But most importantly, his command line to Chen and Wencang had been cleared with the dismissal and subsequent arrest of Zhigao. Wencang had returned back to Beijing just an hour ago. Chen had established his office here until the objectives of the air-war were met or at least until he understood the capabilities of the Indians in this sector that was holding the PLAAF at bay.
On that issue, Chen had taken swift and decisive rectifications. He had asked Wencang to authorize the release of the 32ND Fighter Division to his control to replace units from the 6TH Fighter Division and Wencang had made it happen. With that, Chen had ordered the commander of the 95TH Air Regiment and its gaggle of J-11B fighters to move to bases in Urumqi, Korla and Kashgar while the 6TH Fighter Division withdrew its decimated Flanker units to Lianyunang airbase in Jinan MRAF. He had also made Feng in charge of the air defense units in the Aksai Chin region. The 44TH Fighter Division had also been relegated back to the Lhasa region to fight alongside the 33RD Fighter Division now that it had lost its detachment of J-10s at Kashgar. Having units from various Divisions was a major coordination problem, as Feng had discovered during past operations. Had the ten J-10s from the 44TH Fighter Division joined the fight alongside the Su-27s from the 6TH Fighter Division, could the results have been better than they were?
There was no way to know.
But Chen and Wencang had been impressed with Feng’s idea of tagging along the H-6M cruise-missile carriers behind the Su-27s. It had delivered results. The missiles launched from those bombers had swept past the dogfighting fighters over Ladakh and struck Leh with full force, rendering it inoperative for at least two days. The state-run NCNA media had gotten fully behind that and used it to cover up the loss of Lhasa airbase that morning to the Indian Brahmos strikes.
An eye for an eye…
Feng looked at his wristwatch which he preferred over the large wall clocks in the operations center. Old habits.
He realized that within hours the 32ND Fighter Division would start reinforcing this sector and bring his Su-27/J-11 fleet to fully-ops status. Within a day the 32ND Fighter Division would be fully ready to take the fight to the Indians.
Under my command this time!
Until then, we have to hold them at bay, away from my S-300s…
A Major walked over to Feng and handed him the latest updates. The five pages in his hand spoke of unconnected incidents.
One report from a PLA Division commander near southern Ladakh spoke of an Indian Jaguar squadron having penetrated the skies and currently over Tibet somewhere.
Another spoke of Indian electronic-warfare aircraft probing the S-300 defensive lines. But the Jaguars had penetrated far to the south and had headed northeast, away from the Aksai Chin, while the EW aircraft was still over northern Ladakh.
The operations officer had classed these events as unconnected.
Feng wasn’t so sure. He paused and went over the reports again. The idea was to look at this from the Indian standpoint and find the connection. The obvious answer was that the incidents were connected. But with the limited information in his hands, the connection was hard to find. The obvious connection was not so obvious.
The Indians are up to something.
But what?
“Approaching waypoint five!” The weapon-systems-operator replied over the radio from the back seat. Group-Captain Parekh looked away from his HUD to see the moonlight reflect off the waters of the Pangong-tso inside southwestern Tibet. All sixteen deep-penetration-strike Jaguars of the Tuskers Squadron streaked at low altitudes above the lake.
Parekh looked back through his HUD as his hands guided the high-speed, low-flying jet that was the Jaguar.
“Blue-section peel on my mark. Three. Two. One. Mark!”
Four of the sixteen jaguars now flipped to their sides and pulled away, heading southeast. Verma looked through his helmet mounted NVGs to see the section of four aircraft streaking away as black specks against the greenish-white night sky.
“Firefly-One to Firefly-Blue. Give them hell! Out!”
The EW-Operator on board the ARC Gulfstream-III aircraft looked at his watch before bringing up his intercom mouthpiece:
“Okay, people. Time to go. Light up the skies!”
The crew of six experienced EW operators now went into a frenzy of activity as they flipped switches that brought active electronic-warfare systems online. The aircraft was now actively emitting jamming signals as the onboard crew attempted to black out the Chinese radars throughout the Aksai Chin…
The long convoy of Chinese trucks and several armored vehicles were rolling steadily on the road towards the battlefields further west. This sector, once bogged in desperate firefights between the PLA and the Tibetan rebels over the last year, had seen a vast influx of PLA units that had crushed the Tibetan resistance. Now these forces were angling to bring their firepower to bear on the Indian XV Corps units fighting them tooth and nail for Ladakh.
Three crucial mountain passes in the region at Chang, Jara and Charding to the north, east and south of Demchok had all been under Chinese control since 1962. They provided a south-to-north approach that could allow them to roll up the Indian defenses at Rezang-La and then Chushul up north.
As such, the side that controlled these regions could affect the outcome of the ground war in southern Ladakh. For the Indians, this meant capturing these passes or preventing the Chinese from using them.
The PLA convoy was moving in total darkness with all headlights switched off and only the moonlight above guiding the way forward on the road. Over the rumble and vibrations of so many truck and armor vehicle engines, the fast approaching noise of incoming jets behind them at low altitude went unnoticed until the aircraft were literally overhead…
The first flashes of light erupted when a dozen supply trucks disappeared into a large orange-yellow napalm fireball. A single Jaguar aircraft streaked overhead. The secondary explosions rocked the mountains as ammunition supplies exploded amongst many of the vehicles. The convoy immediately stopped as PLA soldiers abandoned their vehicles and ran, leaving the engines still running as more aircraft noises filled the skies.
The second Jaguar streaked above the ridges from the north and approached the line of five Type-99 tanks parked on the road. The tank-crews were already jumping out of the vehicles. The Jaguar streaked overhead and released two cluster-bomb-units over the five tanks. In two seconds the munitions struck the top armor plating of the tanks and the ground nearby.
Explosions rocked the valley and a dust cloud enveloped the smoke columns. By the time the dust settled, all that remained were five pillars of fire from what had been brand new Type-99 series tanks.
The last two Jaguars were now rolling into attack as the first two aircraft raced skywards and banked away. By this time the PLA anti-air guns had overcome the suddenness of the attack and started filling the skies with lines of tracers and exploding shells.
The night sky was no longer serene and it was getting dangerous for the Indian pilots. Disregarding the danger, the third Jaguar pilot lit up another twenty odd trucks with sequential dropping of his napalm bombs before banking away with blazing afterburners. In his wake followed a line of exploding anti-air artillery shells, but did not touch the aircraft.