Could India hold out against Pak if pak had numerical parity?

ashdoc

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Indians are proud of their victories over pak.

The 47, 65 ,71 , kargil were victories of india over pak.

But India always had numerical superiority over pak in these encounters....also technological superiority in some.

If pak had a numerical parity with India ,would India have been able to hold out ?

Or is what pak claims , that its soldiers are better than indian soldiers , true ?

Let us assume for a moment that both had equal number of troops , equipment ,aircraft ,tanks etc.......also similar in quality.

Would India be able to hold out against pak ??
 

Yusuf

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Wrong question. The question should be "could India WIN a war if Pak had numerical parity". And the answer is YES. Holding out has a defensive connotation to it.
 

tarunraju

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If we relied on numerical superiority alone to win battles, then obviously our casualties would have been more than those of the Pakistanis (since we're making up for some sort of a "quality" with "quantity"), and if you go through casualties and losses figures, it totally nails the assumption that India won wars based on numerical superiority.

We also crushed Pakistan's bogus dogma that 1 Muslim soldier = 3 Hindu soldiers in 1971.
 
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Pakistan in some wars had the technological superiority with some of the best weapons from the West like Patton tanks etc... and even that did not bring victory.
 

EagleOne

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recently i came to know that wars are not won becauseof technical superiority or numerical superiority, they are won with using best possible tactics and strategies..using the available resources
 
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ajtr

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Indians are proud of their victories over pak.

The 47, 65 ,71 , kargil were victories of india over pak.

But India always had numerical superiority over pak in these encounters....also technological superiority in some.

If pak had a numerical parity with India ,would India have been able to hold out ?

Or is what pak claims , that its soldiers are better than indian soldiers , true ?

Let us assume for a moment that both had equal number of troops , equipment ,aircraft ,tanks etc.......also similar in quality.

Would India be able to hold out against pak ??
dont forget india had to reserve chunk of its forces at northerns borders to ward off any mis-adventure by china during all those wars.And if any one has doubt about it must visit patton nagar.And as for pakistanis they always find someone to blame their failures
 

ashdoc

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Wrong question. The question should be "could India WIN a war if Pak had numerical parity". And the answer is YES. Holding out has a defensive connotation to it.
well ,india always seems on the defensive ,with the initiative with pak.....except in 71 of course.

that why i asked.
 

tarunraju

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well ,india always seems on the defensive ,with the initiative with pak.....except in 71 of course.

that why i asked.
Because in realpolitik, it's more lucrative being a gentle giant than a biting dog.
 

Yusuf

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strategies make a lot of difference. Just today that idiot Qureshi was crying in the media about cold start and asked india to withdraw that doctrine. Though he followed up with the usual BS of giving "muh tod jawab" but its mention by him gives away how petrified they are with cold start. And india hasn't even put its entire force into it.
 

tarunraju

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i really dont think that being a gentle giant has paid any dividends for india.
It did, we're on path for SC permanent membership, $5T economy, etc., on the other hand, Pakistan being the biting dog is on the brink of balkanization, and needs foreign aid for survival.
 
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Agantrope

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i really dont think that being a gentle giant has paid any dividends for india.
There is a saying in sanskirt (gita exactly) "Vinaasa kaale vibharidha buddhi"

Means if you think and act to screw others, it actually means you are going screw yourself. Pakistan is going by the logic of losing its both eye for taking a eye of India
 

sandeepdg

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If numerical parity was the sole reason for winning wars, then the US wouldn't have lost 55000 troops in Vietnam, Russia wouldn't have lost 20000 troops in Afghanistan, the Chinese wouldn't have lost 70000 troops in the Sino-Vietnamese war !! It clearly show that all that matters in a war is how effectively you deploy your resources and use good tactics and strategies against your adversaries.
 

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Singh

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As per Ivan Toft's research 2/3rds of the wars are won by armies which are numerically superior to the enemy's, however, the smaller army can double their chances of winning ie from 1/3rd to 2/3rds if they adopted unconventional strategy

As India has won 4 out of 4 wars rather than 2.7 out of 4 as expected, it means that either Pakistan sucked at strategy or we excelled or both. So even if Pakistan and India did have numerical parity, I would pick India because of its superior strategy and tacits.

And a soldiers individual brilliance counts for nothing if his officer is an idiot. Indian armed forces are blessed with some of the finest officers.
 

tarunraju

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As per Ivan Toft's research 2/3rds of the wars are won by armies which are numerically superior to the enemy's, however, the smaller army can double their chances of winning ie from 1/3rd to 2/3rds if they adopted unconventional strategy


Figures are verifiable.
 

Rage

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Indians are proud of their victories over pak.

The 47, 65 ,71 , kargil were victories of india over pak.

But India always had numerical superiority over pak in these encounters....also technological superiority in some.

If pak had a numerical parity with India ,would India have been able to hold out ?

Or is what pak claims , that its soldiers are better than indian soldiers , true ?

Let us assume for a moment that both had equal number of troops , equipment ,aircraft ,tanks etc.......also similar in quality.

Would India be able to hold out against pak ??

I think you've been swayed into some bullshit notions of 'martial prowess' based on some weird premise of ethnic superiority.

The fact is, genes alone will play a minute part in getting you through a fight. Training and discipline do.

By that token, for example India's forces were 'superior' to that of China's, because even though it lost the border skirmish against it, Indian troops held out against numerically superior Chinese forces in several incidents inflicting 2:1 or 3:1 casualty ratios on their foes, and subsequently also in the Nathula and Ussuri incidents of 1967.

Ethnic-based martial prowess is a rigorous simplicity, a garb and propaganda tool designed to cover failures in discipline, leadership, numbers, technology or doctrine, particularly in the aftermath of a military defeat or a stalemate that has cost you significantly more in terms of land, soldiers or debilitating economics than your nemesis. For it suggests, that the military defeat must have been due to other factors in your opponents' favor: political expediency, technological advantage, numerical superiority, etc. when in fact it remains that any moderately protracted war, that lasts longer than a skirmish, will see fairly equal numbers of troops deployed in theatres. That is evident in everything from the Kargil war to the wars in 1965 and 1947. The only exception was 1971.

That martial prowess is based on 'ethnic superiority' is a load of garbage, has nothing to do with facts, empirical or contemporary or otherwise, military doctrine or strategy is evident in that 97,000 prisoners of war (80,000 of them uniformed) were captured by Indian forces in the war of East Pakistan. Sure, military supporters claim that Pakistani forces were outnumbered by Indian soldiers, that they were surrounded and pinned to an area by a large coterie of Indian forces, that they were outgunned and out-ammo'd, but if the doctrine of 10:1 held true, Pakistani soldiers should have held out against much smaller odds.
 
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Pintu

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Ussuri incidents of 1967.
Rage , good points raised , but I think you mean Chola incident that happened from 1st October- 2nd October,1967 in Sikkim, the Ussuri river incident or Zenbao Island incident (as known in PRC) were a prolonged border clash between Sino-USSR forces from March 2 to September 11, 1969, which were threatened to become a full scale border war.

Sorry for being off topic, now back to the topic.

Regards
 

Rage

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Let me point you to the origins of the 'Martial Race' theory and to British declared 'Martial races' in India:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_Race


As you will notice, this theory has been taken and imbued with a religious flavour, distorted so that what remains is a quirky, esoteric narrative that borrows as much from fudged versions of history as it does from propaganda and <<apparent>> social looks.

Speaking more to your question of the hypothetical situation of numerical parity, an analysis of previous events will provide some insights: Pakistan had tremendous artillery superiority, both numerical and material, together with technological superiority in the skies in several of our previous wars. Despite this, they were outfought and outmaneuvered on the battlefied, with Sharif attributing as many as 4,000 casualties in the Kargil war to India's 527.

What our numerical superiority has given us, at least as it has played out thus far, is simply to sustain ourselves longer during a fight. It has not given us any noteworthy technological superiority, any definitive push or ability to execute penetrations or strategic maneuvers, that have been particularly debilitating of our opponents. We won because of a combination of tactical ingenuity, particularly in tank battles that we were outgunned in in 1965, naval adventurism (the attack on Karachi harbour provides a good illustration), geopolitical factors and dis-contiguity for Pakistan in 1971, and a series of battalion-level terrainal outmaneuvers that can be attributed more to the exceptional gallantry and training of their officers than to anything else.

That, the lack of significant tangible advantages due to numerical superiority, in great measure, has been due to a stagnating economy. With the growth of the last 15 years, that is about set to change.
 
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Rage

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Rage , good points raised , but I think you mean Chola incident that happened from 1st October- 2nd October,1967 in Sikkim, the Ussuri river incident or Zenbao Island incident (as known in PRC) were a prolonged border clash between Sino-USSR forces from March 2 to September 11, 1969, which were threatened to become a full scale border war.

Sorry for being off topic, now back to the topic.

Regards
My bad. Extremely sorry for the misinformation. I did mean the Chola incident of 1967.

The name Ussuri got stuck in my head as I was reading something else, and transferred onto my post.
 

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