India To Deploy 36,000 Extra Troops On Chinese Border

**Ryan Ruck** · November 24th, 2010, 07:14

India To Deploy 36,000 Extra Troops On Chinese Border

November 23, 2010

India has formed two new army divisions - comprising more than 36,000 men - to defend the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

The remote north-eastern state adjoins China which claims large parts of it.

The 56th Division will be based in the nearby state of Nagaland to guard the eastern flank of Arunachal Pradesh from Chinese attack through Burma.

The other new formation, the 71st Division, will be based in Assam to protect central Arunachal Pradesh.

There has been no response so far from China to the decision.

Mountain warfare

Already the Indian Fifth Mountain Division guards western Arunachal Pradesh while another division is responsible for protecting the eastern part of the state.

In addition there are counter-insurgency troops in Assam who can be sent to the Sino-Indian border at short notice.

A total of 1,260 officers and 35,011 soldiers have been assigned to the two new divisions, which are being especially equipped for mountain warfare.

Officials say they were formed at the behest of the Indian army chief, General VK Singh - who said they were necessary to beef up defences against China.

Gen Singh was not available for comment but one of his staff officers, on condition of anonymity, told the BBC that the army chief had "pushed very hard to fast-track the raising of the two divisions".

He said that they should be "fully operational" by March 2011.

He said their formation was India's response to the "huge Chinese build-up" in Tibet over the last three to four years. But he did not wish to elaborate.

India is also raising a paramilitary force called the Arunachal Scouts and Sikkim Scouts to help the army protect the Sino-Indian border in the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.

"All the men in these formations will be drawn from mountain-fit local tribesmen but the officers will be from the army, at least for a while," said a corps commander.

Their formation will be modelled on the Ladakh Scouts, who the army says bravely fought Pakistani intruders during the Kargil conflict of 1999.

India says the new measures have been put in place partly because China has "superb" communications on its side of the border, especially after a new train line to Lhasa was built in 2006.

India says that the Chinese airlift capability is also far superior.

The formation of the two new divisions means that India's deployments in the eastern sector of its border with China now matches the five army divisions that existed in 1986-87, when the two countries nearly went to war.

But after India and China signed a "Peace and Tranquillity" treaty in 1993, both sides scaled down their deployments as part of a confidence-building package.

**American Patriot** · November 24th, 2010, 14:10

Hmmmmm

Look guys, this is another sign of something happening.

Missile launch off our coast.

North Korea attacks South Korea.

US moving ACC group to China.

China has been doing massive build ups in equipment, troops and supplies.

India moves to defend their borders.

I'm missing something, and event or two, I'm sure.

**vector7** · September 17th, 2012, 21:06

In a First, Indian Tank Brigades to Defend China Border

Stratrisks.com
September 17, 2012

The army’s defences on the China border will get a major offensive boost with the impending deployment of two tank brigades, one each in Ladakh and north-east India. This is the first time that India will deploy armoured formations on the China border. Such formations, equipped with main battle tanks and BMP-II infantry combat vehicles, are traditionally used for striking into enemy territory.

Authoritative MoD (Ministry of Defence) sources tell Business Standard that the plan, cleared by the MoD, involves raising six new armoured regiments, equipped with 348 tanks (58 tanks per regiment, including reserves). In addition, three mechanised infantry battalions will be raised, amounting to about 180 BMP-IIs.

The decision to deploy tanks to beef up India’s light, mountain infantry divisions was taken due to doctrinal changes in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The PLA has deployed armoured and motorised formations in both their military regions across the Line of Actual Control, as the de facto Sino-Indian border is called. According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Lanzhou Military Region, which faces Ladakh, has 220,000 PLA troops, including an armoured division and two motorised infantry divisions (a division has three brigades). The Chengdu Military Region, opposite India’s north-eastern states, has some 180,000 PLA troops, including two armoured brigades and four motorised infantry divisions.

The Ladakh-based 14 Corps will be allocated an armoured brigade to cover the flat approaches from Tibet towards India’s crucial defences at Chushul. In the Sino-Indian war of 1962, six vintage AMX-13 tanks that the Indian Army had airlifted to Chushul inflicted serious losses and delay on the advancing Chinese.

The second armoured brigade will be located in the Siliguri corridor in Bengal, covering the approaches from Sikkim to the plains. One regiment will be located on the flat, 17,000-feet-high North Sikkim plateau, on which border areas are hotly disputed between China and India.

According to MoD sources, the army has demanded the purchase of additional T-90 tanks for these six armoured regiments. India has already bought 657 T-90S tanks from Russia and obtained a licence to build another 1,000. Now, in addition to these purchases, the army wants the latest version of this tank, called the T-90MS.
Contacted for comments, the army has not responded.

As first reported in Business Standard, India is also raising a mountain strike corps in the northeast, consisting of two mountain divisions with about 40,000 soldiers. The addition of an armoured brigade would add real teeth to the strike corps.

The army demanded such capability because China’s infrastructure build-up in Tibet allows it to rapidly concentrate forces in a sector, overwhelming the Indian defenders there. If China manages to capture a chunk of territory, India will no longer be forced into bloody, Kargil-style, counter-attacks to recapture it. Instead, an Indian strike corps could launch an offensive in an area of its choosing, capturing Chinese territory.

The north-east has already seen a vastly strengthened Indian Air Force (IAF). Sukhoi-30MKI fighters are flying from new IAF air bases in Tezpur and Chhabua, with additional air bases coming up in Jorhat, Guwahati, Mohanbari, Bagdogra and Hashimara. Six squadrons of the anti-aircraft Akash missile will defend north-eastern airspace. The IAF is modernising eight Advanced Landing Grounds, which would support offensive operations in the sector.