The Pakistani pilots weren’t far behind, however. Grewal heard the desperate audio tone of his radar-warning-receiver telling him that the two enemy missiles were in the air. Time to evade like hell!
Grewal punched cloud after cloud of chaff and the four LCAs broke pattern and dived in different directions. The Pakistani pilots did the same. At such close ranges and high closure rates, the response time was in seconds. And as Grewal spotted the incoming AMRAAM missile headed straight for him, he dived in front of it and left a cloud of chaff in his wake on a parabolic arc. The radar clutter line was nearly continuous and just enough for the AMRAAM missile to explode in a ball of fire at the very top of the arc, two dozen meters behind the LCA. Explosion fragments ripped through the skies and tore into the skin of Grewal’s aircraft. He felt the jerk and a crash through the cockpit seconds before he saw slight smoke coming near his feet.
A second massive explosion ripped through the skies to his north as the other AMRAAM missile slammed into dagger-two, turning the LCA to smithereens. The debris laced with fire streaked earthward. There was no time for mourning. Grewal recovered his aircraft and saw warning lights going off inside the cockpit. But the controls still felt good. The engine was still running. The weapons were good. The HUD was smashed and the cockpit glass was cracked.
Damn!
Further south, he saw yet another fireball as the flaming wreck of one of the two F-16s disappeared into the cloud cover below. The second F-16 was nowhere to be seen.
“Dagger-three, — four! Get the buggers before they escape! I am weapons ineffective and dagger-two has been blotted out! Go! Go!”
“Wilco, dagger-leader. I am on him!”
Grewal saw his two remaining pilots punch afterburners and launch Astra missiles towards a non-visible target. He felt his control stick shudder. Looking at his starboard wing, he spotted several holes and what looked like fuel splatter. The fact that it had not ignited had probably saved his life. But the list of problems didn’t end there. The fuel indicator was slinking away. Grewal realized he was trailing fuel…
Before he could say or do anything, a flash of light erupted on the horizon and flicker on its way earthward. The radar-warning-receiver changed audio tones as the source of the enemy radar disappeared.
The radio came alive: “splash one bandit!”
“Dagger-leader, this is mongol-two. We no longer detect the enemy airborne-control source on our scopes. Is that your handiwork?”
“Looks like it,” Grewal added. “Dagger-three and — four claimed the prey! Also count two enemy Foxtrot birds in the bag. I am damaged goods over here and dagger-two has been lost. We are egressing the heck out of here!”
“Mongol-two copies all. Good work.”
Grewal pulled his aircraft around and felt the shudder in his controls all the way. Dagger-three and — four took flanking positions on either side of him as he fought to keep his aircraft in the air. As an extension of his body as it was, he could feel the airframe barely holding itself together. He would be lucky if he made it back across the border, let alone get back to base. The fuel indicator was now flashing red. He needed to put this aircraft down. And fast.
“Dagger-one declaring emergency!”
“Mongol-two copies. Proceed to Bathinda.”
“Wilco.”
“Mongol-two-actual here, Dagger-leader,” Verma’s voice chimed in. “You can make it. Put the bird down on the concrete.”
Grewal tightened his grip around the control stick as the aircraft continued to vibrate. The vibration was becoming more pronounced as they lowered altitude just after crossing over the border. Some solace was to be had when the patrolling Mig-21s at Bathinda lined up in a pair to his right just after he lowered his undercarriage. They would follow him in. The runway at Bathinda showed up to the east.
Almost there. Don’t fail me now!
As the runway became much more visibly pronounced and the tarmac appeared underneath on either side, Grewal prepared for the eventuality that his landing gear might collapse. When the rubber of the tires hit the ground and didn’t collapse, he was already breathing a long breath of relief. A few seconds later the engine flamed out. The LCA slithered to a stop halfway on the runway.
He removed his oxygen mask and helmet as several vehicles rolled up to his crippled aircraft. Firemen ran on either side, showering the wing with fire-retardant foam. He turned to the floor of the cockpit and saw the source of the smoke. He used his gloved hand to pull out a piece of metal shard lodged just inches from his left boot. The rubber on his boot had been scarred by it. One additional inch to the right and it could have severed his foot. He glanced at the metal shard in his hand as ground crews snapped open the shattered cockpit glass.
He had been lucky. His wingman had not. The war had already taken a toll on his squadron. And it had just begun.
Verma took a deep breath. His inner voice may have a point, he conceded. The battle numbers supported it.
Modern war was rarely, if ever, a game of numbers as it used to be in the past century. Quality and training offset massive numerical advantage. The Pakistani air-force was not even close to resembling the strength of their Chinese ally. The PAF had neither the numbers to fight three-for-one against India nor the quality advantage. And propaganda statements to the contrary, its training and efficiency had suffered during the decade long bleeding against the Pakistani Taliban. The latter had attacked airbases over the years inside Pakistan and had leveled many Pakistani aircraft where they sat on the tarmac. In return, Pakistani combat pilots had been busy striking home soil with bombs and rockets. They were in no position to take on a battle-hardened, albeit depleted, Indian air-force.
The battle for vortex-two had already cost the Pakistanis dearly. The gambit of drawing out Indian pilots into combat was a deadly one. The importance of airborne-radar systems if often over-played. And while it was true that in presence of large fighter forces it could prove lethal, there was little that it could do when its supporting aerial forces were weak. And so the PAF had lost one of its Erieye airborne-radar aircraft, eight of its precious F-16s and six of its obsolete Mirage-IIIs in that battle. In return, they had taken down three Indian Flankers, one LCA and had heavily damaged another LCA.
The morale within the PAF commanders would plummet at the near-complete wipeout of their first large-force attempt against the Indians. Verma observed as vortex-one, flying out of Peshawar, had dispersed its assembling fighter force into smaller groups just after vortex-two had gone dark. It was now withdrawing further west, away from the aerial frontlines.
Verma walked over to his seat and strapped himself in as the large Phalcon aircraft turned to port and departed station-keeping to rendezvous with its refueling tanker aircraft further east.