XPost: soc.culture.pakistan, soc.culture.india, alt.war.nuclear
XPost: talk.politics.misc
"David P" wrote in message news:
f4fb6d2a-5171-478a-aae2-6a2bba3aad36n@googlegroups.com...
What’s 50 Times More Dangerous Than Afghanistan?
By Sadanand Dhume, 8/19/21, Wall St. Journal
“Pakistan is a country-sized suicide bomber,” Ms. Chayes says. “The message Islamabad sends is that if you get too close to us we’re going to blow ourselves up.”
The same holds true in Pakistani society at large. If music-hating, anti-Western, anti-Shiite misogynists can seize power in Kabul, why can’t they do the same in Islamabad?
<snip>
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-withdrawal-afghanistan-pakistan-nuclear-lashkar-e-taiba-tehreek-e-taliban-islamist-11629402468
They will. Let the asslifters and curry-munchers nuke it out. Their
fecundity will replace the lost population in a few years. The following scenario is the best I've seen yet. I archived the text a few years ago so
it wouldn't be lost forever if the link went dead (it's still good). --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Armageddon: the India-Pakistan War of 2019
A tale of the not-too-distant future
Background:
January 2019. The right-wing, Hindu nationalist led Indian government of
Prime Minister Narendrabhai
Modi is in serious trouble. Steadily rising prices, widespread unemployment, and economic stagnation have seriously hurt the government’s image. The nation has yet to recover from the devastating drought of 2017, which badly
hit agriculture and brought millions to the brink of starvation. A series of corruption scandals in the top echelons of the prime minister’s own
Bharatiya Janata Party have also badly tarnished Modi’s own image as a clean politician.
With elections due in May, the government is on the ropes. Sensing blood,
the opposition parties - hitherto in disarray - have started to put together
a ramshackle alliance. The political scene is in turmoil.
Meanwhile, internationally, the scene in South Asia has changed drastically. After the withdrawal of all American forces from Afghanistan in late 2017,
with the last troops literally pulling out in the middle of the night
without prior warning, the government in Kabul quickly imploded. The country fairly rapidly split into two, with a Taliban-dominated government taking
over the southern, Pashtun-settled area. In the north, a Russian-aligned
rump state clings on to the Hazara, Uzbek and Tajik majority zones, but for
all practical purposes the main part of Afghanistan is again controlled by
the Taliban.
The US, which until recently controlled the entire land mass between the Central Asian ‘stans and the Arabian Sea, has lost interest in the area completely following its withdrawal. The Great Depression of 2016-17 has hit
it hard, and made it concentrate on more profitable sections of its global empire. For the moment, it’s a non-player in South Asia.
For Pakistan, the Taliban victory in Afghanistan has proved to be a mixed blessing. While the defense establishment still thinks that the Taliban
Afghan state is an ally which provides strategic depth to Pakistan, the
defeat of the US at the hands of the Afghan Taliban has encouraged the Pakistani Pashtuns to demand re-integration with their brethren in
Afghanistan. The Pakistani Taliban has launched several offensives, and in mid-2018 briefly took over Peshawar before being driven back. Meanwhile, the long-standing Balochistan rebellion against the Islamabad government is
still simmering, and several military bases have been attacked in recent months.
As far as the Indian intelligence agency, RAW, is concerned, the temptation
to meddle and bleed Pakistan has proved irresistible. While it has been
arming and funding the Balochi insurgents for many years, it has recently
sent a limited number of weapons to the Pakistani Taliban as well, on their pledge that they would only attack Pakistani installations and not turn
their guns on Indian interests. The Pakistani government has retaliated by stepping up support to the flagging Kashmir insurgency, and by training and funding the Islamic Mujahideen, Student’s Islamic Movement of India, and other domestic Muslim terror groups in India.
Politically, too, the Pakistani government of Nawaz Sharif, which only just retained power in a deeply controversial election, is in trouble. Pakistan’s economy, without the injection of American funds, is in even worse shape
than India’s, and public frustration is growing.
Prominent young liberal opposition politician Arsalan Ghumman has called for
a rolling series of protests to drive Sharif from power. Large
demonstrations have taken place in the streets of Lahore and Karachi, and
many of these have been targeted by gunmen and bombs; most Pakistanis, who believe Nawaz Sharif “stole” the last election, think that these attacks have been orchestrated by the government to crush dissent. Arsalan Ghumman
and several of his supporters are arrested and spirited away to an unknown destination; all this does is provoke more demonstrations demanding his immediate release.
For both India and Pakistan, then, January 2019 is a time of steeply
escalating internal tensions, with deeply unpopular governments looking for
a way to survive.
The Provocation:
9.30 a.m., 26 January: As India celebrates its Republic Day with a massive military parade marching through the center of Delhi, a number of
coordinated car bombs – thirteen in all – go off in Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Nagpur, killing at least 700 people and injuring well over 2000. The news of the bomb explosions reaches Prime Minister Modi (who also holds the Defense portfolio) as he is watching the parade in the company of President Lal
Krishna Advani and the Chief Guest, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa of Sri
Lanka. Modi immediately leaves the venue for his office, and calls a crisis committee meeting, attended by top government ministers and bureaucrats.
Meanwhile, the private TV channels interrupt the telecast of the parade for breaking-news footage of the blasts, including gory images of victims lying
in pools of their own blood. By mid-morning, shrill-voiced commentators on
the TV screens have begun openly blaming Pakistan for the bombs and
demanding immediate retaliatory action, including bombing “terrorist
training camps”. In the late afternoon, the first demonstrators are on the streets of Delhi, waving placards and assaulting any Muslims they can find.
The police seem unwilling to hold them back.
At seven that evening, Modi makes a televised statement to the nation, appealing for calm, and claiming that the government will hold those responsible “accountable”. This fails to satisfy the demonstrators, who burn
Modi in effigy alongside Nawaz Sharif. An abortive attempt is made to storm
the Pakistan High Commission.
The Pakistani government, in the person of the foreign minister, issues a statement condemning the blasts and denying responsibility; it further
offers a joint probe with India to investigate the bombings. Indian media immediately denounce the offer as “a thief offering to investigate his own burglary.” The Indian government ignores the offer completely.
At midnight, Modi, in his capacity as Defense Minister, holds a second
meeting, this one attended by the military top brass as well as civilian officials. The Prime Minister says that some kind of military measures will have to be taken against Pakistan, in order to cool down public anger. In private, he and the Cabinet have already decided that a short war against Pakistan will not only satisfy the hawks but also regain public popularity
and help win the coming election.
In order to lull Pakistani suspicions, the government decides not to break
off diplomatic relations. The attack will be launched as soon as possible,
to catch the Pakistanis by surprise.
The military position:
Ever since the military fiasco of 2001-2, when India had taken a full four weeks to mobilize forces after the terrorist attack on the Indian
parliament, the Indian armed forces had decided on a so-called Cold Start doctrine. Though, officially, the Cold Start doctrine did not exist, it
called for rapid mobilization and concentration of strike forces at the
border so as to be able to launch a short-duration invasion of Pakistan
within 48 hours of receiving orders. The idea is to attack, hit the enemy
hard and get out before any international intervention can be organized.
On paper, the Indians are overwhelmingly stronger than the Pakistanis, but
this is rather diluted by the facts on the ground. While the common soldiers
on both sides are well-trained and highly professional, the two armies are
both completely dependent on their officers for leadership, and actively discourage initiative. Both sides have made efforts to modernize, but
shortage of funds and jockeying for favor between the services means that neither has managed to do so with great success. Besides, India has a much larger land mass to protect, and a great part of its forces are permanently deployed against China. On the other hand, the Pakistani officer corps is tainted by politics and Islamification, while India's is both apolitical in
the junior ranks, and strictly secular.
In a short war, both sides will have virtual parity, and it will come down
to tactics and innovation to decide who wins.
The military plan involves air strikes against training camps in the
Pakistani occupied part of Kashmir, and also on the Pakistani air force’s bases to keep it off balance and unable to retaliate. Meanwhile, the army’s strike formations will launch armored thrusts across the international
border in Punjab and Rajasthan. The attack across the Rajasthan frontier, directed at Multan, will be a diversion, intended to distract the Pakistanis from the main assault, which will be across the Punjab border and against Lahore. The plans call for the capture of Lahore within 48 hours, followed
by a speedy withdrawal. A suggestion for a secondary thrust against the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad is turned down as being too provocative
and ambitious.
The plans make it clear that the entire war is to be concluded within six
days, beyond which – according to the Indian army – the Pakistanis are liable to be tempted to use nuclear weapons. The navy, in the meantime, will launch attacks on the port of Karachi, using Harrier VTOL jets from the aircraft carrier Viraat. The second aircraft carrier, Vikramaditya, is at
the moment in the port of Visakhapatnam, on the other side of the India, and will take too long to reach the war zone. The third carrier, Vikrant, is
still fitting out at Cochin and months from being ready for combat.
On the government side, the advantage of a short war is that it is the only sort of military engagement which can be concluded with a minimum of
economic pain. With each tank shell costing as much as a working-class
family earns in a month, a longer conflict means economic disaster. Besides,
a short war can be presented as a victory, and by the time the effects are noticed the elections will be over.
After swearing all present to the strictest of secrecy, the government
issues the necessary orders.
The Pakistani preparation:
The Pakistani armed forces are far from unaware of the existence of Cold
Start, and have gone into high alert as soon as they received news of the
bomb blasts in India. Though the Pakistani armed forces are much smaller
than the Indian, they have lesser territory to defend, and can concentrate faster owing to the lesser distance of Pakistani communications centers from the border; in addition, the Indian swift assault plan means that only a
small, highly mobile part of the Indian armed forces will be used.
Also, the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, is much more efficient
than the Indian. Before dawn on the 27th, it has already picked up news of
the midnight meeting in Delhi. Although it doesn’t know what happened at the meeting, the Pakistani army high command decides to put its troops on combat alert, without waiting for permission from Nawaz Sharif.
By late afternoon on the 27th, ISI agents – some of them disguised as tea sellers and labourers in and around Indian cantonments – begin sending in coded messages that Indian strike corps have begun making preparations for immediate movement. As soon as darkness falls, long lines of tanks and
armoured personnel carriers rattle down the highways towards the Pakistan border. Their plan is to be in position to attack before dawn on the 29th.
Quietly but with desperate speed, the Pakistani army command begins making
its own preparations. As yet, the civilian Pakistani government is out of
the loop. Only when the troop movements are too far advanced to be
reversible, the generals decide, will Nawaz Sharif be informed.
The ISI also quickly evacuates the terrorist training camps in the Kashmir mountains. If the Indians strike the camps, they will be bombing little more than empty tents and abandoned firing ranges.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani military’s Nuclear Command Authority begins moving part of its atomic weaponry out of its fortified bases and integrating
warheads with their delivery systems. The generals will not inform Nawaz
Sharif of this at all.
Meanwhile, in India:
Since the plans to attack Pakistan are top secret, the government has kept insisting that it will punish those responsible. Public anger, stoked by private TV channels competing with each other for ratings, is boiling over. Large demonstrations have taken place in several cities across North and
West India. Several violent incidents, targeting Muslims, have taken place. Curfew has been imposed in Delhi, Mumbai, and Ahmedabad, where the worst
riots occurred.
On the evening of the 28th, Modi again goes on TV to declare that decisive action will soon be taken against “those responsible” for the bombings, and that he will make another statement in the morning. Though his comments are meant to assuage domestic anger, the Pakistanis decide that this is final
proof that an Indian attack will be launched during the course of the night. Their own armored corps move out of their bases and begin to deploy to meet
the threat.
The Indian troop concentration has not gone completely according to plan.
Some brigades equipped with the Arjun main battle tank have been unable to reach their jumping off points because the tanks are too heavy to use most bridges and too wide to fit railway flatbeds. Meanwhile, many of the aging T-72s have broken down in the Rajasthan desert, so that the armored
formations are seriously under-strength. The army’s commanders hold another meeting with Modi just after midnight, and suggest a day’s delay. However, the Russian ambassador has already sent in a message asking about Indian
troop movements and warning about hasty actions, and it’s obvious that the preparations can’t be kept secret any longer. A day’s delay might be too late, Modi says, and orders the attack to go ahead as planned.
The name of the operation is decided at this meeting. It will be called Operation Badla – Operation Revenge.
The Attack:
At half past four in the morning of 29th January, Indian Air Force Mirage
2000, Rafale and Sukhoi 30 MKI aircraft take off from forward airbases and
fly at treetop height over the frontier. By five, air raid sirens are going
off in Islamabad and Lahore, while the flashes of bomb explosions light up
the horizon and startled residents blink awake in the freezing cold.
Pakistani anti-aircraft guns and surface to air missiles attempt to counter
the Indian attack with only partial success; just four planes are brought
down. However, the Indian attack fails to damage the PAF substantially,
since the Pakistanis had moved their aircraft away to satellite airbases and underground shelters. A second wave of strikes, against the already
evacuated terrorist training camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, achieves precisely nothing.
Just as the first Indian Air Force planes return from their strikes, Indian 155mm Bofors artillery guns and multi-barreled rocket launchers open up a withering barrage on known Pakistani positions across the frontier. As lines
of T-90 and T-72 tanks roll forward, the barrage lifts ahead of them,
hitting roads and railway junctions in an effort to stop the Pakistanis
either withdrawing or reinforcing their positions. By dawn, the first line
of Pakistani defenses have been overrun at relatively little cost, and
columns of prisoners are being sent to the rear, to be photographed by
hastily organized TV crews from pro-government channels. By the time Modi
goes on TV at eight in the morning, the news has already gone out: the
nation is at war, and to all appearances it is winning.
The Indian thrusts towards Lahore and Multan. The border of Kashmir in this
map is the de facto one, not as claimed by either of the two countries.
But the prisoners the Indians have taken are Rangers – border guards – not regular army, and the air strikes have caused far less damage than
anticipated. By mid-morning, Pakistan’s J-10 and F-16 fighters are engaging Indian MiG-29s over Lahore and Kashmir. The armor has begun to get bogged
down too. A huge dust storm reduces visibility to almost zero, causing hours
of delay to the southern flank of the Indian assault, which is aimed across
the desert at Multan. Meanwhile, the northern arm of the attack, against Lahore, runs into hastily laid minefields, which disable many of the tanks. Others are tied down by small but determined teams of anti-tank missile operators in camouflaged trenches in the middle of the minefields. Artillery has to be brought up to destroy these positions one by one before the mines
can be cleared.
The plan goes awry:
By the evening of the 29th, it’s already evident that the Indian timetable has gone awry, and that Lahore can’t be captured on schedule – the armored spearheads still have to break through the main lines of Pakistani defenses east of the Icchogil Canal protecting the city. The capture of Lahore is essential to the rationale of Operation Badla, however, because having committed to the attack, India can’t withdraw at this point without handing Pakistan a propaganda victory. Nor will the frenzied crowds now dancing in
the streets of Indian cities, who imagine that this will be a final war
against Pakistan, be satisfied with anything less than a demonstrable
victory.
At the same time, Pakistani defenses are becoming increasingly effective, taking a steadily rising toll of Indian armor. Helicopter gunships race at
head height over the battlefield, rocketing tanks, while heavy artillery barrages are tying down the infantry. Without reinforcement, the Indian
strike corps will find it more and more difficult to reach their targets.
The whole attack plan is in jeopardy.
The Pakistani High Command has accurately identified the Lahore attack as
the real danger, and deployed its forces accordingly. The well-dug-in
Pakistan Army regulars, supported by heavy artillery firing from positions
east of Walton Cantonment, will prove extremely difficult to dislodge. Any Indian units which do manage to break through will find themselves
threatened with encirclement by attacks from the flanks.
In an emergency meeting in Delhi, punctuated by the noise of firecrackers
from celebrating crowds in the streets, the military chiefs and Modi decide that the original ultra-short duration war timetable will have to be
extended, but only by a maximum of forty-eight hours. Urgent reinforcements will have to be sent to the Lahore front, with the strategy shifting from a rapid sword thrust to a battle of attrition meant to wear down the Pakistani forces. Meanwhile, the 1st Armoured Division, spearheading the thrust at Multan, is ordered to move forward at top speed, in order to force the Pakistanis to divert troops from the defense of Lahore.
The International Response:
At half past eleven in the evening of the 29th, Indian time, the UN Security Council meets in New York to discuss an urgent Pakistani plea calling for an immediate halt to the Indian invasion. China, which has had good relations
with Modi as well as its old friend Islamabad, moves a resolution demanding India withdraw all forces and threatening military action. Although Russia expresses its “deep disappointment” with the Indian government, it vetoes the resolution, marking the first overt difference in opinion between the
two allies in the UN on any substantive issue since 2012. France, which has major weapons sales contracts to both nations, also votes against it.
Britain abstains, as does the United States. Nobody is sure of Indian intentions, and the meeting merely closes with a statement calling on both sides to exercise maximum restraint.
The Indian government is ecstatic, and declares a diplomatic victory. On the other hand, the Pakistani army, which has complete control over the military direction of the war, decides that there will be no help from abroad, at
least in time to make a difference. It is on its own.
The Battle of Mirgarh:
The Indian First Armored Division has been moving north-west since crossing
the frontier, but has been delayed by severe dust storms during the day.
With darkness, though, the wind has died down, and the division finally
begins rolling across the desert, against only sporadic and largely
ineffective resistance. The biggest problem faced by the division are with
the Arjun tanks, which are too heavy to keep up in the soft sandy terrain,
and with the older T-72s, which are still breaking down in considerable numbers. During the night, therefore, the division becomes strung out, but
by mid-morning of the 30th January the first squadrons of T-90 tanks are approaching the town of Mirgarh.
Just after eleven in the morning, the lead Pakistani armored units, armed
with T-80 UD and Al Khalid tanks, counterattack from the south and
north-east, trying to catch the Indians in a pincer. At the same time, PAF
J-10 and F-16 aircraft race over the strung-out lines of Indian armour,
hitting them with cluster bombs and armor-piercing missiles. Indian SU 30s
and Mirage 2000s flying over the battlefield counterattack, and a confused dogfight develops, during the course of which an Indian Rafale flight attempting to strike the Pakistanis mistakenly bombs an Indian tank squadron instead. The two sides break off combat temporarily in the late afternoon,
with Pakistani forces disengaging to the north-east while the Indians fall
back a short distance to consolidate before renewing the advance. About
forty tanks have been lost on both sides, along with between ten and fifteen aircraft.
The Indians resume their advance after dark, with a change of direction to
the north. Unknown to them, the Pakistanis are returning along the same
route, and the two sides meet head-on at about nine in the evening. In the darkness of the desert night, lit only by occasional flares, the two
armored forces begin a grinding battle of attrition. Units soon lose
cohesion and become inextricably tangled, with tanks fighting at point-blank range and occasionally ramming each other like Soviet T-34s and German PzKw
IVs on the Eastern Front in World War II. Both sides are completely unable
to use either artillery or air support because of the darkness and the confusion.
When morning arrives, the battle is still in progress, but neither side is
able to use its air power or artillery, because the entire battlefield is by now covered by a gigantic dust cloud from the tank treads. However, the superior numbers, training, and equipment of the Indian forces have finally begun to tell. Also, some of the Arjuns have just arrived, and by good
fortune outflank and destroy a Pakistani reinforcement column driving up
from the south-west. Throughout the day, the Indians manage to isolate and
wipe out pockets of Pakistani armor, and succeed in blocking all attempts
by the desperate enemy tankmen to either concentrate together or reinforce. When darkness falls on the 31st evening, the remaining Pakistani forces disengage and withdraw as best they can. They have managed to delay the
Indian advance, but have lost almost two hundred tanks and armored
personnel carriers, and are hors de combat for the moment.
The Battle of Mirgarh is over, and has resulted in a decisive Indian
victory. The way to the Sutlej River, beyond which lies Multan, is open.
The Indian Navy has sat out most of India’s conflicts with Pakistan, having participated only in a limited way in the 1971 war, when Seahawk jets from
the carrier Vikrant bombed Chittagong and missile boats launched a seaborne assault on Karachi. In the context of a cold start war, the navy has no real role to play; but the government is determined to show that it is using all available means to fight Pakistan. So the navy’s ancient light aircraft carrier, the INS Viraat – which, as the HMS Hermes, had fought in the Falklands War in 1982 – slowly steams northwards across the Arabian Sea, and on the early evening of the 30th launches an air strike by eight Sea
Harriers against Karachi harbor. The raid is a disaster; six of the eight Harriers are shot down, in return for limited damage to two corvettes and a couple of shore installations.
The Viraat has no chance to launch a second raid with its few remaining Harriers. The Pakistani Navy’s Agosta 90B class submarine PNS Hamza left Karachi on a routine training mission on 26th January; with the outbreak of war, it was ordered to patrol the approaches to the port to prevent a
1971-like Indian bombardment. Shortly before midnight, at the very moment
that Indian and Pakistani tanks are crashing into each other in the desert sands south of Mirgarh, the Hamza’s passive sonar detects the noise of the engines of the Viraat and its escort of two frigates and a destroyer. The submarine shadows the ships for an hour, working up to attack position. At approximately ten minutes past one in the morning, it fires three SM 39
Exocet anti-ship missiles. All three strike the carrier at the waterline. Given its slow speed and inability to maneuver, they could scarcely have missed.
The Viraat is mortally wounded. On fire and taking on water, the ancient carrier slows to a stop. At four in the morning, the captain issues orders
to abandon ship. Blazing fiercely and listing badly, the old vessel hangs on for several hours more. At just before eight in the morning, almost seven hours after being hit, it turns turtle and sinks, taking over two hundred of the crew with it down to the bottom of the Arabian Sea.
The Hamza has gone deep and stayed silent after firing the missiles. After evading several sticks of Indian depth charges, it heads north-west towards
the Pakistan coast. Its part in the war is over.
In Delhi, the news of the Viraat’s sinking is delivered to the Prime
Minister by the Navy Chief in person. Modi immediately orders that it be
kept completely secret until the conclusion of the war, in order to maintain public morale. In real terms, the destruction of the doddering old carrier
is of no importance anyway. The immediate effect of the sinking, however, is
to remove the Indian Navy from further involvement in the hostilities. The
war will henceforth be fought by the two other services.
The Hatf Option:
The Pakistani top brass, keenly aware of its relative military inferiority,
has prepared several options to counter an Indian offensive. One option is
to launch fidayeen strikes in Kashmir, using small teams of suicide
attackers to infiltrate and attack army bases in order to tie troops down. However, since India hasn’t struck across the frontier in Kashmir, such strikes will be of no value. Another option is to fall back, abandon most territory east of the Indus river, and counterattack when Indian lines are overstretched. But this will be possible only in case of a longer war, with India planning to clear and hold territory; it’s useless in the case of a short-duration thrust meant to defeat and humiliate Pakistan and withdraw.
Nor can Pakistan take the risk of trying to absorb a defeat; it knows that
this will disastrously weaken the state, and render it unable to resist the various rebellions, from the Balochis to the west to the Pashtuns in the
north. If the army loses the battle, the country will collapse and disintegrate. Defeat, therefore, is not an option Pakistan can afford.
It then falls back to its third option – the Bomb.
As part of its arsenal meant to halt an Indian invasion, Pakistan has
several mobile batteries of Hatf IX (Nasr) tactical nuclear missiles, with a sixty-kilometer range. These sub-kiloton missiles are battlefield nukes,
meant to knock out armored thrusts; Pakistani strategists think the risk involved in their use within Pakistan’s own territory is acceptable given
the alternative.
Two of these batteries – each of four missiles – are ready at Multan Cantonment. By the afternoon of the 31st, by which time it’s clear that the battle of Mirgarh is lost, the two batteries are ordered to move to the south-east. In the early hours of the 1st February, the transporter-erector-launchers and their support vehicles are lying in wait
for the Indian armor.
At around the same time, near Lahore, the Indian spearheads finally fight
their way to the Icchogil Canal. Engineer outfits quickly span the waterway with bridges, but the offensive across the canal will have to wait until Pakistani forces still hanging on to the east of it are neutralized. The Pakistani army still has defensive positions determinedly holding on to the western bank, but once the Indian armored brigades break loose from their bridgeheads, the fall of the city will be only a matter of time.
In a bunker somewhere near Rawalpindi, the exact position of which is known
to the Pakistani army general staff alone, there is a meeting in which the orders are issued: the fall of Lahore can’t be delayed longer than two days at the most. The final battle is at hand.
The Hatf batteries will launch the first counter-blow. The Pakistani High Command hopes the Indians will get the message that Pakistan is willing to
nuke its own territory if required, and withdraw, so that it will also be
the last. In case India doesn't, though, the Pakistanis prepare other
options.
At about one in the morning of 1st February, the newly-reinforced Indian
armor resumes its thrust northwards towards the Sutlej, the tanks rolling
past wrecked and abandoned Pakistani vehicles. The soldiers are well aware
that they have broken the enemy’s forces for the moment, and serious resistance is unlikely before they reach the river. Also, after the past two days’ constant fighting, the soldiers are exhausted; despite their own efforts, their energies are flagging and it’s impossible to maintain the
same level of alertness as they had managed so far.
At exactly sixteen minutes after two in the morning, the first Hatf battery shoots off its four missiles, and drives away from its firing position as
fast as possible to avoid retaliatory fire. Seconds later, the second
battery follows suit.
The Indian soldiers, riding in their tanks and armored personnel carriers
with open hatches, savoring the cold night air, don’t have a chance. The warheads, being low-yield sub-kiloton devices, only produce brief flashes of searing light as they explode in the air over the lines of advancing Indian armor, not spectacular mushroom clouds; but they are more than enough. Most
of the division is cremated in its tracks, the crew reduced to charred skeletons inside the white-hot hulls of their tanks.
The Indian response:
It has been a night of feverish activity in Delhi. The war is already in its fourth day, and it will have to be concluded, even according to the extended
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