by Vivek Ahuja
LEH
LADAKH
DAY 2 + 1055 HRS
“Ladakh is on fire, gentlemen,” Lieutenant-General Ritesh Gupta, commander of the Leh based XIV Corps, noted to his staff in the operations center. “So. What’s the latest estimate?”
“Initial estimates are still forming up, sir. But based on what we know the Chinese have opened up four major avenues of attack into Ladakh. The northernmost sector is near Daulat-beg-oldi. Here the Chinese are moving along the northern banks of the Chip-Chap river bank and their threat axis is heading towards our airstrip there. Brigadier Adesara is attempting to hold the Chinese advance with a reinforced Brigade and some armor in that sector,” Gupta’s operations chief said and then shrugged before continuing: “but he is heavily outnumbered. We figure he’s facing down at least a division worth of Chinese assault forces, heavy on tanks.”
“What support do we have for Adesara out there?” Gupta asked.
“We are working on that right now. Most of his reinforcements are moving along the Shyok river banks heading north towards the Galwan river sector and then northwards to DBO from there. But they have been bogged down by Chinese artillery and long-range rocket strikes along the MSR. They are taking losses in the open terrain against these strikes. We are knocking out the Chinese artillery using our counter-battery systems but it takes time. Their gun batteries are not proving a problem given their immobility. But their long-range MBRLs are proving a nightmare to find and destroy, since they are shoot-and-scoot systems much like our own. The airstrip at DBO has been utterly destroyed based on overhead imagery. The only other option is air and artillery support but these are already committed to all the raging battles along the entire front. What few systems are available are being dispatched to assist Brigadier Adesara’s forces.”
Gupta leaned back and rubbed his eyes and silently cursed the situation. But he knew that everything that could be done was being done, so he nodded to the Major-General to continue.
“In the central sector the Chinese have opened up the front along the Galwan river valley and attempting to move east to cut off the only land supply route to DBO. We have another Infantry Brigade deployed between the Galwan and Hacho rivers tasked with keeping this land route open.
“Then further south the Chinese are attacking the Brigades deployed along the Chang-Chenmo River between Kongka-La and our critically vital logistical node at Shyok. It is pretty clear that they are trying to take Shyok to sever the supply route to the Galwan and Karakoram Brigades north from there.
“Finally, further to the south, XV Corps Brigades are fighting it out with a Chinese Group Army between Chushul, Rezang-La and Demchok. The idea here, we believe is to drive upwards from the Demchok region and roll up our defenses at Rezang-La and then Chushul to the north.”
Gupta’s operations chief turned to face his Corps commander.
“All in all, very predictable and exactly according to our pre-war expectations,” he concluded.
“But?” Gupta asked suspiciously. He knew the ‘but’ was in there somewhere…
“But…” the Major-General continued with a raised eyebrow, “our pre-war allocations of ammunition usage are not holding up. We are burning through our supplies of shells, rockets and missiles at a much higher rate than we had anticipated. We are going to run into supply problems pretty soon if we don’t get more stuff for our boys to shoot at the Chinese.”
“Dear god in heaven,” Gupta said as he rubbed his eyes again.
Somebody had said at some point that battle-plans never survive actual contact with the enemy…
Damn prophetic, wasn’t he?
Gupta looked up and faced his operations staff.
“Okay, people. Listen up. Here’s what we are going to do. Divert any available air and ground support to Adesara that we can lay our hands on to help him wither the Chinese assaults and hold Daulat-beg-oldi. Tell the Galwan and Kongka-La Brigade commanders that there is to be no retreats. They will stand and fight and keep our supply lines to northern Ladakh open. If any one of these sectors falls, the entire line will get rolled up or starved for supplies and then overrun. We are not letting a repeat of 1962 happen on my watch. Is that understood?”
He looked around at his staff and noticed no questions. So he turned to his operations chief again.
“Contact the air-force and tell them to allocate as high a concentration of their strike aircraft as they can to the DBO sector. At least that’s one mistake we won’t carry over from the last war.”
EAST OF DAULAT BEG OLDI
LADAKH
DAY 2 + 1120 HRS
“Here they come!”
Sudarshan lowered his binoculars as he stood on top of the turret of his lead BMP. He looked around. The eight BMP-IIs under his command were still there, still in loose formation. They were parked amongst the now vacant defensive positions of a Chinese Border Guards company headquarters.
Most of the Chinese soldiers from this position were still in their trenches or the open ground nearby, lying in their pools of blood or shredded to bits by the auto-cannon rounds…
Sudarshan’s light armor force had just completed their diversionary movement. This had covered the deployment and subsequent attack by the NAMICA platoon against the Chinese armor columns to the northwest, behind them. That attack had been successful, as Sudarshan could now tell based on the dozens of thick black smoke columns rising into the gray winter sky.
But that battle had cost him all of his T-72Ms…
In the meantime the Chinese second wave was skirting around the burning hulks of their assault force from the north, instead of the south. Sudarshan smiled as he thought about that.
They know the severe anti-tank threat that exists south of the Chip-Chap River.
My boys, to be exact!
But Sudarshan was not exactly having a free reign to the south. His force was now about to be engaged by the scattered groups of Chinese ZBDs that had made up the Chinese third line of armor.
And there are a lot of them for our comfort...
To that end he had ordered a stop to his south-eastern advance into Chinese held territory after they had smashed the thin line of Red Border Guards units in the sector. They had slid into this southern flank like a knife entering the Chinese gut. His force had mauled its way past the LAC and was now standing beyond it.
Not for long though…
The approaching dust clouds were now less than four kilometers away and were splashing across the frozen Chip-Chap River much in the same way his own force had done not so long ago.
Sudarshan brought up his helmet mounted comms mouthpiece and ordered his driver and gunner to get ready. He jumped back down the hatch into the commander’s position and closed the hatch behind him. The other seven vehicle commanders did the same.
With a large rumble of their diesel engines, the entire force executed a reverse move up the small wall like mound that the Chinese here had been using as cover. Once back on the reverse slope to the west, they stopped with a jerk and moved ever so slightly until each vehicle was in a hull down position. The soviet designers of the BMP had placed a lot of attention to making the vehicle low profile, even at the cost of top-plate armor protection. And while the BMPs were extremely unfit to take on the role of direct attack against enemy armor, its light weight and high mobility gave it a lot of advantages. The NAMICA variant of this basic chassis was one technological solution around this vehicle.
Even at the tactics level, it offered some advantages.
If the commanders chose to see it, that is.
But stealth was not one of the advantages Sudarshan had. The snow all around them was contrasting around their hot vehicle engines and burning hot auto-cannon barrels. The Indian vehicle crews also knew that the Chinese had their own UAVs overhead and had probably detected their entire force via thermal optics. In fact, the movement of the twelve ZBDs maneuvering east of them showed clearly that the Chinese commanders knew exactly where Sudarshan an
d his advance element were. But they could only see where he was, not what he was doing…
Within fifteen minutes the ZBDs had spread out in a loose line-abreast formation and had begun advancing his force.
Sudarshan watched and waited.
He wondered whether it was his destiny to be here today. Had it not been for the fact that had this particular vehicle’s commander hadn’t fallen sick with pulmonary edema a day before, he might have been watching this particular battle alongside Adesara from a forward headquarters.
As command expects me to do.
Damn that to hell. This is where I belong!
He peered through the commander-sights on the vehicle and saw the first clear feature of the ZBD approaching range.
“Gunner, target ZBD! Left! Three kilometers!”
The cannon turret moved slightly to the left and then stabilized before the gunner shouted out:
“Target identified!”
“Fire!”
LEH
LADAKH
DAY 2 + 1205 HRS
The screen lit up with eight lines of bright tracer fire heading east just as other lines of tracers headed west.
“Holy shit!” one of the Lieutenants exclaimed. The senior officers in the room ignored the young man.
There were several flashes of light as the camera zoomed out and adjusted thermal color contrast to show three flaming ZBDs staggering to a halt in the east while two BMPs lit up in flames. Now tracers were flying in all directions as both sides engaged in a desperate battle for supremacy…
“Which unit is this?” Gupta asked his operations chief.
“Elements of the 10TH Mechanized-Infantry Battalion, sir.”
“Sudarshan’s chaps?”
“Yes. Sudarshan is out there at DBO along with his HQ group and three BMP troop formations that made up his advance element. The rest of the 10TH Mechanized Battalion is still driving up from Saser and approaching Daulat-beg-oldi, but they are taking fire from Chinese artillery.”
“How on earth are they targeting our boys with artillery so precisely?”
“The same way we are: under directions of their UAVs. We think they have several of these flying over the LAC watching our movements as we are watching theirs,” The Major-General replied and then crossed his arms as he continued to watch the feed from the Divisional headquarters. Gupta was not pleased to hear what he had just heard:
“Damn those buggers. Haven’t the air-force chaps been able to nail those Chinese drones yet?”
“Not yet, sir. They say they are working on it. Seems these smaller UAVs are too small for radar detection and there are not enough fighters to try and do a visual search all over Ladakh. The liaison says they are planning to try something new later today that might work.”
“Oh that’s bloody wonderful! Our boys are getting hammered out there even before they get to the frontlines thanks to those commie drones and the air-force is twiddling their thumbs at us. Whatever it is they want to try, we better hope it works. Otherwise Adesara and his boys are going to have to fight an uneven battle because his reinforcements won’t be able to make their way to him intact. Any good news?” Gupta asked
“Yes sir. The Chinese artillery is taking a beating. Our counter-artillery units are making a killing. So far anyway. It won’t be long before the Chinese bring in their own counter systems, but at least we are knocking out a good number of Chinese field batteries,” the Major-General noted.
This time Gupta did not answer as both men stared at the UAV thermal optics feed.
The four remaining BMPs under Sudarshan’s command were deploying smoke and reversing out of their positions while continuing to exchange fire with the seven Chinese ZBDs now less than a kilometer away from them. The unit was under threat of being flanked by other ZBD groups that were charging in from the north and Sudarshan had seen the threat approaching. He was denying the Chinese commander a vulnerable flank by initiating a fighting withdrawal.
As he did so he was also buying time for his Battalion anti-tank platoon two kilometers behind him to reload their Nag missile load-out. It was now a desperate running battle between gunners from both sides at near point blank ranges...
Within only a few minutes the first Chinese ZBDs raced over the gravel wall and slammed through the positions vacated by the Indians. They quickly bypassed the burning hulks of the BMPs destroyed by their gunfire. All through the way the turrets were still blazing away at the remaining four BMPs…
Gupta looked over to his operations chief:
“We are losing this battle. Sudarshan is getting overrun and Adesara is fighting off waves of tanks with Infantry and a handful of light armor vehicles. Get over to the air-force guys and tell them that Chinese S-300 threat or not, we need priority air-support over at DBO or else we are going to lose the Karakoram pass by the end of the day today!”
SOUTHEAST OF DAULAT-BEG-OLDI
DAY 2 + 1245 HRS
“Driver! Stop!”
The NAMICA chassis shuddered to an abrupt stop and the dust trailing behind caught up, enveloping the vehicle. The platoon-commander looked through his sights and passed the confirmation to the other vehicles in the troop.
They were sufficiently covered by the boulders ahead, but the turret and the Nag launch canisters were above the rocks and had a clear line of sight all the way to the east. From here the crew could see the three remaining BMPs under Colonel Sudarshan reversing towards them in a weaving pattern even as they fought off the hard charging Chinese ZBDs. It was a poignant sight to see the desperate battle being fought by the surviving BMP-II crews trying to stave off being overrun by a numerically superior enemy force.
Of course, that’s where we come in!
The platoon-commander thought as he brought up his comms mouthpiece and maneuvered the other three NAMICAs into position. His force of hour vehicles had been able to reload a new cache of ready-to-fire missiles after having successfully disengaged from the earlier battle.
He peered through his vehicle optics to see another BMP-II to his east taking serious number of cannon hits. Sparks were flying in all directions from that vehicle under the impacts before its engines died and it staggered to a halt.
The turret of the incapacitated vehicle flung open and two crew members staggered out, obviously hurt. No sooner had they stepped out that flames and smoke erupted from inside the turret hatch. They were jumping off the chassis and trying to make sense of the confused, smoke-filled battle situation around them when a Chinese ZBD gunner opened up with his vehicle’s cannon and a small cloud of red mist erupted around the two crew members as both men took hits from the heavy rounds. Their shattered and lifeless bodies fell into the snow.
The suddenness of the brutal attack caught the NAMICA crews off-guard. That surprise gave way to anger. The platoon-commander zoomed in on the guilty ZBD…
It was within range.
“Gunner! Tell me you have visual on that bastard!”
“I have visual! He’s mine!” the gunner replied.
“Take the fucking shot! Fire!”
As the vehicle shuddered, a Nag missile leapt from its canister and slashed across the skies, the platoon-commander switched frequencies:
“Fiery-One to Fiery Platoon! Engage! Engage! Take those bastards out!”
The vehicle shuddered again as a second missile punched out of the canister. By this time the first missile was already streaking at supersonic speeds towards the doomed ZBD. The Nag slammed into the weak top armor of the Chinese vehicle and the vehicle was completely shredded into a thousand pieces of shrapnel and debris under the impact.
There was no question of survivors.
Within seconds three other ZBDs suffered similar fates as the NAMICA platoon began ripping the remaining Chinese light-armor force to shreds…
EAST OF DAULAT-BEG-OLDI
DAY 2 + 1330 HRS
The Chinese armor force commander was acting as Adesara predicted. But predictions did him no good if there was not
hing he could do to stop the oncoming threat.
Adesara lowered his binoculars and realized that the Chinese commander had done the smart thing and pushed his surviving armored vehicles from the initial assault wave to the north once he had brutally lost most of the vehicles in his southern edge of the advance. It also meant that more pressure could be applied against each of the three Battalions under Adesara individually.
This Chinese commander’s first instinct had been the correct one and more importantly he had paid heed to it.
That made him dangerous to Adesara.
On the Indian side Adesara had no more armored vehicles left with him. Even the 10TH Mechanized Battalion’s advance elements had been mauled. The last line of defense behind this one was around the airstrip. The only defensive line after that was all the way to the south near Saser.
But that last location meant that everything north of it would fall into Chinese hands. This included the Karakoram pass, DBO and all of the surrounding plains. It was not something that Adesara and his Brigade staff had enjoyed simulating in the months past. And yet those simulations were now becoming reality…
With a thundering crack a Milan anti-tank missile slammed into the left side panels of a Chinese T-99 and blew of the track and the steel wheels into the air, causing the tank to a stop as smoke began pouring out of the driver’s hatch. The return fire from a second T-99 exploded mere meters away from the two Indian soldiers manning the missile launcher. The explosion ripped through the ground and showered them both with a pile of gravel and rocks. But they staggered away from it with bleeding wounds and covered in dust.
Hurt, but alive.
Adesara watched as other soldiers ran over to help their wounded colleagues while still under withering machinegun fire from two T-99s sniping at them from long-range. But then again, the Gorkhas were known for their indifference to fear. He saw the Gorkhas take the arms of the two wounded missile-gunners around their neck and help them away from the position. In doing so one Gorkha got hit and went face down into the snow and gravel ground, his blood pooling around his body.