Dragon Fire

Sargodha Airbase, Pakistan: 32°03′ N, 72°39′ E

Wreckage of buildings and planes was still smouldering from the air attacks on the huge airbase. It was as if the facility was already destroyed and deserved nothing like the blistering salvo it was seconds away from receiving. Hours earlier the Prithvi missiles had been primed for launch by engineers from India’s 333rd Artillery Group located with XI Corps at Jullunder. Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Lahore, Sargodha and Multan were all within missile range. Although the Prithvi was capable of carrying either nuclear or conventional warheads, India chose to limit its retaliation to a conventional strike.

The surviving Pakistani radar, already crippled by Indian strikes, did pick up the Prithvi missiles as they re-entered the atmosphere. The command and control system operated from the bunker deep underneath the airbase activated what little was left of the air-defence system. The most effective should have been the KS-1 short-range ground-based theatre-defence missile, recently flown in from China. But the Chinese technicians had fled the day before, and the equipment was too new for the Pakistanis to operate it efficiently. The KS-1 was hidden in nearby wooded land. But by the time the trucks and launchers were made ready, the missiles had struck. As soon as one of the phased-array radar-guidance stations was switched on, Indian pilots took it out with air-to-surface missiles and laser-guided bombs.

More than a hundred assembled M-11 missiles with a range of 320 kilometres were in storage around Sargodha, shipped in years earlier from China. Indian intelligence believed they were in the Central Ammunition Depot in a hillside set away from the base. To make an impact on the bunkers four Prithvi strikes used 1,000 kilogram fuel-air explosive warheads, which created enough over-pressure to do significant damage. Seconds after the missiles struck, wave after wave of aircraft flew in using both laser-guided and free-fall bombs: No. 23 squadron with MiG-21s and No. 5 Squadron with Jaguars out of Ambala, No. 21 Squadron with MiG-21s out of Chandigarh, No. 221 squadron with MiG-23s out of Halwara and No. 3 Squadron out of Pathankot. Two aircraft failed to return. It’s thought they were shot down by hand-held Stinger missiles. The onslaught of missiles and aircraft was designed to seal off the bunker exits with so much rubble that the missiles would never get out. On the way back the Indian pilots blasted targets on the Kirana Hills near Lahore where the missiles were also being stored.