He then checked his own tank’s position relative to the position he had marked: “driver, keep moving for another two-hundred meters. Then traverse right and bring us facing east in that clearing.”
“Roger, sir.”
Kulkarni liked the fact that his crew operated with the bare minimal of doubts or questions. It was like they were of the same mind. Either that or they just mindlessly trusted him. Either way, their lives rested on his conscience.
And on my decisions… he folded the paper map back into neat squares. He then pushed it back into his overall’s zipper pocket. He won’t be needing this map now.
The vehicle jerked to a halt and then turned right, bringing the turret to face straight through the opening Kulkarni had intended. He rotated his sights to see other tanks also moving into position in a line. Nine of his tanks took up position as the first line, followed by the remaining seven in the line behind them. The formation was spread over three-hundred meters, north to south.
It represented a firing squad.
Kulkarni smiled at that realization and gripped the sights close to his eyes. His tank was the northernmost tank in the formation. His gunner was already swiveling the turret to the northeast as they waited for enemy movement. Kulkarni flicked on the thermal view on his sights. The view instantly changed from the green-black to a white-grey-black monochrome. The thermals registered on his sights as black. And cold objects were being rendered white. That was his personal preference setting. This view instantly showed him the black-grey columns of smoke from the Jaguar strikes, one kilometer northeast of them…
“There!” He exclaimed as the first black blob on his screen moved in jerks that only a tank crew understood. Then two more. And then half a dozen. All heading south. The Pakistanis appeared to be reorganizing their formations following the Jaguar strikes. As Kulkarni expected, the center-of-gravity of their formation was to the southeast: the direction they expected the enemy to be.
“All rhino-alpha tanks,” Kulkarni shouted, “hold fire until we have enough of the bastards for our first line gunners!”
The last thing he wanted now was a premature initiation of his ambush. Once that first sabot round left a tank gun, the surprise would be gone and the enemy would reorient towards them. He had to take maximum advantage of his surprise while he had it. Besides, there was no way to tell how many more targets were behind these ones…
“Come on… come on…” he muttered as more black blobs began aligning themselves across their line-of-sight. “Keep coming, you bastards!”
He counted off the blobs as the seconds ticked.
Ten. More than the guns in his first line…
“All tanks! Fire!”
The night was instantly shattered with the orange-yellow flames erupting from nine Arjun tanks. All nine gunners fired simultaneously. At less than a kilometer separation between them and the Pakistani T-80s, the sabot rounds reached their targets in a second…
Kulkarni watched through his sights as smoke from his gun dissipated and seven explosions erupted in black coloration within the enemy column. Three catastrophic detonations occurred in quick succession as some of the T-80 turrets fell aside their blazing chassis. Four others shuddered to a halt or stopped dead in their tracks, smoke and flame spewing from all hatches. The three surviving T-80s drove past the explosion and instantly disappeared behind smoke clouds as their commanders went into evasion mode. Kulkarni saw other enemy tanks further behind these ones. They were reorienting to face his tanks.
“Rhino-alpha! Advance! Advance! Advance!” He shouted into the comms as his gunner fired another round: “fire at will! Kill them all!”
All sixteen Arjun tanks rumbled forward, firing main guns. Enemy mortar rounds began impacting around them as the enemy infantry started supporting their tanks. The remaining three T-80s began moving east in full reverse. They fired their main guns through the smoke cloud in desperation. But the smoke obscured everyone’s visibility. The Arjun gunners kept calm and focused on secondary targets.
As they made their way through the drifting smoke, the Arjun tanks went into free-fire mode. The Pakistanis had several Al-Zarrar tanks supporting their T-80s, but these were obsolete tanks more suited for infantry support operations rather than toe-to-toe combat with enemy armor. Based on the Chinese Type-59, the Al-Zarrar was upgraded with reactive-armor systems and a better fire-control. But they were still old designs and could not fight on the move the way the Arjun could.
So while the Al-Zarrar crews halted their tanks to take aim, the Arjun tanks kept moving. This made it even harder for the enemy gunners but did little to hinder the Arjun gunners. Two-dozen sabot rounds flashed back and forth in the darkness, lit by the orange glow of fires and explosions. The Al-Zarrar crews did not stand a chance. Their only hope was to hit the Arjun lower in its chassis and hope to kill its mobility. Or a chance shot in one of the few weak areas in its Kanchan composite armor panels. In the darkness and against moving targets, it was a slim hope…
Kulkarni watched as his gunner rotated the turret as they moved past a burning T-80 chassis. Center in that view was an Al-Zarrar facing them at point-blank range. It fired its main gun before anyone could respond. The enemy sabot round slammed straight into the right, frontal Kanchan panel on the turret and sparks and smoke flew in all directions. The sixty-ton tank was dragged aside by the momentum of a point-blank sabot round. Then another explosion rocked the interior of the tank and smoke and sparks lit up the interior.
Kulkarni shook his head and saw blood dripping from his forehead. He had a severe headache. His arms and legs ached as well. The radio was blaring away in chaos as the battle raged outside. Inside the turret, however, there was the sounds of shuffling as the crew moved back into their seats. All were suffering from concussion, but they were alive. And that was all Kulkarni cared about for the moment.
“You guys all right?” He asked as he ran his fingers to his forehead and saw that they had turned bloody. He must have a gash somewhere. But there were no mirrors for him to see it in. He felt around the wound with his fingers and realized it to be just a gash. He must have hit something when the explosion knocked him off.
He heard the muffled voice of his driver on the comms. Looking around, he noticed his helmet headphone laying by the side of his seat. He pulled it up and put it back on. The voices became clearer: “sir, are you okay back there?!”
Kulkarni gave the others a look: “we are fine. How does the vehicle look?”
“The gun stabilization is off and the turret is off to the side. Left track is damaged but we should still be able to move. Right track is fine. Engine is fine. Looks like we took a round straight on the turret armor panel!”
Kulkarni pulled himself back to see his ABAMS screen disabled. He muttered an expletive and pulled his sights around: “gunner, is the main gun responsive?”
“Stand by,” the gunner tried moving the gun. It lifted jerkily and locked into its default stowage. “Looks like the gun is still responsive, sir.”
Kulkarni rotated his optics and saw that the Al-Zarrar that had fired on them was still there. But its turret seemed tilted and flames were leaping out of all its turret hatches. The roar from its fires was heard even over the battle.