“Point of origin?”
“Bearing suggests dust-off from Kashgar, but we show no J-10 deployments that far west.”
“Until now that is. This is called real-time intelligence. CINC-WAC needs to know that his commie threat level just went up a notch,” Verma noted dryly. “Anyway, where is this bugger going?”
“The current flight path takes him to the south.”
“How close is he going to get to our airspace with the current heading?” Verma continued as he watched that inverted ‘V’ on the screen heading downwards.
“Around sixty to seventy kilometers east of the LAC on the way to Shipki Pass to the south. Doesn’t look like he is planning to approach anything important.”
“Doesn’t matter. That’s close enough,” Verma said and walked away from the console and to the airborne controller:
“Who’s up today?”
“Three Mig-29s at Leh ORP.”
“Good. Get them in the air and direct them towards November-two-four. Keep them on radar standby and over our airspace. Weapons release on hold. We don’t want any accidents. Do it.” Verma ordered.
The sun had gone down some time back, and now only the western edge of the sky was a shade of dark red. Bright stars had begun to appear on the eastern skies. On the ground, activity was frantic at the southern end of the airbase as sounds of turbines spooling up filled the air. Inside the well-lit Hardened-Aircraft-Shelters or HAS, three Mig-29 pilots were strapping into their seats as the ground crewmen armed the weapons and conducted final visual checks. A minute later the first Mig-29 taxied out of the shelter into the darkness outside. This was not war, and so the runway perimeter lights were still on, as were the anti-collision strobe-lights of the aircraft as they moved out one behind the other towards the end of the runway. A minute later the thunder of afterburners reverberated in the surrounding hills as the first of the three air-defense fighters streaked down the end of the runway and lifted into the air…
The path down the hillside was not easy. The loose gravel and shifting rocks meant that one small mistake and one could end up sliding down the side and smashing into the rocks below. But there was no choice at the moment. Gephel and the other soldiers of his team were moving down the northern side of the slope and attempting to reach the next line of hills parallel to the one they were on. On the southern side of this hill the battle between the remaining Tibetan rebels and the PLA was in full flow, with the Chinese now hammering the hillside and the outskirts with artillery. In essence, the two PLA battalions in Shiquanhe were fighting on both the eastern and western outskirts of the village while controlling the central northeast-southwest road that ran through it. But it was not as serious a tactical problem as it might seem.
The reason for this is that Tibetan plateau is relatively flat. Unlike the steep gradients along the Greater Himalayas on the southern edge of this plateau, most urban and rural areas of Tibet are accessible from numerous directions. In the case of Shiquanhe, another road ran down from the direction of the Aksai Chin to the northwest. Gephel and his team had been positioned to the north of the village with both these roads on either side of them, having descended towards the village from the north. But now with two PLA convoys inbound towards the village from both these roads, the only escape route was back north again. Doing so was not going to be easy. The ground was barren and exposed. If detected crossing these open terrains, the intruders ran the risk of annihilation.
At the base of the next line of hills, Gephel looked left and right to see his men taking cover behind some boulders. With their heavy backpacks strapped on and their rifles at shoulder level, they scanned the open terrain in front of them. The sky above was lit with stars, but there was no moonlight. The top of the hill the team had been on before was now silhouetted against the continuous flashes of manmade light from a mixture of flares and explosions. The headlights of the dozen odd vehicles driving down the road from the northwest were also visible, thanks to the good line of sight from their elevated positions.
“Troop trucks,” Ngawang reported as he handed the binoculars to Gephel.
“They will be swarming these peaks by afternoon tomorrow. I doubt they will do anything beyond securing the village tonight,” Gephel replied. A few seconds later he handed back the binoculars:
“We have till daybreak to get under cover.”
“What about our contacts?” Ngawang asked.
“They are probably dead. Those who aren’t will be taken away. Either way, there’s nothing for us here. Let’s move out,”
“Yes sir,” Ngawang adjusted the night-vision optics attachment to his helmet before lowering it in front of his eyes. The rest of the team had done the same. Gephel was the last one to do it as he gave a final look to the flashing lights silhouetting the southern peaks behind them. Thirty seconds later he picked up his AK-47 rifle and moved out as Ngawang began leading the group across the cold, dark plains.
One of the components missing during the 1959 rebellion in Tibet was the extensive use of Chinese airpower. While there were transport aircraft in use at the time and while some bombing missions were done, it did not constitute a determined use of airpower offensively. Of course, at the time, the Chinese airpower was very restricted to begin with. This time around, however, the PLAAF was out in force in support of the PLA in Tibet. J-10s based at Shigatse and Lhasa were already assisting the local PLA forces with precision airstrikes against rebel held positions, when required. To the west, Kashgar and Hotien airbases were busy with J-10s and J-8IIs in this role and in northern Tibet, Golmud, Urumqi and Korla provided the required offensive air power to local PLA commanders.
Such heavy use of air-power was not going unnoticed by Indian Air Force commanders. The Chinese were patrolling aggressively in all sectors. The problem from their end was that it was proving extremely difficult to locate small groups of rebels moving around within the hills. And despite using unmanned drones to help in the task, many flights of strike aircraft simply could not locate their targets once they arrived on scene. When these locations were close to the Indian border, the situation became more complicated. In several cases the Chinese had dropped bombs against fleeing refugees and rebels heading south towards the Indian border. In two instances, overzealous Chinese pilots had dropped bombs inside Indian Territory! It was not sure whether these pilots were under instructions from PLAAF command to deliberately do so or whether they had mistakenly strayed into Indian airspace while attempting to locate and prosecute their targets. Either way, New-Delhi had lodged strong protests with Beijing on the matter over the last few months, but to no avaiclass="underline" the PLAAF continued their aggressive patrols and bombing missions close to the border.
This could not be allowed. Once New-Delhi had given up the diplomatic appeals, the IAF had deployed in force along the border with deterrence patrols of their own. In the east, the IAF was flying Su-30s from Tezpur and Su-30s and Mig-21 Bisons from Chabua on deterrence patrols and Defensive-Counter-Air or DCA missions. In the central areas, Su-30s from Bareilly were keeping tabs along the Sikkim and Nepal sectors. To the west, Mig-29s and Mirage-2000s from the Western Air Command were doing patrols from Leh, Srinagar and other airbases in Punjab to ensure aerial presence over Ladakh. The No. 50 AWACS Squadron had deployed detachments to different airbases with its compliment of A-50 Phalcon AWACS aircraft and the handful of newly inducted CABS AEW&C aircraft. One Phalcon was deployed for the Ladakh sector and deployed from Agra airbase. The other two headed east to Kalaikunda for providing airborne coverage in the northeastern states. The CABS aircraft were used to compliment these larger aircraft and were filling in the gaps left out by the Aerostat tethered radar systems deployed there.