Thunder Strikes Back

Chapter 553
Pasad has prepared the content of the report and can leave at any time. Regardless of the content of the military conference in New Delhi, he will directly present his views to the prime minister. This is the last influence he can exert on this war, but the enemy tanks The operation of breaking through the Shyok River made him stay and command. He also really wanted to see how the Chinese army attacked with his own eyes; the last time he confronted the Chinese army was in 1987, and it has indeed been some years. , the enemy's technology was already very different from that time.

Although Meneam withdrew half of his troops, the remaining troops were fairly capable.Some of the mobile anti-aircraft firepower that can fight independently, the 23 or 35mm anti-aircraft guns used, although unable to threaten enemy aircraft at high altitudes, are sufficient to deal with drones and low-altitude aircraft. So far, the helicopters of the Chinese Army Aviation are also very afraid of these weapons. Dare to get too close to Leh.Of course, Meneam's concentrated use of mobile anti-tank weapons also reduced the mobility of the troops, and Pasade must start making adjustments as soon as possible.

He Fan's tank quickly crossed the enemy's battle preparation road between the snow-capped mountains, leaving a large group of enemies behind. The unfrozen mud on the ground showed that an enemy convoy had just passed by, and he didn't want to be crowded with the enemy convoy. There is no need for the enemy's 122mm towed gun to strike first.He exchanged information with his superiors through the theater intelligence distribution system, and learned that the air force had detected this enemy and would launch an attack immediately. He chose to go up the mountain and take a dangerous and short-cut path, a path that the opponent could not guess.

On the set navigation route, this is route B, along the northern hillside, obliquely inserted behind the enemy, so that a larger scale of chaos can be formed.

In fact, he has done a lot of research long ago, knowing which slopes are too steep or the snow is too thick to pass, and which areas the enemy thinks he cannot pass, but in fact he can pass.Even outside of the tactical level, his personality tends to take a route that neither the enemy nor his superiors expected. Only such a surprise victory can fully demonstrate the commander's talent.

The group of tanks painted in brown, white and light green colors crossed the road, rushed into the snow-covered forest, and turned northward. He Fan wanted to use his innate mobility advantage to avoid large groups of routs and minefields.

After the Battle of Assam, the General Staff conducted a joint survey of all types of equipment participating in the war.Among them, the evaluation of mountain light tanks mainly comes from the records submitted by He Fan's troops.In the end, giving certain affirmation to the effectiveness of this kind of equipment also directly led to this new type of combat unit participating in this plateau operation with more complex terrain on a larger scale.

Of course, after counting the various figures of a company of He Fan after participating in the war, it was found that 50% of the entire company was severely damaged, which highlighted its lack of defense capabilities; obviously, this kind of weapon can adapt to the situation under the leadership of a high-level commander. Operations in a variety of undulating areas, especially in areas that the enemy considers obviously unsuitable for tank operations, will certainly have miraculous effects.The firepower of the tank can easily repel the enemy's mountains, supplies, engineering and other lightly armored troops; it can perform tasks such as occupying command posts, guarding arteries, and disrupting the rear; Under this circumstance, it is still possible to take advantage of the advantageous terrain to counter the opponent's heavy tanks by surprise.

The reconnaissance shows that Lieutenant General Meneyam is a person who is good at summarizing and learning. He pays attention to the combat style of the Chinese army all the time. He has turned the Kashmir region into a big fortress. Of course, there are still gaps on the periphery of this fortress. Yes, but the closer to the core part, the more difficult it is for the penetration troops, and the denser the configuration of various firearms.

Choosing to fight at the coldest time of the year is actually a difficult decision made after considering that the combat effectiveness of the Indian army is more attenuated than that of the Chinese army in the cold season, as well as many other factors.Of course, He Fan's tanks, the unit with the least attenuation in combat effectiveness in the cold season, can even pass through some rivers during the freezing season.

The tank moved zigzag through the mountains and through the forest in the gear of climbing and overcoming obstacles. The snow on the tall pine trees on both sides was shaken off by the rumbling vibration of the vehicles passing by, and soon blocked various equipment on the top of some turrets of the tank. , He Fan reminded the commanders that they must drill out and clean up, especially the optical observation and laser countermeasure equipment, which must be kept in good working condition.

Although the route He Fan chose was an area where the enemy was unlikely to lay mines.However, he still didn't dare to be careless. Every time he got out of the turret, he would carefully observe the surroundings, and then use the binoculars to observe the ground to see if there were traces left by enemy vehicles on the snow.India's mountain bike units can fight in the forest in this climate, sometimes with radios and anti-tank weapons.

The heavy cold-proof clothing made it difficult for him to go in and out.There was a huge explosion in the valley below, where the enemy convoy was huddled together, and the drone fired a mere 100kg bomb, which paralyzed the entire convoy. After actual combat, the Chinese army is getting more and more Accustomed to combat, the drone operator patiently waited until the enemy had reached the narrowest turn in the valley before dropping a laser-guided bomb on the first vehicle.Now He Fan is ahead of them.

It can be seen from a distance that the anti-aircraft firepower on the outskirts of Leh is firing violently. Wherever the fire net reaches, a drone descends with black smoke.The enemy has opened up all the equipment hidden in the ground, and they also know that the end is coming.

"What a strong city. You wait for me."

As he said that, he got into the turret and observed the terrain from the navigation display. If he couldn't make it before sunset, the task assigned to him by his superiors to scare the enemy outside the range of anti-tank missiles would be in vain.

The inter-vehicle data link system can provide complete surrounding intelligence, which is a technological advantage beyond the reach of nearby Indian commanders.You can see some blue arrows moving, and the update speed of their location information is every few minutes.

The enemies in Leh really started to move, much faster than He Fan expected, but every movement detected was hit by air and long-range firepower.

His battalion had thrown off the entire Shyok line.This line of defense is composed of rivers that are about to freeze and snow-covered highlands. It is a major barrier for Leh. If a mediocre general sits in Leh, he can indeed expect to be easily killed instead of showing force from a distance. .

"The headquarters is always inexplicable." He adjusted the magnification of the monitor. "When will we be able to arrive in New Delhi?"

He was thinking farther than the headquarters. If he knew that the whole north was only cooperating with Lin Huaisheng in fighting, he would not have refused to report to the old superior Lin Huaisheng's troops.He doesn't like Zhou Yaohua, he doesn't like Wang Zhenbei who is often compared with himself by others, and he hates a certain Pakistani tank soldier who is blown up to the sky. Since they have all gone to Punjab, he would rather stay here and be the only one on the northern line. Armor group, stand alone.

He Fan, of course, has read the latest enemy situation report verbatim. India is receiving a large amount of foreign aid, and the United States is still hesitant, but its little brothers are all on their sleeves. The small country has also assisted a batch of mountain tanks, which have already arrived in Mumbai. It seems that this battle still has to be fought. He is looking forward to fighting the new toys of the Indian Army. If the enemy goes into battle without sufficient training, then better.

Pasad in Leh does not have aerial reconnaissance capabilities. He can only guess the enemy's movements from the map. However, he knows that the tank's movement must be restricted by the terrain, so he quickly made several predictions, predicting that the enemy will Try to appear quickly to the north, and maybe it will be thrown into the battle to capture Leh at night.First of all, he put all the air defense units into combat, so that those drones that had no fear of approaching for reconnaissance would suffer more. In addition, he split the mobile spike anti-tank missile unit into several parts to block them separately. The predicted route the enemy may take, he does not yet know the approximate number of enemies, and it is estimated that there will be a company.

An admiral personally dispatched the battle, and the morale of the headquarters was greatly boosted, and no one dared to suggest giving up or retreating.Although the Chinese Air Force has been aggressive for a long time, the surface targets that can be seen have been bombed several times by them. They have not had a target for a long time, and naturally they have not yet grasped the position.

After 2 hours of rapid advance, He Fan's troops did not encounter half of the Indian soldiers, but 2 tanks fell behind due to a fault in the walking part, and 1 tank encountered a landslide and slid into the valley.

He reminded himself that finding the route needs to be more careful. It is one thing to find the route on the map, but it is another thing to lead the way as the first car. He still has to get out of the car to check the ground conditions when necessary.The depth of this breakthrough is less than 10 kilometers, but that is only the distance on the map. Fighting on the roof of the world is far more difficult than ordinary attacks.

"01, south of Leh, drones found enemy anti-tank missile vehicles. About one company."

"Got it. I'll mark it."

An enemy missile unit seems to be moving away, but it may not be the only enemy unit with missiles loaded in Land Rover off-road vehicles.

The laser warning equipment flashes, and the countermeasure equipment enters an automatic countermeasure state, and the alarm is released after 2 seconds.He quickly got out of the turret and raised his head to observe in the general direction.Someone just scanned his tank with a laser, maybe it was just for ranging, maybe it was for aiming, whatever.

He saw a missile flying straight into the sky on the top of the opposite mountain, and after turning in the air, it fell headlong. It was obviously a semi-active guided missile that could attack the top, and it was aimed at him.

Before he had time to react, he watched the missile slam into the snow in front of him. It neither hit the target nor even exploded. Obviously, the countermeasure system had worked.He raised the binoculars and could see from a distance several Indian soldiers in white snow combat uniforms carrying the launch pads.Apparently they launched the missile.

"Didn't you blind your dog's eyes?"

He made a false alarm, jumped down with a whoosh, quickly found the target in the machine gun scope, aimed with the reticle hastily, and then pressed the launch button.With a narrow field of view, he saw the ballistics clearly, and used that to chase down the enemy until he ran over the ridge and disappeared.

"Attention all. There is an enemy situation on the opposite mountain. The tanks in the front row of the 1st company, the barrels are aimed at 10 o'clock, and the battalion command platoon, follow me to the right. The rest of the troops pay attention to deploy and guard in all directions."

He seized the time and quickly deployed, "Damn it, why did you come so fast?"

The speed of the enemy's approach was indeed somewhat unexpected. With such a highly sudden action of sneaking across the Shyok River, it should be impossible for the enemy to react so quickly.

Under normal circumstances, the Indian army in Leh should spend an hour or two to collect information and report it to Srinagar, and the Srinagar staff will check the information through different troops, and then spend another hour or two to study the situation and report to Srinagar. After making countermeasures, the mobilization will start at the end; this is the most typical situation when encountering the Indian army in Assam. After Lin Huaisheng landed in Jabuwa, the reinforcements of Dinsu Giya did not come until the next day.

"Maybe it's just a small group of enemies. But everyone cheers up." He shouted to all the commanders of the entire unit. In such a climate, he did not believe that the Indian army could carry missiles around on two legs.

"Report, there is a loose slope nearby, and subsequent vehicles cannot be deployed."

"Then put some distance away and don't squeeze together."

He switched to an external call on the comm box: "I'm asking the drone to do a reconnaissance behind the left ridge."

"Got it. The drone is on its way."

If the enemy continues to use semi-active laser-guided weapons, he can probably know in advance, but that is a very dangerous thing, and he hopes to take the initiative to grasp the enemy's situation.

A drone flew over the designated pass at a slow speed. Since the anti-aircraft fire of Leh in the west was fully fired, it had to fly lower and hide close to the mountain.

On the winding mountain road, a line of camouflaged Land Rover jeeps was finally discovered. The drone turned to prepare to take a clearer video, but the enemy also discovered it at the same time.A follow-up launcher on one of the jeeps turned this way, with a flash of fire, two missiles pierced straight over.

The screen in front of the rear control personnel disappeared immediately, obviously a hit.

This is Meneam's new high-mobility travel squadron (battalion-level unit), which is composed of anti-tank missiles and mobile anti-aircraft firepower. Mu did note the threat of mountain tank penetrations that had occurred during the Assam campaign.It is difficult for the Air Force to find such a small force.

Before He Fan could obtain new information, the spike missiles were launched one after another from behind the ridge.They followed the lasers to attack the top and shoot, this time the firepower of the fire was much higher than that of the previous ones.He Fan launched smoke interference to fight, and the smoke blocked the laser confrontation of both sides at the same time, but the isolated tank troops also fell into a dangerous passive situation.This is not a scattered enemy anti-tank group, this is a large force.

(End of this chapter)