@Joe Shearer how about we involve the pakistani military in a chinese thrust towards Sub Sector North ? SSN faces a collusive threat from both sides
It's not up to me.
In a war-game of this sort, what we need is the following:
An Observer, who will be the public custodian of information and the recipient of public information. I will explain that.
An Umpire, who is privy to the order of battle details of both sides, and to the capability of the weaponry, as well as to rates of movement maximum and minimum, and attrition rates of both sides after an encounter.
Much of this, as much as 90%, would be covered by the system, if a simulation system is being used, as is being used elsewhere; we had to slog for weeks to prepare our ORBAT, since we wanted to present a completely different set of war aims, and to twist the rules of engagement in our favour; we had to slog also to find the rate of progress of an armoured division, a mechanised division and an infantry division (we have not submitted any specifications for mountain divisions, but are keeping it up our sleeves; submitting these is to remind the Pakistanis that there is a wide scope of operations on the Kashmir side, what you have termed the SSN, and our whole game plan there is posited on a series of deceptive moves, intended to divert their attention from Rawalpindi-Okara to further south).
Rules of engagement over there also included two over-arching rules - no use of tactical nuclear devices, and no intervention by the Chinese. The Pakistani Observer and Umpire have been scrupulously fair to us. On the other hand, to my disappointment, a new technology was disallowed, although it is already in use by the Indian CAPF, and also, the Umpire very strictly ruled that a minimum 30% of forces aligned against the PLA must be retained; 70% might be diverted but not more.
There are also rules for the speed of progress of units; a division or similar formation may move maximum 30 kms a day without hostile opposition; a tank moves at 8 kms per hour unopposed, 1 or 2 kms per hour under opposition. There are norms for replenishing formations, and those norms will be observed; we cannot have someone sitting in the middle of a desert, firing away three months' worth of ammunition in a three-day period and expect to do the same day in and day out.
The Observer comes in because in a system-driven war game, Side A makes a move and records it in the system, and Side B immediately gets to know it, and may react. Here there is no system; we have been informed that the Indian Army has done #1, #2 and #3; that is fine, but in response, the Side B, in this case role-playing the PLA and the PLA AF, will do certain things in public, certain things in private. When a brigade turns up in Haldwani, nobody should say that this was not announced while it was being prepared and in the stages of execution; only the final, visible step will be known. In our present case, there is no Observer and we have to announce our moves ourselves.
In the absence of an Umpire, the moves we make are also not scrutinised. I might move an armoured brigade into the middle of Dehra Dun, for all anyone can say or do. Obviously that is an absurdity, but in the absence of an Umpire, it becomes an argument without end.
It becomes worse when it comes to weaponry and to the results of combat.
So what we are trying here is a back-of-the-envelop version of a war-game, and we need to develop our information much further before trying out a full-scope war-game.
When I tell you that five people worked tirelessly at preparing the Indian presentation (we are ready in all respects but for the Naval preparations) for a full week, you will get an idea of the effort involved even at the level of gaming with an all-seeing system doing the heavy lifting.
Hope you get a feel for what is involved. That is why battalions, brigades, divisions, Corps, all have very strong staff complements. War is hell; planning for war is purgatory, a preparation to go into hell.
