Chimera

“Welcome to Kashgar, sir,” Feng was interrupted by the roar of two Su-27s that thundered overhead, maintaining security over the base while the Deputy-Commander of the PLAAF and the unified-MRAF commander were on the ground below.

“Indeed, Feng! Shall we?” Wencang said politely and Feng took the cue. He pointed the Generals to the waiting vehicles and climbed in behind them.

“We have problems,” Feng said as the vehicles moved out.

“More like you have a problem that did you in.” Wencang grunted.

Feng did not reply to that. It was not his place to do so. Wencang continued:

“You need not say it, Senior-Colonel. I have not flown a thousand kilometers for nothing. This is important. Our entire air war in Ladakh depends on good leadership and aggression backed with intellect. The days of the people’s army marching on slogans and blind aggression are over. We need thinking men in thinking positions to fight a digitized war. I am here to take care of your problem. Then I want you and Chen to take care of mine: the Indian air-forces in Ladakh.”

LEH

LADAKH

DAY 2 + 1055 HRS

“Ladakh is on fire, gentlemen,” Lieutenant-General Ritesh Gupta, commander of the Leh based XIV Corps, noted to his staff in the operations center. “So. What’s the latest estimate?”

“Initial estimates are still forming up, sir. But based on what we know the Chinese have opened up four major avenues of attack into Ladakh. The northernmost sector is near Daulat-beg-oldi. Here the Chinese are moving along the northern banks of the Chip-Chap river bank and their threat axis is heading towards our airstrip there. Brigadier Adesara is attempting to hold the Chinese advance with a reinforced Brigade and some armor in that sector,” Gupta’s operations chief said and then shrugged before continuing: “but he is heavily outnumbered. We figure he’s facing down at least a division worth of Chinese assault forces, heavy on tanks.”

“What support do we have for Adesara out there?” Gupta asked.

“We are working on that right now. Most of his reinforcements are moving along the Shyok river banks heading north towards the Galwan river sector and then northwards to DBO from there. But they have been bogged down by Chinese artillery and long-range rocket strikes along the MSR. They are taking losses in the open terrain against these strikes. We are knocking out the Chinese artillery using our counter-battery systems but it takes time. Their gun batteries are not proving a problem given their immobility. But their long-range MBRLs are proving a nightmare to find and destroy, since they are shoot-and-scoot systems much like our own. The airstrip at DBO has been utterly destroyed based on overhead imagery. The only other option is air and artillery support but these are already committed to all the raging battles along the entire front. What few systems are available are being dispatched to assist Brigadier Adesara’s forces.”

Gupta leaned back and rubbed his eyes and silently cursed the situation. But he knew that everything that could be done was being done, so he nodded to the Major-General to continue.

“In the central sector the Chinese have opened up the front along the Galwan river valley and attempting to move east to cut off the only land supply route to DBO. We have another Infantry Brigade deployed between the Galwan and Hacho rivers tasked with keeping this land route open.

“Then further south the Chinese are attacking the Brigades deployed along the Chang-Chenmo River between Kongka-La and our critically vital logistical node at Shyok. It is pretty clear that they are trying to take Shyok to sever the supply route to the Galwan and Karakoram Brigades north from there.

“Finally, further to the south, XV Corps Brigades are fighting it out with a Chinese Group Army between Chushul, Rezang-La and Demchok. The idea here, we believe is to drive upwards from the Demchok region and roll up our defenses at Rezang-La and then Chushul to the north.”

Gupta’s operations chief turned to face his Corps commander.

“All in all, very predictable and exactly according to our pre-war expectations,” he concluded.

“But?” Gupta asked suspiciously. He knew the ‘but’ was in there somewhere…

“But…” the Major-General continued with a raised eyebrow, “our pre-war allocations of ammunition usage are not holding up. We are burning through our supplies of shells, rockets and missiles at a much higher rate than we had anticipated. We are going to run into supply problems pretty soon if we don’t get more stuff for our boys to shoot at the Chinese.”

“Dear god in heaven,” Gupta said as he rubbed his eyes again.

Somebody had said at some point that battle-plans never survive actual contact with the enemy…

Damn prophetic, wasn’t he?

Gupta looked up and faced his operations staff.