Instead, many within the PLAAF had actually bought the propaganda they had grown up on and embedded it into their mindset. The Indians, in their minds, were nothing more than weak fools unable to withstand the might of China, the armed forces and economic might. The Tibetans were subhuman. The Chinese air-force of the new century could easily sweep aside any threats. The list went on. And unfortunately for Feng, his current sector commander, Zhigao, was a product of this class.
And while Zhigao exuded reckless confidence in the face of danger, Feng often had to fight his own mind from becoming defeatist. That was the other end of the spectrum for him. He had to respect the enemy, in this case the Indians, but could hardly do so at the cost of his own country and its air-force. Accepting Indian dominance over a technological niche area was not an option. It was his job and duty to find ways around such problems and defeat the Indians on their own turf.
He also understood that men like Zhigao often made to high ranking positions more on political backing and corruption than real potential as combat leaders. This was especially true of the PLA, which controlled the lion’s share of the vast military-industrial empire within China. Men like Zhigao within the PLA often spent more time running their corners of this empire than in their operations centers. How much of that was true for Zhigao was anybody’s guess. But one thing was clear to Feng: he had to tread lightly unless he wished to have himself put against a wall for some trumped up charges like lack of belief. Laughable perhaps, but it had happened to several middle-ranking officers over the years that had run afoul of their bosses. Chen would not always be around to save his skin.
As he stood inside the operations center at Kashgar, supervising the PLAAF operations near the Aksai Chin in Ladakh, Feng understood that the outcome of the battles to come would be dependent on whether he could erode Zhigao’s boundless optimism while improving his own aggression towards the Indians…
A Lieutenant-Colonel walked over to him and handed him a folder with some satellite imagery of airbases in Kashmir and Ladakh that had been hit by the Chinese cruise-missiles thus far. He opened the file and glanced through the images… and frowned.
“Is that all that they achieved?”
“Yes Sir. Leh is operational again as far as we can tell. We did manage to do some damage to their ability to bring in larger transports. You can see that in the third image: the runway is damaged to the point that the Indians cannot bring in Il-76 or C-17s transports into Leh for some time. But the Mig-29s are back. See this one parked outside their undamaged hardened shelters in image four, taken a few hours after our strike. Our attacks also destroyed two Indian cheetah helicopters as seen in image five and six,” the Lieutenant-Colonel replied.
Feng nodded. He knew exactly why the hardened shelters had not been hit. Their guidance systems were not nearly accurate enough for that level of precision targeting.
“The destruction of those helicopters is inconsequential to us. The same is true for their transport aircraft. I am very sure that our land forces have enough capability to not be worried about their force-reconstitution abilities. But what worries me is that we were unable to prevent fighters operating from this airbase and the others for too long,” Feng said just as Zhigao walked into the operations center.
“I understand our missile strikes were not nearly as effective as we had hoped?” Zhigao said sharply. His tone pointed the blame to Feng, who picked it up instantly. But he had to let it go.
“I agree, sir. We will not be able to hold off Indian air attacks against our ground forces if we do not knock out these airbases more permanently and push them south. Our cruise-missile attacks haven’t done the required amount of damage. The initial estimates were overly optimistic. The idea was that we would be able to inflict enough damage on their airbases to buy us time on the ground. It seems that it worked better in the eastern sectors. But out here the damage to these airbases has been nominal.”
General Zhigao dismissed the assessment.
“Perhaps. But we have the S-300s deployed all along the roads, do we not? They can handle the pesky Indian air attacks.”
Feng took a deep breath on that one as held back his thoughts.
Really? How would you explain the complete demolition of the airbase at Lhasa thirty minutes ago?
Are those pesky attacks too?
“What we need to do is draw out their heavy fighters into a decisive battle and end their hopes for air superiority. After that we can crush the attempts of their low level bombers to stop our land forces.” Zhigao said and then turned to the Lieutenant-Colonel in charge keeping track of unit deployments.
“What is our operational status?”
Feng handed over the satellite images to his intelligence chief just as the other staff-officer looked up the information Zhigao had ordered for.
“We have a regiment of Su-27s and another of J-8IIs from the 6TH Fighter Division ready for operations out of Kashgar, Urumqi and Korla airbases. The 36TH Bomber Regiment is also ready with its bomber, tanker and special mission H-6s from Lintong airbase. A composite regiment of J-10s is also available from the 44TH Fighter Division in case we require them. The 26TH Air Division has deployed a pair of KJ-2000s and a single KJ-200 at Korla for this sector as well. They will be our airborne command and control aircraft. With these we can initiate attacks in piecemeal fashion and take out the Indian airbases one by one,” the Lieutenant-Colonel concluded. Feng saw the same concern in that officer’s eyes as his own regarding Zhigao’s plans for frontal attacks. But neither man could say anything more. Not openly anyway.
Take the hint, Zhigao. Airbases are the key here, not the fighters themselves…
“No. We will concentrate on taking out their fighters first in a series of massive blows. They pose the biggest threat to us. We can use the bombers as bait to lure out the Indians into out backyards where we will kill them. Once the skies over Ladakh are clear, the bombers can finish their missions,” Zhigao said, sticking with his original plans.
Feng was horrified. And he imagined the same was true for the Lieutenant-Colonel too. Both men shared a glance as the latter walked back to the consoles inside the center, leaving Feng and Zhigao in the conference room.
Brilliant! If the Indians shoot down our fighters, we are likely going to hand them our bombers on a tray as well.
Feng thought of placing a call to Chen to supersede Zhigao’s foolhardy plans. But decided against it. If Zhigao came to know about Feng’s actions, there would be no end to the trouble Feng could find himself in.
There is always a possibility that it could in fact work!
Feng corrected himself and wondered if he was being defeatist again. But in doing so he did not consider that he might be overriding his instincts when they might in fact be correct. If the plan did work out, Feng did not fancy being branded a coward in its wake. In the end he had to give his consent.
And he did.
Not that it mattered, of course.