Fenix

by Vivek Ahuja

  He switched comms to his flight: “gents, here we go. Over the border and taking the fight to the enemy. We have twelve enemy F-16s and six Mirage birds surging east in front of their airborne radar. Mongol-two has committed us to the fight alongside the Flankers. We are keeping a low profile. Dive for the soup below. Mongol-two will be leading us. We are going under the fight between the Flankers and the enemy birds. Our goal is the enemy airborne radar. Keep a tight formation and follow my lead. Give me an affirm chime!”

  “Affirm, dagger-leader”

  “Dagger-three copies all.”

  “Wilco from dagger-four.”

  All right, here we go…Grewal thought. To his north, he saw the sixteen friendly Su-30 “Flankers” of No. 8 squadron in four finger-four flights spreading into a line-abreast formation. They were going parallel to him. This force of heavy fighters was aptly named “warhammer”. A similar group of eight Su-30s to the north, call-sign “scabbard”, was already a veteran of the war when they had led the fighter sweeps during the strikes in Kashmir.

  These powerful Flankers would draw fire and mix it with the Pakistani F-16s and Mirage-IIIs. They would not worry about the enemy Erieye airborne-radar aircraft behind. Warhammer and scabbard were the blunt tools of this fight.

  I guess that makes us the scalpel! Grewal lowered his helmet-mounted night-optics. The black-blue-white environment around him gave way to the green-white-black hell-scape he had gotten used to. In many ways the analogy of a scalpel was true. The Su-30 drivers had come out of the China war with a sense of pride, their chests swollen. They had been the knife that had been used to slit the Chinese air-force’s wrist over Tibet. And despite losses, they had established dominance both within air-force circles as well as in the hearts of their enemies. Now their pilots exuded confidence.

  As if to dramatize that dominance, Grewal saw them pull ahead into a long, line-abreast formation along the north-south axis. He could see the glowing exhausts of their twin-engines. No tactical formations, no flanking maneuvers here. They were letting the Pakistani pilots know who the big dogs were. Wars are often won in the minds even before the first shots are fired. Would the Pakistani pilots see their impending doom and back off?

  Perhaps not…Grewal thought as the Flankers punched afterburners in unison and thundered across the border…

  “Dagger-leader this is mongol-two. Warhammer and scabbard are committed. Come to bearing two-zero-zero.”

  “Wilco.”

  Grewal flipped his LCA to the port and dived into the cloud floor. Within seconds the muck hit the windscreen and washed all over his aircraft. He pulled out under the clouds and was greeted with a nightmarish view of the border. White tracers were flying across both sides of the border and artillery explosions were ripping up the border posts on both sides. The flashes were enhanced on all their optics. He saw tracers climbing up towards him and his pilots…

  “Dagger! Triple-A fire coming up! Break! Break! Break!”

  Grewal flipped his aircraft violently whilst still diving. The tracer rounds snaked past his cockpit and flashes erupted on all sides, rocking his small fighter around. He managed to trace the fire all the way to the source on the ground below. It was then that the horror of the situation struck him: “mongol-two, this is dagger! We are taking friendly triple-A fire from forward-deployed ground units! I…” the thunderclap from a nearby string of detonations jerked his aircraft aside.

  “Say your last, dagger! Mongol-two reading you one-by-five!”

  No shit! He growled and snapped to low level to evade the consistent barrage being put up in a box around him. The amount of fire from the army guns below was considerable. Grewal thanked his stars that these were not radar directed, else he and his pilots might have been ripped to shreds…

  “Mongol-two! Get those friendly triple-A bastards to stop shooting at their own air-force!” Grewal thundered.

  “Roger, dagger. Stand by…” the voice trailed off.

  Grewal had his hands full. He was still violently evading the ground fire when the explosions stopped just as abruptly as they had started. The last of the tracers flew off into the cloud cover above them.

  “Dagger, confirm that the triple-A has stopped. Over.”

  “Roger, mongol-two. Ground fire has ceased. Many thanks!” Grewal said without hiding the relief. The last thing he wanted was fratricide. But his LCA did look like a Pakistani Mirage in its silhouette. Especially against a light background and even more so when he was flashing above Indian ground forces. He realized that the army gunners below were probably on hair-trigger mode.

  Not an auspicious start…He saw the other three LCAs pulling up on either side of him. All three of them shared black-scars and grime from the explosions. He wondered what his own aircraft looked like.

  The cloud-cover above them flickered with light. Their onboard radar-warning-receivers were screeching in his ears as they detected all sorts of enemy threats. Grewal’s heart missed a beat when the radio suddenly squawked: “mongol-two here. Warhammer and scabbard have engaged the enemy. Your target is at fifty kilometers west, twenty-thousand feet. Dagger has the ball. Go get them!”

  “Wilco, Mongol-two.” All right.

  Grewal powered up the throttle and pushed it into afterburner. The engine rumbled to life and the sudden acceleration of the afterburning fuel punched the aircraft forward. They were eating up fuel rapidly now. But they also knew that the Pakistani Erieye radar crew would pick them up against the ground clutter at any moment considering their close proximity. Grewal could not allow them to escape.

  A Pakistani Mirage-III flashed through the clouds as it dived towards the west. Grewal and his pilots saw in amazement as the Pakistani aircraft thundered high above their heads, oblivious to the four small Indian fighters climbing from below. Grewal almost switched to guns to engage before two Su-30s punched through the cloud cover, chasing the lone Pakistani pilot across the sky. The lead Su-30 fired a R-73 heat-seeking missile that flew into the flares and chaff punched out by the desperate Pakistani pilot. But the Flanker drivers were not giving up that easy. The leader and his wingman lined up behind the wildly evading Mirage-III pilot. Tracers filled the sky before some of them found their mark. The Pakistani aircraft turned into a shower of sparks and smoke before it struck the ground in a fireball. The two Su-30s punched afterburners and climbed into the cloud cover, disappearing out of view.

  God! These guys aren’t taking any prisoners today! Grewal thought as he climbed into the clouds and continued west. They broke through the clouds and the starry night re-emerged. He saw the wild melee of F-16s, Flankers and Mirage-IIIs behind them to the east. And to the west, the radar blips showed the Erieye and its two F-16 escorts. The Pakistani pilots and crew on board the Erieye were already evading and diving away, having detected the incoming Indian threat. The two F-16s went active on their radars as they attempted to destroy the threat to their airborne-control aircraft.

  Grewal had already selected his Astra BVR missile on the inner pylons of his aircraft. The two F-16s became visible on his HUD as dotted diamonds. The audio tone in his helmet changed as he managed a lock. The weapon release was near instantaneous after he depressed the launch button on his control stick. The LCA became lighter and climbed a bit as the Astra missile fell away and lit its rocket engine, propelling it past the launch aircraft. Three other missiles from Dagger flight did the same. Unlike the R-77, the Astra left a nearly invisible exhaust. Perhaps the night-optics on board the two F-16s would enhance it enough to make it visible. But it would still be difficult for the two Pakistani pilots to escape all four missiles…

  The Pakistani pilots weren’t far behind, however. Grewal heard the desperate audio tone of his radar-warning-receiver telling him that the two enemy missiles were in the air. Time to evade like hell!

  Grewal punched cloud after cloud of chaff and the four LCAs broke pattern and dived in different directions. The Pakistani pilots did the same. At such close ranges and high closur
e rates, the response time was in seconds. And as Grewal spotted the incoming AMRAAM missile headed straight for him, he dived in front of it and left a cloud of chaff in his wake on a parabolic arc. The radar clutter line was nearly continuous and just enough for the AMRAAM missile to explode in a ball of fire at the very top of the arc, two dozen meters behind the LCA. Explosion fragments ripped through the skies and tore into the skin of Grewal’s aircraft. He felt the jerk and a crash through the cockpit seconds before he saw slight smoke coming near his feet.

  A second massive explosion ripped through the skies to his north as the other AMRAAM missile slammed into dagger-two, turning the LCA to smithereens. The debris laced with fire streaked earthward. There was no time for mourning. Grewal recovered his aircraft and saw warning lights going off inside the cockpit. But the controls still felt good. The engine was still running. The weapons were good. The HUD was smashed and the cockpit glass was cracked.

  Damn!

  Further south, he saw yet another fireball as the flaming wreck of one of the two F-16s disappeared into the cloud cover below. The second F-16 was nowhere to be seen.

  “Dagger-three, -four! Get the buggers before they escape! I am weapons ineffective and dagger-two has been blotted out! Go! Go!”

  “Wilco, dagger-leader. I am on him!”

  Grewal saw his two remaining pilots punch afterburners and launch Astra missiles towards a non-visible target. He felt his control stick shudder. Looking at his starboard wing, he spotted several holes and what looked like fuel splatter. The fact that it had not ignited had probably saved his life. But the list of problems didn’t end there. The fuel indicator was slinking away. Grewal realized he was trailing fuel…

  Before he could say or do anything, a flash of light erupted on the horizon and flicker on its way earthward. The radar-warning-receiver changed audio tones as the source of the enemy radar disappeared.

  The radio came alive: “splash one bandit!”

  “Dagger-leader, this is mongol-two. We no longer detect the enemy airborne-control source on our scopes. Is that your handiwork?”

  “Looks like it,” Grewal added. “Dagger-three and –four claimed the prey! Also count two enemy Foxtrot birds in the bag. I am damaged goods over here and dagger-two has been lost. We are egressing the heck out of here!”

  “Mongol-two copies all. Good work.”

  Grewal pulled his aircraft around and felt the shudder in his controls all the way. Dagger-three and -four took flanking positions on either side of him as he fought to keep his aircraft in the air. As an extension of his body as it was, he could feel the airframe barely holding itself together. He would be lucky if he made it back across the border, let alone get back to base. The fuel indicator was now flashing red. He needed to put this aircraft down. And fast.

  “Dagger-one declaring emergency!”

  “Mongol-two copies. Proceed to Bathinda.”

  “Wilco.”

  “Mongol-two-actual here, Dagger-leader,” Verma’s voice chimed in. “You can make it. Put the bird down on the concrete.”

  Grewal tightened his grip around the control stick as the aircraft continued to vibrate. The vibration was becoming more pronounced as they lowered altitude just after crossing over the border. Some solace was to be had when the patrolling Mig-21s at Bathinda lined up in a pair to his right just after he lowered his undercarriage. They would follow him in. The runway at Bathinda showed up to the east.

  Almost there. Don’t fail me now!

  As the runway became much more visibly pronounced and the tarmac appeared underneath on either side, Grewal prepared for the eventuality that his landing gear might collapse. When the rubber of the tires hit the ground and didn’t collapse, he was already breathing a long breath of relief. A few seconds later the engine flamed out. The LCA slithered to a stop halfway on the runway.

  He removed his oxygen mask and helmet as several vehicles rolled up to his crippled aircraft. Firemen ran on either side, showering the wing with fire-retardant foam. He turned to the floor of the cockpit and saw the source of the smoke. He used his gloved hand to pull out a piece of metal shard lodged just inches from his left boot. The rubber on his boot had been scarred by it. One additional inch to the right and it could have severed his foot. He glanced at the metal shard in his hand as ground crews snapped open the shattered cockpit glass.

  He had been lucky. His wingman had not. The war had already taken a toll on his squadron. And it had just begun.

  Verma took a deep breath. His inner voice may have a point, he conceded. The battle numbers supported it.

  Modern war was rarely, if ever, a game of numbers as it used to be in the past century. Quality and training offset massive numerical advantage. The Pakistani air-force was not even close to resembling the strength of their Chinese ally. The PAF had neither the numbers to fight three-for-one against India nor the quality advantage. And propaganda statements to the contrary, its training and efficiency had suffered during the decade long bleeding against the Pakistani Taliban. The latter had attacked airbases over the years inside Pakistan and had leveled many Pakistani aircraft where they sat on the tarmac. In return, Pakistani combat pilots had been busy striking home soil with bombs and rockets. They were in no position to take on a battle-hardened, albeit depleted, Indian air-force.

  The battle for vortex-two had already cost the Pakistanis dearly. The gambit of drawing out Indian pilots into combat was a deadly one. The importance of airborne-radar systems if often over-played. And while it was true that in presence of large fighter forces it could prove lethal, there was little that it could do when its supporting aerial forces were weak. And so the PAF had lost one of its Erieye airborne-radar aircraft, eight of its precious F-16s and six of its obsolete Mirage-IIIs in that battle. In return, they had taken down three Indian Flankers, one LCA and had heavily damaged another LCA.

  The morale within the PAF commanders would plummet at the near-complete wipeout of their first large-force attempt against the Indians. Verma observed as vortex-one, flying out of Peshawar, had dispersed its assembling fighter force into smaller groups just after vortex-two had gone dark. It was now withdrawing further west, away from the aerial frontlines.

  Verma walked over to his seat and strapped himself in as the large Phalcon aircraft turned to port and departed station-keeping to rendezvous with its refueling tanker aircraft further east.

  So what is next? Will they stop challenging us in the skies?

  Unlikely. Verma reminded himself. This was a war to the end. There was no after-the-war for the Pakistanis after this. If the PAF ran to protect its aircraft and Islamabad lost the war, the first to hang from lamp-posts in the streets of Rawalpindi would be their air-force commanders. No, they wouldn’t give up that easily. They will send smaller groups of aircraft against friendly ground forces as the latter move across the border into Pakistan. That will be their game. No more big battles. But a lot of little ones. They will change tactics. They will adapt.

  Verma rubbed his eyes. And so will we!

  ──── 22 ────

  Pathanya ran out of the tents as thunder ripped through the frigid air. The cold winds hit him square in the face. He could see his breath condensing before his eyes. The scene outside was utter chaos. Men ran past and vehicles were rolling on all the major logistics routes.

  Another thunderclap passed by. This time he knew where to look. North by north-east. Sure enough, a cylindrical booster section of a Brahmos missile arced across the sky as it went transonic. The small flicker of light from its exhaust disappeared to the early-morning fog…

  “What the hell was that?” Vikram shouted over the thunder as he and Kamidalla caught up with Pathanya. Vikram stopped mid-syllable as another thunderclap reverberated through the air. Seconds later it too disappeared into the fog on its way to some target inside Pakistan.

  Pathanya turned to face his two subordinate team-leaders with a frown laced with a sort of militaristic fait-accompli: “it’s
begun.”

  Pathanya let that sink and then went into overdrive: “get ready to move out while I figure out our mission status. I want everyone ready to leave with the logistics of our original mission. If that mission still stands, we will execute it. If it has been scrapped, I still want us ready to provide options to the Battalion commander!”

  He got two nods and no questions. So he walked past the two men and headed towards the command tent to find Ansari, Gephel and the RAW officers embedded with this task force. If they were going after Haider, now was as good a time as any to get started…

  “Fluids, people. Fuel and Water.” Kulkarni walked over to the large plywood board covered in maps. On it, the friendly forces were marked with pins and units IDs were written on paper tags nearby. He pointed to the dust-off point and then turned to face the hundreds of assembled tank and vehicle commanders standing in the large tent.

  “We are going to be pushed hard for resources and reinforcements out there,” he pointed to Pakistani territory on the map. “Our biggest worry is not ammunition for the main guns, but the smaller details. Fuel for the tanks and water to drink. Command advises us that despite their best attempts to keep us hydrated and fueled, we must be prepared for the worst.” Kulkarni looked around at the faces of the men under his command. “And I agree.”

  Kulkarni was indeed worried about the logistics of the upcoming offensive. It was always the same. It had been the same when he had been fighting Chinese T-99s in Ladakh. Without fuel, the tanks were simply sixty-ton steel pillboxes, immobile and vulnerable. Without water, the crews who manned them would be in no condition to fight in the desert long before they ran out of ammunition.

  In Ladakh, however, Kulkarni and his fellow commanders had had one advantage: they hadn’t been going anywhere far. The PLA had been on the offensive there since the very first day. All Kulkarni’s tank detachments were doing was holding back the tide. They could rely upon whatever logistics made it up to them.