As for the Sino-Indian border self-defense counterattack that broke out in 1962, the process can be described as hearty, and it is not an exaggeration at all.
In this case, the scale is not large - the number of participants is only a few tens of thousands, and the time is not long - from the beginning of the self-defense counterattack to the withdrawal of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in just over a month.
From beginning to end, the Chinese People's Liberation Army has always held all the initiative, not only won a series of brilliant victories, but also annihilated more than 8,000 Indian troops in one fell swoop at a relatively small cost, achieving a near-perfect victory.
In the war, although the Indian army was not vulnerable - in the initial resistance, the Indian army relying on fortifications fought quite tenaciously, but this did not affect the victory of the PLA one after another.
In the end, the Indian army that invaded China's territory was defeated, southern Tibet was recovered, India's capital New Delhi was shocked overnight, and India even had the idea of moving its capital for a time. It can be said that the war of self-defense and counterattack against India has thoroughly exposed the invincible nature and weak strength of the Indian army.
The war of self-defense and counterattack is very important to China, and of course it is of great significance to India. If you think about it from another perspective, no matter what country is, the huge pressure on its borders that stretches for thousands of kilometers and is more than 4,000 meters high.
As long as the adversary sets up a radar on the plateau, it can easily monitor most of the country, including the capital. Therefore, although India's thinking is strange, this sense of insecurity is also extremely strong.
If the situation in the border conflict is so unfavorable and its own army has suffered heavy casualties, why has the Indian army never used its own air force? You must know that at that time, the Indian army and air force actually had an advantage in some parts.
In the war of self-defense and counterattack against India, the Indian army has always had a unique and huge advantage, that is, transportation advantage.
If you look at the map, you can see that the Sino-Indian border is located on the southern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is full of high mountains, icebergs and snow-capped mountains, and the environment is very harsh, and it is known as the third pole in the world.
Therefore, the logistics supply of the PLA across thousands of kilometers of plateaus to transport supplies for troops on the front line can no longer be described as difficult, it is simply an epic difficulty.
According to estimates, the border guards on the Sino-Indian border have to travel two to three thousand kilometers to obtain supplies from the railway, and the supply roads are extremely long and the supply environment is extremely harsh.
And this is precisely the key reason why the border defense forces, which have a glorious tradition and strong combat effectiveness, dispatched a small number of troops in the self-defense counterattack and took the initiative to withdraw after victory - the PLA is unable to exert its strength because of the difficulty of logistical supply.
As an adversary, India's northern rail network is only 100 to a few hundred kilometers from India's operational front, and the Indian Air Force has a large number of airfields in the border areas, thanks to the legacy of British colonialists.
Although the airfields built by these British colonists are dilapidated, most of them are not in use. At that time, fighters taking off from these airfields could penetrate deep into the interior of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and even have the ability to attack Qinghai Province.
At the same time, the equipment of the Indian Air Force is no worse than that of the Chinese.
Seven years after independence, it was not until April 1, 1954 that India officially took over the command of the air force from the hands of the British, the former suzerain, and embarked on the road of independent development.
However, the British, who are the number one in the world in laying mines and stirring up, will certainly not leave the Indian army with a well-developed air force. At that time, a considerable part of the aviation equipment inherited by the Indian Air Force was propeller fighters of the World War II era, which had long been outdated.
The main models are British-made vampires, hunters, and French storm fighters, etc., and the models are chaotic, old and new.
Coupled with the peculiar casualness of the Indians, after taking over the Air Force independently, the Indian Air Force will be able to achieve even 1/3 of the fighters in normal sorties, not to mention combat effectiveness for a long time.
During the same period, the Chinese Air Force had already confronted the US Air Force, the world's largest power, on the Korean battlefield, and thus forged a powerful air force, which made the Chinese Air Force naturally have an absolute advantage over the Indian army.
However, the Indians, whose hearts are higher than the sky, have not given up running their own air force. In fact, after coveting China's territory, India has been doing its best to equip its troops, including the Indian Air Force.
In the face of increasing border clashes between China and India, India has also stepped up its armament of the air force. Especially since 1961, India, despite its own financial difficulties, has been buying and buying around the world.
At that time, the Indians bought advanced aircraft from several countries, including the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Moreover, a large number of transport aircraft are used for the transportation of armaments and materials to the border.
According to incomplete statistics, from the end of 1961 to October 1962, before the self-defense counterattack, the Indian Air Force alone flew 6,040 transport sorties to the western sector of the border, and airlifted more than 30,000 tons of various military supplies.
Before the outbreak of the conflict, the Indian army already had more than 800 fighters of various types, the main force of which was the Canberra fighter made by the British, which was basically equivalent to the performance of the MiG-17, the main model equipped by China at that time.
Moreover, although the fighters of the Chinese Air Force at that time were stronger than those of the Indian army, the Chinese Air Force was at a disadvantage in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, where the environment was harsh and sparsely populated.
Before the outbreak of the self-defense counterattack against India, in the entire territory of Tibet, only the airport in Dangxiong had a 4-kilometer sandstone runway, and this airport could not directly take off and land jet fighters.
That is, in the region close to the Sino-Indian border, China does not even have an airfield for jet fighters to take off and off. There are only a few airports that can barely take off and land piston propeller transport planes and light general purpose aircraft.
The Chinese Air Force, at that time, only set up air force command posts at two airfields. And the radar station, which is crucial for air warfare, can only rely on the radar station at the junction of Qinghai and Tibet to provide part of the air situation.
Therefore, although the Chinese Air Force was stronger in the number of aircraft and actual combat effectiveness than the Indian Air Force at that time, the actual situation was that the Indian Air Force repeatedly illegally invaded China's southern Tibet region, and the Chinese Air Force was unable to fight back.
Since the Indian Air Force has such a huge advantage on the Sino-Indian border, why is it useless to hold back from beginning to end in the face of the fact that the Indian army is unreasonable and still stirs up three points? Could it be that the Indian Air Force is suddenly reasonable?
This is certainly not the case.
At that time, India did think that its air force had an advantage in the theater of operations, but the Indian army, which had a certain understanding of the Chinese air force, still retained a certain amount of sanity. However, what they are most worried about is not that their air force cannot defeat the Chinese air force, but that their cities will be bombed by China.
Because, at that time, the combat radius of Chinese bombers already included a number of large cities, including its capital New Delhi.
India believes that once the Indian Air Force gains air superiority in the event of a Sino-Indian conflict, it is entirely possible for Chinese bombers to bomb large Indian cities within the combat radius, and this kind of air attack is obviously something that India cannot withstand.
Therefore, India, which fears retaliatory air strikes, has never dared to use air power to attack.
Since the Indian Air Force failed to mobilize, in view of the actual conditions and the scale of the war, China also tried not to use its air force in line with the idea that the enemy would not move and we would not move.
Therefore, in the war of self-defense and counterattack against India, China and India basically did not use their air forces.