The explosions showed up on Kulkarni’s optics as white flashes of light against a green-black horizon. They couldn’t see the enemy tanks just yet, but the enormous volume of light flashes and the deep thunder under their feet was clear enough.
He considered his plans. Sudarshan had kept his word and had brought in every available combat element to bear against this enemy counterattack. But Kulkarni had to deal with whatever made survived this aerial onslaught and reached his tanks.
He moved his sights around and saw the flickering of light and white-grey columns of smoke rising into the sky from the town to his east. Further southeast, a thick column of smoke rose into the night sky where a Babur missile had struck the Indian “Ferrite” counter-battery radar unit. It was now permanently offline. Luckily for Kulkarni, the other missiles had been intercepted by the air-force. He also thanked his stars that the enemy attack helicopters that had been stopped and turned back. And to his north, Indian Jaguar strike-aircraft were busy hitting the southbound column of enemy armor.
There would be survivors from both these columns. And they would be looking for a fight when they got here.
Kulkarni knew this. But he had to make up his mind. Should he go after the northern column, since they were far more likely to survive the Jaguar strikes? Or should he wait here for them to come to him? The southern column was another story. He hoped that the Apaches would lay waste to that column so much that they would be delayed in their coordinated attack with the northern column and at best, realize the hopelessness of the cause and retreat further south before the Apaches returned with more missiles to finish them off.
He brought up the comms: “all rhino-alpha elements, this is rhino-actual. We are moving to contact against the northern column of enemy armor. Alpha-three will hang back and hold the line against anything that the Apache drivers miss to the south. Hold your ground until we return. Everyone else, prepare to move in five minutes. Out.”
He looked at his crew: “questions?”
The gunner and the loader shared a look and then shook their heads. The silence from the driver’s seat was his answer. Kulkarni nodded and muttered an “okay” to himself before bringing the ABAMS screen around: “driver, we will lead the charge. Bring us out of this defilade and on the west side of the highway, facing north. We will lash out to the northwest towards the Indus river and then swing back east, hitting the enemy column on his right flank. Hopefully they will be expecting an attack on the left flank and that will buy us some tactical surprise.”
“Understood, sir. Ready when you are.” The turret vibrated as the engine came alive. The loader removed a sabot round from the storage and pushed it into the gun breech. The latter closed with the clang.
Kulkarni looked at his loader: “how’s our supply?”
“We have enough for this battle, sir. But after that we have to rearm.”
Kulkarni made a mental note of that and went back to his sights. They had been using up their high-explosive rounds at a much higher rate in this urban terrain than they had accounted for. Sabot rounds were well within pre-calculated usage predictions. As always, the army had been caught preparing for the last war. The urban combat being encountered by Indian tanks all along the border from Punjab to Rajasthan was soaking up the resupply logistics…
“Rhino-alpha, move out! Rhino-actual has the lead!”
The tank lurched forward and pitched up as it climbed over the sand embankment created by the trishul combat-engineers and then down the other side. As they became horizontal, the gunner moved the main gun to auto-stabilization. Kulkarni went to his sights, rotating it around to see fifteen other tanks following him. At the moment all of his tanks were staggered randomly. He would have to change that to create some sense of unit cohesion. He pushed some commands on the ABAMS screen to indicate to platoon commanders where he wanted them to be, relative to his own tank. Within minutes, he saw the other tanks making abrupt changes in their motion…
“Steel-central to rhino-actual, over.”
“Rhino-actual, receiving five-by-five. Send traffic.”
“Rhino-actual, this is steel-actual,” Sudarshan’s voice replaced the earlier one. “Care to explain what you are doing?” Kulkarni noted the irritated tone in his commander’s voice and internally muttered an “uh oh”.
“Steel-actual,” he shouted over the increased rumble of the tank engines, “we are moving to contact, sir. Rhino will not sit idly and wait for the enemy to attack. We have the advantage of fighting on the move better than the enemy and have the tactical surprise. And we intend to us it! Over!”
“I hope you know what you are doing, son,” Sudarshan noted. But he understood, being a former tank commander himself. In Kulkarni’s shoes he would have done the same. And that was all there was to it. Sudarshan was not one to second-guess his field commanders in the midst of combat…
“Roger, steel-actual. Rhino will engage surviving elements of the enemy column. Suggest you pass the word to the air-force. Rhino is moving to infrared beacons for I-F-F.”
“Right. Good luck. We have you on our view. Out.”
The comms link chimed off.
Okay… Kulkarni exhaled and relaxed his mind. The infrared beacons on top of the Arjun tanks would ensure that friendly fighter-bombers above would be able to tell the difference between friend and foe tanks. Hopefully. If the Pakistanis switched on their beacons too, it would be chaos and the bombers would have to abort their attacks and leave the fight to rhino to finish.
“Flashes,” the gunner announced, “to the north.”
Kulkarni brought his sights around. He had noticed during his talk with Sudarshan that the gunner had rotated the turret off axis and was now pointed seventy degrees off to the right of the chassis. The driver was leading the tank to the northwest, and the gunner was facing north.
“Range?” Kulkarni asked.
“Hard to tell, sir,” the gunner replied, “too much obstruction from houses and trees.”
“And zero depth-perception on the optics,” Kulkarni added. His own sights were having the same problem. He saw the flashes on the horizon just as the gunner had indicated. It was clear that the air-force Jaguars were busy causing mayhem and carnage. Kulkarni hoped that Sudarshan had managed to warn those pilots about the sixteen rhino tanks.
Kulkarni checked his ABAMS screen with its moving-map display and brought up his comms mouthpiece: “driver, enough westward motion. Bring us due north for roughly two kilometers. Then we turn east and will take positions.”
“Roger.”
As the differential track motion of the tank caused everyone inside to hold on, the gunner brought the turret in alignment with the front of the chassis. The flashes on the horizon were now to their northeast… and subsiding in frequency.
“The Jaguars are leaving,” the gunner remarked.
“We must be closing in on the enemy,” Kulkarni added and then corrected his assumptions: “or they are leaving to rearm and refuel. Can’t tell just from the flashes.” He then looked at his paper maps to see where a good place might be for them to turn east and wait for the enemy. What he needed was a good line-of-sight for his tanks. Something to open the volley with. After that, they would move to contact and engage the enemy at close range…
There… he found what looked like enough of a gap between the nearest clumps of houses and tree clusters to allow at least ten of his tanks to fit in, facing east. He then looked up at the ABAMS screen and pushed in the coordinates of the grid so that it would show up as a marker on the respective screens of all of his tanks as a rally point. He knew his platoon leaders were smart enough to see what their commander’s intent was without him having to spell it out.