The Web of Fire
Meanwhile Sami's lock onto that radar he suspected was an SA-6 type was nearly complete; he levelled the aircraft and waited for the launch-permit to appear. By common sense he should have killed the low-altitude search radar first, which would have removed all later trouble, and then, as circumstances allowed, fired on the remaining fire-control radars; but for this operation his Thunder carried only one anti-radiation missile, and because that search radar's signal came and went and could not be locked, Sami had to choose the fire-control radar that kept illuminating him. The acquisition symbol flashed on suddenly, and without any hesitation the group captain fired the missile at once.
Ten seconds after the missile flew for the target, the other side shut its radar off. This was a normal countermeasure, but it did no harm; the missile would still strike by the position it had memorised. Whether or not it hit, Sami could at last free his hands and join the fight. But he found he could not locate Rehman. Had he pressed too deep into enemy territory, keen for glory?
"Viper, I need my wingman's position."
"Four kilometres east of the pass, bearing zero-seven-five, chasing the last enemy aircraft."
The Indian ground fire, silent all this while, at last resolved to open up on the trailing Thunder, not because Pandit's radio calls had told, but only because the two aircraft flew so low that some infantry had recognised this ceaselessly dodging MiG-27 as belonging to the Indian air force.
A few anti-aircraft guns hidden on the hilltops began to crank upward; these guns, set within camouflage nets, had originally been trained in secret on the Pakistani pillboxes on the heights opposite. Now the whole deployment ran the risk of being wholly exposed; the frontline commander could not let this enemy aircraft roam unchecked over the 55th Brigade.
Rehman kept throttling back, trying to bring his nose onto his opponent; but the other was an old hand, and his mastery of the variable-sweep wing had reached an uncanny pitch. He clung always to within a few hundred metres off the Thunder's flanks, rolling up and down with changes of height, forever grazing the edge of the infrared aiming ring as he dodged, so that Rehman's aim could not be brought to bear. Of course, the Indian pilot's complicated flight path also made the aim of the ground fire very difficult.
The ground autocannon began firing chaotically from different directions. Part of it was the twin 23-millimetre guns of the border garrison, the Rajputana Rifles regiment;1 the rest was the old Bofors 40-millimetre guns of the 55th Armoured Brigade; none of these weapons had good fire control, and in fact the shells flying at the MiG-27 were not one whit fewer than those fired at the Pakistani aircraft behind it.
Both aircraft climbed fast at once, neither able for the moment to scheme against the other, for every extra second spent in this valley woven over with a web of fire was very dangerous.
"Rehman, watch behind you," Sami shouted over the radio.
Rehman craned round quickly; a missile trailing flame was flying at him. He hurriedly released several sets of tracer flares across the missile's path, and then, while this SA-7 was still deciding which way to turn, banked hard to one side at seven g. The missile bored through the flare curtain and could no longer find the Thunder; but by chance it found another infrared source, and flew straight for it. This time Pandit was a little careless; his line of sight had been blocked by the great cloud of white smoke thrown up by the Thunder's wildly fired flares. When the SA-7 came out of that smoke, the MiG-27 was at low speed; Pandit had meant to shrink his turn radius by a sudden deceleration and, at one stroke, reverse his position from the hunted, for he had judged that the Thunder, likewise at low speed, would be hard to control.
"Damn it, how can this be?"
The flight lieutenant hurriedly released flares, but too late. Since the MiG-27's speed was now a pitiful 380 kilometres an hour, there was no way at all to make a strong turn. The missile exploded off one flank, and Pandit's aircraft at once trailed thick smoke.2 The flight lieutenant did not rush to eject; he checked his instruments and his surroundings. The engine's revolutions were falling fast, and the aircraft was past saving; the internal fuel pressure was dropping too. He turned to look back, and thick smoke was rising near the tailfin; perhaps within twenty seconds the engine would cut out entirely or explode. Luckily the hydraulic controls were still working, and though the stick grew less and less effective, he held on and coaxed the aircraft out of the valley, because he dared not now guarantee that the hysterical infantry below would not fire on his parachute.
Sami hung high, watching all that passed far off, and knew he was in deep trouble today. The distant Indian missile site switched on again; by its bearing it was another fire-control radar, and soon the radar beam pointed at the two Thunders in the air. The radar-warning gear sounded once more; this time he had no power to answer it, and he quickly told Rehman to fly home low and hug the valleys as closely as he could. Flying tight against the hills was always very effective for dodging semi-active radar-guided missiles like the SA-6; but Rehman had been frightened out of his wits by the dense ground fire and the SA-7s, and dared not lose height. He had never imagined a quiet mountain valley could hold so much air-defence fire. He had known only that the understrength Rajputana Rifles regiment held a defence line here of a few dozen kilometres, its main air-defence weapon a 14.5-millimetre machine gun, and had never dreamed he would fall into so dense a web of fire.
"Listen to me, drop your height at once," Sami went on shouting.
"I can't, Group Captain, you saw it yourself, the hills here are covered with all kinds of..."
"Black Spider flight, the enemy has launched missiles, in all... two... no, another two, judged to be aimed at you," the AWACS cut Rehman short, reporting the launch of the enemy's surface-to-air missiles.
Sami at once chose to dive into a gully; he could no longer stay high to direct Rehman, for what Rehman said had its reason too, and in truth, for him, it was now a moment to gamble on luck.
The two "Sky" missiles aimed at Sami soon lost their target and flew off toward the far horizon.3 Rehman was not so lucky; the missiles clung close behind him and could not be shaken. He knew he had pressed too deep this time, and all the ground fire of the whole pass was aimed at him. (Once Pandit's MiG-27 had been shot down by his own side, the Indians knew there was nothing left to hold them back, and could fire with everything.) The pressing situation forced Rehman into yet another wrong decision; he suddenly turned north, hoping to skirt the Gurdas pass and then cross back over the border low. This rash move ran him nearly straight across the whole front of the 55th Armoured Brigade lying hidden here. At once the flying officer found that aiming at him was not only the G-band SA-6 (in fact the Indian-made "Sky" missile), but several 3D radars not far off, very like some fairly advanced short-range air-defence weapon.
His judgement was not wrong: two very well camouflaged 35-millimetre self-propelled anti-aircraft guns were aiming at this enemy aircraft that had pressed in too far. This weapon had strong infrared and radar search ability, and could fight entirely on its own; it was perhaps the most advanced gun-based air-defence system in the world, and in India equipped only the most elite attack units.
The self-propelled gun's turret turned slowly beneath its camouflage net, aiming at this slowly approaching Pakistani aircraft, waiting for it to fall into range on its own; only, this aircraft was at present at an awkward height. It was a height the guns could barely reach; if he dropped a few hundred metres more, their odds would grow several times over.
1. The web of fire: The flak comes from a mix of formations: the twin ZU-23 (23-millimetre) and heavy machine guns of the Rajputana Rifles, a real Indian Army regiment holding the border line here (the source also writes the name in transposed form, 杰拉普塔纳), and the older Bofors 40-millimetre guns of the 55th Brigade. None has good fire control, which is why the barrage is nearly as dangerous to the Indian MiG-27 as to the Pakistani Thunder chasing it. ↩
2. Fratricide: An Indian SA-7, meant for Rehman's Thunder, is decoyed off, finds Pandit's MiG-27 instead, and downs it; the Indians have shot their own aircraft out of the sky. Once that is done, as the text notes drily, they know there is nothing left to hold them back and can fire with everything, which seals Rehman's fate. ↩
3. The "Sky" missile (天空 / 阿卡什): "Sky" is the plain meaning of Akash, so 天空导弹 and 阿卡什 are the same weapon, the Indian SAM introduced last batch (C79N4); the author here spells out that the "G-band SA-6" the pilots read on their gear is in fact the Indian-made Akash. Hugging the valley walls, a standard trick against a semi-active radar missile of this class, is what breaks its lock on Sami. ↩