'Largest, most experienced': Amid LAC standoff, Indian mountain troops win rare praise from Chinese expert

Amid ongoing LAC standoff, a Chinese military expert has praised the Indian forces saying that India has the world's largest and most experienced plateau and mountain troops equipped with some of the best weapons suited for such terrain.

The rare public compliment came from Huang Guozhi, senior editor of Modern Weaponry magazine, who published an article in China’s thepaper.cn on Tuesday.

"At present, the world’s largest and experienced country with plateau and mountain troops is neither the US, Russia, nor any European powerhouse, but India,” Huang wrote.

Indian Army's mountain brigades are raised mostly for the Chinese border, especially the Tibetan plateau. Troops have also been posted at Siachen glacier, said to be the world's highest battlefront.

Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged in a bitter face-off in several areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) for over a month.

Huang wrote that with more than 200,000 troops in 12 divisions, the Indian mountain force is the largest mountain fighting force in the world.

Since the 1970s, the Indian military has established and expanded the size and personnel of the mountain troops on a large-scale, and also plans to create a mountain strike force of more than 50,000 troops, Huang said, according to a PTI report.

"Mountaineering is an essential skill for almost every member of the Indian mountain army. To this end, India even recruited a large number of professional mountaineers and amateur mountaineers from the private sector,” he wrote in Chinese.

"The Indian Army has set up hundreds of outposts in the Siachen Glacier area with an altitude of more than 5,000 metres, with 6,000 to 7,000 fighters stationed. The highest post has reached 6,749 metres," he said in reference to the Indian Army’s presence in the Siachen glacier.

He further said that the Indian military is equipped with a large number of weapons adapted to the highland and mountain operating environment through procurement and domestic research and development.

"The Indian military has also spent heavily on advanced heavy equipment from the United States, including the M777, the world’s lightest 155mm towed howitzer, and the Chinook heavy transport helicopter that lifts the gun, to boost its fire support and anti-armour capabilities”, he wrote

"In addition, there are many conflicts and differences between the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force. This has also led the Indian Army to decide to equip its own US-made AH-64E Longbow Apache attack helicopters instead of relying entirely on airfield support from the air force,” Huang further said.

He also noted that mountain region, especially the plateau mountain region, is the most severe and difficult operational environment recognised by all countries in the world.

"In this environment, combatants must not only do their own warm protection, but also prevent acute altitude sickness such as cerebral pulmonary edema due to low pressure and hypoxia," he said.

Huang wrote that Indian military is not yet fully self-sufficient in weaponry and this is one of the “shortcomings.”

“Especially when India procures large quantities of advanced light weapons using Western calibre, ammunition supply becomes a big problem”, he wrote.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long LAC which ranges from union territory of Ladakh in the North to Arunachal Pradesh in the Northeast.