by Vivek Ahuja
The CJ-10 Long-Sword GLCMs had very long-range and could, in theory, be launched directly from the 821ST Brigade holding areas in Guangxi against Indian targets. But that entailed flying over Myanmar airspace. Further, the missile range of nine-hundred nautical miles at subsonic speeds meant that if launched from Guangxi, they could only reach perhaps as far as Chabua in India. Not particularly useful, from Wencang and Chen’s point of view.
But from Golmud, a lot more juicy Indian targets were reachable.
The detachment that had landed at Golmud was under the operational control of Feng at the Junwei-Kongjun.
Golmud airbase was not deserted, however. Aircraft from the 26TH Air Division continued to operate from there along with a detachment of J-11 air-superiority fighters on airbase defense duty. Golmud now represented one of the last untouched PLAAF airbases in Tibet on account of its long distance away from the Indian border. No other airbase south of Golmud was now accessible to the Chinese. Lhasa and Shigatse were included in the no-go list as an indicator of how desperate the situation was for the PLAAF over Tibet.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. And scorched-earth policy was now in play…
Within thirty minutes, the three launch vehicles rolled off the tarmac on to the gravel and drove off to a clearing near the end of the runway, a kilometer from the base of the snow-capped mountains around them.
Once there, the TELs lowered their hydraulic supports and elevated the vehicle so that the entire chassis was stabilized. Minutes of silence passed before the three-tube launcher bases rotated to their sides and locked into position.
When the commanding officer of the 821ST Brigade confirmed his detachment’s readiness to Feng, he ordered the launch.
The Golmud valley reverberated as a barrage of nine CJ-10 GLCMs headed into the blue morning sky above. The trails of smoke extended in near parabolic trajectories to the south before fading away.
AIRSPACE OVER SOUTHERN TIBET
DAY 10 + 0930 HRS
The nine cruise-missiles stabilized in forward flight soon after clearing the peaks and lowered to terrain-mapping mode.
Unlike the vast majority of the other Chinese cruise-missiles, ground or air-launched, the Long-Swords were state-of-the-art. They were very new and very limited in quantity given the recent initiation of full scale production. Currently only the 821ST Brigade was armed with these missiles. They represented the next generation of Chinese cruise-missile technology. Carrying a significant payload over very long distances, the Long-Sword was in essence the counterpart to the decommissioned strategic versions of the US Tomahawk missiles. They also carried the very best navigation and guidance technology that China had to offer. It allowed these missiles to fly close to the ground and reach their targets under the enemy’s radar coverage.
The terrain against which they masked themselves was jagged, wavy and difficult to spot on. The missiles were not flying high above the ground and not in a straight line either. With shorter physical range to their target, the missiles could also take a convoluted approach to their targets.
As such they escaped Indian detection all the way until they climbed to altitude above the Greater Himalayan Range south of the destroyed Chinese airbase at Nyingchi Kang Ko on the Arunachal Pradesh border. The only warning for the Indians came from the sole surviving aerostat tethered-radar system near Chabua airbase when the missiles flew south-west before crossing into Assam. As the first Indian Su-30s dived to engage, the missiles were already on final approach to their targets…
The first CJ-10 detonated a thousand-pound warhead five-hundred feet above the runway at Tezpur airbase. It sent out a massive ball of expanding shock-waves that hit the ground below and dug deep into it as a crater of mud erupted. The reflected shockwaves collided before sweeping over the tarmac.
Another two missiles detonated in the air directly above the entrance to a pair of hardened aircraft shelters, utterly demolishing them into the ground in a wall of mud, concrete and fire along with three Su-30s inside. The shockwaves travelled as they became weaker but still rippled through all of the base buildings as well as shattering all windows within a kilometer radius around the base. When the thunderous roars subsided, the craters were surrounded by columns of thick black smoke rising into the skies above.
Similar hits were absorbed by Jorhat airbase to the east.
The Su-30s on patrol that had dived to intercept managed to destroy two of the remaining three missiles over Arunachal Pradesh as they headed towards the Se-La. The last surviving missiles dived into the center of Tawang and detonated a thousand-pound unitary warhead directly above the town made up of ramshackle civilian houses and old Buddhist monasteries…
Two hours later, Feng was shown the latest satellite images of the decimated Indian airfields at Tezpur and Jorhat. He finally smiled and glanced at the officers of the PLAAF around him:
“Gentlemen, our comrades at Kashgar have been avenged!”
TAWANG
WESTERN ARUNACHAL PRADESH
INDIA
DAY 10 + 1700 HRS
The western slopes of the Himalayas were illuminated in the reddish sunset as yet another day in the war ended.
But for the people of Tawang, the ordeals knew no end.
When the Long-Sword cruise-missile had detonated over the town several hours ago, it almost felt as though there were two suns in the sky. The manmade one in the pair had a rapidly expanding radius that had absorbed a chunk of the city within it until the bright flash of light was accompanied by a wall of flame as it swept everything before it. The white snow above the city had flashed away instantly. Then thunderclap had reverberated through the region and a mushroom cloud of smoke and dust had arisen above the sky. It had been several hours since that event, and the mushroom cloud had lost its shape, but the dust still rose high in the sky above…
On the ground, fires were still blazing away within the town and were now spreading to the outskirts in a blazing firestorm, a result of closely structured wooden homes. The town’s firefighting capabilities were primitive even under peacetime conditions and right now there was no hope of combating this tidal wave of fire, gutting the town.
The center of the city was a smoldering crater of charred black husks over a kilometer wide but of asymmetric shape. The hilly terrain over which the city was built had protected some areas from the blast but had shunted the blast waves more strongly over others like a massive nozzle.
As the fires raged and threatened to burn down what remained of the town, the evacuation of surviving citizens was underway. Those who could be moved were being sent at least as far as Se-La and if transport and logistics allowed, all the way to Tezpur to avoid congesting the only lines of supply the army had in the region. The government couldn’t simply leave these civilians in the open against the harsh Himalayan winter.
Many had already left before the war had started, but the surprise start of the war had caught the local populace by surprise. And once the fighting had started, the army had put a stop to the exodus of civilians because it was choking the only logistical artery that existed to the Divisions fending off the PLA 13TH Group Army attack on Tawang.
But now they could hardly hold back the tide of panicked and shocked people trying to get their families out of the area before the Chinese missiles struck their town again. The army now had to task crucial personnel from its logistical units to help evacuate the people of Tawang.
In a way Beijing had achieved military goals in such a brutal attack against an unarmed civilian population. By forcing the Indians to deal with this massive exodus of civilians across hundreds of kilometers of mountainous terrain, they had relieved pressure from themselves along sectors of Bum-La. Here the Indian army had been preparing for a series of local counter-offensives now that the 13TH Group Army had been mauled after ten days of combat. This Indian counterattack now had to put on hold until the supply lines behind could be cleared.
Indian morale had taken a beating as we
ll.
Several media reporters had based themselves in Tawang when the war had started, providing the same feel of war to each and every home in India as the Kargil war had done. But when the missile struck the town, it also took the lives of a good portion of these journalists.
In the immediate aftermath of the strike, most news channels instantly lost all contact with their field teams at Tawang. Many were knocked off the air the instant the warhead exploded above the city and had not been heard off since. Chaos and confusion followed soon afterwards as news channels attempted to explain what had happened. It added to the fear and fed it to turn it into something worse. The ripple effect of such an event spread quickly through the country and across the world. But what scared New-Delhi and the military commanders was the fact for several hours the Indian people were almost led to believe by the media that perhaps Tawang had been nuked by China.
MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE COMPOUND
BEIJING
DAY 10 + 1840 HRS
“And where is our fleet now?”
Chairman Peng asked the PLAN commander-in-chief, Admiral Huaqing. The Admiral was a bald man of five feet height and he was standing in the conference room of the Central Military Commission at the ministry in his service’s new digital combat-fatigues patterned similar to the US Navy. It was his personal symbol of connection with the Rear-Admiral commanding the Chinese naval fleet in the Indian Ocean. This sentiment was echoed by Generals Wencang and Chen, the PLAAF commanders in the room as well as the PLA commanders. By comparison, the party leaders in the room were in their standard coats and ties…as were the Generals from the 2ND Artillery Corps, including Colonel-General Liu. They were still in their dress uniform and ties.
As Huaqing walked over to the large wall map of the Indian Ocean region, Chen leaned back in his chair and considered the environment.
Well lit and with large red ornaments galore, the large conference room epitomized to him the distance that existed between the leaders of this country running an empire and living like emperors while the common soldiers were dying at that very moment thousands of kilometers away. He found himself momentarily disgusted.
He saw his peers from the army sitting around him, listening to the Admiral as he outlined where the fleet was and what the plans were. Chen knew the credentials of these men. Few had reached here on the basis of their skills as combat leaders and competent field commanders. Most had thicker files on personal corruption than their career-service-vitae. Most had amassed vast wealth as a result of the military-industrial empire that each ran in his domain. But every single one of them had that one thing in common that allowed them to be in this room. They were all loyal party followers to the core.
Of course. How could they have come here otherwise?
For that matter, why am I here?
I should have been shot! Stripped of my command in the middle of war: was there anything more disgraceful? Perhaps it might indeed have been better to be shot! And yet I find myself in the company of these men with a ringside view as the war spirals out of control. At least if I have to die, I will have one last pleasure of seeing many in this room accompany me…
And many indeed had.
Chen noticed the replacement army Generals who had taken place in this room in the last few days. The disastrous war with India had an unexpected cleansing effect on the CMC.
Most of the peacetime money-launderers and party dogs had been tested in combat, had invariably failed and had paid for it with their lives.
The ungrateful party leaders had not shed a tear for them either.
It was simple logic. The ones who failed had to go and the party had to survive. The fate of so many in this room now depended on professionals like Wencang, Chen and others to ensure that they still held on to power when this war ended.
But the problem was that such replacements during war came at a price. Losing battles to weed out incompetent commanders was about as expensive a way to do so as possible. And China could not afford such lost battles. Chen understood the sentiment of the party leaders on this. His own air war had been pulled from under his feet by his subordinate commander at Kashgar, Zhigao, during the first two days. He had been typical of the senior officers in the military who had never fought a war in their lifetime and had more experience dealing with milking the military-industrial moneymaking machine than sharpening the edge of the military assets in their command.
So Zhigao had been relieved.
And shot! Chen reminded himself.
Zhigao had been executed on personal recommendation of Chen to Wencang, Jinping and the senior political officer in Sinkiang.
Later, General Jinping had found himself in a similar boat once the Indians had defeated the PLAAF over Tibet. The only difference was that Jinping was a close relative of the former CMC chairman and a far senior military officer than Zhigao. So even though Chairman Peng held him responsible for the devastating reversal of the air war, he couldn’t have the man summarily executed without word getting out and affecting public morale. So he had been relieved and had met with an unfortunate accident. And so Wencang, the deputy commander under Jinping, had taken over command of the PLAAF.
Chen swiveled in his chair and wondered whether the reason Wencang had brought him here was because he needed actual combat leaders advising him or whether he needed someone who would show him the loyalty he might need. What better way to ask for loyalty than to save the man’s life? When he had pulled his old comrade away from a firing squad, Chen had been grateful. Now he wondered what price Wencang expected.
Certainly in the current atmosphere of reversals on the battlefields, it would not take much for Wencang to find himself facing an execution squad on the same bloody floor tiles where his predecessor’s blood had drained just a little while ago.
The party leaders were turning to their real selves under these trying times, and the outlet for their frustration lay on anyone in uniform who delivered anything less than perfection…
But how were they expected to make right decisions under such stressful conditions?
Chen realized that the answer to that question was difficult. As his gaze moved down the line of army officers to Colonel-General Liu and his two senior Generals from the 2ND Artillery Corps, Chen realized that those three officers and their service branch had survived the purifying wartime purges suffered by the army, air-force and soon, Chen was certain, navy officers as well. It certainly wasn’t because they were any cleaner than the rest. It had to do with the fact that they remained untested in combat thus far. Chen shuddered internally to think of what constituted as “combat experience” in that particular service branch.
The thing about nuclear weaponry was that by the time anyone found out that it didn’t work, everybody would long be vaporized in a flash of fire and gravel from the enemy’s arsenal.
So perhaps that is where the confidence for these officers came from!
They knew that theirs was an endgame force. If they won, they would be honored for their victories and the other Generals in this room chastised for their failings in conventional combat. If they failed, there would be no-one left to complain…
“…and what of the losses we suffered when the Indian ships sank our commercial ships? How did that happen? Who is responsible for that embarrassing defeat?” Peng asked the Admiral as Chen pulled himself out of his thoughts and leaned forward at his end of the table.
He saw Huaqing visibly lose blood from his cheeks as he speculated on the answer to that question in his mind. Peng wasn’t finished either:
“And is it also true that not only have the Indians sunk our convoy, but are now also going further up the Arabian sea to find and destroy individual ships? What is our naval task-force we sent to the Indian Ocean, doing about it?”
Wencang shared a look with Chen as both men realized the isolated position the navy commander found himself in. Nobody else in this room would dare say anything to support him at the moment. Huaqing finally fo
und his power of speech:
“Sir, the naval task-force is maneuvering to engage. We received communications from the commander that he is being trailed by Indian long-range patrol aircraft from the south. Our satellites confirm that the bulk of the Indian navy centered on their single aircraft-carrier is now about to enter within range of the supersonic missiles onboard our fleet combat ships. Once we sink their carrier, we will take their naval force apart,”
Somehow Chen and the others found the statements devoid of conviction.
But who can blame the poor bastard…Chen thought.
Besides, what else was he going to say?
That our ships are going to get slaughtered in combat just like the two supposedly state-of-the-art Frigates we lost with the commercial convoy? That the only reason the Indian fleet commander has not engaged is because he is luring our force into a combat setting of his choice and conditions and not the other way around? That despite everything, our navy is still not suited for long-range expeditionary combat? Huaqing may be have lost all his hair to old age, but not his willingness to live.
Or his sanity for that matter!
“Admiral, I certainly hope you are right for all our sakes,” Colonel-General Liu stated authoritatively and continued: “If our navy cannot secure our maritime lines of commerce, we will be left with little choice but to force an end to this war while we still have control…”
“Surely we are not in as dire a situation as losing control of this war, General? I mean, fo…” the vice-party chairman stopped midsentence when Liu raised his hand to interrupt the minister:
