The Chamb Sector: 1965

Most of the rest of the battle was fought by the Indian anti-tank guns, as four of my tank platoons were unable to spot through the smoke. My fifth platoon was the one that fired on the western bridge, and was decimated by accurate overwatch fire from the Pattons. (My error -- I didn't think to pop smoke grenades until it was too late!)

A lone survivor of my decimated AMX-13 platoon advanced unseen through the smoke into the main wadi, then stages an ambush of a Patton column in an intersecting wadi. Unfortunately, no hits were scored. The ambusher popped smoke (thought of it this time!) and escaped, only to be overrun later.

From the Indian perspective, I never did understand why the Pakistanis failed to push aggressively across the bridges once they had smoked the Indian defenses and moved the wrecks off the bridges. (Morale failures?) At any rate, the invaders regrouped and made two new approaches -- one down the center of the battlefield, to look for a crossing point in the central wadi, and another advance in the west by Pattons in the cover of an intersecting north-south wadi.

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