But why?
It didn’t matter. Not then anyway. He switched on his radio and spoke to the rest of his squadron pilots:
“The Indians know we are here! They venture into our territory today! We will improvise. A low-level approach no longer matters for the air-to-air flight. Punch your tanks and accelerate to cover us! Engage their patrols and buy us time to break through to our targets. All others: watch for enemy fighters! Go!”
All nine J-8IIs dropped their external tanks in unison, punched afterburners and accelerated. The six ground-strike aircraft dived low while the three aerial escorts climbed to higher altitude and went active on missile tracking radars. The RWR inside his helmet was now continually screeching. His own AWACS told him that three Indian Su-30s were accelerating to meet his force north of the Bhutanese border.
They wish to fight us on our own soil today!
So be it!
He pulled his aircraft as low above the plains of Tibet as he dared. In front of him, the snowcapped peaks of the Greater Himalayas were approaching on the horizon…
Three streaks of white smoke appeared above those peaks and headed north, above his head. The Indians had engaged his air-to-air equipped flight above him. He saw six streaks of smoke heading south in retaliation from that flight. He risked turning his head momentarily above and saw two fireballs falling out of the sky.
Those bastards!
The three Indian Su-30s engaged their powerful electronic-warfare suites to spoof the incoming missiles at the same time as they dropped chaff and flares. They had dived low, pulled north of the peaks on the Bhutanese border and slashed back over Tibet. The Group-Captain leading the offensive fighter-sweep over the Tibet was having a pleasant day…
“King-Hammer to all Hammer elements: Engage! Engage! Don’t let any of these bastards get home for lunch today!”
He snapped his massive Sukhoi to its side and noticed several J-8IIs streaking below him at low altitude and heading south. They saw him at about the same time as he saw them. Hammer-Two and Hammer-Three were busy finishing off the last J-8II at high altitude. So he pulled the stick back and brought the aircraft into a very tight turn until he could see the yellow nozzle exhausts of his opponents in front of him. Two of those now dropped their heavy ordinance and lit afterburners to pull up and engage…
“So you two will go first!”
He pulled the control-stick. The first J-8II had just finished punching off its ordinance and had no energy advantage relative to King-Hammer’s Sukhoi. A quick burst of cannon fire chopped that Chinese fighter’s port wing from the fuselage in short order.
As that aircraft broke up in flight and tumbled out of the sky, the other J-8II was punching off flares and was already turning to get behind him. King-Hammer was busy with his first prey enough that he didn’t notice the threat on his tail until a line of tracers flashed by the cockpit, barely missing the aircraft.
“This guy knows his trade!” he noted and punched both afterburners while climbing into the sky, taking advantage of the large thrust-to-weight ratio of the Sukhoi against the J-8II in the vertical plane. Sure enough, he left his quarry behind, leading him on with lines of chaff and flares. But before he could think about re-engaging, a missile streaked from the side and slammed into his tormentor, blotting it out of the sky in a shower of debris. Hammer-Two streaked across the sky on both afterburners…
“Sorry boss! You took my kill, so I took yours!” King-Hammer heard over his radio. He responded back with a bemused grunt.
“Don’t get cocky, boy! Now: where are the rest of these buggers?”
As Hammer flight continued to wrest control of the air over southern Tibet from the PLAAF, another flock of Su-30s were out to do the same with the PLA air-defenses…
Six Su-30s were flying line abreast of each other and were devoid of all weaponry except a pair of R-73 missiles each. Their main focus today was not aerial dominance through air-combat but through the defeat of the Chinese air-defense environment. Each aircraft carried underneath the centerline pylon one air-launched Brahmos ALCM.
One after the other, the six fighters released their heavy cargo and rose higher due to reduced weight. As the six ALCMs fell clear, dropping a hundred feet below their parent aircraft, their boosters lit up with a smoky flame and propelled them beyond the launch aircraft for a few seconds before running out of thrust. Slight compressive clouds formed around the missile bodies as they crossed the sonic barrier. There was little to no humidity at these altitudes. Then a smokeless ramjet motor lit up and accelerated the missiles to three times the speeds of sound…
Their job done, the six fighters flipped on their sides, broke formation and dived back to the south.
The ALCMs broke into two groups in flight. One group deviated slightly to the east and the other to the west. The two groups separated quickly and moved away from visual range in short order.
Then there were more missiles in the skies around them.
Their intended targets had seen the incoming threats and engaged. As the S-300 battery near Shigatse airbase to the west and the other deployed near Lhasa launched missiles, the Brahmos ALCMs went into terminal maneuver mode. This ate up fuel at extraordinary rates and dramatically reduced the overall range of the missile. This was why Hammer flight had gone in over southern Tibet to sweep the skies for the launch aircraft.
It had been mere coincidence for the J-8II squadron that their mission had coincided with this Indian operation. They had paid the price for their bad luck, but they were not the only ones doing so that day…
The terminal maneuvering of the Brahmos missiles at such high speeds created claps of thunder heard all over the plains below as they ALCMs turned and weaved to throw off their interceptors.
Three missiles were knocked out by the S-300s in the minute worth of interception time. Two ALCMs from the Lhasa group and one from the Shigatse group were knocked out of the sky.
The two missiles from the Shigatse group hit their targets in quick succession. They exploded within the valley around the airfield and a few hundred feet above the dispersal areas of the S-300 battery. The resulting overpressure wave demolished everything within a two-hundred meter radius near both locations, killing the launch crews and the radar vehicles in split-seconds.
To the east, the single surviving missile for the Lhasa battery also hit its desired target and took out the battery vehicles. In both locations, large, brown mushroom clouds of dust rose into the air and were easily visible on Indian satellites that passed overhead. A tasking order went out to the IAF Eastern Air Command to prepare anti-radiation strike packages for the surviving Chinese radars in southern Tibet. A large gaping hole had just been carved out of the Chinese air-defenses.
“Delta-Flight inbound westerly.”
The intra-team comms squawked with Ravi’s voice as Pathanya walked down the stone steps behind the large palace. He was escorted by a group of Bhutanese officials a few steps behind him. Pathanya had an intimidating appearance with his six foot height and build. It didn’t help for them to see the rifle slung on his chest and the sunglasses he was wearing over the white and brown boonie hat. He had finally washed the war-paint off his face but his uniform was still stained with blood. To the locals he was something just short of a demon, symbolizing everything that was currently happening with their small mountainous kingdom. But he didn’t care.