Possible Indian Military Scenarios - Part IV

Shankar
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Post by Shankar »

IAF STATION -CHANDIGARH - 1500 HRS
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the busy logistics air base wore a deserted look as the tarmac was clean of evrything and a sketal staff maintained the air trafic control and maintainance work when in the distant horizon the mi-26s appeared with their fissile load . A single IL-76 waiting on the parking bay and the mi 26s landed right next to it .Within 30 minutes the il 76 took off without any radio communication with its special cargo and banked south east to destination unknown .

All over the western sector tired pilots landed their birds and quite a few near misses were reported on r/t as too many aircraft were low on fuel and some with flyable battle damage came with landing priority . The maintainance crew will be busy for next week atleast was the general opinion .

Large antonov 225 s started landing from russia with spares and replacement weapons almost within the hour .Acouple of c-5 were also spotted by enthusiastic BR spotters in gwalior and agra . Their contents unknown but knowledgeble sources assumed them to be PAC 3 batteries .

India has just become a full fledged active partner in war on terror and will play a bigger and bigger role almost all over the world and the requirements of its armed forces will become the priority .

Aspecial act of parliament will be enacted allowing 4percent of GDP to be marked for armed forces additional equipment and expenses taking the defense budget to nearly 150000 crores and a 10 % rise every year for the next 10 years .

A special purchase cell will be created to handle the enormous and complicated purchase activities reporting direct to prime ministers office and headed by chief of defense staff .

At last india was ready to take her place in the sun .

IRAN -AFGAN BORDER
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The old man was some hat better -with a portable dialysis machine smuggled out of germany and a new band of fanatic followers he has still managed to elude his captors and he watched the new developments with interest . He knew fighting worlds super power was difficult fighting the merging one alongside may mean end of all his dreams .Something had to be done thought he as he scanned the large sacle map of the region for a suitable place to strike and he finally decided on the place and then strted thinking about a likely target and then he found it too .

The relationship between india and south africa has grown inleaps and bounds over the years and unlike other african nations it has established a stable democratic way of governance ,rich in mineral wealth and tourism potential and reasonable strong in its military might it is at the same time far away from the asian and american continent . It was a target worth plucking -smiled the old man as he closed down the map and lied down for a well earned rest .
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Post by Shankar »

India and South africa are two countries held so closely by bonds of sentiment ,common values and shared experience,by affinity of culturesand traditions and by geography. -Nelson Mandela

Our common hope of success will depend on our ability to act together .We are re assured that we can count on India as a strategic partner in this historic endevour which seeks to give birth to a new world order of just and lasting world peace,of prosperity for all people and equality among all mations. - Thabo Mbeki -President S.A.

It will not be wrong to say indias relations with south africa is more than a century old . Gandhi experimented with the concept of non violence as a means of political tool in south africa which he later on practiced with great sucess during indian freedom struggle. In apatheid era india was the first country to sever trade and diplomatic relations with south africa as a visible form of protest against its racist policies. Indian diplomatic mission was opened in Pretoria on may 1994 at the same time Nelson mandelas multi racial govt was being sworn in .

However in 1999 the overwhelming election victory of ruling african national congress and subsequent exit of Nelson mandala from domestic politics brought into lime light Thabo Mbeki as the new president of republic of south africa .

Apart from close and similar political ideology the relationship between india and south africa flourished in the first decade of the new century primarily because

1) south africa is economically and technologically the most advanced country in sub saharan africa
2)its per capita income is almost ten times that of any country in the region
3)it is in a position to assist indian companies in developing and marketing full range of mining ,coal based power plants (in sasol worlds first coal gas liquification peoject was commissioned decades ago)etc
4)it is a convineant spring board for marketing indian products in the african continent

In purely economic terms the trade between india and south africa grew by leaps and bound was 575 million us in 2000 to nearly 4 billion in early 2007 and expected to touch 10 billion us by 2010 .

In the area of defense co operation it is worth mentioning that south africa has built a strong defense industrial base with particular stress on land and aerial warfare systems but the naval area is some what neglected . The state owned ARMSCOR is the only large arms manufacturer and exporter in the entire continent .

The first mou on defense co operation was sighned between india and south africa in october 1997 with south africa offering a whole range of defense equipment to india . In specific terms the agreement covered the supply of ammunition for 155 mm bofors howitzers along with avionics and night vision equipment. Around 90 caspir mine proted armour vehicles were also bought about the same time . During kargil conflict when the fh77b s were using up ammo at a prodigal rate particularly during assault on tiger hill ,south africa put out all stops to supply almost 47 million us at very very short notice .

INS G omoti and Kukri visited south africa in 1994. SAS Drkensberg paid a return visit to Mumbai in 1995. Indian navy still not decided on the anti missile 76 mm projectile for its Brahmaputra class frigates OTO Breda compact gun mountings . The trials included use of sea skimmer fuses made by south african comapny Fuchs and Naschem .Indian army is still very interested in T6 155MM-52 calibre self propelled howitzer turret nade by Dennel.

South africa has in its turn keenly interested to aquire the Nag anti tank missile and plan to install in its fleet of Rooivalk helicopters.

During blue crane exercise to practice a large scale peace supprt mission india provided a pair of IL-76 for troop transportation duties from tanzania ,namibia,zambiaand INS Sujata acted as a communication platform for the associated naval exercises off the durban coast.

One of the pilars on which south african economy depends heavily is its gold and more particularly diamond mining indistry . Any serious blow to its delicate availability in the world market can seriously endanger its ongoing booming relationships with the western world and with friendly countries like india . Tourism is another critical area .

The old man knew it all and as he munched on the dried dates and sipped a glass of sour goats milk he knew this time it will not wrong .
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Post by Shankar »

Diamonds were discovered first in india about 3000 years ago and will serve as a benchmark of power and affluence for centuries to come .Brazilian discovery of diamonds in 1725 thier marketing in european market became more wide spread and so did thier value and associated social prestige . Use of industrial diamonds as compared to gem quality diamonds came into vogue much later .

The first reported diamond discovery in southern tip of africa was around 1867 and the pretty stone weighed somewhere near 21 carats. Placer diamonds were found between vaal and orange river soon after. Few years later a 83 carat diamond turned up and four source pipes were discovered in the famous kimberly region .

Initially the diamond mines were worked in open cast way but as the workings became deeper and more expensive a large number of independent miners sold of their claims to a few comparitively wealthy conglomerates and the seed of global diamond monopoly was being sown.

Cecil rhodes and his seven partners owned about 100 claims in the kimberly region and named their company De beers minning company limited after his land holdings debeers ranch .Rhodes also was in politics and manged to keep the mines highly profitable by low taxation and favorable labour laws. A giant trade in illegal uncut diamond soon florished and draconian laws were passed to stem this where basic of natural justice was suspended . Like anyone in possesion of uncut diamond was liable to explain how he came in possesion of it or face stiff prison sentences. After some classic legal finacial battles all the major diamond mines in south africa were united under the banner Debeers consolidated mines ltd .Cecil rhodes and the british Rotschchild family had majot share holdings . By late 1980s they controlled not just the south african diamond trade but the world trade of uncut diamonds in a big way.

The main threat to de beers and south africa indirectly was and is always the state of Angola . The highly unstable nation with different rebel groups armed with reasonable high tech soviet era weapons had to be contained in several fronts . After transition to demcracy in nelson mandela era the focus somewhat shifted to econmic growth from keeping its armed forces lean and mean . This was a deadly mistake for which the republic of south africa will have to pay a heavy price and india will have to move in with more than a token force to restore democracy . But then no one has still mastered the art of future telling with any degree of certainity .
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Post by Shankar »

with the conflict on western front scaling down to skirmish level and indian political leadership in no mood to escalate the conflict any further for teritorial gains other than already achieved decided to declare an unilateral ceasfire baed on actual ground control line which Kareen khan accepted with his usal elan quote " we are accepting this ceasefire with the objective of achieving a lasting peace with our larger neighbour " unquote . No one truely believed what he said but atleast for the time being all was quite on the western front . With the establishment of 150 kms security buffer in erstwhile pak occupied kashmit the infiltartion problem was more or less managable the soft spoken prime minister of india once again could concentrate on economic growth but this time he realised a show of military might in the indian ocean region in an unobtrussive maner may work to countrys advantage . So he did not think much when a request came from ministry of defense for a joint air -sea live firing naval exercise with south african armed forces in the comming winter a few months away .

Though he was not very familiar with military jargons he could make out a carrier battle group headed by Vikramaditya and a mixed flight group of dhruv,sukhois and mirage will be taking part in this exercise code named "exercise atlantic -07" . He also looked at the projected cost figure on the right hand side in chiefs notings and was not at all happy with what he saw but then these military boys never had any sense of financial prudence thought he as signed in his approval . Also he remembered the import bills pending for the import of a few ship loads of 155 mm bofors ammo and hoped those highly paid HAL sales team accompanying the exercise group as civilian observers will be able to sell some of thier products to balance the figures . When thinking of south africa he could not but smile at the thought of its diamond mining industry and its highly lucrative symbiotic relationship with indian diamond polishing and cutting industry based mainly in surat generating one of the biggest hard currency surplus ove rthe last decade .

INDIAN NAVY BASE- KARWAR
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At last the post conflict maintainance work was over and rear admiral Jagat (newly promoted ) loked with unabasehed pride at his command . Moored nearby was mysore and bangalore ,also he could see 2 of the three kilos that will accompany this task forces in the distant sub pens where replacement of the large batteries were being carried out in preparation of the comming visit to south africa - not yet made public . This being a live fire exercise all the ships will carry full wartime complement of torpedoes and missiles the clearence for which came a bit too quickly from south african navy -the reason for which was not immediately understood by the navy or the political leadership at least not for next 15 days.
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Post by kantak »

great start to episode 2.
Just wondering if the old man is osama????

Diamonds ,Southafrica ........great!!!
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Post by SaiK »

http://o3.indiatimes.com/mv Is it worth the wait? As it is Pakistan denies that they are not behind these terrorist acts, is there any gurantee that after the Kashmir issue is solved peacefully the terrorist activities will stop too? Is the Peace loving nature and Patience being taken as our weakness?? Is it high time that India should retaliate?? Is it the time that India instead of defending ... for once go into the attacking mode?
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Post by kantak »

the last edition had the army special forces in action.

action in south africa must have the Marcos in action.say terorrist take over the indian embassy ,blow up a few other places in durban and a racist coup starts then the IN goes in to the rescue kills all the bad guys and evacuates all the hostages via ALH evac
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Post by Shankar »

PRESIDENTS OFFICE -LUANDA-ANGOLA
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President Edward santos was an all out nationalist and utterly corrupted with power.The decades of civil war has drained the nations economy dry and to keep his hold on the nation he needed money palin and simple . After his daylong discussion with his friends in the angolan armed forces he has come to the conclussion that some external funancial infusin is unavoidable but the world bank was still not very responsive and the credit rating of angola stayed one of the lowest in the world. Just to his south lay the poorly defended state of namibia with its large deposits of placer diamonds ripe for the picking .A quick push with his armour to take over the diamond fields and its inventory of uncut diamonds estimated by his intel people at over 8 million carats ,use the diamonds to generate enough funds to re equip and modernise his armed forces from weapon systems available in the great international arms black market based in Belgium and eastern europe and then the big prize itself - south africa which in recent times have rediced its defense expenditure considerably and thus vulnerable to a concerted ruthless attack similar to that carried out in kuwait by sadam .

Santos did not place much importance on the outcome of that invasion simply because he assumed the world will not come to aid of namibia and south africa like the way did in kuwait for one simple reason -ther was no oil to be pumped out .

He was right in a limited way but also wrong in his calculations ,he forgot to consider the indian factor ,he did not much know about maldives and srilanke and the growth in indias aero naval power projection capability in the last decade ,he also did not know level of interoperability that have been established between the two countries armed forces - all of which will prove decisive in the weeks to come .

The republic of angola is quite large about 1600 kms along the south atlantic in south west africa ,democratic republic of congo and congo to north and east and ofcourse namibia to south . A platue 6000 ft high rises abruptly from the coastal low lands and most of the country is savanah or dessert land. The government structure changed from one party socialist to multi party democracy in 1992.

The original inhabitants of angola are thought to be khoisan speakers. Around 1000 ad large number of bantu speaking people migrated to angola and soon became the dominant power group. Angola derives its name from the bantu kingdom of nodongo who called thier king ngola .

Explored by the portugese navigator Diego cao angola in fact was to become the main sea trade link beetween india and south east asia . Later it would become a major source of slave for Brazils plantations .

After second world war the armed movement for independence from portugal began in earnest headed by movement for liberation of angola(MPLA) national front for liberation of angola (NFLA) total independence of angola (UNITA) .The war for independence went for nearly 15 years and finally portugal handed over the reins of power to local governance in 1975 .MPLA essentially controlled the contry ever since being the largets armed group . Civil war would follow soon with MPLA being supported by ussr and cuba and UNITA being supported some what covertly by USA and to a great extent by south africa.

Paradoxically angola happens to be the second largets oil producer in south africa but the living condition of its people are may be worst. An estimate puts loss of nearly a billion us every year fro the last seven years by the ruling govt due to corruption in high places which includes the office of the president
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Post by Shankar »

AIR HEADQUARTERES - PRETORIA -SOUTH AFRICA
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Major general smith was frowning continiously as he scanned the letest intel reports recieved from angola both from his own as well as mosad who kept on warning about a possible land assault on namibias diamond minds as a percussor to full fledged invasion of northern diamond rich teritory of south africa. He was not overtly worried but not compalcent eiether about the latest news comming out of angola on large scale arms purchases with particular emphasis on shoulder fired surface to air missiles and anti tank weapons .

First thing he did as he entered the underground command centere of south african air force was call up on the large wall dispalay the present disposition and strength of ready status aircrafts and also those on reserve but can be activated in acse of an emergency within 48 hrs .

hawk 120 - 20 + 12
impala 1/2 = 24 + 78
mirage f 1az = 29
gripen = 29
mirage 2 ez = 9
chetahc/d = 26+12
mirage f-1 cz = 11+3
mirage 3 cz= 14
mirage 3 bz= 2

mirage 3 rz = 4 recon

other than these rest were all transport and support aircraft which could really be used in any effective way to stem an all out ground assault .

Within an hour the call from president of south africa buzzed the indian prime ministers office and in about 24 hrs time the air naval contigent proposed to be despatched to south africa for the ensuing exercise almost trippled in size . and quite a few additional squadrons recieved its deployemnt alert which included dragons in lohegaon and fulcrums in jamnagar and a mig 27 squadrons in jodhpur . As reserve mig 21 bisons moved in to fill the operational void one by one the front line squadrons left indian shores in a round about way towards the dark continent .

Nothing was reported in the media simply because they were not aware of the super fast overseas deployment . Even the relatives of pilots and air men were not told of the ultimate destination except to take part in some overseas exercise in a vague sort of way .

At abot the same time 3 more kilos sliped thier mooring in vizag naval base and slid to the dark depths of bay of bengal . No one even noticed thier departure .

In a matter of weeks indian armed forces will get involved in one of its fiercest combat ever thousand of kilometers from home and where only their raw courage and professional skill will ultimately carry the day .

New war clouds were gathering fast on the southern horizon .
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Post by Shankar »

OVAL OFFICE -WASHINGTON D.C.
-------------------------------------------
The keyhole satelite imagery of massed t-55 and armoured personnel carriers on the namibia-angola border was on the desk as the national security advisor began her brief to the commander in chief of united sates armed forces
-Mr president we have reasons to believe the angolan army under the guise of a large military exercise planning an invasion of namibia in a matter of weeks . This will have a serious destabilising influence in the region and may spill over to south african teritory who at the moment do not have enough to counter a large scale ground assault on their own

The president asked the time honoured question which every president before him have asked whenever confronted with an overseas military situation

"where are the carriers"

Sir abraham linchon and carl vincent is in arabian sea moving into persian gulf ,nimitz is on her way back for crew change and replenishment , ronald reagan is in med patrol , ameriac and george washington are in san diego and should head out for pacific patrol within few days . The rest are in atlantic under control of dept of homeland security and 2 are under scheduled maintainance at norfolk .

" so what are you telling me is us navy has no asset in position to intervene in a possible south african conflict ?"

" That is right sir " replied national security advisor in a clear unwavering voice " " the south africans and namibians are on thier own this time .
We are in no position to divert the carriers from gulf and indian ocean since a full fledged situation may develop over irans nuclear weapon programme any day ".

"what about the israelis -they should be able to help and the indians may be they too can be of immediate assistance ?
" sir we believe indian are already moving in to help with the goroshkov carrier group and our carrier groups in the area have reported quite a few flight of their military aircraft mostly sukhois and mirages making a dog legged trip towards pretoria for the last few days . But they may need some assistance if push comes to shove in namibia.

" How do you think we can help the indians " ? asked the supreme commander of us armed forces .

"Mr president Indians have short commings in long range aerial recon departments may be we can help them in this area with periodic SR-71 overflight over namibia and later on if the situation demands some heavy close air support missions from us bases "

"ok then -please draw up the executive order and send it over for my signature by this afternoon please . " ordered the president of usa.

MINISTRY OF MINES -PRETORIA -SOUTH AFRICA
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The minister was not at all happy .With the cost of minning going up all most every day what with all those monstrous earth movers guzzling up millions of litres of diesel every day and unionised workers asking for and getting an astronomical pay hike every six months the states share in once profitable gold,diamond and chrome business was much slimer than it was even 2 yrs back. Neverthless the demand for additional security measure in the mines kept on increasing and that was further cutting into the states earning .On top of it ,on his desk was a brief note from the ministry of defense requesting a hike in armed patrolling and purchase of sensitive sensors all along the northern namibian border citing some vague intel reports -cost to be debited to his ministry. He knew he cannot stall the the all powerful ministry of defense from getting what they wanted but atlast he could delay the large financial outgo . So he scibbled on a few lines asking for more details before deciding on the issue of additional security measures .A good political ploy but may be this time he should not have done it .

The diamond mines in south africa are by far the most important and richest in the world. It is estimated 90% of worlds diamond market is controlled by south africa thru the legendary debeers .While there are some inputs to global diamond trade from india and brazil the in absolute quantitative terms can be called insignificant .There are many interesting stories on the first diamond dicovery in south africa .One such mentions a traveller named o riley saw achild palying with an unusally bright stone in a boer house called jacobs whose farm de kaib was located siuth of orange river quite close to hopetown. This uncut diamond was estimated to be over 21 carats. It was exibited in a paris diamond exibition and later on purchased by the cape town governor for a princely sum of 500 pounds .A second stone much smaller this time was also found in the same area weighing little over 8 carats and subsequently sold at an "astronomical" price of 200 pound sterling.The search for these shiny stones as the locals used to call them began in earnest there after but not many spectacular find was made nor were the findings very regualr as would be in case of a workable kimberly pipe deposits .These were mainly placer or aluvial deposits brought from the bowels of earth by soil errosion and river action . The legendar star of africa weighing nearly 84 carats came into the market around the time. The vaal river working started later and surprisingly the diamond yield was much much higher .But still the early diamond diggers were unware of the volcanic pipes more commnly called the kimberly pipes which bring up the motherload of diamonds from the bowels of earths liquid core to surface ,solidify in between and has a bluish grey colour commonly called the "blues"

Present day all the important diamond bearing areas of south africa lie north of orange river and confined to a limited area between the fork of orange and vaal river.The famous town of kimberly lies nearly incentre of this diamond bearing area. And that is why more than 90% of south african diamonds and by extrapolation 80% of worlds supply of both industrial and gem quality diamonds come from kimberly mines.

Before diamonds were discovered the whole strech of land was almost zero value but things quickly changed after diamonds began to be found with regular certainity.For example a singlr farm in the diamondbearing area on the land where now stands is the kimberly mines and debeers was first bought for 6000 pounds and four years later was sold again for 100000 pounds when taken over by the cape government .The discovery of diamonds and other assocuated precious stone was perhaps the single most important reason for eminence of southafrica as a nation in the world stage .
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Post by Shankar »

hi guys will be in delhi 26th -can we have a br meet in the evening -pl e mail
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Post by Tanmay »

Shankar wrote:OVAL OFFICE -WASHINGTON D.C.


"Mr president Indians have short commings in long range aerial recon departments may be we can help them in this area with periodic SR-71 overflight over namibia and later on if the situation demands some heavy close air support missions from us bases "
SR-71. Are these still flying? I thought they were already grounded in 1996.
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Post by JCage »

This thread isnt high on accuracy for some time. Earlier we had 90mm RCL's still being used, when the IA uses 84mm Carl Gustafs and Milans. Right now its 90% imagination, 10% substance.
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Post by Austin »

SR-71. Are these still flying? I thought they were already grounded in 1996.
Even If they were flying and they dont wanst us to know then we would never know, If the SR-71 is down then something else is flying then :D

Officially they have better reco capability via Sats etc hence no need of such aircraft ;)

Shankar , We could see an Indian Tom Clancy in the making , Nice work and some good imagination all in all showing all the qualities of a Novelist in being
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Post by Shankar »

REPUBLIC OF NAMIBIA -SOUTH WEST AFRICA
--------------------------------------------------------
The vast sparsely populated country situated along the south atlantic coast of africa has a surface area nearly 825000 square kilometers and by virtue of its vast land mass happens to be the 31st largets country in the world. Along the coast it streches almost 1300 kms and from west to east an average strech of 600 kms . This particular geographical speciality of this country making it open to carrier based air strike will prove decisive in days to come .And for the first time in indian navys history those in favour of purchasing a damaged carrier will walk tall.

Namibia formerly known as south west africa is placed between south africa to its south (which also happen to be close military and political ally),angola and zamibia to north and bostowana to east. The worlds oldest dessert namib runs along its entire west coast .The more famous kalahari dessert is located along its south eastern border with bostowana.The whole country is demarcated into 13 regions namely -caprivi,kavango,kuene,omusati,ohangwena,oshana and oshikotoi north ,omaheke erongo khomas in central and hardap and karas regions in south bordering south africa.
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Post by Shankar »

REPUBLIC OF NAMIBIA -SOUTH WEST AFRICA
--------------------------------------------------------
The vast sparsely populated country situated along the south atlantic coast of africa has a surface area nearly 825000 square kilometers and by virtue of its vast land mass happens to be the 31st largets country in the world. Along the coast it streches almost 1300 kms and from west to east an average strech of 600 kms . This particular geographical speciality of this country making it open to carrier based air strike will prove decisive in days to come .And for the first time in indian navys history those in favour of purchasing a damaged carrier will walk tall.

Namibia formerly known as south west africa is placed between south africa to its south (which also happen to be close military and political ally),angola and zamibia to north and bostowana to east. The worlds oldest dessert namib runs along its entire west coast .The more famous kalahari dessert is located along its south eastern border with bostowana.The whole country is demarcated into 13 regions namely -caprivi,kavango,kuene,omusati,ohangwena,oshana and oshikotoi north ,omaheke erongo khomas in central and hardap and karas regions in south bordering south africa.
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Post by Shankar »

REPUBLIC OF NAMIBIA -SOUTH WEST AFRICA
--------------------------------------------------------
The vast sparsely populated country situated along the south atlantic coast of africa has a surface area nearly 825000 square kilometers and by virtue of its vast land mass happens to be the 31st largets country in the world. Along the coast it streches almost 1300 kms and from west to east an average strech of 600 kms . This particular geographical speciality of this country making it open to carrier based air strike will prove decisive in days to come .And for the first time in indian navys history those in favour of purchasing a damaged carrier will walk tall.

Namibia formerly known as south west africa is placed between south africa to its south (which also happen to be close military and political ally),angola and zamibia to north and bostowana to east. The worlds oldest dessert namib runs along its entire west coast .The more famous kalahari dessert is located along its south eastern border with bostowana.The whole country is demarcated into 13 regions namely -caprivi,kavango,kuene,omusati,ohangwena,oshana and oshikotoi north ,omaheke erongo khomas in central and hardap and karas regions in south bordering south africa.
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Post by Shankar »

REPUBLIC OF NAMIBIA -SOUTH WEST AFRICA
--------------------------------------------------------
The vast sparsely populated country situated along the south atlantic coast of africa has a surface area nearly 825000 square kilometers and by virtue of its vast land mass happens to be the 31st largets country in the world. Along the coast it streches almost 1300 kms and from west to east an average strech of 600 kms . This particular geographical speciality of this country making it open to carrier based air strike will prove decisive in days to come .And for the first time in indian navys history those in favour of purchasing a damaged carrier will walk tall.

Namibia formerly known as south west africa is placed between south africa to its south (which also happen to be close military and political ally),angola and zamibia to north and bostowana to east. The worlds oldest dessert namib runs along its entire west coast .The more famous kalahari dessert is located along its south eastern border with bostowana.The whole country is demarcated into 13 regions namely -caprivi,kavango,kuene,omusati,ohangwena,oshana and oshikotoi north ,omaheke erongo khomas in central and hardap and karas regions in south bordering south africa.
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Post by Shankar »

This part of the african continent is definitely no stranger to violence or war where unarmed civilians are the first casuality .During the anti apartheid struggle fought by earlier racist regime of south africa on one side and angola and cuba on other the arid plains and desserts of namibia and angola have been irrigated with human blood many a times .

In 1987-88 a decisive battle occured in the south eastern angolan town of cuito cuanavale and happened to be the largest military engagement in the history of the continent since second world war . Arrayed o one side was the armed forces of angola,cuba and south west african peoples organisationor SWAPO and the aggressors thistime were the south african defense forces along with military units of UNITA and south african teritorial forces of then pretoria controlled namibia. This battle was hardly mentioned in the western press and hence went unnoticed in most part of the world. It was in fact one of the pivotal battles which put the south african defense forces in the defensive for the first time and paved the way for evantual regime change in pretoria. In cuban history it is often refered to as the stalingrad of aperthied and directly led to the independence of namibia .In august 1975 south african defens forces invaded angola and followed by a much larger scale invasion later in october and cuban troops were deployed in response to a direct request from angolan govt in an operatio code named operation carlota .

In 1987 angolan armed forces launched an offensive against UNITA ignoring cuban defense advisors call for restraint since that would inevitably allow the then racist regime of south africa an oppertunity to invade . This is exactly what happened as the south african army moved in and the angolans retreated the fighting became centerd around the important military township of cuito cuanavale ,an important and critical air base for defending southern angola. The cuban military presence grew to nearly 50000 and included substantial quantity of armour ,anti aircraft guns and also a limited quantity of combat aircraft .

Strangely the small detachment of cuban airforce equipped mainly with early cold war era aircraft like mig 21 and 23 was able to achieve air supemacy in a matter of weeks and that factor was crucial i ultimate retreat of much better equipped south african ground forces from angola.Any south african victory at cuito cuanavale might have meant end of angola as an independent state.

As the south african ground forces withdrew the angolans together with swapo and cuban forces advanced towards the namibian border and made the long logistical chain of south africans vulnerable in northern namibia and second big defeat of south african forces took place in the town of tchipa where a large south african army detachment were encircled and killed almost to the last man.

The political situation reversed on the aftermath of regime change in pretoria but angolans never forgot excesses of south african armed forces . This time they will be the aggressor and they planned taking by force what made south africa militarily powerful in the first place -thier diamonds more specifically the teritory north of orange river ,kimberly mines and the coastal deposits of namibia in the process .

It was an ambitious plan and had a good chances of working out except
the route of invasion was all along the coast , the state of namibia was very sparsely populated and south africa had friends in far away lands who were ready to help .
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Post by Shankar »

INS VIKRAMADITYA - 200 KMS WEST OF SRILANKAN COAST
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Lt commander sudipta singh looked at the distant horizon as she starpped into her kamov31 for dawn sortie . Her first officer reena was already in her seat and strted the preflight check list as the fuel hose was disconected and the flight deck pa system launched the sea king for standby search and rescue duty if something went wrong .On the far side of the flight deck the two mig 29k were lined up for the standard early morning cap and the ship looked busy as hell thought sudipta as she keyed in the transmit button to onboard air trafic control

- tower - eagleeye flight -request permission to start engine
- roger that eagle eye - you are cleared to start engine

As she pressed the red ignition switch and watched as the rpm slowly reached operating level and the signature clanking noise of contra rotating rotors filled the air
-tower -eagle eye - request permission to take off
-stand by eagle eye -two mig 29s on final approach
-roger that tower-standing by said lt comander over the r/t as she reduced power to idle and the rotor noise dropped

Far in the eastern horizon she could see the the landing light of the first mig 29k comming in smoothly on the radio glide scope ,flaps fully deployed and the arrestor hooks already deployed and then it landed rather smashed into the reinforced steel flight deck with a lood thump and screeching noise of the arrestor wires trying to bring the heavy aircraft to a stop .It succeded . Afew minutes delay as the aircraft was moved out and the second mig 29 came in but it came in too sharply and the landing systems officer reluctantly waved it off for another approach ,all the while sudipta kept on burning her precious fuel and her effective loiter time .
The second approach was perfect ,the fulcrum landed and caught the first of the three arrestor wired and the engine noise died down as she was quickly moved out of way and kamoves radio crackled to life .

eagle eye -tower -you are cleared for -make your position 50 kms north-altitude 9500 ft -report when in patrol position -over
-tower -eagle eye -cleared for immediate take off-make my position 50 kms north -altitude 9500ft -report

As she pushed the engines to full power and slightly nudged the cyclic forward the ungainly chopper hesitated and then lifted effortlessly into the black skies of indian ocean at 1000 ft she dipped the nose and the kamov responded like a well trained mule ,picking up air speed quickly reaching the patrol position 50 kms north of carrier task force heading towards south african coast still some distance away . They were expected to cross west of maldives some times this evening and then follow the sirect route to port elizabeth .By her side reena was already powering up the e801m air search radar and deployed the rotating antena as soon as the undercarriage retarcted . This radar built by novogorod radio engineering institute with 6m2 foldable antena rotaing at six rev per minute and went on automous mode .The work load of first officer reena got restricted to watchng the colour dispaly screen as each ship and aircraft withing the considerable detectio range got tagged automatically by the built in database and catagorised according to its threat priority .All surface ships within 200+km was detected in a matter of minutes and all commercial aircraft within 150+km automatically got dispalyed on the screen . Today atleast now there were no combat aircraft within the search horizon except two mig 29ks which has just taken of from the mother ship and dissapearing fast into north western horizon in the direction of maldives .

-tower -eagle eye - no hostile contact detected - standby for live datalink hook up
- roger that eagle eye - make your hook up frequency --- for the first hour and updat on the hour evry hour
- tower data link established -confirm feed quality ok

down in the bowels of vikamaditya in the combat information centre a set of monitors came alive as the real time video images of the ocean and sky filled the screen exactly same as seen on the cockpit of the kamov on patrol but much larger .

- eagle eye -steer course 040 -make your altitude 7000 - inidentified surface craft at 180 kms -identify

and the chopper dipped its nose once again accelerating towards the fast moving suspect surface contact closing in for a positive visual ident

- tower - small twin diesel fast attack craft with ltte markings -request instructions - turning away towards srilankan coast -request instructions
- return to normal position eagle eye - keep close watch on contact designated tango 1

The mig 29 pilot listened in the conversation intently as the flight leads thumb moved over the fire button and he selected the gasha 30 6 for a quick strike if the ltte attack boat came any nearer . But the interesting target practice was not in thier lot today as the attack boat seeing the kamov quickly reversed course and headed for the safety of srilankan coast.
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Post by Shankar »

ANGOLAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE - 20 KMS FROM NAMIBIAN BORDER
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Major genearl Nobutu wiped the dried sweat off his brow as looked back at the long winding armoured column and mechanised forces slowly winded down the rocky escarpment towards the namibian border At a steady 20 km/hr led by 150 t-72s (courtesey ex soviet union) followed closely by the 700 odd t-55/t62 s (cortesey soviet union and cuba) and then to his right flank 60 odd BM21 multiple barrel rocket launchers with reload vehicles in close proximity .Ex soviet era armoured personnel carriers brought up the rear . Protected on all sides by mobile sams and squads of infantry with shoulder launched sams both us and russian origin he felt reasonably safe from surprise air strike .100 kms to the south of main strike force a full squadron of mi17s patrolled the skies and occasionally contrails of Mig 21 s on air space control mission could be seen in the azure blue african sky.

The bulk of 100000 strong angolan army followed duly reinforced by approximately 50000 dtrong peoples militia . They will secure the teritory and protect the ever lengthening logistics chain from hit and rin strikes from namibian and may be south african defenders . A dust clood in the distance announced their presence

20 kms to his east the heavy artilery was already in position and final ranging and firing protocol was being firmed up as a continious stream of russian made heavy duty trucks unloaded the cases of 130 mm ammo of 1980/70 vintage on the dusty ground . In this position alone there were more than 60 130 mm field guns and the pattern repeated itself across the planned invasion point both ways .

The sa-3 batteries accompanying the general went to full alert as they detected a very fast moving blip on their screen whcih crossed thier moving formation west to east but before the even a single lock on could be achieved it dissapeared at an estimated spee of mach 3.2-3.5 and at a recorded altitude of over 75000 ft. The angolan did not have clue what it was . The only aircraft capable of such performance was the american sr-71 blacbird or may be the mig-31 but to the best of their knowledge all sr-71s have been retired and now dispalyed as museum pieces all over the united states .

They were right and wrong at the same time .All the blackbirds were never retired 2 were loaned to nasa for high altitude aviatio research and based on dryden flight research centre . Once the presidential order was signed it took all of 6 hrs for one if the two remaining operational blackbirds to be configured for strategic recon at a time place of chosing ather than predictable path of recon satelites and vulnerability and intention of the angolan ground forces were exposed to the world
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Post by Shankar »

Effective use of armour or more specifically tanks in warfare depends primarily on certain basic ground realities like terrain-climate-equipment suitability-and ofcourse training of the crew .Major general Nobotu was trained by the russains in the art of modern tank warfare and an avid reader of all modern combats using tank as a principal weapon of attaining strategic objective as well as tactical teritorial gains .He did study the way armour was deployed by israelis in golan heights,or for thatmatter romels africa corps ,by ameircan army in four day smash thru in iraq and of course the cold war russian doctrine of massive armour assault over the rolling palins of erstwhile west germany . His knowledge deficit was inthe rae of anti armour operation and that would be his biggeest problem as the large armour column in his coand made its way into namibian defenses and onto south african savanah .

Russan doctrine of masive armour assault was based esssentially on ideal terrain which gives almost unlimited manuverability occassional obstacles and any number of suitable fire postions which would make the heavy tanks inflict massive damage due to favourable arcs of fire supported by accurate obervation points for target aquisition and destruction.

The topography of southern angola-northern namibia was different and hence the applicability of russian armoured assault doctrine formulated decades back was not exactly apropriate. The thick undergrowth and big trees would slow down the tanks and prevent the gunner from aquiring small moving targets extremely difficult in the process increasing the vulnerability of the tanks to light anti tank weapons carried by the defenders ,reducng the sped of advance to as low as 15 km/hr there by throwing the time frame of assault far of the mark -allowing the opposing forces to get reinforcements and outside support and in short changing the battle equation altogether .

Here in the namibia angola border many brutal tank battles have been fought the most well known of which south african armour faced bush terrain for the first time dense with undergrowth and large trees. Later on they would operate in central namibia where the soil was very sandy and the weather varied from hot to very hot and wet to very wet making any kind of massed tank movement extremely difficult in course of operation savanah. While the south african did not have the armoured strength at dispaosal of nobutu now, and depended mostly on far lighter locally made armoured personnel carriers they did use a considerable number of olifant mk 1 tanks in the bush for the first time .The ressults were far from spectacular .

The text book fire position practiced by both warshaw and nato forces during cold war days are rarely used in african scenario. Simply becase it is too hot inside . Clear and defined arcs of fire are also limited due to tree obstructions and main armament traverse gets seriously restricted .As a ressult concentrated fire over a well defended target is difficult if not impossible in most places.What it means in real terms is the
the tank guns should be accurate enough and the crew trained enough to achieve a high first shot kill probability .This is a very difficult proposition when main gun travers is restricted ,visibility poor and the tank itself ill maintained.

The another important factor in any armour based warfare is ofcourse mobility and that in afriacn condition can only be achieved by very care ful assault route selection considering all the factors as mentioned and also the load bearing condition of the soil particularly when main battle tanks like t-72 are operating .It is nessecery t restrict the advance speed over rocky tarrain having high load bearing capacity to minimise trac wear and tear and also crew fatigue . All in all the terrain favoured the defenders .

General Nobutu was aware of all these facts ,after all he was a son of the soil but he had his compulsions too. Speed was the essence in the mission -before internatinal community could wake up and react in a military way south african and namibian diamond field should be under his control and the new found wealth he believed would restore the glory of former angola . It was a dream alright but a dream which would need more than a quick brutal war to achieve .He would also need some luck. Maybe it wa there for him -may be it was not ?

NAMIBIAN BORDER OUTPOST NO 234 B
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Major singla looked at the dust cloud in far horizon thru his east german
made field glasses and a frown crossed his forehead . He was still too far away to hear the heavy rumble of tank engines but he knew the angolans and what level of brutalities they normally inflict on those who get in their path . On the other side this was his land perched and dry but still his land. A hurried meeting ensued and within minutes the 120 man border patrol group dispersed in the bushes mostly equipped with RPG and medium machine guns . The remaining got busy planting anti tank and personnel mines of 1970 vintage all along the approach road and then took shelter behind nearest acacia trees and boulders . It was a brave gesture but would prove prettu useless aginst the formidable force bearing down on them .

While angolan support in the independence of namibia fro south african control was critical their mutual relations were never very comfortable .Namibians always suspected the angolans are essentially after their mineral wealth .The next few days would prove them right.
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Post by Shankar »

The african night has its own kind of splendour -thought major singla as crawled into the freshly dug out in the busk after carefully checking for any errant puff adder which abounds this part of the african bush .One superfast strike from this ugly snake is all that takes for even the bravest warrior to be handed over business class ticket to the other world . Otherwise they make a good dinner too and most african soldiers in bush some times or other have sustained on snake meat and the tradition some how have managed to spread thru british forces to most of the special forces of the world .In fact they are trained to catch poisonous snakes and do the need ful as a basic training on how to live of the land.

The good old rpg7 was on the nook of his elbow and the venerable ak-47 strapped to his back with couple of spare 30 round magazines and just one more reload for his rocket propelled grenade launcher . He knew also the chances of him getting a chance to fire the second round is almost non existant particularly when facing a heavy battle tank like t-72 or even a t-55 .He will have only one chance to take out a heavy target and then has to run like hell to get out of the firing arc of the co axial machine gun and ofcourse the 125 mm main gun . H e also will have to be very brave and very careful at aiming at the tracks where it turns over the main idlers or if possible at the large diesel tank at the rear any where else the thick armour will simply deflect the grenade up wards and out of harms way .To achieve the objective he has lie undetected in the bush as the armoured column approaches to within 100 mtrs or less then take aim and fire all in a matter of few seconds and all his troop need to do the same at almost same instant for the counter assault to have any meaning . Death was almost certain but then dying in combat with a gun in hand is definitely better than the slow death angolans administer to prisnors which start with cutting of the sensitive body parts and then tying up to the nearest acacia tree having colonies of african red ant . The victim screams as the ants eat into live flesh for hours and the open blood vessles attract more and more ants and finally the the ugly hyenas arrive homming in on the smell of blood and screams . The end comes very very slowly .

An owl swished overhead and in the distant horizon the african sun finally decided to make it a day .

ANGOLAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE - 15 KMS FROM ANGOLAN BORDER
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DAY 1- 0500 HRS
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Capt bantu looked at his cheap digital watch ,bought at the alleys of johensberg for almost 3 us during his last un official visit to the vulgarly wealthy city and ,then looked at the massed M-46 130 mm russian field guns arranged in neat array .All gun crew were already in postion and one last check was in progress on the hydraulic buffer based recoil absorption cum hydro pneumatic recuperation system .The huge pile of high explossive rounds lay on palstic sheets spread some distance away from the guns and all the gun barrels were at 23 degree for the fiorst salvo and they will increase progressively to max elevation of of 45 degree as he walks the fire forward and then track back once again to complete the destruction of namibian border defenses .

-Fire ,screamed capt bantu over his battery powered loud hailer and the 60 130 mm guns roared its approval as the high explossive shells hurtled thr space and landed amongst the bunkers and trenches of filmsy namibian border defense .Most of the namibian border guards have already dispersed in the bush but few who were doing a last minute check of left overs or on token guard duty died instantly as the heavy shells ripped up the protecting walls and human flesh with equal unconcern .
As the bright brass casings were ejected from the breach block and crews got busy cleaning up the barrel for any metal residue or signs of crack and the re load crew rushed in with the next round the gun crew changed the elevation of the barrel 0.5 degree so that the next salvo will hit approximately 100 -150 mtrs away subject to same head wind condtion as prevailed during the first salvo .
-Fire screamed captain bantu once again and the 60 odd field guns responded once again in a mindless orgy of destruction .
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Post by Philbert »

:D flesh rippin niceeeee!!! keep da gud stuff comin shankar
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Post by Shankar »

INS VIKRAMADITYA - 500 KMS FROM SOUTH AFRICA COAST -0600 HRS DAY 1
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Rear admiral Jagat looked intently on the sr-71 over pass digital photo on the camera reader .All off them have been filtered and clarity enhanced by national security agency geeks in fort meads before onward transmission to naval head quarters in delhi and they were really good much better than satelite photographs as the air craft had caught the angolar armour from several angles and their dispotion was clear enough to make any air asault really effective .

So far there was no directive engage the angolans or go to the assistance of namibians or the south african and that political decision he knew should come along any day but for the time being the responsibility and safety of this task force was his and only his domain.Angolan boasted of a significantly large airforce though some what outdated and he did not intend getting caught up on wrong foot in some local war atleast not till the rules of game are clearly defined .Now it was his all and he knew the action he was contemplating could backfire badly if something went wrong but then he did not become a rear admiral by playing safe
He punched on the intercom to air group comander Nihal jadav and quickly expalined the ground situation on namibian border with a suggestion may be some off the records recon of the ground will be help ful and also to double the existing cap over the task group .

Up at 38000 ft and 300 kms north of vikramaditya the first group of 6 sukhois finished their refuelling and accelerated to thier last waypoint onto port elizabeth airbase of south africa .Two hours after the second flight of another six did the same .They will take all of 20 minutes to cross over into south african airspace ,go over the coded IFF protocol and and allowed direct priority approach to this spawling air base.The il 78 reduced speed and waited for the next group of IAF aircraft to come for topping up at the most expensive gas station in the sky .

Down inthe combat information centre of Vikramaditya radar officer on long range search radar console watched it and noted on the computerised log .He also informed senior commnication officer about the flights progress and who in his turn informed task force co-ordinator an air vice marshal about safe arival of first of the IAF contigents onsouth african shore .

ANGOLAN -NAMIBIAN BORDER - 0900 HRS
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The angolan armour column was stuck on the narrow bush road just inside namibia as two of the three t-72s in the first echleon have stuck carefully camaflaged anti tank mines and blown track. Spare tracks were being fitted into place all the while the rest of the column waited and fumed as the african sun slowly made its presence felt .Most of the hatches were open despite considerable risk of namibian sniper fire . The smell of diesel and acid sweat of unwashed bodies made inside the tanks simply unbearable .

Major general nobutu could bear it no longer as all his carefullu made time table threatened to get away and ordered the rest of the column to back up and circle out thru the dense bush i to the wide open savanah few kms away ,In the process riding straight into the namibian ambush teams waiting for just such an opertunity .
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Post by Shankar »

The limitations of extensive armour use on sandy soil and indense vegetation was slowly catching up with general nobutu . Each time a haevy tank turned sharply to avoid a tree clump or a boulder the whole formation would stumble sinec access to wide open savanah lay some distance away .Maintaining any planned axis of advance was almost impossible once they were forced to veer of the chosen road . The diesel consumption went up from about 4 litrs per kms to nearly 6-7 litres per km as the tanks had to tackle sharper gradients at low gear . Relative distance between individual tank formations were hard to keep in absence of GPS system and most of the trip meters on the dash board out of order . He knew under such conditions the tracks will have to be replaced after 1000 kms in place of normal 1500 km.And that meant he would have to stop after about a week for a major maintainace .The trucks carrying spare tracks and air filters were following the main armour column 100 kms behind and some of them reported braek down too . All these before even the actual war have started .

Most of his tank commanders were standing up to escape the stiffling atmosphere inside and nobutu wanted to warn them but then knew in an ill disciplined army such instructions may not go down all to well . As he scanned the forward formations for signs of trouble before closing down his own hatch the first of the rpgs struck the no 2 tanks diesel tank setting it on fire and the crew jumped out almost too quickly out of the inferno and into carefully laid namibian ambush ,were mowed down instantly with 12.7 mm machine gun shells in one quick burst . Nobuto could actually see the shadows rise from the shallow ditch trying to run for safety as he prodede the driver with his left foot and the iron monster turned on sharply with left tarck locked into position and right pushing it around .The first shell left the main gun with a sharp crack and blew out whatever cover the defender was depending on and then the co axial machine gun opened up with a long burst and in the distance the macabre dance of death was played out in slow motion.

General mobuto lit a marlbro light to celebrate the kill of a namibian soldier with one of the deadliest fighting vehicles in the world today .

INS VIKRAMADITYA-400 NAMIBIAN COAST - 1100 HRS
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-Clear deck for aircraft launch ,came the ghost like voice over the flight deck public address system as the two mig 29k on special "comabat patrol" got ready for take off with only 2 r-73s but a very heavy camera pod with 3 different cameras on of which was to operate in the infrared zone of the electromagnaetic spectrum for a quick look at the hostilities reported on CNN few hours back.

- Tower - baaz flight -request permission for take off
-baaz flight -you are cleared to take of in sequence- maintain altitude 35000 ft till zone charlie -drop to 1000 ft at discretion and return base immediately -we need the photos
-roger that tower said lt comander rohit as he pushed the throttle all the way forward and the twin tailed jet leapt to sky after 3 seconds .Within a minute his wing man was also in air and they both went high as rihit applied slight pressure on the sticks to execute a classic aileron roll to the new heading towards angolan border .As he crossed 30000 ft the twin contrails appeared and clearly visible from flight deck ,switched off the afterburner as he reached cruise altitude and then almost immediately began a slow desecnt to 1000 ft and the air speed built up as the two aircraft closed up to near hostile airspace
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Post by SaiK »

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story ... t_id=86142 Pak floats a new one to India: let strike forces not be eyeball to eyeball


But it’s the proposal on strike formations that will be debated at length in the coming days. India has been working on what is called the ‘‘cold start’’ doctrine which plans to do away with strike corps except for training and administrative purposes.
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Post by Shankar »

The migs crossed the namibian coastline at precisely 1000 ft pulled up slightly to 3000 ft to clear the rocky outcrops just beyond the coast and dropped again to 500 ft as they tunred into the final run .The threat warning recievers started the shrill beep almost instantly as several sa-3 type search radars swept over them but no lock confirmation or missile launch was detected .In the distance the pilots could clearly see the dust clouds of large armour formations making their tortourous progess across uneven ground and then one by one entering the wide open savanah of northern namibia . The light was right and thier approach anfle needed only minor correction for the perfect set of high resolution photographs being recorded both on films and in standard dvd .
-tower baaz flight going active and comander rohit did two things simultaneously as his right thumb flicked open the plastic cover of the camera arming switch followed by left pushing the power lever al the way forward crossing over the reheat reminder notch smoothly and the fulcrum went supersonic in an instant .As he climbed to 5000 ft for better horizon scan with his camera the threat reciever went into cintiniuos blip indicating possible missile lock and the automated chaff/flare dispensers got activated -pushing out bundles of aluminised mylars or chaffsand flares into the slipstream as rohit tried to make as straight run as posiible taking all of 23 seconds over the angolan formation and then sharply rolled out of missile engagement envelope and dove for ground .His wing man mirrored the moves precisely and the angolan sa-3 went off for the sun .

The return to carrier was uneventful and some what bumpy as the cold atlantic air met hot air from the african mainland generating plenty of clear air turbulance pockets but the exotic ocean and the backdrop of an uniquely rugged coastline made the trip worth while not to mention 100s of meters of valuable photographic data on dispostion of the angolan invasion force .

-clear deck for aircraft recovery blared the pa system
- launch sea king
The rescue sea king took of with metalic clatter and took up position 50 mtrs to starbord as the fulcrums came in to land from the west .The career turned into the wind blowing from the atlantic to african coast as rohit deploted the arrestor hooks and full flaps as he came into land on the narrow strip of steel floating in the vast ocean .As his extra heavy duty landing gear came down flashed over the deck and then slammed down the hook caught second of the three arrestor wires .The sharp tug of his safety straps told the lt commander of a good landing as he pulled back on power and the tractors pushed him to designated parking spot .Two minutes later his wingman slammed down a bit too hard and the mission came to a close .

But the work for photo analysts just started . For the next six hours they will go over each and every frame with a tootcomb and make a fairly good estimate of the angolan strenght ,the logistic limitations and most importantly what would take to stop them in their tracks.

DAY 2 - SITUATIONS ROOM -WHITE HOSE
------------------------------------------------
The intel scene was definitely improving thought the president as he looked at the pile of sat photos and sr-71 shoots along with transcripts of angolan invasion forces radio chatter . The picture was getting clearer by the hour .The angolans have made a full fledged invasion of their southern neighbour and expected to take over the entire country in 7 -10 days and then if unchecked will be on the gates of south africa demanding entrance .

US military presence in the region was minimal and the tension in gulf over irans nuclear standoff is reaching flash point .A war may break out in gulf any day and all us rapidly deployable force from both atlantic and pacific are moving into position .Any redeployemnt at this point was clearly out of question according to military top brass .

After one more round of talks and option listing ,the president decided to refer the matter to un security council .If indians are the only hope for south africa and namibia then let it be under un flag which will make it more acceptable to the world community and make it easier for us to offer assitance -if required .

20 KMS INSIDE NAMIBIA -ANGOLAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
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Genral nobutu was surprised to hear the twin sonic booms and then the sight of two fulcrums in full power streaking across .Though he was not sure of the markings on the tail they looked somewhat different with fatter dorsal spines and smoother engine note compared to cuban flankers that he has seen earlier . He was still thinking when the the namibian artilery opened up in the distance and his tanks returned the fire and the battle started in earnest once again
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Post by Shankar »

VANDENBURGH AIR FORCE BASE -CALIFORNIA
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Colonel Jenifer USAF liked flying the black birds and that some how included SR-71 which officially was no longer flying but was called up to active duty whenever some time critical info was required .Todays mission was simple .She was to get some good battle scene videos which the secratary of state will present in tomorrows UN security council session to push for some kind of action against the lunatic state of angola .

It would be a long flight ,like most black bird flights are thought the red haired air force colonel as she strapped into her ejection seat and looke over the instrument cluster . The control stick was just right for a right handed pilot and she was fortunately right handed.Most of the flight instrumentation was in front as well as the critical engine displays. The instrumenst included landing gear controls,artificial horizon,back up artificial horizon ,fuel quantity and take selection,air speed -altitude and and mach designator,compressor inlet pressure,spike position guage,exhaust gas temperature along with the plethora of radar warning and ground proximity alarm with indiactors. To her right the panel had the navigation instruments and auto pilot and flight direction indiactors.The left panel the radio and air conditioning control along with the most important throttle control lever.

As the crew chief closed the canopy and smartly saluted her the starter cart reved up the turbine in anticiaption of the high current draw required to rotate the j-58 pratt and whitney turbojets needs to come to life . The port engine first and a few minutes to stabilise before the starboard engine groaned into action spewing a bit more of unburnt fuel than normal ..

- tower -orion flight- request permission to taxi
-orion flight -tower -taxi to and hold short of runway 37 - kc 135 on finals

Jenifer had one last look at the instrument cluster and the life support system hooked onto her helmet as she gently released the parking brakes and moved the throtle lever few knotches forward to get the sleek ship going and then immediately throttled back to keep to safe taxi speed of 30 km/hr. It was a long runway and to raech the hammerhead she would need quite a few minutes .In the distance she could see the landing lights of the kc 135 ,flaps down and ubder carriage comming out and then she landed with a bump and whiff of smoke as the pilot applied reverse thrust ,came to stop and then turned off the runway .

- orion flight -tower -you are cleared for immediate take off - maintain runway heading and climb to flight level 500 till out of us air space -maintain own navigation -expect refuelling in 2.5 hrs at grid ref delta 32-good luck
-rolling now - orion flight

Jenifer kept the brake pressure on as she pushed the engines to ful military power ,the indiactors were all in green as she released the brake pressure and in one smooth motion pushed the throttle all the way to the stops past the reheat gate. The aircraft pushed into her back and at 175 knots she rotated the sticks the nose came up and at 210 plus nots the beautiful bird atlast left ground and started to climb .As she reduced the the climb angle to less than 15 degree the air speed started to build up and so did the altitude . At mach 0.9 jenifer executed a shallow dive and the aircraft crossed the legendary sonic barrier without a whimper approximately 100 kms from the us west coast . The morning sun was just comming out of the ocean as the sr-71 darted into her cruise altitude of 80000 ft and air speed slowly etching towards mach 3.5.
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Post by Shankar »

Namibia happens to be the worlds largest producer of gem quality diamonds and total prodution is close to 1.5 million carats divided almost equally between onshore and off shore operations .Total production of diamonds till date is estimated at more than 100 million carats since early 1900s along the ancient river terraces of orange river .The marine diamonf deposits of namibia are truely mind boggling ,estimated at close to 1.5 billion carats .Geologically all namibian diamond deposits are seconday in nature .Created at earths core and then the raw diamonds came out thru the volcanic pipes to surface in form of primary kimberlite deposits of south africa .Then the wind and water action spread them over the coast an sand as placer deposits principaly via the orange river acting as conduit thru namibia and coastal south africa and namibia .The development of diamond extraction technology from the sea and coast was mainly due to namibian marine deposits and today accounts for more than 50% diamond production in the country .

The biggest diamond producer in namibia is Namdeb -a joint venture between namibian government and de beers along with others like Namco and afri-can marine diamonds . Security of al diamond mines is understandably very tight complete with mine fields over vast streches and surface /air radar coverage . In fact all the main diamond fields are like small fortresses fully self contained and protected units .They were equipped to deal with any contingency of normal nature - but a division strength armoured assault was not exactly a normal day to day occurance even in violence prone continent of africa. They needed help and needed it fast .But international help was not forthcomming at least not in immediate future as the levitan called united nations took its time in deliberations and meetings and and data interpretations followed by another round of meetings before resolution could be passed and armed action could be initiated against the aggressor .Meanwhile plunder and rape of Namibia carried on regardless .

DAY 3 -TSUMKWE-NORTH EASTERN NAMIBIA - MOUNT BURGESS MINES
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was payoff time for general nobutu as he scanned the sprawling minning comples of mount burgess .Mount burgess diamond mines is one of the few primary kimberlite deposits in namibia discovered by australians who located the two diamond bearing pipes after extensive drilling and geo physical studies .Additional deposits of some macro diamond formations indicated a very promising diamond field inthe region.Further along towrds angolan border lay the Motapa diamonds who have just started comercial productio from 3 kimberlite pipes

This was of not much interest to nobutu - he was looking forward to the estimated uncut diamond inventory of nearly 25000 carats believed to be in the mine vault scheduled for putshippment to amsterdam next week .

The old t-55s were this time on the lead as they opened up with thier main guns at the guard houses and administartive building and first of the bmp2 made careful forray into the tripple rows of razor wire fence to check out the depth of minefields that nobutu knew was there . The first forrays ended in total diaster as both the scout vessels were blown sky high as they hit the first layer of anti tank mines and the crew badly injured tried to escape were cut down mercilessly by the south african trained security guards and then the first wave of t-55s advanced with built in heavy blade similar to a earth mover in a slow move to make clear passage thry the field . It was risky business but finally a clear way was established and the the main armour could move in .6 t-55s lay burning by the side of the safe channel hit by shoulder fired anti tank rounds and mines which they could not clear.

General Nobutu looked at the motely group of mine security guards who finally have surrendered after almost 3 hrs of pitched battle with his forces and he was in no mood for mercy as he ordered the first dozen to be placed before his tanks 125 mm gun and asked them for the last time about the location of mines diamond inventory -they did not reply and he nodded to the gunner who reluctantly pushed the red fire button and the 125 mm gun jerked back as the high explossive anti tank round tore into the mass of human bodies some distance away .

The second group of mine officials were then led to the killing field and a fresh round loaded .This time time general nobutu did not ask the question ,he simply waited for 3 minutes and then nodded and the gun fired again .

The rest of the miners could tak no more as their loyality to mine got ooverpowered by the grisly killings being carried out by a cold blooded maniac in a very systematic way . They capitulated and within 10 minutes Nobutu was walking into the diamond vault of the mine and for the first time in his life looked at the packets and packets of uncut diamonds totaling nearly 32000 carat -it was indeed a kings ransom .

As the victorious general walked of to his command tank followed by the small wooden case of diamonds his loyal troops started looting and plundering in earnest .All diamond mines employ a large population female diamond sorters and what happened to them or the family members of the mine officials no one would ever know at leats not for next few months . Most of the male workeres were simply shot or hanged .Kids had their head bashed against nearest wall to make the spirit escape peacefully (an old african superstition) .Once the looting and plunder and killing was over the torching started and it was game to end all game when live babies were thrown into the fire with much laughter and thigh thumping . It was african brutality at its best .

The angolans left next morning with a satisfied look in their collective face . Only then the vultures started comming in for their share and then the hyenas . In african savanah -nothing goes to waste .

Far up in the sky - the SR-71 passed over its countless sensors and cameras recording in stereoscopic detail and in colour the carnage below for the world to see.
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Post by Shankar »

"many of the diamonds,gold and precious stones mined in african war zones leave thru the back channels for the middle east ,making them a superb repository for the finances of terorist groups " -BBC News

News report Luanda " people and groups linked to worldwide terror network are trying to covertly enter the southern african nation of angola ,an official said on radio adding that govt was "alert"

The ecclesia radio station quoted constantino vitiaka head of information at the national intelligence services as saying that that ther has been attempts by elements linked to worlds leading terror network to come into angola especially thru moslem NGO s .He said govt was keeping a close "watch"to see if the terorists groups were being formed ,the roman catholic radio station reported .

Colonel Asif ali following genearl nobutu in the second column quite peeled of the main formation onec the looting of diamond mine was over .He had a far more important task to perform for the supreme leader and the instructions have come via satelite phone from peswar thry a set of dummy repeaters .

Apart from diamond ,namibia also happenes to be the largest producer of uranium in the african subcontinent and the uranium mine was not very far from the present location of asif alis armoured column .

Back home some where in the rugged landsacpe of waziristan which borders afganistan and pakistan ,the old man sat down for his evening prayres - for him the turmoils in a distant land was just a small part the game he was playing .He needed uranium and lots of it so that his friends in east and west can give him what he wants
Shankar
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Post by Shankar »

ROSSING URANIUM MINE -MAMIBIA
-------------------------------------------
General manager Peter strand looked dismally at the production figures of uranium oxide for the current month and the large build up "yeallow cake" due to poor off take by the worlds leading nuclear power companies . His total inventory stood at more than 50 tons and if the inventory continues to build up at this rate he would have to slow down ore processing operation very soon . The morning TV news showed footages of border skirmishes in the angolan border and the assuring image of namibian president confiriming everything was under "control"

He was not so sure .AN ex south african red scouts major ,in his younger days was a part of many hit raids deep inside angola during days of angolan civil war .He knew how quickly the furtunes of battle can turn and what rubble army of angola can do when in control .His first call was to his team mate brigadier Tim in south african defense forces military intelligence and only re assuring thing he heard was they were watching the situaton closely and some external naval air assistance will be shortly available .

The minning operation at rossing uranium mine started in 1976 .Located close to the town of arandis 65 kms inland from the coastal town of swakopomund in the namib dessert and also close the walvis bay ,namibias only deep water harbour. Rosing mines product uranium oxide or yeallow cake as it is commonly called was marketed to all the leading nuclear based power utility companies in central europe,north america and south east asia. In gross terms rosing mine today produces about 8% of worlds total uranium.
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Post by Shankar »

SPECIAL WEAPONS DEPOT -30 KMS WEST OF PRETORIA
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Defense minister of south africa thought it only reasonable to have a confirmatory visit at the nations ultimate weapons which may have to be used if international community do not come to assist against possible angolan invasion. So far all the battles have gone in angolas favour ,namibias poorly equipped and trained forces were simply no match for battle hardened if some what indisciplined angolan invasion force .Last report said the angolan armour have crossed the difficult terrain and now fast moving towards the namibian capital of windoheck .

The south african and israeli have the same siege mentality ,surounded by hostile neighbours who are numerically far far superior ,they both know there is only one weapon system which can gurantee their survival and they both pursued thier dream seperately and some times collectively . They both eached thier objective more or less same time .

As per recorded nuclear history south africa is the only nation to have aquired the nuclear weapons capability and given it up voluntarily and signed the non proliferation treaty . In fact in in 1993 south african president de klark confirmed to the world that not onlty south africa have the capability to produce nuclear weapons ,it has produced a limited quantity and then "destroyed " it . Some believed it ,most did not.

South african involvement in the nuclear age startedlong back due to presence of its substantial uranium reserve estimated at 350000 tons or 11% of global reserve.South african export of uranium started towards the end of second world war and was part supplier of manhattan project which changed the world outlook on how the nuclear energy can be used.From 1981 south africa operated 14 different mines and roughly 15% of world uranium production came from them .The four leading mines are vaal reefs,palabora,hartebeestfontien and western areas..Average 2000 tons of uranium are produced and 80% of this from the vaal reefs mine in witwaterstrand basin .

South africa forray into nuclear research began much later , us supplied them with a research reactor safari 1 in 1957 .for civilian nuclear research and formed the cornerstone of famous or infamous pelindaba nuclear research centre -located 30 kms west of pretoria.Like all nuclear weapons programme atomic energy board of south africa began the project of uranium enrichment initially housed in a small ware house in pretoria but later on security considerations moved it to pelindaba .
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Post by Shankar »

The uranium enrichment process followed by the south africans were quite diffrent from the gas centrifuge method being used by the pakistanis .It is called vortex enrichment and essentially depends on seperation of heavier isotope u-235 by generation of near sonic velocity of a mixture of hydrogen and uranium hexa fluride . The high speed rotating column of gas inside a static tube causes the seperation of heavier uranium isotope from the lighter ones by centrifugal force and therby initiating the enrichment process.The heavier isotopes move towrds the periphery and lighter uranium isotopes migrate towrds the centre over a period of time .Take off connections at the centre and periphery collect the partly enriched isotopes and carry them to the next seperating stage till enrichment of uranium to 95% + or weapons grade have been achieved . While the basic physical property used in the seperation is same as in ultra gas centrifuge since there is no spinning rotor design and onstruction is much simpler . Also it happens to be one of the most inefficeant energy intensive means of uranium enrichment .But then in 1967 south african scientists did not have any other option available with almost complete international isolation due to rule of the racist government .

South africa entered the nuclear power generation age with a us supplied reserch reactor safari-1 which happened to be a light water tank type reactor at pelindaba and used 4.5 kg of 90% enriched uranium and a design power of 20 mw thermal .This was followed by locally built pelinduna facility which used 600 kg of 2% enriched uranium and used 5.4 tons of heavy water supplied by united states.

Uranium enrichment corporation was publicly formed in 1970 and the first pilot palnt for enrichment on a large scale was started at at facility near pelindaba known as valindaba . Though officially the rason given was for its enriched uranium fed power reactor -the real reason was always to enrich uranium ore locally mined to weapons grade . BECAUSE atomic energy board of south africa did not have the specialised expertise in the area of conventional as well as nuclear explossive interaction and explossives . A small team worked in total secrecy at a propulsion laboratory near somochem in cape province.Somochem happened to be subsidary of south african arms giant ARMSCOR which manufactured propellents and explossives .Presently somochem is part of the well known denel .the nuclear device dsign was typical gun type one and complete prototype without any fissile core was tested in may 1974 abouth the same time india had its first" peaceful" nuclear explossion at pokhran and the "budha is smiling "code word shook the world .

However the qualitative differenece between south african and indian nuclear devices were stupendous .Soth african units believed to be between 6 and 12 were comparitively large ,used too much of the expensive fissile material and too costly to make . But still it gave south africa a somewhat credible nuclear deterent when portugal withdrew from its african colonies and civil war and chaos engulfed the region

Situation today was not that bad ,thought the defense minister of south africa ,but no harm staying prepared for the worst and made a mental note to talk to air chief about moving a few devises to pre deployment stages at earliest .

SOUTH AFRICAN AIRFORCE BASE- HOEDSPRUIT
----------------------------------------------------------
-Tower - india siera - to land
-india siera-hoedspruit tower - make right trafic-runway 09- make altitude
5000 -over
- tower -india siera- making right trafic -altitude 5000 intoned squadron leader dipak sen as he punched in the approach co ordinates on his flight computer and pressed the execute tab,the twin tailed fighter smoothly executed the heading change and lost the required altitude quicky to come in for final approach. Behind him squadron leader Sunil strarted putting the attack computer on stand by mode and quickly safed the awe some weapon load the sukhoi was carrying for an "orientation"sortie in preparation of landing .
--india siera -cleared to land on runway 09 - 5 knots cross wind over runway- temperature on ground 43 deg celcius
- cleared to land -india siera

Like always the sukhoi made a perfect landing ,its on board sensors making the minot corrections to heading and airspeed to correct for the mild cross wind conditions over the runway and airbrakes came up the moment the nose wheel touched ground and the twin brake chutes deployed few seconds lated as the air speed dropped below 150 knots mark. It had a comparitively short landing run for an aircraft its size and fully loaded . As it cleared the runway and moved intopre designated hard shelters the next flanker came down with a slight thump .

It had been like these for the last few days .The proposed exercise have been called of in view of angolan invasion of namibia but the none of the aircraft which flew down from a far away land to take part in the exercise have flown back . They were waiting ,waiting for another war which they knew will surely come and this time they will be fighting for a friend and fighting very hard.

Located near world famous kruger national park for the IAF pilots and technicians loacted here it was a dream come true . The hospitality of their south africal friends were awe some and unique . They also watched closely the way the south african air force protect thier aircraft from bird hits by using trained african lynx and cheetas are used to tackle the wild boars and small mammals that always manage to bore their way thru perimeter fences and run around the runway if not taken care off immediately. The indians also like the open air berbeques of wild bush meat (strictly unofficial) and night forrays into the kruger to watch the majestic lions hunt or for a fleeting glimpse of most graceful of all big cats -the african leapoard . The river banks during daytime were almost always full of giant nile crocodiles and hippos frolicking in the water . They watched the antics of babbons and the graceful run of a girafe .The endless herds of impalas and wide eared african elephants .The stupidly ugly but particularly il tempered warthogs.

Snakes were as common as mosquitos . And soon the indians started treating them with equal disdains as their south african counterparts and many a funny tales will be told and retold many times around the camp fire in the base about how lt commander sudipta ran out of her tent in some what skimpy clothing when during a short route familiarisation sortie came in for an overnight stay and was shocked to see a 7ft long african mamba nicely coiled over the hot water pipe in the make shift toilet . Or when sergent Jagat being fed up limited water shower available in the base went for an unannounced swim in a nearby stream and almost became crocodile lunch.

As they knew the country they began to love it too .They loved the african jokes (strictly unprintable) and loved their strongly rhythmic music they started liking thier food and their un complicated way of thinking all in all they started loving their host country with an intensity that only physical staying can bring along .

In short it was a country worth fighting and if nessecery dying for .
Shankar
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Post by Shankar »

The uranium enrichment process followed by the south africans were quite diffrent from the gas centrifuge method being used by the pakistanis .It is called vortex enrichment and essentially depends on seperation of heavier isotope u-235 by generation of near sonic velocity of a mixture of hydrogen and uranium hexa fluride . The high speed rotating column of gas inside a static tube causes the seperation of heavier uranium isotope from the lighter ones by centrifugal force and therby initiating the enrichment process.The heavier isotopes move towrds the periphery and lighter uranium isotopes migrate towrds the centre over a period of time .Take off connections at the centre and periphery collect the partly enriched isotopes and carry them to the next seperating stage till enrichment of uranium to 95% + or weapons grade have been achieved . While the basic physical property used in the seperation is same as in ultra gas centrifuge since there is no spinning rotor design and onstruction is much simpler . Also it happens to be one of the most inefficeant energy intensive means of uranium enrichment .But then in 1967 south african scientists did not have any other option available with almost complete international isolation due to rule of the racist government .

South africa entered the nuclear power generation age with a us supplied reserch reactor safari-1 which happened to be a light water tank type reactor at pelindaba and used 4.5 kg of 90% enriched uranium and a design power of 20 mw thermal .This was followed by locally built pelinduna facility which used 600 kg of 2% enriched uranium and used 5.4 tons of heavy water supplied by united states.

Uranium enrichment corporation was publicly formed in 1970 and the first pilot palnt for enrichment on a large scale was started at at facility near pelindaba known as valindaba . Though officially the rason given was for its enriched uranium fed power reactor -the real reason was always to enrich uranium ore locally mined to weapons grade . BECAUSE atomic energy board of south africa did not have the specialised expertise in the area of conventional as well as nuclear explossive interaction and explossives . A small team worked in total secrecy at a propulsion laboratory near somochem in cape province.Somochem happened to be subsidary of south african arms giant ARMSCOR which manufactured propellents and explossives .Presently somochem is part of the well known denel .the nuclear device dsign was typical gun type one and complete prototype without any fissile core was tested in may 1974 abouth the same time india had its first" peaceful" nuclear explossion at pokhran and the "budha is smiling "code word shook the world .

However the qualitative differenece between south african and indian nuclear devices were stupendous .Soth african units believed to be between 6 and 12 were comparitively large ,used too much of the expensive fissile material and too costly to make . But still it gave south africa a somewhat credible nuclear deterent when portugal withdrew from its african colonies and civil war and chaos engulfed the region

Situation today was not that bad ,thought the defense minister of south africa ,but no harm staying prepared for the worst and made a mental note to talk to air chief about moving a few devises to pre deployment stages at earliest .

SOUTH AFRICAN AIRFORCE BASE- HOEDSPRUIT
----------------------------------------------------------
-Tower - india siera - to land
-india siera-hoedspruit tower - make right trafic-runway 09- make altitude
5000 -over
- tower -india siera- making right trafic -altitude 5000 intoned squadron leader dipak sen as he punched in the approach co ordinates on his flight computer and pressed the execute tab,the twin tailed fighter smoothly executed the heading change and lost the required altitude quicky to come in for final approach. Behind him squadron leader Sunil strarted putting the attack computer on stand by mode and quickly safed the awe some weapon load the sukhoi was carrying for an "orientation"sortie in preparation of landing .
--india siera -cleared to land on runway 09 - 5 knots cross wind over runway- temperature on ground 43 deg celcius
- cleared to land -india siera

Like always the sukhoi made a perfect landing ,its on board sensors making the minot corrections to heading and airspeed to correct for the mild cross wind conditions over the runway and airbrakes came up the moment the nose wheel touched ground and the twin brake chutes deployed few seconds lated as the air speed dropped below 150 knots mark. It had a comparitively short landing run for an aircraft its size and fully loaded . As it cleared the runway and moved intopre designated hard shelters the next flanker came down with a slight thump .

It had been like these for the last few days .The proposed exercise have been called of in view of angolan invasion of namibia but the none of the aircraft which flew down from a far away land to take part in the exercise have flown back . They were waiting ,waiting for another war which they knew will surely come and this time they will be fighting for a friend and fighting very hard.

Located near world famous kruger national park for the IAF pilots and technicians loacted here it was a dream come true . The hospitality of their south africal friends were awe some and unique . They also watched closely the way the south african air force protect thier aircraft from bird hits by using trained african lynx and cheetas are used to tackle the wild boars and small mammals that always manage to bore their way thru perimeter fences and run around the runway if not taken care off immediately. The indians also like the open air berbeques of wild bush meat (strictly unofficial) and night forrays into the kruger to watch the majestic lions hunt or for a fleeting glimpse of most graceful of all big cats -the african leapoard . The river banks during daytime were almost always full of giant nile crocodiles and hippos frolicking in the water . They watched the antics of babbons and the graceful run of a girafe .The endless herds of impalas and wide eared african elephants .The stupidly ugly but particularly il tempered warthogs.

Snakes were as common as mosquitos . And soon the indians started treating them with equal disdains as their south african counterparts and many a funny tales will be told and retold many times around the camp fire in the base about how lt commander sudipta ran out of her tent in some what skimpy clothing when during a short route familiarisation sortie came in for an overnight stay and was shocked to see a 7ft long african mamba nicely coiled over the hot water pipe in the make shift toilet . Or when sergent Jagat being fed up limited water shower available in the base went for an unannounced swim in a nearby stream and almost became crocodile lunch.

As they knew the country they began to love it too .They loved the african jokes (strictly unprintable) and loved their strongly rhythmic music they started liking thier food and their un complicated way of thinking all in all they started loving their host country with an intensity that only physical staying can bring along .

In short it was a country worth fighting and if nessecery dying for .
Shankar
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Posts: 1905
Joined: 28 Aug 2002 11:31
Location: wai -maharastra

Post by Shankar »

WINDOHEK -NAMIBIA
--------------------------
The top leadership of namibia both political and military was i a state of complete disarray .More than the actual looting of nations wealth by angolan army it was the panic of advancing armour column and the tales of unbelivable brutality which were forcing the workers of far flung gold and diamnod mines to leave their place of work and flee towards the capital,Those with money and connections have already left the country under siege with whatever they could carry or transfer electronically .But for the vast majority that escape was simply not there .All the embassies have started moving out there non essential staff and families out of the country and so far the international community has not done much except some token lip service usally reserved for poor african nation .Even south africa their closest and potentially the most powerful neighbour so far have kept unusally quite and not a word of protest against the barbaric invasion .

The 6 mig 23s of angolan armed forces came in in broad daylight -thier target the international airport which also housed some ill mantained aircrafts ofnamibian airfore and the radio and television station. Two of the floggers dropped their load of nearly 5000 kgs of high explossives on the runway and more importantly one direct hit on the air trafic control tower . The second group made a moderately sucessful attack on the tv tower and adjoing tv station and the rest simple droped their explossive load on the market area just outside citys main bus terminus .

The objective of the strike was two fold -two induce panic in the general population and to put the existing govt on notice .They suceeded in both counts and also one area which the angolans did not anticiapate .It galvanised the moribund united nations security council to sit up and take notice . An emergency session was called for by usa and seconded by the peoples republic of china . The session would take place in 3 days time and voting on any resolution approved by the general assembly will be taken up for voting the next day . Which meant at least for another one week the namibians will have no help from outside nor was any foreign power authorised to intervene in the meantime in this regional conflict .

The two mirage 2000s of IAF on familiarisation patrol with 3 south african mirage 3 in northern south africa watched it all ,they could have taken out the angolan floggers much before they even entered the namibian capitals air space but this time they were strictly weapons safe and thier rule of engament did not include offensive counter air operation . The pilots watched on their long range radar a massacre bring commited -powerless to do anything about it .

But the rules of the game were about to be changed very soon and then the outcome is expected to be quite different .
Philbert
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Post by Philbert »

Shankar wrote: sir we believe indian are already moving in to help with the goroshkov carrier group and our carrier groups in the area have reported quite a few flight of their military aircraft mostly sukhois and mirages making a dog legged trip towards pretoria for the last few days .

well it would have been nice if you used the name INS Vikramaditya Carrier Group it kind of has a diffrent and nicer tune to it :)
Shankar
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Post by Shankar »

OVAL OFFICE -WHITE HOUSE-WASHINGTON D.C.-DAY 5
----------------------------------------------------------------
The natioanl security director waited as the president pondered over the latest round of satelite and sr-71 photographs . The swath of destruction and death in the captured namibian diamond mine was aparent even from 80000 ft . More worriying was the detachment of angolan armour advancing towrds Rosings mine one of the largets producers of uranium oxide in the world . Once the mine falls and there is no doubt it will sooner or later unless the damned united nations moves its butt and quickly passes a resolution allowing use of military force to stop and roll back the invasion.According to latest official figures available its inventory of uranium oxide was close to a thousand tons and that is lot of uranium to worry for if it some how manages to find its way to iran or china thru internatioanl black market or north korea for that matter .

South africa was defensive on the issue -the did not atleast not officially want get get involved in a conflict unless their own borders are threatened .Indian are not willing to commit ground troops in any significant number and that too only after specific un resolution alowing foreighn troops to be used in the conflict.

US carrier groups and most of its strike force is already based and deployed around iran which has threatened to carry out its first nuclear explossion termed peaceful nuclear initiative any day and israeli air force was on full alert and likely to strike the moment any such test is carried out

That left only indian and south african to take care of the african situation and at the moment it looks like gulf war 1 type strong air strikes are the only way to stop this madness and restore the status quo but the key to that lies with the unpredictable agglomerate of nations forming the security council and the genearl assembly .

He looked once again at the goroshkov carrier group -ofcourse the 40000+ ton ex russian carrier is part of indian navys western naval command and named Vikramaditya .Flanked by the two of the worlds most powerful guided missile destroyers mysore and bangalore .In the distance he could see the fleet oiler aditya and two talwar class frigartes .the sr-71 photographs taken from an oblique angle and in ultra high resolution have been blown up to reveal the israeli barak missiel tubees and also the harpoonski missiles on the guided missile destroyers . The commander in chief of the worlds most powerful military liked what he saw and knew this is force capable of preventing a humanitarian disaster if effectively used . What he did not see but knew it was there were the club equipped kils lurking deep ,3 of them in fact and they were far closer to the shore for a mission unknown .

Ofcourse it would be better if some extra muscle comes their way at least in a limited way thought the president as he told his secratary to connect him to israeli prime minister and russian president and also to his own startegic air command .

ROSING URANIUM MINE -NAMIBIA
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General manage peter strand was one busy man as 100 odd heavy earth movers moved around at frantic pace to create a 20 mtr deep tank ditchall around the 56000 acre mine operating area .The woemn and children were all bundled up inside the main administartive building having its own rooftop helipad . With military precision he placed the medium and light machine guns along the hastily built up perimeter wall made up from ore wast and diggings of the anti tank ditch in progress . Heavy cranes were pressed into service to move in hevy steel pipes and structures into a second line of perimeter defense and welders welders were busy joining them into a mass of interlaced obstrction to make movement thru them extremely difficult and additional machine guns were sigheted on the dead space between the outer earthen wall and the inner metal protection fence . Mines were placed in the kill zone between the two walls and also in the anti tank ditch . All the rifles and even shot guns were issued to those having previous experience with fire arms and that there were plenty .

The mine had a huge stock of high speed diesel for the bevy of earth movers and cranes and the generators .A pipeline from the main storage tank was quickly laid out to the tank ditch and a high capacity axial flow diesel transfer pump incorporated into the make shift system so as to flood the ditch with diesel at short notice .

A group of mine overseers were issues boxes of signal flares and posted around the ditch with instructions to use them as and when required .

Rosing mine was not going to give in - but bravery was not enough -they needed some heavy fore support and anti armour capability -sadly at this point of time that was not available .
Shankar
BRFite
Posts: 1905
Joined: 28 Aug 2002 11:31
Location: wai -maharastra

Post by Shankar »

Colonel asif ali reached the out skirts of of the rosing uranium mine complex when sun was about to start .Of the 70 odd t-55 and 40 bmp 2 he started off with about 60 t-55 and 38 bmp2 still remained with him ,the rest have dropped off on soe pretext or other like engine overheating ,air filter blocked or in one case jamed turret . Asif ali did not really believed these reports from his tank commanders -most likely they are after some serious looting and rape of the countryside and he did not grudge them their pleasure after all they all have worked hard for this "stupendous victory"

What his tank commanders did not know was apart fromtaking down a hated symbol of aparthied a sneaky financial angle too was involved in this operation . For every barrel of uranium oxide he could manage to smuggle out he will be paid by some one in a far off land ten times the international price and that too in us dollars .It was to good a offer to let go .

As for his troops ,they were interested in just one thing looting and ---e. Decades of bush war have managed to turn off the basic human values in most of them .There were some exceptions who thought such conduct is unbecomming of the armed forces of angola but such voice was few and far between .

Up close the main mine complex looke like a medival fortress with anearly 20 mtr high earthen berm next to a 15 mtrs deep dry ditch . All carpeted with sharp ore rejects deadly for the tanks tracks . The embeded diesel lines were well hidden and so asif ali did what he thought was best to do under the circumstances -he ordered a salvo of high explossive shells tobe fired over the earthen berm and then ordered spraying the wall with machine gun fire before he commited the tanks to advance across the man made ditch .

The miners did precisely nothing till the angoaln tanks were fully commited when about half the tanks were across the dry ditch and trying toclimb up the berm and other getting ito the dry canal they switched on the powrful pumps filling up the ditch with thousands of gallons of high speed diesel -effectively immobilising the 60 odd tanks in a slippery flammable ditch .The smell of raw diesel alerted asif ali even within the battened down hull that something was gravely wrong and he ordered immediate revese but that only worsened the situation as quite a few tanks in the first column rammed into those behind and a sytemetic advance changed to a chaotic withdrawal in a matter of minutes .

Peter fired the first signal flare into diesel soaked ditch from behind the berm and his pre selected team did the same from all around .The oil soaked earth took time to ignite but once it did there was nothing to stop it .As the red orange river of fire took shape the tank crew simply vanished as fast and as far they could from the secondary expplossions that were sure to come come .They were not wrong .First the fuel tanks caught fire and then the stored ammo . The secondar explossions continued long into night as the angolan soldiers helplessly watched thier armour advantage being taken out by a clever man withcleverer tactics.Tomorrow the war will be more level.
Shankar
BRFite
Posts: 1905
Joined: 28 Aug 2002 11:31
Location: wai -maharastra

Post by Shankar »

Colonel asif ali was totally taken aback by the hard resistance offered to his armoured column by a bunch of capaitalist miners . More than half his tanks were burning in the oil slicked ditch and his troops di not know how to proceed . The night was falling in the typical african way where bright daylight gives in to total darkness in a matter of minutes and the pressure from general nobutu was mounting to finish his objective within the day and join the main column for the planned major strike of walvis bay .

In the base ment garage of rosing mines Peter was getting ready for the next assault . All mines have large water resoiveres to wash the ores of light overburden of the heavy ore under high pressure and his engineers were busy giving final touches to complete the pipeline modifications which would allow them to divert the entire content of multi million gallon water resoiver into the ditch making it an impregnable moat .

A seperate group of explossive guys were busy planting the dynamite sticks into the earthen berm and wiring them to a few centralised detonators for remote detonation whenever a tank or armoured comes near by . They worked with the frenzy of a cheetah mother after a bull impala who have three small mouths to feed .There was no talk and the apparent chaos of multiple groups working for a common objective and the objective in this case was their collective lives including and particularly the lives of their wives and children .

Colonel asif ali made the second attack just after dark and the miners switched on thier heavy duty pumps from multiple points converting the protective ditch in to a muddy nightmare for the heavy tanks . The lighter BMP2 and BRDM s faired better but only marginally .As they tried to tackle the sharp gradient of the berm the namibian miners strted detonating the standard bundles of dynamite sticks in a carefully coordinated sequence creating the impression of remotely detonated mines .

The angolan army did not remember one basic fact of minning .They have a large well trained group of explossive experts for whom correct and effective use of explossives is a way of life .Their expertise in use of heavy explossives is equal to if not better than most army engineering groups. And now they used that skill and knowledge for their survival .

The second attack also failed and with that asif ali decided to retreat with whatever left of his once strong armoured contingent to join general nobutus forec heading for walvis bay . He was not sure what will happen to him personally but being a soldier first was ready to face the future with a straight back .

Gen nobutu was furious at this setback and decided to conven a field court martial as soon as asif returns and award a death penalty so severe that next time any field commander will think twice before accepting a tactical failure so quickly .
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