Thunder Strikes Back

Chapter 569 Attacking Ali's Defense Zone
"That won't work, we won't be able to directly control the Israeli drones, and the efficiency of the command headquarters is extremely low, and we can't count on it. We should continue to launch the phoenix. I need to be in the command vehicle as soon as the 25th Division launches an offensive. Seeing the movement of the enemy's enemy."

The Major expects a quick and coherent reconnaissance/counterattack/retreat, like his nice counterattack at Fort ***, he doesn't like a muddy attack, that's almost equal to the average Indian Artillery, Indian Artillery Officer Generally, it takes many rounds of single-shot tentative shooting to get to the side of the target. This kind of low-efficiency style of play is likely to cause the enemy to retreat in time when counterattacking.He needs to carry out precise positional flanking and long and accurate measurement of elements before shelling, and immediately withdraw from the battle after sudden and short shooting.Olinde simply believes that relying on a little advantage in range, he can stand in an invincible position. Obviously, his mind is still stuck in the experience of artillery battles with Pakistan many years ago. The Northern Military Region holds this view There are many people here, including the shrewd General Meneam. In fact, most of the main officers here were promoted after the victory in the Kargil artillery battle in 1998, and they are more or less self-righteous.

On the monitor, yellow triangles are scattered everywhere.They represent each of his platoons, and the units are pretty much motionless without staring at the screen for long periods of time.In the major's plan, his 3 companies of 24 self-propelled artillery will be deployed in 7 positions, half of them will coordinate with the infantry to provide fire support, and then they will withdraw to their respective reserve positions, leaving behind Half of the artillery is lurking, waiting for the enemy's response. Once a valuable target is found through the front laser pointer or drone reconnaissance, he will use the corresponding ammunition to carry out more targeted strikes.Everything seems to be in order in theory, and it is difficult for the enemy to find an opportunity to counterattack.At the same time, Olinde's 10th Artillery Brigade also participated in the fire strike. They used the hard-working highland mules to deploy the 10mm light howitzer unit 105 hours ago, and now they can't wait. Impatient, they are going to follow the traditional method, finish firing a base number of ammunition in the same position, and then decide whether to retreat depending on the situation.Some of Olinde's artillery officers were suffocating to fight a good battle, to show the enemy on the opposite side a little bit of color.

"Sir, the 2nd company is already in place. The 4th company is also coming soon, and it will definitely be deployed before dark. If we are too slow, the ability to observe the front line will be compromised."

Hariyaman glanced out from the observation window, it was still early in the sky.

"Let them report the deployment status at any time, and remind other units to deploy as orderly as possible and not block their own retreat. Fighting will not be so calm."

"How much do you think the countermeasure speed of the Chinese large-caliber rocket launcher will be?"

"Hmph, this is still a mystery, and it is also an important part of this attack that needs to be tested. In Assam, our artillery suffered many blows from them, but all the officers forgot to record this in their panic. Important numbers."

"What if they drop a terminal bomb? Like they did with K9 in Assam?"

"I think the firepower on duty is mostly high-explosive ammunition, as long as we move fast enough, and every retreat route I have is close to the mountains, and the terminal sensitive ammunition is unlikely to play a big role."

The correspondent, who had been sitting at the end of the command vehicle and guarding the radio station without speaking, suddenly received a new message, so he turned his head.

"The commander urged us again. He thought we should enter the position sooner. He said that the morale of the main Sikh battalion was high and he couldn't wait."

"I really don't understand why these people are so eager to hit the iron wall?" Hariyaman shook his head. "Tell the commander. Just wait another hour, and I will be ready."

Xu Jingzhe sat in the office, lost in thought, while the new reports that were delivered one after another were piled up on the desk.

The Sikh battalion on the high ground has been singing military songs all afternoon, looking very excited.They also seem to have received new equipment and additional personnel. Usually they only deploy one company on the surface of the mountain, but what the forward troops observed using high-powered binoculars is that the current number of troops has doubled and is almost crowded. Besides RPGs A new Gustav bazooka appeared.The tattered military flag was also replaced with a new one.

The troops remaining in contact with the enemy on the reverse slope organized several close reconnaissance.Under the enemy's position, they discovered that the enemy had advanced the time of evening prayer, which was also one of the signs that the enemy was going to launch some action.

In addition, it was discovered that several weather balloons were released in the direction of India in the afternoon, and the density doubled compared to before, and the radar detected new suspected enemy drones sneaking into our side from the river valley.The radio intercepted Indian troops with the call sign "Blood Feud" about to go into battle, but did not mention the area where the attack was launched.

Although all the appearances are trivial, but when you think about it together, you can roughly determine that the enemy is likely to use the occupied high ground as a starting position to launch an attack.

After he felt that he could take up this responsibility, he immediately called the military headquarters and suggested that his superiors continue to raise the alert level of Tamcuoke and formulate corresponding countermeasures.Under normal circumstances, Indian troops always avoid fighting at night, but from the last time the Sikh battalion lurked in the alpine area overnight and launched an attack, it still showed some admirable foolishness.The superiors have never made up their minds to eliminate this outstanding enemy, largely just to confuse Meneam and not expose the strength of the troops in this area. The momentum of the Ali Military Division.

On the Tamcuoke Heights, the bearded soldiers occupying the permanent fortifications of the Chinese army are lined up in two rows in the long and narrow bunker for a special pre-war honor award.They couldn't wear colorful national costumes for the award ceremony as in normal occasions, so they could only comb their beards and hold their heads as high as possible.The commander, Captain Nayam, stood under the flickering lights, and loudly read a congratulatory speech from the Ministry of Defense.

The congratulatory speech was drafted by Defense Minister Singh's secretary. The original text was divided into three parts. It was lengthy and lacked inspiration. However, Singh started to revise it. He raised the significance of the battle to occupy the high ground to the supreme level of determining the prospect of the war. Played a role in boosting morale.Singer concluded by writing:
"I have every confidence that the highland lions of our country will prevail in the end, in your condescending, swift attack this afternoon, against your purple-faced, panting enemies driven to high altitudes by the mighty At night, the weak enemy will shiver in the severe cold and fall dead on the snowy plains. Those western countries who doubt whether our country will win in the end will be ashamed in front of your heroic performance."

Lieutenant Colonel Pu Luo, the captain of the regiment, couldn't help crying when he read this passage.Although due to the delay of an artillery unit, the part of the minister's text about launching an attack in the afternoon eventually became nonsense, but this will not affect the morale of this unit.As Singh pointed out, the Sikhs are able to do their duty and destroy the enemy no matter in the highlands or the plains, day or night.

Among the soldiers of the Sikh United, at least [-]% use the name Singh.In the text of this martial nation, Singh represents a male lion. Although the Sikh region is not the origin of Asian lions, it does not prevent the continuation of this naming tradition.Although Minister of Defense Singh is a Hindu, his name can also show part of his Sikh ancestry. It is also unprecedented for him to directly encourage a regiment-level army before the war.The fighting spirit of the main attacking force immediately reached its peak.

The Chinese reconnaissance unit recorded the screams of the enemy inside the fortress tens of meters below the enemy's position, and transmitted it to the rear.A small Hindi language expert sitting in the rear, although unable to hear most of the words from the concrete-isolated sound source, he said with certainty that the enemy was about to launch an attack.

Sure enough, 5 minutes later, the Indian side launched shelling first.They made a fire preparation for the shallow and deep areas east of the highlands, mainly attacking the simple roads and artillery observation posts they observed.

In the first round of attack, the tornado rocket launcher participated, and the intensive artillery fire completely covered a fake 122 howitzer position.This position was purposely used to test the analytical capabilities of the enemy's reconnaissance satellite not long ago. The enemy has not done anything, apparently they have been secretly observing.

Then mortars of various calibers began firing aimlessly.It is impossible to see the enemy's focus from the landing point, and it is impossible to judge the possible attack route of the enemy. The 105mm howitzers were put into shelling at a later time. These howitzers fired in a slightly organized way, mainly attacking the reverse slope area. They fired a lot of smoke bombs to indicate the target. After the smoke column rose to the sky, they followed the smoke column. Intensive shooting.This shows that the enemy's bombardment is quite prepared and they are confident in the supply of ammunition, but they do not show good artillery skills.

Under the enemy's artillery fire, the Chinese side has not made major mobilizations, but has mobilized drones to conduct the first wave of reconnaissance and counterattacks on the enemy's artillery positions.

The Indian artillery deployed their M56 105mm howitzers in a scattered manner in various valleys, fighting on their own. This is their experience in past artillery battles with Pakistan. Now they are not facing artillery of the same technical level, but drones with laser-guided bombs. The situation and experience are very different.

These old-fashioned 105mm howitzers, even in areas with thin air on the plateau, have a range of only a little over 10 kilometers. They are forced to be deployed relatively forward, basically out of the protection of the Srinagar air defense network.After obtaining the approximate position measured by the artillery radar, the Chinese UAV began to approach for reconnaissance.Discovering these sporadic firepower that cannot be attacked by long-range firepower, it is obvious that the Indians have used their cleverness to the extreme.

For cost reasons, it is impossible to use long-range rockets to strike these targets, but UAVs can directly carry out laser-guided bomb attacks, and UAV operators have been given new combat rules. The situation dropped the bomb.

Major Hariyaman huddled in the command vehicle. Instead of launching an attack blindly, he waited for the second and third drones to arrive at the designated area.The British officers in the rear have raised strong objections to such expensive reconnaissance through the radio.But he turned a deaf ear to this, he didn't need to be responsible for the British thieves, he only planned for the success of the attack and the lives of his men.

The major's main pressure came from Colonel Short of the Scottish Highland Artillery Regiment. As a consultant and supervisor of British assets, he certainly could not allow the Indian army to squander British assets at will.

Britain's aid to India, first of all, has its political designs, and secondly, it has reservations.For example, the phoenix drone, which is expensive and not designed for plateaus, is simply not suitable for the current reconnaissance. Due to the lack of lift of the aircraft, it is easy to stall and crash, or lose control and hit the mountain.However, Indian military officers went against common sense and blindly acted recklessly. They took off such drones one after another to perform reconnaissance missions, regardless of losses, as if they were taking other people's money for nothing.

Colonel Short was given instructions to effectively oversee the Indian Army, using AS90s from the Royal Artillery Regiment in favorable areas.However, through their ingenuity, the Indian Ministry of Defense has already left the advisory group in Srinagar, and obtained the actual command power from pulling the equipment to the plateau.

"Sir, Sir Short of the Advisory Board has been asking us to stop our reconnaissance activities. He thinks we should use Israeli drones that are more suitable for this area."

"Don't pay attention to these hypocritical guys. Their first consideration is not to fight, but to keep the equipment of the Royal Artillery Regiment." The major sneered. As an Indian, he graduated from the Royal Artillery School and got No.1. He is very familiar with The combat methods of AS90 and supporting systems do not need others to dictate.He knew very well that the British made this aid to show China toughness, but they were actually not willing to put nearly one-third of the AS90 of the entire army into combat in the name of lease, for fear of damage.At this moment, the Chinese 155mm self-propelled artillery production line is running at an unknown but definitely high speed, it's just that they don't take these things to the plateau to show off.What Hariyaman finds it very incomprehensible is that if the British really intend to play a prank with China, why should they be so concerned about gains and losses?
"We are now caught in the middle and suffer from the splint. General Olind and Sir Short, one wants us to go into battle regardless of everything, and the other wants us to try not to fire a single shot. They are both figures who like to point fingers hundreds of kilometers away. .” The adjutant joked, he obviously had an insight into the major’s mind.

"Comparatively speaking, we can't afford to mess with General Olind. The British let them go. I have seen the lease agreement between our two countries. If those drones are destroyed on the battlefield, they will be returned easily. .”

(End of this chapter)