Chimera (69 page)

“Surely they are not
that
stupid?” Potgam thought out loud. “Between Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, we must have crushed…about seven Divisions worth? Maybe five more remain in engagement? Add perhaps other six or seven Divisions in Ladakh plus their security Divisions in Tibet? So they have a lot
more
Divisions across the mainland that they can bring into the fight first.
Why
jump to the nuclear card so soon?”

Suman thought he knew the answer to that question: “Because, old chap, our flyboys decimated
their
flyboys during the time we were fighting on the ground. Air-force operations in Ladakh and southern Tibet have been highly successful. The Chinese can no longer control what is happening in Tibetan skies and their ground forces are feeling the heat as a result of it. Our boys are now striking deep into Tibet. Any and all reinforcements the PLA intends on bringing in will be hammered before they even
get
to the FEBA. Beijing can see the writing on the wall here.”

“It’s Sumdorung Chu all over
again
,” Potgam noted and sighed.

He had been a young Lieutenant back in 1986 during that crisis. The threat of nuclear weapons use by China in response to any Indian offensives into PLA controlled territories had forced India’s hand to quite an extent despite superiority against the PLA. It was happening again…

“
Yes
it is!
” Suman agreed. “We push them too hard and they will move to the nuclear threshold.”

“Which gives us little time on the ground here,” Potgam added.

“Exactly. How much time do you need?”

“Damn hard to say, Suman,” Potgam said as he considered that question. “This is
war
we are talking about here. I can’t
give
you an estimate because we don’t know how hard the survivors of the Highland Division north of Thimpu will fight. Only thing I
can
say is that every bit of support, men and time you can buy for us is useful. Colonel Misra leading the Paras is fully aware of the overall situation and is expediting things.
That
is the
only
guarantee I have for you right now!”

There was silence on the radio for several seconds.

“Very well, warlord,” Suman said finally. “You have the ball. Run with it as best as you can. Meantime, I will get my operations people to divert as many resources as we can free up. We are fighting under a nuclear umbrella now, my friend. Let’s keep that in mind. Panther-actual, out!”

GOLMUD

NORTHERN TIBET

DAY 11 + 0740 HRS

The first rays of sunlight sneaked under the low hanging clouds and illuminated the eastern slopes of the mountains. But none at the airbase had time to muse over the beauty.

As the valley reverberated under the characteristic whine of Il-76 engine noises, few looked up. The KJ-2000 touched down on the concrete of the runway, leaving puffs of smoke in its wake and rolled all the way to the end of the runway. Aircraft landing at such high altitudes had to land faster and had substantially longer roll distances. It sped past the main tarmac where a smaller KJ-200 was parked with engines switched off. The tired and weary crew of that aircraft were stepping off and boarding a military bus that would take them to their secure bunker residences.

Further down the line five Su-27s stood on the tarmac, loaded out to full capacity with air-to-air weapons. Two of their brethren were rolling to take their place on the runway for take-off just as the large AWACS aircraft rolled off it and headed towards its designated area under the guidance of a utility vehicle in front of them.

OVER NORTHERN BHUTAN

DAY 11 + 0745 HRS

The EW operator on board the Indian CABS AEW aircraft checked his watch and noted the time on his notepad with a pencil. He looked over his shoulder to see Group-Captain Roy standing with his arms crossed, looking at the data on the screen.

Twelve hours to the mark
… Roy thought and smiled.

The PLAAF had gotten complacent and fallen into a cycle of operations that had become highly predictable. Just a few minutes ago the replacement KJ-2000 for the one that had returned to Golmud had broadcast its radar emissions for him to see and detect.

The Chinese 76
TH
Airborne Command and Control Regiment and the rest of its parent 26
TH
Air Division were running defensive operations like clockwork out of Golmud with Su-27 and J-11 support from 19
TH
Division’s roster. Almost all of these aircraft were now on DCA tasking over central Tibet. 

It doesn’t matter why they fell into complacency. Just that they did
…Roy thought as the EW operator typed up the latest track information and transmitted it to the operations center at Shillong.

As he had done before.

BAGHDOGRA AIRBASE

NORTHERN INDIA

DAY 11 + 0830 HRS

In the fields north of the airfield, word came down to the battery commander and his crew from SFC headquarters. They had been briefed beforehand and had several hours to prepare.

They were ready.

Within minutes the noise from the hydraulic pumps filled the air and the first of three Agni-I ballistic-missile launchers elevated their precious cargo. As the missiles reached their elevated position, they jutted above the nearby trees. The sunlight glistened on the green-brown camouflaged missile fuselage carrying the black re-entry warhead on top.

Moments later the ground reverberated and an exhaust of fire and smoke flashed out of the nozzles on the first missile, filling the air and forming a cloud that enveloped the missile within seconds. The tip of the missile elevated above the gathering exhaust and the missile lifted into the clear blue morning skies underneath a pillar of flame.

It was followed seconds later by the second missile and then the third.

Within a minute all three missiles were in the air and their pencil thin trailing exhaust outlined their northbound parabolic trajectories for all the citizens of Baghdogra to see…

GOLMUD AIRBASE

NORTHERN TIBET

DAY 11 + 0835 HRS

There was little time for the Chinese to respond.

The KJ-2000 airborne radar aircraft over Lhasa immediately picked up the launches as the missiles moved above the elevation of the Tibetan plateau and accelerated far above into the upper atmosphere. Soon they were above and beyond the detection range of the Chinese radars.

The warheads separated from the boosters and fell back into the atmosphere. The three black warheads moved above all remaining Chinese air-defenses and entered the atmosphere on their way down south of Golmud…

Klaxons were sounding off at the airbase there as the warning from the airborne KJ-2000 radar crew came down via the 26
TH
Air Division HQ at Korla. But there was no defense possible. As every Chinese soldier on the ground ran for cover, dumping whatever they carried with them at that moment of time, the three one-thousand kilogram conventional warheads streaked through the atmosphere above their heads. At the speeds involved, it might as well have been instantaneous for those on the ground below.

The first warhead exploded a few dozen meters above the camouflaged revetments being used by the crews of the 821 Brigade detachment including their three CJ-10 GLCM launchers, command, control and support vehicles.

The expanding ball of white flame flashed through the area, ravaging the ground and reflecting the shockwaves across the hard terrain in all directions radially. The thunderclap instantly deafened anyone within the Golmud valley and the expanding circle of destruction behind a wall of gravel and rocks swept through the outer perimeter of the airbase…

The second warhead slammed moments later into the concrete tarmac being used by the 76
TH
ACCR and the inverted cone of flame and concrete rose hundreds of feet into the air, expanding outward and sweeping across the parked Chinese AWACS and AEW aircraft.

The mushroom cloud of dust and smoke was now rising thousands of feet into the air when the last warhead, a bit delayed at launch, swept overhead and crushed its way into the runway midway along its length.

In one brutal and sudden sweep the Chinese 26
TH
Air Division and its organic 76
TH
ACCR had lost the bulk of its AWACS and AEW assets. By the time the thunder and echoes of the explosions rippled through the hills and dissipated away, the three mushroom clouds of dust had enveloped the airbase as they rose silently into the gray skies above.

OVER THE SIKKIM-TIBET BORDER

DAY 11 + 1240 HRS

The high frequency rumbling noise of the Heron’s twin propellers was drowned by the howling winds as the large unmanned aircraft flew past the snowcapped Chomo-Yummo peak and entered the Tibetan plateau, twenty-thousand feet below. The sunlight glistened off the dull-gray paint as it flew above the intermittent cloud cover below, deep inside Chinese controlled Tibet…

The Israeli made Heron is designed for very high-altitude and long-endurance missions. But it is not a combat aircraft. It has no weapons of its own. It
does
have powerful eyes and the patience to stay above, quietly, for long periods of time.

For the past eleven days, IAF Herons were being used for reconnaissance patrols above the battlefields in Ladakh, Chumbi-valley and Arunachal-Pradesh. But in all these cases they had flown over Indian airspace. But now that the PLAAF fighter and airborne radar threat as well as the S-300 based air-defenses in the Shigatse-Lhasa region had been terminated, the conditions had changed. The PLAAF would continue to challenge the skies over central and southern Tibet, but they would now not have the assets needed to find and eliminate the lone Herons flying over remote sectors and at high-altitudes. And that was good enough for the Heron operators within the IAF.

These birds were being moved north into Tibet now in support of SFC. Their job was to keep an eye on the short-range DF-11 and DF-15 launchers being moved into northern Tibet. This was by no means an easy tasking, given the heavy PLA air-defenses being allocated to these missile units of the 2
ND
 Artillery Corps. And while the S-300 area-defense weapons in Tibet were no more, the Chinese still had a very respectable number of surface-to-air systems and associated ground radars deployed around these missile forces.

As a result, the Heron crews were flying their birds at the edge of their service-ceiling at thirty-five thousand feet and doing their darned best to remain invisible. From now on the IAF Herons would fly over Tibet until the Chinese missile threat was downgraded by the SFC.

NORTHWEST OF THE KEELING ISLANDS

THE INDIAN OCEAN REGION

DAY 11 + 1400 HRS

The leading Brahmos missile shattered into a thousand pieces of burning steel as an HQ-9 air-defense missile slammed into it meters above the sea. The burning debris splashed into the waters at supersonic speeds, causing a massive transient concave shaped cavity on the surface. It expanded for several dozen meters before the water poured back in and rose up into the air like a volcano.

But as the waters frothed below, two more Brahmos missiles streaked by, oblivious to what had just happened. The other two HQ-9 missiles fell behind and dived into the surface of the ocean.

More HQ-9 missiles were in the air now, but they weren’t diving down into the incoming Indian anti-ship missiles. They were arcing high into the bright sunny skies above as they went after the three escaping Indian Su-30s far to the northeast. These three aircraft were now diving on full afterburners behind clouds of chaff. They would soon be out of the range of the intercepting Chinese missiles.

But the ship that had launched those missiles, the Chinese PLAN 052C class air-defense Destroyer
Lanzhou
and the other ships in the fleet had more pressing concerns at the moment…

The Sovremenny class Destroyer
Fuzhou
, listed and splashed through the surface, conducting evasive maneuvers. It turned to port while the
Lanzhou
moved across its starboard, exposing its broadside to the two incoming Indian missiles, effectively covering the
Fuzhou
. It also allowed the
Lanzhou
to bring all of its close-in weapons to bear on the inbound threat.

A kilometer south, the other 052C air-defense ship with the Chinese fleet, the
Haikou
, was already in position and its weapons opened up before the
Lanzhou
. The starboard side of the ship was covered with light smoke as the anti-air guns filled the air nearby with a wall of expended ammunition and lines of yellow tracers flying towards the two supersonic inbound specks on the horizon.