Fenix Page 20

  “Well, somebody is lighting up the morning sky out there.”

  “I see that.” Kulkarni noted off-handedly as he switched comms for Sudarshan: “steel-central, this is rhino-one. I see explosions to my west; heavy tube-arty. Over.”

  As he waited for the reply, Kulkarni peered through his sights and saw the target of the attack, whatever it was, being hammered mercilessly. He moved the optics to the side to see the dozens of other Arjun tanks menacingly silhouetted against the reddish skies of the morning. All vehicles were rumbling in unison towards the Pakistani border…

  “Steel-central here. Uh…that’s not ours, rhino. Looks like the border posts are being hammered by Pakistani arty from the west.”

  Shit. Kulkarni depressed his transmit button: “rhino-one copies. Those guns need to be silenced, steel-central. They are hammering our border posts into oblivion!” As if to prove a point, there was a massive lightning to the west visible on his thermal sights. It flared and then disappeared as smaller balls of white light fell across the night sky away from the point of impact. This one made its way to the tanks and Kulkarni felt the rumble. Something got hit hard…

  “Steel-central copies. Head to L-O-D as planned. Over.”

  “Advance to L-O-D. Wilco. Out.” Kulkarni swiveled his ABAMS screen back in front and pressed the zoom button to identify who was on his north-west flank at the border. The blue markers showed up BSF posts, regular army infantry units and others spread along the border in staggered layers…a defense in depth. There were other screen markers as well. To his west were inverted triangles showing rhino’s advance line to the jump-off point, called the line-of-departure or LOD. The screen also showed combat-engineers deployed there. These units would be responsible for creating a safe passage through any enemy minefields. Aside from the elite recon troops, these combat-engineers were the most valued infantry forces as far as Kulkarni was concerned. They would be moving with his force in mechanized columns consisting of BMP-II armored vehicles, bridge-layer tanks, repair vehicles and mine-clearing equipment. Kulkarni had some tanks in each Arjun tank company equipped with mine-ploughs in case they ever had to make their own paths through minefields while under fire. But these were less reliable, slower and hence more dangerous. The explosives-based techniques employed by the combat-engineers to make passages for his tanks were much faster and reliable. The last thing he wanted was to lose tanks to broken treads…

  The small blue text on the screen next to the engineers unit was “trishul”. The trishul task-force would be moving alongside rhino. And Kulkarni was glad to have them on board. By the looks of things, trishul was already deployed on the LOD. At their current rolling speed, his tanks would reach trishul in about fifteen minutes.

  Good. He noted and pulled out his folded paper maps from his overall pockets. It was already heavily marked with pencils. He could never bring himself to trust the electronics all around him. Old habits die hard.

  “Rhino-two here. We are bypassing explosions on our right flank, rhino-one. Does not look pretty!”

  “Roger, -two. Command says to ignore it and move on. So we are ignoring it and moving on. Over.”

  “Rhino-two copies all. Keeping our eyes and ears peeled for enemy action. Out.” The line chimed off.

  As the tank rolled over the sand dunes, Kulkarni had a moment to consider the ABAMS screen yet again. The enemy arty concerned him more than he let on to his subordinates. Unlike the Indian army, the Pakistanis had invested heavily in tube artillery. And what heavy guns the Indian army had were available were earmarked for the offensive in Punjab. Kulkarni did have some heavy-rocket units covering his force, but these were marked for taking out enemy guns and batteries, not providing his own force with non-line-of-sight fire. That represented the biggest weakness in the plans. His force lacked the big teeth of tube artillery that the Pakistanis possessed. If those enemy guns weren’t taken out of the equation soon, they could jeopardize the entire schedule and perhaps even the end result. The border security troops were already suffering under this murderous enemy fire. ABAMS showed several border posts to his north having been removed from the roster as units there pulled back to avoid destruction. Kulkarni hoped that was true and that these units had pulled back and not been destroyed. From inside the congested confines of his tank, he could not be sure.

  West of the border, inside Pakistan, ABAMS showed units in green coloration and text: the Pakistanis. Command had added an apt color to match this particular enemy, Kulkarni thought. Somebody up the chain of command had an incisive line of thought.

  The biggest threat for Kulkarni’s force emanated from the Pakistani 1ST Armored Division, staggered in a southerly axis from Bahawalpur, south of Multan. That put this enemy force roughly northwest of Kulkarni. It was also his first target of elimination. The Pakistani 1ST Armored was an elite force and manned and equipped with the best tanks and tankers that country had to offer. They would put up a stiff fight for their home turf. Kulkarni found it hard to underestimate their determination and capability. That precision artillery hammering the border only added to his concern.

  Most of that threat came from their heavy compliment of Al-Khalid and T-80 tanks. It wasn’t hard for Kulkarni to see why his force was being committed to battle here. These Pakistani tank forces were part of the reserves that the Pakistani high command intended to preserve for counterattacks in Punjab. If they could be destroyed in battle here, they would cease to pose a threat further north. At the very least, threatening the Pakistani southern front would bog down these units and prevent them from moving anywhere, effectively taking them off the table. These tanks within their forces were the only ones capable of surviving on the modern battlefield. Remove them from the list of options and suddenly the Indian armored forces would have a serious advantage on the ground.

  Kulkarni looked away from the screen. He saw the face of the loader as the latter stared at him in silence, his face covered with grease and sweat. Kulkarni smiled: “we will be fine.”

  The radio squawked: “Rhino-four here. I have several BMP-IIs at two kilometers. I also make out several dozen other trucks and what look like engineering vehicles. Over.”

  “Roger,” Kulkarni peered through his own sights. “That will be trishul on the LOD. Weapons on hold. We are passing through friendly lines. Prepare to enter marked lanes. Let’s make this quick. I don’t want to be stuck in single-file columns exposed to the enemy any longer than I have to.”

  “Trishul-one to rhino-one,” a grizzly older voice on the comms chimed in. “We see your columns to our rear. Request weapons stowed. We are in your line-of-fire. Over.”

  “Rhino-one here. We see you. Weapons are on hold. Requesting sit-rep. Over.”

  “Mines, rhino-one. Lots of them. Anti-personnel and anti-tank. Three-hundred meter depth to our north and south. The Pakis went overboard on this one. Almost as if they were expecting us! My boys have secured four lanes through the field and have established a small bridgehead beyond. You are good to go. Over.”

  “Rhino copies and sends thanks. We are rolling. Out.”

  Kulkarni’s tank jerked to the side as the driver aligned the vehicle axis to match the cleared lanes. The lanes were wide enough to allow one Arjun tank to pass through with ease. Kulkarni swiveled his sights back to see dozens of Arjun tanks lining up by sub-units and columns to pass the border minefields. With four lanes and one tank passing through every minute on each lane, a force of one hundred tanks would need about thirty minutes to clear the minefield. The engineers and other columns coming up behind them meant that they would still be clearing this position an hour from now.

  Not good.

  Kulkarni chimed into the rhino net: “all elements: let’s make this as quick and painless as we can! I want to be clear of this obstacle and on to the Islamgarh road within thirty minutes! Out.”

  Kulkarni noted that his tank was the amongst the first four tanks making their way past the minefield. It took his driver exactly two minute
s to clear the path and enter on the other side. As the tank made it past the end of the lane and past the standing combat-engineers, he noted the two BMP-IIs of trishul force parked on the southern embankment of the tar road heading west. The map on ABAMS confirmed it: Islamgarh road.

  They had entered Pakistani territory.

  The driver chimed in: “stand by. We are climbing over the embankment.”

  The tank pitched up thirty degrees as it rolled over the sand embankment and landed horizontal on the tar of the road. Three other Arjun tanks did the same further south. There were now four Indian tanks blocking the Islamgarh road as their turrets swept left and right for targets. All they found was a smoke column one kilometer away where an abandoned Pakistani border post was smoldering. There were no other targets to see except for some villagers escaping on vehicles, west of them.

  Kulkarni opened his tank comms: “move forward, two-hundred meters. Let’s create some breathing space beyond the breach point.”

  “Roger.”

  The tank jerked forward with a rumble. The gunner continued to swivel left and right for targets as the morning sun already began heating up the desert.

  “See any targets?” Kulkarni asked.

  “No sir. All clear.”

  “That’s not good. Where are the Pakis?” Kulkarni opened comms with Sudarshan: “steel-central, rhino is at the LOD and preparing to advance to waypoint baker. No enemy yet. Requesting sitrep on over-the-horizon threats. Over.”

  “Rhino, this is steel-central. We copy your advance to baker. Expect enemy infantry positions west, two kilometers. Expect armored and mechanized forces on your right flank beyond three kilometers. We are seeing inbound enemy columns. Out.”

  The enemy was on their way to meet him in battle. As other Arjun tanks expanded the breach point and headed towards the road, two tanks from rhino-four rolled past his line on the road and began to take up position north of it. Kulkarni looked through his sights to the west and saw nothing but sand, rocks and shrubs. But the enemy was out there, somewhere just out of sight.

  As he watched, three Mig-27s streaked past at low level, disappearing within seconds. Kulkarni hoped they were going after the enemy columns…

  “Sir, I see a green road sign, five hundred meters west down the road. Can’t read the language. Is it Urdu?” The gunner asked. Kulkarni decided to take a look. Sure enough, it was a road sign, gathering dust: “it says ‘Rahim Yar Khan road, twelve kilometers’. In Urdu. Written in an Arabic style. Get used to it. You will be seeing a lot more of this in the next few days!”

  Kulkarni looked at his watch. Ten minutes since they parked on the road and about thirty percent of his force had crossed the breach point. The minutes were ticking away at a murderously slow pace.

  “Okay, let’s move out.” Kulkarni replied as the last of his tanks began clearing the breach point in the minefields.

  The tank rumbled forward on the tar road leading twelve others in a single column. The bulk of the force was spread south and north of the road. The view from his sights revealed a Pakistani border outpost further west, abutting the road from the south. These border posts were evenly distributed along stretches of the road that ran parallel to the border, mirroring similar Indian deployments on the other side. Rhino had breached in a location where the road ran close to the border and was roughly equidistant from the two nearest Pakistani posts. The one to the north was not Kulkarni’s concern. It had been struck by Indian artillery two hours ago and was now deserted. A small column of BMP-IIs from trishul had already reached its perimeters. They would secure and hold that position.

  The border post west of the breach point was more in Kulkarni’s direct path and had not been reconnoitered by Indian forces except by airborne drones from steel-central.

  This post was Kulkarni’s first objective.

  It showed no signs of occupation. He looked through the sights to spot any movement and saw none. It was just the regular group of small buildings and positions painted sand-brown. A small flag post visible on top of the mound in the center of the post was barren: signs that the Pakistani troops here had retreated tactically over the last few hours to better-held positions further west.

  Regardless, caution was the order of the day. Kulkarni couldn’t care less about the post. He would roll over it, crush it under his tank treads and move past. He had no intention of making his way through any booby-traps laid by the Pakistanis to “welcome” him on their home turf.

  “Any activity at the post?” He asked his gunner.

  “Negative. No signs of life.”

  “Time to knock on the doors and see if anyone is home. Level those bunkers!” Kulkarni ordered.

  The tank shuddered with recoil as the gunner launched a high-explosive shell towards the Pakistani border post. It hit the open slit of a bunker and exploded, sending a ball of concrete dust and sand rolling into the sky. Three other tanks in the front column did the same, decimating most of the buildings at the post.

  No enemy response.

  Perhaps the position really was deserted…Kulkarni thought. As his tanks rolled close to the post’s perimeter, the smaller dust and smoke columns merged into a haze, hanging above the post against a bright blue morning sky…

  “So much for that,” the gunner offered as their tank rolled past the main gates. The driver made it a point to roll over the signpost at the main gate marking the name of the Pakistani unit that occupied this position just hours before.

  “All rhino elements, make sure you cover any activity on our flanks,” Kulkarni ordered. “The Pakis here have retreated to better positions west. They will not be giving up these lands without a fight. Don’t get complacent out here!”

  Now the road turned northwest, meandering all the way. Eventually it would turn into the Rahim-Yar-Khan road which would take them all the way to the town by the same name and the strategic highway that passed through near it. That was fifty-kilometers away. And right now they hadn’t even made it past the first two. A long way to go.

  Kulkarni pulled up ABAMS to see how his other tanks were holding on his right flank. He had just pressed the zoom-out button when the tank shuddered violently and a thunder rolled through the interior of the tank. The ABAMS screen flicked off and then on again as the shockwave dissipated…

  “What the hell!”

  “Enemy artillery fire!” The driver yelled. “A shell landed just twenty meters on the road in front of us!”

  Kulkarni peered through his sights to see what the hell was happening as more shells began impacting around them. The view from his sights was not pretty: Enemy heavy artillery shells were hitting the ground all around his tanks. Inverted cones of sand and dust were erupting over the green shrubbery. The air was a screaming cacophony of inbound shells and exploding thunderclaps…

  Kulkarni felt the tank jerk to a stop and he looked away from the sights: “what’s going on?! Why have you stopped? Are we hit?”

  “Negative! Negative!” The driver shouted. “I have a huge crater on the road in front of us! The road is destroyed!”

  “Then get us the fuck around! Get off the road, damn it!”

  The tank jerked again to the side and then rumbled forward, skirting the smoldering crater carved out of the tar road. Kulkarni got on the comms again: “all rhino elements: keep moving! Do not stop! I say again, do not stop or they will bracket us in their kill zones!”

  He switched comms instantly: “steel-central, this is rhino-one! We are taking fire from enemy tube artillery two kilometers west of the breach point! We are maintaining advance! Over!”

  “Any casualties?” Sudarshan asked.

  “Negative, sir. But that won’t last. Somebody needs to go put those damn enemy guns out of commission!”

  “Roger, Rhino-one. We are working on it! Ferrite-actual is moving into position. In the meantime, continue the advance to waypoint baker! Out.”

  The tank shuddered again as another explosion ripped through the ground nearby. Ku
lkarni had to hold on to the turret frame to prevent himself from being smashed against the sides. Advancing through the incoming fire prevented the Pakistanis from bracketing Rhino force into a stationary kill zone. It reduced the artillery’s accuracy and chances of scoring a direct hit against the top turret armor. But how long would that luck hold out?

  “Enemy positions!” The gunner shouted. “One kilometer northwest! They have optics on us!”

  At least that explains the shifting artillery fire…Kulkarni thought as he peered through the sights. He saw optical reflections against the morning sunlight hitting the Pakistanis directly. That was helpful to the Indian forces, as expected. Kulkarni had every intention of grabbing that advantage.

  “All rhino elements: enemy defensive lines nine-hundred meters west. Open fire! And do not stop! Fire on the move and roll over the enemy! Force their artillery to either fire on their own troops or to stop fire. Either way, we have nothing to lose! Execute!”

  The sound of two-dozen high-explosive tank rounds leaving their barrels was loud enough to drown out the incoming artillery. First the line of Arjun tanks disappeared into a cloud of flame and smoke…and then the Pakistani lines. The high-explosive tank shells slammed into their positions. The smoke from the main guns washed over the ever advancing mass of Arjun tanks as they kept moving, firing tank rounds as fast as the loaders could ready them…

  It was all about maintaining fire superiority. It didn’t matter if the tank rounds hit any specific target or not. If they did, that was wonderful. If not, they forced the enemy to keep their heads down and deal with the explosive concussions ripping through their bodies. The vibrations affected their aim and the thunderclaps forced them to lose focus and coherence. War is as much psychological as it is physical. Kulkarni understood that only too well.

  Peering through his sights in thermal mode allowed him to see past the clouds of smoke, sand and dust that had enveloped the Pakistani positions. His other sights were already having difficulty from “brown-out”. They couldn’t see through all the particles flying all over the place and threatened to envelop their entire view. The enemy artillery fire slackened off as well.