Fenix

by Vivek Ahuja

  All so familiar…Verma watched the crew at work. When the China war had ended, he had hoped he would never again find himself sending men and women to their deaths in the deadly aerial orchestra of combat. The stress of combat operations against the Chinese had taken their toll on him, both physically and mentally. But fate had other plans in store for him, he reasoned.

  First the Chinese. Now the Pakis.

  He raised his headset mouthpiece and got up from his seat to face the crew: “All right boys and girls, give me a snappy sit-rep!”

  “Pike and lancer flights are airborne and climbing,” the lead radar-systems-operator, or RSO, replied from his console. “Scabbard is on station and holding. Viking-one and –two are departing Agra!”

  “Comms?” Verma asked.

  “TAC-01 is at op-con ultra,” the comms operator replied. “We are on the grid and green across the board!” Verma nodded and looked further down the line of consoles to the electronic-warfare officer: “what’s the electronic picture?”

  “Friendly ECMs are go. ECCM is green. We are radiating at long-range. Friendly radars are up and on the picket line.”

  “Threats?”

  “Our friends across the border are up as well. Kilo-echo bird is online and radiating!” Verma grunted on that one. He had expected the Pakistanis to be on the alert now. They had been doing so over the past few days and as far as they knew, tonight was no different. A PAF Karakoram-Eagle airborne-radar aircraft had replaced the SAAB aircraft at Gilgit. Known to the Indian electronic-warfare operators as kilo-echo, this aircraft was one of the Chinese-made aircraft based on the AN-12 knockoffs that Beijing liked to peddle to its allies. If anything, the quick replacement of the earlier Swedish SAAB aircraft just two days after its arrival in theater was a clear indication of the electronic intelligence sharing that had been initiated between the Chinese and Pakistani air forces. The Swedish aircraft was not integrated into the Chinese aerial network. The kilo-echo bird, was.

  “Any signs of our friends to the west?” Verma asked the EW officer to see if his suspicions could be confirmed.

  “No red bird in the air at this time, sir. But I am recovering long wavelength atmospheric scatter corresponding to the kilo-juliet birds.”

  “So!” Verma frowned. “Our pals in the 76 ACCR are in theater; just not in the skies at the moment.”

  “It would appear so, sir.”

  Verma turned his thoughts to the Pakistani problem. Here he had to deal with the most immediate threat to Indian aerial dominance during the punitive strikes against terrorist targets in occupied-Kashmir. This threat centered around the presence of a dozen advanced-model F-16s split between Skardu and Gilgit. Of the two airbases, the bulk of the fighters were at Skardu with only two F-16s seen at Gilgit on defensive patrols. The PAF warfighting concept for this region was clear. The Gilgit based radar aircraft would direct and control the much more forward-based Skardu F-16s plus any additional aircraft flown in from airbases in mainland Pakistan. In theory, they could bring a lot of their forces to bear on the Indians. Reality was different.

  Modern air combat is all about temporal-aerial-density. This means that it is less about how many airplanes a nation has and more to do with their ability to concentrate more fighters than their opponent in a given time inside a three-dimensional box in space. If this box is further away from the airbases and consequently the combatant does not have the ability to bring in a lot of aircraft inside this box in a small time, the overall effect of the large number of airplanes is rendered indecisive in the outcome of the air war. Verma understood this doctrine very well and in his mind, the three-dimensional box was spread over Deosai and Skardu. Airbases from Pakistan could allow PAF fighters to fly into this box but they could not do so quickly enough to stop the Indians from completing their strike packages. The PAF was not equipped with long endurance, high capability aircraft other than the very small batch of Block-52 F-16s.

  On the Indian side, however, the long-range bruiser was the Su-30MKI. This Flanker derivative had long range and endurance. Other fighters deploying from nearby bases at Leh, Srinagar and so on also meant that aircraft such as the Mirage-2000s and upgraded Mig-29s could and would join the fray as required. And in-flight refueling tanker support was available for those aircraft that needed them to get home.

  All in all, the PAF was a defensive force whose only strategic objective was to retain control of their own skies. They weren’t going anywhere else beyond it and they knew it. The deployment of a good chunk of their newer F-16s to Skardu and Gilgit was as much about deterrence as it was about defenses.

  Well, we will see how that holds up! Verma looked at his wristwatch. It was time.

  The valley became backlit with orange-white glow as the first of the Block-III Brahmos missiles leapt out of the tubes into the cold night sky. The nine-meter long missiles climbed straight up on an expanding tower of flame and smoke and then slapped to their side using their maneuvering thrusters before accelerating to the north. They climbed above the Himalayan peaks around them. A few seconds later they ejected their booster rockets and the air-breathing ramjet engines roared to life. As the smoking boosters fell to the rocks below on ballistic trajectories, the first three Brahmos missiles created a vapor cone in front of their noses and broke through it just before reaching the line of control. They crossed into Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir trailing supersonic shockwaves that shook the mountains…

  On board the Pakistani Karakoram-Eagle airborne-radar aircraft, the sudden arrival of the Brahmos missiles on the radar screens sent a wave of chaotic comms chatter as Verma’s counterpart in this aircraft attempted to make sense of what was happening. They had two F-16s up on patrol near Skardu and these were ordered to punch afterburners and move into position to try and intercept the incoming cruise missiles. But the Brahmos missile launches were timed for precision alongside the input from the Indian airborne-radar aircraft. And the two Pakistani pilots became aware of this fact as they dived from position and had to reverse back on their flight path. They were facing the missiles coming straight at them at three times the speed of sound. Coupled with their own high speed, the closure rate was enormously high. And as such, there was no time for the two pilots to engage anything successfully. The two AMRAAM missiles they fired flew past their intended targets at a relative velocity of four times the speed of sound.

  For their part, the three missiles were heading to their targets oblivious of the Pakistani attempts to stop them. They made it over their target area before a shot could be fired. These Block-III missiles had the ability for steep dives built in, which they put to use as they swept past the massive peaks surrounding Skardu airbase. The missiles passed the peaks and snap-dived into their targets: the Skardu runway.

  At such high impact velocities, they slapped into the concrete of the runway at three precisely measured locations equidistant along its length. The inverted cones of smoke, dust and concrete thrown into the air rose up for a split second before the large warheads on the missiles exploded and the symmetrical cones were blown apart by a wall of flames…

  Within minutes, the smoke began to slowly take shape in the form of mushroom clouds as the thunder rippled through the valley, echoing for several minutes across the peaks. The shockwave from the massive explosions also ripped apart one of the two F-16s that had been sitting on the operational readiness platform at the end of the runway.

  As ground crews began to rush to the site of the strike, the word was passed up the command line: Skardu airbase was shut down.

  To the pilots of the two F-16s flying overhead, this was clear as day and they didn’t need any confirmation from command. However it did complicate their lives substantially. It took the leader of the two-man flight only a few seconds to realize what had happened: their main force of backup was now stuck on the ground. This meant there would be no support around for a while until aircraft from Pakistan and from Gilgit could come down to lend a hand. As they scanned the skies above the
southern peaks, they began to realize just how lonely they were out there…

  “Pike and lancer leaders, weapons-free! Weapons-free!”

  Wing-commander Oberoi smiled within his mask as he heard Verma’s message. As commander for the No. 28 Squadron, he had been rearing to get into the fight. His squadron had been flying well south of the maximum detection range of the kilo-echo. He flipped the comms: “pike-leader to all pike elements: punch tanks and move to contact on my mark! Three…two…one…mark!”

  The eight Mig-29s comprising pike punched their two external wing drop-tanks in unison and accelerated with afterburners to the north. They now outnumbered the enemy four-to-one inside Verma’s aerial kill-box. The Indians had just acquired a much higher aerial-density in the skies above Skardu.

  And Oberoi and his Mig-29 drivers intended to make it count.

  “Bandits turning…heading south. Closure rate at fifteen hundred.”

  “Pike copies all.” Oberoi responded to the input from Verma’s boys. He did the mental calculations to determine when the green dotted rectangle on his heads-up-display, or HUD, would turn into a solid one. This rectangle pair represented the input from Verma’s airborne radar aircraft and corresponded to the location of the two Pakistani F-16s north of them.

  He noticed that there was sweat inside his gloves now.

  So it is real after all!

  He turned his attention to the aircraft. The attitude of his Mig-29 was stable: zero roll rates, positive pitch. The rumble of the afterburners reminded him that he was still accelerating whilst climbing. Sure enough, the velocity and Mach counters were registering the gradual increase in his kinetic energy.

  The dotted rectangle turned solid with an audio tone in his helmet earphones. Now their own radars had also acquired the two enemy aircraft. Sure enough, the radio squawked: “Mongol-two to pike. Bandits handed over. Kill them all!”

  “Wilco!” Oberoi looked left and right to see the other seven Mig-29s flying in a line-abreast formation. All aircraft would engage simultaneously. He switched frequencies: “Pike elements: here we go! Weapons release on my mark. Break the enemy formation and dive for the deck. Do not let the buggers keep you at arm’s length! We do our business better up close and personal!”

  “First supersonics!” was the chorus response on the comms. Oberoi smiled. The squadron had really taken to its name with pride following the China war. Back then, they had been one of the first air-force units committed to combat against the Chinese aircraft in Ladakh. Now the phrase had taken had taken on a meaning of identity with the squadron as well as its charging battle-cry.

  Like the cavalry leaders of old…Oberoi cycled through the R-77 missile targeting and release. He and the rest of his pilots were seconds away from reaching missile range. Each aircraft carried two of these missiles tonight. They also carried a pair of R-73 close-range heat-seeking infra-red missiles for the up-close-and-dirty work. The innermost pylons were empty now that the drop tanks had been punched…

  The audio tone inside his helmet screeched as the diamonds appeared inside the green rectangles in his HUD.

  “Pike! Weapons release! Fire!”

  All eight Mig-29 pilots depressed the weapon’s release button on their control sticks within split-seconds of each other. And eight R-77s dropped clean off the pylons and fell underneath the aircraft for a dozen feet before their rocket motors ignited. The missiles accelerated from underneath the aircraft and climbed above them washing the parent aircraft with a large smoke cloud. Oberoi’s cockpit glass swept aside the smoke from his launch as he kept his eyes focused on the large exhaust flash of the missile showing up against a green-black background on his night-vision goggles. The missiles were on their way. Eight R-77s against two enemy F-16s.

  His helmet audio screeched again. This time it was a more urgent screech. The two F-16 pilots had released four AMRAAM missiles.

  Shit!

  “Pike! We have missiles inbound! Watch the skies and find the inbounds before you dive! Do not take your eyes off the inbounds!”

  Several seconds passed during which he could feel his heart pounding inside his chest. No visuals. Were the missiles smokeless?

  I hope not…He continued to focus on the northern horizon as the radar-warning-receivers on his aircraft registered not just the F-16 radar but also their supporting kilo-echo bird much further north.

  There! Four specks of light arcing down from the north.

  “Pike! I have V-I-D on four missiles! Arcing down at eleven-o-clock high! Break formation and dodge these suckers! Break! Break!”

  He rolled his aircraft inverted and dived. The rest of the Mig-29s did the same. All of them punched out metallic chaff shards as they completed their dives and entered into the cloud floor below. Oberoi’s cockpit disappeared inside a muck of clouds and he lost all visibility within a blink. His hands instinctively pulled his aircraft level to avoid running into a mountain at point-blank range. Out here in the Himalayas, this was a real problem.

  “Oh shit!” Oberoi shouted as he flipped his aircraft to its side and skipped past a solid rock mountain peak at eight-hundred kilometers an hour. He realized he had dropped significantly in the clouds and not having a ground reference, had not realized it. This needed correction and he pulled his aircraft up into the cloud cover above. His audio screeches confirmed that the missiles had stopped following him a while back. But his radio was alive with the chaotic chatter of his pilots dodging missiles within the mountains.

  Time to get up there…Oberoi pushed the throttle forward and pulled the control stick back. Agile as the Fulcrum was, it responded like a sports-car and pitched up to seventy degrees and yet continued to accelerate through the clouds. Within seconds he was above the cover and was staring at the brilliant starry skies above. Of course, now that he was up here, he didn’t like feeling so alone.

  “Pike-two! Where are you? I lost visual!”

  “I have you at my nine-o-clock, leader!” Oberoi turned his head to the left and saw his wingman’s Mig-29 climbing through the cloud floor, trailing wingtip contrails. He then looked back to his right to see where he thought the F-16s should have been. But there was nothing to be seen there…

  “Mongol-two, this is Pike-one,” he opened the comms channel with Verma, “I need a fix on our two bandits right away! Over!”

  The response came few seconds later: “Roger. We have one bandit within two kilometers, due west. We have lost contact with the other after he dived behind clouds of chaff.”

  To my west…Oberoi scanned the skies as he brought the aircraft heading in that direction. There were large cumulous clouds in the skies showing in his helmet optics as white against the green night sky. But no relative motion suggesting man-made presence. “Pike-two, do you see our prey? I got nothing over here.”

  “Roger! I have our prey noon-high within the cloud bank! Two kilometers!” Oberoi jerked his head up and saw the F-16 as it cut through one cloud bank and into the other, looking for its own prey.

  “Follow my lead!” Oberoi brought the control stick back into his stomach and felt the aircraft pitch up even more as they climbed. This time they leveled out underneath the clouds and waited for the Pakistani pilot to burst out of the cover. A few seconds later he did and Oberoi saw the clipped-delta silhouette of the F-16 punch through the white cloud embankment. By this time both Indian pilots had switched to their R-73 missiles. Oberoi lined up behind the single-engine exhaust of the diving F-16…

  Except the Pakistani pilot had other plans. The F-16 abruptly flipped to its right and dived for the cloud floor below. If he got within it, there would be no chance of a pursuit.

  “Pike-two! The bugger has spotted us! Don’t let him reach that cloud cover! Follow me in!”

  “Wilco!”

  Oberoi punched the throttle forward and felt the sudden burst of acceleration as the three aircraft dived for the clouds below them. The Pakistani pilot was now punching bursts of flares that instantly decimated the night-
vision of the two Indian pilots so close behind him.

  This guy knows his trade! Oberoi waited for the audio tone confirming his lock. Aerodynamically, the F-16 was no match for the Fulcrum in a close-up fight. And try as he might, the F-16 pilot could only stave off the inevitable for a while…

  “I have tone! Pickle one!” Oberoi shouted as the gravity forces pulled him into his seat coming out of another tight turn behind the desperate F-16 pilot. Oberoi always taught his pilots not to panic in combat. And here was a classic example why. In his desperation to stave off the Indian pilots, the Pakistani pilot had punched flares faster than he had probably realized. And now he had none left. He had also let the flares act as a glowing path leading to himself within the night sky. Now he had other Mig-29s converging from all sides. There was no escape.

  Oberoi felt the shudder as the R-73 flew off its pylon. Unlike the R-77, its motor ignited simultaneously and flew in a quick clockwise arc into the orange-yellow exhaust of the F-16. The small fireball that ensued enveloped the small aircraft and broke it to smithereens. Oberoi and his wingman flipped in opposite directions and flew on either side of the explosion as the pieces flew past, trailing smoky columns with them…

  “Splash one bandit!” Oberoi exclaimed as he pulled his aircraft level near some mountain ridgelines below. But that jubilation was short lived. The aircraft suddenly became backlit by flashes and thunderous rumble of explosions all around. Tracers flew past in streaks and he could hear the whizzes of their flight inside his cockpit. He looked down from the cockpit and saw on either side a ridgeline lit with flashes of anti-aircraft fire aimed at him…

  “Oh shit! Pike flight! Climb, climb, climb! We are over a hornet’s nest!” He punched flares and afterburner and brought his aircraft into a near vertical climb above the gunfire. He saw the tracers and explosions falling behind him as he reached above the clouds.