Dragonfire

by Humphrey Hawksley

  Under his command were a thousand main battlefield tanks, an assortment of tracked armoured vehicles and a hundred thousand men. The advance armour would be led by the three-man T-72M1 Ajay main battlefield tank (MBT), whose resistance to nuclear, biological and chemical attack had been proven in exercises. Its sensors could detect chemicals, viruses, bacteria and gamma rays released into the air by an explosion. The filters ensured that contaminated air didn’t enter the crew chamber and there would be enough oxygen to continue advancing in hostile conditions for several hours.

  Singh’s own tank was a T-90, the next model on from the T-72. The electronics were not as stable as the T-72, which was why Singh had deployed them in front. But the T-90 was one of the best-protected battle tanks in the world. It was fitted with an infrared jamming system to disrupt any guided rocket attack. The missile had a range of four kilometres and took less than twelve seconds to reach that distance. The anti-tank missiles were intended to engage tanks fitted with Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA) as well as low-flying air targets such as helicopters, at a range of up to more than five kilometres. The missile was fitted with a semi-automatic laser beam riding guidance system and a hollow-charge warhead with an 80 per cent chance of penetrating a target with 700mm armour. In most situations the T-90 could attack a tank or a helicopter while it was safely out of range itself.

  The back-up for the T-90s and T-72s was the Indian-built Arjun, a tank which had failed many of its user trials and was not liked by the army. It had too many technical defects to be trusted to operate alone and the first orders for the Arjun totalled less than 125. The second series was meant to have improved features, but they only led to further defects.

  The first advance would bypass small pockets of the enemy resistance. The second wave of T-90s and Arjun tanks would mop up.

  Unlike the enemy, Singh knew the positions of every sand dune, bunker and Pakistani tank formation across the desert. He had ordered pictures from IRS-1C satellite when it was at pan 91–53B, taken from a height of 960 kilometres. Some were confined to the smallest tactical area and if needed he could have brought in images right down to the markings on individual tanks.

  India and Pakistan had agreed that no military exercises should take place within a hundred kilometres each side of the border. But as soon as darkness had fallen, Singh received the order from Southern Command Headquarters in Poona to advance to within a kilometre of the border. He had now been waiting there for half a day.

  Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi

  Local time: 1330 Saturday 5 May 2007

  GMT: 0800 Saturday 5 May 2007

  ‘We’re losing on the higher ground east of Kargil,’ said the Indian Chief of Army Staff, Unni Khrishnan.

  ‘I thought we weren’t even trying to go in there,’ said Dixit impatiently.

  ‘No, but we were reinforcing and the troops helicoptered in had not been acclimatized to high altitude. Usually, they walk up there, taking a couple of weeks to get used to it.’

  ‘How on earth did that happen?’

  Khrishnan shrugged. ‘It was a mix-up of men. The wrong battalion got on the wrong aircraft.’

  ‘In a military campaign these things happen,’ said Chandra Reddy, supportingly.

  ‘The affected area is around Batalik,’ explained Khrishnan, ‘between the Red and Yellow sectors designated in Operation Safe Ground. The altitude at our higher posts is above five and a half thousand metres. After two hours up there the men went down with acute mountain sickness. The brain swells trying to draw in enough oxygen and you end up dizzy or going mad.’

  ‘I thought all the troops in this operation were mountain-trained,’ snapped Dixit.

  ‘They are, Prime Minister. But if they spend three weeks at normal altitudes they have to start acclimatization all over again. The Pakistanis must have known this and threw all their remaining forces against us there, around Jubar, on Muntho Dhalo. The Shangruti post is now in Pak hands and the boys in Kukarthang are hanging on. We don’t know for how long.’

  ‘Casualties?’

  ‘In the hundreds, sir,’ said the Chief of Army Staff.

  ‘Do the press know about this?’

  ‘They are bound to find out. Although it seems they are concentrating on our successes.’

  Dixit stabbed his finger onto his notepad. ‘If Pakistan has raised its flag on our territory, then we don’t have any successes. What about airstrikes?’

  ‘We can’t. They have Indian prisoners in their bunkers, sir.’

  ‘And the good news?’

  ‘We have the beginnings of a buffer zone.’ Khrishnan turned to Chandra Reddy for support. ‘But this is the most hostile terrain in which to fight and resupply.’

  ‘Can we hold it?’

  Khrishnan shook his head. ‘No sir, not indefinitely.’

  ‘You said you could do it,’ interrupted the Prime Minister.

  Reddy came to Khrishnan’s aid. ‘The mujahedin are throwing themselves at us in human waves, Prime Minister. This is unlike any other conflict we have fought with Pakistan. In war you can never be sure what is going to happen until it begins.’

  ‘Will we have to retreat?’

  ‘We can hold on for a while. But it depends how many casualties we can accept.’

  ‘Foreign Minister, any bright ideas?’ said Dixit, looking towards Purie. ‘Short of bombing Islamabad.’

  ‘Let’s hope that will not be necessary.’ Purie fiddled with his papers and took a sip from the glass of water in front of him, showing that he wanted to lance the anger in the room. ‘China is the key, Prime Minister. Without China, Pakistan is nothing. It is a Sudan or an Afghanistan. An Islamic basket-case. Indians understand the conflict with Pakistan and will accept casualties over the short term. They feel nothing about China. They can’t hate a place and people they don’t know. I urge you. Make peace with China. Move troops from the Chinese border to the Pakistan front and win the war.’

  ‘Make peace with China?’ Dixit repeated.

  ‘Yes. Call off the air patrols over Bhutan. Ring Tao and tell him you are on your way to Beijing. We can draw up negotiating panels on border disputes, nuclear disarmament, Tibet and trade, anything as long as we’re talking. I would also recommend that you offer to sign over the sovereignty of the Shaksgam Valley to China as a gesture of goodwill.’

  ‘The area that Pakistan gave to China in 1965?’

  ‘Yes. The Chinese have moved troops and artillery in there, but it’s a wasteland. Give it to them and, in return, ask that they phase out their military links with Pakistan and join the world of mature nations.’

  ‘Would they?’

  ‘We would make a start.’

  ‘What about Tibet?’ said Khrishnan.

  ‘Arrest a couple of Tibetans. Give Tao face within his own Communist Party and you’ll have him like an obedient puppy at your heels. As soon as Khan knows you’re having meetings with Tao, he’s going to think twice about how far he pushes this.’

  India–Pakistan border, Rajasthan, India

  Local time: 1430 Saturday 5 May 2007

  GMT: 0900 Saturday 5 May 2007

  First came the relentless explosions of the artillery barrage laid down from the batteries of guns behind him. He had asked for more of the 155mm Bofors FH-77B, which had a range of thirty-two kilometres and were capable of firing ten rounds a minute. But the bribery scandal which had erupted years earlier, when the guns were being purchased from Sweden, left the army with a shortage. Only 410 guns were delivered out of the initial order of 1,500. Of those 120 had to be cannibalized to keep the others operational. Most were deployed on the Kashmir front. General Gurjit Singh had argued for more, but was given only twenty guns for this battle.

  The mainstay of the artillery barrage was carried out by the reliable 105mm Indian field guns, with sixty batteries of eight guns each. And the most devastating attacks for the Pakistanis came from the 300mm Smerch and the 212mm Pinaka multi-rocket launchers, mounted on
specially tracked vehicles better suited to the desert conditions. These weapons, which went off like machine guns, sent a blistering cordon of anti-tank bomblets and anti-tank mines against the 10th and 14th Pakistani Armoured Brigades of XXXI Corps. They had come down towards the border from their headquarters at Bahawalpur 160 kilometres north-east of Rahimyar Khan and from the south from Sukkur. The Smerch was so powerful that a salvo of rockets could be fired in less than forty seconds with accuracy better than 25 per cent and an ability to cover an area of 672,000 square metres.

  Singh received regular updates of the damage being inflicted, knowing that the Pakistanis had no such remote-sensing capabilities. They would probably be getting some intelligence from the Chinese. But, almost certainly, nothing would be forthcoming from the Americans. In the two areas where cloud cover had prevented defined images – around Madagargh and Sandh, about ten kilometres inside Pakistan – Singh had deployed lower-flying aerial drones.

  When the artillery barrage lulled, he watched the first vapour trails of the deep-penetrating Jaguars and the agile MiG-27s heading in to bomb airfields, armour concentrations, depots, bridges, roads and enemy command headquarters. And that was when Pakistani F-16s scrambled from Sukkur, Bahawulpur, Multan and Sargodha.

  Singh had deployed the SA-8b Ghecko single-stage solid-fuel short-range anti-aircraft defence system together with the Tunguska-M1 low-level integrated air-defence system with two twin-barrel 30mm anti-aircraft guns and an SA-19 Grisom surface-to-air missile. The missiles were arranged in two banks of four and had a semi-active laser guided capability, infrared and command radar. They had a range of more than ten kilometres and a 65 per cent probability of passing within five metres of the target, when they would be activated by a proximity fuse. The Indian crew fired off two at a time, increasing their chances of a hit and causing crippling damage to the Pakistani sorties. Within the first hour of the airstrike, the main enemy airbases were out of action and Pakistani pilots stuck to defending their own airspace against Indian attacks.

  Singh’s plan was to neutralize his area of attack, knock out every visible enemy position, and lay down a field of rocket and air attacks to kill any infantry and armoured division which tried to enter the area and then advance. The onslaught must have been horrendous for those on the receiving end. Unit after unit abandoned their secure radio links and Singh listened to networks swamped with calls for ambulances and commanders repeatedly asking for permission to move their positions.

  Illuminator shells went off far away so pilots could see their targets more closely. High-explosive shells burst with flashes and plumes of bright yellow and orange fire spiralling up from the desert. All tanks were to avoid population centres, and infantry battalions were to dig in around the villages, laying them to siege. Warfare psychologists would then move in to convince the remaining enemy troops to surrender.

  Singh’s orders were to secure just one small town, Walhar, which straddled the railway line twenty-five kilometres south-west of Rahimyar Khan. This is where he expected his highest casualties and heavy close-combat fighting.

  Earlier, at the headquarters briefing, he had been told to cut the line between Pakistani Punjab and the barren province of Sindh in the south, where fresh weapon supplies were being shipped in through Karachi.

  ‘We have information that a new air-defence system is being delivered from China and will be transported by rail to Rawalpindi, Lahore and Sargodha,’ Lieutenant General Jyoti Bose had told the assembled corps commanders. ‘If we bomb the line from the air, they will fix it. So this is not a symbolic seizure of land. General Singh has to take control of this arterial rail route, hold it, and prevent weapons supplies delivered by sea in Karachi from reaching the north.

  ‘The main thrust of the Indian advance will be in the north. We will attempt to secure the Shakargah bulge, or “chicken’s neck”, where we failed in 1971. One Corps will move against Sialkot from Jammu from the north-east and up from Gurdaspur through Narowal from the south-east. We are avoiding the more direct route through Shakargah because of the Ravi and Degh water crossings which lie in the way. A separate attack will be made through the Wagah crossing towards Lahore. Our advances will stop before Lahore and there will be no attempt on Gujranwala or Wazirabad, regardless of the extent of the Pakistani collapse. Sialkot will be taken if possible.

  ‘So, to sum up, gentlemen, Indian forces will go into Pakistan in the south and secure the small railway town of Walhar. Our major assault will be in the north, threatening Lahore and taking control of the Shakargah bulge, which will then come under permanent Indian control. The consolidation to create a buffer on the western side of the LoC in the north will continue.’

  Camp David, Maryland, USA

  Local time: 1730 Saturday 5 May 2007

  GMT: 2230 Saturday 5 May 2007

  ‘I think we can get away with it,’ said Ennio Barber, spreadsheets and polling graphs laid out on the table in front of him. He was in the room alone with John Hastings, knowing he had less than ten minutes to get his argument over.

  ‘Go on,’ said the President.

  ‘Operation Brass Tacks, 1986/7, hardly got a mention on the networks. Yet Pakistan and India were within a hair’s breadth of going to war. 1990, India was within one button-push of ordering an airstrike on Pakistan’s nuclear facilities. Not one word in the press until it was well over. Kashmir, 1999, is an interesting one. A genuine fighting war between two nuclear powers, hand-to-hand combat, artillery and airstrikes, armour moved to other parts of the border. It was utterly eclipsed by the non-global-threatening conflict in Kosovo. Behind the scenes, President Clinton brokered a peace, yet the general public knew very little about it. October 1999, a military coup in Pakistan. The State Department didn’t even elevate it enough to set up a task force in the crisis management centre. George W. Bush, then campaigning for the Republican nomination, made a press-conference gaffe that the coup leader had been elected, and nobody gave a damn.’

  ‘But this time they’re shelling across the border right down to Rajasthan.’

  ‘I don’t think it matters, John,’ said Barber, reverting to the familiar first-name terms the President preferred for private meetings. ‘Pakistan crossed the LoC in 1999 and the American people didn’t give a damn.’

  There was a knock on the door and Tom Bloodworth walked in: ‘Sorry to disturb you, Mr President, but India has just declared war on Pakistan.’

  India–Pakistan Border, Rajasthan

  Local time: 0400 Sunday 6 May 2007

  GMT: 2230 Saturday 5 May 2007

  ‘Ready to move, General?’ The voice of Corporal Vasant Kaul in Gurjit Singh’s headphones told him the corps was ready to advance.

  Instead of replying directly, Gurjit Singh tapped Kaul’s shoulder with his boot, gave the thumbs-up sign, and the tank lurched forward. It was a breathtaking sight, line after line of armour turning the sand of the Thar Desert into a huge dustcloud covering 100 kilometres from end to end. Thirty minutes earlier, ground-attack aircraft had blasted a path through the minefields, so that each of Gurjit Singh’s five sector commanders would have a clear path through.

  Silk sector took the road through Madargh towards Mirbur Marthelo. Cotton was next through Sandhi towards Ubauro. Gurjit Singh himself was Leather sector, with the road to Sadiqabad. But he would turn south well before that to take Walhar. Wool and Calfskin sectors broke through the border together and separated where the road split just before Islamgarth, bypassing the town. Wool headed towards ruins of Baghla south of Rahimyar Khan. Calfskin advanced more directly north towards Khanpur. As each armoured column finished crossing the border, infantrymen stuck a signboard in the sand saying, ‘Welcome to Indian-administered Pakistan.’

  But the euphoria was short-lived. The tank commanders were faced with a depressing tableau of the destruction caused by the artillery and air bombardments. For the first thirty kilometres (about the range of the barrage) they met no resistance at all. The desert around them was a sm
ouldering graveyard of charred bodies, destroyed vehicles and arid ground. After the banter of pre-battle nerves, the advance into Pakistan was a disheartening anti-climax. They drove along a moonscape of craters gouged out of the earth by artillery shells, their radios mostly quiet, except for a steady bleep, every fifteen seconds, to tell them that the lines were still secure.

  Thirty-five kilometres in, Leather sector sighted the first enemy position. ‘Contact dug-in infantry,’ said a tank commander. ‘Contact. My tanks have engaged.’

  The other sectors continued the advance.

  ‘No return fire,’ said the commander. ‘White flags. Platoon-size position.’

  Ten minutes later Silk sector reported coming under attack: ‘One tank hit. Hand-held anti-tank weapon . . . bunker destroyed.’

  ‘Casualties?’ asked Gurjit Singh.

  ‘Two dead. The tank commander seriously injured.’

  ‘Damn!’ he snarled, knowing that men would be killed, but angered by the first news of casualties.

  Similar skirmishes broke out throughout the afternoon. Prisoners were taken. Bunkers were destroyed. The attacks appeared to be random, as if the whole of the Pakistani command and control system had broken down and individual soldiers had been left to fight wherever they saw fit. Indian aircraft flew overhead with control of the skies. Helicopter crews had the most dangerous assignments, flying into far forward positions to test the enemy fire and reporting back.

  ‘Continue to avoid civilian population centres,’ ordered Gurjit Singh. ‘But armour remains a threat and must be engaged when seen.’