1971, with regard to the western border; the events of the east have been covered again and again. I am aware of two of the incidents, the two I mentioned.
One, down where 18th Div made its abortive bid to reach Jaisalmer, as a spoiling attack to put Khambatta, who was planning a thrust towards the north-south corridor, off his stride. Some people have suggested that, after all, 18th Div did manage to put the fear of God into Khambatta, so its own retreat didn't matter.
Two, the Chhamb Jaurian engagement.
Wait you didnt hear about the operations in the Phulkian Sector aka the Akhnur Dagger capture and the shakargarh salient?
India captured the "Chicken Neck" as the Chhamb sector started to fall apart..
""Armour available to 10 Division was not properly employed. The inherent flexibility and mobility of armour enables it to switch roles at short notice. Neither the Divisional Commander nor his Armour Advisor appreciated this characteristic of armour. On the first day only two Squadrons out of seven available were employed. One Squadron was left unemployed throughout the war because it was earmarked for the defence of Akhnur Bridge/town which the remotest threat disappeared after our attack on ÔchickensÕ neckÕ. The second armoured regiment was not inducted even after the enemyÕs intention became quite clear. When employed its Squadrons were brought in one by one merely to make up losses suffered by the Deccan Horse. The 10 DivisionÕs appreciation of the armour threat from Pakistan and the consequent employment of the Deccan Horse was faulty. Pakistan had used the northern approach in 1965. What justification could be there six years later to ignore this approach and to allot no armour for its defence? It is said that the commanders concerned did not want to employ armour earmarked for the offensive for defensive purposes. But this is not a valid justification because the flexibility of armour enables it to switch roles at short notice; in any case it would appear that there were adequate resources available centainly in armour after 10 December to regain lost territory but no attempt was made: (Refers-History of the Indian Armoured Corps-earlier quoted-page 489)"""
Capture of the dagger is mentioned in other sources as well such as Honour and glory by jagjit singh
and as for Shakargarh salient well we have Agha Amin with his battle of baripand and we have gen hanut singh in his fakhr e hind, story of poona horse although Colonel Ranjit Sengupta, Sukhwant and K.C Praval were not happy about the performance in the engvagement. Naseerullah babar was also not pleased with our performance and highlighted an overly defensive mindset which is also why the 111 wasnt able to capitalize on the gains of the 23 brigade but that is for later. colonel S.G mehdi also laments the failures at Shakargarh. No side was truly happy with their respective performance.
Basically india planned a major offensive in the shakargarh bulge and the indian 1st corp was to push into the salient from the north and east with the purpose of protecting the vulnerable areas of Indian territory, engage and tie down the mechanized forces and capture large amounts of territory. Pakistan’s I Corps, charged with the defense of the Shakargarh bulge, had 15 Division on the left around Sialkot, 8 Division on the right east of the Degh Nadi, and 8 Armored Brigade in support of both forward divisions. On 5th December India launched its attack but immediately struggled with two major issues. The first was that there was a severe lack of coordination and the events unfolding on the north side were not helping. There was an overly cautious approach taken by the indian commanders and it impeded the process to such length that the most successful indian division, the 54th, fought for two weeks to secure barely 8 miles of territory. These two weeks were spent on going around minefiels and engaging covering troops. when they actually reached the forced they were to tie down, their defensive, the war was at its end. On the other when India had reached into the salient and were securing their positions by 15th December, Pakistan started launching "Counter attacks" which were by the independent 8th armoured brigade near jarpal and barapind and they did not succeed because they were ill-planned and cautious attacks that only resulted in unnecessary losses. A fruitless attack was launched on 17th December which only brought nothing but losses. The two day struggle in this engagement saw us lose a good number of tanks. It was quoted "The few counterattacks which the 8th Division tried during the were most noticeable by their lack of planning." In the end India occupied the territory but failed to penetrate the defensive, dislodge the enemy and capture large swathes of land because of overly cautious commanders, which didnt press on the other hand the Pakistani reserves were present and could have assisted those probing assaults that only caused losses but they remained in the back while 6 Armored Division waited for orders near Pasrur, 17 Division found itself reduced to little more than a lone maneuver brigade as major detachments were sent off to 23 Division on the left and IV Corps on the right. It was quite clear that the Pakistani commanders brought a new meaning to being overly cautious especially not only did they lack the initiative to immediately attack when the Indian forces were in disarray due to lack of communications and mining issues but they also resorted to probing "Counter attack" rather than using the main forces in a combined assault.