Four small orange-yellow explosions erupted.
“Splash-One! Splash-Two!” he said. Twenty-eight missiles left…
“We are out of weapons, boss! Guns?” the wingman’s voice came through on the comms. The flight-leader smiled underneath his breathing apparatus.
“Roger that! Let’s roll!” he ordered instantly and punched afterburner to gain on the fast moving missiles. They were burning fuel rapidly but they knew they could always tank up after from an orbiting Il-78 after.
The two aircraft dived into the attack and lined up an YJ-62 each. It only took small bursts of fire to destroy the delicate missiles and send them crashing into the ground below or blow up their warheads in a jarring fireball that rocked the attacking fighter behind it. A few minutes of combat later, the two pilots had claimed another seven missiles, bringing the total inbounds down to twenty-one…
“Eagle-Eye-Four, we are out of ammo and the fuel lights are lit up over here! Where’s the nearest tanker?” the “Battle-Axes” leader said as did the calculations on fuel and both fighters pulled out of afterburners and climbed for higher altitude. On board the AEW, Roy heard the request and lowered his comms mouthpiece as he faced one of the controllers nearby:
“Tell me we have a tanker in the air near Sharpshooter flight!”
“Roger!” the controller replied, conferring with his screen. “Bareilly outbound tanker bird approaching A-O. Sharpshooter has priority.”
“Good!” Roy said with a thoughtful nod before turning back towards the other operators: “Inform that SAM battery near Siliguri that our boys have disengaged! Tell them to take their shots now!”
“Sharpshooter is clear! IFF diagnostic is complete! Target scatter-pattern identified! Take the shots!” the battery commander ordered
From the plains east of Siliguri, four Akash surface-to-air missile launchers swiveled to the proper azimuth. With the phased array radar controlling four of them at a time, each truck mounted launcher fired one Akash missile. The four white smoke trails left the vehicles with a rumble and a slap-bang noise announced the activation of the ramjet engines on board the missiles. Four other missiles followed suit as the phased-array radar moved through the list of targets and allocated one missile to each. It could handle dozens of targets and was only limited by the number of missiles on hand…
With such non-maneuvering targets, it might as well have been a training exercise. Each successive Akash slammed into its target and the threat picture reduced. Within minutes, twelve interceptions had brought the number of surviving YJ-62s down to nine. At this time the battery was out of ready-to-fire missiles and had to reload. Control now passed to the parked 9K31 Strela point-defense systems that began launching their infrared missiles from just outside the airbase perimeter at Baghdogra. Several vehicles were parked around the airbase and launched more missiles than there were targets for them. Coupled with zero maneuvers from the YJ-62s, the engagements were sharp and quick. All nine missiles inbound over Baghdogra were terminated before they could reach it. The last two missiles exploded just beyond the runway, spreading red-hot shrapnel all over, but otherwise did no damage.
The two Chinese Su-30s pulled away silently and menacingly from their last refueling operation before entering combat. Eight J-10s from the 44TH Fighter Division passed below them. Four of these J-10s were armed for air-to-air operations and another three were armed for strike missions. The last J-10 was filling the role of EW support against Indian radars following the loss of their Tu-154M to Indian fighters three days earlier. The ten PLAAF fighters headed south to capitalize on the temporary gap in the Indian aerial coverage over Bhutan…
“Inbounds! Multiple inbound tracks! Counting ten fighters!”
The radar operator shouted over the intercom just as Roy confirmed the successful intercept of the last Chinese cruise-missiles over Baghdogra. He let out a silent curse and ran over.
“Give it to me!”
“Eight J-10s and two Su-30s flying top cover! Heading down Bhutan straight for Paru!”
Oh shit! Roy thought.
“Who’s up at our end?”
“Nothing useful!” the operator replied emphatically, checking the airborne roster. “Seven Mig-27s from Hashimara. Five An-32s, two returning from Paru three that had just scrambled from Baghdogra. One Mi-26 offloading at Paru, several Mi-17s around Sikkim, Bhutan and Baghdogra. Sharpshooter Flight refueling from the MARS bird from Bareilly, and they are out of weapons! The nearest Battle-Axes Mirages are still a good distance away!”
The mission-commander knew what had happened.
What the hell have I done?
But there was no time for recriminations now. Just then the operator checked the screen again, as one more flight logged in:
“Four Mig-21s from Baghdogra, call-sign Bull-rider, are available!”
“Get Bull-rider to engage and interdict the Chinese strike force,” Roy ordered instantly. “Tell everybody to bug the hell out! Especially those transports and helicopters! Tell that Mi-26 crew at Paru to stay on the ground and not attempt to fly out. Request priority assistance from Eagle-Eye-Three to the east and see if they can lend us some Su-30s to deal with this. And get the Battle-Axes to punch afterburners and head straight in! Those Mig-21 pilots are not going to survive this fight without help!”
As his crew got down to work, Roy stood straighter and watched the events unfolding in front of his eyes…
“Release one! And two!”
The Wing-Commander “Bull-rider” Tikkar commanding the four Mig-21 Bisons felt his aircraft shudder and become lighter around him as two R-77 missiles streaked from under the aircraft and pulled up into the darkening skies, their exhaust trails disappearing into the gray clouds. Six other missiles from the rest of his flight followed suit.
The screeching RWR alarm inside the cockpit reminded Tikkar and his pilots that the skies were far from friendly. Enemy missiles were also in the air as the two Chinese Su-30s had released a salvo of four missiles in quick succession…
Bull-rider flight had just released all of their available R-77s on the two inbound Su-30s. Tikkar was far more comfortable taking on the eight J-10Bs in a “merge” engagement where the agile Bisons could out-turn and out-burn them. The same did not apply to the much more formidable Su-30s.
The Chinese Su-30 pilots were betting on a second round of BVR after evading the first round of Indian missiles. So they were preserving some rounds. Tikkar knew there would be no second round: range and terrain prevented it. Experience counted in these matters. The two Chinese pilots had made their first tactical error…