The pilots saw specks of light amplified by their helmet night-vision optics as the Babur missiles streaked over the river, some kilometers north. These missiles would then turn south to hit important targets on the Indian logistical lines before the tank columns engaged in combat.
An abrupt flash of light reflected off the waters of the Indus and disappeared. The cobra pilots continued to hover, being unsure of what they had seen. The deep rumble of the explosion passed through their cockpits, rocking them sideways. And then another explosion further west…
Against the greenish night sky they spotted the clear delta-shaped silhouettes of Indian Mirage-2000s intercepting the predictably-flying Babur missiles. The explosions showed the cobra crews that their attack was already going wrong.
They had to push on, regardless of the obvious threat around them. Under the command of their squadron commander, the five cobras moved out of hover and flew low over the waters of the river. The gunners kept a close eye on the maneuvering Indian fighters to their northeast, guiding the pilots into cover whenever one of them came close. Neither did, so within minutes the helicopters were doggedly making their way east. They were now within a few kilometers of sighting the Indian armor on the highway…
The fast-moving flight of Mig-27s caught them all by surprise, including the Indian pilots, who could not spot the hovering Pakistani helicopters against so much clutter. They flew past their prey and crossed the river. They then began to make a slow arc around.
The Pakistani pilots now knew that they had been spotted on Indian radar. There was no other way to explain the precision with which these enemy pilots were visually looking for their targets out here. They must have been vectored here.
As the Mig-27s again flew within three-hundred meters of the cobras without spotting them, the latter decided they would have to fight their way out. All five helicopters carried with them a pair of stinger missiles. As two of the Mig-27s broke pattern and climbed up to get a better view, the other three aircraft swept over the river again, north of where the cobras were.
The Pakistani squadron commander brought his helicopter around and pitched it up. This instantly put the burning exhausts of the Indian jets in clear contrast with the cold night sky. The first stinger missile leapt off its pylon and arced across the night sky, chasing its target…
Now the game was up. The arcing trajectory of the missile showed the Indian pilots exactly where the cobras were. The five mig-27s broke pattern and dived in different directions, lighting up the entire night sky with a massive pattern of flares. It rendered the entire terrain in flickering shades of orange and yellow. It also destroyed what night-vision anyone had. The stinger missile was an outdated design by modern standards. It flew wildly into the flares and kept climbing until it ran out of fuel before dropping out of the sky like a rock.
But the battle had just begun. All five cobra crews scattered in different direction as the Mig-27s made strafing passes. The helicopters were slow, but maneuverable. Their gunners were busy lacing the night sky with gunfire.
A burst of cannon rounds tore into the tail boom of one of the cobras, instantly shearing off the tail-rotor and sending it into an uncontrolled rotation. The tracers from its chin turret were flying in a circular arc as the helicopter spun and lost altitude. It splashed into the waters of the Indus near the eastern bank and its rotor blades flew off wildly in all directions, twisted and broken.
Three more stingers raced for the sky above. This time one of the Mig-27s flew past and was caught in a tri-lateral threat. The pilot pulled his control stick into his stomach and the aircraft went nearly vertical, climbing on fully power and punching flares behind it. But gravity was against the aircraft and the missiles were much faster and lighter. Two of the missiles struck in quick succession against the flaming engine exhaust and detonated. The pilot ejected just in time as the aircraft shattered to pieces and lost vertical momentum. The burning debris began falling in all directions.
The explosion also lit up the sky. The flickering shadows of the rotating blades instantly became visible. Three of the Mig-27s dived from high altitude and followed their tracer fire into their targets, their rounds impacting the helicopters on the top. It was a deadly place to get hit because that was where all the cockpit glass was. Two more helicopters lost control as the blood-splattered bodies of their crews coated the glass. They flew into the trees east of the river. The fourth helicopter detonated under the impacts and disappeared into a fireball amidst some houses nearby.
By the time the four Mig-27s recovered at higher altitude, two of them were already dangerously low on fuel. The other two pilots went to work protecting their downed comrade like hawks until a Garud search-and-rescue team made its way there. The surviving cobra pilot made good his escape and lived to fight another day, flying west at so low an altitude so as to shear treetop branches with his skids…
Twelve Apache gunships flew over the desert bushes and dunes. The Gladiators, as the unit was called, were out on a hunt tonight.
Painted almost jet black, the two-man crews of the deadly attack helicopters were doing exactly what the cobra pilots had been trying to do to the Indian presence on the highway. But the Apaches didn’t have to fear any enemy aerial interference. The skies above them were under dominance of the Indian Su-30s.
Their target was the northbound convoy of Pakistani armor, heading towards Rahim Yar Khan. It represented the southern jaw of a north-south pincer maneuver that the Pakistanis hoped would break the Indian chokehold on the highway. There were forty-five T-80s in this force and twice that number of mechanized personnel carriers, ferrying infantry to the battle. A smaller force of T-80s was inbound from the north of Rahim Yar Khan. Against all this were just twenty Arjun tanks and a gaggle of infantry units holding the blockade on the highway. The Pakistanis were throwing in everything they had.
But the gladiators were out here to lend a hand to the Kulkarni’s tank crews. The helicopters each carried sixteen hellfire missiles. For twelve birds, that made for more missiles than there were targets. Unlike the TOW missile carried by the cobras, the hellfire missiles were modern, fire-and-forget designs that did not require the Apache crews to expose themselves. The missile would guide itself to the target after launch.
The only real threat that the gladiators faced out here was not the enemy anti-air capabilities, but rather the low-visibility telephone and power cables that crisscrossed the villages and towns. These were extremely had to detect when flying at high-speed, at low-altitude, and during daytime. At night, it got even worse with the limited field of vision of the helmet night-vision optics. Of course, pay too much attention to these and you might miss something important, such as a silently waiting anti-air gun mounted on some rooftop, or a perimeter shoulder-fired missile crew…
The twelve Apaches caught up with the enemy convoy a few kilometers south of Rahim Yar Khan. They flew in from the east and caught the entire convoy trying to move north along the highway. The urban environment had the same funneling effects on these T-80s as it had on Kulkarni’s columns. Both sides were forced on to the roads. And that made for neatly lined targets for the Apache gunners.
Within seconds, they began launching hellfire missiles in a free-for-all target environment. The gunners simply moved the target-tracker boxes from one tank to the other as they ripple-fired their missiles…