Chimera (73 page)

JUNWEI KONGJUN

BEIJING

DAY 12 + 1430 HRS

“Yes General, I understand the concern. I will take care of it.”

Feng put down the phone and rubbed his eyes. The commander of the 19
TH
Fighter Division had called up to express his reservations about the upcoming operation.

He isn’t the only one…
Feng thought as he fished into his uniform coat pocket, pulled out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. He was about to light it when he saw Major Li, his adjutant, giving him a silent look. Feng saw it and then glanced at the sign on the wall that said ‘Jin Zhi Xi Yan’

No smoking.

Feng sighed, shook his head and put out the lighter flame before throwing the lighter back into his coat pocket. He saw Li turn back to his papers.

Feng watched in silence as the officers and NCOs at the center walked about in their sharp looking uniform coats and ties. It could be yet another day out here had it not been for the war. But there was something else in the air that Feng could almost sense and feel. He thought he felt the disappointment in the air. Maybe even defeat. And it came to him in different signs. On some it was the way the shoulders were slumped. In others it was the eyes that gave it away.

They knew the war was not going well.

And Feng knew that they knew.

Feng grunted. Of course the war wasn’t going well. But that was very different from saying that the war was lost…

No! The war is not lost!

Not while we still have Fighter Divisions available for combat!

Feng had just been briefed by the senior meteorological officer that weather conditions over Tibet were expected to improve in the next few hours and so operation Punitive-Dragon would proceed as planned.

Right at that moment pilots and ground-crews were preparing their J-11s for combat at Korla, Urumqi and Wulumuqi airbases in northwestern China. The 19
TH
Division’s entire 55
TH
Regiment was involved. So were the 26
TH
Air Division’s remaining special-mission aircraft from Korla and tanker support from the 36
TH
Bomber Division at Wugong airbase.

Feng noticed on the wall screen that Golmud was not active today. That base was still down and would not be operative again until tomorrow, two whole days after it had been struck by the Indian missiles. That attack still rankled Feng. The embarrassment of that attack had been hard to bear.

And Punitive-Dragon was payback for it.

KORLA

NORTHWESTERN CHINA

DAY 12 + 1450 HRS

The four jet engines of the KJ-2000 roared to life as the aircraft thundered down the runway trailing exhaust smoke from all four engines. After several hundred meters of roll, the nose of the aircraft rotated above the concrete and the aircraft lifted into the air. The undercarriage rolled into their bays as the aircraft picked up altitude from the base, watched by hundreds of ground crews. The blue skies above were covered with dozens of white contrail pairs heading south as forty-two J-11s of the 55
TH
Fighter Regiment/19
TH
Fighter Division gathering in the skies before heading south into Tibet…

OVER SOUTHERN TIBET

DAY 12 + 1610 HRS

“
Inbound! Inbound!
We have
forty-two
bandits charging in from the north!”

The radar operators on board the CABS AEW aircraft were the first Indian military personnel to learn what Punitive-Dragon had in store. As the systems crew on board the small modified Embraer aircraft started sending urgent information to the Indian Eastern and Central Air Commands, the skies over southern Tibet become contested once again after two days of virtual IAF dominance…

“
Forty-two?!
” Group-Captain Roy shouted and ran over behind the console operator.

“Roger! Didn’t think the reds
had
that many Su-27s left!” the operator replied as he categorized the inbound threats.

“E-S-M is picking up enemy airborne-radar emissions behind the inbounds! They
just
went active!” the electronic-warfare officer shouted from another console.

“What the hell are they…” Roy realized the answer midway through that question.
Oh shit!

He ran over to the cockpit and poked his head through the cockpit cabin door, startling the two pilots sitting there.

“What the hell is going on?” the pilot blurted out.

“Get us out of here!
Now!
” Roy shouted, his voice cracking under the stress. “We have forty-two Flankers inbound with airborne-radar support heading
straight
for us!”

“Good god!
That
many? Okay, we are leaving!” the pilot said as both him and the co-pilot immediately began pulling the aircraft out of auto-pilot.

The pilot put his right hand on the throttles and pushed them forward to the maximum. The engines whined at a higher pitch and the aircraft engine noise instantly increased. The systems operators in the cabin felt themselves pushed into their seats a bit as the aircraft accelerated and then banked. The pilots pulled the aircraft out of its race-track patrol location south of Lhasa and back towards the south.

Roy walked back behind the operators and checked the screen. Sure enough, the Chinese Flankers were heading inbound straight towards the Indian AEW aircraft under guidance from the KJ-2000 crew. The PLAAF was attempting to do exactly what the Western Air Command had done a few days ago over the Taklimakan desert against the 26
TH
Air Division’s KJ-2000 cover.

Well, we will see about that!

Roy keyed his intercom so that he could talk above the engine noise outside:

“Okay, people. Listen up. We are now egressing this bird back into Bhutanese airspace until this threat subsides. I want
every
friendly fighter that has
any
, air-to-air weaponry on board to head in right now! I want to negate as much of the enemy’s numerical advantage as we can!”      

Outside the aircraft, the four Su-30 escorts immediately punched afterburners, throwing out a glowing cone of flame behind the engine nozzles and accelerated. Six other Su-30s over Sikkim on BARCAP duty also moved north and joined the four escorts to put themselves between the escaping AEW aircraft and the Chinese attackers.

Another six Mirage-2000s over Assam were also instructed to join the fight while more aircraft were being scrambled into the sky. The only available Phalcon AWACS in the east was refueling on the ground at Kalaikunda and was told to immediately lift off in case it was needed to take over airborne-control. Fighter aircraft were being scrambled from Kalaikunda, Hashimara, Baghdogra and Bareilly airbases but they would take time to get up there.

This battle would be over in minutes…

The Chinese KJ-2000 detected the ten inbound Indian Su-30s from the south soon enough. They also noted that the Indian AEW had broken pattern south of Lhasa and was accelerating south, but was keeping its radar operational. The Colonel commanding the 55
TH
Regiment Flankers noted this and ordered his aircraft to engage the ten Indian fighters. Thirty of his fighters climbed higher.

The other twelve continued on their original mission and intended to bypass the Indian fighters and kill their prey, the Indian AEW aircraft.

This battle had more tactical dimensions than simply numbers. The Chinese pursuit of the Indian AEW allowed them to pivot the Indian defenses around it, reducing their flexibility and giving the Chinese more aggressive options.

The Indian Su-30s were outnumbered three-to-one and could not disengage. But their version of the venerable Flanker was much more advanced than the baseline Chinese one. And Indian pilots were better trained and by now more combat experienced than the newly arrived 19
TH
Division pilots entering combat for the first time.

The human element was important in war. It had allowed Indian pilots to win engagements against numerically superior Chinese formations. But the Flanker was still a Flanker and handled competently, a danger to anyone. And with so many enemy Flankers in the sky, the odds had been evened.
That
was a big change for the Indians. They were now equally matched by the enemy.

And
that
meant trouble.

The first missile shots were traded several minutes later as thirty PLAAF J-11s and ten Indian Su-30s fired volleys of R-77s until their wing pylons went empty except for R-73 short-range missiles. With over a hundred missiles crisscrossing each other over southern Tibet, the threats instantly overwhelmed the onboard systems on both sides. All aircraft broke formation and dived just as the missiles tore into their formations.

The Indian pilots were counting on their superior onboard ECMs to spoof enemy missiles. And many did. Others didn’t and went after the chaff clouds left behind by the diving aircraft. But with so many missiles flying around, not all could be spoofed. Three Indian Su-30s were blotted out of the sky in fireballs as missile exhaust trails left a spider web of white lines across the blue afternoon sky.

On the Chinese side, twelve J-11s went down under Indian R-77 hits, shattering several aircraft and sending others down trailing thick black smoke. Several pilots managed to eject near the ground.

By this time the seven surviving Su-30s merged with the eighteen J-11s in a visual dogfight at close range. This was something the Indians excelled at and had a clear advantage over the PLAAF pilots.

And the results showed.

Five J-11s were hit within minutes by R-73 missiles. Two more got hit but pulled out of the fight and headed north trailing flames and smoke from one of their engines. But with so many aircraft in the sky, the Indian pilots began running out of missiles and unable to escape. Two more Indian Su-30s were hit. Both sides had by now resorted to cannon rounds and lines of yellow-white tracers were filling the skies…

Further to the west, the twelve Flankers going after the Indian AEW bypassed the murderous battle taking place on their left flank and continued south on full afterburner, effortlessly eating up the distance between them and their prey. As the pilots began cycling through their weapons to take the shot, their airborne-radar confirmed the arrival of the six Mirage-2000s streaking north into southern Tibet from Sikkim. Ten of the twelve Flankers diverted to engage these aircraft while the Colonel commanding the 55
TH
Fighter Regiment and his wingman headed in for the kill…

On board the Embraer, Roy knew exactly what the threats were. He found a lump in his throat as he heard the desperate radio chatter from the cockpit. He saw his hands and forehead were sweaty and could hear his own heartbeat as he realized that friendly fighters would not get there in time. The operator in front of him looked back as he came to the same conclusion.

He kept his hand on the young operator’s shoulder to keep him calm before walking over to his seat and strapping in. The aircraft suddenly lurched to the side and vibrated as they heard the whumps of chaff being punched out by the pilots. But he understood that with forty-two enemy fighters in the sky, every available friendly aircraft was engaged in battle.

He pressed the armrests of his seat tightly when the aircraft dived again violently. Then the pilot’s voice came on the intercom again:

“
Oh my god!
”

              Group-Captain Roy closed his eyes. A few seconds later there was a massive flash of light from the portside oval window and then an explosion as flames burst into the cabin and spread over the men screaming inside…

The commander of the 55
TH
Fighter Regiment smiled as his two Flankers banked away after seeing a fireball on the southern horizon. He and his wingman did not get the chance to celebrate for long, though. To his north, the battle between the Indian Su-30s and the PLAAF Flankers had ended with survivors from both sides disengaging. Seven J-11s were flying north while five Indian Su-30s were heading southeast with one of them trailing smoke.

To his west, the battle between the six Mirages and the ten J-11s had been equally brutal. All ten J-11s had been lost and only two Mirage-2000s survived. These two surviving Indian pilots saw that their airborne-radar emissions were lost and the AEW had disappeared from their radar. Their hearts sank instantly when they realized that they had failed to protect that vulnerable special-mission aircraft. But as they flew east, they saw the two escaping Flankers streaking at low level to the northwest…

The two J-11s punched afterburners to escape, but the enraged Mirage pilots were not letting the perpetrators get away
that
easily. They dived in behind and launched two Matra Super 530D missiles that quickly eliminated their targets in series of explosions at low-altitude…