Foes on a Narrow Road
"Fortress, we request a change of route home, flying direct to Adampur, then turning back to base. As things stand, I can't return the way I came."
"All right, Scorpion leader, route change approved." The AWACS granted Pandit's request to cross back into home territory by the nearest way. It seemed a safe short cut; but last time, his flight had been intercepted while flying just this route.
"Why change route?" Flying Officer Sachi asked.
"Turning east into home territory and then south is safer; we can't linger long inside a hostile country. And you must keep an eye on the north at all times. Not every threat will the AWACS tell you about," Flight Lieutenant Pandit said. Like many other Indian pilots, he had a deep distrust of the AWACS overhead, for these aircraft were sometimes not very reliable.
Far off, over the northern stretch of the Sulaiman range, a large body of Pakistani fighters carrying medium-range missiles suddenly leapt over the saddle and appeared above the Punjab, where there was no geographic barrier. By the time the Indian AWACS saw them, the group was already in an area a hundred and eighty kilometres off the flank and rear of the fighters on the second bombing run at the dam. Even so, the distance was enough for Goyal's escort group to react in time; but once Flight Lieutenant Goyal turned his six No. 24 Hawks Su-30MKIs, he quickly saw from his vertical display that his flight was at an absolute disadvantage in numbers.
"Fortress, their numbers are... simply too great; I can hardly guarantee what will happen after the first round of medium-range missiles," Goyal said, a little panic in his voice. This was one of the few times he had felt fear in his very heart, not only because the enemy was close to three times his strength, but because he knew that among the new equipment Pakistan had lately received were some heavy fighters with combat ability close to the Su-30MKI, and that in a head-on clash the enemy would launch their long-range weapons at about the same range as he could. There were also the surviving F-16C/Ds and the AIM-120C-5s they carried.1 In sum, judging by the AWACS radar picture fed down the datalink, they all seemed to have turned out in full today. Though the Su-30MKI still held some advantage in technical measures such as radar performance, the numbers now were fourteen to six.
"Fortress, I need the Rhinos' help."
"The Rhino Squadron is on its way; before that, Flight Lieutenant, you must hold them. Intercept them." The AWACS ordered him sternly to block the enemy aircraft.
Goyal felt a little dizzy; the groups flew head-on, and the distance between them shrank very fast. The enemy bore down in a wall formation, and the Rhino Squadron was still nowhere to be found.
"Brothers, we have to shoot first. Begin radar tracking at once," Goyal gave the order, steeling himself; it seemed the only thing left to him now. As far as he knew, the R-77 had a small range advantage over the AIM-120C.
In an aiming contest at so great a range, the Hawks' phased-array radar gained only a limited edge. Within twenty seconds, both sides, guided by the AWACS, put their radars into high-PRF mode and tracked the other's fighters, one after another; the difference was that the Pakistani radars switched at once to a very safe one-on-one track, which completely reversed the slight radar disadvantage of the J-11s or the F-16C/Ds, while, on the contrary, the Hawks' six fighters could only use a scanning track-while-scan mode for multi-target tracking. This made the fight harder and harder for Goyal's flight.
"The Trident squadron would do too, I need their help," Goyal shouted, though he knew today's mission had left the Tridents' aircraft unable to carry medium-range missiles. It was only that on his display he saw the Tridents were still fairly close, while the Rhinos had only just crossed the border at their sluggish crawl.
"Eagle, you must hold on until the Rhinos arrive."
"Missiles away." Goyal gave the order, the timing a touch early. The twelve missiles of his six fighters flew toward their several aimed targets. Goyal did not expect any gain, for plainly the launch range was too great, and the target data too poorly updated, because of the multi-target track. It was obvious that his flight would be overborne within a minute; all he could do now was buy the slower attack aircraft a little time to flee to home territory.
Before today, no one could have guessed the Pakistan Air Force would put up so many fighters at once; it had never happened before. The spirit of underrating the enemy that pervaded the Indian air force, top to bottom, had made the attack plan the staff drew up a tangled skein. The air force had dragged out every serviceable combat aircraft on its ground bases across Rajasthan and Punjab and lined them up to bomb, treating the enemy air force as very nearly nothing. But the enemy had made good its numbers in just such a short time, and struck back at once, and in force.
On the Su-30's HUD, the countdown to the missiles' radar activation flickered fast; at the very least they had to hold out until this number reached zero before they could turn and flee. By then the missiles would fly to their targets on their own. In Goyal's cockpit the radar-warning tone kept sounding; he knew the other fighters of his flight were locked up, as he was.
"The enemy has launched missiles," the AWACS guidance officer shouted.
It seemed the R-77's range advantage had been cancelled out; Pakistan must again have got some new toy on the sly from a neighbouring country.
"Hold on," Goyal said, trying to steady his flight. By now he too was drenched in sweat. To turn and run at once would keep them safe, but the twelve missiles in the air would lose the datalink's correction commands and could not possibly hit any target. Yet if they held on, the missiles flying at them would come closer still.
"Leader, their numbers are too great, we can't get the better of it," a pilot's frightened voice drifted across the flight's channel, speaking the mind of every man, Goyal included.
From what source of confidence none could say, the Pakistani group coming head-on took no evasive action either, perhaps out of faith in their numerical advantage, sure that in this narrow-road encounter the Indian fighters would break first.
"All aircraft, turn one-eighty and evade." Flight Lieutenant Goyal could hold his nerve no longer. With his R-77s still twenty-seven kilometres from the enemy, and their seeker radars not yet effectively acquiring, he wheeled away along the tangent of the enemy's radars. At a range of sixty-five kilometres, this kind of instantaneous manoeuvre still made it fairly easy for a highly agile fighter to break lock. But that his own missiles would miss was equally not to be helped.
At this point the Indian air command fell into considerable confusion. Just as Goyal's flight, at enormous risk, was drawing off the great enemy group that had crossed the Sulaiman range and was rushing at the vulnerable attack aircraft, the order to abandon the bombing and pull out at speed still failed to reach the bomber formations.
The War Gods' A-50 AWACS had airborne-command capability, and in fact the Indian air force had delegated command authority to this aircraft. But on so grave a matter as whether to abandon the whole attack, no one aboard yet dared to decide, and so they wasted precious time communicating with the ground command post.2 Had there been an officer of major-general rank or above aboard, things might have been very different. But now the situation was going downhill fast; the Pakistani breakthrough group began to split in two, six F-16s continuing to chase the Hawks turning south, to stop them coming back, while another eight fighters turned toward the dam. Air Commodore Islam was at this moment aboard a ZDK-03 airborne-warning aircraft over Attock; this aircraft did not easily lose targets in a turn, and so became the airborne command post for the battle.3 A Saab 2000 also stayed airborne at the same time, as a backup early-warning aircraft.
1. R-77, AIM-120C-5, and the tracking exchange: Goyal's Su-30MKIs carry the R-77 (AA-12), with a slight range edge over the AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM on the PAF's F-16C/Ds. The decisive factor is not the missiles but the radar mode: the Pakistani fighters can commit to single-target track, sharpening their picture, while Goyal, outnumbered fourteen to six, must spread his radar across many targets in track-while-scan, which degrades every shot. Numbers, here, beat quality. ↩
2. The A-50's failure of nerve: The IAF had delegated airborne command to the War Gods' A-50, but with no flag officer aboard, no one would take the responsibility of calling off the raid, so the order to withdraw stalled while the aircraft consulted the ground. The contrast with the PAF side, where Air Commodore Islam rides the command aircraft in person, is the chapter's quiet point about who is willing to decide. ↩
3. ZDK-03 (Zdk-03): The ZDK-03 Karakoram Eagle, the Chinese-built airborne-warning aircraft (a CETC radar on the Shaanxi Y-8 airframe) supplied to the PAF, whose radar holds targets through a turn better than the mechanically-scanned Erieye of the Saab 2000. The novel puts Islam aboard it as battle commander, with the Saab kept up as backup. ↩