forces have theire Research units ,under control of Army navy whatever. Do we have anything like that.
Is our Army up for Biological/Chemical Weapons/or capable of developing some secret weapons. Any secret wing they have, any contribution they have made in such rsearches till date.
Anything they been working for military communications/ secret 6G.

DRDO doesnt match, its headed by a Scientist. Military doesnt have control over that. Purely dependent on budget allocations from Central govt


5. Extraordinary Until Proven Otherwise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpeSpA3e56A

any comments on this

Ganesh said...

Hello Prasun,
Thanks a ton for providing a platform for sharing my thoughts; thank you for responding to my messages too. Continuing my comments on the current situation and requesting your comments, based on the mainstream presstitutes talking impending elections in Gilgit, Baltistan and the issues with making that region as fifth province of Riasat-e-Madina. For a smart leadership, the current dispensation should add fuel to the fire there making sure the environment is conducive for mounting military operations. Your thoughts here
The current dispensation saying Aksai chin is part of India and still talking about LAC and telling the parliament that Black top and Helmet top is beyond India's perception of LAC is shameful and fooling the gullible people.
I believe, the current generation of Indians (including in armed forces) are not foolish and fall for the stupidity of martyrdom for others. The political class may fool the people to become cannon fodder for their self-goals; they are ready to fight, win and enjoy the fruits of victory.
Yesterday I was reading after watching the movie on Genghis Khan, his modus operandi, their way of fighting wars and making sure there is no future resistance is commendable and will take the current generation to do the job. Thanks, Ganesh

Mohan said...

prasun sir,
is there a good time next month or so to mount attact to reoccupation of poj&k? as it will be a best punishment for china for its deeds.
as pok resident are also fedup with pak army and terrorist recruitment camps. and opposition parties in Pakistan like Nawaz sharif today clearly against pak administration(military)

Ashish Gautam said...

ok sir, thanks u for the clarification. As u told that weather will prove to be most difficult challenge especially for PLA in this situation as they are't trained & accilimitized to stay on such high altitude regions. I hope that in tomorrow's corps commander level talks they will put forward some plan for descalation but again IA won't trust their words coz PLA words n action have been always different. Rest lets see what happens.
1) is it true that in 2005 PLA took our 972 sqkm of land??
2) how much has been now reclaimed by us? will we now keep it or leave it like Shastri ji left occupied territory??
3) IF India ever decides to take back whole aksai chin region, what time will it take? and at what cost?
4) same as Que 3 but for liberation of Tibet? ever possible? are we capable of it? or will we be?
5) can we expect PM MODI to recognise Taiwan as an independent country in his UNGA address?? open denouncement of one china policy? same for TAR too??
6) after covid gets over what will be new world order??
7) is it not possible to throw out china of P5 & replace it with India? or simply throwing out china from P5 and including india, japan, germany n brazil making it P8??
8) predictions being made that China may break like USSR by 2025.. TAR, HK, other regions will become independent countries... what u say about it??

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To HARSH: Yes, it is far too big. While elsewhere the operators are opting for smaller platforms like Gulfstream G-550 & B.737, the DRDO’s technocrats, it seems, are claiming that they know better than everyone else in the world & that’s why the DRDO wants to offer the IAF which no one else has dared to offer, i.e. a platform capable of performing airborne battle management taskings, as well as act as an mid-air refueller & MRTT!!!

To ASD: China does not have thje upper hand as of now, but is expected to have the upper hand in the following decade, as that documentary has explained.

To JOYDEEP GHOSH: 1) You are wasting your & everyone else’s time by focussing on unproductive matters. Who you should be holding accountable are those personalities who make tall claims about setting up a unified air-defence command, but are unable to explain what this entails by way of having a hardened, secure command-n-control centre, which takes decades to build & mature. 2,3 & 5) This explains it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g231KTlmCw&t=36s

China’s creeping move westwards began way back in 1956 without any histyorical document or treaty to back up its territorial claims. And yet India with all the reqd documentation & historical treaties at her disposal refrained from telling Beijing to back off until it was too late. The figure of 1,000 sq km refers to this cumulative figure since 1965 when China began the practice of denying Ladakhi nomads access to their traditional grazing grounds during summertime & hence the figure of 1,000 sq km did not spring up after 2013.

To PSR: 1) A lot of the money now being spent is exactly for that, i.e. creating additional capacity & infrastructure. Presently, only 2 IA Divisions are in-theatre inside Ladakh, but a 4th may be inducted if the IA wants to counter-occupy badditional territory along the Kailash Range. 2 & 3) Capturing territory to the west is now possible only in the Haji Pir area & not in Baltistan, due to the reserve formations being kep on hold for use in the Ladakh sector. Had the IA’s Southern Command’s been allocated to the Commands located to the north, only then would it have been possible to capture additional chunks of territory in northern PoK. 5) Already proven by this documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl_F0XIpacM&t=47s

To GANESH: The following thread provides most of the answers that you seek.

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To MOHAN: Presently, only 2 IA Divisions are in-theatre inside Ladakh, but a 4th may be inducted if the IA wants to counter-occupy badditional territory along the Kailash Range. 2 & 3) Capturing territory to the west is now possible only in the Haji Pir area & not in Baltistan, due to the reserve formations being kep on hold for use in the Ladakh sector. Had the IA’s Southern Command’s been allocated to the Commands located to the north, only then would it have been possible to capture additional chunks of territory in northern PoK.

To ASHISH GAUTAM: 1) This explains it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g231KTlmCw&t=36s

China’s creeping move westwards began way back in 1956 without any histyorical document or treaty to back up its territorial claims. And yet India with all the reqd documentation & historical treaties at her disposal refrained from telling Beijing to back off until it was too late. The figure of 1,000 sq km refers to this cumulative figure since 1965 when China began the practice of denying Ladakhi nomads access to their traditional grazing grounds during summertime & hence the figure of 1,000 sq km did not spring up after 2013. 2) That remains to be seen. 3) No need for that at all. Far better to capture territory south of the Kailash range since such areas are more productive & are easier to defend & hold on to. Do go through this:

https://www.gunnersshot.com/2020/09/sino-indian-logjam-facts-risks-options.html

4) Highly unlikely, unless a countrywide civil disobedience & instability engulfs the whole of China. For an insight into what India’s policy options are on this issue, do watch these:

Shivshankar Menon on India-China Relations & Tibet Issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx0Yj8mKdk8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYbbOeGqqeA

5) Of course not. Not one of India’s existing ‘netas’ have that kind of beyond-the-horizon thought processes. 6) Don’t know about that, but hopefully India’s citizens will have better awareness about hygiene-related issue & will stop spitting & shitting & pissing in public areas! 7) Possible, but only with the concurrence of the 4 other permanent members of the UNSC. 8) Very much possible & I will not rule that out. And do watch these:

Indian Artillery Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAB26xAAgw0

PLA ORBAT along LAC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvAFOPp0I9Q

Bactrian Camels for IA: ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xor2jxkMWZo

Prasun K. Sengupta said...

To JUST_CURIOUS: Nepal-India Broad-Gauge Railway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jvz1e-xHvA

Mohan said...

"expected to have the upper hand in the following decade"- huh I thought PRC was supposed to be fragmented by then and the CCP a toothless tiger? This means all those wishing the break up of China are just daydreaming?

just_curious said...

Prasun,

1- 14 hrs of wasted time for nothing, why is India even agreeing to giving vague joint stmts,n even those are not adhered to by the chinese? is the standoff economically starting to hurt us? is it the chinese gameplan to drag it as long as possible till it begins to hurt us economically & thus get their way?
2- serious issues across the neighbourhood ..
http://idrw.org/nepal-claims-indian-cities-dehradun-nainital-under-its-greater-nepal-campaign-reports/.. this Oli guy has gone mental :). while we make attempts to helps them. what is being played out is that guy prachanda of any relevance now.. he seems to have been crushed/muzzled by the chinese
Sri Lanka staring at Constitutional dictatorship --https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsUIMLuYkQ
given the eternal delusional pakis & the unreliable bangladeshis & myamnarese .. suddenly we have problems across all our borders
3- All opposition party meet in pak with nawaz sharief openly pointing@army & their attempt @bringing down the IAK govt, a report in timesofindia says that the pak army-ISI combine meet with the opposition before their meet.. is this a staged drama by the army to make way for a takeover/coup now that its proved that IAK experiment by the pak army has failed
4- Erdogan needling India again @the 75th UNGA assemblyn all we do is reject n condemn. why dont we force the nato to take action action? or ask EU to do the needful? or we respond in a language he understands say like inviting gulen or openly speaking of armeian genocide or isis crisis in syria or kurd issue in syria & turkey
5- NSCN IM acting funny on naga accord? guess propped by the chinese & yet we are not openly siding with the taiwanese..
6 Since you mentioned that making any moves in GB is not possible given the ladakh stanoff.. what happens if the pakis do make it their 5th province? my take is the chinese planned this stanoff to precisely thwart off GB capture attempt


if one steps back & sees the larger picture ..china seems to be the master puppetter here trying to corner India from all sides. it will be no surprise if Iran starts ranting too sooner or later