As for that J-10, the Phalcon had lost contact when the Chinese pilot had gone low within the hills. But he would be poking his nose out of the hills after completing his strike and it was Khurana’s job to ensure that this happened on the Chinese side and not on the Indian one…
The three Indian Fulcrums were now in full view of the Chinese KJ-2000, and the Su-27s were vectored to engage. The PLAAF Commander on board the radar aircraft was Senior-Colonel Len Feng. He was the chief operations officer of the PLAAF units in the Lanzhou Military Region that bordered India along Ladakh and south-western Tibet. In this capacity he reported directly to the commander of the PLAAF Lanzhou Military Area Command, Lieutenant-General Duan Chen.
This was China’s first real deployment of their AWACS aircraft in a potentially hostile aerial situation and so he was here to see the effectiveness and potential drawbacks of their new airborne-radar aircraft. Lieutenant-General Chen had convinced General Jinping, the commander of the PLAAF to release to him the use of the 26TH Air Division, which controlled all of the Chinese airborne-radar, command and control and special mission aircraft. This precious unit had subordinate to it the 76TH Airborne Command and Control Regiment (ACCR) that fielded the brand new KJ-2000 AWACS, the turboprop engine KJ-200 AEW aircraft and other special Electronic Warfare (EW) aircraft.
Upon release to Chen, the 26TH Airborne Division HQ had deployed to Korla airbase in northern Tibet. This airbase was deep enough inside China that no enemy action was expected. But it was close enough to the Tibetan border to allow a pair of KJ-2000s to rotate on a continuous basis and cover the Ladakh sector with their radars. This allowed Chen to maintain the required coverage needed to keep the Indians at bay. But there were other sectors needing coverage too, especially in southern Tibet near Lhasa and Shigatse and further east in south-central China. So the 76TH ACCR had units spread out in detachments all over. But there were not enough aircraft to go around. In this aspect the Chinese faced the same limitations as their Indian enemies. The KJ-2000s were potent weapons but only a handful of them were available. Same went for the KJ-200s. So, in those sectors needing higher level of protection or facing greater threat from the Indians, the coverage was provided by a pair of KJ-2000s. Other sectors were being covered with the lower capability KJ-200s in conjunction with ground based radars.
To further complicate matters for Chen and Feng, General Jinping had refused to merge the Air-Force regions in Lanzhou and Chengdu into a single unified region despite efforts by Chen and the Deputy-Commander of the PLAAF, Colonel-General Wencang. To current and former field commanders such as Chen and Wencang, administrative and bureaucratic limitations affecting streamlined operations were unacceptable. But at the Junwei-Kong-Jun, the PLAAF Headquarters in Beijing, the picture seen was very different. India was only an irritant to be handled with contempt and no major restructuring of military-regions was to be looked at. In doing so, Jinping was towing the party line in Beijing. But out over the Tibetan Plateau, it meant that the Lanzhou and Chengdu assigned Air-Force units were still conducting operations with very little coordination except for few occasions such as the distribution of the 26TH Air Division assets between them.
To further complicate matters for Chen and Feng, there was serious pressure on the PLAAF field commanders from Beijing to re-assert aerial supremacy over a region dominated by Indian advantages in geography, assets and technology. A greater concentration of an otherwise smaller force near the area of operations gave the Indians a level of superiority more virtual than real. It had a lot to do with the density of air operations rather than absolute numbers. The latter being the PLAAF’s strong point on paper.
To counter-balance this, Chen had surged forward elements of the 6TH Fighter Division and its Su-27UBK heavy fighters to Kashgar, an otherwise semi-permanent PLAAF airbase. But there was also a detachment of the 44TH Fighter Division operating under Chengdu region at Kashgar now, based there for proximity to the southwestern Tibet area. This mix and match of units were proving to a nightmare for Feng and his operations staff, and were likely to cause real problems in the future unless unified under a single commander.
Feng shook his head and blinked his eyes to pull himself out of his thoughts as the squawking of radio chatter broke his reverie.
Focus…
Tonight would be interesting. The Indians had become very aggressive over the last month in response to the Chinese air-strikes against Tibetan rebels moving back and forth near the border regions with India. A couple of times it had even proven scary, Feng thought.
But only because we were unprepared.
That changes tonight…
He was under clear cut orders from Chen to be aggressive now. However, the problem wasn’t his aggressiveness, but that of his men. Aggressiveness without discipline can lead to mistakes. And mistakes can lead to war. He was worried about his pilots. They had been taught to listen and obey, not to think: a result of the doctrinal inertia of the old PLAAF from the cold war days that had only recently begun to change to allow more flexible operations. The thing about flexible operations was that it required the Chinese commanders and political officers to release greater control on their airmen during combat. Something the communist party was very loath to do when it concerned their country’s guard dogs. Men such as Feng were from a new breed, having risen under the tutelage of visionary commanders such as Generals Chen and Wencang. The problem was that despite the small cadre of senior officers like themselves, the vast majority of the PLAAF was still very much stuck in a different mindset. And that mindset had never been tested in war. Add to that the political interference of installing Generals such as Jinping to the highest offices of the Air-Force only helped keep the lid on the radical changes that men such as Wencang could usher in. But Wencang could not rise above the position he currently occupied for the same reason that Jinping could: political affiliations. The latter had a lot of them and was considered utterly loyal to the Chinese communist party in Beijing. He was also a close relative of the former Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) in Beijing, the supreme Chinese military HQ and decision making body.
In the meantime, we must do what we can at the lower levels… Feng thought as he looked over the shoulder of the Major commanding the radar operations on board the KJ-2000.
For all that, Feng was relatively satisfied with his preparations tonight. He smiled inwardly as his hand reached the zipped chest pocket of his flight-suit for his cigarette and then put the thought away. He had developed a bad habit for it when he was on the ground, commanding operations far behind the potential frontlines. But that was on the ground where he could simply walk out of the center and into his personal office for a smoke. But not inside this aircraft and in the air.
Of course not. What am I thinking… he thought bemusedly. It felt nice to be inside a flight-suit. It had been far too long since his last joyride on a Su-27. But as he ran his hand over his balding white hair, he realized it was a young man’s job and he had gotten old.
And supposedly wise? Well, these men and their lives depend on me, so let’s hope so… he replied to his inner voice.