ANALYSIS OF TOTAL FAILURE OF PAKISTANI GHQ AND PAKISTANS FIRST ARMOURED DIVISION IN THE BATTLE OF RAVI SUTLEJ CORRIDOR

Analysis



Level of strategic success


On the strategic level the Indians failed in their prime aim i.e in compellingPakistan to “retain large portion of her reserves in that Sector” i.eRavi-Sutlej Corridor. The Pakistani 1st Armored Division successfullydisengaged from Khem Karan and was redeployed opposite Chawinda. The Pakistanisthus defended Lahore successfully with existing formations except 5 ArmoredBrigade whose one tank regiment (4 Cavalry) was completely lost, having beencaptured by Indians while two (6 Lancers and 24 Cavalry) suffered seriouslosses.

Thus at ceasefire in strategic terms the Pakistani position oppositeChawinda was far superior. It is another thing that Ayub and Musa lackedstrategic resolution to launch Operation Wind Up which had the potential ofbagging two Indian Infantry divisions in Chawinda area.Element of SurpriseBoth the sides started with the element of surprise, the Indians having achievedsurprise opposite Lahore and Pakistan having achieved complete strategicsurprise opposite Khem Karan. Ironically the Intelligence agencies of both sideswere a complete negation of the “Two Nation Theory” in terms of comparativelevels of ‘grey matter’, keeping in view the fact that both miserably failed todetect the location of each other’s armored division till the last minute!


Employment of Armor


The conduct of 5 Armored Brigade on 7th, 8th and 9th September was the mostcrucial aspect of the battle. Commander 5 Armored Brigade totally failed in hisjob. His initial orders divided his brigade into three directions, with 6Lancers going towards the right and 24 Cavalry going in the centre and left. Hadhe kept his two tank regiments concentrated in any one direction with a squadronon the main Khem Karan-Bhikiwind axis the Pakistanis would have outflanked the4th Mountain Division on the 8th September. This would have enabled GOC 1stArmored Division to pump in the 4th Armored Brigade to reinforce the successof the 5th Armored Brigade with the 4th Armored Brigade while still retaining3rd Armored Brigade for the final push to the Beas River Bridge.


By 9thSeptember the Indians were well poised to defeat any outflanking move and the“critical time span” i.e had run out for the Pakistanis.In every battle, campaign and a war there are/is one or more period/s when oneside is greatly exposed to the risk of being decisively defeated, due tomaterial factors or psychological factors like perception of the opposingcommander that his cause is doomed, with the other side being possibly aware ofit or not.54

Superior decision making means the ability or talent to identifythe critical time span and seize it relentlessly! Brigadier Basheer failed in iton 7th, 8th and 9th September! Alas, the truth in Schillers saying “what is lostin a moment is lost for eternity”. The current of history now started moving inthe reverse direction and Pakistan Army paid a very heavy price for the failureat Khem Karan six years later in 1971!


Chances of Strategic Success


At the strategic level the plan was excellent. It was in planning and atoperational level that it failed. Even Indian military writers like K.C Pravaladmitted that the plan was “well conceived”...”that the advance throughout wouldbe along the grain of the country and no water obstacles would have to becrossed”...and that “Pakistani armor had the capability for the thrust but theplan failed due to inept execution”.55

Harbaksh Singh admitted that “it was asimple but foolproof plan” and that “only the 4 Mountain Division stood in itsway”. Gurcharan Singh Sandhu the tank corps historian also admitted that “Theloss of any bridge over the Beas was expected to pose such a serious threat toDelhi that the rest of the Indian Army would be forced to contain it rather thanmake an attempt to rescue the stranded XI Corps”.56


In Clausewitzian terms the strategic plan decides “when, where and with whatforces” the battle is to be delivered.57 Again in the light of Clausewitz’steachings, one of the principal objects of strategy is “always to be strong,first generally and then at the decisive point”.58


In this regard, strategyplaced at Naseer’s disposal an initial superiority at the decisive point ofabout 7 to 1 but he failed to translate it into success because he and his 5Armored Brigade Commander were incompetent and the men who handpicked thembased on personal likes were worse!

After all Naseer was Musa’s handpickedchoice. The fault was not that he was a non-armor officer as Gul Hassanfallaciously alleges but simply that Naseer was incompetent! After all, Ibrarwho did far better was also an infantry man. Rommel was an infantry man.Macarthur, Lee and Meade were from Corps of Engineers!The greatness of the German General Staff as this scribe stated in an articlewritten in 1994 was not that it produced a Manstein but that it discovered aManstein and allowed a Manstein to reach the highest ranks!59


It was here thatthe Indo-Pak Armies failed. They are simply a conspiracy against originality andboldness!


If successful the 1st Armored Division attack had great chances ofsuccess. Indian GOC Western Command Harbaksh Singh frankly admitted that “ABlitzkrieg deep into our territory towards the GT Road or the Beas Bridge wouldhave found us in a helpless position of a commander paralysed into inaction forwant of readily available reserves while the enemy was inexorably pushing deepinto his vitals.It is a nightmarish feeling even when considered into retrospectat this stage.” 60


The BRB as the key to the battle

It may sound unheroic and unromantic but the BRBL proved the English Channelthat saved Pakistan’s strategic position in the crucial Ravi-Sutlej Corridor.This man made obstacle severely restricted the Indian freedom of manoeuvre andnullified their relative superiority in infantry. The canal acted as the anvilvis-a-vis Pakistani artillery fire, tank fire and infantry small arms fire whichplayed the role of hammer which crushed the Indians inflicting heavy casualtieson them.

Without BRB there is no doubt that nothing could have stopped theindians from entering Lahore on 6th September. Similarly, without BRB the 1stArmored Division could not have as easily disengaged from the Khem Karan battleas it did. Conversely, the BRB also slowed down the induction of the 1stArmored Division into the bridgehead but this was less because of the BRB andmore due to incompetence in Pakistani planners at GHQ (DMO), corps anddivisional level.

Musa admitted BRBL’s role, once he stated that Pakistani plan was based onmaking use of the BRB canal which to a great extent compensated for disparity inresources and enabled Pakistani formations in the Ravi-Sutlej Corridor to deployon “very extended frontages”. 61


Indecision,Vaccillation and Procrastination in the Pakistani GHQ


The Pakistani GHQ particularly the Military Operations Directorate acted ascatalysts towards increased confusion. Their contradictory orders to a certainextent retarded the pace of advance of the 1st Armored Division. Twice the GHQgave orders which created great doubt and confusion in the 1st ArmoredDivision.

See the case of 3rd Armored Brigade. On 6th September it was told to concentrate east of Zafarke by first light 7th September. The brigade carried out the move successfully by 0600 Hours 7th September. The same day at 1400Hours it was told to move to Lahore and at 1500 hours on the same day theseorders were cancelled!62

Imagine the state of mind of the brigade commander andhis commanding officers. On the second occasion, the 4 Armored Brigade wasordered by the DMO to move to Daska
in Ravi-Chenab Corridor at 1300 Hours 7thSeptember. While the brigade was brparing for the move it was cancelled thesame day at 1600 Hours.

Naturally, GOC 1st Armored Division Naseer could nothave ordered these moves on his own. There were men higher up in the chain ofcommand who were not clear about many things connected with operational strategy and generalship! 63


Lack of initiative at battalion, brigade and divisional level


There was a marked lack of initiative at the battalion, brigade and divisionallevel. Lieutenant Colonel Ihsan ul Haq Malik who later rose to the rank of majorgeneral and participated in the Khem Karan operations as the CO of theindomitable 15 SP (it was a privilege for this scribe to have served in the“Romeo Battery” of this fine unit after a disciplinary problem in 11 Cavalryfrom 9th August 1984 till 10th October 1984) states that “senior officers wereconspicuously absent from the frontline in war. I saw a command post of one ofthem in the rear areas. The bunker was a massive job.Only a direct hit by a 5KT would disturb it!”64

Barring exceptions like Qayyum Sher who as earlier discussed led from the front.GOC 1st Armored Division and Commander 5 Armored Brigade brferred stayingmany miles away from the line of action!

Brigadier Shami the Artillery Commanderwas killed simply because in confusion of battle he was disoriented andtravelled too forward under the assumption that he was in territory held by owntroops.

On the decisive 8th of September when the 1st Armored Division couldhave achieved a breakthrough no officer of colonel level except Sahibzad Gulwas anywhere within 1000 yards of action!

In a personal conversation with thisscribe Brigadier (then captain Asmat Beg Humayun) then GSO-3 of the 5 ArmoredBrigade stated that Brigadier Bashir had pitched his headquarter in a rest housemany miles behind the actual scene of action.


Triumph of defence over offence


All battles were triumph of defence over offence. The attacker was stoppedwhether it was the Indian opposite BRB or the Pakistani opposite Assal Uttar orValtoha. If one Pakistani tank unit stopped the Indian Armored Divisionopposite Gadgor, one Indian tank unit and later one brigade stopped thePakistani Armored Division at Assal Uttar.

If there was a Harbaksh Singh atAssal Uttar prodding 4 Mountain Division to hold on there was an Abrar atChawinda reviving the spirits of the 6 Armored Division.

There were historicreasons for triumph of defence.The br-1947 Indian Army was primarily used bythe Britisher as a shield rather than a spear.

While Indian Infantry dug in,the main manoeuvres in North Africa were performed by the purely Britisharmored divisions.

Burma was a different case altogether since in Burma theIndian tank brigades overwhelmed the Japanese with a ratio of 100 to 10 inqualitative and quantitative terms.

Offensive action required initiative,independent judgement, swiftness in decision making, all of whichwere sadly missing in both the armies beyond tank troop level.

Men like Sahibzad Gul or Tarapur were solitary exceptions and that is why once they were killed inaction there was no one who could replace them.

Excellence in decision-makinghad not been institutionalised in both the armies and I dare say this is thestate till to date. A convincing proof being the latest Kargil affair!



Role of Artillery


Artillery played a decisive role in breaking many Indian attacks opposite Lahoreand Kasur, however, it lost its effectiveness when Pakistani armor wasdistributed in too wide an area on the 8th of September.

In the case of 1st Armored Division offensive its role was severely mauled due to overemphasis onsecrecy. Ehsan then an artillery CO thus noted “In peace we had not even seenthe maps of this area.Nobody had ever thought that we could be committed in thisarea for an ofensive task”.65 Ehsan further noted that such was the confusionthat “another artillery unit in our formation moved by rail. Understandably, it never got to the required place in time”.


Artillery was even ignored in award ofgallantry awards. Thus while infantry officers particularly belonging to Ayub’s Punjab Regiment Group got the Lion’s share of gallantry awards artillery andarmor were the underdogs in receipt of gallantry awards. Thus Shaukat Rizacaustically albeit realistically noted “Three of our observers were killed whilebringing fire on the enemy. One captain stood up in his post to engage enemytanks with better effect. He was killed with a bullet in his right eye. Afterceasefire we recommended them for gallantry awards. None of them got anything.”66


Organisational failures


One of the most serious failures which laid the foundation of Pakistani 1stArmored Division’s failure was failure to have a higher command organisation tocontrol and coordinate the operations of the Pakistani infantry and armoreddivisions. On the Indian side on the other hand the situation was to a greatextent since all Indian divisions in the corridor were controlled by a corpsheadquarters. The responsibility for this failure can be laid squarely on theshoulders of Ayub and Musa and to some extent on the then CGS and DMO.

Staff and Planning Failures

Ironically while all the blame for failure was heaped on the shoulders of GOC1st Armored Division and Commander 5 Armored Brigade, the underlying and somemore serious failures were ignored. Starting from the top, the prime culprit inthe planning was the Military Operations Directorate. Planning for attacks whichdecides the fate of a war at the strategic level cannot be relegated todivisional headquarters.

The Khem Karan Offensive plan was brpared many yearsbefore the war started. Obstacles like Rohi Nala and the Nikasu Nala werebr-partition obstacles, the Nikasu Nala being so prominent that it was evenprominently marked on the maps of the Radclife Award Boundary Commission maps.

The fault lay not in the fact that the 1st Armored Division was launched in badterrain but in the fact that adequate brparations in planning were not made toensure that ground friction was reduced. Compare this with another similar operation i.e the Inchon landing.

The terrain and amphibious factors at Inchon were formidable. MacArthur’s own Chief of Staff Major General Almond described Inchon as the worst possible place to land!67 The reader may note that the waterchannel from where the amphibious force of MacArthur had to approach could beconveniently mined or simply blocked by a sunken or disabled vehicle.

Thus, atInchon terrain did not favour a landing but the advantage of strategic surprisewere far greater than terrain odds.The important fact which differentiated Inchon and Khem Karan was that the planners at Inchon took terrain as well as movement factors into account, thereby reducing terrain friction and the time and space required to concentrate while at Khem Karan the Pakistani plannersstarting from the Military Operations Directorate,1 Corps Headquarter, 1stArmored Division Headquarter down till brigade headquarters of the 1st ArmoredDivision did not plan meticulously for the move into bridgehead and for gettingout of the gap between Rohi Nala and Nikasu Nala as soon as they could.

The governing element in this whole situation was getting out of the Nikasu-Rohibottleneck so as to gain complete freedom of manoeuvre where Pakistanisuperiority of nine to three in tank regiments could be fully exploited.


If BRB saved the Pakistani position in this corridor then the Rohi Nala and the NikasuNala to a great extent saved the Indian position. Nothing in the instructionspassed to 1st Armored Division indicated that the Pakistani GHQ was even awareof closeness of two obstacles within Pakistani territory i.e the Rohi Nala andthe BRB which could and did produce traffic jams which severely delayed theinduction of the 1st Armored Division into the bridgehead and enabled theIndians to bring their independent armored brigade into the battle area beforethe Pakistani 1st Armored Division had crossed the crucial Rohi-Nikasu Corridorwhich was a serious operational bottleneck.


It was not Nasir or Bashir whofailed but the whole staff system inherited from the British. Nasir and Bashirwere just tips of the iceberg!

The British staff college at Cambrai in words ofMontgommery’s biographer Nigel Hamilton was an institution broccupied with“hunting and socialising”! 68

A British officer who rose to considerable heightin the British Army in WW Two “ frankly ascribed his selection for staff duty tohaving played golf regularly with a senior commander”!69

It was a failure of command as well as staff system where even the staffofficers on both sides were too slow for armored warfare and worked on yardsand furlongs rather than miles. Their orientation was position oriented ratherthan mobility oriented and their idea of a battlefield was a typical linearbattlefield.

Their Burma or North African experience where the Japanese andGermans frequently appeared in their rear had made them extra sensitive abouttheir flanks.

These were men who thought in terms of security rather than speed.Conformity rather than unorthodox dynamism, having been trained in the slavishcolonial orders oriented. British Indian Army was the cardinal script of theirlife.

It was this British system in which every senior commander was moreinterested in doing the job of those one step junior to him that led to the lackof dash and initiative at brigade and battalion level. They were trained thatway and their behaviour as far as the timidity at brigade and divisional levelhas to be taken in this context.


Analysis of Casualties

Contrary to popular imagination created by the propaganda that Chawinda was thegreatest battle since WW II it was in the Ravi-Sutlej Corridor that the Indianssuffered the maximum casualties.

Thus, while the 1 Indian Corps which fought theBattle of Chawinda suffered a total of 575 killed casualties, the Indian 15Division opposite Lahore alone suffered some 486 killed casualties.70 Thus ifthe casualties of all three Indian divisions and the independent brigade in 11Corps area are combined, these far exceed those suffered by the 1 Corps whichfought the Battle of Chawinda.


Influence of Higher Headquarters on lower headquarters


In the case of Indian 4 Mountain Division the GOC 4 Mountain Division lost thewill to carry on as proved by Harbaksh’s narrative. In this case the situationwas restored by Harbaksh’s personal visit and exhortations to carry on. In thefinal analysis 4 Mountain Division gradually regained its spirit and functionedeffectively in the defensive role.


Comparative Differences in the two armies and total failure of the MARTIAL RACES THEORY


Many ridiculous myths were propagated in Pakistan about differences in the twoarmies. Racially by and large both the armies were of the same stock. ThePakistan Army bulk of which some 65% to 75% being Punjabis who were converted toIslam in the period 1000-1600 or Pathans or Ranghars who were of Hindu Rajputorigin. On the other hand the bulk of the Indian Army was Punjabi or NorthIndian again with Sikhs who were converted to Sikhism in the period from1500-1800.

The remaining larger portion of the Indian Army was Dogra (PunjabiHindu Rajput), Punjabi Hindu Jat, and some Madrasis, Kumaonis and Gurkhas.Racially by and large the armies were alike. Where a unit did not do well had adeeper connection with poor leadership at battalion, brigade or divisionallevel.

Units panicked on both sides, artillery fire had the same effect on bothsides and if one side had better guns it definitely gave it an advantage. Thus,there was no major differences in both the armies at soldier to soldier level.This fact was noted by some officers soon after 1965 but the majority werevictims of the psychosis of Islamic Martial Military superiority thatoverwhelmed the West Pakistani psyche during the period 1966-1971!

Brigadier A.RSiddiqi in his book on the Pakistan Army’s brss image thus narrated a thought-provoking incident soon after the war. Siddiqi met Brigadier Qayyum Sherwho as just discussed had distinguished himself as an infantry brigade commanderin the battle opposite Lahore. Qayyum Sher was unhappy about the unrealisticexpectations and myths that were being created as a result of the officialpropaganda.

Qayyum Sher told Siddiqi, “Miracles’ he mused, ‘may indeed havehappened, but they happen only once. Let me tell you that your brss chaps aredoing a lot of harm to the soldier psychologically by publishing all thosefoolish stories. I wonder what they are really trying to tell the world. Thatthe Pakistani soldier can fight his war only with the help of his celestialallies. That he is facing an enemy inferior to him in all respects. I admitGod’s help is of the utmost importance but it’s no substitute for one’s ownperformance. It would be quite stupid to forget that the Indian soldier is asmuch of a professional as his Pakistani counterpart. He has been trained insimilar military systems and institutions and fights like hell when he has to.The only reason why the Pakistani soldier put up a comparatively betterperformance in this war was that he fought largely on his own home ground as adefender”.

Siddiqi further noted that “The Pakistani image makers, however, hadlittle use for such sterile talk. They had their own mental picture of the warand regarded it as the only correct one. Anybody who dared to speak of the warmore realistically simply betrayed a ‘diffident and defeatist mentality’ ...Themerest suggestion of the criticism of the military performance became ataboo”.71

Sher was not alone in entertaining these views. Major GeneralTajammul Hussain Malik who very ably commanded the 3rd Baluch opposite Lahore onthe BRB states in his memoirs that the Indian superiority opposite Lahore wasnot as overwhelming as later portrayed in the Pakistani official propaganda.

Tajammul thus stated, “We had Patton Tanks whereas Indians had mostly ShermanTanks which were comparatively much inferior. Similarly our artillery guns outranged the Indian artillery guns. They had an overall superiority of infantry,perhaps of about 1 to 2 but most of their divisions were comparativelyill-equipped and untrained and they had to guard a much bigger frontier”. 72

Conclusion

The battles fought in the Ravi-Sutlej Corridor are fit to be subject of aShakespearian comedy of errors. On a more serious note Pakistan Army lost itslast chance to force a military solution on the Indians. It failed not becausefailure was inevitable but because seeds of failure were sown once soldieringwas mixed with politics, merit was sidelined and men of limited grey matter wereelevated to the highest ranks.

After 1965 the current of history started flowingagainst Pakistan and its full results came into light only in December 1971.There was logic in Bhutto and his hawk’s position that Pakistan had thepotential to knock India out in a swift war like the Israelis did in 1956 and1967. Unfortunately, Pakistan failed not because of material reasons but becauseof qualitative reasons. The finest steel goes through the hottest fire. Thisunfortunately was not the case with the Pakistan Army of 1965 in terms of higher leadership.