He could see three NAMICA vehicles and a handful of BMPs moving into protective revetments dug out by the supporting army engineers. The Chinese armor was now a few kilometers away.
The three NAMICA vehicles went into action, launching off their Nag missiles in quick succession. The missiles slammed into the frontal and top armour plating of the leading Chinese vehicles. The explosions ripped the vehicles asunder and sent metal and steel flying in all directions.
Seven T-99s staggered to an abrupt halt and stayed there.
The NAMICA crews were prioritizing the T-99s over the ZBDs. If it came down to a knife fight, they didn’t want T-99 main guns firing at them at point blank ranges. Even so, it wasn’t enough.
As a Nag missile streaked out of its launcher on one of the NAMICA vehicles, the vehicle exploded into a fireball by a Chinese missile. The Nag missile it had fired off claimed the last T-99 kill for that Indian crew. The tank’s engine compartment detonated in a fireball three kilometers from the Indian defenses.
The four surviving T-99 crews went into direct fire mode and fired their main guns in unison. Two Indian BMPs lit up instantly and a couple of the infantry positions were levelled in a burst of shrapnel and gravel. Two of the four T-99s were stopped in their tracks by the NAMICAs before several different Chinese light-armor vehicles overran the Indian lines.
The last two remaining NAMICA vehicles were hit and destroyed at point blank ranges. As the surviving ZBDs and a couple of the T-99s came within a few hundred meters of the 9TH Punjab lines, openly using their co-axial machine guns, the only response left were a couple of Milan anti-tank teams, but they were exposed and without cover except for the rocks and the burning vehicles. They managed to kill one ZBD before being wiped out.
And then it happened…
Kongara got up on his feet and spat out the gravel that had gone into his mouth. He picked up the radio and ordered a retreat as the Chinese vehicles rolled through the Indian positions.
The retreat was a mess, and utterly chaotic. The Chinese gunners mowed down dozens of Indian soldiers as they ran between rocks, the only form of cover out in the flat terrain…
It would have been a massacre for the 10TH Mechanized and the 9TH Punjab had it not been for the intervention of 199HU and its two Light-Combat-Helicopters. As Kongara ran behind some rock cover, he saw the two helicopters as they flew low over his positions.
The two LCHs were low on ammunition and had been returning back to FARP-Saser after returning from the 4TH Mechanized advance lines to the southeast. Colonel Sudarshan had diverted them to here to stave off the defeat enveloping the 10THMechanized survivors.
Dutt and his wingman had no time for setting up piecemeal attacks. Their main job right now was to occupy the Chinese and buy time for the survivors of the 10TH Mechanized to retreat. The only way they could make their presence felt to the Chinese in all that mess was by conducting point blank attacks and strafing runs overhead. Besides, they had no Nag missiles left in any case. Dutt had a load of ammo for their chin-mounted gun-turret and that’s it.
The two helicopter gunners in the front seats used their helmet integrated optics to guide their cannon fire over several Chinese ZBDs as Dutt and his wingman flew over them. The result was the incapacitation of several ZBDs and the diversion of attention to the two helicopters buzzing overhead. This gave Kongara and the 9TH Punjab soldiers the opportunity they needed to deploy smoke and disengage. Several platoons made their way through the smoke and headed south to safety towards the 4TH Mechanized lines.
Back at the command post, Sudarshan realized what had happened. He also saw the danger that had now materialized on the left flank of the 4TH Mechanized, deep inside the LAC to the southeast. If he wanted to avoid its encirclement, he had to pull his force out now and also put the incoming 3RD Mechanized into the battle there.
Back in the skies to the east, Dutt noticed the volume of fire now being put up from the ground against his two helicopters. The shock and surprise amidst the Chinese gunners on the arrival of his helicopters was now gone.
It was time to leave.
His decision was made easier for him when his gunner announced that they were out of ammunition for the cannon.
That does it!
He ordered an immediate break and dived back to the southwest towards Saser, followed quickly behind by his wingman. The two helicopters flew low over the lines of Indian soldiers moving south alongside a BMP-II, all that remained of the once powerful 10TH Mechanized Battalion…
With the withdrawal of the 4TH Mechanized back to the LAC to remove their exposed left flanks to the Chinese armor, most of the territory gained in the first few days had now been lost. All surviving units of the 10TH Mechanized were now passed over to the operational control of the 4TH Mechanized and Sudarshan removed the former from the Indian order of battle in Ladakh.
The 43RD Armored Regiment entered the Shyok river valley after having reached and passed Leh. The road and the valley represented the main supply route for Indian forces in central and northern Ladakh. It was a hotbed of activity when Major Kulkarni’s taskforce rumbled on to the road in a long convoy of tanks. The only reason they had gotten here so fast was because the XIV Corps headquarters as well the 3RD Infantry Division commander were prioritizing its arrival above all else.
For good reason too!
Kulkarni sat in the open turret hatch of the Arjun MBT, admiring the sun rising above the mountains. In his mind, he had finally entered the combat zone. Now began his dash to DBO, still another twelve hours of driving away.
“Yeah… I have all vehicles on the ground now ready to go, sir. I am moving them into positions now,” Fernandez said to Potgam.
Potgam was not happy at the moment. The Indian military was just not in a position to airlift equipment at the rates he required to effectively defend Bhutan. It had never been structured to do so over the years. And the result of that meant a very sluggish response in Bhutan.
On the golf-course at Haa-Dzong, continuous helicopter operations had converted the once pristine course into a churned up piece of land. Soon it would be completely unusable for the heavier helicopters. Potgam was aware of this. And he wanted as much of his minimum required heavy equipment brought into the valley before the place broke down.
Hotel-Six battery vehicles under Fernandez were right now bunched up at one corner of the golf-course, awaiting deployment orders.
And that was actually a good question under the circumstances.
In order for the Pinaka Launchers to be of any use to Potgam’s soldiers in western Bhutan and Thimpu, the battery had to be moved northeast from Haa-Dzong towards Paru. That would put the battery southwest of Thimpu with enough range to support operations there. Paru also had a very useful airport that Potgam so badly needed right now.
Paru was currently unoccupied. Rumors had filled the streets of the small town that Thimpu had fallen and that Chinese soldiers were advancing south to the town.
But it wasn’t true.
Potgam had confirmed through UAV recon that Paru was in fact unoccupied and so was Thimpu. And Paru’s civilian airport remained surprisingly untouched. For now anyway. Potgam had his Searcher-II UAVs moving northeast above Thimpu and maintaining an eye out for flanking forces from the Highland Division that might attempt to cut him off from the south.