Since the conflict in the China-India Galwan Valley last year, India has strengthened its operational deployment in the Sino-Indian border area, first placing advanced equipment including Su-30MKI, Rafale, Apache and T-90 near the border, and then continuously increasing the deployment of troops to the border area, and has now deployed nearly 200,000 mountain troops from more than 10 mountain divisions to the China-India border line. Although the situation on the Sino-Indian border has signs of easing, but the Indian side has not shown any signs of withdrawal because of the easing of the situation, it can be said that the Indian army will become normalized, compared with India, our country deployed less than 100,000 troops on the border, there is a large numerical disadvantage, but plateau mountain operations are not who can win with more people.
Great rivers and mountains, not an inch of land
The deployment of Chinese and Indian troops is very different, and the gap is obvious
After the outbreak of the Sino-Indian border conflict, India spent most of the year with nearly 200,000 mountain troops advancing to an area less than 100 kilometers away from the actual control line of the Sino-Indian border, forming a huge military advantage over China. In addition, the Indian Air Force has also deployed Su-30, Rafale, MiG-29 and other fighters to several border airports, which are generally less than 200 kilometers from the border, and the Indian army believes that front-line fighters can reach border conflict points faster than Chinese fighters after takeoff, gaining a preemptive advantage. From the perspective of troop deployment, the Indian army has basically pulled all the combat units that can be used to the border area, forming a strategic layout of focusing on the front and the back.
Indian Mountain Troops
Indian Rafale fighter
Different from the combat deployment of the Indian army, China has only deployed a few border regiments along the border line, which is less than a fraction of the number of the Indian army. The rear of China’s border defense regiment is the main combat units such as the mountain composite brigade, heavy composite brigade, army aviation brigade, and artillery brigade, and the rear of the main combat force is China’s air force unit and rocket force unit, forming a heavy operational deployment at a depth of 500 kilometers along the borderline, which is almost diametrically opposed to the deployment of the Indian army.
Our mountain special forces
Some people may ask, can the Indian army near the border line withstand tens of thousands of soldiers, but China’s only a few border regiments? In fact, China’s lack of deployment of a large number of ground combat troops in Tibet and Xinjiang, the harsh environment, and the assessment of India’s strength have a lot to do with it. The average sea wave on the Sino-Indian border exceeds 4,000 meters, many of which are perennially snowy plateau peaks, extremely low temperatures in winter, and the difficulty of logistics support far exceeds that of plain areas, which is not suitable for corps-level troop assembly operations. Due to the high altitude, low temperature and severe lack of oxygen, individual physical consumption is fast, it is difficult to carry too much equipment, which requires as much as possible to take armored vehicles, all-terrain vehicles and other transport vehicles suitable for plateau mountain operations for mobility, and the traditional trench attrition war will not appear on the plateau, so it is necessary to build a small and elite border defense force as much as possible, which can maximize the efficiency of plateau mountain operations, and reduce the dependence on logistics. In addition, China’s failure to deploy a large number of troops on the Sino-Indian border also has a lot to do with the combat power of the Indian army, on the surface, the number of Indian troops is huge, but the combat capability is not at the same level as China.
Heavy armored units of the Tibet Military District
Due to the inaccessibility of the plateau and mountain ground, air supremacy is particularly important. The side that holds air supremacy can carry out uninterrupted fire strikes and can effectively cut off the opponent’s logistics supply lines, and in the harsh plateau and mountainous environment, the side lacking air supremacy will soon be surrounded and divided. At present, the J-20, J-16, and J-10C fighters of our Air Force can quickly obtain air supremacy on the border with the cooperation of early warning aircraft, block the important road hub of the logistics supply of the Indian army, cut off the connection between the Indian army and the rear, and then China’s ground forces use a multi-layer firepower network to carry out precise annihilation of the assembled Indian army, and there will be no short-term encounter.
J-20 fighter
The deployment of the Indian army with heavy emphasis on the front and light on the back has given China the opportunity to comprehensively display its multi-layer firepower on the ground. In the rear of China’s border regiment is the mountain composite brigade, equipped with an exclusive artillery battalion, equipped with tracked Type 11 122mm self-propelled rocket launcher, PCL-09 122mm truck gun, Type 001 82mm vehicle-mounted rapid-fire mortar, Type 02 100mm wheeled assault gun, which can carry out intensive artillery coverage of ground targets within a range of 40 kilometers and destroy the enemy’s ground living forces as much as possible.
Type 11 box rocket launcher
122mm vehicle-mounted howitzer
82mm vehicle-mounted rapid-fire mortar
In addition, the composite brigade is also equipped with China’s new generation of fierce armored personnel carriers, which can resist the direct impact of 12.7mm bullets, with good off-road performance and protection performance, which greatly improves the mobility of our army in the plateau and mountains.
The new generation of armored vehicles has greatly improved the mobility and safety of our army in the plateau and mountains
Behind the composite brigade is an artillery brigade equipped with large-caliber guns, equipped with several long-range rocket artillery battalions and 155mm vehicle-mounted howitzer battalions, with 36 Type 03 300mm long-range rocket launchers with a range of more than 150 kilometers and 72 PCL-181 155mm plus howitzers with a range of 70 kilometers, which can completely suppress the artillery brigade of the Indian Army’s division, not only can implement accurate artillery coverage for the assembled troops on the front line of the Indian Army, but also can attack the front-line airfields of the Indian Army and cut off the supply routes of Indian transport aircraft.
A long-range fire battalion has 12 rocket launchers
The new vehicle-mounted howitzer can fire with direct sight
The longest range artillery equipped by India’s front-line troops is the M-777 155mm ultra-light gun imported from the United States, which has a maximum range of 40 kilometers, which means that the Indian army can only carry out artillery strikes within 40 kilometers of our depth without air support, and these guns are likely to be first cleared by our air fighters and drones.
Indian M-777 howitzer
Wing Loong UAV
Therefore, the Indian army’s military deployment of heavy forward and light is exposing all combat units to the range of China’s rocket artillery, but it itself cannot carry out effective firepower strikes on China’s strategic depth, and it is easy to be defeated by the PLA. After the collapse of the Indian army’s first-line units, the second-line support units in the rear could not be replenished quickly, and it was easy to have a worse end than in 1962. With the help of Y-20 transport aircraft, Qinghai-Tibet railway, and highways, China can continuously transport troops and supply resources to the front line.
Compared with heavy armored equipment, India lagged behind not a little bit
In the picture of the tank confrontation between China and India in the western section of Reqin Pass exposed at the beginning of this year, the Xinjiang Military Region also listed a large number of 88A main battle tanks, while the Indian army on the opposite side was equipped with T-72M1 and T-90 main battle tanks, and our side did not have an advantage in close tank battles. However, China soon carried out equipment and equipment replacement of the three heavy composite regiments under the Xinjiang Military Region, and the Type 99A and 15 main battle tanks and 04A infantry fighting vehicles were formed and replaced with front-line troops, which completely changed the appearance of the armored forces of the Xinjiang Military Region. At present, the three heavy composite regiments have 126 Type 99A and Type 15 main battle tanks and 252 04A infantry fighting vehicles, although the overall number has decreased significantly compared with before the military reform, but the actual combat effectiveness has not decreased but increased. India has deployed 180 T-72 main battle tanks and 60 BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles on the western front of the border, which is at an overall disadvantage in terms of both equipment quantity and performance.
99A tank
The Tibet Military Region has one heavy composite brigade, four tank battalions, one armored infantry battalion, one howitzer battalion, one anti-aircraft artillery battalion, and one HJ-10 anti-tank battalion, each of which is equipped with 32 Type 96A/15 main battle tanks, while the brigade is also equipped with a large number of 04A infantry fighting vehicles, Type 89 tracked armored transport vehicles, Type 92 wheeled combat vehicles, and the howitzer battalion is equipped with 36 Type 07 122mm self-propelled howitzers and Type 11 box rocket launchers. From the perspective of the number of equipment, China’s heavy composite brigade has 128 main battle tanks and hundreds of infantry fighting vehicles, which can comprehensively suppress the armored forces of the Indian army on the eastern front of the Sino-Indian border.
Type 15 tank
From the perspective of tank performance, China’s 99A and Type 15 main battle tanks are a generation ahead of India’s T-90 and T-72 tanks, with better firepower, mobility, information perception and protection capabilities, and tanks do not have any advantage against the Indian army.
Indian Army T-72 tank
In contrast to air power, our army can quickly grasp air supremacy
Although India has more than a dozen military airports on the Sino-Indian border, all of which can take off transport aircraft-level aircraft, far surpassing China in the number of airports and the scale of airports, these airports of the Indian army are too close to the border line, and are already within the strike range of China’s long-range rocket artillery and cruise missiles, and may soon be destroyed by our long-range fire forces in wartime. Although China has only a few military airports deployed on the Sino-Indian border, the airports are located in the deep hinterland, and the security is far better than that of Indian airports.
Indian Su-30MKI fighter
From the perspective of fighter performance, the Indian army is currently equipped with fighters such as Su-30MKI, Rafale, Mirage and MiG-29 fighters, although these fighters have good combat performance, but can no longer counter China’s J-20, J-16 and J-10C fighters, it can be said that air supremacy has been in our hands.
The Three Musketeers of our Air Force
Compared with the logistics support capacity, the gap is even greater
For the Sino-Indian border, where the natural environment is extremely harsh, the logistical support capability is directly related to the outcome of the war, and the gap between China and India in this regard can be described as a world of difference. In the front-line troops, our country has built a number of them
A new type of disassembled self-powered energy insulation cabin composed of 7 modules, including dormitory, canteen, integrated washroom, dry self-cleaning toilet, warehouse, microgrid, heating equipment, etc., which can withstand the cold of minus 55 degrees, and the inside is warm as spring, allowing PLA soldiers to have a comfortable rest environment. In terms of clothing, China has issued high-performance cold-proof clothing with excellent thermal insulation performance to the front-line troops on the Sino-Indian border, which is not only light in weight, but also has a heating function, which can withstand the cold of the plateau and improve combat capability. In terms of food, with the equipment of food delivery drones and Z-20 helicopters, fresh fruits and vegetables can also be transported to border posts at any time, and PLA soldiers can also eat hot pot at any time. Judging from the recent dispatch of Y-20 transport planes to deliver 160,000 sets of winter clothes to front-line troops within 24 hours, China’s logistics supply speed can already support high-intensity local war consumption.
Our military insulated square cabin
Hot pot can also be eaten in the camp
Compared with our army’s logistical support capability, the Indian army is extremely cold. Because India cannot produce high-performance plateau winter clothing, tent lights and other materials, it can only be urgently imported from the United States and European countries, and the cold clothing sold by the United States to India has also been exposed to be worn second-hand goods. At present, India has issued special cold tents to front-line troops, each tent can accommodate 3~5 people, heated by kerosene, but this kind of tent is easily blown away by strong winds, and may sleep in the snow nest when you wake up. In terms of diet, Indian soldiers ate food that had been frozen into ice, and it became a luxury to eat a hot meal. Although India can transport military supplies to front-line airports through C-17 transport aircraft, the road from the airport to front-line troops is relatively rudimentary, and it can only rely on livestock to pull down the front line after heavy snowfall, and the supply efficiency is extremely inefficient.
Indian army tents
Indian soldiers display their frozen food outside their tents
Therefore, on the whole, the Indian army only has an advantage in numbers, but in terms of equipment performance, logistics support and combat deployment related to victory and defeat, China occupies an overwhelming advantage, and is not afraid of India’s hundreds of thousands of troops.
