Russo-Indian invasion of Pakistan in 1985

good idea , how about before a land invsion , the soviets launch 500 + sorties esp with aircraft of strategic aviation against targets in rawalpindi, and attack the pak army corps stationed in quetta and around peshawar
How well can PAF counter such attacks in 1985 ?

That basically invite the world to do a serious sanction against USSR which imported quite a lot of grain and exported petroleum to earn hard currencies. Also, the invasion of Afghanistan at least has the excuse of popping up a client state, not so in this scenario. With the USA and China cooperating in intelligence work in Xinjiang in OTL, Sino-US cooperation may expand into inciting unrest in Muslim Central Asia in such scenario. ISI certainly would try to do so.

Also, such an attack would means moving force from areas outside Central Asia as the Pakistan Army was much more competent and larger than the Soviet-dominated Afghan army. Such troops movement is likely to detected and alerted to Pakistan. China may increase troop presence at Sino-Soviet border as a counter-move.

As for air defence, PAK acquired F-16s in 1983 and these F-16s had engaged intruders from the North:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_Air_Force#1979–1988_Soviet–Afghan_War

Between May 1986 and November 1988,[34] PAF F-16s have shot down at least eight intruders from Afghanistan. The first three of these (one Su-22, one probable Su-22, and one An-26) were shot down by two pilots from No. 9 Squadron. Pilots of No. 14 Squadron destroyed the remaining five intruders (two Su-22s, two MiG-23s, and one Su-25).[35] Most of these kills were by the AIM-9 Sidewinder, but at least one (a Su-22) was destroyed by cannon fire. Flight Lieutenant Khalid Mahmoud is credited with three of these kills. One F-16 was lost in these battles during an encounter between two F-16s and four Soviet Air Force MiG 23s on 29 April 1987. The pilot, Flight Lieutenant Shahid Sikandar Khan, ejected safely.[36]
 

Ak-84

Banned
**Sigh**
The Soviets are going to force the worst terrain on the planet, which is covered by two plus corps armed to the teeth, in an area where air attack is ineffective at high altitude and suicidal at low altitude. The Red Army, which in the early 1980's had doubts as to its ability to pacify Poland, which had about 100,000 troops max in Afghanistan and none was a large armoured formation capable of assault........

As for the strategic strikes, while mid 80's Pakistan nuclear threshold is unknown, "attacks on our political and economic targets" most assuredly exceeds any level.
 

destiple

Banned
As for air defence, PAK acquired F-16s in 1983 and these F-16s had engaged intruders from the North:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_Air_Force#1979–1988_Soviet–Afghan_War

[34] PAF F-16s have shot down at least eight intruders from Afghanistan. The first three of these (one Su-22, one probable Su-22, and one An-26) were shot down by two pilots from No. 9 Squadron. Pilots of No. 14 Squadron destroyed the remaining five intruders (two Su-22s, two MiG-23s, and one Su-25).[35] Most of these kills were by the AIM-9 Sidewinder, but at least one (a Su-22) was destroyed by cannon fire. Flight Lieutenant Khalid Mahmoud is credited with three of these kills. One F-16 was lost in these battles during an encounter between two F-16s and four Soviet Air Force MiG 23s on 29 April 1987. The pilot, Flight Lieutenant Shahid Sikandar Khan, ejected safely.[36]


shooting down isolated afghan intruders is one thing, facing a concentrated assault by regiments of VVS with all supporting units is quite another
 
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destiple

Banned
The Soviets are going to force the worst terrain on the planet, which is covered by two plus corps armed to the teeth, in an area where air attack is ineffective at high altitude and suicidal at low altitude. The Red Army, which in the early 1980's had doubts as to its ability to pacify Poland, which had about 100,000 troops max in Afghanistan and none was a large armoured formation capable of assault........

As for the strategic strikes, while mid 80's Pakistan nuclear threshold is unknown, "attacks on our political and economic targets" most assuredly exceeds any level.
but if its the worst terrain in the world maybe they do not need armoured units to spearhead their assault
and you are forgetting indians will engage pak army in kashmir as well
sigh and how will pakistanis actually use their nukes in 1985 , what is the method of delivery ?
 

Ak-84

Banned
but if its the worst terrain in the world maybe they do not need armoured units to spearhead their assault
and you are forgetting indians will engage pak army in kashmir as well
sigh and how will pakistanis actually use their nukes in 1985 , what is the method of delivery ?

You, know you would get people to treat you seriously, if you would start capitalisation.
Won;t need an armoured assualt since "its the worst terrain". Its like saying a neutared dog does not need sex to reproduced since his balls have been cut off.
India is going to attack Pakistan in Kashmir aka the one area on the planet which is worse terrain than the Afghan border? ANd why? India has its hands full with half a dozen insurgencies in the 1985, and they had just gotten off a very expensive mobalisation in 1984. Plus the Indian military was pretty poor in the 1980's, as would be exposed in the Sri Lanka, as well as the mobalisations of 1987 and 1990. They were transitioning from a legs infantry force to a truly mechanised force at the time.

Pakistani delivery systems in 1985 are the B-57 bomber, plus Mirages III/V. In addition they have the first of the A-5 FANTAN arriving as well as F16.
 

destiple

Banned
The pakistan army is in no better shape than the indian in the 1980s btw
The insurgencies in india had been going on for a long time, it would deter its main formations to take a stab at pakistan esp if they have such a golden chance to have a two front war with them.Performance of india in sri lanka is a totally differnt matter , its like saying US army could not withstand the soviets in Europe because they had a few defeats in vietnam.While we know US military was in a position to defeat any force on the planet in the 80s and red army in europe stood no chance against them
B-57 was retired in 1980 by PAF and all the other platforms are very vulnerable to interception, and if pak uses nukes in pashtun areas then they will incite open rebellion amongst its own people.
And so what if they nuke a soviet motorized division ? You think public opinion in USSR will be such that their veterans will throw away their medals and start a hippie peace march to the kremlin, chanting " no paki ever called me a ruskie".I think you know what the soviet reponse be , EVEN if they do not use nukes they can destroy all major pakistani cities and that will be a great opportunity for indians to occupy Lahore and parts of Punjab essentially dismembering pakistan
 
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destiple

Banned
With the USA and China cooperating in intelligence work in Xinjiang in OTL, Sino-US cooperation may expand into inciting unrest in Muslim Central Asia in such scenario. ISI certainly would try to do so.

Also, such an attack would means moving force from areas outside Central Asia as the Pakistan Army was much more competent and larger than the Soviet-dominated Afghan army. Such troops movement is likely to detected and alerted to Pakistan. China may increase troop presence at Sino-Soviet border as a counter-move
such unrest may takes years if not decades to forment , chinease will not stick their neck out for the pakistanis.Like I mentioned the soviets will not be interested in a long term occupation just a significant show of force to destroy all pak army /airforce units west of the indus.And leave the area in total state of anarchy , promote local tribal leaders to assert themselves against control of islamabad
regarding chinese in 1971 they did not lift a finger to stop the indians unlikely they will risk confrontation with USSR
 
Why would India do this? What do they gain? The only way this makes any sense is if they can defang all of Pakistan's nukes and prevent them rebuilding - which realistically means occupying the whole country or most of it. Doing this, especially in conjunction with the USSR, means that trade and aid from the west is going to be markedly reduced - and the USSR can't replace that. I don't have the data for how much foods India imported from the west, and how much of that was at subsidized prices, but you can be sure whatever reductions happen cannot be replaced by the USSR which has to import food in a big way itself. Once Pakistan realizes this is not just another border clash writ large, and they see the USSR involved, they will let fly the nukes, if India does not realize this they are smoking some powerful stuff.

In a situation like this, where the Pakistanis see India and the USSR essentially working to destroy the country, might not there be the possibility of a few Pakistani aircraft flying low level one way missions to some Soviet cities. The unrefueled range of an F-16 is roughly 1,000 miles and the Mirages the same or slightly more. There are undoubtedly significant cities within that range - while European Russia might be safe, and even if you ignore the deaths, it won't look good if a couple of cities owned by the USSR get mushroom clouds from a third world country.
 
regarding chinese in 1971 they did not lift a finger to stop the indians unlikely they will risk confrontation with USSR

Because they couldn't. India invaded Pakistan in December because the Indo-China border would be difficult to cross as it was winter.
 

Ak-84

Banned
Why would India do this? What do they gain? The only way this makes any sense is if they can defang all of Pakistan's nukes and prevent them rebuilding - which realistically means occupying the whole country or most of it. Doing this, especially in conjunction with the USSR, means that trade and aid from the west is going to be markedly reduced - and the USSR can't replace that. I don't have the data for how much foods India imported from the west, and how much of that was at subsidized prices, but you can be sure whatever reductions happen cannot be replaced by the USSR which has to import food in a big way itself. Once Pakistan realizes this is not just another border clash writ large, and they see the USSR involved, they will let fly the nukes, if India does not realize this they are smoking some powerful stuff.

In a situation like this, where the Pakistanis see India and the USSR essentially working to destroy the country, might not there be the possibility of a few Pakistani aircraft flying low level one way missions to some Soviet cities. The unrefueled range of an F-16 is roughly 1,000 miles and the Mirages the same or slightly more. There are undoubtedly significant cities within that range - while European Russia might be safe, and even if you ignore the deaths, it won't look good if a couple of cities owned by the USSR get mushroom clouds from a third world country.
Novosibirsk and Omsk are about 2000 KM from N Pakistani airbases. While Southern Russia is a similar distance from Western Pakistani airbases.

Pakistan's first generation weapons are believed to be similar to CHIC 4 Chinese warhead. That warhead weight was about 500kg for 50 KT yield. Pakistan is known to have gotten it down to about 200 kg size for a similar yield and it's also possible that they actually got a higher yield for the same size (say 100KT).
With one bomb per attacking plane; and 3/4 external tanks, 2000 KM is just about doable. Soviet C Asia is, of course, doable without needing such tricks or one-way missions (Dushanbe, Samarkand etc are all in easy range), and the actual AD coverage is fairly poor in that region. S Russia has very good AD coverage.

Both places are easily hittable if we remove the return requirements and substitute it with "land/ditch in a friendly country".
 

destiple

Banned
Why would India do this? What do they gain? The only way this makes any sense is if they can defang all of Pakistan's nukes and prevent them rebuilding - which realistically means occupying the whole country or most of it. Doing this, especially in conjunction with the USSR, means that trade and aid from the west is going to be markedly reduced - and the USSR can't replace that. I don't have the data for how much foods India imported from the west, and how much of that was at subsidized prices, but you can be sure whatever reductions happen cannot be replaced by the USSR which has to import food in a big way itself. Once Pakistan realizes this is not just another border clash writ large, and they see the USSR involved, they will let fly the nukes, if India does not realize this they are smoking some powerful stuff.

In a situation like this, where the Pakistanis see India and the USSR essentially working to destroy the country, might not there be the possibility of a few Pakistani aircraft flying low level one way missions to some Soviet cities. The unrefueled range of an F-16 is roughly 1,000 miles and the Mirages the same or slightly more. There are undoubtedly significant cities within that range - while European Russia might be safe, and even if you ignore the deaths, it won't look good if a couple of cities owned by the USSR get mushroom clouds from a third world country.
India solves the kashmir problem once in for all by taking azad kashmir.Thats a huge advantage to them as it solves a border dispute dating back to 1947

If soviets start a coordinated air assault all of pakistan's nuclear facilities and airbases will be out of order within hours.Where will these aircraft take off from ?

And again even if we go by the BEST case scenario ( which IMHO is as plausible as sealion) pakistanis nuke one soviet city and kill half million to 1 million soviet citizens, so what next ?Probably nothing will unite the soviets and give them motivation to fight than this act calculated barbarism
 

destiple

Banned
Novosibirsk and Omsk are about 2000 KM from N Pakistani airbases. While Southern Russia is a similar distance from Western Pakistani airbases.

Pakistan's first generation weapons are believed to be similar to CHIC 4 Chinese warhead. That warhead weight was about 500kg for 50 KT yield. Pakistan is known to have gotten it down to about 200 kg size for a similar yield and it's also possible that they actually got a higher yield for the same size (say 100KT).
With one bomb per attacking plane; and 3/4 external tanks, 2000 KM is just about doable. Soviet C Asia is, of course, doable without needing such tricks or one-way missions (Dushanbe, Samarkand etc are all in easy range), and the actual AD coverage is fairly poor in that region. S Russia has very good AD coverage.

Both places are easily hittable if we remove the return requirements and substitute it with "land/ditch in a friendly country".
when have pakistani pilots ever trained for such a mission ? and navigation at such low level
avoiding the multitude of PVO interceptors ?, even the old Su-15 will be a threat to a heavily loaded Mirage or F-16
better still nuking a muslim city of central asia , and the pakistani propoganda of being defender of islam vanishes in the same mushroom cloud.Probably nothing will suit the soviets better !
 
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Ak-84

Banned
Read up on the Pakistani nuclear programme here
https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Grass-Making-Pakistani-Bomb/dp/0804776016

They trained for such a deep penetration mission and it’s detailed there. Soviet AD in the region is pretty patchy so they felt they had a good chance on getting at least s few warheads through.

As for the Pakistan Army defence against the USSR, here
https://www.amazon.com/History-Pakistan-Army-Wars-Insurrections/dp/1631440381

Described in some detail including the region and the forces.

Please read up on a topic before you post.
 

destiple

Banned
Read up on the Pakistani nuclear programme here
https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Grass-Making-Pakistani-Bomb/dp/0804776016

They trained for such a deep penetration mission and it’s detailed there. Soviet AD in the region is pretty patchy so they felt they had a good chance on getting at least s few warheads through.

As for the Pakistan Army defence against the USSR, here
https://www.amazon.com/History-Pakistan-Army-Wars-Insurrections/dp/1631440381

Described in some detail including the region and the forces.

Please read up on a topic before you post.
These are general works ,latter being a history of pakistan army so not entirely relevant to our discussion.
maybe you can share some pearls from them thanks

first one is by feroz khan a pak military guy, a word of caution about them in 1971 they felt they could emulate what israelis did in a pre-emptive strike.It didnt go so well to say the least, so I would take their opinions and estimates with a pinch of salt
 

Ak-84

Banned
Yes absolutley. A book written by a guy who was actually inside the Strategic Command for years is not a good source is to planning and threat perception....<sarcasm>
And of course a book by a man whom was Austrakiln Military attache for many years is also to be disbelieved and being to pro Pakistani. Who the hell carfes about experts, lets have some guy on the internet.

And, FYI, 1971 attack was **not** to emulate Israeli 1967 raid, it to try and replicate Pakistan's own raid on Indian AB in 1965, sepcifically Pathankot and Halwera. They knew beforehand that India being too large and spread out could not be 1967nd......I suspect that bit escape your "readings".

If you have something to actually counter, please present it.
 

destiple

Banned
Yes absolutley. A book written by a guy who was actually inside the Strategic Command for years is not a good source is to planning and threat perception....<sarcasm>
And of course a book by a man whom was Austrakiln Military attache for many years is also to be disbelieved and being to pro Pakistani. Who the hell carfes about experts, lets have some guy on the internet.

The guy also happens to be pakistani general right ? have you done any research on his possible bias on this subject? Can you show me record of when paksitani think tank has been right about their predictions about a certain conflict ? its like looking at "soviet military power" circa 1985 as an estimation of soviet military might.Furthermore what is Feroz Khan is basing his one way mission to nuking soviet cities ? Can you quote the footnotes ?

second work I never accused of bias , but its a GENERAL work on history of pak army, it does not even have a chapter on any contingency plan of war with USSR.If there is information within it ( which I have no access to ) please feel free to share.Or atleast point to the chapter which details these plans.I would be very grateful if you could share the pakistani perspective of that plan ( thats what military attaches do) but bear in mind it just pakistan armys estimation.

and this "some guy on the internet" is talking about something very specific which the experts are not writing about.

counter what ? your assertion that pakistani pilots routinely flew to tashkent at tree top level with dummy bombs evading soviet defences and and then ditched their aircraft so they can walk to china ?

Maybe I was wrong about basing it on israeli plan , I read it in a western journal not a pakistani defence journal albiet but the result was the same.The plan was a disastrous failure, in 65 the PAF performed quite well but their pre-emptitive strike failed in 71.So you cannot rely on predictions of "experts" of the pakistani command take their opinion as the gospel truth
 
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Ak-84

Banned
Did SAC practice attacking Moscow with dummy bombs?
It is not my duty to cure you of your ignorance. Read those books and then if you have actual counters to the claims therein, then by all means I would discuss them.

One final thing. It’s extremely bad form to dismiss something as “biased” simply based on the ethnicity or nationality of the author/maker. You need to show actual examples of bias and I am sure you certainly can after reading.
 

destiple

Banned
Did SAC practice attacking Moscow with dummy bombs?
It is not my duty to cure you of your ignorance. Read those books and then if you have actual counters to the claims therein, then by all means I would discuss them.

One final thing. It’s extremely bad form to dismiss something as “biased” simply based on the ethnicity or nationality of the author/maker. You need to show actual examples of bias and I am sure you certainly can after reading.
no but they were quite familar with flying the distances involved and had the legacy of waging prolonged strategic bombing campaigns, the Fizaiyah was not equipped for this scenario or had the training for it.But anything is possible in war thats why I said even if 1 in 1 million chance that happens incinerating samarkand or any other muslim city of central asia does not bode well for a country that claims to be a "fort of islam"
Ok fair enough, but i fail to see a direct correlation with the scenario here and I see no argument presented here to disapprove it.Well general's memoirs are generally not the most objective source generally speaking, even if they are based on actual wartime exploits.
Simply copy pasting titles of books ( which have nothing to do with the scenario discussed ) is poor argument , in thats the case I' sure you can google books on soviet concept of mountain warfare as a counter argument.
 
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India had far more important things to worry about, like stopping Sikh extremism. The idea that it would suddenly decide, "Hey, let's occupy Pakistan in alliance with a country we don't really like instead of trying to stop terrorism" is a dubious one at best.

And honestly, I'm really confused at how people seem to think India and the USSR were closer than Warsaw Pact states when the reality was that India only loosely allied with the USSR after multiple failed attempts to ally with the US.
 

destiple

Banned
India had far more important things to worry about, like stopping Sikh extremism. The idea that it would suddenly decide, "Hey, let's occupy Pakistan in alliance with a country we don't really like instead of trying to stop terrorism" is a dubious one at best.

And honestly, I'm really confused at how people seem to think India and the USSR were closer than Warsaw Pact states when the reality was that India only loosely allied with the USSR after multiple failed attempts to ally with the US.
If you read the scenario its just primarily about taking azad kashmir not occupying pakistan as a whole
plus sikh extremists are a very small group infact the general who stormed the golden temple was sikh too

thye do not have to be allied closely just coordiante the timing and they can wage totally seperate campaigns
the end goal is same i.e destroy the military potential of pak army
 
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