Maverick's World

"Taking POK" - a discussion of some technical aspects - III

As I said at the end of the last post, I will restrict this part of the discussion to a high level and avoid getting drawn into discussions on OrBats or exact positions of various POL dumps in the region. And again to reiterate I do not think this kind of operation is a good idea as India-Pakistan relations go or as global stability goes.

A sustainable operation is one where the operator is able to bring enough POL to last the duration of the operation and a significant time beyond. This is the hardest part of the entire "Taking POK" idea - Pakistani Kashmir has no native oil reserves or refineries. Every drop of POL used in this conflict will have to be brought from reserves or refineries a thousand miles away. This is not an unusual aspect as modern warfare goes - the sinews of war have to be strong otherwise the war-fighting muscles will not flex properly.

Generally speaking - the amount of fuel use scales with number of troops committed, the number of armored vehicles (AFV, Tanks, APC etc...) and the number of artillery pieces committed.  For each of those things, apart from whatever POL is required for the actual maneuver - repair/resupply operations (machines need spares and munitions to remain viable, and the human beings need food) also need POL.

When planning such an operation, one has to consider how to correctly forecast the POL usage scenarios down to each unit in the expeditionary force. Prediction relies on having good models of what will happen under combat conditions. As India has indulged in numerous feuds with Pakistan in these mountains, there are good models for this kind of thing in India. I am reasonably confident that the Indian Army with its extensive experience in operating the logistics in the Saltoro War and in the Kargil War is capable of building a workable forecast for POL use at least for the period of the operation.

As long as there are good prediction models, it should be possible to stockpile the right amounts of men and materiel on India's side of Kashmir.  There are stable rail links in the Valley right from Banihal to Baramulla. The railway line from Katra to Banihal is still under construction but there are multiple roads that can be used go around this bottleneck and is a working railway line from Katra to Jammu.

It is plausible the PAF could disrupt the Indian supply lines. It has the necessary capabilities, but what it lacks is real numbers needed to dominate the airspace for extended periods of time. Similarly Pakistani backed Kashmiri insurgents could disrupt the lines of communication inside Indian Kashmir but these would at best be temporary disruptions and the Indian Army could bypass these disruptions with its vast reserves inside Kashmir. This kind of thing was also at play during Soviet operations in Afghanistan. The Soviet Army devised an ingenious solution to the mobility issue. It created special units that would quickly seize heights overlooking the main supply routes just before a maneuver or movement. The result was a rapid suppression of opposing activity and pin point strikes against any mujaheddin who were in parked there. These tactics were used to some extent by the US also after 2001. It is possible to counteract such interference.

The picture of the logistics as one goes deep into Pakistani Kashmir becomes cloudy. The Indian Army model for the logistics is likely to have more assumptions built into it as it has little direct knowledge of the transportation inside Pakistani Kashmir and the Pakistani holding formations will mount significant resistance to the advance of Indian forces.

The picture of logistics presented above will also be very cloudy for the "morning after" i.e. if the Indian operation in POK does succeed, they will then be holding a large chunk of Pakistani Kashmir and India will be on the hook for providing government services and relief to the local population and any prisoners of war they have. I feel the forecasts for POL use after the maneuver period of the operation will be quite useless and fresh models will be needed.

This all looks quite good - until one realizes that merely having a forecast and actually getting POL to the forward edge of operations are two entirely separate things. As one gets to the forward edge, one runs into a last mile issue. For example consider what happens to a column on one of these mountain roads. Say the lead vehicle has to be supplied with fuel. One has to mount a bucket brigade of jerrycans from the tanker to the lead vehicle. That takes time. The time required rises substantially if the column is also taking fire.

So all in - I feel there are some open questions whether the supply chain of the Indian Army will be up to the immense task of a rapid maneuver in these constricted mountain spaces of Pakistani Kashmir. The Indian Army has had some experience in Kargil and Saltoro conflicts but in both those cases the operational supply lines passed through Indian Kashmir and not Pakistani Kashmir, the tempo of operations was low, and mechanized forces were not involved - so it is not clear how much by way of learning can be transferred from there.

I feel the problem of the "morning after" is quite serious and has to be dealt with in a separate framework or India will end up in the same place as the US in Iraq 2004 - rapidly seizing control of the land but facing an uphill or impossible task of governing the space.

In the next post, I will speak to the issue of likely Pakistani responses and how those might be different from what most might naively expect in this context.

posted by maverick @ 12:33 PM