Pakistan had yet to engage in direct confrontation with Indian forces as the war with China raged on. But that by no means was a result of any hesitation on the part of the Pakistanis. The real issue was how to seamlessly integrate their capabilities into the Chinese operational plans. It was not as easy as it sounded. Not an easy task under any circumstances.
But that did not mean that nothing could be accomplished from Pakistani assets. Far from it. The advantage for the PLAAF commanders was that they were major suppliers for the PAF in terms of equipment. The JF-17s, FC-20s and the ZDK-03 aircraft came directly from China. And so there was a significant commonality of operating systems and avionics, even though Pakistan had gone ahead and integrated several western systems into each aircraft type.
For the present situation, the ZDK-03 ‘Karakoram Eagle’ AEW aircraft, with its airborne radar mounted on the heavily modified Z-8 turboprop transport, itself a reverse-engineered Russian An-12 aircraft, was a crucial game changer for the PLAAF over Ladakh…
Ever since the IAF had taken control of the skies over Ladakh and southern Tibet, the PLAAF had been forced to pull back their airborne radar aircraft to safer distances to the north. Moving these critical ISR aircraft further away from Indian airspace meant that they no longer had a clear idea of what the Indians were up to over the Ladakh skies.
And that was not desirable because it meant that the gathering of Indian aircraft southwest of Leh was no longer visible to the PLAAF except for the intercepted long-wavelength radar emissions of the Indian Phalcon AWACS. They could triangulate the patrol areas of the Phalcon and the CABS AEWs on the Indian side through their electronic emissions but had no clue where the fighter/tanker concentrations at any given time were unless the Indian fighters flew northeast into southern Tibet on offensive fighter sweeps or strike missions. This gave very little reaction time to the PLAAF air-defenses and ultimately handed the Indians the combat initiative on a silver platter.
And that was where the Pakistanis came into the picture.
The PAF had now deployed two of its AEW aircraft to Gilgit. Their job was to utilize Pakistan’s neutral stance between Indian and Pakistan to full advantage for Beijing. The current aircraft was flying within a hundred kilometers north of Kargil. In doing so, the Pakistani airborne radar was snooping deep inside Indian airspace over Ladakh and Kashmir. It could now see on radar dozens of Indian fighters, helicopters and transports flying all over the region. All of which was now being shared over secure datalinks with the PLAAF 26TH Air Division KJ-2000 AWACS over the Taklimakan desert…
“Are they poised to engage?”
Bhosale asked his operations commanders at the operations center for the Western Air Command. Verma on board the Phalcon AWACS from the No. 50 Squadron above southern Ladakh was on the comms with the center.
“Negative, sir,” Verma replied. “They are set snooping on us. We count four escort birds high above them waiting to sweep in on any potential threats, but they are deployed purely defensively. No offensive capabilities on display.”
“So far,” Bhosale added.
“Indeed, sir. But they are watching everything in the air north of Jammu,” Verma concluded.
“And we can bet the farm that they are feeding everything they are seeing back to General Chen and his commanders in Chengdu!” Bhosale said. He was looking intently at the live wall-mounted digital screen showing Kashmir with aircraft dispositions of India, China and Pakistan visible on it.
“That’s affirmative, sir,” Verma’s voice came over the speaker in the operations room. “E-S-M suggests it is one of their Chinese-built Z-D-K-Threes.”
Of course. That makes sense. Those bastards!
Bhosale rubbed his hands over his lips as he considered his options before making his decision:
“Fine! Let the Pakis look and share to their heart’s content. What I want is a flight of eight Su-30s deployed just south of Kargil. I don’t care if you have them leaning over into Pakistani occupied airspace, but I want the message sent to the Pakis right now that if they make one wrong move, we will knock them out of the skies in a heartbeat! And I want to proceed with operation Pivot-Strike as we had planned. If the Chinese see us coming then so be it. It won’t help them much anyway. Understood?”
“Wilco! Executing operation Pivot-Strike as planned! Eagle-Eye-One has the ball!”
As Pivot-Strike unfolded, and Eagle-Eye-One initiated operations over Ladakh, a large force of sixteen Su-30s from No. 220 ‘Desert Tigers’ Squadron in two line-abreast formations of eight aircraft each switched on their afterburners and accelerated northeast of Leh, heading straight over what used to be Chinese S-300 dominated skies above the Aksai chin and beyond…
For the first time in this war for the crew of the 26TH Air Division kj-2000 AWACS, orders came down to shut down the radar and to egress from its patrol area on emergency.
The sixteen Desert-Tigers Su-30s had gone supersonic just over the Aksai Chin and were now charging at this Chinese aircraft and its crew. In response, Feng had just ordered all available Chinese fighters in the area to respond and protect their precious airborne-radar aircraft at all costs. Time was of the essence when one considers that the Indian fighters were travelling one kilometer every two seconds towards their target! And they only needed to get into the successful engagement envelope for their long-range air-to-air missiles…
The pilots of the Chinese AWACS heard the orders from the operations center at Kashgar and immediately realized the severity of the situation. The pilot, a PLAAF Lieutenant-Colonel, immediately muttered a curse and began disabling the autopilot as his right hand reached the throttle controls of the four turbojet engines and pushed them to maximum settings.
The aircraft reverberated under the sudden strain of the thrust and the engine noise spooled up dramatically. At the same time the mission crew in the back were switching off their comms and fastening their seatbelts. They were hearing the urgent communications from the cockpit over the radio as the pilots brought the lumbering aircraft into a turn and banked to the side to bring them on a northerly escape vector back to Korla airbase, about six-hundred kilometers to the northeast.
As the aircraft banked away, the six J-11s escorts left the aircraft and went full afterburner to meet the Indian threat head-on and buy time for their precious AWACS to escape. The six fighters went active on their radars just around the same time the Indian aircraft did.
The latter were also out of their airborne-radar coverage areas: the No. 50 Squadron Phalcon pilots had no intention of going behind the Su-30s in order to extend the radar cover. It was far too dangerous for the rewards it merited.
No. The Su-30 drivers were on their own from now on.
At Kashgar, Feng understood exactly what the Indians were after and he had no intention of giving it over to them without a fight. He picked up the phone and immediately ordered the scramble of all available J-7s of the 17TH Air Regiment at Kashgar and also ordered Major Li to get the 19TH Division to scramble all available J-11 detachments that had already arrived at Urumqi airbase north of Korla. He also ordered the release of operational control on those fighters from 19TH Division HQ over to his command at Kashgar.