Ladakh Flash Point

China likely lost at least 40 soldiers in border clash: Indian minister




MUMBAI (Reuters) - China lost at least 40 soldiers in a clash with India at their disputed border this week, a federal government minister has said, as the nuclear-armed countries remained locked in confrontation on the frontline on Sunday.


FILE PHOTO: An Indian Army convoy moves along a highway leading to Ladakh, at Gagangeer in Kashmir's Ganderbal district June 18, 2020. REUTERS/Danish Ismail/File Photo
China has not said anything about any losses in the hand-to-hand combat that took place in the heavily contested Galwan Valley in the western Himalayas, in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed and at least 76 injured.
“If 20 were martyred on our (Indian) side, then there would have been at least double the casualties on their (China) side,” V.K.Singh, the minister for roads and transport, told TV News24 in an interview broadcast late on Saturday.
Singh, who is a former army chief, did not provide any evidence to support his statement. He said China historically never accepted any war casualties including in the 1962 conflict with India.
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China’s state controlled Global Times said earlier there had been casualties on the Chinese side but did not elaborate.
Singh said the Indian side had handed over Chinese troops who had strayed into Indian territory after the violent standoff.
India’s defense ministry spokesman Bharat Bhushan Babu refused to comment on Singh’s interview.
The nuclear-armed Asian neighbors traded accusations on Saturday that the other had violated their shared de facto border, an area that this week became the site of their deadliest clash in half a century.
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Troops remain locked in a face-off at several locations along the poorly defined Line of Actual Control, despite talks between local commanders to de-escalate.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has criticized China for escalating border tensions with India.

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China’s state controlled Global Times said earlier there had been casualties on the Chinese side but did not elaborate.
Singh said the Indian side had handed over Chinese troops who had strayed into Indian territory after the violent standoff.
India’s defense ministry spokesman Bharat Bhushan Babu refused to comment on Singh’s interview.
The nuclear-armed Asian neighbors traded accusations on Saturday that the other had violated their shared de facto border, an area that this week became the site of their deadliest clash in half a century.

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SampanViking said:

I really do not want to see images of battlefield casualties on this forum, especially when none of them are from the incident under discussion.
Please refrain from posting similar again.

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SteelBird said:

According to several news I've read, India deploys its T-72 MBT to Ladakh to confront with China while China also deploys its new mountain tank -- Type 15 light tank. We all know that MBT don't fit to operate at high altitude and low temperature also affects its performance. A commentator of a TV program said that at such high altitude, the T-72 can only reach 20 km/h. That's a bit exaggerated! With max speed of 20 km/h, it would take a decade to reach a target. I wonder how the Type-15 perform in such terrain.

P.S. I'm no longer interested in the stories that how many Indian/China soldiers have died in clash in Ladakh.

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PiSigma said:

T72 will basically just become targets in mountains if they can get them there in the first place. Due to the reduced oxygen in the atmosphere, combustion of fuels will have a much reduced efficiency. So the same amount of fuel only provides sometimes half of the energy that would see at sea level after all inefficiencies are considered.

T-15 is designed for high altitude, so not worried.

A not very mobile tank is just another target. Consider how much artillery China have up there, that's a lot of juicy targets. The only area good for tank warfare is the small plains near kangri.. but that's a long way to transport 100 tanks being watched by PLA.

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