Chapter 806: Turnaround
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) recaptured southern Tibet and gained a firm foothold, and dealt with the local nearly 100,000 Indian defenders with great ease, all of which seemed to be a repetition of the old events more than 60 years ago, which made the Indian top brass extremely frightened.
All this shows that this time the Chinese side is no longer just teaching the Indian army a lesson, but is earnestly operating southern Tibet, which has become a couch trouble for the northeast of the Indian army, which makes the high-level bosses of Ah San acceptable, so despite repeated requests from the US military not to withdraw troops, the Ah San military still ordered the elite American mechanized division that entered Pakistan to retreat.
Among these four elite American-style equipment divisions, the Indian Army except for one mechanized infantry division left behind to defend New Delhi and work with the main force of the Northern Military Region to guard against the eastward advance of the two mountain divisions of the Srinagar Liberation Army;
On the other hand, it is preparing to send the new 1st Armored Division and the other 2 mechanized infantry divisions to the southern Tibet region to become the main force of the Indian army's counterattack into the southern Tibet Liberation Army.
From the previous battle in southern Tibet, the traditional army divisions of the three A-3 countries have no chance of winning under the integrated attack of the air-ground of the mountain division of the People's Liberation Army, and the original elite main force of the armored forces of the A-3 army is the Russian T-90 main battle tank, but in the last round of the war with the Pakistani army in Kashmir, the T-90 tank of the A-3 has lost most of it, and now the elite main force of the A-3 tank is hundreds of M1A2SEP equipped with several American-style mechanized divisions. And most of the remaining armored forces are antique T-72 tanks from decades ago, as well as Arjun, which is not a climate made in its own country.
In the battle for southern Tibet, the Indian army dispatched the main forces of 3 mountain divisions, 1 mechanized infantry division and 1 independent armored brigade, totaling more than 200 T-72M and more than 100 BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles, but in the face of more than 200 tanks of two 96G modern modified tank regiments of two mountain divisions of the People's Liberation Army, and the destroyers of two special battalions carried out air-ground coordinated attacks, the main forces of these four divisions and brigades of the Indian army were wiped out cleanly and neatly almost without fighting back.
From the perspective of actual combat on the battlefield, it is completely a one-sided situation, the PLA destroyer UAV takes turns to solve the heavy firepower such as the Indian army's armored forces and artillery, while the Indian army's mountain division or mechanized infantry division that lacks effective air defense means can only be passively beaten in the face of the destroyer UAV attack, so more than half of the heavy firepower is destroyed by the destroyer UAV.
The 37th and 38th Divisions of the People's Liberation Army, with two 96G modernized modified tank regiments as fists and all-terrain infantry regiments as auxiliaries, attacked the Indian army's mountain divisions as if they were in a no-man's land, fought three battles and won three victories in southern Tibet, eliminated and routed the 100,000 defenders of the Indian army, and completely controlled the situation in the Indian-controlled southern Tibet region.
If the military pressure has made the three high-level A-three high-level officials feel the pressure, politically, the covert actions of the PLA have made the A-three high-level bigwigs fall into an ice cellar, because in several states in the northeast of India, there have always been more than 100 armed groups of separatist organizations active, and when the PLA entered Indian-controlled southern Tibet, on the one hand, it was busy consolidating the defense of southern Tibet, and on the other hand, it began to select and support agents in the northeastern Indian separation organization.
For the PLA, a disintegrated India is the best neighbor, among these many separatist groups, the PLA has focused on the selection of the famous separatist organization with a long history "Assam United Liberation Front" to support, although the "Assam United Liberation Front" has been severely attacked by the Indian army, but the organization has been taking advantage of the complex terrain in northeast India, the use of guerrilla warfare has been persistent, plus the organization's military operations are mainly aimed at the Indian military units, has a good foundation among the local people.
Therefore, after receiving secret military assistance from the PLA, the Assam National Liberation Army (NAPA) under the "United Liberation Front of Assam" (UTLF) quickly annexed the larger separatist armed groups in Assam, such as the "Bodo National Democratic Front" and the "Katapur Liberation Organization".
Politically, the United Liberation Front of Assam (UMLF) has openly put forward its call for the establishment of an Assam state, and this time it is no longer seeking only one region of Assam, but is proposing to realize a greater Assam state within the five new states that were split from the former state of Assam, including Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland.
When the high-level boss of Ah San received the news, he was even more shocked than the loss of southern Tibet. This would mean the loss of hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of land in the northeast, even though it has always been one of the poorest in India, with tens of millions of people struggling to make ends meet.
But strategically, this region is no less than Kashmir, the right flank of the Indian army's defense against the PLA and a bridgehead to threaten China's hinterland, and this area must not be lost.
Therefore, the top echelons of the Indian army would rather take the risk of offending the US side and losing the support of the US military than dare to put the main force in Pakistan and fight hard with the Pakistani army to consume it; now, for the Indian army, the most important thing is to quickly get rid of the PLA that has entered the southern Tibet region, and even if the PLA cannot be solved, it must also strangle the attempt of the "Assam United Liberation Front" to establish a state.
The Indian army's eastward movement of the main force has greatly relieved the pressure on the Pakistani army, and after relieving the dilemma of being flanked from both sides, the Pakistani army can now consider concentrating its main forces to expel the American troops from the territory.
However, for the two mountain divisions of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) that have entered southern Tibet, the eastward movement of the main force of the Indian army will bring a huge test; due to geographical factors, the logistical supply provided from the Nyingchi area to southern Tibet is limited, and it is already somewhat difficult to support the two mountain divisions through the rugged and tortuous mountain roads on the plateau, and it is unlikely that the PLA will be able to reinforce more troops.
In particular, it is now winter, and it is becoming more and more difficult to transport logistics supplies by road, and the conditions of field airfields in southern Tibet are very poor, and it is very difficult to take off and land large transport planes such as the Il-76 or Y-20 at present, although we are seizing the time to repair a runway that can be used for large transport planes to take off and land, but for a time air transportation still has to rely on the Y-7, an old-fashioned transport plane, and the capacity of each sortie is quite limited, and it is simply impossible to meet the huge ammunition demand of the front line.
However, under the tremendous pressure of the US military on the Pakistani side, even if the field airfield is repaired to take off and land the Y-20 large transport aircraft, the PLA's strategic air transport capacity is limited, and the support it can give to southern Tibet is relatively limited, and it cannot carry out more large-scale offensive operations and has to be on the defensive.
It is precisely because of the PLA's inherent disadvantage in logistics and supply that it is unable to invest more troops that the Intelligence Bureau of the General Staff of the PLA has formulated a plan to support the separatists in India, and to arm the personnel of these separatist organizations by supporting a large number of light weapons, so that they can carry out guerrilla warfare in the Indian army's garrisons, which can greatly deplete and delay the movement of the main force of the Indian army and reduce the pressure on the PLA's insufficient investment in troops.
With two successful experiences in Africa and in Indian-administered southern Tibet, the Intelligence Bureau of the General Staff Headquarters has now become very handy in this regard; after catching up with the main factions of the Assamese separatist organization, it transported 10,000 rifles from the Type 56 and Type 81 rifles that had been mothballed by the troops to the Indian-controlled southern Tibetan region, and soon the "Assam United Liberation Front" of the Assamese separatist organization armed several brigades to unify the main separatist factions in the region and initially formed combat effectiveness.
Under the guidance of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), more than 10,000 armed members of the Assam separatist groups have been scattered in various states in northeastern India to organize guerrilla warfare with companies and platoons as active units, which has greatly limited the attention of the regular troops in northeastern India.
In the face of the endless flow of Assam National Liberation Army guerrillas, northeastern India is basically no longer under official control at the village and town level, and the proximity to southern Tibet has allowed the Assam People's Liberation Army to occupy many small and medium-sized cities and begin to form some fixed base areas.
To this end, they not only recalled several elite mechanized infantry divisions that had invaded Pakistan to prepare for the Eastern Front, but also mobilized the main reserves that they could mobilize at hand, and transferred two divisions and two independent brigades from the Central Command to form a five-division and two-brigade Eastern Front Assault Force, preparing to recapture southern Tibet together with the remaining six mountain divisions of the Eastern Command.
However, in the face of the increasingly cold weather in winter, it has not only caused great difficulties to the transportation of the PLA, but also has been very inconvenient for the large-scale mobility of the Indian army.
In the northeast and in Indian-controlled southern Tibet, the Indian army's eastern offensive was quite difficult from the beginning, and its main force marched into the Siliguri corridor area, but was trapped by a snowstorm, and the road was completely blocked by a foot of snow, so that the Indian army had to stop.
With the advent of winter, the sorties of US fighter planes have become more and more scarce, and the South Asian battlefield, which was originally precarious for China and Pakistan, has begun to quietly turn around.