Indian response to a Pakistani nuclear strike

[p2prada]

Point of the thread is what if Pak goes nuclear and what should Indian response be. Please read OP. await comments.

My opinion is the same as the one you posted in the last line of the original post.

If the nuclear threshold is breached, the army must not stop it's offensive in anyway. Some enemy formations can be nuked to reduce losses to our own troops.

Overall we don't need nuclear weapons beyond making political statements.

However my point is even if Pak goes nuclear, it does not make much of a difference to us. As long as their nukes cannot stop our army, there is nothing else they can do. If the stopping power of the enemy nukes are greater than our conventional power then it would pose major problems. Casualties will be greater anyway. Wars are won by achieving objectives after all.

I am not sure if the army doctrine allows occupation of enemy cities though.

Nuclear weapons are for deterrence. Deterrence is not warfighting.

 

[SLASH]

Right and wrong on both counts. ABM will make a difference but it's not 100% fool proof. And you cannot have 100% intel on all nukes they have.

And yes you fear para itself starts on the wrong premise. India has never waged war and will not do that unprovoked. The ball lies in Pakis court of they'd like to escalate.

Yes but we cannot rely on Akash as our defence blanket. There is an urgent need for India to buy these systems from either Israel, America or Russia. JV's can follow. But for now we need a shield that is good enough to deter the Pakis not to use the nuclear option. They would also think twice before doing a 26/11 style attack. It would make us more assertive in our response.

 

[p2prada]

Yes but we cannot rely on Akash as our defence blanket. There is an urgent need for India to buy these systems from either Israel, America or Russia. JV's can follow. But for now we need a shield that is good enough to deter the Pakis not to use the nuclear option. They would also think twice before doing a 26/11 style attack. It would make us more assertive in our response.

Akash has nothing to do with stopping missiles.

We have AAD, PAD and PDV being deployed next year followed by AD-1 and AD-2, two to three years later, which will form our ABM system. Full deployment of these systems will automatically reduce the capability of Pak missile arsenal by a huge margin.

 

[bengalraider]

Ok i have gone through the thread and here is my 0.02
1) we all are talking as if the decision to launch will be a military one, it will not. The decision to retaliate to a Pakistani nuclear strike will be taken by the civilian political leadership the very leadership that relies on the votes of hundreds of millions of strategically unaware ordinary Indians to stay in power , will this leadership risk losing the votes of the friends and family of the hundreds of thousands if not millions killed in any Pakistani nuclear strike in future elections?
my answer they will not, the decision to retaliate in similar fashion is a given in a political scenario.

2) 10kt or 18kt Hiroshima bombs will cause a lot of destruction in a closely packed city with lax construction norms such as Delhi or Mumbai, imagine a 10kt Air-burst a few hundred feet above the middle of Lajpat nagar or Dadar for that matter, you will have pandemonium. the fallout pattern in our cities will be much worse due to the unregulated flow of sewage, drinking water and the inevitable and uncontrollable human flow that will cause. please make no mistake we are looking at a city closure for sure.

3) we seem to assume that there are no worthwhile military targets for our nuclear forces to retaliate against let me list a few
a) ISLAMABAD- this city does not hold any particular significance for any ethnic group in pakistan as it was created from the duct post 1947 and as yet hold only a political significance in the country's workings.
b)RAWALPINDI- a traditional military town , we could hit this town with impunity.
c)WAH- a major munitions manufacturing hub, hitting wah would mean the end of any munitiions support from the POF to the Pakistan army.
d) KAHUTA- home to khan laboratories and pupotedly the birthplace(i still believe it was chengdu) of the pakistani bomb, a legitimate target if there was ever one.
e)SIALKOT- HQ of the 8th and 15th infantry divisons , the back bone of the punjab defense.
f)SARGODHA- the largest airbase of the PAF, and the base for the PAF's F-16's.
g)QUETTA- basically run by the Taliban now.
h)BAHAWALPUR- HQ and main base of the PA's XXXI corps.
i)TAXILA-tank manufacturing and maintenance hub, need i say more.
there are many other very worthwhile targets as well.

 

[Yusuf]

BR, I have already stated that it is going to be a tough decision to take considering the public anger that will be there. But then, if we achieve all the political and military objectives in Pak like I have stated, it will be ok for the Indian people to accept a non nuclear reply to paki nuke attack.

 

[bengalraider]

BR, I have already stated that it is going to be a tough decision to take considering the public anger that will be there. But then, if we achieve all the political and military objectives in Pak like I have stated, it will be ok for the Indian people to accept a non nuclear reply to paki nuke attack.

I still think you delude yourself if you believe any political leadership has the gall to sit on the decision to retaliate til we achieve those goals, please understand the pressure from within the military's ranks itself will be immense, the rank and file soldier will ask questions on why a nuclear attack was not avenged in kind moreso if the rank and file soldier(and the bulk of them are) from the jatland or Punjab adjoining Delhi not to mention the Marathas will not take any nuclear strike on Mumbai easily. while the upper echelons will themselves be in turmoil following the loss of most of the general staff's families that live in delhi. Yusuf your doctrine good as it may be is doomed to fail in the face of popular anger, the goals you say shall calm the popular anger shall not come overnight they shall take weeks if not months to completely establish, at a time when the nation and it's forces shall clamor for an immediate response such an option is not viable at all.

as for the Sindh, Baloch, Pakhtun and Balwaristan movements, if you think even 30% of our populace gives a rat's arse about them getting fried in response to a Pakistani strike you sir have got it wrong.

 

[Yusuf]

I still think you delude yourself if you believe any political leadership has the gall to sit on the decision to retaliate til we achieve those goals, please understand the pressure from within the military's ranks itself will be immense, the rank and file soldier will ask questions on why a nuclear attack was not avenged in kind moreso if the rank and file soldier(and the bulk of them are) from the jatland or Punjab adjoining Delhi not to mention the Marathas will not take any nuclear strike on Mumbai easily. while the upper echelons will themselves be in turmoil following the loss of most of the general staff's families that live in delhi. Yusuf your doctrine good as it may be is doomed to fail in the face of popular anger, the goals you say shall calm the popular anger shall not come overnight they shall take weeks if not months to completely establish, at a time when the nation and it's forces shall clamor for an immediate response such an option is not viable at all.

as for the Sindh, Baloch, Pakhtun and Balwaristan movements, if you think even 30% of our populace gives a rat's arse about them getting fried in response to a Pakistani strike you sir have got it wrong.

No doubt at all that there will be tremendous pressure to glass Pakistan. But then what will we achieve apart from that? Pakistan in its current borders will survive. Pick up the pieces and start with terror again.

That is why I say we need to define political and military goals in the event of an all out war and Pakistan going nuclear.

 

[p2prada]

I hardly doubt it was their nuclear posturing that stopped Operation Parakram.

 

[A chauhan]

Develop a reliable ABM capability, guard each important city with a good number of two or multiple tier ABMs, if Pakistan attacks with nuclear missiles, ABMs will do the job, interception of first Pakistani nuke by ABMs will give a reasonable and sufficient ground to retaliate heavily, then nuke all of their important cities!!

 

[bengalraider]

No doubt at all that there will be tremendous pressure to glass Pakistan. But then what will we achieve apart from that? Pakistan in its current borders will survive. Pick up the pieces and start with terror again.

That is why I say we need to define political and military goals in the event of an all out war and Pakistan going nuclear.

We can still rip the country apart after nuclear strikes on key military towns i have previously indicated, add abbotabad and sialkot to that list as well.

 

[Yusuf]

We can still rip the country apart after nuclear strikes on key military towns i have previously indicated, add abbotabad and sialkot to that list as well.

Will you bomb Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar? Quetta, capital of Balochistan friendly with India. Peshawar, Pakhtunland again no enmity with India. Karachi capital of Sindh.

Will you bomb Lahore when our troops are probably in it which led the Pakis to bomb us in the first place.

 

[bengalraider]

Will you bomb Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar? Quetta, capital of Balochistan friendly with India. Peshawar, Pakhtunland again no enmity with India. Karachi capital of Sindh.

Will you bomb Lahore when our troops are probably in it which led the Pakis to bomb us in the first place.

Please read the list of locations i have provided in my earlier post they do not include Lahore, karachi or peshawar, as for Quetta it is more or less controlled by the Haqqanis and their Taliban allies now.The baloch have a claim to it only in name as their forces will be decimated by the ISI funded Haqqani network if they try to operate openly there.we could nuke the Talibs to their jannat and then help the Baloch people with money and material support in building a new a better capital city while we clean up the radioactivity in Quetta.

 

[pmaitra]

It's true, Quetta is one of the hubs of Taliban and the Haqqani network. Yes, Baloch Nationalists are friendly with India, but their leaders rarely live in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan.

 

[Folk hero]

after Pakistan got divided into many nation states it would be our own foolishness expect any friendly relations them at-lest not for long, states like Baluchistan and Paktunistan will always contain anti Indian elements it will be only matter of time they we become real trouble for us ie like Bangladesh, if we got nuked by pakis there is only one objective IA occupy Pakistan and civil gov objectives will be to make a point ( we will take lying down ) by nuking key paki targets like BR suggested, if we feel like populace of the freshly occupied regions will cause trouble use extreme measure like depopulation by using c or b weapons their will always be mujahedds who we can simply blame.

 

[mki]

If pakistan goes for nuclear option then i will not suggest or support for "Eye for an eye" option but i will suggest and support only and only " both eyes, both ears, nose, both arms, both legs, a** and lastly troat for an eye".

Simply pull out our all armed forces and take whole Kashmir under indian flag.... nuke entier pakistan's all the cities who have populatin more then 50000and total distruction of defence systems, factories, labs and build big wall like china wall through out the border of indo-pak ofcourse on pak expensis....... and please dont worry about the human-rights and international community.... pak fired nuke first so we did what we said...... massive response......

we can do that because if the fire

 

[LalTopi]

Akash has nothing to do with stopping missiles.

We have AAD, PAD and PDV being deployed next year followed by AD-1 and AD-2, two to three years later, which will form our ABM system. Full deployment of these systems will automatically reduce the capability of Pak missile arsenal by a huge margin.

Not just a huge margin. But a huge huge margin, to the extent that it will make a PAK first strike ineffective, even if the stated 98% kill rate cannot be completely relied upon. Roll out of this dual layer state of the art shield will be a game changer in that we will no longer have to submit to PAK nuclear blackmail, but can retaliate with speed against any terrorist atrocity.

This does not change Yusuf's doctrine. If some nutter PAK general does decide to try his Nuke luck, which the ABM shield will largely block, we can proceed to dismember Pakistan. Although I would still prefer using the odd nuke to take out surgically problematic areas once and for all.

 

[bengalraider]

Will you bomb Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar? Quetta, capital of Balochistan friendly with India. Peshawar, Pakhtunland again no enmity with India. Karachi capital of Sindh.

Will you bomb Lahore when our troops are probably in it which led the Pakis to bomb us in the first place.

In addition to the above reply these are the targets i propose you will notice that almost all of them are military towns of strategic influence and hitting these will act as morale breakers for the pakistani army.

a) ISLAMABAD- this city does not hold any particular significance for any ethnic group in pakistan as it was created from the dust post 1947 and as yet hold only a political significance in the country's workings.
b)RAWALPINDI- a traditional military town , we could hit this town with impunity.
c)WAH- a major munitions manufacturing hub, hitting wah would mean the end of any munitiions support from the POF to the Pakistan army.
d) KAHUTA- home to khan laboratories and pupotedly the birthplace(i still believe it was chengdu) of the pakistani bomb, a legitimate target if there was ever one.
e)SIALKOT- HQ of the 8th and 15th infantry divisons , the back bone of the punjab defense.
f)SARGODHA- the largest airbase of the PAF, and the base for the PAF's F-16's.Also the HQ for the 3rd Air Defence Division and the 22nd Division of the Army Strategic Forces Command .
g)QUETTA- basically run by the Taliban now.
h)BAHAWALPUR- HQ and main base of the PA's XXXI corps.
i)TAXILA-tank manufacturing and maintenance hub, need i say more.
j)GUJRANWALA- HQ of the XXX corps, the 2nd Artillery Division and the pride of Pakistan's tank corps the much(by the Pakistanis) celebrated 6th Armoured Division.
k)MANGLA- HQ to I Corps
l)MULTAN- HQ to II Corps and the 1st Armoured Division.

 

[pmaitra]

^^ You either bomb Islamabad or you bomb Rawalpindi. Why do you have both of them in your list?

 

[A chauhan]

Will you bomb Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar? Quetta, capital of Balochistan friendly with India. Peshawar, Pakhtunland again no enmity with India. Karachi capital of Sindh.

Will you bomb Lahore when our troops are probably in it which led the Pakis to bomb us in the first place.

You are making a fundamental mistake by accepting them as friendly cities, once they gets freed and a sovereign status, they will cease to remain friendly, so it's better to nuke those cities, no Pakistani population no headache.

 

[bengalraider]

^^ You either bomb Islamabad or you bomb Rawalpindi. Why do you have both of them in your list?

Rawalpindi is the military HQ and Islamabad the political HQ,i think both should be taken out.
why both well it's like you have gurgaon and you have delhi, both adjoin each other but both are major population centres in their own right.
with an area of approx 1000sqkm the islamabad-rawalpindi metropolitian area is big enough to warrant at least two 20kt airburst weapons, i envisage one each going off over the main political and military HQ's(over the presidential palace and military HQ), for maximum impact.