Chimera (31 page)

On the other side of the border was the People’s Liberation Army. Their crucial highway from Gyantse to the Sikkim border near Chumbi valley passed less than a dozen kilometers at the closest point with this sector of the Bhutanese border. As such, it was far easier to access this side of the border than it was from the Bhutanese side, and that made the RBA positions extremely vulnerable.

And it had been so since decades.

Over the years the Bhutanese had built a fair-weather one-ton road here. Once RBA soldiers crossed the peaks behind them on foot or via helicopters, they could use these roads to move around in vehicles on their side of the border. This had allowed the Bhutanese Army to station more units in the sector to improve security. But to put things in perspective, the RBA never had more than two Companies of infantry supported by mortars in this sector.

By comparison, the PLA across them had an entire Battalion supported by heavy artillery and light armor units devoted to this sector.

If a battle was fought, it would be short.

The vehicles moved through a bumpy sector of the road and Kwatra had to hold on for his life. Once clear, he looked around and saw that from where they were now, he could see outlines of the hills surrounding the Dochen-Tso to the north and the long convoys of Chinese vehicles moving along the highway to the south.

This sector is a gold mine for intelligence gathering on the Chinese!

The three jeeps stopped abruptly and he looked around to notice that they were just west of the freezing lakes. Iyonpo stepped out of the vehicle and walked over to an RBA Captain standing near the edge of the road along with two of his soldiers. All three men were in white winter uniforms.

The Captain pointed out the locations of Chinese units nearby. A few seconds later Iyonpo turned to his Indian colleague:

“So, what do you think?”

“It’s too valuable for us and it’s too valuable for them. So they will try and deny it to us. Your men are extremely vulnerable here, sir,” Kwatra paused and looked at the terrain again.

“What are you saying, Major?” Iyonpo asked.

“Just that when this thing begins, your men here are going to get hit
before
we do!” Iyonpo sighed.

“Then Bhutan will get dragged into this war as well…”

DAULAT BEG OLDI

LADAKH

DAY 3 + 2300 HRS

Yet another flight of Jaguars streaked over the plains east of DBO. By now the Chinese anti-air vehicles had deployed around their forces and were making life a living hell for the Indian pilots.

The IAF had employed its might to help halt the convoys of armor vehicles that were rolling against the Indian defenders in several sectors in Ladakh. While effective, it was an effort that had proven costly and getting costlier as large numbers of anti-air units began taking their toll…

Brigadier Adesara looked through an IMFS as the valley lit up with lines high-intensity tracer fire directed towards the Indian aircraft attacking Chinese armor. Then there was a shower of sparks and a few fireballs to the east as yet another set of Chinese armored vehicles fell prey to cluster munitions. The rumble passed along the ground and under the feet of the Indian soldiers manning the defenses around DBO a few seconds later…

It had been a big relief for Adesara and Sudarshan when the long line of BMPs from the 10
TH
Mechanized Battalion had rolled into view coming in from Saser to the south. They were rolling in with their with hatches open and the crews sitting openly over the rim of the turrets as the Indian Jaguars continued to press their attacks to the east beyond the LAC.

Then there was a flash of light to the east.

All Indian soldiers at DBO looked in that direction and saw the burning debris of an Indian Jaguar falling out of the sky. It slammed into the slopes of a hill to the north and erupted into a fireball. No parachute was spotted. The other Jaguars pulled out of the sector a few seconds later.

Adesara thanked the departing Jaguars for their attempts to hold back the Chinese from overrunning his men. They had bought time at the cost of their blood and had allowed the Brigade to receive urgent reinforcements.  Now that the 10
TH
Mechanized Battalion was fully deployed, if the Chinese decided to make a run for Daulat-beg-oldi again, they would be made to pay the price for it.

day 4

WESTERN TIBET-BHUTAN BORDER

DAY 4 + 0740 HRS

“Incoming fire!”

Major Kwatra shouted as he saw vehicles on the Chinese side of the border rumbling out of their revetments. The Bhutanese soldiers were already running into their prepared positions. Moments later the skies filled with the screaming noise of incoming artillery shells. The first rounds slammed amongst the Bhutanese positions west of the frozen lakes.

Kwatra jumped into the nearest trench along with Iyonpo. The Captain commanding the Bhutanese forces here was moving through the positions and passing orders. He was suddenly ripped by several rounds of machinegun fire from the advancing group of PLA armored-personnel-carriers.

The three Bhutanese army jeeps were raked by cannon fire from the ZBDs advancing into Bhutanese territory. Kwatra looked around for options.

There were none.

There was no question of fighting off the Chinese tanks with weapons at the disposal of the Bhutanese soldiers here.

He quickly got hold of a radio and pushed through to IMTRAT headquarters at Haa Dzong with an urgent request for assistance. There he was instantly put through to Lieutenant-General Potgam, the current Indian commander for Bhutan.

A few minutes after the desperate call from Kwatra was received, the request for assistance went up the command line from Potgam to General Yadav at Army headquarters and from him down to Lieutenant-General Suman.

By the time the first Indian high-altitude Heron UAV was diverted from patrol over the Chumbi valley and directed over Dochen-Tso region further north, it was clear that the two Bhutanese infantry companies were under threat of being destroyed by the advancing mechanized units of the Chinese 55
TH
Division. 

The war for the Chumbi valley and the survival of Bhutan had begun.

OVER SOUTHERN BHUTAN

DAY 4 + 0820 HRS

The first flight of four Mig-27Ms from No. 222 Squadron at Hashimara airbase armed with heavy ordinance tore into Bhutanese airspace fifteen minutes later.

The pilots could see the snowcapped Chomolhari peak to their left as they headed out north. The onboard RWRs were already screeching with warning sounds as they realized that they were being washed by long-range airborne radars from Tibet.

But that could not be helped now. A friendly unit with Indian army advisors on the ground was being crushed by Chinese armor forces in the three-lake region.

And they needed help.

The pilots noted the massive Dochen-Tso to the northwest beyond the Chomolhari peak and saw the line of peaks of the Great Himalayan Range that separated Bhutan from Tibet. They had their location on GLONASS navigation assistance in their cockpits, but the mark-one eyeball was still as much needed today as it was a century ago. Two minutes later they were within visual range of the three lakes beyond the peaks. They were now flying over the Chumbi valley and the RWRs were screeching madly as Chinese anti-air units noted the arrival of Indian aircraft in the skies above...

WESTERN TIBET-BHUTAN BORDER

DAY 4 + 0830 HRS

The leading ZBD staggered to a halt after a jarring explosion ripped through its hull. A column of flames burst out of the hatches as thick black smoke filled the air…

The two Bhutanese soldiers manning the Carl-Gustav rocket-launcher took cover after taking the shot as the ground around their positions churned with impacting cannon rounds from other Chinese vehicles.

The twelve ZBDs had stopped a small distance away from the Bhutanese trenches as eight other vehicles from another group had bypassed the Bhutanese from the north and were continuing to move east towards the foothills and the three-lake region.

As of now there was nothing to stop the Chinese advance to the foothills of the Chomolhari. The only positions holding out were the prepared bunkers and trenches where Iyonpo and Kwatra were trying to organize a defense…

Chinese soldiers inside the back of the armored-personnel-carriers were already debussing. Many had taken positions alongside their vehicles and were supporting their vehicles with assault rifle fire. Mortar rounds were falling around the Bhutanese positions now.

Iyanpo spotted the Indian Mig-27s overhead against the blue skies overhead. He shouted Kwatra above the sounds of the gunfire. Kwatra heard the Bhutanese officer from his position and looked away from the optics of his INSAS rifle to see…

The four Mig-27s were now in a racetrack pattern as each aircraft dived into the fray. The flight-leader in the first aircraft pushed his aircraft into a shallow dive and pulled up just after releasing the first of his dumb bombs. Less fancy than other modern weapons, these bombs were nonetheless extremely powerful when aimed properly.

The flight-leader had aimed for the PLA mortar crews and the line of two-hundred-fifty-pound bombs hit the ground in distinct thunderclaps. The explosions sliced through the Chinese mortar crews much to the cheer of the besieged Bhutanese soldiers to the east.

As the flight-leader pulled away from a hailstorm of anti-aircraft artillery fire that followed him up, the next Mig-27 began its dive.

This pilot aimed for one of the ZBD platoons that had bypassed the Bhutanese positions from the north and whose four vehicles were racing for the three lakes. Against such highly mobile targets, the choice of weapons was cluster-bombs. The pilot selected his CBUs and released his entire load in selective drops that scattered the deadly shrapnel over the entire sector below. By the time he pulled away, three of the four ZBDs were dead in their tracks and burning furiously…

The Chinese ZBD company commander was no fool.

He knew exactly why the Indian aircraft had not struck his slowly advancing vehicles directly opposite the Bhutanese trenches: they were too close.

He decided to force the issue further and directed all vehicle commanders and supporting infantry squads to push forward and stick close to the Bhutanese positions.

Kwatra saw through the Chinese intentions as he saw the ZBDs emitting puff of smoke from their engines and driving towards them.

Shit! No choice now!

He looked over to Iyanpo who nodded. Kwatra looked around for the radio set nearby and found it buried under gravel from the explosions. He dusted the mud and gravel off and switched frequencies…

OVER THE WESTERN TIBET-BHUTAN BORDER

DAY 4 + 0910 HRS

“You want us to do
what
?!”

The Mig-27 flight-leader asked incredulously as he banked away sharply after yet another strafing run on the Chinese vehicles below.

“You heard me! Drop whatever you have right in front of our positions here. We are being
overrun!
”

Kwatra’s strained voice came over the sounds of the afterburning engines inside the cockpit as the flight-leader accelerated away from the anti-air shells exploding in his wake. 

“You realize what you are doing, don’t you?” he asked soberly.

With less than one hundred yards between the two sides…

“We are out of options down here! I have enemy armor about to roll over us and we are down to throwing stones at them! Unless you have a better idea,
do as I say!
We are in entrenched positions, so use something that won’t penetrate too deep and we might even see the next sunrise! Out!” the radio clicked off.

The flight leader frowned inside his breathing mask.

God help you boys...

He finished the pitch-out and settled into the required bearing. He pressed the multi-function-display inside the cockpit to select CBU dispensers from the remaining load-out just as explosions began ripping the skies around him again.  

On the ground below, Kwatra, Iyanpo and the remaining Bhutanese soldiers were down to firing off their last rounds. Kwatra fired off his last rifle round and was searching for the next magazine…