Ex CIA officer on IAF strike on NLI's Munto Dhalo Depot.
Airpower at 18,000’: The Indian Air Force in the Kargil War
Benjamin Lambeth
REPORT, SEPTEMBER 2012
A Successful Endgame for India.
By the time Operation Vijay had reached full momentum in early June, the Indian Army had marshaled nearly a corps’ worth of dedicated troop strength in the Kargil area, including the Third and Eighth Mountain Divisions and a substantial number of supporting artillery units. The overriding objective of those forces was to recapture the high ground from which the intruders had a direct line of sight to highway NH1A, allowing them to lay down sustained artillery fire on it and on adjacent targets. Toward that end, after more than a week of hard fighting, units of Eighth Mountain Division recaptured the strategically important Tololing ridge complex and the adjacent Point 5203 in the Batalik sector on June 13, in what one informed account later described as “probably the turning point” in India’s land counteroffensive.67
Four days later, on June 17, another important breakthrough in the joint campaign was achieved when a formation of 7 Squadron Mirage 2000Hs struck and destroyed the enemy’s main administrative and logistics encampment at Muntho Dhalo in the Batalik sector by means of accurately placed 1,000-pound general-purpose bombs delivered in high-angle dive attacks using the aircraft’s computer-assisted weapons-aiming capability. For this pivotal attack, the IAF waited until the encampment had grown to a size that rendered it strategically ripe for such targeting. The AOC-in-C of Western Air Command at the time, Air Marshal Patney, affirmed later that the essentially total destruction by the IAF of the NLI’s rudimentary but absolutely life-sustaining infrastructure at Muntho Dhalo “paralyzed the enemy war effort, as it was their major supply depot.”68 In characterizing the attack as “perhaps the most spectacular of all the [campaign’s air] strikes,” a serving IAF air commodore reported at the end of 1999 that it resulted in as many as 300 enemy casualties within just minutes.69 Figure 3 shows pre- and post-strike aerial imagery of the enemy camp at Muntho Dhalo. In the first image, a dense array of tents and structures, as well as tracks leading up the hillside from the encampment, are clearly visible. In the second, after completion of the IAF’s attacks, all that remain are bomb craters and rubble.
A week later, on June 24, a two-ship element of Mirage 2000Hs, in the first-ever combat
use of laser-guided bombs by the IAF, struck and destroyed the NLI’s command and control bunkers on Tiger Hill, the direction center for the forward-based artillery that had
been fired against the Indian Army’s brigade headquarters at Dras. !ey used two 1,000-
pound Paveway II laser-guided munitions, with other fighters striking additional targets
with unguided bombs.
In these attacks, the target was acquired through the Litening
pod’s electro-optical imaging sensor at about 12 miles out, with weapon release occurring
at a slant range of about 5 miles and the aircraft then turning away while continuing to
mark the target with a laser spot for the weapon to guide on.
https://defence.pk/threads/ex-cia-officer-on-iaf-strike-on-nlis-munto-dhalo-depot.208907/
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/2012/09/20/airpower-at-18-000-indian-air-force-in-kargil-war/dvc4#
