Chimera (42 page)

But Paru airport was the prize that Potgam wanted and he was currently making sure that he had it.    

Fernandez walked back to his AXE utility vehicle at the head of the convoy after finishing his talk with Potgam. He looked back to see a good eighteen plus heavy vehicles from his battery including the launchers, replenishment, radar and command vehicles all stacked up in a column.

A flight of three Dhruv helicopters and the one Lancer at the golf-course lifted into the air, flying low and fast. Fernandez got into the front side seat and took the radio from his radioman in the back seat as the driver revved up the engines.

“Hotel-Six-Actual to all Hotel-Six elements! Move out!”  

OVER SOUTHWESTERN BHUTAN

DAY 6 + 1355 HRS

The four Indian helicopters cleared Chele-La within minutes of take-off. The Lancer was the last in the group, trailing the three transport helicopters and looking for trouble to pop up.

In the Paru valley, the town was visible to the northwest along the axis of the valley. The airport concrete glistening in the afternoon sunlight was also visible to the east. The four helicopter crews dove down to a few meters altitude above the treetops as they headed for the airport.

Inside the three Dhruv helicopters, the small team of Indian paratroopers checked their weapons, equipment and comms. Most were covered with camouflage face-paint to merge into the heavy foliage of Bhutan…

“Hauler-Flight: thirty seconds!”

The army-aviation Major commanding the flight said over the intercom.  The airport was becoming larger and larger from the cockpit glass with the civilian terminal in clear view now. Hauler-Three broke formation as they approached the airport perimeter and headed for the hangers north from the terminal buildings and near the end of the runway.

Hauler-Two flared and lost the bulk of its forward velocity just inside the airport perimeter where the runway began. A few seconds later the helicopter touched down on the hard tarmac of the runway and the heavily armed paratroopers jumped out from the open sides.

“Hauler-Two is clear!”

The pilot said over the radio as the helicopter dusted off the runway.

Hauler-One flared directly on the roof of the main terminal building with some of the paratroopers heading straight for the control tower building. They burst into the main control room on the top of the tower to find it deserted. The Bhutanese controllers there had left their positions in panic. Same went for the main terminal building which, although deserted, was also ransacked. When the paratroopers moved to the main entrance they saw large number of people, most of them tourists and their families, waiting to find some transportation out of Bhutan. 

There was panic amongst the crowd as they saw the soldiers bursting out of the terminal building with heavy assault gear and camouflaged faces. The Indian commander did not bother trying to control the crowd since it was a wasted effort in his view.

Hauler-One came to hover a few dozen feet above the terminal building a few seconds later, and the Major piloting it also saw the panicking crowds from the air. The paratrooper team leader switched on his UHF comms as he looked up at Hauler-One hovering above:

“What do you want to do about this?” he asked the pilot.

“Heck if I know!” the Major replied. “I am calling warlord-central to see if they can arrange for these civvies to be taken away from here. The R-P-Vs should have seen these crowds during their recon. Why the hell nobody told us about them? This place was supposed to be deserted!”

The Para commander grunted.

“Yeah. The place has been ransacked. Control tower is still fully ops and so is the runway. Send that back to warlord as well. I am going to set up a perimeter around this place until the ground convoy catches up.”

Several seconds later the paratrooper Major was walking out of the terminal onto the tarmac and saw the three Dhruv helicopters flaring and touching down in unison. He ran up to Hauler-One’s cockpit as the loadmaster jumped out to secure the landing. The paratrooper waited for the aviation Major to remove his helmet while the Shakti turbines spooled down. Soon the only noise to be heard was that of the Lancer hovering to the northeast as the paratroopers fanned out. The Paratrooper Major walked over to his aviation counterpart.

“Let me guess: warlord wants us to evacuate the civvies out?”

“You bet! Indian citizens first. We are to take as many of them in this flight as we can to the southern border crossing into India and then head back to Haa-Dzong. I thought my pilots and I can lend a hand organizing the civvies,” the pilot replied.

“Thanks a bunch. My men are spread thin trying to secure this place. I can spare a few men to you to help out. Can you handle it?”

The Major nodded once again as they began walking back to the terminal. Then the Major abruptly turned and ran back to the cockpit. He returned with his personal INSAS Carbine. A sidearm would not do if they got shot down behind enemy lines. The Para-CO smiled seeing the weapon in the pilot’s hands:

“Never forget your weapon! Don’t they teach you fly-boys anything before they send you off to war?” he chuckled.

“Hey man, I just flew you over here at a hundred-fifty clicks-an-hour brushing the trees. You want to spare me the attitude?” the Major said as they both walked back to the terminal.

On the other side, the crowd had figured out that the soldiers were Indians and were now jostling to get in and get ahead in line to leave Bhutan. The aviation Major and the Para-CO watched from inside the glass entrance door.  

“We only have about thirty minutes to organize and take those who we can, out of here. Warlord does not want to spend a second more than he has to dealing with civvies,” the pilot said.

“When do the first convoys get here?”

“Within the hour. First Mi-26 lands here in about forty minutes with more paratroopers to secure the airport. The air-force has deployed some air-cover above us. That should keep you guys safe,” the pilot added.

OVER BHUTAN

DAY 6 + 1450 HRS

The Chinese satellite went over Bhutan, taking high definition imagery of everything that was happening in the small Himalayan kingdom. One of several areas heavily focused on by the satellite included Thimpu, Paru and Haa-Dzong. When those images processed in Beijing and given to Colonel-General Wencang by the PLA commander, a call went from his office to Lieutenant-General Chen at Kashgar…

PARU AIRPORT

BHUTAN

DAY 6 + 1530 HRS

The Mi-26 is a heavy lifting helicopter. But it lifts even more when it pretends as if it were a transport aircraft. When it makes a rolling lift-off as opposed to a hover, it can carry a heavier payload. Only the American CH-53 helicopter comes close, and even that isn’t very close at all…

The runway at Paru was very crucial to Lieutenant-General Potgam and Joint-Force-Bhutan as a logistical heart. Bhutan is critically short of flat terrain suited for use as helipads or airstrips. Getting stuff into Bhutan by air was a nightmare. Thimpu had some helipads and to the east near Lhuntse, where Major-General Dhillon was assessing and stabilizing the battered RBA, there were a couple of landing areas to be had. But Paru had a fully functioning airport with a concrete runway and hangers.

And it was valuable as hell right now.

It was also to be his AFARP for Fernandez and the Hotel-Six battery. Haa-Dzong would continue to be JFB command center, since it was already set up for handling this task and also because it had its own secure operations center.

The other major problem was firepower. Potgam only had small paratrooper and special-forces detachments at the moment, not counting Fernandez and his unit or the Searcher-II UAV squadron. He had already deployed most of these units on various critical missions such as reconnaissance and protection of assets.

The ten-man special-forces team under Captain Pathanya was already deployed north of Thimpu overlooking the approaches into the city. The other detachment of paratroopers was now at Paru airport, defending the weak perimeter from Chinese special-forces teams also known to be operating in Bhutan right now. In fact, Haa-Dzong was vulnerable as well with only the handful of remaining paratroopers deployed around the golf-course. He desperately needed more men on the ground…

“Heavy-Hauler-One is inbound on finals!”

Squadron-Leader Saxena lowered his binoculars and walked out on the ledge of the control tower. His other two colleagues from the air-force forward-air-control team were manning the radios and other equipment inside. Three An-32s were already approaching from Baghdogra airbase, ferrying more Paras.

“Roger that!” Saxena said as he spotted the heavy bird approaching from the east.

He turned around and saw the two-man sniper team lying prone on their stomach on the roof of the tower. They had set up their long-barrelled Dragunov sniper rifles and were aiming north, past the runway perimeter. They were expecting danger, and that made Saxena concerned. He was not exactly trained to fight off a Chinese special-forces team. He looked at his own Tavor assault-rifle lying on top of the equipment dashboards inside.

“You
really
ought to see this. Not too many sights like this around!” he shouted to the two snipers on the roof above. They didn’t look away from their scopes but the observer dismissed the offer.

“What’s the big deal, sir? We jump out of perfectly good airplanes for no reason on a daily basis! I
think
we have seen our fair share of these birds.”

“Yeah? Well watch 
this
!” Saxena said just as the Mi-26 descended on a rolling approach past the control tower.

The massive blades and the huge downwash swept up a massive dirt and dead grass maelstrom slashing through the tower building. It was enough to make Saxena hold on the rails and had the two snipers grasping the digital camo blankets they had laid over themselves. The Mi-26 thumped down on the runway and its engines groaned as the pilots struggled to slow it down.

“
Oh shit
! What the hell was that!” the sniper shouted as both men attempted to grasp what had happened. Saxena and his colleagues were laughing at their expense. A few seconds later Saxena responded:

“
That
, my friend, was air-force power! Get used to it:  there’s going to be a lot more in the next few hours!”  

“Heavy-Hauler-Two is inbound in fifteen minutes. Baghdogra birds have entered Bhutanese airspace. ETA imminent!” Saxena’ intercom squawked just as the Mi-26 rolled on to the tarmac nearby. Saxena walked over to the other side of the tower ledge to see more clearly. Paru was a small airport, and when there was a massive Mi-26 parked on its main tarmac, it occupied a large part of it. The three Dhruv helicopters had flown off earlier with three dozen civilians to the Indian border. After that they had returned to Haa-Dzong. All smaller and mid-sized helicopters would continue to operate from that austere facility so that the tarmac at Paru was open to the larger helicopters and the fixed wing aircraft. But the space was still small and not enough to sustain a large influx of aircraft at any given time. Saxena and his team knew this just by a quick glance of the airport facilities… 

“We need to get these birds moving in and out quickly,” Saxena noted over the intercom as the Paratroopers began offloading from the Mi-26 below. “Otherwise we are going to end up choking ourselves logistically. Call up warlord and ask if he will allow us to bring more air-force personnel for these operations.”

“He’s not going to like that, sir,” his colleague inside the tower replied. “You know he wants us to bring in only the bare minimum IAF crews on his supply flights.”

Saxena sighed.

“No choice! Tell him either they allow us to bring in more men to offload these birds or his men will have to wait longer while we slow down the inbound flights. That’s
his
call! Paru is already getting choked and it’s only going to get worse from here on…”        

PARU

BHUTAN

DAY 6 + 1545 HRS

Fernandez had never seen a Mi-26 making such a scary landing either. And his men were still choking from the dust cloud that the beast had created as it had flown overhead a few minutes earlier. He turned around in the front-seat of his AXE utility vehicle to see the rest of the convoy parked on the road behind. The men were taking a break while he conferred with his officers.

Hotel-Six had been designated by General Potgam for deployment near Paru. The reasons were numerous. But mainly it would reduce the logistical strain if it was close to Paru. Along with the airport, it was also on one of the two roads coming up from the Indian border. One of these went to Thimpu, bypassing Paru to the west. The other road came to Paru. These roads were the lifeline to Bhutan’s survival right now. It was
the
supply route over which he would get the rockets for his hungry Pinaka launchers. Stuff like that was always more efficiently brought in by ground.

But the location was far from ideal for a MBRL deployment. The only flat area in the valley had been taken up by the airport. He had a couple of good locations near the perimeter where he could deploy, but with inbound flights coming in every other minute, he could not afford to be launching rocket salvos through the same airspace. It was just far too dangerous. A dozen other locations
were
available, but were too small for the entire unit to deploy…

As his officers walked up to him, he opened up the paper map and spread it out on the hood of his vehicle. He looking around to see all of his officers assembled and then gestured to the mountains:

“Not good, gentlemen! Not good! Can’t see one location worth a damn for us to deploy on. Options?”

“Sir, we could go into autonomous mode,” his second-in-command suggested. “There’s enough locations within this valley for that.”

Fernandez shook his head in dismissal.

“Can’t do that. You see this valley around you? It’s thoroughly populated with Bhutanese civilians. If we start conducting shoot-and-scoot operations around here, and the Chinese start bombarding this place because of it, the civvies are going to get hit heavy!”

“So we get them out! Order an evacuation perhaps?” the Major said.

“And that will choke up our one single M-S-R with columns of refugees,” Fernandez responded. He had already considered these options himself. But he liked an open discussion between his officers. From time to time they would feed him ideas that he might never have come up with otherwise. But time for discussion right now was short…

“All right gentlemen. Here’s what we will do. There is this location north of Paru that is reached by this road,” he pointed to the road crossing in front of them. “This moves west and then north into this valley. That would put us roughly north of the town and southwest of Thimpu. Questions?”

As his officers leaned over to see the map location where he had jabbed his finger, they shared silent looks. Fernandez caught on to it.

“
What?
” he thundered. The Major looked around and spoke for the group:

“Sir, that location is pretty exposed out there. We…um…we don’t know if it’s secure or not at this time.”

“Warlord had one of his RPVs recon the area an hour ago,” Fernandez replied as he pulled out a new cigar and put it in his mouth without lighting it. “It’s a good spot. Granted that it’s vulnerable, but warlord has promised paratroopers once they have been flown in. They will provide security for our perimeter. It’s good enough out of Paru town so that the civvies are in no danger, and close enough to the airport and connected by road to provide decent logistics.”

Fernandez looked around. His men weren’t very convinced.

“Boys, I know that location looks pretty hairy, but it’s the only good option and all of you know it too. Damn it, this is
war!
Don’t expect all our options to be safe and cautious. When it starts raining steel, and mark my words, it
will
rain soon enough, it’s better that these civvies are as far away from us as possible. We cannot sacrifice them on
our
account! Check your vehicles and your men. We are moving out in five!”

WUGONG AIRBASE

CENTRAL CHINA

DAY 6 + 1630 HRS

The airbase was on fully active. The reverberating sounds of turbofan engines coming to life filled the air. Ground-crews were hurriedly readying the brand new Xian H-6Ks of the 36
TH
Bomber Division. Other elements of the strike mission were already taxiing towards the runway. 

Wugong airbase was secure by virtue of its location deep inside mainland China. It made sense to base the H-6 force there on account of the aircraft’s ability to reach numerous possible hostile countries utilizing its long combat radius. At the moment Wugong was part of the unified Lanzhou-Chengdu MRAF and under control of Lieutenant-General Chen.

The first aircraft to take to the air were a pair of Su-30MKKs and they took off in a paired formation on the wide runway built for the much larger H-6s. Following behind them, an H-6U tanker rolled on to the runway and turned to align itself as the two Su-30s became airborne.

This particular aircraft was to follow the two escort Su-30s as a refueling aircraft for the long flight. The overall distance to be travelled was more than twenty-five-hundred kilometers. The Su-30s were heavily armed for air-to-air missions and carrying only internal fuel. One refueling from the H-6U on the ingress route and another during egress would provide them the endurance they needed to cover the strike force bombers.

The bomber force was made up with six H-6Ks loaded with six under-wing pylon mounted YJ-62 missiles each. These missiles had been modified from the baseline anti-ship variant to allow targeting of land targets and had an effective range of around three-hundred kilometers. The problem today was the same as it had been one week ago when the PLAAF had struck Indian targets with cruise-missiles on the opening night of the war. They had no missiles apart from the CJ-10 Long-Swords that were truly long-range and the Long-Swords were not under PLAAF control at the moment. Their limited numbers put them solely in the strategic role under Colonel-General Liu of the 2
ND
Artillery Corps. And even then, the missiles were not ready for air-launch use.

This made the PLAAF utterly dependent on missiles like the YJ-62. The limited range of this type made it useful only for tactical targets and not deep penetration. The warhead was lighter than required and the guidance less than accurate, meaning it ended up flying more or less in a straight line to the target. That made it predictable and vulnerable to Indian defenses.

But there was really no choice on the matter. With the PLAAF forced to be on the defensive, flying over the targets by fighting through swarms of superior Indian air-defense fighters was not an option anymore. But exceptions did apply. Especially when Indian defenses in a particular sector were light… 

When the six bombers had assembled in the skies above Wugong a half-hour later, the formation headed southwest. It was preceded by the two escort Su-30s now meeting up with their tanker over Qinghai.

SHYOK

LADAKH

DAY 6 + 1700 HRS

“Oh, this ought to be interesting!”

Major-General Mohanty noted as he stepped outside of his command trailer along with the operations officer for the 3
RD
Infantry Division.

Both men stepped off the entrance and onto the gravel and walked towards the line of freshly painted tanks parked along the supply route from Leh. The fading sunlight glistened on the new winter camouflage paint on the tanks.

Well. Half hour of combat will change that!

Mohanty saw a Major from the lead tank jump off the turret and run over to meet the two senior officers. He snapped off a salute, which Mohanty returned. He shook hands with the young man as he spoke:

“Major Kulkarni. I see you managed to get your unit here in good order,”

“Thank you sir! 43
RD
Armored reporting for combat!” Kulkarni responded proudly. Mohanty smiled at that, and then became serious:

“Kulkarni, 43
RD
Armored is now part of the 3
RD
Infantry A-O. Get your unit to DBO via Saser and report to Colonel Sudarshan, who is in charge of all mechanized-infantry and armor operations in that sector. He can use all the help he can get. The Chinese have one of my Brigades under Brigadier Adesara by the balls over there. He’s giving them hell, and getting some in return. Sudarshan and his Mechanized infantry battalions are getting chewed out by Chinese tanks as he is trying to advance into Chinese held territory. Let’s see if 43
RD
Armored can change the odds in his favor somewhat. We will coordinate ASC support for your unit from here when your C-O gets here with the main bulk of the regiment. Understood?”