Maoist Attack on Indian Troops!

Re: Maoist Attack on Indian Troop!

rhino123 said:

This bring up the next question. let us modify our scenario a bit... what if the insurgent are not just armed with small arms (assault rifles and pistols) but with a great deal of RPG, missiles and even had a handful of snipers.

How long would the US and NATO's relieve (be it bombers, artillery, air strikes, etc) respond and how long would the trapped NATO force could survive?

Click to expand...

Well I was including RPGs and guerillas armed with designated marksman/sniper rifles like the SVD in my scenario. When you say "missiles" what do you mean? Guided ATGMs like the Milan, Javelin, Kornet, Metis-M? Giving the guerilla force ATGMs probably wouldn't change the situation too much, since in this situation the soldiers were almost entirely walking. However you could use ATGMs for some pretty devastating direct fire. Look at the famous Taliban assault on an American outpost at Wanat in Nuristan province. The Taliban used a TOW missile to hit an American bunker, killing 7 soldiers and opening a path to get closer to the base. So ATGMs can be quite useful in an infantry fight, particularly an ambush, but I don't think it's a decisive factor.

As for how long response would take and how long NATO troops would be able to hold out in a similar situation would largely depend on the specific situation. US troops can get into contact with someone that can bring them fire support in minutes. It can take more time for that support to be approved and have an affect, but from what I understand the average time is like 20 mins or less if there's aircraft in the area and less for artillery nearby.

Guerillas must avoid superior firepower, and airpower (either fixed or rotor wing) is so effective against exposed light infantry in the modern era that once airpower is in the equation the Maoists/Taliban/whoever should probably start calling off the attack dispersing into the jungle. They will only have a favorable casualty ratio during the initial ambush.

Re: Maoist Attack on Indian Troop!

Finn McCool said:

Well I was including RPGs and guerillas armed with designated marksman/sniper rifles like the SVD in my scenario. When you say "missiles" what do you mean? Guided ATGMs like the Milan, Javelin, Kornet, Metis-M? Giving the guerilla force ATGMs probably wouldn't change the situation too much, since in this situation the soldiers were almost entirely walking. However you could use ATGMs for some pretty devastating direct fire. Look at the famous Taliban assault on an American outpost at Wanat in Nuristan province. The Taliban used a TOW missile to hit an American bunker, killing 7 soldiers and opening a path to get closer to the base. So ATGMs can be quite useful in an infantry fight, particularly an ambush, but I don't think it's a decisive factor.

As for how long response would take and how long NATO troops would be able to hold out in a similar situation would largely depend on the specific situation. US troops can get into contact with someone that can bring them fire support in minutes. It can take more time for that support to be approved and have an affect, but from what I understand the average time is like 20 mins or less if there's aircraft in the area and less for artillery nearby.

Guerillas must avoid superior firepower, and airpower (either fixed or rotor wing) is so effective against exposed light infantry in the modern era that once airpower is in the equation the Maoists/Taliban/whoever should probably start calling off the attack dispersing into the jungle. They will only have a favorable casualty ratio during the initial ambush.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the very clear explanation of the reaction time for both the US and the NATO.

even without air support and artillery a professional army unit would fare much better than what we saw with these paramilitary groups. i reference the bayonet charge in which a scottish regiment (forgot the name) killed 35 iraqi insurgents with no fatalities on their own side, not to mention the Brits were outnumbered 3:1. discipline is usually what makes the difference, and leadership is also a significant factor. imagine the Brits charging at a professional army across the open, they'd be wiped out before they can reach the enemy. its the same thing in this scenario, the only possible explanation for such kill ratio is that the second two sides made contact the government side just collapsed and tried to run away, which is the worst thing you can do. so even if you put a professional unit in the same situation with no reinforcements and heavy weapon support, the outcome would still be much prettier.

pla101prc said:

even without air support and artillery a professional army unit would fare much better than what we saw with these paramilitary groups. i reference the bayonet charge in which a scottish regiment (forgot the name) killed 35 iraqi insurgents with no fatalities on their own side, not to mention the Brits were outnumbered 3:1. discipline is usually what makes the difference, and leadership is also a significant factor. imagine the Brits charging at a professional army across the open, they'd be wiped out before they can reach the enemy. its the same thing in this scenario, the only possible explanation for such kill ratio is that the second two sides made contact the government side just collapsed and tried to run away, which is the worst thing you can do. so even if you put a professional unit in the same situation with no reinforcements and heavy weapon support, the outcome would still be much prettier.

Click to expand...

Very true. Training makes the difference between breaking and running/bunching up and shooting wildly and getting out of the killzone and returning accurate fire.

That just tells you the poor peasant soldiers don't have anything invested in the so called institution, be it the democracy or the army. Why would some poorly paid peasant die for nothing. The Maoist is ideological driven therefore much more willing to fight. My point is just training will not do. Need some incentives for soldiers to fight for. Like get a piece of land from the super rich when they retire. Then again, that's communist.

pla101prc said:

... the only possible explanation for such kill ratio is that the second two sides made contact the government side just collapsed and tried to run away, which is the worst thing you can do.

Click to expand...

Just read an interesting bit of info which allege that the Maoists mined the best bits of cover in their chose ambush zone and so when the attack began, all the Indian troops rushed into cover and suffered most of their casualties that way.

Does anyone have confirmation or more details?

If that was the case, then we may have been judging the Indians too harshly.

plawolf said:

Just read an interesting bit of info which allege that the Maoists mined the best bits of cover in their chose ambush zone and so when the attack began, all the Indian troops rushed into cover and suffered most of their casualties that way.

Does anyone have confirmation or more details?

If that was the case, then we may have been judging the Indians too harshly.

Click to expand...

I don't think that was the case. According to surviving Indian soldiers they only lost one man as a result of IED attack. Most of them suffered gunshot wounds but due to the five hour delay in reinforcements many of them bled to death.

Finn McCool said:

Very true. Training makes the difference between breaking and running/bunching up and shooting wildly and getting out of the killzone and returning accurate fire.

Click to expand...

very true. While the Indian Army is professional and fairly competent, the forces involved were from the CRPF (central reserve police force) which is just a police force armed with old used semi / automatic weapons handed down by the army and Ist generation body armour and lead by civillian police officers. They hence lacked adequate training and were not prepared for the situation as they were expected to just act as a show of force in bringing the maoists to the bargaining table with the government, rather than take part in pitched battles. they could not disengage / run away from the maoists as they were encircled and wiped out within a few minutes.

The Army does provide basic jungle warfare training to the CRPF but the evidence suggests that the officer commanding the CRPF company either chose to ignore that training or did not fully grasp the principles. i.e. returning to base using the same route as they left , not deploying forward scouts to detect the enemy lying in ambush.

They lacked fire support as the Army and Airforce CANNOT get involved in an internal matter and hence there was no artillery , strike / CAS aircraft deploying precision munition or gunship support available.

while its interesting to note the tactics which would have been used by NATO troops in Afghanistan, the analogy provided by Finn McCool and others is not correct as they are front line troops fighting a war in a foreign country while compared to a police force trying to contain a civil unrest by an armed militia force. you can hardly imagine the us / nato to use airstrikes or artillery fire to deal with something like the ku klux klan or some extremist movement like the recently uncovered christian militia.

Additionally the element of surprise was on the side of the Maoists as they were lying in ambush from elevated position and encircled the CRPF company and caught them in an intense crossfire with lmg's , assorted small arms , rpgs and IED'a / Booby traps.

from what ive been able to gather from the news on tv, booby traps were placed in all the best spots for cover and when they tried to take cover once they were engaged they ended up triggering the booby traps. One major IED was used to knock out a Casspir (which served as a prototype for the US MRAP) armored vehicle which was sent in to evacuate casualties. from the news reports around 50% - 60% of the casualties were from direct gunfire while the rest was from the booby traps / ied's.

the reason why it took an extremely long time for reinforcements to arrive to the location was
1) the area where they were ambushed is in central india which is mostly dense jungle or rural farmland. i.e the middle of nowhere. and far away from any major roads.

2) while the the airforce and army aviation corps have several hundreds of helos at their disposal, the government had only directed the air force to dispatch ONLY 2 helos to support CRPF operations in the whole of central india upto the time of the incident. additionally these 2 helos were confined to a CASEVAC role and were not deployed near where the incident took place. although from what ive heard in recent news the government has requested more CASEVAC helos from the airforce. the government has also started trials for new UAVs inducted for the CRPF. (the model of UAV was not mentioned by the manufacturer quoted was Honeywell, ive searched and have not been able to find any specific uav manufactured by Honeywell but only that they manufacture components used in uav's. i would appreciate it if someone here could tell me what which uavs might have been procured)

to conclude this enormous post,

while the loss of life is very sad , the maoists held all the cards in the engagement (i.e. element of surprise, superior numbers 300 - 1000 maoists compared to 75 police , elevated position , lmgs throwing out heavy volumes of fire place in crossfire positions, booby traps and ied's in areas of cover ,complete encirclement, concealed firing positions and superior firepower with lmgs, rpgs, ieds and small arms for the maoists compared to automatic rifles and pistols for the police) any other police / paramilitary force in the world would have fared no differently in such an engagement and would have been completely wiped out as well. so the 75 to 8 outcome that was the end result is fairly obvious.

while the loss of life is very tragic hopefully it will serve as a wake up call to the government that trying to negotiate with terrorists is futile and hopefully the forces involved will be better prepared and won't let their guard down.

anomaly said:

while the loss of life is very sad , the maoists held all the cards in the engagement (i.e. element of surprise, superior numbers 300 - 1000 maoists compared to 75 police , elevated position , lmgs throwing out heavy volumes of fire place in crossfire positions, booby traps and ied's in areas of cover ,complete encirclement, concealed firing positions and superior firepower with lmgs, rpgs, ieds and small arms for the maoists compared to automatic rifles and pistols for the police) any other police / paramilitary force in the world would have fared no differently in such an engagement and would have been completely wiped out as well. so the 75 to 8 outcome that was the end result is fairly obvious.

while the loss of life is very tragic hopefully it will serve as a wake up call to the government that trying to negotiate with terrorists is futile and hopefully the forces involved will be better prepared and won't let their guard down.

Click to expand...

You're making it sound like the Naxalites are better equipped than the CRPF.

solarz said:

You're making it sound like the Naxalites are better equipped than the CRPF.

Click to expand...

the naxalites were better equipped than THIS CRPF company involved. although in general the CRPF has access to better weapon systems, they are still very poorly equipped compared to regular Army or Army Reserve units.

the unit of the CRPF is an exception to this as they are much better armed than their regular CRPF brethren.