Excerpt taken from "The Encyclopedia of Land Warfare in the 20th Century", Part 5, Asian Wars of Imperial Succession, Brigadier Shelford Bidwell, Pages 164-173, Leisure Books, Salamander Books Ltd 1977, 27 Old Gloucester St, London WC1N 3AF, UK
Hostilities with Pakistan were to flare up again in 1965 after the Indian government unilaterally announced that Kashmir and Jammu were henceforth to be regarded as similar in status to the other Indian states. This resulted in some fierce, entirely orthodox fighting for local objectives. Apart from skirmishing in the Rann of Kutch (April-May), Pakistan began infiltration backed by artillery across the Kashmir cease-fire line which showed the effectiveness of guerrilla tactic in such terrain, some 10,000 irregulars keeping 50,000 Indian regulars backed by over 200 guns and mortars fully occupied. Hoping that the Indians were sufficiently distracted in this way, on 1 September 1965 the Pakistanis attacked in the lightly-held Chamb sector north of Jammu where there was good tank country, in great armoured strength and with massive artillery support, and were checked by the Indians only after hard fighting. The Indians in turn mounted a limited offensive astride the axis Amritsar-Lahore on 6 September with the aim of drawing the Pakistani tanks away from Chamb and, as it got under way, the larger mission of inflicting decisive casualties on the Pakistani army. Offensive and counter offensive followed for another fortnight and the fighting died down with little territorial advantage, but the score in terms of tanks clearly favouring the Indians who, the Pakistanis began to perceive, were no push-over.