by Mainak Dhar
Fifty kilometers was safe, the lead Jaguar pilot judged, doing quick calculations in his head. The best missile the PAF had, the AIM-9L, had a range of just about fifteen kilometers, and this close to the target, the Jaguars could get at least one salvo of rockets off before the PAF fighters got in range.
They could clearly make out the launchers and were about to go into their attack dives when their radar warning receivers lit off, indicating that enemy radars had locked on to their planes. Then the AWACS controller’s voice rang out in their ears.
`Missile away. Repeat missile away. Bandits have fired multiple missiles. Range twenty-four.’
Twenty-four kilometers! What the hell was going on here! The IAF planes were dedicated strike aircraft, and while loaded with sophisticated avionics to track and destroy ground targets, they had no air-to-air radar. They would just have to rely on the AWACS to judge where the missiles would come from and then their limited countermeasures to evade the missiles.
The nine AMRAAM missiles streaked towards the Indian fighters at over twice the speed of sound. Highly advanced radar homing weapons, they were among the best air to air missiles in the world. The Saudis had used their oil money to buy several hundred before the coup and now they were being put to the test.
The Indians turned and dove to avoid the missiles, releasing chaff-strips of aluminum that would give off a radar return-to distract the missiles. At such low altitudes, some of the AMRAAMs got distracted by ground clutter and lost their locks, exploding harmlessly into the ground and a couple went after the chaff. But others went on towards their targets. Two Indian Jaguars fell to the first salvo. The attackers closed in to engage the remaining Indian fighters with their shorter ranged Sidewinders and cannon.
The lead Indian pilot was no stranger to air combat, having flown in MiG-23s before this assignment, and he knew the dice were loaded against them. Clearly the PAF had got longer ranged missiles for their planes, probably F-16s, from somewhere. Well, now was his chance to find out if the F-16 was as good as people said it was. He wished he were back in his old MiG-23. Then he would take on the PAF fighters on more equal terms, with long-range missiles of his own. But he just had to make do with what he had-which did not seem too much right about now.
The five fighters crisscrossed the sky, jockeying for position to fire their missiles or cannon, in a ritual going back to World War One. Only now the speed was many times faster, as was the death.
The lead Jaguar pilot managed to turn his fighter inside one of the attackers and would not have missed had he not nearly jumped out of his seat in surprise. He was looking at an F-15 Eagle painted in PAF colors!
The second Jaguar was not so lucky. An F-15 got on its tail and fired a Sidewinder that exploded the Jaguar in a fireball. Three to one and against F-15s were odds only the bravest and craziest Jaguar pilot would take on. The Indian pilot dove for the ground and sped towards his base, his engines on full afterburners. He got back with a nearly empty fuel tank and an incredible story to tell.
***
Singh walked to his bedroom to see Sonaina indulging in her favorite pastime, surfing the Internet.
He had just come back from a briefing on the sudden appearance of F-15s over Kashmir. IAF planners had always considered Saudi intervention a possibility, and now their worst-case scenarios were being played out in real life. There was no plane in the Indian inventory which had a more than fair chance of taking on well flown F-15s other than the Sukhoi-30s, and the task of neutralizing this clear and present danger had fallen to Singh’s squadron. Singh sat down on the bed behind Sonaina. He knew the tension and fear she felt, and wanted to make it as easy as possible for her.
`Sonaina, I’ll be gone for a few days.’
`Where?’
`Srinagar. The squadron’s being moved there.’
`When do you go?’
`This evening. Just pack some stuff for me, will you?’
`So soon?’
She said nothing more, but her moist eyes said it all.
`Take care, Nuts.’
Singh took her in his arms.
`I will, you know me.’
***
The first thing that hit Pooja as she stepped out of the train was the heat. Even in the evening, Bikaner was like a furnace compared to Mumbai. She was dressed in what Rahul had mockingly referred to as the `war correspondent’s uniform’- khaki shorts and a white blouse with her rucksack on her back. The two of them looked around for a few minutes till they saw a tall and stocky man in uniform with a placard bearing their names.
`Hello, I’m Pooja Bhatnagar and this is Rahul Asthana.’
`Good evening, I’m Naik Vijay Tonk. Please come with me.’
They set off in a battered army jeep, with Pooja sitting in the front with the Naik at the wheels. In the bumpy two-hour trip to the base, the army man did not utter more than one sentence, completely frustrating Rahul’s attempts at conversation. Pooja did all she could to prevent herself from laughing at Rahul’s discomfiture.
Pooja marveled at the raw, seemingly unspoilt beauty of the desert that they were driving through. As far as the eye could see, the desert sands stretched out like a never-ending sea.
Her reverie was interrupted by a thundering noise overhead. Caught off guard, she looked to her right to see a gigantic helicopter, carrying what looked like a big cannon hung from a harness underneath it. The chopper soon disappeared over the horizon. Pooja observed that Tonk was also headed in the same general direction.
The first signs that they were approaching their destination came in the form of a few armored vehicles by the side of the road. One had apparently broken down, and men were gathered around it. Tonk stopped the jeep to offer them a lift, but they insisted that the vehicle would be up and running soon.
They arrived at a rather forbidding compound. The total area must have been over a hundred acres with a huge gate manned by armed guards and brick walls and barbed wire all around. They entered the compound and drove for nearly a kilometer on what seemed to be a road laid in the middle of the desert.
Their journey ended at a group of buildings, one of which had a regimental crest on it.
`Wow, you could have a football stadium, a cricket field, and still have some space left over in here’, Rahul remarked as they got out of the jeep.
They were met by a young officer at the entrance to a building labeled `Officer’s Mess’.
The officer was not very tall or particularly good-looking, but there was something about his eyes that spoke of a sharpness which he displayed when he wanted to. He had a thin moustache and stood ramrod straight, his hands clasped behind his back.
`Good evening, my name is Colonel Dev Chauhan. Welcome to our home. Tonk will show you to your room, please freshen up and join me and our division’s commanding officer, Brigadier Sidhu, for dinner in the mess at twenty one hundred.’
`God, he talks like a guy out of a bad war movie’, Rahul commented laconically as they were led down the hall by the ever-silent Tonk.
***
The war was not going too well for India. While the air strikes in PoK had made an impact on the extent to which the Mujahideen could sustain an offensive, a major breakthrough had been achieved by the Mujahideen with the capture of the bridge leading to Uri. Once Uri fell, the raiders would have a clear path to the major towns of Baramula and the Sopore. If they managed to get as far as Baramula, Srinagar would be just about fifty kilometers away.
They were now less than ten kilometers away from the town, with only an Indian battalion between them. They seemed to have stopped momentarily without really crossing the LOC substantially to regroup and reinforce their positions before launching any attack. Word was that their initial attack against a single platoon had met with extremely heavy casualties. The Indian officer in charge of the platoon was already being recommended for a Param Vir Chakra, the highest gallantry award. Only one Indian soldier, a badly wounded rifleman, had escaped the carnage, and on his disc
overy by some sympathetic villagers, had revealed the story of the platoon’s last stand. Heroic as their stand had been, it was only a matter of time before the mujahideen felt confident enough to march onto Uri. A few rockets had already landed in the town, sending panicked townsfolk streaming out for the perceived safety of Baramula. This had in fact unintentionally slowed down Indian reinforcements by clogging the poor roads leading to the town.
While regular Pakistani troops were yet to enter Kashmir, they were providing reconnaissance and artillery support. And of course, the entry of the F-15s had evened the balance in the air over Kashmir. The F-15s had made an immediate impact on the air war over Kashmir. On the first day, six Indian attack aircraft were shot down, with not a single F-15 loss. The F-15 had been for almost three decades the unquestioned king of the skies, till the even more sophisticated F-22 supplanted it in American service, and late model Russian Sukhois began to approach it in terms of combat capability.
`So what now, gentlemen? What is our assessment of the situation in Kashmir?’
`Sir, we’re holding in all areas except in the Uri sector.’
`Well, what about Uri?’, the Prime Minister growled at his Chief of Defense Staff.
`The town is pretty exposed, and if the Mujahideen capture it, it would provide an ideal staging ground for a large scale offensive by regular Pakistani troops as it would give them a reasonably secure bridgehead for a push on to Srinagar. Our reserves are not mobilizing nearly as fast as we had hoped-all across Kashmir, terrorists are carrying out hit and run attacks, which are tying down our reserve units. 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Division, currently occupies Uri. Major Rahman, a highly decorated soldier with lots of experience in Siachen, heads it. But they’ll be up against dreadful odds.’
`Well, they’ll just have to hold till we can get more people up there. What about the Air Force-why don’t we just bomb the Mujahideen before they get to Uri?’
`It’s not that simple. We estimate a full squadron plus of Saudi F-15s taking part in the air war-we should thin them down-we’ve committed our Su-30s to the air battle-but I’m not sure we’ll regain air superiority in time. To add to the problems, the PAF seems to have also got some AWACS-that has more than neutralized the advantage our own AWACS gave us. To add to the issue, the Mujahideen are just a day or less away from Uri, and we’ll never get ground reinforcements in time-the only way is to airdrop supplies and troops. And there’s not much chance of that with the F-15s around’, the Air Chief was clearly not having one of his best days.
`But Sir, maybe we can leave Uri and pull back and defend Baramula. By that time, we would have enough forces to make a stand’.
`What the HELL!’
Everyone in the room, most of all the quiet Chief of Air Staff who had ventured the suggestion, was taken totally aback by this uncharacteristic outburst by Khosla.
`Look guys, things may not be looking too great now. But one thing we cannot afford to do is lose confidence. If we give up on Uri today, tomorrow we’ll rationalize the surrender of Baramula, and the day after that, Srinagar. We have to take a stand somewhere, and Uri is as good a place as any. I don’t want us to focus our energies on plans for surrender-lets all commit to holding Uri and do everything we damn well can to make it happen. This is not just moving chess pieces on a board-this is also about the signals we send to the enemy. If we embolden them now by letting Uri fall, we will enter a downward spiral we may never get out of. Now Joshi, damn the Saudis-are they getting involved in any other way?’
`Sir, satellite photos show a convoy of 7-8 ships in the Gulf-we’re not sure where they’re headed, or what they’re carrying-but we’ll keep an eye on them.’
`Well, sink those bastards if they so much as get near Karachi-and I want those F-15s out of the air-commit all our Sukhois if you need to-but do it. The only way I see our saving Uri is if the IAF can get some semblance of air superiority over the area again so that we can airdrop reinforcements and supplies.’
`What’s happening on the internal scenario?’, this time Khosla, his hand still in a cast, addressed the Home Minister.
`The riots have more or less ended. But the loss of life is catastrophic-we estimate over 3000 dead. It’s hard to gauge public opinion-things are just moving too fast. But in a way, the attacks in Kashmir are good-it should make people pull together, which would help in healing the wounds of the violence. What’s more worrying now is the spate of terrorist attacks in Kashmir-we never imagined it could get so bad. It seems they have been infiltrating small groups of fighters over the last six months to a year, and have now built up to a total of at least five thousand foreign mercenaries in the valley. That’s more than twice the average number in the nineties.’
Khosla grimaced. He had no idea that the death toll would be so high.
`What are we doing about Sethi?’
`Sir, he’s been arrested on charges of incitement, but will get bail soon.’
Khosla paused for a while and then quickly made up his mind. To hell with it-the bastard takes part in a massacre like this and thinks he can get away.
`Meet me after this meeting-I have something that should ensure he stays in jail.’
`Okay. In the meanwhile-let’s give our friends in Pakistan something to think about-if we look like we’re going to lose Uri or if regular Pak troops enter Kashmir, I want an attack in the plains. Can we do it?’
`I was waiting for when you would say that, Sir. I have a plan’, and the Army Chief took out a thick wad of slides.
***
Dinner in the Army mess had been a formal affair, and the two journalists had been introduced to the officers. This was followed by a sumptuous meal, which Rahul had dug into with gusto. There was a lot of liquor flowing as well, and Rahul found his match in the Brigadier.
Pooja had been trying to talk to the young Colonel who had greeted them, but found herself getting turned off by his aloof, and almost rude behavior. The garrulous Sikh Brigadier more than made up for Chauhan’s lack of conversation, and when he finally left, it seemed that an unnatural quiet had descended on the room. Rahul did not notice it too much, as he figured he now had all the alcohol at the table to himself. Pooja, by far the more extroverted of the two, felt extremely awkward just sitting there, watching the man eat. She made a few more attempts at small talk, but the Colonel kept sitting, stabbing at his food, and rarely saying anything. Rahul had long given up attempts at conversation, but Pooja had been more persistent. Finally she did get him to open up, but after a few minutes of talking, she realized she liked the Colonel far better when he kept his trap shut.
Rahul had been watching the exchange for ten minutes now. What had started as a general discussion on the role of the press was now taking a most personal turn. The Colonel, who had been the epitome of civility, had taken on a more hostile air after Pooja had implied that government agencies, including the army, were always afraid of the press coming close to them, as they feared their misdemeanors would be exposed.
`Look, Miss Bhatnagar, I did not ask for you to be here. If there is war, it’s a job for soldiers and having you people around will just hinder us….’
`Wait a minute, what you’re trying to say is that you don’t want a woman around when you men go out to play with your big guns.’
`Miss Bhatnagar, I’ll be civil and polite because I’ve been ordered to have you around. Things are going to get very dangerous, and I just want you two to stick close to me. I hope that’s clear. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take leave of you.’
Chauhan got up and walked out of the mess room, leaving a fuming Pooja and a bemused Rahul behind.
`Jerk. MCP jerk!’
`Cool it, Boss. He seems kind of okay to me. Probably never stepped out of a tank, so doesn’t know much how to interact with humans. Plus you weren’t exactly all grace and charm yourself.’
`I still think he’s a jerk.’
`Yeah, he’s the first guy I’ve seen who didn’t start drooling the moment he s
aw you’, Rahul said, grinning from ear to ear.
As Pooja left for her room, she wondered just how much truth there was in what Rahul had just said.
***
TEN
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight, Drove to this tumult in the clouds.
- W.B.Yeats, An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
Singh leveled his Sukhoi at 14,000 feet. He and his wingman were flying top cover for a flight of MiG-27s on an attack mission against Mujahideen positions.
So far the air war over Kashmir had been a seesaw battle. The F-15s had ensured that Indian attack aircraft could no longer attack targets at will. However, the advent of Indian Sukhois and MiG-29s had evened the balance in the air. Now it was a matter of who won mastery over the skies. Two pilots from Singh’s squadron had already seen combat against F-15s, and one had scored a kill. In the early combats, the relative merits of the different aircraft involved were becoming apparent. At low speed dogfights, the MiG-29 was more maneuverable than either the Su-30 or F-15. The two larger aircraft scored over the MiG in terms of their longer endurance and longer ranged radar. Overall, the numbers were so similar that in air combat, it really boiled down to pilot skill and tactics more than anything else.
Singh had his powerful Zhuk intercept radar off-he was relying on his radar warning receivers and the AWACS flying a hundred kilometers behind his flight to warn him of any attacking aircraft. Lighting off his powerful radar would be like shining a flashlight in the dark to find a burglar. You may see him eventually, but the light from your torch would be seen first. Plus his fighter was equipped with a fairly decent Infra-Red Search and Tracking Set, which would enable him to `passively’ pick up heat emissions from enemy aircraft without turning his own `lights’ on.
`Two bandits-forty kilos out, bearing one-seven-eight, speed five hundred’. The AWACS radar operator’s voice crackled through Singh’s headset. Singh’s navigator and weapon’s officer-Flt. Lt. Nitin Goel, sitting behind Singh, spoke up, `Time to play, boss’.