“Claw-Three, this is — One. Do not engage! Repeat, do not engage!”
“Claw-One, this is — Three. We have already been engaged! I have the bugger locked on a single R-77 over here. Requesting permission to bring that son of a bitch down! Over!”
That’s tempting… Khurana thought. But he also knew that if that Indian Mig-29 took down the J-10 then the four Su-27s would return the favor with a volley of their own BVR missiles against that offending Indian aircraft. And it would be for nothing: they were not at war.
Yet.
Besides, Khurana knew it was all a huge mistake. He was not going to be responsible for giving the Chinese a reason to start one. Not without proper authorization, anyway…
“Negative, — Three. Do not engage! Break contact and return to formation. Claw-Two is hit and needs assistance back to base. Standby,” he changed frequencies: “Eagle-Eye-One, this is Claw-One. Claw-Three has taken a hit from a Chinese missile but is still aloft. Barely. Claw-Two has the enemy J-10 locked on and ready to engage. I need authorization to engage or I am ordering my flight to break contact right away before this thing snowballs on us! Over.”
On board the Phalcon to the south, the airborne-controller looked back at Verma who in turn clenched his fists in anger at what had happened but was also professional enough to realize the huge mistake it all was. A few seconds later Khurana got his response:
“Copy, Claw-One. Assist the crippled bird back to base. We have Su-30s entering the airspace now and will establish BARCAP between you and the Su-27s. Good luck. Over and out.”
By this time Khurana had taken up position alongside Claw-Two as they made way back to Leh. Khurana turned his head to see the damage and came away with mixed feelings. The port side of the aircraft had been shredded. The port wing trailing edge control surfaces had been destroyed. The port side dorsal fuselage area panels had been blown away but luckily the engine was still apparently running. The port vertical stabilizer was also two-third the size it should have been. And one weapon pylon with its R-77 payload on the port side was missing. It was not pretty, but the damage was repairable.
In a few months, perhaps… Khurana thought to himself as he realized that this particular aircraft was going to go off the No. 28 Squadron’s order-of-battle as soon as it came to a stop on the runway. But most importantly the pilot was still alive and unhurt. That in of itself seemed like a miracle considering the shape the aircraft was in. Khurana radioed to him the results of his visual inspection of the aircraft even as Leh airbase control tower finally checked in on the comms. Khurana was equally relieved to see his third aircraft return from the north a few minutes later and line up alongside with all his R-77s still attached.
As the Indian Phalcon crew under command of Verma were bringing the situation under control on their side, to the north Feng was also in full action as he tried to determine what had gone wrong.
“Order all Su-27s to shut down their radars and order them to pull back to the north right away,” Feng barked his orders to the airborne control officer.
Feng walked over to the single porthole to see the dark starlit skies outside. He knew he would have to answer for this. Pushing the situation was all right when done within limits. Out here, the situation had deteriorated severely and always the thinking officer, Feng had adapted. He knew that the J-10 pilot had panicked and bungled. He knew the Indians had evaded the missiles and were making their way back to base. But for all that they had restrained themselves. He was obliged to do the same. This was not a time to push the Indians.
At least not when all I have are just four Su-27s on hand…
But that was not to say that lessons had not been learned in the tense half hour. One of the things that had alarmed him was the speed of the Indian response. Within minutes of the missiles being fired, his radar controllers had detected multiple flights of Su-30s entering the airspace against his four on-station Su-27s. The Indians had laid claim to these skies, and it worried Feng that those sitting at the Junwei-Kong-Jun did not realize the level of the threat this kind of force posed to the PLAAF units in the region. He realized that the only way he was going to be able to accomplish the task of reasserting the PLAAF presence in these skies would be when he had a much larger force at his disposal.
He sighed at that prospect. He knew exactly what General Jinping was going to say. Worse, Major-General Zhigao would exude supreme yet naïve confidence when presented with the question of reinforcements for his 6TH Fighter Division. Small man that he was, he would make it a case for his personal ego and honor. And in doing so he would cripple any efforts by Chen and Feng to streamline the PLAAF combat units in the region. The Su-27UBKs and the J-11s in Lanzhou region were deployed under Zhigao for now. And he held very little regard in Lieutenant-General Chen’s and Senior-Colonel Feng’s eyes for his competence.
Zhigao was a man typical of the many senior officers in the PLAAF who lacked the competence required of good, competent leaders and who had instead spent the majority of their careers milking the vast military-industrial complex in China for personal gains. Corruption within the Chinese military was not new. Neither was the knowledge that none of these older commanders had ever faced combat against a professional enemy. The Indian Air-Force was formidable and flexible. Feng wondered whether his own forces would ever get the opportunity to do the same.
“Well, I think it is safe to say that this is typical snafu,” Basu remarked dryly. He looked around and saw the other three men in the room nod their heads in agreement. He walked over and took his seat on the cushioned sofa and sank in. As Ops-Director for the RAW, he was not having a particularly good last few days.
“That about sums it up. Was that a regular PLA Battalion?” Vinesh Chakri, the Indian Defense-Minister, asked from where he sat, watching the tape on the television screen showing the IR view of the Heron over Shiquanhe.
“Not the first one. That was a police battalion from the Chinese 38TH Police Division. They got ambushed and mauled during the day’s fighting with the Tibetans. That’s when they called in their PLA buddies who, in all their genius, rolled in with armor and heavy guns and neutralized the whole damn village. No question of civilian losses. You see that? There on the left? That’s a complete block of civilian houses demolished by Chinese heavy artillery. Those guys fight insurgency with a heavy hand. And bottom line is that it works. Out Tibetan friends lost a good chunk of their men in this region in just one day’s fighting,” Lieutenant-Colonel Ansari said and paused the tape.
“So much for our chances of coordination and control. Their poor tactics are taking them towards self-destruction. This insurgency is going to be over before we can even make the Chinese bleed enough to care!” Basu said from where he sat.
“What about Gephel and his teams?” Chakri asked Ansari, ignoring Basu’s defeatist attitude for the moment.
“He and his men were down there in these hills you see on the top-left corner of the screen. Our UAV was to the south of the village while the team was northeast. They made good on their escape. All intercepts of Chinese comms revealed no suspicion of the team’s existence. But for all intents and purposes their mission was over before it began.”
“True. Damn idiots, those Tibetans. Couldn’t they have held off the temptation to attack that police convoy for just this once? Now what?”