“Okay, here we are,” He pointed to a speck of rock visible on the infrared views on the screen. “They are here and moving along this axis! That would bring them along this axis towards our first defensive lines here!”
Adesara quickly nodded his agreement.
“All right Ravi, this is your dance! Give me your plan!” Adesara and the signals officer looked at Sudarshan, who wasted no time:
“The Chinese first and second armor waves are all moving along the northern bank of the river towards the airstrip. My tanks are deployed along the northern banks. My T-72 platoon is in hull down positions here,” he jabbed on the screen. “They will engage the Chinese first wave along with support from your anti-tank boys! I am taking my BMP force across the river and then east!”
Adesara nodded again as he considered the tactic. But he had a word of caution:
“Just remember that your T-72 boys are outnumbered four-to-one against the Chinese armor. And those are their shiny new T-99s they are driving. Even with my support, don’t expect to be able to hold them for too long. So don’t wander off! When you hit the Chinese, I will pull back to my second line of defenses further west and reengage. That’s your cue to fall back west as well. The only way we are going to survive this day is with maneuver warfare, not frontal attacks. Hit and move! You follow me?”
“Crystal clear!”
“Okay, then. I…” Adesara was stopped midsentence.
“Holy shit! Incoming fire!”
The single shell slammed into the eastern face of the hill and sent a fireball rising into the sky. Dust and gravel rained down on the hunkered group of men on the top. Adesara looked around and then spat out the gravel in his mouth as he saw the others dusting themselves off.
“What the hell was that?!!” the signals officer shouted.
“A ranging shot! They know where we are and are trying to knock us out. Next will be the barrage. Time for us to go!” Sudarshan shouted as the ringing in his ear stopped.
Adesara and the others were already packing up and moving out. A few moments later they were again moving down the gravel slopes of the citadel on the west side of the slope…
“How on earth did they know exactly where we were?” Sudarshan shouted to Adesara as he balanced himself against the shifting gravel.
“We are not the only ones using unmanned drones today, Colonel…”
“So they pulled them back?”
“Yes sir. The two Chinese AWACS are now operating in an integrated air-defense mode with the S-300 batteries. They are networking with the ground based radars to form a nice large picture of the airspace south of the Aksai Chin. If we approach, they will know about it,” the Group-Captain said before walking away from the large digital map on the wall.
“What about their strike-fighters? What was it? The 33RD Fighter Division?” Air-Marshal Bhosale asked.
“Their 6TH Fighter Division Su-27 force,” the Group-Captain corrected his boss before continuing. “… deployed between Kashgar, Urumqi and Korla airbases was mauled severely. We estimate they now have around ten surviving Su-27s still operational at Urumqi. But the boys at the DIA expect movement of Flanker-centered Fighter Divisions from central China to replace the losses they took yesterday. The intelligence boys are already noticing increased deployment related activities around airbases occupied by the 19TH Fighter Division.”
“Another Flanker dominated unit,” Bhosale added and then thought about that…
They will keep adding these forces to replace their losses for now. But they only have so many airbases in the region. Each such fighter unit must therefore be committed piecemeal.
Perhaps the advantage lay there?
If so, that gives us the day today to pull off whatever we have planned before this vicious cycle starts off again…
“All right. What about the Pakistanis?” Bhosale asked as he pulled himself out of his thoughts. The Group-Captain walked back towards the wall map of Kashmir.
“Well, they had four of their F-16s deployed throughout the time our boys were locking horns with the Chinese Su-27 drivers. They still have at least two of their birds up in the air at any given time.”
And there was not a damn thing we can do about it unless we start taking out their airbases in the Skardu sector…
Bhosale thought as he leaned back in his chair, and then corrected himself:
Well, maybe we might just do that too, if it comes down to that!
The IAF had been forced to temporarily postpone their planned takedown of the Chinese S-300 defensive belt around Aksai Chin when the Chinese aircraft had hit the skies around Leh and gotten embroiled in a vicious dogfight with the No. 28 Squadron Mig-29s and No. 17 Squadron Su-30s. It was as complicated a battle situation as the IAF had faced in its entire history. But far worse battles were to come.
There was every indication that the Chinese might try again just as soon as they replaced the decimated Su-27/J-11 units with fresh ones from central China. But for now Bhosale realized that they had pushed the PLAAF temporarily out of the skies over Ladakh…
And that left the skies clear for Indian missions designed to take down enemy air-defenses on the ground via SEAD missions
For all the Chinese losses in the past twenty four hours, there was no denying the fact that their S-300 systems were achieving a very critical objective: keeping the IAF away from hindering the hundreds of convoys moving from Sinkiang into Tibet and from the Aksai Chin towards the LAC. And piecemeal attacks against the Chinese defenses were not working. They had clearly deployed backup equipment to replace losses. As a result of all this, three Squadrons of Jaguar strike fighters were being forced fly close-air-support sorties for now until this threat was removed.
Bhosale put his hands behind his head and leaned further into his leather chair, lost in thought.
The Chinese commander who set this up is no fool. I am clearly dealing with a smart son of a bitch here! But smart or not, we have to find a way to dismantle that integrated air-defense system in the Aksai Chin and start taking on enemy armor…
How?
“Six kilometers and closing!”
A soldier with an IMFS shouted over his comms to the field HQ. Adesara heart the radio chatter inside the bunker while he pored over the maps on the wall.
His infantry battalions were already deployed north of the citadel and aligned north-south. Colonel Sudarshan was in command of friendly armor forces and had moved the available T-72M tank platoon further north. The tanks were in hull-down positions in open terrain that gave their turrets a wide field of view while presenting the least possible target area for the enemy gunners. Topside hatches were closed and the tank crews had identified targets on their optics.
Adesara looked around to see his men hunkered down and their INSAS battle-rifles aimed east with each soldier looking down the weapon’s optics, waiting to engage enemy soldiers dismounting from the ZBDs at long-range. He then looked behind him to see the airstrip still being pummeled into dust by Chinese artillery.