He walked into the tent, lowering the flap of the tent behind him. The tent was a cacophony of voices as his men got into the process of bringing ferrite online. The tables in here were lined with the kind of displays and radio packs that were needed for complete remote operations of the radar units. They had already hooked up generators outside and Subramanian noted the cables laid out all over the place connecting comms, power and displays into a cohesive set.
So far so good.
He appreciated the shade inside the tent and removed his sunglasses before turning to his comms officer: “get steel-central on the comms. Advise them that ferrite is booting up and that we need a status report from bushfire-actual.”
“Yes sir.” The lieutenant got to work.
“Now,” Subramanian walked up behind his second-in-command sitting on a chair behind the remote-display-monitor, “let’s see what the electronic battlespace looks like.”
“Light it up?”
“Light it up.”
The captain brought up the phone-like comms speaker connecting his vehicles: “ferrite-C-two to ferrite-rovers. Send traffic, over.”
The screen in front them lit up with incoming feed from all three radar deployments. The captain switched on the terrain and map overlay with two buttons and it showed them the circular instrumented and priority-coverage zones in white and red colors. Positions of ferrite vehicles were shown as was the ABAMS tracker feed showing rhino forces west and north, deep inside Pakistan. Also lit up were the inbound threat plots of artillery fire that was rocking rhino…
“Sir, I have bushfire-actual on the comms.”
Subramanian turned to face his comms officer and then walked over, taking the speaker: “ferrite-actual here. We are op-con ready. What’s your status. Over?”
“Bushfire has been op-con fucking ready for two hours, ferrite! Steel-central advises me that we are now passed to you. Call the shots, son. Over.”
“Roger, bushfire.-actual. Stand by for targets. Out.” Subramanian handed the speaker back to the lieutenant and then turned to his staff: “okay, just tell me you have some juicy targets for bushfire-actual!”
The captain nodded: “I have targets. Enemy 155 millimeter battery, twenty kilometers northwest. We are resolving now but these are the guys that have been buzzing rhino from the moment they stepped on to Paki soil. My bet is a battery of M109s. Any possibility to confirm?”
“Visually?” Subramanian asked. “Not a chance. Not right now, anyway. Steel-central has other targets to keep an eye on. We will prosecute this one electronically only. Let’s not let the enemy know that we are tracking their every shell from inside their own territory!” Subramanian smiled. “Pass what you have to bushfire-actual immediately. High priority target. Prosecute and destroy!”
The boxy launcher on the back of the Tatra heavy-duty truck lifted off its bed and rotated up on the force of its hydraulic arms. The six square-shaped doors on the front and back of the launcher remained closed to prevent sand and dust from entering the launch tubes. Four of these vehicles were deployed in a cusp-shape around the breach point being exploited for entry into Pakistan.
This Prahaar ballistic-missile battery was part of the overall counter-artillery forces under the Bushfire codename. Specifically, this was bushfire-three. Bushfire-one and — two were two Pinaka MLRS batteries that would be moving closer behind the advancing forces given their relatively smaller range. Whatever was outside of the range of bushfire-one and — two fell into the range and jurisdiction of bushfire-three. Anything that bushfire-three couldn’t handle, would fall to bushfire-zulu, which was a coded tag for the corps-level Brahmos cruise-missile unit. Bushfire-zulu was not under Sudarshan and reported to the corps commander.
As things stood, the two Pinaka batteries were in transit mode through the breach point into Pakistan and were not available to deploy. That put bushfire-three on call…
The launch-tube doors opened on the front and back of the launcher with snaps. Thirty seconds later the first Prahaar missile thundered from within the launcher, engulfing the launch vehicle in an expanding cloud of brown dust and sand before streaking vertically into the blue skies above. The second launch tube opened with a snap and the next missile followed close behind. Two other launch vehicles to the north, joined the fray as well…
The rumble of jet engines in the skies above was consistent. But the crews of the twelve Pakistani M109 self-propelled-artillery vehicles were busy mobilizing to move. As the villagers in the nearby fields and on the rooftops watched eagerly, the barrels of the howitzers were lowered and locked into place while soldiers ran about gathering up anything that was left. The diesel engines rumbled as anxious drivers waited impatiently. The smoke and dirt from the last set of artillery shots fired had still not drifted away. Nor had the cheers of the nearby civilian mobs who had come to see their armed forces in action. Under other circumstances the battery commander and the military-police would have kept the civilians away. But today there was no time.
Within seconds the lead M109 had rumbled over its muddy defilade and rolled over to the dilapidated tar road that ran east to the border. As it lined up behind the convoy of resupply trucks, other vehicles were moving into positions as well. Within two minutes this location would be nothing but a chewed up farmland area covered with dirt tracks and expended artillery shells. The media crews from one of the local Pakistani TV channels were here as well. But they were parked much further away. They knew more than to join the mob of crazed youngsters shouting jihad.
The first Prahaar missile streaked in abruptly and detonated above the farmland, exploding in a whitish fireball before being engulfed into a mushroom dust cloud. The other missiles slapped into the area in quick successions of thunderclaps. The dust cloud blotted out the sun and replaced it with a searing red haze. The strike had destroyed the farms and the road and replaced them with large shallow craters of sand. The craters were lined with the blackened and blazing hulls of the M109s…
When the thunder died, there was an eerie silence except for the winds, blowing the dust into the stem of the dissipating mushroom cloud. The mud and cement houses nearby had been obliterated… and so had the crowds of young men.
The Pakistani cameraman got up from the ground and saw blood coming from his nose and ears. He could not hear anything. His equipment was smashed and their vehicle was lying to its side on the road. As his hearing recovered, he heard the first screams of men and women as they ran to the demolished houses. All there was to see now was this light-brown dust cloud quietly dissipating away into the skies above. It was not a nuclear blast, but it certainly looked like one. He got up on his feet in panic and ran away from his car, stumbling past the crowds of people. He had to get to a phone, he reasoned. He had to report the indiscriminate use of Indian nuclear weapons against civilians…
The respite from enemy artillery fire could not have come at a better time for Kulkarni and the rest of rhino.
“Rhino-actual to all elements,” Kulkarni spoke into his speaker as he swiveled the ABAMS screen in front of him, “looks like our arty friends have just joined the war! Steel-central tells me that the disruption in enemy indirect fire is not temporary! Best damn news I have heard today! Rhino will continue the charge. Update estimate contact to five minutes. Rhino-actual, out.”