This time, however, the aircraft disappeared into a ball of fire as the primary on-board fuel storage exploded. Khurana felt the jolt from the shockwave not more than a few hundred meters behind him as a massive flash appeared from the rear and flared out his night-vision. He jerked his head to see the other Mig-29 appear from behind the earthbound fireball and streak upwards into the starlit sky.
“Claw-One to Talon-Seven: plenty thanks! One more down! Let’s see who else is out there!” Khurana shouted over the radio and started breathing again. He could hear his heart pounding inside his chest.
But the battle was not over.
“Talon-Seven here. I see three bandits and two friendlies at three o’clock high. Can’t find any other friendlies though…”
Damn!
What the hell happened to the rest of Claw and Talon flights?
“Claw-One, this is Eagle-Eye-One. We show inbound J-10s on our scopes. Ten bandits from Kashgar heading south for the Karakoram peaks. Angels twenty, bearing three-four-zero. Over.”
“Eagle-Eye-One, this is Claw-One. We cannot, repeat: cannot, engage! We are getting chewed out over here! Requesting priority assistance! We need help over here right freaking now!”
“Roger, Claw-One. Standby,” the flight controller looked back at Verma who in turn walked over to the other flight controllers. No. 28 Squadron had done the job of buying time for the Indian fighters to deploy. Verma checked the radar data and confirmed the controller’s speculations. He then nodded his approval to commit the incoming fighters and ordered the release of the Su-30s on station.
Thirty seconds later the flight-leader for the eight Su-30s of No. 17 Squadron spoke over the radio with the rest of his flight:
“Okay people, it’s time for the big dogs to enter the fight. Time to show everyone how this is done.”
A few seconds after that the eight Su-30s punched engine reheat in unison and streaked across the skies towards the north…
“All Claw and Talon elements: disengage! I say again: disengage! Let’s get out of here!”
Khurana shouted out over his radio as the first fuel warning audio tone sounded out in his ears. The squadron had been committed for far too long in a battle far too drawn out for his liking. They had received heavy casualties and handed out even worse.
But now it was time to leave: nearly all fighters were out of weapons and now also nearly out of fuel.
Khurana flipped the aircraft to the side and pulled back on the stick to pull the aircraft out in the opposite direction followed quickly by Talon-Seven, his new wingman. Three other Mig-29s visible as mere black specks against the greenish view of the night-vision optics were making similar movements.
Both sides were now thrusting in fresh fighters to this melee. The Chinese were pulling back their surviving Su-27s and sending in a bunch of J-10s and the Indian commanders pulling out survivors of No. 28 Squadron and committing a bunch of Su-30s from No. 17 Squadron to replace the losses. Khurana and his men were now detecting friendly radar signatures of a single Su-30 coming north. Khurana smiled to himself when he saw that because he knew the J-10 pilots were seeing the same.
Only difference was, he knew what was wrong with that picture.
The second act of the air battle over Ladakh was a shadow of the one before it. The Su-27s had hoped to draw out the Indian Sukhoi fighters in a critical battle to wrest control of the skies. That effort had been frustrated by the Indian No. 28 Squadron. Now their J-10s were coming up against a barrage of Indian Su-30s.
One Sukhoi is capable of painting targets for others, and the J-10 crews never saw how many of their opponents were stacked up against them until they actually reached within range of their own radars. And this far to the south, the KJ-2000 was also operating at the extreme edge of its detection range. When the J-10 radars did go active, they lit up the eight spread out Indian Sukhois boring down on them. By that time several R-77 missiles were already in the air and heading towards the J-10s. And at this range, those crucial seconds were everything.
The leading J-10 was blown out of the sky right from the front of the formation of ten it was leading. It shattered under the impact of the missile in full view of the other pilots. The red-hot shrapnel cut into two other aircrafts even as the others dived left and right. Three more J-10s received direct hits in that opening salvo. In return, four J-10s managed to get multiple rounds into the air moments before a second salvo of R-77s slammed into their ranks like the scythe of death and wiped off two more J-10s. But the losses were not one way, and a single Su-30 fell from the sky in a ball of fire as the laws of probability caught up with its crew against the swarms of incoming Chinese missiles.
But the battle was already over. The two remaining J-10s decided to call it a bad day and began punching out clouds of chaff and flares before diving into the relative safety of their S-300 kill zones around the Aksai chin.
The No. 17 Squadron flight-leader decided to let it go at that. There was no need to lose more of their own in return for chasing a bunch of J-10s.
Besides, we will be here if they ever decide to come back… he thought. A moment later he switched his comms over to the Phalcon:
“Eagle-Eye-One, the skies are clear of all things red. Now how about we kill those four F-16s and call it a day?”
“Negative, Griffon-One. Replace Claw and Talon and assume BARCAP positions. The war isn’t over yet. Eagle-Eye-One out.”
Five survivors…
Nine shot down. Seven confirmed dead…
Including the Wing-Co… My god!
Khurana raised the night-vision goggles and rubbed his eyes with his gloved fingers before lowering them down again. The moonlight was reflecting off the fuselage and vertical stabilizer of the massive No. 78 Squadron Il-78 tanker cruising several hundred meters ahead. The three refueling hoses were extended into the winds. Khurana saw the refueling controller sitting in what was originally the gunner’s position in the transport version of the same aircraft. The controller’s voice was on the radio but Khurana was barely listening. His mind was going over the statistics of the battle.
The Phalcon had confirmed during their flight back south that only five Mig-29s out of the original fourteen were still in the air. The squadron commander was among the dead and that list included six other pilots. Two remaining pilots had ejected over the rocky peaks of eastern Ladakh near the border and over friendly airspace but were still missing among the windswept and snowcapped Ladakh Mountains. Morale wasn’t doing any better either…
“Claw-One, this is Eagle-Eye-One. We are unable to establish contact with Leh tower. The base took heavy enemy cruise-missile attack during the time Claw, Talon and Griffon flights were engaged in combat. Redirect to Avantipur. Leh airbase is currently inoperative. Out,” the radio squawked in Khurana’s ears as he cleanly latched on to the refueling port with two other Mig-29s. The remaining two Mig-29s were already moving towards the other Il-78 in this flight of two aircraft from Agra. As his tanks filled up, he chewed out the new information sent to him.
Leh is shut down…
Of course, those cruise-missile inbounds must have broken through while we were engaged with the Chinese Su-27s.
Damn! Damn! Damn!