shiv sastry wrote:
On Thursday 04 Oct 2007 8:36 pm, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
What exactly was the size of the Rashtriya Rifles detachment going after
these militants? Majors command a whole battalion if am not wrong - that's
at least two companies in strength, about 150..200 people each, right?
What were the losses in that firefight, for 9 militants to die?
Just the two Majors. The surprising thing was two officers being killed.
shiv
Not so surprising. The casualties in the officer ranks are always
higher. To quote from a recent account, of the Kargil war:
/This story might trouble some, why is it that officers are given so
much importance, even in the media an officer's death gets more
attention, there is only one way to answer that..quite simply - Its an
officer driven army. The officer is treated special because the officer
leads in battle by example. His message to his troops is always, follow
me, who never asks them to do what he would not do themselves. In Kargil
in most cases it was a young officer that was first to reach the
objective, this Army has the highest officer casualty ratio in the
entire world! To lead from the front, this is the officers creed, not Rs
15,000 a month!
(http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/showcolumns.aspx?id=COLEN20070021325)/
Majors command companies; a battalion will generally have six companies.
Nandkumar
