Bharat Rakshak

I think to put some thoughts of my own on this matter, let me just say that the original idea for the scenario was to make the scenario a fictional one, but not the weapons and tactics involved. In other words, I wanted to ground the scenario in the realities of the present and the very near future in order to focus on the battles themselves.

At the same time I did not want to name a specific year for the event, leaving some flexibility for the writing development as far as the background etc is concerned. As a lot of you have already guessed with regard to statements within the scenario on the availability of specific weapon systems and their numbers involved, this scenario is based somewhere within the 2014 time-frame.

Hence the Arihant is out but not the sister ships. The Rafale is not around. The LCA is still in production, the LCH test group was forced into combat with its available 4 helicopters being split up, the Brahmos ALCM has just entered service, the Arjun tanks are in service and the P-8I has just started service in single ship numbers. The Mi-26 is still around and the Chinook hasn't arrived in numbers yet. C-130Js are around and have been used in the scenario. The list goes on.

Similarly, on the Chinese side, the J-20 and J-31 are nowhere to be seen. The numbers of J-10 units is still low (hence the usage of the J-8II units by Chinese commanders), the Chinese ASAT capabilities are rudimentary at best and so is their submarine deterrant capabilities. The Varyag carrier is still combat ineffective and their blue-ocean capability is small compared to the IN.

I simply did not want to go into a situation where I am dealing with both new weapon systems when I have no clue about what units will use them, their deployment numbers and so on. And if I start making that stuff up, the whole scenario becomes fanciful. This is of course not to say that a futuristic (2020+) scenario has not crossed my mind! Spoiler Alert: once this scenario ends this year (and we get this thing published and out on amazon or something for you guys), 2013 will start with a fresh scenario which I will be basing on a 2020+ timeline. I am working on its outlines at the moment.

Regards

-Vivek

The airbase is more than the runway and tarmac areas. There are fuel dispersal areas to consider, weapon storage areas, ground-crew infrastructure and most important of all, the men manning these systems to support combat operations. If a missile strike kills a good portion of the men manning the airbase or destroy the infrastructure, the combat effectiveness is dramatically reduced. And its not easy to replace men, fuel and weapons dispositions as it is to fill bomb craters. Our forward airfields like Thoise are not hardened in the way NATO airfields were in west Germany during the cold war. Leh is comparatively better hardened and is capable of taking some punishment and is shown as such in the scenario. So it varies airbase to airbase.

Vivek,
Great to see you posting again! I have two questions about the scenario. First, I was surprised that you haven't mentioned India's Harop drones. The Harop has a range of 1000 km and is specifically designed for SEAD. India announced the purchase back in 2009. I think the Harop's would be used before the BrahMos's in an SEAD role. After all, the BrahMos's can be used for other things, and as you said, India won't have many by 2014.

Second, I was surprised that you have the Arihant going on deterrent patrol with the K4. The projected induction date for the K4 is 2017, but I'm skeptical about that. I would be skeptical about the K15 being ready for a deterrence role in 2014, but at least that's within the realm of possibility for me.

Don't waste a lot of time on a response: please keep writing! I'm really enjoying your work.

if we look at google earth, for merely a transport command base , jorhat base is relatively very big and I believe could as-is accomodate a fighter sqdn with some new hardened shelters and housing.
the dibrugarh civil airport, which is mohanbari also seems to be a Mi17 heli base. its relatively small. chabua seems 10km as crow flies , and a much bigger affair. imo mohanbari can be developed as a second forward airfield for large craft like tankers and AWACS there...by expanding the apron and parking areas.

Singha saar, you must have been to Guwahati airport many times. How much space does the IAF occupy there? I was wondering if, with limited expansion, it could house an MKI squadron. Tezpur and chabua already have 1 MKI squadron each. Jorhat can have one as well if the facilities are improved. Like you said, it seems to be big enough. Then there is Silchar in the south as well, but from Google maps at least it doesn't seem to be large enough.

the IAF side of guwahati airport is mainly used for Mi17 ops now and in the past had some HS748/fairchild packet type ops. it was never a fighter base hence in google earth you see a limited number of revetments and none of the huge chains of dispersed parking areas typical of a fighter base.
the land behind the IAF side is rice fields and could be expanded to setup a chain of HAS/revetments
but the IAF side itself could get a much bigger apron for the flight line ops, tankers , transports needed to support a fighter sqdn.
the IAF already has a township near the airport which can again be easily expanded.

in location it is ideal to close the gap between bagdogra-hashirama on the left and tezpur-jorhat-chabua on the right. it can equally support air ops over sikkim, bhutan and arunachal.

DAY 7 + 2200 HRS (L)

AIRSPACE OVER THE TAKLIMAKAN DESERT
HUNDRED KILOMETERS NORTH OF HOTIEN AIRBASE
TIBET

For the first time in this war, the order came down for the crew of the Chinese KJ-2000 airborne radar aircraft to shut down its radar and to leave its patrol area. The sixteen Indian Su-30s had gone supersonic just over the Aksai Chin and were now charging northwards towards this aircraft and its crew. In response, Lt-General Chen had just ordered all available Chinese fighters in the area to respond. And time was of the essence when you consider that the Indian fighters were now travelling one kilometer every two seconds towards their target; and they only needed to get as close as the successful envelope range for their air-to-air missiles against a retreating target…

The pilots of the Chinese AWACS heard the commands from the operations center at Kashgar directed via the 26TH Air Division’s comms and immediately realized the severity of the situation. The pilot, a Lt-Colonel of the PLAAF, immediately muttered a silent curse and began disabling the autopilot as his right hand went over the throttle controls of the four turbojet engines and pushed them to maximum settings. The aircraft reverberated under the sudden strain of the thrust and the mission crew in the back were switching off their comms and fastening their seatbelts. They were hearing the dramatic calls from the cockpit over the R/T as the pilots brought the massive aircraft into a turn and banked to the west: the first part of a sweep to bring them back to a northerly escape vector back to Korla airbase, about six hundred kilometers to the northeast of their present location. As the aircraft banked away, the six J-11s on close escort left the aircraft and went full afterburner to meet the Indian threat head on and buy some time for their precious AWACS to escape. However, with the loss of their airborne radar coverage, and with Indian fighters over Tibet now out of the coverage being provided by the Pakistani Karakoram Eagle AEW&C aircraft over Gilgit, the J-11 pilots were forced to go active on their radars just around the same time as the Indian aircraft did the same. The latter were also out of their coverage areas. Both sets of fighters were now converging on each other with active radars.

For the Indian side, the 50TH Squadron Phalcon crew had no intentions of going behind the SU-30s over Tibetan airspace. It was far too dangerous for the rewards it merited. No. The Su-30 drivers were on their own from now on until they were back on the return trip of their mission. At Kashgar, Colonel Feng understood exactly what the Indian fighters were after and he had no intention of giving it over without a fight. He picked up the phone and immediately ordered the scramble of the available J-8II fighters of the 17TH Air Regiment on ORP status at Kashgar and also ordered Major Li to get the 19TH Division to scramble all available J-11 detachments at Urumqi airbase north of Korla that had already arrived in theater. He also ordered the release of operational control on those fighters from the Ops center at the 19TH Division HQ over to his command at Kashgar. These fighters, although too far north and too far away to join the immediate fight, would instead move south and bring the retreating AWACS bird under cover and escort them back to the landing pattern at Korla. He also ordered the ingress of more H-6 tankers from Wulumuqi airbase north of the Urumqi fighter base to refuel the inevitable fuel-hungry fighters over the frozen plains of the Taklimakan desert…

Klaxons sounded off at all concerned Chinese airbases in short order. The first to respond was the 17TH Air Regiment pilots already in the cockpits of their J-8IIs on the tarmac at Kashgar. They were airborne in under a minute as the rest of the Regiment squadrons had ground-crews scrambling in all directions to get the rest of the aircraft in the air…

Back near Hotien, the Indian Su-30 detachment commander ordered his two force groups to further separate along the east-west axis, while maintaining their line abreast formation to the north, directly at the incoming flight of six J-11s. He had every intention of forcing the Chinese flight commander to make his choice: engage the eastern group of eight Indian flankers or the western group, or both if we decided to split his own force. Either way, six Chinese Su-27 knockoffs against sixteen Indian Su-30MKIs was by no means a fair fight. And the Indian commander didn’t really have to try any fancy tactics with this fight: even if he charged his force straight in, chances were that the battle would be over in under a couple of minutes. The problem was not this force of six Su27s, however. The Indian commanders who had planned Operation PIVOT-STRIKE were under no illusions about the Chinese response. They knew that pretty much every TAR airbase as well as surrounding airbases would be scrambling every available fighter to prevent the Indians from taking down their handful of AWACS aircraft, without which the air war was hopelessly lost for the Chinese.

And so the Indian Su-30 leader split his force and watched as the two groups of eight Indian fighters split further and further away from each other, one force most west of Hotien and the other to east of Hotien as both forces streaked across that isolated town below. It was a tense few moments but the Chinese response came soon after: the Chinese flight leader had split his force into two groups of three. He had essentially decided to fight a delaying action, holding off the two Indian fighter groups until the reinforcements from the west at Kashgar and from the north at Urunqi caught up with him. He was not alone in this assessment: Colonel Feng had personally ordered them to take this course. He knew what the stakes were at this point in the war…

A few seconds later the RWRs on both sides screeched to indicate the release of weapons: the Chinese were launching the PJ-12 missiles and the Indians had let loose a barrage of R-77s, two per aircraft. There was no hope for the six Chinese Su-27s against thirty-two radar guided missiles from sixteen launch platforms over the relatively flat plains of the frozen desert below. There was no place to run and nothing to hide behind. They did the only alternative available: all six Chinese pilots flipped their Su-27s to the side and punched out load after load of chaff and even flares in desperation as their NV optics spotted the trails of the barrage of R-77s crisscrossing the entire horizon in front of them like a spider web against the greenish hell-scape behind.

There was little hope of survival: five Su-27s were blotted out in jarring metal on metal screeching noises followed by loud whumps as salvo after salvo of R-77 continued to slam into the disintegrating airframes. At least a dozen missiles veered off course into the night sky, chasing imaginary chaff targets. Others continued to find targets within the ball of fires going into the frozen plains below trailing columns of smoke hundreds of meters behind them…

On the Indian side the Indian pilots were very clearly briefed about this. All fighters that were seeing the incoming Chinese missiles heading for them were ordered to break formation and evade. Others were to punch afterburners and accelerate beyond this battlefield in order to chase down their primary target. As far as the inbound missiles were concerned, there were a lot of them. The Chinese pilots had fired multiple salvos from each aircraft at a different Indian fighter in their hopes of taking down at least a few, if not more. Of the sixteen Indian Sukhois, eleven broke formation and dived for the ground, releasing chaff and activating onboard ECMs as they headed for the snow covered desert below on full afterburner. Of the remaining five fighters, two broke formation and flipped to their sides and dived after the sole remaining Chinese Su-27 diving and attempting an escape to the northeast towards Korla. The remaining three Indian Su-30s punched afterburners and went supersonic yet again as they spotted the receding radar signature of the escaping Chinese KJ-2000 on the edge of their radar coverage…

On board the KJ-2000, the Lt-Colonel in command of the air-crew had taken over the controls and was now lowering his altitude as much as he dared; his hands sweaty now. His co-pilot, another Lt-Colonel, was pressing his R/T mouthpiece closer to his mouth with his left hand even as he pushed himself to look around the sides of the cockpit glass to see any incoming threats. He was in direct contact with the commander of the flight of nine J-11s from the 19TH Fighter Division that had scrambled from Urumqi airbase and were now converging on their position. The incoming fighters were variously armed, as they had just arrived in theater and had not even been properly briefed about the combat operations in the AO and the desperate situation of the air-war over Tibet. The commander of the 26TH Air Division, currently deployed at Korla airbase, under whom the 76TH Airborne Command and Control Regiment was attached, was already shouting for support from Colonel Feng’s group for support and was in turn directed by Feng to launch the sole KJ-200 turboprop AEW aircraft with its beam-radar mount from Korla so that the incoming eleven J-11s from Urumqi were not flying blind into a deadly combat zone between Hotien and Korla.

A minute later the mission crew of this aircraft was scrambling towards their parked aircraft even as the pilots switched the turbo-prop engines on emergency start on the ground. The crews were tired and had not been expecting to be in the air until the KJ-2000 crew had returned after a few hours, when they would exchange patrol places on rotation. Even so, as the first propeller started spinning on the ground and the pilots began switching on their helmet mounted NV goggles, five J-7s parked alongside the KJ-200 as point-defense fighters for Korla, were also rolling out one behind the other. Korla was not a military base in the sense that it did not have the kind of hardening and revetments required for major combat operations. So deep inside China, it was not expected to ever have to face such a threat either. And so there was confusion on the ground as officers and men of the 26TH Air Division attempted to figure out the best defense of their precious equipment strewn about on an open tarmac with no cover…

Back over the skies of the Taklimakan desert, the three Su-30s had closed enough with the lumbering IL-76 aircraft that they now fired off one R-77 per aircraft, all of whom were targeted on the Chinese AWACS. The RWR on board the aircraft lit up immediately with warning indicators of inbound missiles and the Lt-Colonel piloting the aircraft banked the massive IL-76 to the side and attempted to dive: not easy for an aircraft the size of the IL-76. Least of all, there was little power to spare. The Chinese IL-76 based AWACS was underpowered compared to its Indian equivalent with uprated engines. At such altitudes, the power margin was even lower and the AGL very low for attempting such moves. But there was no choice. He ordered the co-pilot to release all chaff stores on board as well as flares and went live over the R/T shouting that his aircraft had been engaged by enemy fighters and desperately asking for the incoming J-11s status.

But his time had run out…

The first R-77 slammed into the port wing just between the two engines and the jarring explosion ripped through the wing, shredding the fuselage below with thousands of shrapnel pieces that peppered the side of the fuselage and killed or wounded majority of the radar crew members inside. The Lt-Colonel and his flight crew were thrown forward in their seats as the explosion whipped the massive aircraft across the sky. His controls were wretched from him by the suddenness of the event. By the time he came through a second later, all warning lights and alarms were screeching inside the cockpit as his co-pilot attempted to pull back the controls and eject the aircraft from its shallow dive below. The pilot looked back and saw the flight engineer on the flight deck in a pool of blood from some shrapnel round and saw that the fuselage had decompressed in the explosion. He did not get a chance to see beyond that as the aircraft shuddered again, this time the second R-77 had hit the aft side of the T-shaped horizontal stabilizer of the aircraft and the top section of that now fell away from the aircraft. By now the aircraft structures had buckled and failed and the pilot watched in horror as the cavernous interior of the IL-76 behind him flexed and bent and then shredded into pieces and fell off into the black skies behind amidst towers of fire. He turned forward as his co-pilot shouted and he had enough time only to see the rapid approaching frozen ground in the cockpit glass below before it ripped through the cockpit…

***********

…The three Indian Su-30s instantly banked in three different directions, dropped chaff all over the skies and switched afterburner yet again as they screeched southwards back to Hotien just after having seen the massive radar signature of the IL-76 disappear into a thousand small ones before the onboard system software filtered it out. One hundred fifty kilometers behind them and closing, the nine J-11s and three J-7s from Korla were closing fast. But there was no time to stay around and engage. All Indian Su-30s would soon be running low on fuel and weapons and the skies around them were literally filling up with Chinese fighters. Sixteen J-8IIs were now airborne from Kashgar, pretty much the entire surviving force available with the 17TH Air Regiment. Nine J-11s from Urumqi and three J-7s were all closing on Hotien from all azimuth directions.

As the three Indian crews screeched over where they had entangled with the Chinese Su-27s, they were joined by the surviving force of Su-30s as they all reformed over Hotien. Three Su-30s had been lost to the Chinese air-to-air missiles and another had been damaged. The damaged aircraft had not stuck around: it had been dispatched south with another Su-30 as escort all the way into Indian airspace beyond the Aksai Chin, where four Mirage-2000s were now patrolling on BARCAP tasking. The remaining force of eleven Su-30s formed up over Hotien and headed south under specific orders from Air Marshal Bhosale at Zeus Ops center in Udhampur. He had told the Su-30 commander in no uncertain terms that his desire to dominate the skies over Hotien would have to wait. As the Su-30 force headed south, two IL-78 tankers orbited over Leh to tank up the fuel hungry aircraft.

The Phalcon AWACS, Eagle-Eye-One, confirmed that that the Chinese airborne coverage was now down over most of western Tibet barring the single KJ-200 whose long wavelength signatures had just become visible over the horizon. It was as yet too far away to be a contributor to the next phase of Operation PIVOT-STRIKE. Bhosale picked up his phone and gave the commands.

Phase-II Go was now passed to another set of birds waiting for just this piece of news…

dammit, meteor on su30 would have permitted a safer shot from 50km more distance.

DAY 7 + 2220 HRS (L)

AIRSPACE OVER SHYOK
LADAKH
INDIA

The second strike force of eight Jaguars from the IAF Tuskers Squadron, pretty much their entire availability of aircraft after so many days of continuous ground strike missions and associated attritions, dove for the deck just above the peaks as they headed north towards Karakoram Mountains. As they headed over the battlefields of Daulat Beg Oldi, now littered with hundreds of burnt out and still burning armored vehicles from both sides, they took intermittent gunfire from the ground. The pilots could make out the intensive main gun fire between several Arjun tanks and some Chinese T-99s coming into the sector from the Qara-Tagh La. Balls of fire were still rising into the sky and people were still dying, but this sector had lost all steam and both sides were desperately holding on to the tactical gains made by either side.

While completely ineffective against such a group of fast moving aircraft darting across the valley in quick order, the gunfire and tracers from unguided Chinese anti-air artillery lit up the night sky east of the LAC with lines of line heading into the night sky. The Jaguar pilots had lost many aircraft over the same battlefields of Ladakh over the last few days and were no strangers to this gunfire. Each of them was now a battered veteran when it came to deft flying within the peaks in their struggle to stay alive day after day for the last week of the war. This time, however, they streaked above the valleys and continued heading north…

Tonight the Tuskers were doing what they did best: deep penetration strike. They crossed over the Karakoram peaks and the two groups of four aircraft, one behind the other, banked in unison to the west, passing between the Shaksgam Valley to their south and the Togras Kangri peaks to the north. They were technically within the range of the airborne radar coverage of the PAF Karakoram Eagle aircraft over Gilgit, but flying below the peak altitudes in the region meant that there was a very low probability of detection from the Pakistani, and by extension Chinese, radar. From where they were, they could now see the K2 peaks to the south as a massive black silhouette jutting into the greenish night sky.

That was their visual waypoint confirmation to what the MFDs were showing them within the cockpits. The two groups of Jaguars now turned north, leaving the K2 and other nearby peaks into their rear. Each group of four aircraft had one twin-seat version of the Jaguar where the WSO was ensuring ISR with friendly forces to the east and south-east. To be sure, where they were right now, they were totally alone and completely out of friendly support. But their whole survival plan depended on other friendly forces in similar position deep inside Chinese airspace. One such group had taken down the one Chinese airborne radar aircraft and its associated compliment of heavy fighters. This had cleared the way for the Tuskers to breach Chinese airspace undetected. Now the second phase of the plan depended on clearing their target area from all enemy fighter coverage. This part would be tricky and would cost Indian lives. There was no question of that. Each of the Tuskers knew the importance of hitting their targets: its availability to them was being paid for in blood.

It was now very clear to the pilots that they were leaving the Himalayas behind them to the south. The strike force went lower in altitude in order to maintain their cover. Their target was now two hundred kilometers away…

*********

“…Eagle-Eye-One to Pursoot-Leader. Reacquire and Engage Red-Force heading east from Target-Kilo-Primary,” the R/T squawked inside the cockpit of the eleven Su-30s now heading over the Aksai Chin on their way south. The Pursoots commander smiled within his oxygen mask and passed the word:
“Wilco! Pursoot-Leader to the Pursoots: Follow me!”

He flipped his massive beast of the Su-30 to its side and pulled away to the west as it dived, followed by all other ten fighters in his group. As they pulled from the dive and leveled out, they spread out and changed from a loose stagger to a line-abreast formation lined up and facing northwest towards the inbound sixteen J-8IIs of the PLAAF 17TH Air Regiment from Kashgar. The latter were also charging into combat expecting a fight. Both sides released most of their entire loads of radar guided missiles in the first volley with missiles criss-crossing each other in all directions and with all twenty-seven fighters breaking formation and diving and releasing chaff and flares as they did. The calm overcast Tibet skies were now littered with flares falling like god’s own tears and a spider web of missile exhaust lines all over, making their own clouds as they dispersed…

Seconds after that the first fireballs lit up the sky, followed in quick succession by a dozen others and man-made thunder ripped through the valleys below. All fighters were within visual range now and infra-red guided missiles were now the weapon of choice as both the Chinese and Indian survivors of the initial missile volley chose their wingmen and broke into combat in pairs…

********

…Three hundred kilometers northwest of this massive furball of combat, the Jaguars reached their final waypoint and were notified by Eagle-Eye-One via SATCOM that their ingress was clear. That was all that the Tuskers commander needed to hear. He immediately sent out his final orders and the aircraft broke formation and increased speed as they thundered over the Kashgar downtown area at near supersonic speeds. Kashgar is not a small town in the middle of nowhere. It was a big urbanized area and as the Indian fighters streaked overhead, tens of thousands of Chinese citizens came running out of their houses to see what was happening. Many reached their roofs to see the same and they did so just in time to see the first weapon strikes on the airbase at Kashgar.

The first wave of Jaguars headed straight for from south and thundered over the terminal buildings and the tarmac that was littered with equipment and ground personnel from the 17TH Air Regiment that had taken over the buildings at the base. They had just launched all of their fighters to engage the Su-30 threats over Hotien and the tarmac was still filled with the signs of that activity. Men were scurrying about trying to clear the fueling vehicles and trucks that were being used to move weapons around. All of these were caught in the open when they saw the first four Jaguars streak over their heads completely unannounced. When the first CBU-105s broke pattern over their heads, it was already too late…

The entire main tarmac riddled with explosions as the sensor-fused weapons dove into each and every truck, fuel-bowser and exposed piece of equipment around the tarmac. The terminal building shattered under the shockwaves and collapsed under the force of the explosions in a massive dust and concrete cloud that rose hundreds of feet into the air, easily visible from all part of Kashgar city to anyone on the roofs of their buildings and houses. The second strike force of Jaguars approached from the west and went over the runway in a west-east axis, dropping numerous anti-runway weapons that struck with precision, riddling the runway at multiple locations with deep craters. The first wave of Jaguars returned from the north and this time released its remaining load of CBU-105s over the buried fuel-farm south-east of the airfield, resulting in a devastating explosion that rose into the sky like a mushroom cloud of orange and yellow. This raised panic on the streets of Kashgar as the populace became convinced that the Indians had deployed nuclear weapons over the airfield...

*********

…Colonel Feng looked above at the concrete roof of the bunker as the ground shook underneath and small mounds of concrete dust fell clear from the newly constructed walls. He frowned and his fingers rolled into a fist and his knuckles became white with anger. That was when the first thunder rushed through the command center and the lights flickered. He picked up the phone but his lines were dead. He looked at Major Li who ran over and checked the lines to confirm it was indeed dead. As he began shouting orders, Lt-General Chen walked back into the operations center, his coat still in his office and his tie loose around the collar. He looked around at the men rushing back and forth as the ground shook above and then found Feng standing near the digital maps on the wall. He walked over to his operations chief.

“What on earth is going on, Feng?”
“Indian Jaguars; striking the airbase. We are sustaining heavy damage top side and have lost all comms here. I have sent Major Li to investigate.” Feng said dispassionately as both men looked above as yet another shockwave rolled through the bunkers.

“How did they get through?! I will have that fool of a commander for the 17TH Regiment shot for this!” Chen shouted above the noise and cacophony in the room around him. Feng grunted in response.

“If he isn’t dead already at the hands of the Indians,” he said after a couple of seconds.
“Only if he is lucky,” Chen countered but continued: “Where are the 19TH Air Division Forces from Urumqi?”

“Heading into combat around Hotien. Another force of J-11s is patrolling around Korla, guarding what remains of the 26TH Air Division airborne radar aircraft. A KJ-200 from Korla is in the air now and attempting to establish airborne coverage, but it won’t be as good as the KJ-2000 battle management system.” Feng said as he used the touchscreen to zoom out of the tactical view of the digital map and show the whole of the southwestern Tibet region.
“Did we lose the KJ-2000 over Hotien?” Chen asked soberly. Feng nodded in silence.

“What about the other KJ-2000s? Where are they deployed?” he continued.
“Two are being used in rotation to cover the Lhasa front and one more is present in Chengdu. That’s the entire force we have, not counting the -200s. We could pull the one over Chengdu and deploy it to Korla to replace the loss…” Feng suggested.
“I agree. Replace it with one of the -200s from the 76TH Regiment detachment at Lanzhou,” Chen ordered. He then sighed and took a deep breath while staring at the map.

“Realistically speaking, we have lost the 17TH Air Regiment for all practical purposes. We are now using our strategic reserve forces for the airborne radar aircraft, leaving no coverage for the eastern coastline in case the Americans try something. This is not good, Feng. Salvage what units you can from this mess. I think it’s about time I went ahead and called Beijing…”

AWESOME...

Brilliant, loved it

Finally Kashgar is gone. Awesome..awesome. Need Lasha cleared. And Lanzhou also . Eastern front needs to go Air Active. Let Chinese know what two front war means. Meanwhile could we have breakfast at Gilgit.
I should have uploaded Kashgar. Please indicate if Power station South-South East of Airfield and Backup Power Station North-West of AFB is out as well. That will do it for good.

More more more.

those J8s cant be doing too well against the flankers either

I bet whenever you look back at your scenarios, you would feel like I am awesome, Ahuja sir!!!

Here is Kashi AFB where Feng was defanged

what could be the racetrack type area on the left?

Admin HQ and Air Defence Complex. Scattered all around. With BM sites and Bunkers. Probabl;y 16 lane roads around it. going to G 314. It seems to be major storage or underground parking areas for Missiles.

JMT

DAY 8

DAY 8 + 0020 HRS (L)

WARLORD-CENTRAL, C3I
HAA DZONG
BHUTAN

Lt-General Potgam walked out of his former admins building after having been woken up by his comms officer. He stepped out of the main doors and looked around. The place was as abuzz with activity as ever, despite the night and the cold. Mi-17s were still operating out of the former golf course at the base, although the mushed up ground now no longer looked like it ever was anything more than a swamp. The patches of artificial grass had been crushed into the earth long ago. The snow falling on it had melted and now all that remained was slushy ground. Had it not been for the few paved roads inside the base and to the main airfield in Paro, where his supplies were being landed, this entire place would have had to be shut down because of deteriorating logistics.

Potgam walked down the small step of stairs from the building and began walking to the parked AXE multi-terrain vehicle parked on the road waiting for him. He recognized his driver but also noticed the new faces standing nearby with their Tavor rifles silhouettes barely visible in the dark. The 12TH Para-SF Battalion had deployed alongside the 9TH and the 11TH into Bhutan. The 11TH was deploying via AN-32s into Paro airport and being airlifted via helicopters from there to Thimpu, where Colonel Misra was leading the assault on the Chinese Battalions. The 9TH was being para-dropped directly into areas in eastern Bhutan cleared by RBA forces under the command of Major-General Dhillon, the 2IC for General Potgam. The 12TH, however, was Potgam’s reserve force that he intended on deploying for security duties around Paro airport, the Hotel-Six MLRS battery north of the town and also the Unified Force Headquarters Bhutan: his headquarters, better known by the nickname he had given it based on his own comms call-sign: Warlord.

The 12TH had already deployed companies to Lt-Colonel Fernandes’s location north of Paro and had also secured the airfield. Now he could see men from that Battalion standing next to his vehicle, heavily armed for combat in case this place comes under attack from Chinese Special Forces units. Potgam was not worried about this place getting attacked from the ground, however. The only known threat of Chinese attacks from the ground was to Paro airport, Lt-Col Fernandes and his artillery unit. And that was being taken care of now as he took his seat inside his vehicle. He had chopped over control for a single Nishant UAV from his original force of unmanned vehicles directly to the commander of the 12TH Para-SF to allow his men to find and isolate the faint IR-signal patterns detected earlier north of Paro and suspected of being Chinese SF units. Potgam had no spare men before to try and do anything about them before. But now the situation had changed, and he wanted it dealt with…

The driver pulled the vehicle from neutral and pushed the gear into drive just as the two Paras jumped into the back. The vehicle leaped forward on the slushy wet mud on the road and accelerated, leaving Potgam holding on to the guard rails on the vehicle. He saw the hundreds of men now deployed to this place as they drove by, heading away from the admin building and towards a large patch of trees just beyond the former base perimeter. He could see the camouflaged netting deployed over the tree branches to cover the comms trailers deployed in a small clearing between the trees. He also saw a dozen or more Paras patrolling the vegetation beyond in silence…

No. His main concern for this base now was from the air. The Chinese control of the skies via manned aircraft was no more. But the threat from cruise missiles and ballistic missiles was definite. As his ground force in Bhutan became more and more dominant and the Chinese positions became weaker, the threat of Chinese resorting to missile attacks against his main arteries and logistical nodes increased. And it didn’t take more than two or three missiles to completely shut down Paro for more than a day, if not permanently. Same went for his original force dispositions at Haa Dzong. He had controlled this war in Bhutan in its initial days from the old IMTRAT admin buildings and the command and control trailers operating from the lawns and the golf course nearby. Very clustered but the best he could have done at the time. Now the threat to this place was very high and he could not afford to continue that clustered operational setup. As a result he had ordered all sections of his base spread out and dispersed over hundreds of meters from each other. Originally he had only the small IMTRAT security force to patrol the clustered base. Now he had two dedicated companies of Paratroopers for this role. The situation and the threats had changed. And so he had adapted as well.

The only problem is, now I have to drive over five minutes from where I sleep to where all my radios are…he mused in silence as the vehicle rumbled to a stop a few meters away from the entrance of his comms trailer. His comms officer was there to meet him as he stepped out of the vehicle.
“What is it?” Potgam asked the Signals officer, a Lt-Colonel.

“Eastern Army commander requested direct comms with you, sir,” The younger officer replied as they both walked into the trailer and shut the door behind them. Potgam was handed an R/T set from one of the NCOs inside…

“Warlord here,” Potgam said matter-of-factly.
“Potgam, old chap: it’s nice to hear your voice. How are things looking over there?” Lt-General Suman said from Eastern Army HQ to the south. Potgam noticed the informality of the conversation. There were very few people in the Indian Army who could take that tone with him, and only because they had known him for decades. He responded accordingly:

“It’s nice to hear your voice too, sir. Glad to see you in nice spirits. I take it the Chinese offensive isn’t going too well?” Potgam smiled as he spoke.
“Indeed. The ba$tards thought they could push me out of my office eight days ago and move me into the hills with their missiles. Well, I am back where I belong and it hasn’t worked out too well for them. Pretty soon we will be ejecting them from all sectors near the McMahon line that they had grabbed in the first couple of days of the war. Sikkim is secure and we have snatched a good chunk of the Chumbi valley from them during Operation Chimera. I wish things were as good in Ladakh but that’s out of my control. Besides, I heard about the nasty armored knife-fights over there that are still raging as we speak. XIV Corps got their ass handed to them and the same went for the Chinese Armies in the Aksai Chin. Neither side has any strategic momentum worth speaking of over there. This…brings me to Bhutan,”

Oh boy. Here we go… Potgam thought as he ran his wrinkled hand though what remained of his hair.

“Bhutan is the only sector where we have lost significant chunks of soil, Potgam. Now this is not your fault or anybody else’s for that matter on our side. The Chinese launched a much larger offensive into Bhutan than we had planned for or even simulated before. Plus the Royal Bhutanese Army got crushed and folded their cards far too quickly to give us a chance to respond. You and Dhillon have done well under the circumstances. If I had the time, I would let you do what you are doing now and retake the lost territories. But time is a luxury we no longer have.” General Suman said, and Potgam frowned as he nodded his head. This was not a surprise to him.

“Nuclear weapons?” He asked rhetorically.

“Yes. The Intel boys here at my HQ and also those in Delhi are now convinced that we are fast approaching the nuclear threshold if we are reading the tea leaves from Beijing correctly. Their rhetoric has become more doom-laden than before even as they deny that the war is not going well for them. The latter part is not surprising of course but the change of tone very much is.” Suman responded in a very sober tone of voice.

“Surely the revered commies in Beijing are not stupid? Between Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, we must have crushed what…about seven Divisions worth of troops? Maybe five more remain in engagement on the FEBA? Add perhaps other six or seven Divisions in Ladakh plus their security Divisions in Tibet? So they have a lot more Divisions across the mainland that they can bring into the fight first. Why jump to the nuclear card so soon?” Potgam asked, more confused about the Chinese objective than he was before.

“Because, old chap, the flyboys in our Air Force decimated their flyboys during the time we were fighting on the ground. The Air Force operations in Ladakh and southern Tibet have been highly successful against the Chinese air-defenses. Just a few hours ago I heard that they took out the major command and control node for the Chinese at Kashgar and also shot down an airborne radar system. The Chinese can no longer control what is happening over the Tibetan skies and their ground forces are feeling the heat now. The Air-Force has begun striking deep into Chinese territory now. Pretty soon they will start doing that north of Lhasa on the major roads the commies will use to bring any fresh Divisions into the fight. All reinforcements they intend on bringing in are already getting hammered before they actually get to the FEBA. The Beijing folks know about this and they know how this is going to end. You see what I am getting at here?” Suman responded and sighed.

“It’s Sumdorung Chu all over again,” Potgam noted. He was there as a young Lieutenant back in 1986. The threat of nuclear weapons use by the Chinese in case the Indian Army pushed them out of the sector had forced India’s hand to quite an extent despite the conventional superiority in theater against the PLA. It was happening all over again…

“Yes it is. We push them too hard and they will move to the nuclear threshold.” Suman added.
“Which gives us little time on the ground here,” Potgam continued.

“So what I want to know is: how much time do you need to throw the commies out of Bhutan?”

“Damn hard to say, Suman. This is war we are talking about. I can’t give you an estimate because we don’t know how hard the Chinese Brigade north of Thimpu will hold against our assaults. Same goes for Dhillon and his boys to the east. Only thing I can say is that every little bit of support, men and time you can buy for us is useful. We are pushing them back and we will find a way to decimate that Brigade. That is the only guarantee I have for you right now!” Potgam said and then checked his tone. It would do him no good to lose his temper here. There was silence on the radio for several seconds before Suman responded:

“Very well, Warlord. You have the ball. Run with it as best as you can. In the meantime, I will get my operations staff to divert as many resources as we can free up to your AO. We are fighting under a nuclear umbrella now, my friend. Let’s keep that in mind. Panther-Actual, out.”

DAY 8 + 0120 HRS (L)

CHINESE STRATEGIC AIR CENTER
KASHGAR
CHINA

The smoke and soot was everywhere and it got into Feng’s eyes as he stepped out of his staff car. He immediately coughed as a result of that and took the protective goggles his driver gave to him. He put it on and looked around to see the aftermath of the devastating strike on the Kashgar airbase that had taken place a few hours ago. From where he stood, near the helipads outside of his operations center exit, he could see the tower of flames in the distance from what had been the buried fuel-farm for the airbase. He could see hundreds of PLA soldiers now at the base assisting the beleaguered PLAAF and civilian fire-fighting personnel as they attempted to bring the airbase back to operational status.

That would take time, of course. One look at the devastation topside had convinced Feng that Kashgar was now out of this war. While the runway could be made operational in a few hours, it would take more than a day to replace all the personnel, equipment and vehicles destroyed by the Indian sensor-fused cluster weapons. Many of the unexploded bomb-lets dispersed by the fleeing Jaguars were severely hindering clean-up operations. Feng could also see the crashed wreckage of three J-8IIs of the 17TH Air Regiment that had returned to the airbase after their fight very low on fuel only to find the runway cratered extensively. The pilots had no choice but to eject from their aircraft outside the base perimeter. The 17TH was gone, Kashgar airbase was gone and the airborne radar coverage between Hotien and Kashgar was now minimal…

Feng looked back to see soldiers removing his bags from the vehicle and taking it to the parked Mi-17s that had flown in from Aksu Wensu airbase to the northeast. From there they would board fixed wing aircraft to take them to Korla. The PLAAF operations center at Kashgar was now no longer considered safe and they were being evacuated to Korla where they would be based alongside the operations staff of the 26TH Air Division and would have effective fighter cover from the 19TH Fighter Division forces based at several airbases nearby. The problem was that Korla was over a thousand kilometers to the northeast. In effect, moving the command center for PLAAF operations to Korla meant that entire south-western Chinese airspace was now effectively lost. It was not in Indian hands, of course. And heavy fighters such as Su-27s based at Urumqi and Korla could patrol the region with airborne radar coverage. But that was very different from having an offensive presence in the region. They could now no longer intercept each and every Indian mission over that region of Chinese airspace. And that was bad news for the Chinese ground forces fighting the Indians in Ladakh…

“You ready?” Chen said as he walked over from his own staff car to where the Colonel was standing and observing the billowing smoke and the chaos of clean-up operations.

Feng sighed and looked at the General. Chen nodded as he understood Feng’s thoughts:
“Nothing to be done here, Feng,” Chen said as looked at the firefighters trying to hose down a blazing section of the terminal building to the south, “…at least not by you and me. We are needed in Korla. Let’s go.”

He patted Feng on the back and then waved at the flight-crew of the Mi-17s to start pre-flight. Both men walked over to the nearest helicopter and walked through the open rear ramp of the helicopter. A few minutes later the first of three Mi-17s lifted off the helipad amidst a cloud of dust and snow and nosed down towards the northeast, picking up airspeed as it disappeared beyond the airbase perimeters into the darkness…

DAY 8 + 0120 HRS (L)

OPERATIONS CENTER
STRATEGIC FORCES COMMAND
INDIA

Air Marshal Iyer walked into the underground air-conditioned planning center at SFC headquarters. In the room before him, there was a large conference table and a variety of different ranking officers from all three services of the Indian Military plus several officers from RAW and the other intelligence agencies. The table had chairs along its edges but nobody was sitting down. The walls had large digital displays of all territories currently of interest to the SFC and the table was strewn with loads of papers, satellite imagery and assortment of maps. It was, visibly, the planning center for his senior operations staff.
“So gentlemen, let’s have the latest.” He ordered as he walked around the table and to the wall map of Tibet showing unit indicators of all known Chinese 2ND Artillery forces.

“Well. As per our last count, we have over three hundred Chinese missiles of all types in Tibet right now. Heavily guarded and deployed in the field,” a Brigadier from Military Intelligence said from where he stood.
“Three hundred? That’s a lot. Composition?” Iyer stated without looking away from the wall map.

“Mostly DF-11s, -15s and -21s, arrayed south to north as expected given their range limitations. Several DF-31 launchers in the mainland displaying higher levels of activity than before but not deployed yet for launch operations. We are keeping an eye on that.”

“They are not going to touch those unless they are going to go after our cities,” Iyer noted, “At least not until they have these smaller range weapons deployed in Tibet. Activating those DF-31 launchers will actually reduce their options instead of helping them in any way. Keep an eye on them as you planned to do, but expect the first shots to be fired by these forces here.” Iyer nodded to the map of Tibet.

“Are they nuclear tipped?” Vice-Admiral Valhotra, the SFC second-in-command, asked the MI officer, referring to the Tibet based launchers.
“Hard to be sure which ones are and which ones are not when you consider that all we have is overhead intel. But you can make out from the level of forces guarding a given launcher battery whether its nuclear tipped or not. Those that are very heavily guarded by PLA ground forces are likely nuclear-tipped. Others are conventional.”
“That’s one hell of an assumption there,” Iyer noted as he walked back to the table and leaned over the satellite images being referred to by the MI personnel in the room.

“Yes it is,” Valhotra agreed and looked back at the MI officer: “But not much we can do outside of that. So what’s the count then?”
“We estimate about seventy-five nuclear-tipped launchers in northern Tibet as of right now.”
“Dear god! Seventy-Five?” Valhotra said in exasperation.

“Yes sir; mostly deployed on the DF-21 launchers. That’s a pretty substantial portion of their entire DF-21 force and also a good chunk of their overall nuclear warheads.”
“Think they are sending us a message?” Iyer asked without looking up from the images in his hands.
“If they are, they sure as hell are taking no hesitant steps about it.” Valhotra responded.

“I agree. From where they are deployed, these missiles will cover most of northern India and all of the battlefields. It looks like that’s what they are saying: ‘push us into a corner and we will turn the battlefields into a radioactive wasteland.’ From their perspective, they would be hitting sections of Tibet with their own warheads doing this, but there really has not been much love lost between Beijing and what it thinks about the Tibetans. This way, they preserve their DF-31 missiles for our major cities if the shit hits the fan.” Iyer noted soberly. It was his job to not get passionate about any of this. Of course, being it was hard to get passionate about this line of work…

“Looks like it. I expect their missiles, about two-hundred of them aside from the ones primed for the nuclear mission in Tibet, to be used first in the conventional role. They will attempt to force the outcome of this war using those first. The problem is, if we mistake a nuclear-tipped missile as a conventional type, it will be disaster. We need to be damned sure whether these DF-11s and DF-15s are nuclear-tipped or not.” Valhotra said as picked up the Chinese missile force ORBAT from the table.

“Of course. But look at the numbers. They only have about two hundred and fifty warheads to begin with. They need a certain portion of that in reserve and another portion armed for threatening the US and Japan. Once you remove these from their total inventory, these numbers in Tibet start making sense. Also the -11s and the -15s really don’t give them the bang for the buck in terms of range and options. I think they have concentrated their nuclear-tipped missiles amidst the -21s for a reason: they want us to know which is which…” Iyer said and then looked up at Valhotra.
“Good god. They are planning to use the conventional-tipped missiles first.”

“Yes they are. Send out the warning order to all our forces in the field. Tell them that Chinese conventional ballistic missile strikes are now considered imminent…”

DAY 8 + 0320 HRS (L)

AKSU-WENSU AIRBASE
WESTERN CHINA

It was bitterly cold at the airport when the three Mi-17s touched down on the tarmac in front of the hangers on the southern side of the airfield. As the Mi-17 engine turbines spooled down, Colonel Feng and Lt-General Chen stepped out of the helicopter and saw the drifting snow falling all around. The PLAAF base commander was there to meet them and a detachment of soldiers snapped to attention as the senior officers departed their helicopter. Feng looked around and saw the doors of the hanger revealing the clear lines of two Su-27s inside, protected from the bad weather.

Lt-General Chen strode towards the base commander who shook his hands and give him a message from central headquarters. Feng saw the General shake his heads in look over to him. He walked over…
“What is it, sir?” Feng said as he took the note from Chen.
“Marching orders. Looks like General Jinping has been relieved of his command on account of poor health and you and I are to report to Beijing immediately.”
Poor health indeed…Feng thought. General Jinping was the commander of the PLAAF. They could not very well report he had been removed for his role in the air-war, could they? Feng wondered if they were about to see deterioration in their health as well…

The base commander pointed Chen towards a waiting Tu-154M VIP transport parked at the end of the tarmac waiting for them. There was little to be done. As the staff cars pulled up, the three senior officers got in. Several minutes later the aircraft began spooling up its engines to begin a flight that would take Feng and Chen back to Beijing…

And so the tension ratchets up...

for informational purposes how is the 2nd artillery organized and led? does it come under a joint chief in beijing, or under the PLA C-in-C or under a special commander who does not report to PLA but to the politburo directly? the writings above suggest an atmosphere where the 2nd arty is not beholden to the theater commander at all, and lies above and beyond such reporting chains.

I have read it has a extensive corps of engineers and force protection assets on a dedicated basis...somewhat like the SS panzer divs always got the best of eqpt and most indocrinated types in the old wehrmacht.

When will the Agnis' come out in the open ? Don't the Chinese worry about the Indian nukes raining down on them ?

Great use of the holiday

2nd Artillery Corps Wartime OPCON:

sean o connor has a analysis on carlo kopps website with lots of imagery, the most interesting being a target area where DF21c missiles impact and tested for CEP.
http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-PLA-Seco ... Corps.html

seems like even the CJ-10 GLCM maybe under 2nd arty.

DAY 8 + 0520 HRS (L)

ON BOARD THE MERCHANT SHIP AAA-FU YUANKOU
FIVE HUNDRED KILOMETERS SOUTHEAST OF THE MALDIVES
INDIAN OCEAN

The Captain walked onto the bridge just as the first streaks of the black skies began taking a dark blue shade towards the east. He looked around to see the bridge crew looking sharp as ever: a result of his presence, perhaps. He brought up the binoculars hanging around his neck and walked over to the edge of the bridge and outside of the window glass. The cold morning air refreshed him as did the noise of swashing water hitting the hull of his ship. It left a nice white wake in the otherwise dark waters. He noticed there were several other wakes around as well…

The Yuankou was the not the only ship in the area sailing to home waters off the mainland China coastline. It was part of a convoy of five merchant ships and one medium oil tanker that were taking a much longer and circuitous route around the Indian coastline in order to escape the threats from the Indian naval forces. They were also avoiding the entire Malacca straits region and planning to go around the Indonesian coastline and through the South China seas beyond. All in all, however, there was no reason to be worried, the Captain realized. These were merchant ships and therefore civilian in nature. Besides, two Chinese warships, the Changzhou and the Yulin, were escorting the convoy back to home waters. Both of these warships were Type 054 Frigates and were, until recently, part of the Chinese anti-piracy fleet near the Somalia coastline. Now they had been repurposed as convoy escorts for the vulnerable Chinese merchant shipping lines.

The Captain noted that the Yulin was visible off his port side to the northeast of the convoy, operating in total darkness and wartime conditions. That did not make him very comfortable. They had another thousand kilometers of sailing to the southeast before they would be effectively out of the range of Indian naval forces. They had been intermittently shadowed by long range Indian naval patrol aircraft since the time they had left the Middle-East region, and so the Captain knew that the Indian naval commanders knew where the convoy roughly was but had left it alone. He hoped that would continue for the next day or so that it would take them to go out of reach of the Indian navy…

As he watched, the Yulin became backlit with a flash of light and then a small smoke cloud as a missile rose into the air from its forward decks. The swishing noise and the rising plume of smoke trailing the missile exhaust caught the bridge crews of the merchant ships off guard and they all rushed to the windows to see the arcing plume of the missile heading northeast…

Then another missile fired…

The Captain realized that the missile fired were anti-air missiles. He ran back to the door of the bridge and threw the door open: “We are under attack! All personnel report to their stations! Prepare for damage control!”

The crew was still stunned by the abruptness of it all, and while they fumbled around trying to find their bearings, the Captain went back out on the railings to see what the Frigates were doing. He leaned over the railings to see the Changzhou turning course and gaining speed to his northwest while the Yulin was continuing to ripple-fire their HQ-9 missiles…

He spotted a speck of movement on the horizon to the northeast and brought up his binoculars to see what it was. Before he could do so, however, the specks turned into long tubes flying several meters above the dark waters of the ocean. The Yulin opened fire on them with its close-in-weapon-systems: seven barreled cannons. The yellow-white tracer fires backlit the hull of the Yulin in an orange outline. Lines of tracers flew out towards the incoming missiles but the missiles were incoming at phenomenal speeds…

The Captain had a moment to throw out a curse as one of the nearest incoming missiles exploded under the tracer fire but still the debris completely peppered the side of the Yulin not visible to him. He did see the pieces of debris from the Yulin fly hundreds of feet into the air from the impact as the entire ship listed to its starboard into the ocean waters before balancing back. That is when the second and third missiles went straight into the port side of the Yulin…

The bone-jarring explosion ripped the ship apart from bow to stern. The starboard side of the Yulin, visible to the Captain of the Yuankou, shredded into a thousand fragments of metal and flew in his direction. He instantly dived back through the door of the bridge and fell on his stomach on the floor as large pieces of metal shrapnel smashed through the glass and instantly killed several of his bridge crew. The ship rocked back and forth as the shockwave of the explosion hit the hull. Then a large chunk of the superstructure of the Yulin fell on top of the cargo containers aboard the Yuankou, splitting the harnesses and dropping two of them into waters to the starboard, ripping a large gash on the side of the ship in the process.

When he got up, sirens were sounding across his ship as well as the others. He noticed blood splattered across the walls of the bridge and the bodies of his bridge crew lying around, several of them writhing in pain from injuries. He brought his hands up to his face and saw the cuts and bruises but was otherwise in one piece. He was still shaking from the impact but managed to grab the railing and pull himself on to his feet. That was when he realized his arm was broken from the dive he had made. The pain was somewhat numbed from the fear pumping in his arteries. He straggled back out on the observation area and saw to his horror an ocean surface on fire. The pieces of debris from the Yulin were all around him. His own ship had several small fires as a result of the debris hits. The Yulin was gone. He was in time to see the bow of the Frigate finally dipping below the surface…

The Frigate Changzhou was also on fire, although the missile had hit it near the stern of the ship where its helicopter deck was. That hanger area was no more. A large column of smoke was now rising from that area with licks of flame within. And it was moving slower now, probably because of damage to the engine areas…

The Captain walked back to the deck to see members of his crew had rushed on board and were evacuating the dead and wounded from the bridge. Others had taken over the ship’s controls. He walked over to the ship’s intercom and picked up the phone to ask for the damage report. He used his good hand to pick up the phone before somebody on the observation deck shouted another warning. The Captain put the phone down and ran back outside to see the Changzhou a kilometer to the north firing more surface-to-air missiles from the bow launchers. The plumes lifted vertically and then arced back to the northeast…

“More missiles inbound! Brace for impact!” The Captain shouted and took cover behind the metal walls of the bridge. He kept his head above to observe and saw three more long tubes moving at supersonic speeds heading for the disabled Changzhou. There was no hope for her. But only one of the missiles was targeted at her. It slammed into the port side of the ship near the bridge superstructure and shredded the entire above surface structure of the ship, leaving it listing to the starboard into the sea amidst a tower of fire. This time the Frigate was too far out for the debris to reach the Yuankou, and the Captain saw the pieces of debris ripping into the ocean surface long before they hit his ship.

The two remaining missiles, however, flew past the burning wreck of the Changzhou. One flew past its sinking bow and the other past its stern. The missiles each hit a container ship in the convoy and sent massive balls of fire rising into the sky before turning into pillars of smoke. The merchant ships were not designed to sustain this level of catastrophic damage and both ships broke into pieces and actually sank faster below the ocean surface than the Changzhou, which followed a few minutes later…
The Captain was still dazed from the massacre that had taken place before his eyes. He noticed his hands shaking uncontrollably. It was then that the radio operator on the bridge shouted out:

“Captain! Incoming radio message from the Indians!”

He stood up and took a deep breath. He shook his head abruptly to clear out the indecision and realized that his crew and the crews of the other ships would need him and the other captains to get their act together. He walked over to the radio operator a few seconds later.
“Let’s hear it.”
The operator opened the channel for the bridge crew to hear:

“To all Chinese merchant and naval vessels in the vicinity, this is Rear-Admiral Surakshan of the Indian Navy. You are now inside my kill zone. If you value your life and the life of your crew, you will listen to what I have to say. Try to escape and you will meet the same fate as that has befallen some of your comrades already. Surrender your ships now and you will live. Send out your intentions by changing course to the north at best speed. It gives me no pleasure to take civilian lives, but I will hardly hesitate if I am forced to do so. Do not challenge my will on this. You have seen a taste of the power I wield in the Indian Ocean. You have ten minutes to comply.”

The Captain looked around at the shattered bridge of his ship and saw that the bridge-crew was looking at him in silence, waiting for orders. He could not surrender his ship. There was a war on at the moment, but there would be an after-the-war. If he and his crew surrendered this ship to the Indians, they would pay the price for this act when they got back home. They would be tried for treason and either executed or shipped off to hard labor prisons. But ignoring the Indian threat meant that they would have oblivion just as the crews of the Changzhou and the Yulin had done. They had no defenses on board other than small arms, and the Indians weren’t looking to forcibly board these ships so those weapons did not matter. He picked up the phone and asked for the comms officer to patch him through to the other Captains of the three remaining ships…

A few minutes of discussion later he sent out his radio message back on the same channel as Surakshan had done:
“Indian Navy commander, this is Captain Bingde of the Chinese Merchant shipping vessel Yuankou. We are carrying non-war related supplies to the Chinese mainland and are unarmed. We must be allowed to pass unhindered. We will not respond to your request for surrender.”

“Very well, Captain. I will give you and your crew exactly ten minutes to abandon ship and get to a safe distance. After that I will sink your ship and the remaining others in your convoy.” Surakshan replied.

“Unfortunately I cannot do that, sir. I repeat again: I am an unarmed merchant ship and in international waters. I will not submit my ship and my crew to your blatant hostility!”

“Captain, all I can say to you is that your ten minutes started thirty seconds ago. Out.” The link clicked off.

He looked around and saw the fear on his men’s face on the bridge. But he could not order the abandonment of the ships else he would be held responsible when he got home. At the same he could not sacrifice his crews in good conscience. The Indians were going beyond the rules now on the high seas and there wasn’t much his own country’s navy could do about it. He glanced out the shattered window panes to see the patches of oil and floating pieces of wreckage from the Yulin to realize that his options were very limited. He sighed and picked up the headset for the ship’s intercom:
“All hands: abandon ship! Abandon ship! Get away from the ship as far as possible. We have less than seven minutes! Go!”

He put down the headset and looked at the bridge crew standing by him.
“You all as well! Go! Now!”
“What about you, sir?” the radio-operator said. Bingde grunted a half smile in response.

“I belong on the bridge. I would rather meet my end here on the high seas than in a hard labor camp when I get home. It was my order that got you all off this ship, and I will pay the price for your lives. Now get out! Go!”

Several minutes later the four remaining ships of the original eight-ship convoy were floating dead in the water with a dozen motor-lifeboats streaming away from the ships. Bingde watched from the now abandoned bridge as the lifeboats moved away and into the distance. He sighed, picked up his binoculars and walked out on the observation deck. He had tied a make-shift sling for his broken left arm in this time. He checked his watch and realized it was more than half-an-hour since his radio conversation with the Indian Rear-Admiral. That grunted another laugh: the Indian commander was giving him more time than he had promised mainly because he knew it took longer than a few minutes to evacuate a ship on lifeboats. He hold on to the railing as the first rays of sunlight illuminated the deck of the ship and the skies above became light blue: another glorious day out in the ocean…

He just about made out the incoming missiles when it hit his ship near the stern, ripping the rails from his hands in a jerk and sent him flying into the air from the bridge of the ship and into the waters below. By the time he came back up to the surface, trying to stay afloat with just one hand, he saw the massive hull of the Yuankou buckling and shattering under the stresses of the explosion. It began tilting over his head and the cargo containers ripped off the decks and splashed into the waters around. He had just enough time to look around the roiling waters to see the other three ships also on fire or sinking below the waters. Pieces of debris were splashing into the waters all around and columns of smoke were rising into the blue skies above.

A bone-jarring noise announced the breakage of the Yuankou’s back. A few minutes later the ship had shattered and slipped below the waters of the Indian Ocean, taking its Captain with it…

DAY 8 + 0720 HRS (L)

TWENTY KILOMETERS NORTHEAST OF DOTANANG
BHUTAN

Captain Pathanya sat with his one leg resting on the landing skid of the Dhruv helicopter while he held on to the hand rails along the edges of the open sides of the helicopter. The cold air whipped them all inside the cabin. He looked around to see five members of his team in the cabin as they applied streaks of white camouflage face-paint. Others checked their comms and their rifles. Pathanya wanted to smile but found himself too weary now to do so. He saw the weariness on the faces of the other team members as well.

At least the cold winds is keeping us all awake…he thought.

“Waypoint-five in thirty seconds,” the pilot said over the R/T and Pathanya grabbed the hand-rails a bit harder. The pilots of Delta-Flight were the best of the best when it came to Special Operation missions. Nap of the earth flying was their forte. Bad weather, cold weather, snow or mountainous terrain: it didn’t matter. They would get Spear-Team and the other sister teams wherever they needed to go. The only problem was that it meant that their passengers often had to literally grab on for their lives in the cabin behind as the flight-crews fought against mother nature’s every instinct to turn them into pulp on some god-forsaken mountainside…
The helicopter suddenly dropped several dozen feet as they flew over the ridgeline and into the valley below, causing Pathanya and the others the sudden sense of weightlessness and then a bump as they hit the floor of the cabin once again. Pathanya looked around at the horrified faces of his team-members. The second helicopter behind them carrying the rest of Spear was doing the same.

“Dear god in heaven! These Delta fly-boys are making me lose my breakfast, boss!” Vikram shouted over the team’s comms. Pathanya chuckled.
“I told you not to go for the tinned eggs those paras were making at Thimpu!” Ravi’s voice came over the comms.
“Hey! This might be my last warm meal till we get back. No way I am leaving that!” Vikram retorted.

“All right guys: easy on the comms. We are approaching the L-Z,” Pathanya interjected as he got the three minute warning from the co-pilot in the cockpit.
The helicopters came up on the reverse slopes of the ridgeline on the eastern side of the valley that rode up from Dotanang all the way to the north on the way to Barshong. That valley was currently occupied by Chinese forces. Dotanang was currently under control of the Indian Paratroopers from the 11TH Para-SF Battalion. Spear was being inserted north of the Chinese Battalion facing Dotanang. Their job was to interdict the enemy’s supplies and logistical lines and generally to cause all sorts of mayhem amongst the Chinese lines…

As the helicopters neared the clearing on the hillside, Pathanya and the others threw down the ropes on the sides of the helicopters and began rappelling down. The dust cloud raised by the helicopters was covering a good portion of the hillside, but that couldn’t be helped. All nine men were down on the ground within seconds. The helicopter crews dumped the ropes, increased power and dove back down the valley and headed south to safety.

On the ground, as the dust settled, Pathanya motioned his men forward and Spear team began climbing up the hillside, their rifles at shoulder level and pointed for combat...

minor nitpick . from my reading of old alistair maclean sea yarns of the HMS Ulysses type, container ships and tankers esp have massive reserve buoyancy due to
- tankers carry POL which are lighter than water, have a lot of compartmentalization, fire control systems will be A1 level
- long range container ships of the panamax and suezmax classes are plenty big and have bulkheads in the cargo hold, their sheer volume would be able to absorb impacts...just as they say given enough volume a MBT can be designed using spaced armour to defeat any known APDS
- ships that carry bulk dry cargo like metal ores would be even harder to sink as the missile will explode inside a mountain of ore and rock and be completely muffled.
- the superstructure of these ships is small and situated in the stern right above the engine room...any hit not in that region will have minimal impact on the crew who might just launch a couple of automated liferafts off the stern and make off safely....its designed that way.

the old sea dog would say these ships would be much harder to sink using ASMs than a FFG or DDG. they might burn, and the crew might even abandon ship, but there have been cases where the fires burned out and the crew even returned to take charge.

DAY 8 + 0745 HRS (IST)

WHITE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE
WASHINGTON DC

“The President has ordered the evacuation of all US personnel from all US consulates in India and China on account of the growing severity of the armed conflict between India and China over the last two weeks. While neither side has escalated the war to civilian and urban areas, the US government can no longer guarantee the safety and security of foreign nationals in either country until armed conflict has subsided. At this point the US Air Force has been ordered, in cooperation of governments in both New-Delhi and Beijing, to begin airlift of personnel out of the country until further notice. All US Citizens in these two countries are also warned to leave immediately and to contact the nearest Embassy or consulate for evacuation information… ”

promising looks like the s*** is about to hit the fan.

DAY 8 + 0820 HRS (L)

BEIJING CAPITAL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
CHINA

The soldiers snapped to attention as Lt-General Chen stepped out of the cabin of the Tu-154M aircraft and walked down the staircase on to the tarmac. In his wake followed Colonel Feng. It was bitterly cold and a rain had taken place over the night, leaving the tarmac wet and covered with puddles of water. A convoy of three black staff cars had come over to the tarmac to pick the two senior officers and take them to the Junwei Kongjun, the PLAAF central headquarters. Lt-General Wencang was there to meet them on the tarmac. Wencang was on the joint strategic operations group at the CMC and represented the PLAAF on that group. He shook hands with Chen and returned the salute from Feng before waving them to the staff cars. Chen and Wencang got into the middle car while Feng walked back to the third one: he was not privy to the information shared at Wencang’s level. As the convoy headed off the tarmac and towards Outer Fuxingmen Street, where the headquarters is located, Chen looked over to his comrade from the CMC…

“So? What happened to Jinping?” Wencang shook his head and grunted a half smile.
“What do you think? Between him and that fool of a commander Zhigao, we lost control of the skies over most of south-western China. You didn’t really expect the people where I work to look the other way on something like this, did you?”

“And am I next to be put up against the wall? Is that why they pulled me from my command in the middle of a war?” Chen asked neutrally. Wencang removed the smile on his face:
“Let me just put it this way: if that was what was planned for you, I wouldn’t have been at the airport to shake your hand. It took a lot of convincing on the part of me and the others to convince the party leaders that you were not to blame for the mistakes of your predecessors at Kashgar. But you can thank me later. Right now we have a crisis on our hands and that is the main reason I am here. I need to know from you exactly what our aerial war-fighting potential is against the Indians. Can we take back control of the air or not?”

“We can, but not without massive reinforcements. We have lost upwards of four Fighter Divisions in combat and I have only received a Division and a half as replacements so far. I need more. A lot more. Empty out the northern areas and send those units to me and I can win this battle. The Indians cannot be strong everywhere and they have taken casualties as well. If we keep pushing them they will break. I promise you,” Chen said to Wencang. The latter shook his head in dismissal.

“The party will not agree to this. We cannot vacate forces on the eastern coastline against the nationalists nor can we afford to be seen weak against the Japanese. They will not bend on this. What other options do we have?”

“You have to be joking! What threat do the Japanese present? Same for the Americans! Neither will support the Indians in this war by spilling their own blood! As for the Nationalists, we have enough missiles to sink their cursed island back into the sea if they attempt any antagonistic moves! If we don’t move now, the air-war against the Indians will be lost completely!” Chen said and then checked his voice. General Wencang simply turned his head out of the window and leaned back into his seat…

“That will take too much time, Chen. Time is something we don’t have a luxury of. Perhaps if the ground war had gone according to plan we could have bought more time for your plans to succeed. As it stands, however, we need results quickly, before the progress of the ground war completely reverses on us. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. We have been relegated to strategic tasking as of today, Chen; which is why I decided to pull you out of Korla. I need you on the joint planning staff.”
“So the ball is now in the hands of the 2ND Artillery Corps.” Chen stated impassively.

“Indeed it is. And when the time comes we will rain a shower of steel and fire on all of those airbases that the Indians use and take away their air-superiority in a single clean stroke…”

great... perhaps now is the time for AAD

not much aware of the time line of this scenario, the deployment of BMD is from 2014 and that too in cities not at the IAF bases. So, may be AAD or PDV would not be available against chinese BM.But yes akash and other SAm will be available and it has been said that Akash can provide somewhat of defence against BM.

possibly Barack-8(100Km+) range can be handy

Or a pre-emptive strike ?

pre-emptive strike... SSM has already said that NFU is only against NNWS and Arihant has set sails...

Nuke strikes when one is winning is just pointless.
Not too mention its a nuke and not a diwali pataka.

Pre-emptive conventional strikes against non-nuke ballistic missiles.
Special Forces operations.

Baring Fangs with Agni-3.
You nuke the battlefront. We nuke Beijing.
There is no "escalation" after a nuke-attack.
It becomes all-out after that.

Let Beijing feel the heat directly.
When one is sitting comfortably in party head-quarters thousands of miles away, one tends to have a different view of events.

--Ashish.

--Ashish

Vivek,
Apart from all other military things. The description from perspective of Chinese Merchant ship captain was simply awesome (just before Indian Commander radioed). It clearly showed how Chinese civilians too are battered or clueless or uncertain what was going to happen.

Frankly, it would have been quite boring or expected if Indian navy just show up and stopped the merchant convoy. But, you know better how to present stuff in far more creative way

The twist in your last post is icing on the cake. You always keep us on edge of the seat.

----
It does look like we will probably have an new LAC running deep inside Chinese territory soon

Hopefully, in your next post, folks in Indian Foreign Ministry could pursue Americans to keep pressure on Chinese East sea board by sending some Aircraft carriers on regular sea patrol or maybe surfacing of some american submarines, which would be helpful for American in very long term.

I think American will have to pick a side sooner or later, they cannot stand neutral for long. And, I am damn sure, they will pick the winning side. If Pakistan can provide Chinese with Intel help, then Americans too can provide similar indirect assistance to Indians in such war with Chinese.

AFIK, in 1962 American and British came forward to help later and sent AC in Arabian Sea but, the war was already over and Nehru didn't want the hostiles to continue any further. He was probably satisfied by losing few thousands sq. KM of Indian land to Chinese.

This might interest some of readers here:
http://future.wikia.com/wiki/The_Second_Sino-Indian_War

Janab Ahuja,
Kitni Karwayega Puja?
Chall Derr Na karr
Slice the Chinese
Kharbooja!!