For now the initiative was on the Chinese side. They had made repeated attempts to push the two Indian mechanized battalions out of their side of the LAC for over a day now. Each time they had been stopped in their efforts.
But it had proven costly for both sides.
10TH Mechanized had been reduced to a handful of fully operational BMP-IIs and NAMICA vehicles. The 9TH Punjab units were doing better. The Sikh soldiers on nearby hills were holding strong, but were depleted in their ATGM capabilities. And there were no signs of the situation improving just yet…
The air crackled with thunder of supersonic rocket projectiles diving overhead. Kongara looked away from his binoculars to see the sky just as the rockets smashed their way into the Chinese lines. Three fireballs rose above the wall of gravel and dust that spread outwards from the impact zone. Two ZBDs and one T-99 in the advancing Chinese line had been killed by that salvo.
“Good effect on target!” Kongara shouted into the radio as the ground shook under his feet. Overhead, the Nishant UAV had already passed the same information back to Steel-Rain, the Saser based Smerch MBRL battery via the ACCCS. A second salvo round request was cleared by the Divisional artillery brigade commander just as soon as he saw the results from that first one.
A few minutes later Kongara and his radiomen saw in awe as the Chinese line disappeared in a carpet of explosions, ripping most of the enemy armor force to shreds before the view was obscured by a rising dust cloud that outsized the nearby hills…
The other part of the Chinese force further to the east was still relatively intact and continued the advance. Kongara looked to his northeast to see two dozen T-99s and ZBDs on a one kilometer front dashing towards his lines.
He could see three NAMICA vehicles and a handful of BMPs moving into protective revetments dug out by the supporting army engineers. The Chinese armor was now a few kilometers away.
The three NAMICA vehicles went into action, launching off their Nag missiles in quick succession. The missiles slammed into the frontal and top armour plating of the leading Chinese vehicles. The explosions ripped the vehicles asunder and sent metal and steel flying in all directions.
Seven T-99s staggered to an abrupt halt and stayed there.
The NAMICA crews were prioritizing the T-99s over the ZBDs. If it came down to a knife fight, they didn’t want T-99 main guns firing at them at point blank ranges. Even so, it wasn’t enough.
As a Nag missile streaked out of its launcher on one of the NAMICA vehicles, the vehicle exploded into a fireball by a Chinese missile. The Nag missile it had fired off claimed the last T-99 kill for that Indian crew. The tank’s engine compartment detonated in a fireball three kilometers from the Indian defenses.
The four surviving T-99 crews went into direct fire mode and fired their main guns in unison. Two Indian BMPs lit up instantly and a couple of the infantry positions were levelled in a burst of shrapnel and gravel. Two of the four T-99s were stopped in their tracks by the NAMICAs before several different Chinese light-armor vehicles overran the Indian lines.
The last two remaining NAMICA vehicles were hit and destroyed at point blank ranges. As the surviving ZBDs and a couple of the T-99s came within a few hundred meters of the 9TH Punjab lines, openly using their co-axial machine guns, the only response left were a couple of Milan anti-tank teams, but they were exposed and without cover except for the rocks and the burning vehicles. They managed to kill one ZBD before being wiped out.
And then it happened…
Kongara got up on his feet and spat out the gravel that had gone into his mouth. He picked up the radio and ordered a retreat as the Chinese vehicles rolled through the Indian positions.
The retreat was a mess, and utterly chaotic. The Chinese gunners mowed down dozens of Indian soldiers as they ran between rocks, the only form of cover out in the flat terrain…
It would have been a massacre for the 10TH Mechanized and the 9TH Punjab had it not been for the intervention of 199HU and its two Light-Combat-Helicopters. As Kongara ran behind some rock cover, he saw the two helicopters as they flew low over his positions.
The two LCHs were low on ammunition and had been returning back to FARP-Saser after returning from the 4TH Mechanized advance lines to the southeast. Colonel Sudarshan had diverted them to here to stave off the defeat enveloping the 10THMechanized survivors.
Dutt and his wingman had no time for setting up piecemeal attacks. Their main job right now was to occupy the Chinese and buy time for the survivors of the 10TH Mechanized to retreat. The only way they could make their presence felt to the Chinese in all that mess was by conducting point blank attacks and strafing runs overhead. Besides, they had no Nag missiles left in any case. Dutt had a load of ammo for their chin-mounted gun-turret and that’s it.
