They banked towards Rudok-Dzong. The terrain identification was the teardrop shaped lake pointing east. There the Jaguars would turn north.
The S-300 air-defences in northern Ladakh near the Qara-Tagh-La were playing hell with the air-force’s ability to provide battlefield interdiction in the Aksai Chin. But after five days of intensive combat between the PLAAF and PLA air-defences on one side and the IAF on the other, both sides had lost the stomach for costly slugfests. The Chinese had only a handful of S-300s left in Western Tibet now after the destruction of significant numbers of these batteries by combined Jaguar-ALCM operations two days ago.
This left several holes in their defences in the region and Air-Marshal Bhosale fully intended to use them to cripple the PLAAF even more.
Strategic initiative was the name of the game now…
The eight aircraft thundered over the lake near Rudok and then headed north from there. Soon thereafter the two flights broke into the flat plains of the massive Taklimakan Desert inside Tibet and left the Himalayan peaks behind them. All eight aircraft dived to ultra-low altitude above the desert.
This is what the Jaguars were built to do. The aircraft had enough endurance to haul heavy weapons load deep into enemy airspace at extremely low altitudes. They even had over-wing Matra-Magic air-to-air missiles to defend themselves. The flight of eight Jaguars now spread into a line abreast formation. All eight pilots knew that they would only get one pass at this.
The airbase was abuzz with activity.
It had several unloading tarmac areas where PLAAF transport aircraft were active in offloading supplies which were then to be driven to the Ladakh front. At the same time they were loading on board the sick and wounded soldiers evacuated from the frontlines to hospitals in mainland China. Three Il-76s stood on the eastern tarmac area of the airbase while several Mi-17 helicopters and lighter transport aircraft were parked at the extreme western tarmac areas. In the central area, two Boeing 737 airliners from the Chinese airlines fleet were parked as they offloaded PLA soldiers heading to the Ladakh front. The airbase was full lit as enemy action threat this deep inside Tibet was minimal.
In the skies southwest of Hotien, two J-8F fighters from Kashgar airbase armed for air-to-air combat were now conducting mid-air refuelling with an H-6U tanker from Korla airbase. A hundred kilometres north, a KJ-2000 AWACS aircraft flew on radar picket duty…
For the Jaguars streaking in such low altitudes, the margin for hitting the airbase was low. The J-8Fs would be back on station soon enough. As they flew over the terrain, the ground cleared and Hotien rolled in over the horizon. The airport well-lit and clearly visible.
The Chinese did get a few moments of warning as the eight Jaguars now climbed. As they reached several hundred feet above the desert floor, for the minimum CBU release height and to align themselves with targets, the KJ-2000 detected the eight inbounds and the warning was sounded.
As the base klaxons sounded off, the mass of confused soldiers and ground-crewmen ran for cover. One Il-76 had just taken off the runway on a return flight loaded with wounded soldiers. The pilots of that aircraft began screaming for air cover…
There was no time.
The first six Jaguars screamed over the well-lit runway before the first anti-air guns had even opened up, releasing two dozen cluster bomb units within seconds of each other. The Hotien tarmac area suddenly exploded within a mass of spark filled carpet punctuated with orange fireballs. The two parked Il-76s were ripped into pieces by the explosions and the control tower was a mass of blazing fires. The Mi-17s and the two airliners on the ground were also turned into funeral pyres. Several hundred Chinese lives were extinguished within those few seconds.
Two of the eight Jaguars were tasked for anti-air, and they immediately latched on to the slowly lumbering Il-76 as it took to the air in front of them. The pilots didn’t even bother with missiles. As the two aircraft strafed the large four-engine transport aircraft, its two port side engines caught fire and the wing broke into pieces. As the aircraft tumbled towards the desert below, the wounded soldiers inside were swept out by the winds without parachutes. The aircraft was fully loaded with fuel for a long flight and it disappeared into a blazing fireball on impact…
The two J-8Fs on patrol terminated refuelling operations and began diving to low altitude over Hotien. By this time the Jaguars were egressing south, away from the blazing fires and clouds of smoke encompassing Hotien airbase. One the two air-to-air configured Jaguars fired off two Matra-Magic heat-seeking missiles followed soon by his wingman as they cleared the way for the other six Jaguars down below. One of the two J-8Fs exploded under impact of the missile. The skies filled with flares as the other aircraft evaded for its life. But the J-8F is not nearly as manoeuvrable to evade from advanced heat-seeking missiles such as the Magic series. The missiles claimed the second J-8F low over the desert sands where it disappeared in a cloud of dirt and smoke.
It was over within minutes.
The eight Jaguars headed southeast towards the safety of the Himalayan peaks, ending their brief foray over the Taklimakan Desert. Behind them lay a devastated PLA logistical node for the Ladakh front.
The first news reports of the situation on the streets of Thimpu began airing on news networks worldwide. Images of Bhutanese civilians fleeing to the south towards the Indian border filled the waves. Rumours filled the airwaves as the Bhutanese government began to collapse in the chaos. The situation was vastly reminiscent of the situation in Assam in 1962 during the previous Sino-Indian war. Rumours also spread that the Royal Bhutanese Army had been routed.
As night fell, the citizens of Thimpu saw the ground thundering to the north as the last few Royal Bhutanese Guard units attempted to hold off the Chinese Regiment poised to take the capital of Bhutan. In a few hours the news media across the world were talking of explosions being heard north of Thimpu. At about the same time, Indian television channels began showing the same news, and started asking questions about the India’s failure to prevent the fall of Bhutan. No one stopped to ask Lieutenant-General Potgam, if he had anything to say or do about it.
The moonlight glistened off the shiny new paint job. Major Kulkarni admired the speed with which the new camouflage had been applied. The green camouflage had been painted over with white and the light brown areas had been painted over with shades of disruptive patterns of brown. The paint was still not dry yet. Fact was that they only reason they had halted at all was because a medevac convoy was making its way west from Leh back to Srinagar carrying wounded soldiers and civilians to safety. The snake like mountain roads did not allow much room for two way motion along the road.
Especially not with these vehicles!
Kulkarni looked around. Everywhere they had passed along the way, the story had been the same: civilians heading west, military convoys heading east. Helicopters occasionally flew overhead and sometimes they could see black pillars of smoke from some supply base that had received a hit from Chinese cruise-missile. But the change in emotions on the way here from Rajasthan had been powerful.
They were also having a different type of effect on those they passed on the road. Everybody stopped in awe as the Major’s unit thundered by. It never failed to inspire Kulkarni.