by Vivek Ahuja
“What the hell did this whole program achieve over the last year?” Ansari said and then noticed the quizzical looks on the faces of the two RAW covert operations specialists, so he continued:
“I mean we trained and let loose highly motivated Tibetans as part of teams into Tibet to kill Chinese soldiers. And they did. Very successfully, I might add. The cover of the Tibetan revolt was particularly effective in disguising their actions. And so now hundreds of Chinese soldiers are dead because of us and we have deep Intel on Chinese military capabilities, combat tactics, equipment, radio frequencies and the list goes on. We made the Chinese lose their grip on southern Tibet. And some would argue that we gave the Tibetan people some hope. And yet here we are today, fighting a war with communist China again, more than fifty years after the last one.”
“Your point, Colonel?” the older RAW man retorted.
“Did we start this war?” Ansari blurted it out.
“Colonel, everything you said is true. All of it. And everything we learnt about how the Chinese fight, their equipment and tactics are being used against them at this very moment to defeat them in battle. If our actions precipitated this war and also gave us the knowledge with which to defeat the Chinese then isn’t that what we proposed to do when we started this business more than two years ago?” Basu said finally.
Ansari sighed and leaned back in his seat. The other old RAW officer leaned forward in his seat as he faced Ansari:
“You see Colonel, Beijing will give up Tibet but they will not let their major cities be nuked. Tibet will not be worth it to them. And once we defeat them on the borders, they will have no choice. Granted that this event transpired quicker than we had anticipated with the Dalai Lama’s failing health and the possibility of his replacement coming up sooner than expected. But life does not always give us everything. We improvised and adapted. Now we have to ensure that we defeat the Chinese at the battlefields and reclaim the honor we lost fifty two years ago.”
“We are playing with the destiny of nations here. I hope you two understand that,” Ansari said as he swallowed the lump in his throat.
Part of him wondered why he was so terrified now that the Chinese had started shooting back as opposed to when they were getting a beating handed to them by Gephel and his teams. The old RAW officer leaned back into his chair and smiled.
“Welcome to the big league, Colonel.”
DAULAT BEG OLDI AIRSTRIP
NORTHERN LADAKH
DAY 2 + 0530 HRS
The port engine rotors sprang to life and started rotating as puffs of smoke left the exhausts. The ground handler standing in front of the aircraft and visible to the flight-crew began moving his right hand index finger in a circle to inform the pilots to start the starboard engine. Moments later the second engine sprang to life and the noise started picking up. The pilot and the co-pilot of the An-32 looked from either sides of their cockpit to see the propellers rotating at idle RPM. The ground-crewmen gave the thumbs-up to indicate a trouble free startup of the two engines before saluting off and moving away. The aircraft now began rolling towards the end of the runway to conduct an immediate takeoff.
The aircraft cabin was mostly empty except for the three wounded Jawans lying on stretchers with attending medics. The An-32 was conducting a flight in the darkness mostly because of the extreme nature of the requirement. The pilots were wearing night-vision goggles inside the cockpit and the runway was marked with infrared strobes that would be shut down and removed afterwards lest they be used by the Chinese for target identification and bracketing.
The Chinese were very much within artillery range of the airstrip where the An-32 was now attempting its take-off. Down to the east, along the Chip-Chap River, the enemy was within sight of Indian troops. With the Chinese forces poised to launch their attacks, the atmosphere on the ground was tense.
As the An-32 conducted a turnabout to align itself with the runway, the two pilots looked instinctively to the side of the cockpit towards the east where the dark peaks were silhouetted against the starlit night sky. They could not see anything. But they had been told by the local army personnel that there was at least one Division, if not more, worth of Chinese troops in that area…
Waiting to strike.
A few minutes later Brigadier Adesara and his staff officers watched the last An-32 to leave DBO lift off the dirt strip into the darkness of the night. Minutes later all strobe lights were switched off just as the first hint of reddish skies began to appear over the eastern ridgelines. Daylight was approaching.
The radio crackled to life: “Movement on Hill-two-four-three!”
NAGPUR AIRBASE
CENTRAL INDIA
DAY 2 + 0600 HRS
Small puffs of smoke flew sideways as the large undercarriage tires of the B-737 Boeing Business Jet touched the concrete runway. As the aircraft carrying the Indian high command rolled down the runway, the escorting Mirage-2000 fighters streaked overhead and banked away in the early morning skies. All five aircraft had been airborne for hours now, and could have stayed aloft longer. But unlike the American version of the VC-25 Airborne-Command-Post which was capable of aerial refueling and therefore potentially unlimited flight, the Indian counterpart was based around a smaller airframe and was not equipped accordingly. It did share similar defensive mechanisms and all the communication equipment required for long endurance C3I operations. A war could be run from the aircraft for stretches of time, but not on a near continuous basis.
Nagpur airbase was far enough south that it was considered safe from a renewed round of Chinese cruise-missile attacks. Besides, the airbase was deep enough inside Indian Territory that any enemy missile would have to penetrate large tracts of Indian airspace and defenses, and so the possibility of a cruise-missile breaking through was very low...
The B-737 rolled off the runway with a group of air-force police vehicles driving alongside. The airbase perimeter was currently being guarded by assault-rifle toting soldiers as well as guard-dogs. In the skies around the airbase, an air-force Dhruv helicopter was patrolling with snipers on board as they kept a sharp eye for potential threats. The B-737 finally rolled on to the main tarmac area on the base and halted alongside a parked C-17 heavy-transport aircraft.
There were a large number of people waiting outside on the tarmac area just as the morning sunlight started piercing through the low hanging mist around the base. As the engines of the B-737 spooled down, refueling tankers were already rushing for the aircraft while ground crewmen got to work. The doors were opened and people began pouring out. The PM was one of the first people to step out of the aircraft and he was whisked away by his SPG team towards the waiting convoy of three black bulletproof SUVs. Other military and civilian officials including the Home-Minister, Chakri, General Yadav and his other staff officers followed close behind.
Chakri put on his sunglasses even as the first rays of sunlight glistened off the white colored airframe of the B-737. The smell of aviation fuel was in the air and a cacophony of voices engulfed him. As he walked down the stairs on to the concrete, he turned to face General Yadav walking down behind him.
“So where are you heading now?”
Yadav stopped walking when Chakri did the same right outside the black SUVs. The Army-Chief had a different ride to take and he pointed it out to Chakri: an ERJ-135 Embraer utility-transport aircraft glistening in the sunlight beyond the parked C-17...
“I am off to the Southern Command Headquarters in Pune. I have an army to lead and they know I am on the way. A short flight from here to Lohegaon airbase and I should be back in command. Generals Suman and Chatterjee are trying to defeat the Chinese Group Army attempting to break through in Arunachal Pradesh and they can use every bit of help I can get them. The Ladakh front will open up soon, if not within the hour. The Chinese are not going to wait around while we get our act together. It’s going to get real messy, real soon,” Yadav said.
Chakri considered that and then noticed the looks
on the faces of his security people: they were not happy with him standing out on the open tarmac where he was vulnerable to a sniper. He turned back to Yadav.
“All right, General. Keep me informed. Looks like I will be holed up somewhere around here for now. We need to find ways to wrench the strategic initiative in this war from the PLA and the PLAAF. The media needs to be controlled as well. They are running around like a chicken with its head cut off. We haven’t made official statements yet and neither has Beijing. But in the meantime we have a furiously burning air-headquarters building in our capital that is being filmed and shown around the world. That is going to hurt morale within our armed forces and our people. This is going to be as much a media war as much as anything else. We have to get the people and the media the images, the visuals if you will, of China burning. We hit Lhasa this morning and by all accounts it was a debilitating blow. But we have to do more. Strike more visual and economic targets that cannot be hidden. First we have to make sure that our battle lines do not collapse,” Chakri said as he ran his hand through his gray hair.
“There is also another factor,” Yadav replied. “The Chinese probably used cruise-missiles to attack us because it gave them the best possible advantage for a surprise attack. They did not need to forward deploy their short-range ballistic-missiles close to the borders and therefore raise suspicion. They tried their cruise-missile attack and it was partially successful in its objective. We are not dead, but we are not yet in control either. We had to conduct a hasty evacuation and several targets and airfields got hit badly. It wasn’t a complete decapitation, but it gave them something for the surprise element. Now surprise no longer exists. We already destroyed Lhasa airbase and their main long-range radars south from there. So the war is on. And now there is no need for their short-range ballistic-missiles to be held at bay. Same goes for us as well.”
“So we should expect them to start moving their ballistic-missile launchers out of their bases and south towards the border?”
“If I was in their place, I would have been lobbing those ballistic-missiles as soon as I realized that my primary cruise-missile strike failed. So yes, we need to consider such strikes imminent…”
EAST OF DAULAT BEG OLDI
LADAKH
DAY 2 + 0630 HRS
“Incoming fire! Take cover!”
The first artillery shells screamed overhead and landed on the airstrip at DBO as the Ladakh front was opened up by the PLA. Within minutes similar fire was falling on all major frontal areas at the LAC while long-range rockets were flying to their targets on the Indian side of the border, hitting known gun batteries, supply depots and logistical arteries…
DBO was currently being defended by a reinforced Infantry Brigade under Brigadier Adesara. Facing him to the east, across the LAC, were several Chinese Brigades and armored forces rolling in from the plains of the Aksai Chin. Adesara had specialized counter-battery Smerch MLRS systems under his command and several light field-gun batteries. The Chinese counterpart to Adesara had over two-hundred field-guns for this narrow sector alone. Adesara had a squadron of BMP-IIs under his command and a troop of T-72Ms. His Chinese counterpart had a regiment of T-99 MBTs and other assorted vehicles designed to utilize the vast open plains of this region of Ladakh to full advantage. It was easier bringing these vehicles in via well-established roads from the Aksai Chin, but very difficult to do so from the Indian side because of terrain. Out there on DBO, Adesara was faced with a stiff fight…
The morning sunrays streaked through the dust clouds that now enveloped the entire DBO airstrip, giving it a reddish-brown haze as small fireballs rose into the air on the flat airstrip, rendering it unusable. The thundering noises were coupled with the screeching of the shells going over the heads of the Indian soldiers east of the airstrip. The shockwaves rippled through the ground in their bunkers and trenches.
Adesara’s staff officers were already at work gathering information and preparing responses. However, he was not at the command post. Adesara, Colonel Sudarshan and several radiomen were climbing the gravel covered surface of the only dominant hill east of the airstrip. This hill lay on the middle of the flat terrain north of the frozen Chip-Chap River. Every step taken on the loose gravel was potentially treacherous. A slip led to a small landslide of gravel and rocks along with the unfortunate soul who went down with it. But Adesara and his men had been here for a long time and had learnt the art of quick climbing on shifting terra. They quickly climbed up the “citadel”, as the hill had come to be known among his officers.
Once at the top, Adesara quickly moved behind some boulders for cover. He looked back to the see the airstrip being pummeled into the earth by the might of the Chinese artillery. To his south he saw the frozen waters of the Chip-Chap River and directly over the boulders to his east he saw the moving dust columns approaching his position.
Adesara picked up the binoculars hanging from his neck. Colonel Sudarshan did the same. In this region of Ladakh, the terrain was flat enough that incoming columns of vehicles were visible over long distances. They were seeing the dust clouds emerging behind the first prominent hills on the Chinese side of the LAC. So the enemy was still over ten kilometers away. Adesara and Sudarshan were quickly focusing their binoculars on the nearest of the approaching vehicles...
“What do you think?” Adesara asked without looking away from his binoculars. Sudarshan did not look away either.
“Looks like a max level effort on vehicles. That’s...fifteen or sixteen T-99s in that first wave and another twelve in the second!” Sudarshan shouted above the noise of the exploding artillery on the airstrip behind them.
“And add another two dozen ZBDs to that! About ten clicks out,” Adesara added. Then he looked at his radioman who handed him a radio speaker...
“Blue-Lima-One to Blue-Lima-Command, we are seeing regiment level Chinese armored forces approaching our position. They are currently ten clicks from me now! We need digital eyes on target! Over!”
“Roger. Digital eyeball approaching A-O,” was the immediate reply from Divisional-HQ. They had a Nishant UAV overhead for the past few hours once the alert had gone up all along the Sino-Indian border. The feed from that drone was being passed down.
Adesara looked over to his signals officer who had come along with them. He now opened a battlefield computer on the rocky surface behind the rocks. An NCO from his team placed a small tripod nearby and flicked a control switch. This opened up a small circular net over the tripod around a central receiver. He then connected the cables with the computer and powered on the system. The satellite uplink hardware was deployed. Next he activated the computer and a few seconds later the first visuals of the large moving dust clouds as seen from two thousand feet above the ground were available on screen. Adesara and Sudarshan slid along the gravel and came up behind the young officer to share the view. Sudarshan was quick to spot the terrain on the screen, looked around and oriented himself.
“Okay, here we are,” He pointed to a speck of rock visible on the infrared views on the screen. “They are here and moving along this axis! That would bring them along this axis towards our first defensive lines here!”
Adesara quickly nodded his agreement.
“All right Ravi, this is your dance! Give me your plan!” Adesara and the signals officer looked at Sudarshan, who wasted no time:
“The Chinese first and second armor waves are all moving along the northern bank of the river towards the airstrip. My tanks are deployed along the northern banks. My T-72 platoon is in hull down positions here,” he jabbed on the screen. “They will engage the Chinese first wave along with support from your anti-tank boys! I am taking my BMP force across the river and then east!”
Adesara nodded again as he considered the tactic. But he had a word of caution:
“Just remember that your T-72 boys are outnumbered four-to-one against the Chinese armor. And those are their shiny new T-99s they are driving. Even with my support, don’t expect to be able t
o hold them for too long. So don’t wander off! When you hit the Chinese, I will pull back to my second line of defenses further west and reengage. That’s your cue to fall back west as well. The only way we are going to survive this day is with maneuver warfare, not frontal attacks. Hit and move! You follow me?”
“Crystal clear!”
“Okay, then. I...” Adesara was stopped midsentence.
“Holy shit! Incoming fire!”
The single shell slammed into the eastern face of the hill and sent a fireball rising into the sky. Dust and gravel rained down on the hunkered group of men on the top. Adesara looked around and then spat out the gravel in his mouth as he saw the others dusting themselves off.
“What the hell was that?!!” the signals officer shouted.
“A ranging shot! They know where we are and are trying to knock us out. Next will be the barrage. Time for us to go!” Sudarshan shouted as the ringing in his ear stopped.
Adesara and the others were already packing up and moving out. A few moments later they were again moving down the gravel slopes of the citadel on the west side of the slope…
“How on earth did they know exactly where we were?” Sudarshan shouted to Adesara as he balanced himself against the shifting gravel.
“We are not the only ones using unmanned drones today, Colonel...”
NORTHERN INDIA
DAY 2 + 0700 HRS
“So they pulled them back?”
“Yes sir. The two Chinese AWACS are now operating in an integrated air-defense mode with the S-300 batteries. They are networking with the ground based radars to form a nice large picture of the airspace south of the Aksai Chin. If we approach, they will know about it,” the Group-Captain said before walking away from the large digital map on the wall.
“What about their strike-fighters? What was it? The 33RD Fighter Division?” Air-Marshal Bhosale asked.
“Their 6TH Fighter Division Su-27 force,” the Group-Captain corrected his boss before continuing. “…deployed between Kashgar, Urumqi and Korla airbases was mauled severely. We estimate they now have around ten surviving Su-27s still operational at Urumqi. But the boys at the DIA expect movement of Flanker-centered Fighter Divisions from central China to replace the losses they took yesterday. The intelligence boys are already noticing increased deployment related activities around airbases occupied by the 19TH Fighter Division.”
