“How did they take us by surprise? I thought we had drones overhead!” Kongara exclaimed, running through his head on who might have been killed in those three BMPs…
“Snafu! The Divisional RPV assets were diverted by somebody at Division to look up further north or something. By the time they redeployed, it was all over.”
“Good god!” Kongara muttered. But both men understood that such things happened during wartime. Especially given the fog of war…
“They are not cooperating with our plans now, are they?” Kongara continued, referring to the red pins on the map in front of them.
“No they certainly are not!”
“So what’s the plan now?” Kongara asked.
“We will have to find another breach point around this hornet’s nest of T-99s here. Problem is, along this section of the water stream, you have hills on both sides that are unsuited for vehicles and this armor force is blocking the valley between them. If we can somehow punch through, we can cut off the two Chinese Brigades from the east. The Colonel thinks that the only way for us at the moment is a head on attack through the Chinese armor. What’s your readiness?”
“Good to go. When is the jump-off?” Kongara asked. His colleague looked at his watch and then back at Kongara.
“Within the hour. We are going to launch the 10TH Mechanized as a steel fist into the enemy. If we succeed, we could have this Chinese Division on its knees before sundown!”
“Approaching drop five in fifteen seconds! Standby!” the pilot confirmed to the ASW coordinator in the back.
“Drop in Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Drop!”
The aircraft slightly vibrated as yet another sonobuoy fell clear and into the waters below. The sonar operators noted the splash and then the sonobuoy went active. The ASW coordinator confirmed:
“Sonobuoy-Five is active!”
The ASW crew went back to analyzing the data streaming in from the newly deployed sonobuoy and began corroborating it with the information gathered previously; the flight crew up front pulled the Il-38 up and leveled out sufficiently high that fuel could be conserved.
The Malacca Strait is around seventy five kilometers in width on average, separating Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Singapore is to the south near the southern entry point and Myanmar and India are at the northern one.
Two Mig-29K naval air-defense fighters had departed the Andaman Islands to provide cover for the Il-38s patrolling the strait in search of Chinese submarine threats. A Singapore air-force G550 AEW aircraft had also been detected to the south by the Il-38s radar-warning-receivers.
This particular ASW aircraft had detected the two inbound Chinese Su-27s as the latter had finished their in-flight refueling operations over the South China Sea. The problem was that the Singaporeans could not very well pass that information to the Indians. Not yet, anyway. Singapore was sitting on the fence on this one until it became clear which side was winning the war in Tibet.
Nothing personal. Just geopolitics at work.
So for the moment the RSAF airborne radar operators watched in silence as the Su-27s approached the Malacca Strait from the south…
“Wait! Did you see that?!” one of the sonar operators said over the intercom to a colleague sitting on a similar console. The ASW officer took note and walked over.
“What do you have?”
“Brief sonar contact here…” the operator pointed on the digital map overlay. “Right at the edge of the range for S-5.”
“Check the SAR display for surface contacts!” the officer ordered.
“Checking… clear! No surface contacts in that sector.”
“Okay,” he brought his intercom mouthpiece close as he spoke.
“All right people, we have a possible submerged contact on bearing three-one-five. This could be what we are looking for. Prepare drops S-6 through S-10. Stand by on M-A-D!”
Moments later the cabin tilted slightly as the flight-crew up front adjusted heading towards the target and began their descent. They had to get low for the Magnetic Anomaly Detectors or MAD to be able to pick out the possible sub-surface contact clearly. Sonobuoy triangulation required careful drops which would also require the low altitudes.
Several minutes later the pilot confirmed their entry over the suspected target zone. By this time the sonar operators had already confirmed additional sonar contacts with the target and the MAD crews were on the job. The ASW coordinator authorized another sonobuoy drop. The pilot brought the aircraft low over the surface…
“Drop S-6 completed!” the pilot confirmed. This time the response from the sonar operators was immediate:
“Definite submerged contact below us commander! Bearing three-one-seven! Computer classification confirms Kilo class submarine! Designating contact as Zulu-seven. Triangulating on contact.”
“Prepare drop S-7 and S-8. Prepare for torpedo drop on target!”
The Il-38 and the Chinese Kilo class submarine were now locked in combat.
But the Chinese submarine was already trapped…
The Il-38 crew was flying in an arc as they dropped an additional two sonobuoys in order to get an exact fix. An airborne attacker could be active and still not be touched, but it could certainly touch its intended submerged target.
The Chinese crew on the other hand had few options. The waters of the strait meant that there were no local thermal layers to hide under. Depths were restricted. And this was the Indian navy’s back yard. Every inch of the ocean floors had been mapped over the waters for all MAD disruptions, sub-surface terrain variations and local variations in the saline content. So there were no surprises and high probability of intercept. The only hope for the Chinese crew was the hope that their air force would deliver on their intended promises…
“Buoys released!” the pilot said as the Il-38 banked away.
“S-7 is active! S-8 is active! We have detections on Zulu-seven. Positional fix achieved!” the senior sonar operator confirmed.
“Prepare for single torpedo drop when ready!” the ASW coordinator shouted over the intercom to the weapons-systems crew. The latter then spoke with the pilot:
“We are going for weapons release over here. Bring us about.”
“Roger!”
The aircraft banked again and leveled out as the flight crew brought the aircraft on the required bearing and reduced speed.
“Torpedo ready! Drop in three! Two! One! Drop!”
This time the aircraft shuddered significantly as the large torpedo fell clear and splashed into the water. The sonar crew picked it up instantly.
“Torpedo in the water! Weapon is active and on target. Zulu-seven deploying countermeasures! Three so far! Weapon is running active, straight and normal. Impact in ten seconds!”
The pilot looked at his counter in the cockpit. The seconds ticked away quickly…
“Impact! We have impact! Multiple explosions registered on target. We can hear bulkheads collapsing! Zulu-seven is breaking up!”
The aircraft intercom was filled with raucous cheer as the Chinese submarine and its crew perished under the Malacca Strait.
“Okay people, get back to work. Scratch Zulu-seven off the board. Inform naval headquarters that we have made contact with and subsequently sunk a Chinese Kilo class submarine and then send them the location.”
Up front, the flight-crew had been congratulating each other when the RWRs on board the aircraft began screeching. The pilot confirmed the data:
“Oh shit! We are being painted by Flanker radars from the south!”
“Where are our escorts?” the flight-engineer shouted from behind. The pilot was already asking that same question up the command line: