A loud, cyclic whump noises overhead increased and then decreased. Kulkarni peered through his sights to see three air-force Apaches flying past them as they swept ahead of his columns. These would act both as recon as well as anti-armor assets in the battles to come.
“Those air-force boys are having a fine day!” His gunner responded. Kulkarni could make out a tint of jealousy in the man’s voice. That brought an increasingly-rare smile on his face, but he kept his peace. So the gunner continued for the benefit of the other crewmembers: “they take out the fun targets and leave us to sort through the shit for nuggets!”
Kulkarni knew this to be partly true. The Apaches had gone hunting for enemy T-80s inside Rahim Yar Khan. They had encountered severe anti-air gunfire and two Apaches had been destroyed. So now the air-force had changed tactics. The Apaches were streaming far and wide over the open terrain west, north and south of the town, striking enemy rear columns and inbound convoys while the air-force’s strike aircraft went above the town looking for hiding enemy tanks.
“I can’t complain,” the loader added sheepishly. Kulkarni thought his voice had an innocent honesty to it.
The gunner conceded: “neither can I.”
And neither could Kulkarni. As overall rhino commander, he appreciated any help that was given to him by sister units and services. Even the air-force, he admitted to himself, as though the impossible had happened. But now that his own tanks were depleted from combat attrition and half his remaining force was bogged down besieging the town, the actual force he was leading to the highway numbered no more than twenty tanks and about two dozen supporting vehicles from trishul…
He realized if someone had offered him this force strength to hold the strategic target prior to the war, he would have questioned the competency of the officer involved. But here he was, trying to pull it off. Of course!
“Approaching the objective!” The driver said.
Kulkarni spotted it through his sights almost at the same time as they cleared around some mud houses and headed to the highway.
The gunner’s response was instantaneous: “shit!”
Kulkarni had to agree. The highway was clogged with civilian vehicles and massive numbers of civilians, making their way away from approaching Indian forces…
The civilians saw the approaching Indian tanks at about the same time and a panic spread through the crowd. Rumors had been spread by the jihadists that the Indians were massacring civilians and that nobody was safe. Kulkarni had heard this report from military-intelligence folks an hour ago. It was a recruiting tool for the jihadists, plain and simple. The Jihadists — and the Pak army- were saying to the able-bodied men and women in the town to join the jihad to protect their families from certain death.
The net result of that was massive chaos and panic all along the highway as Kulkarni’s tank convoy began spreading out on their approach. The tank turrets were sweeping left and right for possible targets in the mass of people in front of them. He saw as people abandoned their belongings and vehicles on the jammed highway and ran. He also saw what looked like television media vehicles parked a kilometer north on the highway, stuck in traffic…
“All Rhino-alpha tanks,” Kulkarni keyed his comms, “watch for enemy combatants within the crowds here. Destroy what targets present themselves, but for god’s sake don’t shoot civilians. The media is filming the whole thing!”
His tank shuddered to a halt about thirty meters from the concrete of the highway.
“Driver, why are we halted?”
“Sir the road is clogged with vehicles.”
Kulkarni cocked an eyebrow: “so? Crush them! No better way to block this road than to have crushed vehicles and a sixty-ton tank sitting on them!”
“Uh… copy! Hang on.”
The vehicle rumbled forward and accelerated towards the empty cars on the highway. The tank pitched up and then landed on the roof of a car with a massive crash, smashing the small sedan to pieces under its treads. Pieces of the car flew in all directions as the Arjun accelerated over it to the next vehicle. Kulkarni could only imagine the smile on the driver’s face up front. It was not every day that he got to do what he was doing now and had probably wanted to do for a long time.
Kulkarni rotated his sights north and saw civilians running away. He even saw what looked like some soldiers removing their uniforms near a bus and changing into civilian clothes while being jeered by civilians nearby. Many youngsters were busy taking pictures on their cell phones as other Arjun tanks followed Kulkarni’s lead and smashed and crashed their way on to the highway. Kulkarni’s own tank rumbled to the other side of the highway and jerked to a stop. The gunner swiveled the turrets to look for Pak army or jihadist targets but found none.
“Rhino-actual to steel-central. Over.”
“Steel-central copies, Rhino-actual. Send traffic. Over.”
“We are at waypoint red and have secured it. We are holding. Over.” Kulkarni was surprised at how anti-climactic this whole thing was. He might as well have been radioing in his food and water requirements…
“Good job, rhino-actual. Steel-actual sends his regards. Secure objective and standby for further orders. Out.”.
“What do we do now, sir?” The gunner asked casually.
“Good question,” Kulkarni muttered. “I guess we hold this place until told otherwise. If you see any targets, you light them up, of course!”
“Of course.”
Kulkarni swiveled his sights and saw the other tanks also doing the same over a one-kilometer stretch of the highway. He pressed buttons on the ABAMS screen to pass movement orders to his commanders. He wanted to orient part of his force north and south, facing down the length of the highway while his platoon of tanks faced west into the desert, towards the Indus river. He saw the Apaches as they flew past the highway heading east. And to the north, the flash and rumble of artillery reached him. Sudarshan was busy hammering targets north and south of where rhino was.
That made for a lonely and boring afternoon. This was bad for many reasons. Not least of which was that it gave the initiative to the enemy. It pushed rhino from being an initiator to a responder. It also strained his crews, who were wound up like a spring, ready to uncoil on the enemy. Now they had to sit and wait. And that could cause them to break.
As the Tunguska anti-air vehicles moved into position around the highway, assorted engineering and recon troops began pulling up. Kulkarni saw explosions rocking the center of the town, behind him. He could hear the crackle of machine gun fire punctuating the air and tank rounds leaving their barrels. Swiveling his sights north, he caught sight of the media, two-kilometers away, talking in front of cameras pointed towards his tanks. He knew the Pak army commanders would be seeing all this. And the media would be reporting in short order that Indian armor forces had penetrated deep inside Pakistani territory and cut off the strategic N5 highway, splitting the defenses along the border into two. These two segments could no longer communicate physically along this north-south highway. They would either have to fight through rhino or maneuver further west of the Indus river and skirt around this blockade, adding to already over-blocked roads and highways. The ball was now neatly in the other court. And the reality of it all would settle into the Pakistani minds soon enough.