Chimera

He could see the smoldering ruins of the village. The dead and dying were everywhere and Bhutanese soldiers were rushing to administer first aid and urgent medical support. Toshum and his staff walked past the rows of burning houses until he came across an army Major, his face blackened by soot and grime. The Major and a few of his men were walking down the hills from the north. All showed the exhaustion of combat on their faces and most had sustained injuries.

The Major spotted Toshum and saluted. Toshum ordered his men to help the Major and the other survivors. A couple of minutes later he had retrieved his maps and walked over to the Major who was drinking water from a bottle. The younger soldier poured some on his face and wiped it with his grimy hands.

“The front is broken, sir,” he said finally.

“What happened?”

He used his arm to point out the northern peaks beyond Lhuntse where the “battle” had occurred with units of the Highland Division. The Major’s face told that tale before he said a word:

“We were battered into the ground by Chinese artillery for an hour before their infantry began maneuvering around us. We were completely overwhelmed. All three companies of the battalion were overrun to the last man. The battalion command post was wiped out just as the battle began by Chinese rockets. We don’t know what happened to them. When the Chinese soldiers attacked, we inflicted some losses but it was difficult to tell. They outmaneuvered us using unmanned drone coverage above us. The enemy also airlifted some infantry using transport helicopters to peaks between Lhuntse and us. We were cut off. It was complete chaos afterwards and I ordered a general retreat. We managed to escape by going east into the hills and then south till we located Lhuntse,” the Major said.

“What about the others?” Toshum asked.

The Major shook his head:

“They are gone, sir. The last we heard were intermittent radio messages saying they were being overrun. There might be some men still out there…”

“God damn it!” Toshum turned away and walked a few feet. He looked back at the Major.

“So where’s the front now?”

Before the Major could answer, a few civilians came running down the road in panic. Toshum grabbed one of the farmers running by shouting that they had seen Chinese soldiers on the peaks some kilometers beyond the village. The Major completed his thoughts:

“There is no front, sir. This valley and Lhuntse are lost…”

YUMTHANG VALLEY

EASTERN SIKKIM

DAY 5 + 0820 HRS

The airlift of the Pinaka MBRL battery by the Mi-26s into the valley had taken the better part of a day to plan and execute. This was because there were just a handful of the powerful Mi-26 helicopters in the Indian arsenal. They also had to airlift much needed supplies and even a counter-battery radar section to assist the battery with targeting. The unit was currently deployed west of the peaks around Gora-La that separated Yumthang valley and the Chumbi-valley as a giant wall of stone. East of this wall, were the Chinese 55TH and 11TH Divisions and the Border Guard Regiments.

Tibet was still inaccessible by Indian air-force aircraft. Despite the air superiority established over the past five days against the PLAAF, the IAF was having a hard time disabling the Chinese S-300 batteries deployed near Lhasa. And despite the severe losses inflicted on the S-300 force in Tibet in the last few days, isolated batteries were still alive and could exert a dangerous presence over sections of Tibet.

Over the previous day of air-strikes, five Indian pilots had found this out the hard way. Four of those had not lived to fight another day.

But the Chumbi valley was far from Lhasa and outside the effective air-defense bubble. The lower-capability Chinese copies of the S-300 deployed in here had been knocked out quickly enough. And currently missions were being flown by Indian Mig-27s with relative impunity.

Losses were still being incurred on account of high volume of low-tech anti-air weapons. One Mig-27 had been lost early in the morning over the valley after having taken several direct hits from anti-air shells. But all in all, the transit of Chinese units in the valley over open roads was proving deadly under Indian controlled skies.

It was about to get worse.

The thin mountain air at these altitudes was particularly helpful for artillery systems since it helped increase their effective range by a decent margin. With the heavy 214mm Pinaka rocket system, it allowed increased options for the Divisional commander…

The morning serenity was rudely interrupted by the thunder and flash of rockets as several Pinaka rockets left their launchers and headed eastwards into the Chumbi-valley.

Operation Chimera had begun.

THE MALACCA STRAIT

DAY 5 + 0840 HRS