operations last night at Mirpur Khas, here, and Khewari, up here, appear to have been completely successful in establishing bridgeheads across the river and canal barriers along the edge of the desert. Indian armor will most likely move against Hyderabad within the next six to twelve hours, though whether the Indians plan to capture or bypass the city is still anyone’s guess.” He glanced sharply at Admiral Vaughn, then snapped his pointer shut.
“Pakistani forces in the region are digging in and preparing to defend the city, but satellite reconnaissance shows that they are badly out-matched. Pakistan has lost at least eighty percent of its air. They had one armor division here at Naya Chor, but that was overrun and largely destroyed in the fighting yesterday. With the other Pakistan forces tied down fighting Indian advances in the north and the threat to their capital, there isn’t much standing between the Indians and Hyderabad.
“Beyond that, well … Karachi is the next logical target, and that port is absolutely vital to Pakistan’s whole effort. If Pakistan loses Karachi, they will probably lose the war. Certainly they’ll have lost most of their capability for bringing in supplies and arms from outside.
It’s a fair bet that the Indian task force now putting to sea is headed for Karachi. They will blockade the port, and there is a good chance that they will launch an amphibious assault on Karachi itself.
“So far, the Indians have been careful to maintain good, in-depth air defense as far as three hundred miles behind the Pakistani border. You can expect primarily SA-2 and SA-3 SAM batteries, as well as ZSUS and conventional triple-A.” He paused and surveyed his audience. “Are there questions?”
There were none. “If not,” Neil added, “I’ll relinquish my pointer now to Commander Aubrey.”
Daniel Aubrey was a slight, rumpled-looking man with a brushy, unkempt mustache and a quick wit. He was the senior officer of Jefferson’s Strike Ops, a separate component of the carrier’s OX Division. Strike Ops published the ship’s pink and green sheets that listed upcoming operational events, prepared the daily flight schedule, and planned and coordinated underway replenishments.
And as their name suggested, Strike Ops was responsible for targeting and planning all tactical air strikes.
Aubrey accepted the telescoping pointer from Neil. “Thank you, Commander Spook,” he said with a grin. He gestured at the TENCAP photos of SAM sites in the Indian state of Gujarat. “Now that we all know where not to go, maybe I can shed some light on where the party’s going to be at.
“As our spook friend told us,” Aubrey said, “the Indian’s have been heavy into snakes this week. Assuming, of course, that the crypto boys in OS Division have their ears screwed on tight, our radio intercepts suggest that New Delhi is calling their big push into Pakistan “Cobra.’
“Naturally, that suggested the code designation for our counterstrike.
Operation Mongoose will be directed at the principal logistical routes that are supplying Indian forces at the front.” He used the pointer on the map. “The Indians have one pretty blatant Achilles’ heel, and that’s their logistical network into southern Pakistan. In this whole area, between Punjab and the salt marshes down here by the sea, they have exactly one decent road and rail line: Jaipur to Jodhpur, then across the border and through Naya Chor, Mirpur Khas, and …” He smacked the pointer tip against the map with a loud crack. “Hyderabad. We’re calling that road Highway 101. Hit that supply line, hit it hard, and we could stall the entire Indian advance.” He paused and looked at Admiral Vaughn. “And that, of course, is exactly what we want to do.”
He gestured to the slide projector operator. A photograph appeared on the screen, replacing an earlier shot of a SAM site in Gujarat. It showed a line of vehicles shot from overhead, canvas-covered trucks mostly, but there were a pair of ZSU23S escorting them. The colors were the odd blend of greens, whites, and yellows that marked the slide as an infrared photo. The truck and tank chassis engines showed as hot smears of white against the cooler greens of the background. “This came through from a KH-12 early this morning,” Aubrey continued. “It shows one portion of a supply convoy on Highway 101 east of Naya Chor that numbered over two hundred vehicles.
“Now, I don’t want any of you to get the idea that cutting the Indian supply lines is as simple as just bombing the crap out of this road. The Great Thar Desert is largely hardpan gravel and is perfectly able to support tanks, trucks, or whatever. There are some sandy places. In the ‘72 war, a Pakistan armor advance bogged down in soft dunes near Ramgarh and got picked off. Most places, though, the Indians can choose their own route across the desert.
“But we have to keep in mind that the convoys themselves need supplies.
Food. Water. Fuel. It’s two hundred miles from Jodhpur across the desert to Naya Chor, three hundred to Hyderabad. The road not only helps the supply vehicles cross the desert faster, it serves as access for the supplies that keep those vehicles moving. If we knock out the roads, the Indians will be able to reroute their convoys to the north or south, but it is going to cripple their logistical efficiency. We could expect lots more vehicle breakdowns in off-road travel, especially in rocky or gravel-covered areas.
“The real high-priority targets, of course, will be the bridges. Every time Indian pioneers have to build or repair a bridge in this region, it’s a major engineering operation, with the equipment and material being ferried all the way up from Jodhpur. The Indians are especially vulnerable here, with eight major streams or canals to bridge or ford between Naya Chor and Hyderabad. Some of these aren’t more than a trickle in the sand, but the Nara Canal is a major obstacle. And, of course, once they get to Hyderabad, there’s the Indus River itself. The Indians are probably planning massive bridging operations coupled with paratroop or commando landings to get across the Indus. If we can delay them here, we could cripple their whole operation.”
Tombstone listened carefully as Aubrey laid out the essentials of Operation Mongoose. The Hornets would perform double duty, as usual.
VFA-161 would be the first ones to go feet dry, striking at Indian radar facilities, airfields, and SAM sites along the coast. VFA-173 would fly TARCAP for the main strike force, protecting the bombers to and from the target. TARGET Combat Air Patrol was intended to discourage enemy aircraft from attacking rather than actually shooting them down.
The A-6 Intruders, with their heavy bomb loads and laser designators, would be assigned the bridges and road convoys between Hyderabad and Naya Chor, with a priority on trucks carrying fuel, water, and ammunition, the essentials for desert warfare. Cratering munitions would be used to ruin sections of the road, most of which was dirt and gravel anyway. Low-level precision attacks would knock out the railway.
And the Tomcats would fly CAP for the CBG.
Each element of Operation Mongoose was designed to minimize casualties, both American and Indian, as much as possible. No one dared to think that the operation could be pulled off with no casualties at all. The weapons of modern warfare were too fast, too hard-hitting, too deadly for that to be a possibility.
Code names for each element of the plan were assigned. The two Intruder squadrons, eight planes each in the VA-84 Blue Rangers and VA-89 Death Dealers, were tagged Blue Strike and Gold Strike. The ten Hornets from the VFA-161 Javelins, tasked with hitting ground targets, were designated Lucky Strike, while eight Hornets from VFA-173, the Fighting Hornets, were split into two flights code-named Blue and Red Camel.
EA-6B Prowlers from VAQ-143, the Sharks, would accompany each strike group, providing ECM jamming to mask Mongoose’s deployments. Hawkeyes from VAW-130, the Catseyes, would circle above the carrier and just off the Indian coast, providing early warning for both the fleet and the strike missions. The two Tomcat squadrons would retain their squadron code names, Vipers and Eagles.
It was a gigantic enterprise, as large and as complex as Operation Righteous Thunder, when Jefferson had covered the Marine landings in North Korea. One problem stood out sharply, though. The Russian forces were not listed in the operational lineup.
Perhaps, Tombstone thought, it had been decided that it would take too long to get Russian and American aviators to work with one another.
Certainly, with no time for practice or training runs, joint air operations could be more dangerous to the allies than to the enemy. Even so, Russian participation was conspicuous by its absence.
“The ordies began arming operations yesterday, and as of 0600 this morning they were ahead of schedule. Our current scenario calls for launch operations to commence at 1200 hours today. Hawkeye and tanker assets will be put up first, of course, followed by Red Camel and Blue Camel. At 1240 hours, launch operations will begin for the strike elements, beginning with Lucky Strike.
“Mongoose will be coordinated so that the various strike elements will arrive over their separate targets at approximately the same time. By maintaining an element of surprise, this will maximize both their chances of achieving successful runs and for avoiding enemy ground fire and fighters.
“We expect that the entire strike phase of Mongoose will take no more than thirty minutes over the target,
