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In early 1965, fighting took place between Indian and Pakistani troops in the Rann of Kutch, a coastal border region between Bombay and Karachi. Devoid of attraction, it is a desolate, barren stretch of land, except for small grazing areas, and it is covered in brackish water for much of the year. It is of no economic, social or archaeological interest. On 4 April 1965, an Indian patrol overcame the Pakistani garrison of a fort at the euphonically named outpost of Ding, on the Pakistani side of the border. Pakistan moved reinforcements to the Rann (literally meaning marsh), and a minor war took place.
After only a small amount of fighting, the Pakistan army pushed the Indians back. It was a tight little campaign, won by superior tactics. The modern equipment that had been supplied to both countries by their supporters played little part in the mini-war. India had deployed almost all its new inventory in the northern border area against West Pakistan, but none in the south, and little against what had been the main, Chinese, threat in the north—for which it was intended by its donors. A cease-re was arranged between Pakistan and India on 30 June and took effect the following day. Later, an independent international commission was set up to adjudicate on the boundary.

Following the engagements in the Rann of Kutch, the Indian army, which had moved several formations to the south-west in the early months of 1965, conducted a major redeployment.
A major problem for (West) Pakistan was and is its lack of depth. The country is only two hundred miles wide along the line Peshawar-Rawalpindi, and little wider in the Lahore area further south. A compensating factor is that only minor redeployment is required from peacetime to wartime positions. 10 Division at Lahore and 15 Division at Sialkot (both of four infantry brigades) did not have to move far, and neither did 1st Armored Division from its base at Kharian to a position in depth around Sargodha, where it was joined by 7 Infantry Division from Peshawar. Along the CFL the Pakistanis had 12 Infantry Division, whose HQ was at Murree, which had one regular brigade and the eighteen Azad Kashmir battalion of locally enlisted soldiers.
According to Gul Hassan, all was not well in the Pakistan army, in spite of (perhaps because of) the Rann of Kutch success. He relates that there was ‘a prevalent attitude of complacency that pervaded the decision-making echelons of the Army,’ and his account of planning processes is unflattering to the army’s senior leadership. In reserve, India had two divisions in the centre of the country and eight in the east. Pakistan had no properly constituted reserve, save the ad hoc 6 Armoured ‘Division’ (the old 100 Armoured Brigade, renamed), which was not in a condition to fight as a formation, but was dispatched to the eastern front soon after battle was joined.

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