Possible Indian Military Scenarios - Part VIII

Sudhanshu
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Post by Sudhanshu »

Surya wrote:Sudanshu


And how are you able to think like Chinese soldier????? :eek:

For all you know their system is capable making them think and not assume things.


That is the problem with all these Tom Clancyish writings

The winner is a forgone conclusion albeit with a loss or two thrown in for consolation.

Sadly if only real life were like this
Provided you understood me correctly that was one of the possible state of mind of chinese soldiers. I am not a telepath to make any solid conclusion on this.

:) and my name is "Sudhanshu" not "Sudanshu"
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Post by Denis »

Hi Vivek,

Awesome stuff. Don't worry about people losing interest in your story. I am surviving these tough days solely on the nourishment provided by your posts.

keep on going Sir!
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Post by ksmahesh »

Hi Vivek,
Great work in Jorahat air battle :roll: loss on Indian side was heavy. The only solace is that it could be heavier.

What is going to happen to 12 Mig21s in chabua battle? I believe all planes will be lost but it would be great if some pilots survive.

Only IGLA has been used till now. :roll: May be one can consider Astra and akash ready to be used............ Also Anti-Aircraft-Arty would love to bring down some enemy with their L70 et al. Please consider them ..... just my 1 paisa...
Last edited by ksmahesh on 24 Apr 2007 09:48, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Rampy »

with the four remaining SU-27s of the Eastern Barrier force
shouldn't that be 3 :?:

8 lost, 1 crippled so 3 left (12 total)
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Post by vivek_ahuja »

Quote:
with the four remaining SU-27s of the Eastern Barrier force
shouldn't that be 3

8 lost, 1 crippled so 3 left (12 total)
oops, thanks for pointing out that typing error.

i have edited it in the main post

thanks

-Vivek
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Post by Rampy »

ksmahesh wrote:Hi Vivek,
Great work in Jorahat air battle :roll: loss on Indian side was heavy. The only solace is that it could be heavier.

What is going to happen to 12 Mig21s in chabua battle? I believe all planes lost but it would be great if some pilots survive.

Only IGLA has been used till now. :roll: May be one can consider Astra and akash ready to be used............ Also Anti-Aircraft-Arty would love to bring down some enemy with their L70 et al. Please consider them ..... just my 1 paisa...
Akash ir any other SAM cannot be used, remember they have been jammed :twisted: . Igla was used because of visual aquisition
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Post by Sudhanshu »

...slammed into their targets just as the manufacturers had promised ....
:D I love the sense of humor.
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Post by niran »

First WHOA! for IA mig 21 to take down SUs.
Then AAAARGH! for 12 migs aganst 40 mkks,please!let our pilot eject safely,so they can live to fight another day.
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Post by Sudhanshu »

12 migs against 40 Mkk is straight slaughter. No commander would like to send his troops on such suicide mission, until the cause is very much important.
I don't know what Vivek has in store for us.

Eagerly waiting for next installment.
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Post by b_karan »

Denis wrote:Hi Vivek,

Awesome stuff. Don't worry about people losing interest in your story. I am surviving these tough days solely on the nourishment provided by your posts.

keep on going Sir!
Hey Vivek , Its really wonderful .....ur description is mind blowing ...
I have been creating an unedited Document of all your post till now .

Eagerly awaiting the next post .
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Post by Bala_R »

I am trying to put up another scenario taking place elsewhere in India based on the India-China war put up by Vivek. I don't intend to interfere with Vivek's scenario. Being an arm chair general, I might be wrong with the command structures. I would require help from either Shankar or Vivek to do corrections if required on my story line.

Only if you all agree, I will post my scenario.
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Post by niran »

t has been one whole day without any news of our brave IAF MIG 21 pilots.
gentle & esteemed writers Sir, can I ask for quicker response? me stock of antacids tablet is out.
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Post by vivek_ahuja »

3 TACTICAL AIR CENTRE (TAC), CHABUA REGION
NORTHEASTERN TIP OF INDIA
1925 HRS THURSDAY


The region north and east of Chabua was quite literally the northeastern tip of India, and with their proximity to the Chinese mainland were also the most vulnerable point against a thought out air attack or a determined ground attack. West of Chabua is Dibrugarh, and it is the Divisional Headquarters for the 2ND Mountain Division of the Indian army’s IV Corps, whose units were taking hits from Chinese artillery in the Himalayas north of this location. In the region is the Digboi Oil refinery. There is also an oil rich region east of Chabua, and a coal region south of there. The North-east Frontier railway has some of its major junctions in the locality and also is the support line for the 2ND Mountain Division. All of these above locations are south of the Brahmaputra River.

There were a considerable number of Military targets in the local region, the most important being the 2ND MD C3I. And then were the economic targets like the refinery, the oil pipelines, the main bridge over the Burhi Dihing that brings the NE frontier railway into the region as well as the oil and coal producing infrastructure. With forty SU-30MKKs in hand, armed with air-to-ground munitions in addition to the air-to-air ordinance, there wouldn’t be enough targets to go around for the Chinese pilots, and in all probabilities it seemed clear that they were expecting losses to 3 TAC defences as well as the army’s ground defences. But the numbers also suggested that as far as the PLAAF high command was concerned, this was to be a one-time series of losses only. With complete saturation Indian defences achieved, enough aircraft would make it to their targets to devastate the area and 3 TAC once and for all. It was a measure of the Chinese determination to win an untainted victory in the region since morning and indeed for the first time during this war. Nobody was going to get in the way this time.

Of course it was not entirely about brute force. The Chinese had shown a little thinking as well. The main lynchpin in their plans had been the ability of the SU-27 force that had penetrated Indian airspace to devastate the IAF Squadron supporting the Chabua based Mi-g-21 force and to prevent 3 TAC from getting any support from the west during the short time that the SU-30MKKs would be over Chabua region. This they had succeeded in doing. The eastern SU-27 Barrier force had kept the Jorhat based Mig-21s busy and stopped them from dashing to Chabua to provide help.

They had also devastated the Squadron itself. Out of the original force of Twelve Mig-21s, barely five were now flying. They had run low on missiles and fuel. Although they were now closing to finish off the final flight of SU-27s in coordination with the Chabua based force of four Mig-21s, they would have to land soon thereafter to refuel and rearm, by which time it would all be over in the east. The Squadron had also lost three of its senior officers including the Commanding officer, and their morale was low. Seeing the majority of the Squadron go down in fireballs over Assam had not helped either. As far as going to the aid of the Chabua based squadron was concerned, the Jorhat based Force was now combat ineffective.

The Chinese had gained that particular victory at a murderous cost. The eastern SU-27 Barrier force had been decimated. Eight of their number had been lost and another was not sure whether he would reach back to base. Three more were literally fighting for their lives against a numerically superior IAF Mig-21 force of nine aircrafts, and it was unlikely that they would live to see the sun rise. But the Chinese pilots had done their job. They, along with the other two SU-27 forces had sealed 3 TAC from all help. There was no support for the Chabua based Mig-21 Force. Neither was there any time left for any last minute miracles.

The inbound SU-30MKKs were flying in strengths of ten aircraft each. That meant that there were four sets of aircrafts coming from slightly different directions, although they had formed a close group for mutual security. This force was now coming form the Northeast to the Southwest towards Chabua. This time there was little external jamming support, and the Chinese aircrafts were carrying Jamming pods under one of the Pylons in most aircraft. There were a group of three aircrafts in each main force that was armed only with air-to-air weaponry. All others had primarily ground ordinance, but none were without air-to-air missiles.

The massive weapons capacity of the SU-30 aircraft allowed this ‘self-multiplier’ capability to exist, thus negating the need for close escorts. Nonetheless, the twelve aircraft armed with completely air to air weaponry were flying a full two thousand feet above the main ground force and were flexibly moving around like a guard dog protecting the sheep. The ‘Sheep’ in this case were about to do their own Iron-Hand missions against the Indian radars in Chabua, and most aircraft carried at least one anti-radiation missile with them for this job. There were far more ARMs with the attackers than there were radars with the defenders.

While the Indian force of twelve Mig-21s had the opportunity to move south now that the Eastern Barrier force of SU-27s had been destroyed, it was quite clear that 3 TAC would cease to exist if they did so. They would not be able to return to IAF Chabua because there wouldn’t be an IAF Chabua left to come back on. The Army was the most serious loser in the whole scheme of things. The only army force protecting the Himalayas north of here from the Chinese hordes was the 2ND Mountain Division. If they lost their command centre and their main lines of supply via the NE railway, that defence would be fatally weakened. And the IAF would be strained to deploy longer legged SU-30MKIs in the region to protect the airspace because there would be no local forward airfields left.

And sure as hell the Indian pilots weren’t going to leave the ground air defences alone in their fight while they flew south for their own safety. They weren’t aiming to take the attacking force head on, because they were brave, not stupid. They were already east of Chabua and thus now south of the Chinese force. They would now move north to pull this force towards the south after them. The Squadron Commander’s objective was to force the Chinese to divert aircraft from the main strike to go after him. That would take the heat off Chabua by a little bit, and he had all the intentions of using his aircrafts to down a few of the ******** in the process.

The Commander smiled within his breathing mask as he pulled his aircraft on to its left and then headed north. The enemy was about to get in range…
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Post by Sudhanshu »

Bala_R wrote:I am trying to put up another scenario taking place elsewhere in India based on the India-China war put up by Vivek. I don't intend to interfere with Vivek's scenario. Being an arm chair general, I might be wrong with the command structures. I would require help from either Shankar or Vivek to do corrections if required on my story line.

Only if you all agree, I will post my scenario.
I am game.
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Lessons Learned

Post by RamaY »

A Question to the pundits -

Every one in India's defense team knows that China is our major strategic threat. And China will always come to us thru Tibet OR NE whenever there is a war. Why aren't they building more bases or keeping advanced weapons systems in this area?

If Vivek's posts reflect current force strengths, how can India withstand a limited war with China and teach chinkus a lesson?

What lessons we can learn from these military scenarios? Adding few more air bases with 50-100 latest aircraft will do the job?

Can we collectively come up with a strategic vision for NE with force, equipment, infrastructure plans so we can have a secured eastern flank?
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Post by Sudhanshu »

Then I think we would have to increase our defense budget at least by 100%.
Remember we are just a developing country. Moreover, china is not an immediate threat to our security.
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Post by Hari Sud »

Vivek

What about the battle of Twang?

By now, the Chinese tanks have reached the vicinity.


Hari
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Post by rsharma »

Following is a very informative article on the issue of use of IAF in the 1962 scenario;it gives great insight on the phobic attitude of the men at helm of the Indian response.The part that highlights the role of the then US ambassador John K. Galbraith is most interesting.. Given that the 2 prime "story-tellers" of this thread viz Vivek & Shankar are focusing mainly on the Sino-Indian scenario, i guess it is a relevant thread to post it..

http://www.ciaonet.org/olj/sa/sa_jul03/ ... sur01.html
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Post by Bala_R »

Here is my first post. Please pardon my writing style & also the mistakes if any.

INDIAN OCEAN
600 KMS SOUTH EAST OF SRI LANKA
19:00 HRS, THURSDAY


Chinese had foreseen the Indian involvement in Myanmar. Their aircraft carrier, which had been conducting a friendly excercise with the Navy of Yemene had slowly moved out to the Indian Ocean in case India decided to help the Myanmar loyalists & war erupted. This had been done avoiding all the prying eyes & now the new Chinese aircraft carrier was awaiting for further instructions from the Chief. China had been trying to get to sell arms to many African countries & the excercise with the Navy of Yemen was conducted mainly to intiate the interest of Yemen in Chinese arms, thus extending its arms sales to countries in the Middle east. The aircraft carrier reached its current location southeast of Sri Lanka 3 days ago & was slowly joined by the 052C destroyer & other support ships a day ago as they did not want to let the world know about its movement. 3 Han class submarines were also part of the carrier screen. Chinese had carefully planned the operation with some merchant ships acting as supply ship for the carrier force. The carrier force had located themselves such as to avoid the major merchant traffic through the Indian Ocean.

Chinese had been actively trying to bog down India, by supporting the ULFA & other terrorist organisations covertly through ISI. All these activities were being carried out with the support of Bangladesh government. Even LTTE were being supported with weapons & funds via Bangladesh. Now it was time for LTTE to repay part of the price. Message was sent to LTTE chief via ISI regarding an important meeting somewhere south of Sri Lanka.

100 miles south of Sri Lanka, A small team of 5 chinese personnel left one of the Merchant ship in a small boat towards Sri Lanka with some special communication gear. When they were around 70 miles south of Sri Lanka, one of the Chinese tried to contact someone through the new communication gear. There was an immediate response from the other side, it was in English, which would mimic a Britisher. The response was from Manohar, a sleeping agent of LTTE in UK. He had been to Sri Lanka for some meeting the LTTE Chief. Manohar along with his team was still 10 miles away from the intended meeting point. It took another half an hour for his team to find out the Chinese messengers. Both Manohar & Chinese counterpart greeted each other & held a private meeting in the Chinese boats, which was not privy to any other personnel in both the teams. After the meeting Manohar was seen agreeing to the Chinese proposal. Chinese team handed over four big cartons to the LTTE team, which was swiftly transferred to the LTTE boat. After this both the boats turned back to their destinations. Chinese team instead of going back to the merchant ship took a further south-east ward route & were heading towards the carrier group.

Chinese oil tanker accompanying the Carrier force. The captain was looking through his binoculars out in the sea & he could faintly see a small boat approaching towards the tanker. Captain asked the crew to get ready to receive the small team approaching the tanker in the boat. The small team joined the Captain for some refreshments & drink. Now the head of the team used the secure communication link to talk to the carrier task force commander to give the message about his meeting.

Strategic thinkers in India did not foresee the involvement of Chinese in the Myanmar affair & it was too late for them to realise the depth of involvement of Chinese. China mean while had been taking advantage of the situation had been monitoring Indian naval activity in the Andaman & Nicobar islands & were eavesdropping into the communication from the Indian Navy. This helped them to identify the operations being carried out by the Navy from the Island as well helped them to sneak out their aircraft carrier to the current location without Indian Knowledge.


The quick decision of the Indian government to act against the rebels & Chinese in Myanmar had left all the services to concentrate on the eastern front. The Indian aircraft carrier Vikramaditya was heading towards Myanmar in support of the Indian operations. The Indigenously built ADS was now being positioned in the West, in case Pakistan tried to take advantage of the current situation & do some misadventure. Strategic thinkers assumed that it will take Chinese Navy atleast 4 or 5 days to send any meaningful force to the Indian Ocean & hence alerted the naval command in Andaman only on 19th to lookout for increasing Chinese naval activity.
Last edited by Bala_R on 26 Apr 2007 14:13, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by samuel »

There's a number of questions that come up for me...

1) What was the reason, considering the impending war with China was known, that an airbridge over Bangladesh was not negotiated for?

2) I don't know enough about this, but the AWACS is not jammed. Would it be possible, if not today, some day, for the AWACS to provide direction vectors to SAMs? One can imagine that SAMs get initial guidance from absolute positions (and velocities) computed from say the AWACS. If there are big uncertainties, an over-constrained tracking solution with an adhoc airborne radar-network (AWACS primary with SU-30 secondary), each outputing range, id, bearing and their time derivatives may work. So continual updates are relayed to SAM till it goes "terminal". It may not get "the" aircraft in a cluster, but then you start launching a bazillion of these till the radar signal becomes unsaturated again. Nonetheless, experts, is there such a thing in existence today?

3) My situational awareness is not complete...as I see it:
Chabua 12xMIG21 ----> 40xSU30MKK (E,NE,N)
Tezpur 12xMIG21 --><-- 12xSU-27 [Eastern Barrier, NNW Tezpur]
AWACS, 8xMKI <---- 12xSU-27 [Central Barrier, WNW Tezpur]
??xMig-27 [Hasimara] ------> ????
??xMKI [Kalaikunda]------> ????
4xMKI [Bomdila]----------->????
8xMKI+AWACS [Sikkim]-->????
????? <--------J-10 (N)
???? <-------- 16XSU-27 (NE)+H-6 [Western Barrier]

So what happen to the ?? marks? How many, where are they going?

4) Is the last-minute detection of chinese aircraft due to the loss of radarnet earlier? Are there other sources that extend detection range...very high altitude surveillance?

We did not expect a response on the CAC side, but we must've planned for EAC better, it seems.

5) What is the issue with loss of Bareilly, I don't really get; don't ops move to say Bagdogra or something else till Bareilly comes up?

6) In your opinion, have we actually learned something from 62, viz the chinese; I mean this wavefront, saturation, strategy is well-known, right?
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Post by vivek_ahuja »

the updated map for the impending battles:

Image
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Post by joy_roy »

Bala_r......lots of loopholes....for a starter..none can hide the movement of an aircraft carrier in todays day and age....people dont send satellites up there only for telecasting cricket.And secondly...IN aint idiot...it will never allow any chinese armada to close in anywhere near IOR in such scenario..forget sri lanka.i suggest u read all da shankar`s and others scenarios from da very first page..so that u get a pretty much sound idea about modern military warfare and then restart your scenario..
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Post by KiranM »

Bala IN will surely monitor Malacca straits through which offers the shortest possible sea route to mainland India. And it is almost impossible for a carrier, much less a task force, to sneak through Malacca since it is very narrow. The only other possible route is to circuit around Australia. And am sure our Kangaroo friends will monitor the fleet and atleast inform us that a Chinese armada is on its way.
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Post by vivek_ahuja »

My situational awareness is not complete...
Samuel, i hope the previous map answered some of the questions.
considering the impending war with China was known,
check the very first posts for the starting of the war. there was little strategic warning...also, what makes you think Bangladesh wants to cooperate. check the reports on recent indo-bangladesh relations to get a feel of what i am talking about. also check the initial posts for this.
Is the last-minute detection of chinese aircraft due to the loss of radarnet earlier?
no, that's due to the Mountaneous terrain. especially the Great Himalayas that form a sort of a wall. check some previous posts. the radar net was an air control system for the Myanmar theatre, the loss of which prompted the army actions to be put on hold
We did not expect a response on the CAC side, but we must've planned for EAC better, it seems.
sure, but the geography is against us. the 'wall' prevents detection at long range; the close proximity of targets to the border reduces our reaction time, and as mentioned, the small tanker fleet cannot maintain large numbers of fighters in the air continiously.
What is the issue with loss of Bareilly, I don't really get; don't ops move to say Bagdogra or something else till Bareilly comes up?
Baghdogra is extremely forward located. easily within range of anything that has a warhead on it. Would you place your high performance SU-30MKIs at such a place?
In your opinion, have we actually learned something from 62, viz the chinese; I mean this wavefront, saturation, strategy is well-known, right?
i an assuming that you are talking for the IAF. to be quite honest, there was not much for the IAF fighter fleet to do in the 62 war because of political ineptitude. having said that, it follows that everything that the chinese do has saturation written on it, ground or air.
for one thing, the infrastructure needs to be improved, and the EAC should not be dependent on aircrafts from CAC or WAC. at the moment the IAF is oriented against Pakistan and china is being treated as a distant enemy, not an immediate one.

the tanker fleet is too small for much use other than for small skirmishes, and assuming twelve tankers are actually purchased, as they are currently planned, that's still not enough for CAC, EAC and WAC in terms of massive air warfare with China.

as a result you still need forward airfields even today. unfortunately the improved tactical ballistic missile fleets in the nearby region make this venture highly risky for basing anything. you place your bet and take your chances.

so what you do is invest in a larger fleet of aircrafts that can make up for attrition. after the 62 war the IAF had done this, and at one stage we had 900 top of the line aircraft. that was when aircrafts came cheap per head. we all know the state of the IAF today.

you also make or purchase good ballistic defence systems. this we are only now starting to do now.
and then you hope that the chinese do not put flexibility in their tactics or improve their overall training methods. my Posts show a lot of flexibilty and improved tactics in the PLAAF. thia is another 'worst case' scenario i have protrayed here.

but the fact remains that if we don't do anything now, it will be too late later. my post tries to show the 'too late' state of affairs. maybe somebody important reading the posts might be stirred into action...i hope.

thanks

vivek ahuja
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Post by Sudhanshu »

Bala you are doing great.

All detections can be evaded, just you have to explain them, to justify your point.
However,in this modern world of reconnasiance the element of surprise is very rare.
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Post by samuel »

vivek_ahuja wrote:
My situational awareness is not complete...
Samuel, i hope the previous map answered some of the questions.
Hi Vivek, that helps substantially; I had my bearings mixed.
considering the impending war with China was known,
check the very first posts for the starting of the war. there was little strategic warning...also, what makes you think Bangladesh wants to cooperate. check the reports on recent indo-bangladesh relations to get a feel of what i am talking about. also check the initial posts for this.
Our friction with Bangladesh is well-known. In a situation like this, I am not sure the issue is really one of negotiation. Surely, there is something we can do to them (in the future) or for them (now) that will allow them to help us out? But, right, if all this were a matter of, say, "can we please fly over?", "No!", "Okay, then", then yeah of course the manner of our relationship hurts us.
Is the last-minute detection of chinese aircraft due to the loss of radarnet earlier?
no, that's due to the Mountaneous terrain. especially the Great Himalayas that form a sort of a wall. check some previous posts. the radar net was an air control system for the Myanmar theatre, the loss of which prompted the army actions to be put on hold
In your opinion, have we actually learned something from 62, viz the chinese; I mean this wavefront, saturation, strategy is well-known, right?
i an assuming that you are talking for the IAF. to be quite honest, there was not much for the IAF fighter fleet to do in the 62 war because of political ineptitude. having said that, it follows that everything that the chinese do has saturation written on it, ground or air.
for one thing, the infrastructure needs to be improved, and the EAC should not be dependent on aircrafts from CAC or WAC. at the moment the IAF is oriented against Pakistan and china is being treated as a distant enemy, not an immediate one.

the tanker fleet is too small for much use other than for small skirmishes, and assuming twelve tankers are actually purchased, as they are currently planned, that's still not enough for CAC, EAC and WAC in terms of massive air warfare with China.

as a result you still need forward airfields even today. unfortunately the improved tactical ballistic missile fleets in the nearby region make this venture highly risky for basing anything. you place your bet and take your chances.

so what you do is invest in a larger fleet of aircrafts that can make up for attrition. after the 62 war the IAF had done this, and at one stage we had 900 top of the line aircraft. that was when aircrafts came cheap per head. we all know the state of the IAF today.

you also make or purchase good ballistic defence systems. this we are only now starting to do now.
and then you hope that the chinese do not put flexibility in their tactics or improve their overall training methods. my Posts show a lot of flexibilty and improved tactics in the PLAAF. thia is another 'worst case' scenario i have protrayed here.

but the fact remains that if we don't do anything now, it will be too late later. my post tries to show the 'too late' state of affairs. maybe somebody important reading the posts might be stirred into action...i hope.

Regarding detection, right, so that's what I thought too. This means we must have known what our intrinsic range for detection is at day, night etc. We also knew in advance that the chinese are capable of deploying the MKKs. Did someone not ask the question, will we have sufficient time to push our assets in, in case of X? Of course, you are reading this because I have had the benefit of your scenario and its 20-20 now. But the point is that this issue must be discussed among those who do this for a living, no?


Similarly, no, I did mean a general strategy the chinese seem to follow as opposed to something IAF specific. That is showing up here and reminscent of 62.

But more broadly, the point I think is that, if we look at this scenario as it is evolving into a worst-case (for us) scenario, then do you really think the conclusions are surprising? I mean we are getting a whiplash, maybe a lot more, and that is reminscent of 62 too. The manner in which china is pouring resources in, in this theater, it will be less than 10 days before it accomplishes air dominance in EAC, harrass CAC, and pin us down on the northern Arunachal front, while accomplishing its mission in Myanmar. And thus, China comes out as having stature.

We've known that we steadily lag further and further behind China. We know that we cannot take on two-theaters at the same time. We know that we will get serious victories if we can take and sustain the offensive, and not play defensive. We know that good tactics need sufficient logistics and sound strategy to work. We know China is encircling us, and the people of the country, by vast majority, have a memory that doesn't go away.

So what, if instead, our scenario were this worst-case, and followed by the least-cost-solution to the china problem (descisively throwing out any chinese aggression, for now) and a vision for how we get there.

JMT, thanks very much for your scenario.
What is the issue with loss of Bareilly, I don't really get; don't ops move to say Bagdogra or something else till Bareilly comes up?
Baghdogra is extremely forward located. easily within range of anything that has a warhead on it. Would you place your high performance SU-30MKIs at such a place?
So are you suggesting that there be another AFS between say Gorakhpur and Bagdogra zonally and between Bagdogra and Kalaikunda meridionally?
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Post by skaranam »

Vivek:

I really appreciate your patience in answering questions and clearing doubts. This makes the story all the more interesting for readers.

I am aware that some readers do not like your style of interaction, but please keep this up.

Karanam /-
niran
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Post by niran »

Dear Mr.Bala_r,
Methinks you got it all wrong. First chinni bhai do not have any
credible air craft carrier force. moreover you cannot hide an air craft carrier, except by using kala jadoo perhaps.
second there is a squadron of naval version of jaguar stationed at nicobar, just to detect and prevent phoren naval ships entering
INDIAN waters as unwanted guests. They would be salivating to put few exocet anti ship missile in your chinni carrier.Any comments would be superfluous.Rethink and rewrite.We are waiting.
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Post by rudradeep »

Dear Bala,
Extremely unlikely that the chinese carrier can do that undetected for the following reasons:
1. The chinese would have been even more surprised and should have even less strategic warning of the Indian involvement.
2. Malacca straits is one of the busiest straits with about 250 ships passing it everyday. Will be very difficult to hide a task force with so much traffic.
3. The carrier will have to pass the disputed Spratlys Islands and Vietnam, Phillipines and Malaysia will surely detect this naval force and raise an issue, blowing cover.
4. The only other way is by coming around Australia, but that too will be extremely unlikely as the Australian and US Navy will certainly detect it. Also such a trip will ensure that the carrier cannot be in position unless of course the chinese navy has astrologers and can see into the future.
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Post by Sudhanshu »

:) Guys, guys hold on... why everyone is up to shooting down Bala. Give guy a chance.

Don't tell me that Chinese navy is so un-capable that she cannot even enter into Indian ocean if they want to. Yah! I agree, entering into EEZ of India or entering un-detected is another story.

And, somebody pointed out satellites can very easily detect even the moving Chinese armada. Don't forget nobody in world has eq. number of spy satellites that US has, but they could even detect the prep of Indian nuke tests in 1999. So, don't think satellite is a RAM BAND and it will have coverage of every sq meter of ocean.
Superb planning can avoid detection but saying impossible is totaly baseless.

Your post giving me an expression that India can never have a naval threat from China. Don't forget Gwader, Coco Island, and if I am not wrong they are in process of acquiring a base in Maldives too. So, they wont be forced to come through ANC.
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Post by rudradeep »

Hi Sudhanshu,
That is exactly the point.... Anybody can enter the IOR, but to do that undetected as per Bala's post is next to impossible.
Agreed that satellites are not RAAM BAND, but they also did detect the forward deployment of Indian Strike Corp tanks during the Parakram. So especially durig a shooting war all satellites including Indian as well as the US are going to track the Chinese forces including their fleet. Theoretically it is possible to evade 1 or at the max 2, but when a country has more than 3 satellites, it becomes extremely difficult to hide even mobile forces from them.
Also please do remeber that Coco Islands is just a ELINT post and not a naval base as such. Also plz remember that these bases exist at Indian mercy... yes the chinese can retaliate elsewhere, but if the Indians decide to go after these posts, it will be very difficult for the chinese to defend them.
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Post by Sudhanshu »

Hey Rudradeep,
You are making perfect sense, thanks for the reply.

:) Frankly, I just wanted to do some damage control.See, because of aggressive posts of some of us, everybody else (Shankar) has stopped writing except Vivek. Now, Bala would fallow the same. May be a bit (or more) fictional, we would get at least something to read and enjoy. I assume you understand how much effort is involved in constructing any scenario. It is good to suggest, but to criticize or to discourage more precisely, is not good thing.

In Bala's case just assume they missed the Chinese armada :) may be somebody was sleeping at that time or anything.. lets see what else he has in store.

It is already 2:00 am I better go to sleep... :) wish morning coffee will be served with Vivek next post.
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Post by vivek_ahuja »

AIRSPACE NORTHEAST OF JORHAT
EASTERN ASSAM
1930 HRS THURSDAY


To the west, the eastern Chinese SU-27 force was fighting its last battle. The three remaining Chinese SU-27s were now under threat from the front and their rear. They were facing the four Mig-21s coming west out of Chabua as they had been ordered to do by their now dead commander. To their southwest the remaining five Mig-21s of the Jorhat Force were coming towards them. At the moment, however, the Chinese pilots were worried about the four Mig-21s in front of them as they were the ones who were about to get in range. Four against three was not a problem for the SU-27s had they been within visual range, but this battle was not within visual range. This was going to be another BVR engagement.

Four fast moving blips showed up on radar as the Indian pilots ‘pickled’ off a volley of R-77s at the Chinese. The Chinese responded a second later with a volley fire of six missiles, three of which were being guided. The other three were riding on hope that their targets would be within range of their terminal guidance systems when they reached the vicinity. The problem was, the Indian pilots did not know which one was being selectively guided and which one was not. They had to treat all of the incoming missiles as guided. Again all seven aircraft dashed towards each other, both guiding their missiles till the last possible second before breaking off. However, this time the Indians broke off first, and pulled into steep dives towards the hills below. This allowed them to distinguish the guided missiles from the non-guided ‘hope-riding’ ones because they continued straight on their original path while the guided ones followed the Indian aircraft down.

Seconds later the Chinese pilots broke off and headed down to low altitude as well, while heading north. All missiles were on their own now, but the fact that the Indian pilots had broken off earlier meant that the Chinese had guided their missiles for the crucial seconds more, and as a result the chances of the Chinese hitting the Indians was more than the other way around. A few seconds later the first missiles hit the designated targets.

The first to take a hit was an Indian Mig-21 that was diving down and the missile intercepted him on the top of the fuselage, ignoring the chaff clouds behind the aircraft and disintegrating the aircraft into small burning pieces before the pilot could react. He was killed instantly. Another missile missed the aircraft it was aimed on and went diving to the side before hitting the hills below and exploding in a small fireball. The third missile exploded just behind another Mig-21 and the red-hot shrapnel peppered and broke the flight controls in the rear fuselage of the aircraft.

Immediately all red warning lights started flashing and the engine flamed out. Despite sluggish controls the pilot brought the nose up an attempt to regain altitude and attempt engine restart, but that thought lasted only seconds as he looked at the number of things that had gone wrong and decided it was time to leave. The radio was still working and as the aircraft lost all energy and began a shallow dive without power, he shouted a emergency call to anyone receiving that he was ejecting and pulled the ejection lever and punched out. Seconds later the aircraft slid into the hill slope below and threw up a lot of smoke and dust but surprisingly did not explode. The pilot safely came down in the hills of Assam under a deployed parachute canopy without further incident. The good news was that he had ejected over friendly territory. The same could not be said of the Chinese pilots shot down earlier, for whom an extensive manhunt organized by the army MP detachments in the region had been launched.

The three Chinese SU-27s were dashing north to evade the five Mig-21s of the Jorhat force that was coming for them in addition to the two remaining Mig-21s of the Chabua force. They however, did not escape unhurt, and out of the four R-77 missiles targeted earlier, the two targeted on a single SU-27 received a hit from one that literally threw the aircraft spinning out of control just from the shock of impact, with the top side of the fuselage peppered, the canopy shattered and the wings holed. The pilot died inside even before the aircraft hit the ground and vanished in a pillar of fire. The other two missiles lost radar contact with their targets among the surface clutter as the two SU-27s flew down at extreme low altitude and literally skimmed the treetops in the hills, leaving behind chaff clouds all the way. The decoyed missiles went chasing after chaff clouds before one ran out of fuel and the other detonated in one of the chaff clouds.

The Chinese pilots were lulled into a false sense of safety in the same sense, as their comrade in the main force of nine aircrafts had done. They continued to fly low and it wasn’t long before small yellow flashes erupted all around them. The air was filled with tracer fire that let out dotted flashes throughout the sky. Pretty as though it may have been in the green view of the low-light goggles the pilots were wearing, it was still dangerous. As the Chinese SU-27 pair pulled up to go above this danger, one of the aircrafts jerked a little as it received multiple hits in the port wing that left big holes on the wing surface and port engine nacelle sides. A second later the port engine started spewing out thick black smoke and shut down. The second aircraft also received hits but was relatively unharmed. Then the flashes were left behind as the pilots went out of range as they headed north.

Their spate of good luck ran out just near the border. As they were crossing the border hills, the damaged Chinese SU-27 blew up into small pieces in a white flash of fire all of a sudden, and a white trail of smoke passed upwards between the two aircraft pair even as the remaining SU-27 pulled a hard left and dived forward.

Below them, the Indian Army Igla teams turned the launcher on a leftward azimuth change and launched another pair of missiles in the heat seeking mode even as the Chinese pilot above them left clouds of flares dropping all over the sky as he dived into the safety of the hills below him. This time the Chinese got away as the two Igla missiles went astray after the not existing threat of the flares. This last Chinese SU-27 of the eastern barrier force exited north and crossed the border into the Chinese airspace and safety. He had been among the two SU-27s that had escaped back into china from a total initial force of twelve aircrafts. Ten aircraft had been shot down, and in return the Indian Air Force had lost seven Mig-21s and another crippled and possibly out of the war.

The five remaining Mig-21s of the Jorhat Force were now forced to return to base as they were running out of fuel. The Mig-21 just did not have the range required for these kinds of long endurance engagements of modern air warfare. The two Chabua based Mig-21s turned by 180 degrees and headed back east to defend their home base from annihilation. In addition to the twelve aircraft about to engage the Chinese SU-30MKK force, these were now the only two aircrafts able to come as reinforcements as against the required frantic calls for the entire Jorhat based force to come and assist.

The Chinese SU-27s had effectively prevented that from happening at the cost of ten high performance aircraft. But they had lots more to waste.

The IAF was not so lucky.
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Post by nits »

vivek_ahuja wrote:[The five remaining Mig-21s of the Jorhat Force were now forced to return to base as they were running out of fuel. The Mig-21 just did not have the range required for these kinds of long endurance engagements of modern air warfare.
Vivek why we dont have any Mid Air Refuller in Sky... or is it busy some where (did i missed some thing... :-? )
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Post by rudradeep »

The Mig-21 Bison is not air-air refuelling capable.....
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Post by vivek_ahuja »

AIRSPACE NORTHEAST OF CHABUA REGION
NORTHEASTERN TIP OF INDIA
1932 HRS THURSDAY


The twelve aircraft Mig-21 force flying ninety kilometres east of Chabua had turned north and was thus approaching from the south of the inbound SU-30MKKs. They were now receiving data from two small remotely operated picket fence mobile radars that had been placed in the hills at the northeastern tip of India. It was these radars that had given the absolute first warnings about the SU-30MKK force bearing south towards 3 TAC, that had allowed the IAF commanders to understand that the foolish intrusion of the SU-27 forces had not been foolish at all, but the precursor to a major strike.

It had also been these two radars that had allowed the Chabua Base Control centre to scramble their Mig-21s against this new threat. The Phalcon had been too south to detect the SU-30MKK force in any case, because it had been pushed south by the SU-27 forces heading towards it. Had it not been for these two radars mounted in the hills, the Chinese might have achieved complete surprise against 3 TAC bases. Astoundingly, these two radars were the obsolete Russian P-19 mobile radars that were out here to prove a point.

The P-19s were outdated radars and had been planned for retirement when some farsighted people had argued that instead of retiring them, they should be placed in the hilly region of the NE. This allowed these outdated radars to provide crucial warning of an inbound strike and parameters like altitude, strength and azimuth. It was expected that these would be knocked out within seconds of the strike force coming in range of the Anti-Radiation Missiles. But, either way, they were going to be retired anyway. Better that they serve a purpose and then die rather than rot in some storage facility. And poor capability or not, they were still radars, and the Chinese had no stealthy aircrafts. It was a ‘no-lose’ situation for the IAF; whether it would become a ‘win-win’ situation depended on the IAF’s ability to respond to the warning they generated, and the defender’s response had not been enough.

Two detached SU-30MKKs punched off a anti-radiation missile each and moved back into the main formations, and thirty-five minutes after they had generated the first warnings, the two mobile P-19s received direct hits from an anti-radiation missile each and the missiles went through the radar truck’s roof so the warhead detonated inside, and this blew up the radar trucks on which the two radar receivers had been mounted, ending all transmissions to the 3 TAC ADGES and the IAF Mig-21s.

There had been no Indian lives lost since the radars had been rigged for remote unmanned operations. The two locations were now visible to the nearby army garrisons, as two fireballs had erupted against the night sky in the hills. These vanished within seconds because there had been no inflammables around. The two P-19s had done their job as had been expected by the farsighted group of individuals who had advocated their placement here. The cessation of their transmissions had been the final warning in itself to all those concerned that the strike formations were now really close.

The Chinese pilots had not yet detected the twelve Indian Mig-21s moving south of them. That delay in acquisition was due to the hilly terrain, and the fact that after the initial climb after taking off from Chabua, the twelve aircrafts had dropped down to low altitude among the hills. They were burning up more fuel this way, but that was from the main under-fuselage drop tank, which they intended to drop as soon as it got empty. That would reduce drag and weight, thus improving the flight performance characteristics. The hilly terrain meant that they could not see the Chinese aircrafts, and vice versa. But the ‘Bison’ variant of the Mig-21 is fully capable of receiving target data from ground sources using digital data links. This ‘ground source’ had been the two P-19 radars, and with their loss, their screens had gone blank and had been replaced by the data from the single main long range THD-1955 ADGES radar at Jorhat and the two ST-68 TRU radars at Chabua and Sukerating (Dum Duma), forty kilometres east of Chabua.

All information about the inbound strike force was now lost, since all these radars were in the foothills of the peaks north east of their locations, and thus unless the Chinese crossed over these hills, they could not detect them. Ideally this is where the Phalcon would have helped, but it had been chased down south for its life, and thus ineffective as far as this engagement was concerned. Now the Indian fighters could not fly in the hills.

All twelve fighters initiated a ‘pop-up’ manoeuvre and moved to higher altitude. Suddenly the threat board lighted up with dozens of contacts as the Chinese aircrafts were literally jumped upon by the Indian fighters. The Chinese pilots had been surprised by the sudden pop up of the threats, and were now struggling to orient themselves. The Indian pilots had known all along where they had been and where the Chinese had been. This was a situational awareness war. And the Indian Squadron commander had achieved the tactical surprise. It would only be a little time before the Chinese started taking a toll on the Indian aircrafts, but before that the Indian Commander intended to take down some of the bombers with him.

That had been another aspect of the situational awareness game. The P-19s had been showing how the force was distributed into two altitude levels. The higher-level force of twelve aircraft had been flexible, thus suggesting their nature as escorts. The lower level aircrafts had followed a straight-line path, and these must be the bombers. The Mig-21s moved towards the lower altitude targets. If they could take out several bombers, that would take the heat off the ADGES and the BDZ systems, and all the escorts could do then would be to buzz around, armed with air-to-air weaponry and watch as the remaining bombers fell prey to the SAMs.

The first volley of R-73 missiles was fired by the Mig-21s directly south of the SU-30MKK force, and thus on the left flank of the Chinese fighters. They were still orienting themselves south, and their fighter fleet was doing the same as well, higher above them. The engagement range was barely forty kilometres between nearest to enemy fighters, and the missiles went that length before there was any Chinese reaction. The forty odd fighters met the volley fire of twelve missiles with a massive cloud of chaff and jamming attempts, and the radar returns for the missile guidance increased dozens of times in magnitude. There itself the success rate for the missiles reduced by more than forty percent. First set of missiles knocked out seven Chinese SU-30MKKs of the southern strike element and sent them falling to the ground.

By the time the second set of R-73 missiles were launched, the Chinese fighters had oriented themselves, and returned a counter volley of twenty-five missiles at the twelve Indian fighters. The missiles headed for each other and the massive amount of missiles heading for the Indians forced them to break off earlier than planned, and dive back into the hills. As a result the second volley was not as successful, and it blotted four more SU-30MKKs of the second element north of the first one. Eleven Chinese fighters were now down.

Now the weight of the Chinese numerical superiority bore pressure on the Indians. The twenty-five missiles headed for the diving Mig-21s with all ferocity, and despite the large amount of decoys being dropped by the now southbound Indian fighters, it was impossible to stop all of the missiles. Most of the missile warheads detonated close to the Indian fighters and within the space of seconds the Indian Mig-21 force from Chabua was shattered. The twenty-five missiles had destroyed ten aircrafts, and only five Indian pilots had been able to bail out of the burning wreckages of what had only seconds before been flying aircrafts.

As the Chinese oriented southwards to engage the two remaining Mig-21s, to their great surprise the pair of southbound Indian fighters failed to turn around and reengage. They simply continued to fly southwards until they were out of radar coverage of the Chinese fighters who were anyway reluctant to go chasing after them.

There were several curses at this sudden outburst of Indian air power at a time when there should have been none, and the two minute long combat had cost the Chinese Eleven SU-30MKKs in return for ten Mig-21s whose pilots had fought a more intelligent war than their counterparts. The problem was that the aircraft that the Indian pilots had targeted had been the bomber configured ones. So in addition to losing eleven bombers, they now had twelve fighter optimised aircrafts flying around like idiots without a Kilogram of ground weaponry, unless they wished to play Kamikaze. So in effect twenty-three Chinese SU-30MKKs were out of the bombing role while the remaining seventeen were now tasked with all the targets. The earlier thoughts of having more bombs than targets had disappeared, and now the Chinese commander had to choose the targets he would wish to attack.

The brave Mig-21 pilots had done their jobs and reduced the bomber force significantly. Now it was the job of the ADGES to take over. To the southwest, the first Akash launcher revolved on its base on the back of a Tatra launcher and turned to face the east-Northeast axis along with several others at Chabua.

Similar batteries aligned themselves at Ledo and Skerating, and all turned quiet as everybody waited for the Chinese aircrafts to storm over the hills to the east....
Last edited by vivek_ahuja on 26 Apr 2007 07:21, edited 1 time in total.
saty
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Post by saty »

this time let me be the first

TOO GOOD....
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Post by ShibaPJ »

vivek_ahuja,

I was a late entrant to your scenarios, but since then, it has been a wonderful read. Your scenarios have been superb, very well-written.. All the best. keep it coming, maan..
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Post by ksmahesh »

Great narration. Vivek, this air battle was absolutely outstanding for:
1. Bravery of Indian Mig21 pilots in the face of certain death.
2. Superb tactics adopted by Indian side (Hit and run: never before I thought that guerrilla warfare was possible in air)

[quote] they now had twelve fighter optimised aircrafts flying around like idiots without a Kilogram of ground to air weaponry, unless they wished to play Kamikaze[\quote]

nice funny bone...

10 Mig21 vs 11 Su30MKK is a sure shot victory. Bravo. Not to add that we have some pilots still functional (those who bailed) to carry on fighting in other machine.

I guess now is the time to join the remenants of Jorahat and chabua bases to have 1/2 squadron.

Good to see Akash finally comming in picture. Army's AAA has also done commendable job in kicking Su27 @$$.

What can I say except. Hurry for the next post.
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Post by parikh »

Excellent narration Vivek , your posts and filled with superb technical and tactical details , keep on writing
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