by Vivek Ahuja
“What happened?”
He used his arm to point out the northern peaks beyond Lhuntse where the “battle” had occurred with units of the Highland Division. The Major’s face told that tale before he said a word:
“We were battered into the ground by Chinese artillery for an hour before their infantry began maneuvering around us. We were completely overwhelmed. All three companies of the battalion were overrun to the last man. The battalion command post was wiped out just as the battle began by Chinese rockets. We don’t know what happened to them. When the Chinese soldiers attacked, we inflicted some losses but it was difficult to tell. They outmaneuvered us using unmanned drone coverage above us. The enemy also airlifted some infantry using transport helicopters to peaks between Lhuntse and us. We were cut off. It was complete chaos afterwards and I ordered a general retreat. We managed to escape by going east into the hills and then south till we located Lhuntse,” the Major said.
“What about the others?” Toshum asked.
The Major shook his head:
“They are gone, sir. The last we heard were intermittent radio messages saying they were being overrun. There might be some men still out there…”
“God damn it!” Toshum turned away and walked a few feet. He looked back at the Major.
“So where’s the front now?”
Before the Major could answer, a few civilians came running down the road in panic. Toshum grabbed one of the farmers running by shouting that they had seen Chinese soldiers on the peaks some kilometers beyond the village. The Major completed his thoughts:
“There is no front, sir. This valley and Lhuntse are lost...”
YUMTHANG VALLEY
EASTERN SIKKIM
DAY 5 + 0820 HRS
The airlift of the Pinaka MBRL battery by the Mi-26s into the valley had taken the better part of a day to plan and execute. This was because there were just a handful of the powerful Mi-26 helicopters in the Indian arsenal. They also had to airlift much needed supplies and even a counter-battery radar section to assist the battery with targeting. The unit was currently deployed west of the peaks around Gora-La that separated Yumthang valley and the Chumbi-valley as a giant wall of stone. East of this wall, were the Chinese 55TH and 11TH Divisions and the Border Guard Regiments.
Tibet was still inaccessible by Indian air-force aircraft. Despite the air superiority established over the past five days against the PLAAF, the IAF was having a hard time disabling the Chinese S-300 batteries deployed near Lhasa. And despite the severe losses inflicted on the S-300 force in Tibet in the last few days, isolated batteries were still alive and could exert a dangerous presence over sections of Tibet.
Over the previous day of air-strikes, five Indian pilots had found this out the hard way. Four of those had not lived to fight another day.
But the Chumbi valley was far from Lhasa and outside the effective air-defense bubble. The lower-capability Chinese copies of the S-300 deployed in here had been knocked out quickly enough. And currently missions were being flown by Indian Mig-27s with relative impunity.
Losses were still being incurred on account of high volume of low-tech anti-air weapons. One Mig-27 had been lost early in the morning over the valley after having taken several direct hits from anti-air shells. But all in all, the transit of Chinese units in the valley over open roads was proving deadly under Indian controlled skies.
It was about to get worse.
The thin mountain air at these altitudes was particularly helpful for artillery systems since it helped increase their effective range by a decent margin. With the heavy 214mm Pinaka rocket system, it allowed increased options for the Divisional commander…
The morning serenity was rudely interrupted by the thunder and flash of rockets as several Pinaka rockets left their launchers and headed eastwards into the Chumbi-valley.
Operation Chimera had begun.
THE MALACCA STRAIT
DAY 5 + 0840 HRS
The rumbling noise and vibrations of the four turboprop engines were monotonous and tiring when exposed to it for hours on end. For the twelve-man Indian navy flight-crew on board the Il-38 anti-submarine-warfare and maritime-patrol aircraft flying over the waters of the Malacca strait, it was the fifth hour of the long patrol.
The aircraft was flying at a low enough altitude that the spotters inside were busy with their binoculars and other optics as they checked the few fishing vessels and other merchant ships still making their way through this passage. Most other commercial shipping had long since stopped transiting through this area.
With the morning sun up, it was hot, humid and sunny outside. The skies were clear blue and the waters below reflected the same. From this distance the small islands and the Malaysian coastline were mere green blurs on the horizon…
“We have inbounds!” The port spotter said over the intercom.
“Friendly?” the pilot asked as he peered outside cockpit glass.
“Neutral. Su-30s. RMAF markings,” the spotter said. He lowered his binoculars as the two new aircraft closed on them.
The two Malaysian Su-30MKMs flying in a tight formation flew by the lumbering Indian Il-38. Both sides managed to take a good look at each other…
“Okay, I have visual! Confirmed RMAF markings. Good call!”
“What are they doing?” the co-pilot asked.
“Maintaining situational awareness.”
“Two more visuals!” the starboard spotter said. “Long-range...single-engine high-altitude contrails to the west. Possible Indonesian F-16s!”
“It’s getting real crowded over here now,” the co-pilot said.
“Yeah, no kidding! Soon the Singapore jets will start piling in as well. We better call in additional support of our own!”
THE SOUTH CHINA SEA
DAY 5 + 0850 HRS
Two Su-27s finished refueling from the two escorting H-6U tankers and climbed away back to cruise altitude and speed. As they did, they left pairs of high-altitude white contrails against the bright blue sky. The H-6U tankers changed course and began flying back towards Hainan. They would be replaced with another pair of tankers when the two Su-27s returned from patrol over the Malacca Strait…
EAST OF THE LINE OF ACTUAL CONTROL
NORTHERN LADAKH
DAY 5 + 0930 HRS
One of the side-effects of moving further and further east beyond the LAC was made clear to Colonel Sudarshan and Brigadier Adesara after their requests for fixed-wing air-support was denied on account of presence of the PLAAF and the S-300s. Though their men were busy snatching the ground from the Chinese, the skies above were neutral at the moment.
Captain Kongara looked above to see the cloudy gray sky and put his worries aside given that there was not much they could do about it. He walked into the forward command post of the 10TH Mechanized Battalion and found Colonel Sudarshan in a foul mood.
“Where the hell is the 4TH Mechanized? They were supposed to be here an hour ago!” Sudarshan shouted into his radio set.
People from his staff were running around through the tents set up between several parked BMP-IIs and being used as the forward battalion headquarters. Kongara walked past the snow covered vehicles and realized that he was stepping on slushy-wet mud made by the vehicle tracks. He silently cursed as his feet sank into one such shallow hole.
And it wasn’t restricted to the men either.
The tracks on the BMPs were getting worn out because of this slush, the gravel and the hard rocky terrain. While the advancing elements moving east over fresh terrain were facing less of a problem, repeated back and forth movement on the same terrain was causing trouble. Several supply trucks had gotten bogged down this way in the last few hours.
And it was about to get more congested out here.
The 4TH Mechanized Battalion was also inbound to the sector and was near Saser at the moment. Behind them, the 3RD Mechanized Battalion was assembling east of Leh for their drive into the sector. Lieutenant-General Gupta had requested
for and been granted resources to turn the relatively minor spoiling attack by Brigadier Adesara into a major mechanized offensive by the reinforced Division into Chinese controlled Aksai Chin.
As things stood, the 10TH Mechanized Battalion had sliced across Chinese controlled sectors south of the Chip-Chap River and was placed to launch a hook maneuver to the north to drive into the Chinese left flank. Meanwhile the 4TH Mechanized, when they arrived, were supposed to be engaging the enemy in a free rolling advance into the Aksai chin in the general direction east by southeast, securing 10TH Mechanized Battalion’s right flanks by keeping the Chinese unbalanced.
In theory, at least…
Kongara reminded himself as he wiped his boots clean of the slushy mud. The tents were fluttering in the crisp cold winds. In the background he could hear the muffled thunder of falling artillery. Kongara looked around and then walked over to a colleague from the operations staff standing by the map table.
“Don’t even ask me how the advance is going, okay?” his friend said when he saw Kongara walking up. He then sighed, smiled and grabbed Kongara by the shoulders.
“Glad to see you are still alive, buddy boy!”
“And I see you haven’t drowned into the pool of slush you have going outside there!” Kongara shook his head towards the tent entrance. Then both men lost their smiles.
Time to get back to it…
“Trouble?” Kongara asked. His colleague grunted.
“You don’t know the half of it. The reconnaissance force ran into an advancing party of Chinese armor heading south about an hour ago. Four commie T-99s here...” he pointed on the map and continued: “Our boys lost three BMPs within seconds. The Nag missile vehicles further south nailed all four T-99s within minutes though.”
“How did they take us by surprise? I thought we had drones overhead!” Kongara exclaimed, running through his head on who might have been killed in those three BMPs…
“Snafu! The Divisional RPV assets were diverted by somebody at Division to look up further north or something. By the time they redeployed, it was all over.”
“Good god!” Kongara muttered. But both men understood that such things happened during wartime. Especially given the fog of war…
“They are not cooperating with our plans now, are they?” Kongara continued, referring to the red pins on the map in front of them.
“No they certainly are not!”
“So what’s the plan now?” Kongara asked.
“We will have to find another breach point around this hornet’s nest of T-99s here. Problem is, along this section of the water stream, you have hills on both sides that are unsuited for vehicles and this armor force is blocking the valley between them. If we can somehow punch through, we can cut off the two Chinese Brigades from the east. The Colonel thinks that the only way for us at the moment is a head on attack through the Chinese armor. What’s your readiness?”
“Good to go. When is the jump-off?” Kongara asked. His colleague looked at his watch and then back at Kongara.
“Within the hour. We are going to launch the 10TH Mechanized as a steel fist into the enemy. If we succeed, we could have this Chinese Division on its knees before sundown!”
THE MALACCA STRAIT
DAY 5 + 0940 HRS
“Approaching drop five in fifteen seconds! Standby!” the pilot confirmed to the ASW coordinator in the back.
“Drop in Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Drop!”
The aircraft slightly vibrated as yet another sonobuoy fell clear and into the waters below. The sonar operators noted the splash and then the sonobuoy went active. The ASW coordinator confirmed:
“Sonobuoy-Five is active!”
The ASW crew went back to analyzing the data streaming in from the newly deployed sonobuoy and began corroborating it with the information gathered previously; the flight crew up front pulled the Il-38 up and leveled out sufficiently high that fuel could be conserved.
The Malacca Strait is around seventy five kilometers in width on average, separating Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Singapore is to the south near the southern entry point and Myanmar and India are at the northern one.
Two Mig-29K naval air-defense fighters had departed the Andaman Islands to provide cover for the Il-38s patrolling the strait in search of Chinese submarine threats. A Singapore air-force G550 AEW aircraft had also been detected to the south by the Il-38s radar-warning-receivers.
This particular ASW aircraft had detected the two inbound Chinese Su-27s as the latter had finished their in-flight refueling operations over the South China Sea. The problem was that the Singaporeans could not very well pass that information to the Indians. Not yet, anyway. Singapore was sitting on the fence on this one until it became clear which side was winning the war in Tibet.
Nothing personal. Just geopolitics at work.
So for the moment the RSAF airborne radar operators watched in silence as the Su-27s approached the Malacca Strait from the south…
“Wait! Did you see that?!” one of the sonar operators said over the intercom to a colleague sitting on a similar console. The ASW officer took note and walked over.
“What do you have?”
“Brief sonar contact here…” the operator pointed on the digital map overlay. “Right at the edge of the range for S-5.”
“Check the SAR display for surface contacts!” the officer ordered.
“Checking...clear! No surface contacts in that sector.”
“Okay,” he brought his intercom mouthpiece close as he spoke.
“All right people, we have a possible submerged contact on bearing three-one-five. This could be what we are looking for. Prepare drops S-6 through S-10. Stand by on M-A-D!”
Moments later the cabin tilted slightly as the flight-crew up front adjusted heading towards the target and began their descent. They had to get low for the Magnetic Anomaly Detectors or MAD to be able to pick out the possible sub-surface contact clearly. Sonobuoy triangulation required careful drops which would also require the low altitudes.
Several minutes later the pilot confirmed their entry over the suspected target zone. By this time the sonar operators had already confirmed additional sonar contacts with the target and the MAD crews were on the job. The ASW coordinator authorized another sonobuoy drop. The pilot brought the aircraft low over the surface…
“Drop S-6 completed!” the pilot confirmed. This time the response from the sonar operators was immediate:
“Definite submerged contact below us commander! Bearing three-one-seven! Computer classification confirms Kilo class submarine! Designating contact as Zulu-seven. Triangulating on contact.”
“Prepare drop S-7 and S-8. Prepare for torpedo drop on target!”
The Il-38 and the Chinese Kilo class submarine were now locked in combat.
But the Chinese submarine was already trapped…
The Il-38 crew was flying in an arc as they dropped an additional two sonobuoys in order to get an exact fix. An airborne attacker could be active and still not be touched, but it could certainly touch its intended submerged target.
The Chinese crew on the other hand had few options. The waters of the strait meant that there were no local thermal layers to hide under. Depths were restricted. And this was the Indian navy’s back yard. Every inch of the ocean floors had been mapped over the waters for all MAD disruptions, sub-surface terrain variations and local variations in the saline content. So there were no surprises and high probability of intercept. The only hope for the Chinese crew was the hope that their air force would deliver on their intended promises…
“Buoys released!” the pilot said as the Il-38 banked away.
“S-7 is active! S-8 is active! We have detections on Zulu-seven. Positional fix achieved!” the senior sonar operator confirmed.
“Prepare for single torpedo drop when ready!” the ASW coordinator shouted over the intercom to the weapons-systems crew. The latter then spoke with the pilot:
“We are going for weapo
ns release over here. Bring us about.”
“Roger!”
The aircraft banked again and leveled out as the flight crew brought the aircraft on the required bearing and reduced speed.
“Torpedo ready! Drop in three! Two! One! Drop!”
This time the aircraft shuddered significantly as the large torpedo fell clear and splashed into the water. The sonar crew picked it up instantly.
“Torpedo in the water! Weapon is active and on target. Zulu-seven deploying countermeasures! Three so far! Weapon is running active, straight and normal. Impact in ten seconds!”
The pilot looked at his counter in the cockpit. The seconds ticked away quickly…
“Impact! We have impact! Multiple explosions registered on target. We can hear bulkheads collapsing! Zulu-seven is breaking up!”
The aircraft intercom was filled with raucous cheer as the Chinese submarine and its crew perished under the Malacca Strait.
“Okay people, get back to work. Scratch Zulu-seven off the board. Inform naval headquarters that we have made contact with and subsequently sunk a Chinese Kilo class submarine and then send them the location.”
Up front, the flight-crew had been congratulating each other when the RWRs on board the aircraft began screeching. The pilot confirmed the data:
“Oh shit! We are being painted by Flanker radars from the south!”
“Where are our escorts?” the flight-engineer shouted from behind. The pilot was already asking that same question up the command line:
“This is Sierra-One! We are being actively painted by Chinese Flankers from the south. We need immediate assistance! Where the hell are our boys?”
“Sierra-One, this is ANC-OPCON. Seahawk-Five and Six are inbound your location. ETA two minutes! Suggest you egress immediately!”
“Yeah! No shit!” the co-pilot said before turning to the pilot:
“Get us out of here!”
The crews onboard the few fishing vessels in the area noted the large turboprop Il-38 streaking by less than one-hundred feet off the surface as it headed north. Two Mig-29Ks flew past the lumbering Il-38 on their way south on full afterburner. They put themselves between the unarmed ASW aircraft and the inbound Su-27s from the south.