Thunder Strikes Back

Chapter 75
"Launch," said the captain.

The body of the MiG 27 shook violently, and a tongue of flame flew out from under the thick fixed side strip.Keeping his eyes on the monitor, the captain steered the bomb to glide towards the crack.He has long been familiar with throwing KAB500 bombs, but it is really difficult to hit such a small crack. The accuracy of this bomb is the best in India's arsenal, but it is only suitable for targets no smaller than 5X5, roughly this size Almost like a bunker.And the huge crack that runs through the top and bottom of the dam in front is only 2 meters wide and not straight as it was photographed by the reconnaissance satellite.

Within the missile's field of view, a wobbly sign is flying towards that thin slit.Captain Pandit carefully controlled the direction of the bomb.If he can hit it, great, this video can be his capital to show off his skills in front of the junior pilots of the Scorpion Squadron, if he misses a hit, it’s nothing to him, the captain is different from the slightly naive Lieutenant Sach , He never expected that a 500-kilogram bomb could make the behemoth in front of him collapse.

"Captain, I saw enemy infantry carrying bazookas moving by the river bank on the right." Lieutenant Sach said on the radio, his tone seemed a little uncertain.

Pandit was taken aback, dropped the bomb in flight, and looked up to the right to search. He knew that it was unreliable to use RPG to fight fixed-wing aircraft, but he also knew that Lieutenant Saatchi's observation ability was even more unreliable.

"Damn it, it's a stinger, dodge it quickly," the captain shouted.He had already seen a white smoke rising from the edge of the woods, heading straight for a certain plane behind the formation.Lieutenant Thatch mistaking the Stinger with the removed IFF antenna for a bazooka was a deadly joke.

The No. 3 machine in the formation quickly circled to one side, but the movement was very slow.When he started to release the infrared jamming bomb, the Stinger missile had already reached the side of the plane. The pilot wanted to circle rapidly, but the speed could not be raised for a while.After a flash of light, Pandit watched as the Scorpion's pair of planes plummeted down with smoke, and time seemed to freeze.He desperately looked back at the huge MiG-27 slowly circling and sliding, waiting for his teammates to parachute, until the plane crashed into the breakthrough on the river bank, and he did not see the ejection seat flying out of the cabin.

"It's really shameless." The captain cursed in a low voice. This was the third plane lost under his leadership in the last ten days.He couldn't bear the sad expression on the squadron leader Markunda's face as he listened to his explanation of how he had lost yet another pilot.Of course Captain Pandit could understand the mood of the squadron leader, because the feeling of guilt he felt when he stood in front of the squadron leader was probably the same as the feeling when the squadron leader was suffering all night and writing letters to those poor widows.

"Bastard, why are you bombing this dam endlessly?" A thought occurred to him, but this was not the time to be distracted.

At the same time, at the edge of the woods, there were several flames flickering again. Don't think too much, there must be a poisonous thorn position ambushing here.

"Give up the attack and dodge."

Pandit quickly lowered the nose, pushed the throttle to afterburner, and then backhanded down the wing control handle, which is the most effective way to increase airspeed and turn.Although he didn't see any missiles flying towards him, since the MiG-27's backward vision was not very good, he had to check again during the side turn that there were no missiles around.In the sky, he saw the trail left by a Stinger missile, circling behind the last aircraft in the formation.The plane had just begun to turn sideways and fire chaff flares. These pilots were too young and too focused on dropping bombs, and the dodging movements were slow and ugly. It was obviously too late.

The captain made a sharp turn and swooped towards the woods. He still has 2 sets of rockets. Maybe he can suppress the sneak attackers hiding in the woods and take revenge. He has never been a reckless person, but today he can't hold back anymore. .

The captain will aim at the crosshair and aim at the approximate place.After controlling the speed a little, he pressed the artillery button. Flames from the six 6mm machine guns smashed the grove into pieces.He didn't have time to accurately calculate the advance, so he just slightly corrected it with the white ballistics of the cannon shells, and then randomly shot two groups of 23 2mm rockets to the approximate place. The spread is also much larger.The forest in front of me was blown into a sea of ​​flames within a few seconds.

"Captain, our No. 4 aircraft was also shot down, and I didn't see the parachute jump." On the radio, Saatchi said in a panic.He barely escaped the pursuit of a stinger just now, and he still has lingering fears at this moment.

"I see, let's return immediately." The captain circled in the air a few times and saw several Pakistani infantry escaped from the burning woods dragging the wounded, but he did not see other attacks.I only know that about one hectare (approximately 60X160 meters) of forest was leveled by myself.

"Fortress, there are many stinger positions in this area. I suggest that follow-up aircraft should not carry out low-altitude bombing, and change all of them to horizontal bombing."

The AWACS did not immediately respond to the captain's request that they may have been questioning a higher-ranking officer.

The second batch of Jaguar attack planes that arrived immediately did not dare to continue approaching at low altitude. Some of them had to use ordinary aerial bombs to carry out another endless horizontal bombing of the dam area. Most of the bombs were dropped on the dam. near and directly above.Such attacks appear to do little to destroy the dam.Although another part of the laser-guided bombs accurately hit the front of the dam, the effect was still not obvious.It just added dense craters out of thin air.

Drilling into the cracks and blasting with a few precision weapons seems to be the most effective way to destroy this concrete gravity dam, but today, due to the interference of a few stingers, the plan fell short again.

After completing the bombing, the attack aircraft group began to leave the air strike area and head back. Captain Pandit was still full of anger, but he was not targeting Pakistan's tricky stinger, but this inexplicable plan.

In these pointless operations led by the captain, the Scorpion and flying the Bullet Squadron, 4 fighters had been lost.And all four pilots failed to parachute.It was hard for him to understand why it would have to deal with a concrete lump where there was no army massed, no radar, artillery, or any other useful military equipment, and the Jhelum Dam was probably the sturdiest target in the world.He knew that in previous wars, huge ammunition weighing several tons had to be used to destroy such a dam. India did not have such weapons. However, this should not be a reason for the upper echelons to desperately use the lives of pilots to fill this bottomless pit.What does this dam really mean?
"A large number of enemy planes have appeared in the Suleiman Mountains in the west." The AWACS pilot said calmly, as if he was broadcasting the morning weather forecast.The captain who was distracted was taken aback. He knew that the heavy fighter jets that Pakistan had newly acquired from China were probably hidden on the side of the mountain near Afghanistan.

(End of this chapter)