(2 of 2)
Horseshoe Trap. According to New Delhi, the major Pakistani counterattack was directed at the Indians before Kasur, which was chosen as the target because a Pakistani breakthrough would permit either a drive toward New Delhi or an attack northward that would cut across the Indian rear. The assault was mounted by the 1st Armored Division, reputed to be the best in the Pakistan army. The Indian strategy resembled that of Hannibal when he caught the Romans in a baglike trap and decimated them at Cannae. The Pakistani armored column burst through the first Indian line and plunged on only to find itself entrapped inside a horseshoe-shaped line of well-fortified Indian positions. Recoilless rifles, mounted on jeeps or dug into ground emplacements, poured a heavy fire into the massed Pakistani tanks. Support fire rained down from Indian 3.7 howitzers. With the temperature in the 100s, the buttoned-down tanks were like ovens; the dust clouds raised by the explosions blinded the tankers, which milled about like a frightened herd.
At Kasur, the Indians claim to have captured or destroyed nearly half of, the 1st Armored's 220 tanks and to have killed two Pakistani generals in the process. Since generals are seldom found in armored spearheads, the Indians explain their presence on the field as owing to the fact that "the battle was going so badly."
Destroyed Myth. The jubilant Indian press last week printed the army's claim to have already destroyed 284 U.S.-built Patton tanks, which had never before been battle-tested. The progress of the war, crowed the Indian Express, "destroys much of the myth of the meek and mild Hindus as it has the legend of the superiority of the American-built and American-supplied Patton tanks and Sabre jets."
Western military observers, who have been as frustrated as newsmen in getting to the front lines, are not at all convinced. Contrasting the claims of both sides, one expert said, "the figures just don't match—one or the other must be totally off." And, despite the joy in New Delhi at its army's great tank victory, the awkward fact was that Pakistan still held Kasur.