BATTLE OF ISLAMGARH ROAD
DAY 1 + 0730 HRS
“Okay, let’s move out.” Kulkarni replied as the last of his tanks began clearing the breach point in the minefields.
The tank rumbled forward on the tar road leading twelve others in a single column. The bulk of the force was spread south and north of the westward stretch of the road. Kulkarni wasn’t stupid enough to bring his main force into battle on a narrow road. Especially when advancing to contact…
The view from his sights revealed a Pakistani border outpost further west, abutting the road from the south. These border posts were evenly distributed along stretches of the road that ran parallel to the border. Mirroring similar Indian deployments on the other side. Rhino force had breached in a location where the road ran close to the border and was roughly between the two nearest Pakistani posts. The one to the north was not Kulkarni’s concern. It had been struck by Indian artillery two hours ago and was deserted by now. A small column of BMP-IIs from the Trishul force had already reached its perimeters after Rhino had arrived on scene. That column of BMP-IIs would secure and hold that position to provide security for the northern flank of the breach point.
The border post west of the breach point was more in Kulkarni’s direct path and had not been reconnoitered by Indian forces except for airborne drones launched by Steel-Central.
This border post was Kulkarni’s first objective over Pakistani soil.
For all that, it showed no signs of occupation. Kulkarni looked through his sights to observe any signs of movement on the post and saw none. Just the regular group of small buildings and positions painted sand-brown. A small flag post visible on top of the mound in the center of the post was barren: signs that the Pakistani troops here had retreated tactically over the last few hours to better held positions further west.
Regardless, caution was the order of the day. Kulkarni couldn’t care less about the post. He would roll over it, crush it under his tank treads and move past towards his strategic objectives. He had no intention of making his way through any and all booby-traps laid by the Pakistanis to welcome him on their home turf…
“Any activity at the post?” Kulkarni asked his gunner who was also reviewing the abandoned sand bunkers as they slowly rolled towards the post.
“Negative. No signs of life.”
“Time to knock on the Paki doors and see if anyone is home. Level those bunkers!” Kulkarni ordered on the comms.
The tank shuddered with recoil as the gunner launched a high-explosive shell towards the Pakistani border post. A second later it hit the slit of the bunker and exploded, sending a ball of concrete dust and sand rolling into the sky. Three other tanks in the front column did the same, decimating most of the buildings at the post.
No enemy response.
Perhaps the position really was deserted, Kulkarni thought. As his tanks rolled close to the perimeter of the post and past it, the smaller dust columns from the shells merged into a larger haze, hanging above the post against a bright blue morning sky.
“So much for that position,” the gunner offered as their tank rolled past the main gates of the post and continued westwards. The driver made it a point to roll over the signpost at the main gate marking the name of the Pakistani unit that occupied this position just hours before.
“All Rhino elements, make sure you cover any activity on our flanks,” Kulkarni ordered. “The Pakis here have retreated to better positions in the west. They will not be giving up these lands without a fight. Don’t get complacent out here!”
Now the road turned generally northwest, meandering all the way. Eventually it would turn into the Rahim-Yar-Khan road which would take them all the way to the town by the same name and the highway N-5 that passed through it. That was fifty kilometers away. And right now they hadn’t even made it past the first two. There was a long way to go.
Kulkarni pulled up the ABAMS screen to see how his other tanks were holding on his right flanks. He had just pressed the zoom-out button when the tank shuddered violently and a thunder rolled through the interior of the tank. The ABAMS screen flicked off and then on again as the shockwave dissipated.
“What the hell…!”
“Enemy artillery fire!” The driver yelled over the tank comms. “A shell landed just twenty meters on the road in front of us!”
Kulkarni peered through his sights to see what the hell was happening as more shells began impacting around them. The view from his sights was not pretty: Enemy heavy artillery shells were hitting the ground all around the Rhino tanks. Inverted cones of sand and dust were erupting all over the green shrubbery around them. The air was a screaming cacophony of inbound shells and exploding thunderclaps…
Kulkarni felt the tank jerk to a stop and he looked away from the sights: “What’s going on?! Why have you stopped? Are we hit?”
“
Negative! Negative!” The driver shouted over the sounds of the thunder around them. “I have a huge crater on the road in front of us! The road is destroyed!”
“Then get us the fu@k around it! Get off the road, goddamn it!”
The tank jerked again to the side and them rumbled forward, skirting the smoldering crater carved out of the tar road in front of them. Kulkarni got on the Rhino comms again: “All Rhino elements, keep moving! Do not stop! I say again, do not stop or they will bracket us in their kill zones!”
He switched comms instantly: “Steel-Central, this is Rhino-one! We are taking fire from enemy tube artillery two kilometers west of the breach point! We are maintaining advance! Over!”
“Any casualties?” Sudarshan’s voice asked.
“Negative, sir. But that won’t last. Somebody needs to go put those damn enemy guns out of commission, sir!”
“Roger, Rhino-one. We are working on it! Ferrite-actual is moving into position. In the meantime, continue the advance to waypoint baker! Out.”
The tank shuddered again as another explosion ripped through the ground nearby. Kulkarni had to hold on to the turret frame to prevent himself from being smashed against the sides. Advancing through the incoming fire prevented the Pakistanis from bracketing Rhino force into a stationary kill zone. It reduced the artillery’s accuracy and chances of scoring a direct hit against the top turret armor of his tanks. But how long would that luck hold out?
“Enemy positions!” The gunner shouted. “One kilometer northwest! They have optics on us!”
At least that explained the shifting artillery fire…Kulkarni thought as he peered through the sights. He saw the optical reflections against the morning sunlight hitting the Pakistanis directly. That was helpful to the Indian forces. The east-west attack route in the morning was blinding the Pakistanis facing east and silhouetting the Indian forces heading west. Kulkarni had every intention of grabbing that advantage…
“All Rhino elements, enemy defensive lines nine-hundred meters west. Open fire! And do not stop! Fire on the move and roll over the enemy! Force their artillery to either fire over their own troops or to check fire. Either way, we have nothing to lose! Execute!”
The sound of two dozen high-explosive tank rounds leaving their barrels was actually loud enough to drown out the noise of the incoming artillery. A rare thing in combat. First the line of Arjun tanks disappeared into a cloud of flame and smoke…and the Pakistani lines did. The high-explosive shells slammed into their positions. The smoke from the main guns washed over the ever advancing mass of Arjun tanks as they kept moving forward, firing tank rounds into the enemy positions as fast as the loaders on board each tank could ready them…
It was all about maintaining fire superiority. It didn’t matter if the tank rounds hit any specific target or not. If they did, that was great. If not, they at least forced the enemy to keep their heads down and deal with the explosive concussions ripping through their bodies. The vibrations affecting their aim and the thunderclaps that forced them to lose focus and coherence. War as much psychological as it was physical. Kulkarni understood that only too well…
Peering through his sights in thermal mode allowed him to see past the clouds of smoke, sand and dust that had enveloped the Pakistani positions on either side of the road, less than half a kilometer away now. The sights were already having difficulty now from brown-outs. They couldn’t see through all the hot particles flying all over the place. That cloud was now dozens of feet into the air and threatened to envelop their entire view. The enemy artillery fire slackened off as well. For similar reasons, he suspected.
Kulkarni opened comms to all his unit commanders: “All Rhino elements! Check fire! Halt! Halt! Halt!”
The tank shuddered to a halt and the guns stopped firing. Kulkarni continued to peer through his sights alongside his gunner as they waited for the view to clear. He depressed the button to flick the view on his optics from thermal to visual, changing the white-black monochrome view into shades of brown, green and blue of the sky above. For his purposes, however, the view was no better. They couldn’t see anything.
“Rhino-two, three and four. Do you have targets?”
“Negative.”
“No targets.”
“Uh…we are brown-out on this side. Can’t distinguish anything!”
Kulkarni realized that they had driven up right in front of the Pakistani infantry lines. He must have been facing perhaps two companies of troops at best. The rest of that Pakistani battalion must be nearby somewhere…
“Rhino-four,” he said without peering away from his sights, “peel off here and flank southwest with your boys. I want to see how far south this Paki defensive line stretches. Rhino-three, do the same to the northwest. Rhino-two, you are with me. We are rolling over these ******** to our front. Rhino-three and –four, rendezvous with us down the road, two kilometers out. Don’t get bogged down fighting your way through. I want you guys scouting, not slugging it out. Understood?”
“Roger. Rhino-three copies all. Out.”
“Rhino-four at your service. Combat recon all the way. Out.”
Kulkarni saw the twelve tanks of Rhino-four to the south swiveling to the southwest and spewing smoke and sand as they began rolling in formation. He swiveled his sights to the north and saw another twelve tanks of Rhino-three doing the same. That left the bulk of Rhino still staggered around him, however. Looking west, the dust cloud was settling.
Okay. Time to take them forward.
He switched frequencies to his units: “All elements, Rhino-one and Rhino-two. Charge on my mark. Engage and destroy all enemy forces. Watch for enemy infantry who might let you roll over their positions and engage you from the rear. Gunners, prepare for close in fight!”
As if to prove a point, a Pakistani large-caliber artillery shell landed on the edge of the road some distance away, showering his parked Arjun with sand and gravel. The shadow of the airborne gravel drifted over the tank against the blue sky above.
Kulkarni smiled cruelly.
“All Rhinos charge!”
The tank jerked into motion and accelerated against the rising growl of the diesel engines. The main guns spoke up again and pummeled what remained of the few Pakistani infantry positions lined with trenches. They were now close enough to the position to see past it. Kulkarni and his crews got their first glimpse of what was behind the Pakistani lines. The force supporting this defensive line. He could make out silhouettes of trucks and what appeared to be a box shaped armored vehicle moving abruptly behind the smoke…
“Gunner! Enemy M-one-one-three moving behind the lines! Five degrees off, seven hundred meters!”
“I have it!”
The tank shuddered and the turret filled with smoke as the gunner let loose a high-explosive round. Kulkarni never took his eyes off the sights and saw the round fly almost horizontally and reach out like a finger of death to the boxy M113 personnel carrier. The latter exploded in a fireball that also shove it to the side of the road before it started bellowing thick black smoke.
“
Hit!” Kulkarni exclaimed.
The driver chimed in: “I see enemy soldiers moving to my left, three hundred meters! I see some heavy weapons!”
The gunner swiveled the turret to the left. “I see them!”
Kulkarni heard the metallic snapping noises of the co-axial machine guns as they raked the enemy positions. The loader snapped the next high-explosive round into the gun in the meantime. The machinegun fire stopped for a couple seconds and the turret shook as the high-explosive round went on its way. The machinegun fire started up again and the cycle repeated as they prepared to overrun this first line of Pakistani defenses.
Kulkarni had other things to worry about than keeping an eye on his crew. They were a well-oiled team and didn’t need his constant supervision. But the rest of the taskforce did. He saw that several other tanks on his left and right were moving almost parallel to him as they approached the enemy lines. He also noticed that the Pakistani artillery had stopped fire now that Rhino tanks were literally over the defenders. The sixty-ton Indian tanks had less to worry about getting hit than the Pakistani infantry and thin-skinned APCs holding this line. Kulkarni noticed the trucks behind the Pakistani defenses beginning to roll with all due haste to the west, abandoning their soldiers here.
So much for brothers in arms…Kulkarni thought as he saw high-explosive rounds from Rhino-four to the southwest, slamming into the convoy of trucks with lethal effect. He could see the tank rounds slicing across his view from left to right as they slammed into the trucks…
“Rhino-four, I see you to the southwest. Be careful of your fire! We are on your right, five hundred meters east of the convoy you are engaging! Over.”
“We see you, Rhino-one. No worries.”
Kulkarni smiled at that. Nothing calmed men in combat more than a simple gesture of calmness from their leaders. Rhino-four units were professionally mopping up the Pakistani rear echelon units, one kilometer away.
The tank comms chimed in from the driver again: “Trenches in twenty meters. Hold on.”
Kulkarni gripped the turret frame tighter in anticipation. The tank jerked down, hit the other end of the trench and climbed back up, its engines groaning all the way. They were passing through the enemy positions now. The constant clatter of machinegun fire was dying now.
A flash of light caught Kulkarni’s peripheral vision. He looked just in time to see an RPG-29 round fired from a nearby group of shrubs hit the left tread of an Arjun parked to Kulkarni’s right, a hundred meters away. The small explosion ripped through the treads and the links flew in all directions along with two wheels. The latter slammed into side of Kulkarni’s turret with a massive clang just before smaller debris showered all around…
The radio came alive instantly: “Rhino-one-three is hit! I say again, one-three is hit! We just took a ****** anti-tank rocket to our tread!”
“This is one-seven! Who fired? Does anybody see the shooter?”
“
Negative! Negative! I don’t see anybody.”
“Shooter in the shrubs near the burning M-one-one-three!” Kulkarni shouted as Rhino-one-three staggered to a halt on broken treads. “One-fifty meters west!”
“
Kill those ba$tards!”
Five separate tanks fired a combination of tank rounds and machinegun rounds into the shrubbery pointed out by Kulkarni. The latter location disappeared into a ball of fire and dirt. Two other surviving Pakistani soldiers made a break for it from behind the wrecked M113. They were ripped to shreds by the massive volley of machinegun rounds from the array of tanks standing over their positions.
Kulkarni noted that the gunners didn’t stop there. They were still hammering the shredded bodies of the soldiers with rounds out of sheer rage…
“Check fire! Check fire!” Kulkarni ordered. “You got them, damn it!” He then swiveled his sights to Rhino-one-three, bellowing smoke now from the front chassis. “What’s your status, one-three?”
“We are mobility killed over here, one-one. Driver injured. We need to get him out. Over.”
“Roger,” Kulkarni replied. He looked around and saw no signs of surviving enemy soldiers. Still, it was highly dangerous for the crew of any of his tanks to unbutton their turrets to help a crew member out here. It was time to bring up the combat-engineers…
“Rhino-one to Trishul-actual. We have one tank immobilized three kilometers east of your position on way to waypoint Baker. Also one casevac needing medical assistance. Suggest you get some of your boys up here. Over.”
“Trishul-actual copies. Standby for support. Out.”
Of course, Kulkarni couldn’t wait around for the engineers to fix his one tank. He switched comms back to Rhino-one-three: “Can you guys hold out here while Trishul catches up? What’s your weapon status?”
“We can hold it here, sir. Main gun and co-ax are operational. We are a sixty-ton pillbox. Don’t wait around for us. We will catch up with you before you know it!”
Kulkarni let out a faint smile. “Roger. Don’t take too long. All other elements, prepare to ro…”
That sentence stopped in his throat as a massive rain of artillery shells slammed into the parked tanks, enveloping them in a dense cloud of dust and smoke filled with the fast-flying shrapnel. Inside the turret, Kulkarni felt the cling-clang of ricocheting metallic pieces.
“
God. Damn. It.” He yelled and realized the comms were still open: “All elements, move! Now! The Pakis are shelling their own positions! I guess the figured we have already taken it!”
Kulkarni got on the comms to Sudarshan just as his tank rumbled forward, followed by the others.
“For the love of god, will somebody
please take care of the Pakistani artillery guns?!”
Waste of time. They are already burning. 
