Chimera

“That will take too much time, Chen. And time is something we no longer have. Perhaps if the ground war had gone according to plan we could have bought more time for your plans to succeed. As it stands, we need results quickly before the progress of the ground war completely reverses on us and the Indians take the offensive into Tibet. We are putting together some plans with Liu’s men from the 2ND Artillery Corps. When the time comes we will rain a shower of steel and fire on Indian airbases and take away their air-superiority in a single clean stroke!”

EAST OF BARSHONG

NORTHERN BHUTAN

DAY 9 + 1940 HRS

The small dusty clearing was covered in a small cloud of dust and loose grass as the Dhruv helicopter flared for a landing. The skids touched down, displaced some loose rocks and settled.

The sliding doors opened and Colonel Misra stepped off, running to the edge of the makeshift helipad. The Major leading his battalion’s advance forces and Pathanya were standing there, their rifles slung over their chests and their faces covered in grime. All three men had replaced their helmets with the red berets worn by all paratroopers. It was not so much a head cover as a badge of honor.

Misra walked past them and they followed him away from the noise of the helicopter. They walked a few dozen feet away and watched as medical personnel carried the wounded Paras on stretchers to the open doors of the helicopter.

“What’s the deal? Why are we stopped?” Misra said finally. They still had to yell over the rotor noise, but it was now bearable.

“The Chinese reinforced battalion at Barshong is putting up a hell of a fight, sir,” the Major said. “We broke through their lines north of Dotanang and swept past their defenses all the way here. Pathanya and his men killed about twenty or so of their soldiers and my men must have killed about fifty. So they still have quite a few men at Barshong. Now they have withdrawn somewhere on those ridges,” he pointed his arm to the series of ridges to the west. “I don’t have the manpower to flush them out in frontal attacks on each successive ridge all the way into Barshong.”

“I would not recommend that either,” Misra agreed. “That PLA General commanding the Highland Division is playing hard to get with his remaining troops. He is forcing us to fight him for every ridge and in each case he will fight, inflict casualties and then pull back to the next ridge, wearing us down piece by piece until we get to Barshong while he pulls his men closer to their Division headquarters. That’s unacceptable, gentlemen. I need Barshong! It’s the only foothold the Chinese have left!”

The peaks of the Himalayas that formed the side walls enveloping the Chumbi were massive and jutted far above the base of the valley. Within the valley, the PLA supply routes were located on very flat terrain that allowed them to bring in reinforcements from Gyantse.

In the initial days of the war, the neutrality of the airspace above and the presence of the S-300 surface-to-air missiles below had allowed the PLA to bring in their Highland Division into northwestern Bhutan via helicopter airlift and ground infiltration from the three-lake region to Barshong. Barshong then became the staging area from where they had launched their assault to the south towards Thimpu. The initial airlifts to Barshong was the reason the PLA assault on Thimpu had been so slow, allowing General Potgam to do his own airlifts into Bhutan via Paru. And Paru was much better equipped for airlifts than Barshong could ever hope to be, even after the brutal PLAAF attacks…

Logistics won the battles on the modern battlefields. And this war had not been an exception!

Now that the PLA Highland Division was on its knees, the threat to Thimpu was gone. But Barshong still remained in PLA hands. And it had to be retaken to remove Beijing’s hopes of threatening Thimpu…

“If we can dislodge the Chinese from Barshong,” Misra continued, “we can remove the staging area for their reinforcements. We simply cannot allow them to hold on to that place!” Misra said forcefully.

He didn’t have to, though. They knew much of this beforehand and were familiar with the terrain. More so for Pathanya than the Major but that was because he had been in country longer and before the 11TH Para and her sister battalions had arrived in theater.

“Understood sir!” the Major said. “But we still cannot take those ridges in between here and Barshong. I need more men.”

“Or different tactics,” Misra retorted. “Gentlemen, how about we stop acting like frontline infantry and start thinking like paratroopers are supposed to do!”

DAY 10

OPERATIONS CENTER

STRATEGIC FORCES COMMAND

INDIA

DAY 10 + 0700 HRS