Chimera (35 page)

With the static positions destroyed, maneuver warfare now beaconed for the 10
TH
Mechanized Battalion and its sister units deploying into Ladakh.

Kongara jumped off his vehicle onto the gravel and picked up a mound of earth as it dawned upon him that they had just liberated a piece of land that had been under Chinese control for more than sixty years! As the sun began rising from the east and illuminated the very tips of the eastern faces of the Karakoram mountains, Kongara realized that it was a morning the likes his country had never seen before.

NORTHEAST BHUTAN

DAY 5 + 0730 HRS

The smoke was everywhere.

The village was on one of the last road heads in the sector after which there were only mud tracks and terrace-cultivated hills all the way to the northern border. But this village was no more. The Chinese long-range Smerch MBRL units had launched severe attacks an hour ago from beyond the border forty kilometers north and had practically razed the houses and huts to the ground…

The missing Chinese Division in south-central Tibet had finally been found the night before by Indian satellites. It was at the northern Tibet-Bhutan border. The Chinese Highland Division had moved south of the Karo-La in Tibet and had spread its regiments out along the Bhutanese border. Its intentions, as well as those of Beijing, had been made utterly clear: the invasion of Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.

The Royal Bhutanese Army had been deploying into northern Bhutan ever since. The RBA was moving everything it had along with some Indian support, but the elite Highland Division was far better equipped than anything the Bhutanese could throw at it.

And they make this so very clear to us…

Bhutanese Army Colonel Toshum thought as he stepped out of his jeep and walked past the line of trucks parked along the mountain road. Injured and panicked civilians were streaming and running back on the side of the road to the south.

He could see the smoldering ruins of the village. The dead and dying were everywhere and Bhutanese soldiers were rushing to administer first aid and urgent medical support. Toshum and his staff walked past the rows of burning houses until he came across an army Major, his face blackened by soot and grime. The Major and a few of his men were walking down the hills from the north. All showed the exhaustion of combat on their faces and most had sustained injuries.

The Major spotted Toshum and saluted. Toshum ordered his men to help the Major and the other survivors. A couple of minutes later he had retrieved his maps and walked over to the Major who was drinking water from a bottle. The younger soldier poured some on his face and wiped it with his grimy hands.

“The front is broken, sir,” he said finally.

“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 55
TH
and 11
TH
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 10
TH
Mechanized Battalion and found Colonel Sudarshan in a foul mood.

“
Where
the
hell
is the 4
TH
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 4
TH
Mechanized Battalion was also inbound to the sector and was near Saser at the moment. Behind them, the 3
RD
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 10
TH
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 4
TH
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 10
TH
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…