Weasel for the Tibetan Plateau

[Ray]

First:



Second, launch height and speed increase as the landing zone altitude increases. To land a heavy glider 50km into Tibetan plateau would require something like a 10-14,000m release height at over 500kmh. At that altitude and speed, the transport aircraft would be visible at long ranges, even if it were in its own territory.

Wood and cloth has a very low radar signature and if they are painted with radar absorbing paint, then it will be even less or non existent. And if the design is 'stealth', then it is win win.

In war, there is a thing called Deception Plan. False radio traffic, aircraft movement etc.

Therefore, the transport aircraft could be 'hidden' in that clutter!

 

[t_co]

Wood and cloth has a very low radar signature and if they are painted with radar absorbing paint, then it will be even less or non existent. And if the design is 'stealth', then it is win win.

In war, there is a thing called Deception Plan. False radio traffic, aircraft movement etc.

Therefore, the transport aircraft could be 'hidden' in that clutter!

Wood and cloth are transparent to a range of radar frequencies. The metal vehicles inside the gliders would show up clear as day, no matter what shape the glider was.

RAM coatings would work, but given how these gliders are supposed to be cheap, numerous, and disposable, does it make sense to slather them in paint worth the weight of gold?

And finally, of course there are tactics you can use to compensate for the limitations of such assets, but why not try to opt for better assets? Helicopter gunships, lightweight attack drones, and ATVs could fulfill almost the same role as a bunch of aluminum-skinned IFVs, with far more tactical flexibility and resilience.

 

[pmaitra]

But how would a transport aircraft with gliders strung up avoid enemy AD?

Isn't it only viable after Air Superiority and DEAD is achieved? And if they are achieved, then why Weasels? Proper IFVs with superior firepower could be airdropped from C-130s and the Il-76s and C-17s

An interesting idea, but the air density at such altitudes wouldn't support the kind of weight you want to load into those gliders.

http://www.memphis-soaring.org/Training/faaChap_05.pdf

If you made the vehicles lighter to compensate, the sacrifice in armament or armor might make these vehicles so underpowered or thin-skinned as to be useless.

Finally, as @arnabmit has mentioned, this would be only effective once air defenses are gone. Transport aircraft towing dozens of gliders show up on any decent radar from nearly 300km away, and on the latest AD radars from over 600km away. They would be big, fat targets to any PLAAF fighter.

This money would be much better spent on the IAF, whose Mig-21s lack the range to do any sort of interdiction strikes or escort into Tibet, and whose Su-30 MKIs would be hauling heavy bombs and fuel up an altitude gradient into swarms of Chinese fighters and AD networks.

@W.G. Ewald The Ontos was pretty effective against light infantry in close-range jungle firefights. A lightweight vehicle like that would be much less effective at the extended visibility ranges of the Tibetan plateau. Even one attack helicopter or tank or even missile-carrying drone would savage an entire company of such vehicles - and with the aforementioned radar visibility of the transport aircraft, it would be a simple C4ISR exercise to shift the appropriate assets in place to knock them out.

It would be easy to lift hundreds of weasel carrying gliders and release them from close to the front, and then these gliders can land inside enemy territory. For air-dropping heavy armour, the aircraft has to go inside enemy territory, and a fewer number of IFV can be deployed in a short time.

Air defense is always a threat, and it is a higher threat if one attempts an air-drop than towed glider release.

For PLAAF fighters intercepting them, it is possible, however, that would mean escalation using Air Force (something that did not happen in 1962). In such case, escorts would be required. It will also be easy for attack helicopters to take these out, and thus, they might require CAS to operate.

 

[t_co]

Generally speaking, if you want to insert airmobile troops, the best support assets they can have are those that are airmobile themselves - air support, transport and attack helicopters, and drones, in that order. Ground vehicles are heavy and logistically intensive. Why use precious air cargo weight and precious jet fuel to haul them up to 10,000m?

 

[Ray]

Generally speaking, if you want to insert airmobile troops, the best support assets they can have are those that are airmobile themselves - air support, transport and attack helicopters, and drones, in that order. Ground vehicles are heavy and logistically intensive. Why use precious air cargo weight and precious jet fuel to haul them up to 10,000m?

The essence of victory is Strategic Surprise!

Fanfare exposes intent!

Read Sun Tsu!

 

[pmaitra]

Generally speaking, if you want to insert airmobile troops, the best support assets they can have are those that are airmobile themselves - air support, transport and attack helicopters, and drones, in that order. Ground vehicles are heavy and logistically intensive. Why use precious air cargo weight and precious jet fuel to haul them up to 10,000m?

Attack helicopters are not going to be very effective in the Tibetan Plateau.

 

[Ray]

Wood and cloth are transparent to a range of radar frequencies. The metal vehicles inside the gliders would show up clear as day, no matter what shape the glider was.

RAM coatings would work, but given how these gliders are supposed to be cheap, numerous, and disposable, does it make sense to slather them in paint worth the weight of gold?

And finally, of course there are tactics you can use to compensate for the limitations of such assets, but why not try to opt for better assets? Helicopter gunships, lightweight attack drones, and ATVs could fulfill almost the same role as a bunch of aluminum-skinned IFVs, with far more tactical flexibility and resilience.

To win a war. Nothing can be cheap!

Remember Yom Kippur?

The suitcase missiles did wonders, but in the final analysis, the tanks took over the laurels!

Heard of plastics coating metal to reduce the signature?

Strategic and Tactical surprise are great force multipliers!

But folks forget that!

 

[t_co]

It would be easy to lift hundreds of weasel carrying gliders and release them from close to the front, and then these gliders can land inside enemy territory. For air-dropping heavy armour, the aircraft has to go inside enemy territory, and a fewer number of IFV can be deployed in a short time.

Air defense is always a threat, and it is a higher threat if one attempts an air-drop than towed glider release.

For PLAAF fighters intercepting them, it is possible, however, that would mean escalation using Air Force (something that did not happen in 1962). In such case, escorts would be required. It will also be easy for attack helicopters to take these out, and thus, they might require CAS to operate.

Will respond to this in greater detail later, but for now, realize that any Sino-Indian conflict would almost instantly escalate to airpower. It's written into the PLA's standard operating manual - field commanders have discretion to call upon all non-nuclear land/air/sea assets in their theater of operations when fighting a conflict, independent of consultation with the Central Military Commission. This extends to road-mobile conventional ICBMs and cruise missiles, which, unlike their nuclear cousins, are usually on 15 minute launch alert.

Any Sino-Indian conflict would escalate to full-spectrum warfare within about a half hour of initiation - at least the PLA plans to fight that way. Low-intensity options simply won't cut it.

EDIT: If China got into a conflict with any neighbor not named the Phillippines, theater commanders could start slinging barrages of cruise missiles and DF-15s without explicit authorization from the CMC from the first minute onwards - on top of whatever air assets happened to be airborne at the time. This is part of China's strategy for avoiding conflict - by keeping the risks of escalation unacceptably high, and making that risk appear as uncontrollable as possible.

 

[Ray]

Sub conventional operations is the answer as starters to degrade the Chinese war machine in Tibet. with simultaneous similar operations in Xinjaing so as to draw away the military attention to these areas to degrade the Chinese military advantage they have in these area.

 

[t_co]

Sub conventional operations is the answer as starters to degrade the Chinese war machine in Tibet. with simultaneous similar operations in Xinjaing so as to draw away the military attention to these areas to degrade the Chinese military advantage they have in these area.

So... fight like Pakistan?

On a more serious note, how can you guarantee the PLA won't follow its SOP and escalate to a full-bore conflict as soon as they found out India was conducting hostilities?

 

[Ray]

So... fight like Pakistan?

On a more serious note, how can you guarantee the PLA won't follow its SOP and escalate to a full-bore conflict as soon as they found out India was conducting hostilities?

I thought Pakistan was your bosom friend!

How will China know India is behind it.

We can be equally clever as China aiding and abetting our Maoists and others through proxies!

It takes two to Tango!

 

[t_co]

I thought Pakistan was your bosom friend!

How will China know India is behind it.

We can be equally clever as China aiding and abetting our Maoists and others through proxies!

It takes two to Tango!

...Except how do you disguise country of origin on a vehicle air-dropped from an Indian cargo plane into Chinese airspace? China has radars, and unless you're conducting SEAD/EW/distraction operations (all of which are clear casus belli, mind you) then you cannot hide the act of dropping these gliders.

Either way, you go to full-bore conflict. There is no in-between - either India stays peaceful, or it ratchets immediately up to everything excluding (or possibly including) nukes. That's the choice the PLA's operational doctrine has given its neighbors.

 

[Ray]

Note the issue is sub-conventional.

Air drop depends on the situation thereafter!

Can't jump the gun!

Heard of Salami Tactics?

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Note the issue is sub-conventional.

Air drop depends on the situation thereafter!

Can't jump the gun!

Heard of Salami Tactics?

Supposedly invented by Hitler. I would have guessed Mussolini.

 

[pmaitra]

Will respond to this in greater detail later, but for now, realize that any Sino-Indian conflict would almost instantly escalate to airpower. It's written into the PLA's standard operating manual - field commanders have discretion to call upon all non-nuclear land/air/sea assets in their theater of operations when fighting a conflict, independent of consultation with the Central Military Commission. This extends to road-mobile conventional ICBMs and cruise missiles, which, unlike their nuclear cousins, are usually on 15 minute launch alert.

Any Sino-Indian conflict would escalate to full-spectrum warfare within about a half hour of initiation - at least the PLA plans to fight that way. Low-intensity options simply won't cut it.

EDIT: If China got into a conflict with any neighbor not named the Phillippines, theater commanders could start slinging barrages of cruise missiles and DF-15s without explicit authorization from the CMC from the first minute onwards - on top of whatever air assets happened to be airborne at the time. This is part of China's strategy for avoiding conflict - by keeping the risks of escalation unacceptably high, and making that risk appear as uncontrollable as possible.

I am not disagreeing with what you are saying here. Yes, PLA can escalate with fighters and missile forces. The question is, will India sit back if that happens? The answer is no. India will also escalate.

If the theatre is the Tibetan Plateau, Chinese attack helicopters will be as saddled as any helicopter that struggles in those heights and rarefied low density air. If the Chinese plan to use light attack helicopters, then they will have to come close to the target, as they won't be able to carry heavier payload or enough of them, and long range anti-armour payloads are heavy.

Talking about air-drop, that is a possibility, if some kind of air-dominance is achieved. However, the weasel comes into picture before that. The idea is not to air-drop weasels. If air-drop is the intention, one might as well air-drop tanks and IFVs. The idea is to be able to deploy gliders with weasels in hundreds without the cargo aircraft having to go deep into enemy territory. This is very different from an air-drop, and does not require air-dominance.

Now, once hundreds of these weasels are operating and engaging targets in Tibet, the Heavy and Medium armour will roll into the Tibetan Plateau and take control of the cities one by one.

Coming back to escalation using air forces, India has a clear advantage. India airfields are at a lower altitude, and can take off with more payload than can the Chinese. The other alternative is for the Chinese aircraft to take off from far away in the east, and have them refuelled mid air, in anticipation of combat. IAF has a clear advantage over PLAAF in this regard.

 

[pmaitra]

Salami Tactics

Salami tactics, also known as the salami-slice strategy, is a divide and conquer process of threats and alliances used to overcome opposition. With it, an aggressor can influence and eventually dominate a landscape, typically political, piece by piece. In this fashion, the opposition is eliminated "slice by slice" until one realizes (too late) that it is gone in its entirety. In some cases it includes the creation of several factions within the opposing political party and then dismantling that party from the inside, without causing the "sliced" sides to protest. Salami tactics are most likely to succeed when the perpetrators keep their true long-term motives hidden and maintain a posture of cooperativeness and helpfulness while engaged in the intended gradual subversion.

Source: Salami tactics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Kunal Biswas]

I have been saying this for a long time ..

The vehicle fit for the job back in that terrain ..

 

[W.G.Ewald]

The original "Weasel":

M29 Weasel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The M29 Weasel was a World War II tracked vehicle, built by Studebaker, designed for operation in snow.

 

[pmaitra]

American M29 Weasel (Light Tracked Vehicle) by Studebaker

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

 

[pmaitra]

German Weasel (Armoured Weapons Carrier) by Porsche

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm9tjddIp18