Chimera (43 page)

“Yes sir! Rhino force will give them hell,” Kulkarni responded as he saluted and ran back to his tank, signaling the other commanders behind him to rev-up their engines.

Mohanty took out a cigarette pack from one of his uniform breast pockets and lit it up, blowing the smoke away as the first Arjun tank bellowed smoke and roared forward along the road.

Since the first day of the ground war in Ladakh, when Mohanty, Adesara and Sudarshan had lost the tiny T-72 force in DBO holding the Chinese back, it had taken a good five days to get the next, fresh set of armor into the theater on account of poor infrastructure in Kashmir.

Five days!

Mohanty scowled and threw away his cigarette into the gravel.

Five days. Imagine what I could have down with this force if I had them on the very first day of the war!

He walked back to his command post. Behind him, a dust cloud rose into the gray cloudy skies as the tanks of the 43
RD
Armored rolled forward.

HAA DZONG

BHUTAN

DAY 6 + 1730 HRS

“What the heck are they waiting for?” Potgam asked his operations staff inside the admin building at the former IMTRAT headquarters, now functioning as JFB command center. He and his other officers were poring over a bunch of paper maps strewn about on tables and pinned to the walls. He had radios lined up in the other room and a couple of laptops and battlefield computers showing the UAV feed in case he needed to see it.

The whole arrangement was ad-hoc and everybody knew it. But it was also the best they could do for now. So everybody had to improvise and make do…

Potgam had long decided that his Chinese counterpart leading the Highland Division into Bhutan had made a mistake in stopping and consolidating his forces before rushing for Thimpu. The latest satellite imagery showed two Highland Regiments bringing up supplies and preparing defensive fall-back positions north of Thimpu. This was not without merit. They had captured vast areas of Bhutan and were now trying to bring in supporting arms to secure it. Potgam’s UAV crews had seen what looked like a lot of Mi-17s moving field artillery guns and supplies and they had even seen a few Short-Range-Air-Defense , or SHORAD, vehicles being brought in to create a bubble of protection around the Divisional forces.

Potgam turned away from the maps pinned to the wall to face the Brigadier in charge of gathering intelligence on Chinese forces north of Thimpu.

“
Well?
”

“Sir, they are bringing in two more Regiments to reinforce their lines. Same as before: digging in before advancing. Pathanya’s team here,” he pointed on the pinned map with a marker, “reported twelve hours ago that they have seen evidence of precision artillery attacks against RBG forces near the Wang-Chu Bridge on the approach to Thimpu. They might even be using R-P-Vs of their own for precision targeting. Also, I think it’s a safe bet that the Brigade of the Highland Division advancing on Thimpu will hold one Battalion in reserve and the other two for the advance. There are also at least three enemy special operations teams inside our A-O.”

Potgam folded his arms as he continued to stare at the map in front.

“Yeah, I agree. I want those bastards found and killed before they cause any trouble. As for the Brigade north of Thimpu, all I heard from you is an enemy plan if we just decided to sit around and do nothing. And that’s
not
happening! What I see is an enemy commander so cautious and methodical that it leaves him vulnerable to an unorthodox foe. He has also shown us that he unable to adapt to a fast moving situation,” Potgam concluded ruthlessly.

He paced around the room lost in his thoughts for a minute before he stopped and looked at the other operations officers waiting for him:  

“Get Pathanya on the horn and tell him to hold that bridge he’s on. We have no defenses north of Thimpu other than Pathanya’s men. Until we can get reinforcements brought into Paru, I want him to fight a delaying battle with the help of Fernandez and his precision rocket launchers. Keep delaying the reds until we are ready to take the fight back to them. I want to fight this battle on our terms, not theirs. Right now they have a larger force slowed down by its bulk. We have a fast and flexible force with superior firepower. Let’s use that to our advantage!”

OVER SOUTHERN SIKKIM

DAY 6 + 1800 HRS

“Inbound bombers! Heading south from Golmud!”

The radar operators on board the CABS AEW aircraft were quick to detect the approaching H-6s from Wugong at long-range.

“
Missile launches!
Detecting stand-off ripple launches!” the operator shouted over the intercom. The mission-commander, Group-Captain Virendra Roy, ran over.

“What do you have?” he asked while leaning over the shoulder of the operator sitting before him.

“Thirty-six cruise-missiles from the six H-6s launched towards Baghdogra and Hashimara airbases!” the radar operator confirmed.

The missiles were moving straight in with no deviation: expected performance from the YJ-62 type missiles.

“Okay, who’s up?” Roy asked.

As it turned out, a flight of two Mirage-2000s patrolling over Paru in Bhutan were the closest. The two Mirage pilots were quick to move on the threat. They were soon dumping their under-wing drop tanks into the turbulent slipstream behind them and lighting up afterburners to close on the inbound threat…

BAGHDOGRA

DAY 6 + 1810 HRS

Klaxons were sounding off on the airbase as the crew of the two An-32s on the ground rushed into their cockpits to get the aircraft off the ground. Emergency start-up procedures were enacted as ground-crews cleared the support vehicles and logistical equipment supposed to be loaded on board for a flight to Paru.

The first An-32 engine fired up, quickly followed up by another just as the control tower passed the word that it was shutting down and operational control being passed to the base-operations center, located within a large underground bunker nearby. The handful of Mig-21s on the ground that had just returned from strike operations against Chinese targets in the Chumbi valley were now being quickly moved by primer vehicles into their hardened shelters.

North of the airbase, the Akash surface-to-air missile battery came online. Its phased-array Rajendra radar went active and began scanning the northern skies.

OVER THIMPU

DAY 6 + 1815 HRS

The capital of Bhutan was in total and utter chaos.

Civil governance had broken down completely. Residents were fleeing the city in droves and were making their way south. Pillars of smoke could be seen from areas where government documents were being burnt in piles as military vehicles sped by.

When the supersonic booms broke over the city, it caused many of the residents below to look up at the evening sky in fear. But there was nothing to see. By the time that sonic wave had hit the city the two Indian Mirage-2000s had already streaked north, ripple firing Matra Super 530D missiles at the inbound cruise-missiles…

“Pickled one and two! Clear release!” the lead Mirage pilot said.

In front of him he could see the white contrails of his two missiles heading north, veering slightly to the west.

“Copy! Clear release!” the second pilot also confirmed, sending his two missiles on their way as well.

A hundred kilometers to the south, the CABS AEW aircraft had also confirmed clear release of four missiles against the
thirty-six
inbound YJ-62 missiles. With another four missiles on board the two charging Mirages, a total of eight were available. Even if all eight hit their targets, twenty-eight missiles would get through.

Because the YJ-62s were heading straight to their targets, oblivious to the intercepting missiles, all four 530D missiles slammed into their targets, splashing four of the Chinese missiles out of the sky. As two orange fireballs announced the detonation of the warheads over the mountains, thirty-two missiles streaked by and continued heading south…

“Two, they are too close for another head on, attempt! Let’s roll in behind for a chase-solution!” the lead Mirage pilot ordered.

He flipped his aircraft to the right, and pulled down and to the west, attempting to roll in behind subsonic cruise-missiles. His wingman did the same. By the time the maneuver was completed, the YJ-62s had streaked past and cleared Thimpu and were one-hundred kilometers from Baghdogra.

On board the AEW aircraft, the onboard mission-commander was directing more aircraft to the battle. Most of the Indian presence over the Chumbi valley had been Hashimara based Mig-27s and Bisons from Baghdogra. Both these types relegated to the ground attack role in support of operation Chimera. The No. 7 “
Battle-Axes
” Squadron had been providing the required air-cover over Sikkim and Bhutan with their Mirage-2000s. 

But there were just not enough fighters in the IAF to defeat such a large standoff attack against a single target. And so the AEW controllers were caught in a tough situation. If they let these two Mirages from No. 7 Squadron expend all of their missiles against the YJ-62s and let the remainder be taken care of by the Siliguri Akash SAM battery, it would leave Bhutanese airspace undefended for a while before other aircraft from the Battle-Axes squadron could take position.

If on the other hand, they held back the two Mirage pilots from expending their weaponry and return to station over Paru, the Akash battery might not be able to intercept all of the inbound missiles. If that happened and Baghdogra took a hit, it would cripple local air operations severely. The mission-commander on board the AEW made his decision:

“Sharpshooter-One, take as many out as you can!”

“Roger! Sharpshooter is rolling in. Out!” the flight-leader confirmed.

By now the two Mirage pilots had the yellow engine exhaust of the YJ-62s on the horizon in front of them, heading into India…

Not while I am still here!

The flight leader thought as he depressed the launch button and felt the jerk as another missile fell off his pylons, fired its rocket motor and appeared from underneath the HUD, its exhaust quickly converting into white trails which spread over the cockpit glass and moved above it. The second missile did the same a moment later. His wingman followed suit. A few seconds later the familiar bleeping noise in the cockpit turned to an undertone screech indicating that the missiles had acquired.

Four small orange-yellow explosions erupted.

“Splash-One! Splash-Two!” he said.
Twenty-eight missiles left…

“We are out of weapons, boss! Guns?” the wingman’s voice came through on the comms. The flight-leader smiled underneath his breathing apparatus.

“Roger
that!
Let’s roll!” he ordered instantly and punched afterburner to gain on the fast moving missiles. They were burning fuel rapidly but they knew they could always tank up after from an orbiting Il-78 after.

The two aircraft dived into the attack and lined up an YJ-62 each. It only took small bursts of fire to destroy the delicate missiles and send them crashing into the ground below or blow up their warheads in a jarring fireball that rocked the attacking fighter behind it. A few minutes of combat later, the two pilots had claimed another seven missiles, bringing the total inbounds down to twenty-one…

“Eagle-Eye-Four, we are out of ammo and the fuel lights are lit up over here! Where’s the nearest tanker?” the “Battle-Axes” leader said as did the calculations on fuel and both fighters pulled out of afterburners and climbed for higher altitude. On board the AEW, Roy heard the request and lowered his comms mouthpiece as he faced one of the controllers nearby:

“Tell me we have a tanker in the air near Sharpshooter flight!”

“Roger!” the controller replied, conferring with his screen. “Bareilly outbound tanker bird approaching A-O. Sharpshooter has priority.”

“Good!” Roy said with a thoughtful nod before turning back towards the other operators: “Inform that SAM battery near Siliguri that our boys
have
disengaged! Tell them to take their shots
now
!”

NORTHEAST OF SILIGURI

INDIA

DAY 6 + 1830 HRS

“Sharpshooter
is
clear! IFF diagnostic
is
complete! Target scatter-pattern identified! Take the shots!” the battery commander ordered

From the plains east of Siliguri, four Akash surface-to-air missile launchers swiveled to the proper azimuth. With the phased array radar controlling four of them at a time, each truck mounted launcher fired one Akash missile. The four white smoke trails left the vehicles with a rumble and a slap-bang noise announced the activation of the ramjet engines on board the missiles. Four other missiles followed suit as the phased-array radar moved through the list of targets and allocated one missile to each. It could handle dozens of targets and was only limited by the number of missiles on hand…