The area Musharraf chose was the same which late Brig. Sandeep Sen described as the sector with ‘traditional gaps’. As far as Musharaf was concerned, there was nothing traditional about it. It gave Pakistan the advantage of strategic surprise. The posts were vacated in winter by the Indian Army and only reconnoitered by air. Occupation of these would provide the distinct tactical advantage of domination; anyone who knows high altitude (HA) operations can assess that to dislodge a well-entrenched defender at these heights would need an advantage of 9:1. The Indian Army would have to push in reserve formations to achieve anything near that ratio and the reserves would be unacclimitized to HA operations thus elongating the response; besides of course, upsetting the order of battle of flanking formations. Most important of all, the main logistics route to Leh ran close to the LoC in the Dras-Mashkoh sub sector in the general area of Kargil sector. Interdicting this artery meant that winter stocking of Lima sector (Ladakh sector including Siachen) would be adversely affected. The alternate route from Manali via Upshi to Leh had limited capacity because of the nature of terrain and early closure for winter. Logistics choking of Lima sector in the perception of Musharraf would mean the inability to sustain deployment in Siachen thus forcing vacation without firing a shot.