About the author

Rear Admiral Sudarshan Y. Shrikhande , AVSM, IN (Retd)

RADM Shrikhande graduated from the NDA in June 1979. His  qualifications include Masters with Distinction from the Soviet Naval War College, (1985-88) in ASW and Weapon Engineering; Msc From Staff College(1995);  MPhil from the Indian Naval War College  and Highest Distinction from the US Naval War College( 2003). He has served long years at sea, including as XO of INS Delhi, and in command of  three ships. He was defence attaché in Australia and to some South Pacific nations.

Read More About: Rear Admiral Sudarshan Y. Shrikhande , AVSM, IN (Retd)

5 Comments

  1. Sudip malik

    Very well argued Sir!

    Reply
  2. Warrior

    Wonderful analysis sir, you have done a very good analysis of the need for indigenisation of our arms supply.
    As an avid reader of various forums, it would be nice if you can throw some light on some questions I have,

    1) The intensity you described, how do we define or measure that, also how do we compare that with regards to another conflict in other parts of the world, if you could share some numbers of this analysis it would be great.

    2) Next is the part where you described the Chinese experience of intense fighting, you do make the examples of the Korean war, the civil war and what they call the “Peoples resistance against Japanese Aggression” here, if I may these all are prolonged cases of wars spread over many years how would you say that these can give us lessons for our preparation for Short and intense wars.

    3) Finally, is the Sino-Vietnam war example, in that except for the ’79 war and may be the earlier ’74 incident at Parcels, can we consider the other battles as major conflicts? I do agree that there was considerable involvement of artillery and huge consumption of rounds of artillery, but aren’t we also fairly well prepared with the artillery rounds?

    The point I was trying to make here with the above two examples is that in one sense would you say that even the Chinese are not that well experienced in “Short and Intense” conflicts. But yes, I do agree that they have considerable self-sufficiency in their domestic production which we do need to learn.

    Pardon the length of the comment, as an avid reader, I just wanted to hear the views of an experienced professional.

    Reply
  3. Warrior

    Wonderful analysis sir, you have done a very good analysis of the need for indigenisation of our arms supply.
    As an avid reader of various forums, it would be nice if you can throw some light on some questions I have,

    1) The intensity you described, how do we define or measure that, also how do we compare that with regards to another conflict in other parts of the world, if you could share some numbers of this analysis it would be great.

    2) Next is the part where you described the Chinese experience of intense fighting, you do make the examples of the Korean war, the civil war and what they call the “Peoples resistance against Japanese Aggression” here, if I may these all are prolonged cases of wars spread over many years how would you say that these can give us lessons for our preparation for Short and intense wars.

    3) Finally, is the Sino-Vietnam war example, in that except for the ’79 war and may be the earlier ’74 incident at Parcels, can we consider the other battles as major conflicts? I do agree that there was considerable involvement of artillery and huge consumption of rounds of artillery, but aren’t we also fairly well prepared with the artillery rounds?

    The point I was trying to make here with the above two examples is that in one sense would you say that even the Chinese are not that well experienced in “Short and Intense” conflicts. But yes, I do agree that they have considerable self-sufficiency in their domestic production which we do need to learn.

    Pardon the length of the comment, as an avid reader, I just wanted to hear the views of an experienced professional.

    Cheers

    Reply
    1. Sudarshan Shrikhande

      Dear Warrior (very nice nom de plume!), good questions, that I will try and respond to as best as I can. In the wars involving China, that I mention, you are very right that they were prolonged wars. Mao has written brilliantly about prolonged wars. My point was that there were several periods of intense warfare within all these. Measuring intensity is quite subjective. Some suggestions: quantum of forces engaged in time and space; expenditure of ammo and ordnance; casualties on one or both sides; ability to push in logistical reinforcements sometimes under intense combat. another factor is the joint intensity that can be developed. Chinese indicators on this are of interest. As afar as expenditure of ordnance, my analysis, inter alia, relies on the five volumes of the gulf War air surveys; WW II strategic bombing surveys. all these, as well as the great book “How to Make War” (3rd ed, 1995) by James Dunnigan; Dupuy’s work and studies done on ordnance efficiencies as a young officer in the erstwhile USSR all form a backdrop. The soviets, as pointed out in the earlier article, take quantitative analyses as seriously as do the Americans.
      China’s intellectual efforts and the obvious counter- strategies to the US thinking of newer versions of Air-Sea battle, etc does lead us to believe that they are configuring to intense warfare. This is, one can suppose, to counter any US “shock and awe” a nice but inaccurate term perhaps, that requires counter-intensity. in addition, for China’s own mil strategies regarding physical takeover of territories they claim as their own, or wish to acquire anyway, a high tempo of warfighting would be useful. Most pointers indicate that they are perhaps moving from merely short and intense to sustained intensity to gain pol-mil objectives. Wars by time-table or preparation for a finite period (10/20/45 days, etc) are risky.
      In the case of 1962, as you may already be knowing, despite the generally low/ mid level intensity, there were some lulls when practically negligible fighting was taking place!
      Our future steps should be to plan for intensity, and think hard about duration, collusion and enemies’ ability to wage intense warfare. CAG reports and media seem to indicate that we could do better in most categories of ordnance. a localised conflict like Kargil put pressure on us. Much may have been done already, but perhaps more is needed? I hope this at least partially helps your observations. Thanks

      Reply
      1. Warrior

        Thank you, sir, for such a well informed detailed reply…I hope you wouldn’t mind if I drop a line or two to your email on some other matters as well. It’s not often you get to interact with an experienced professional in such forums… 🙂
        Regards

        Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

©2024 Bharatshakti