Lower Faman... The Nico Islands were bombed and the Western Fleet was destroyed. Nandez is in discussions with other chiefs of staff of the Indian Defence Forces (IDF) about an impending war. Although these senior generals of the Indian army understood the meaning of "never tired of deceit", no one expected the war to break out on the last day of July.

To put it more seriously, India's navy, land and air force are not unanimous.

Admirals, represented by Fernandez, believed that this would be an all-out war between India and China. China will first seize sea supremacy in Erduyang. Then the Sikkim issue was used as a reason to go to war against India. During the war, China will definitely impose a comprehensive strategic blockade on India to force India to admit defeat, thereby shortening the course of the war and reducing the war losses. India's only hope is to defeat the Chinese navy in the Indian Ocean and prevent China from entering the Indian Ocean. Subsequently, a strategic blockade was imposed on Pakistan and other South Asian countries that had turned to China, forcing China to invest more troops on the ground battlefield, creating unbearable war pressure on China, and finally causing China to stop its war operations without winning the war.

Not to be stunned, Fernández's point of view has some basis, at least to the point.

According to this point of view, Fernandez came up with a well-developed plan for the war. After the outbreak of war. The Indian Navy first took defensive offensive actions in the Indian Ocean, that is, it took the initiative to go out to the eastern Indian Ocean, relying on shore-based aviation on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the offshore fleet deployed in Port Blair to block the Strait of Malacca, and the fleet and submarines to block the Sunda Strait and block the passage of the Chinese fleet into the Indian Ocean. During this period, the Air Force must fully cooperate with the Navy in operations, in addition to anti-submarine patrol planes, long-range maritime patrol planes, and some helicopters deployed on land, all aviation forces deployed at the airport, including tactical fighters, large early warning planes, and tankers, belong to the Indian Air Force, assist the Navy in blocking the Strait of Malacca, and dispatch early warning planes and tankers to provide support for the fleet's attack aircraft group, dispatch fighter planes to provide air defense cover for the fleet, and if necessary, also dispatch tactical fighters to attack the Chinese fleet. Before winning the battle at sea, the army defended on all fronts in a strategic defensive form, relying on defensive positions on the western front, the eastern front and Sikkim State to resist the squadron for several days. Another important task of the Air Force is to ensure that the territorial air defense units belong to the Air Force, to carry out limited air strikes against the squadrons invading India, and to strive to stabilize the war situation in the first few days of the war. With the completion of the combat mission of the navy and the air force maintaining air supremacy in the territory, the army launched a strategic counterattack in the form of defending the east and attacking the west, striving to defeat Pakistan in the west as quickly as possible. In order to support the army operations. The Navy will blockade Pakistan when conditions are ripe and bomb southern Pakistan. After defeating Pakistan, the army first consolidated the state of Sikkim and tried to drive the squadron out of Sikkim. In the final phase of the war, the army will launch a strategic counterattack on the eastern front with the joint support of the navy and air force to recover Arunachal Pradesh, which has been "invaded" by China.

The plan is ambitious, and the goals are ambitious.

In Fernandez's view, India will not only win, but will win very cleanly.

The plan reflected the thinking of the Indian military establishment under Fernandez, that combat operations should be centered on the navy, and that the air force and army must coordinate naval operations.

From a strategic point of view, Fernández's claims are not wrong.

Losing the battle at sea, India will not only lose the war, but also all its capital.

The question is, are the Air Force and Army willing to become "vassals" of the Navy?

The Navy came up with a battle plan, and the Air Force and Army also came up with a battle plan.

The core content of the air force plan: the final victory or defeat of the war will inevitably be determined by the air battle, even if the navy can hold the eastern gate of the Indian Ocean, as long as it loses the air battle, India will still lose the war; After the outbreak of war, the air force must seize the initiative in the war and take the initiative to attack, that is, to ensure air supremacy on the battlefield by bombing China's mainland air bases; After seizing air supremacy, the Air Force will assist the Army in launching a counterattack on the Eastern Front. recovering Arunachal Pradesh and advancing the front to the pre-Tibetan conflict; After the victory on the Eastern Front, the Air Force will bomb Pakistan in full force to support the Army's offensive in Kashmir. Strive to regain the Pakistani-controlled northern part of Kashmir before China completes a larger war mobilization, completely crush Pakistan's military power, and force Pakistan to withdraw from the war.

According to the Air Force's assumption, as long as the offensive of the squadron is contained on the Eastern Front and China's most important ally in South Asia is defeated, China will not expand the scale of the war alone, and will end the war by means of armistice negotiations.

From this, it can be seen that the Air Force believes that this is a war of a very limited scale, not a full-scale war.

Although the Indian Air Force has a strong interest in "air supremacy." As a military force that is inherently prepared for attack, the Air Force can only gain air supremacy through an offensive attack, and passive defense can never grasp air supremacy, but the Indian Air Force has ignored a very important issue, that is, the consequences of bombing China's home air base.

China has long abandoned its commitment to "no first use of nuclear weapons" and has stated it on several occasions. Before the signing of the Treaty on the Comprehensive Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (TPN), nuclear weapons were the fundamental shield for safeguarding China's national security and national interests, as well as an effective means to counter the enemy. If the Indian Air Force takes the initiative to bomb targets in China, even if China refrains from carrying out a strategic counterattack against India, it is very likely to drop several tactical nuclear warheads on Indian territory.

What has India done to get to this point?

If you don't bomb the servant first, don't hit the target. It was the Chinese Air Force that bombed the Indian Benshi target. If India strikes in the name of another attack, what are India's chances of winning? The Fourth Indo-Pakistani War and the conflict in southern Tibet are enough to illustrate the problem.

In the later stages of the Fourth Indo-Pakistani War, the Chinese Air Force paralyzed India's air defense and defeated the Indian Air Force in just a few hours. In the conflict in southern Tibet, the Chinese Air Force completely defeated the Indian Air Force with only a handwheel attack. If the Chinese Air Force is allowed to strike first, the Indian Air Force will not even have a chance to counterattack.

It was precisely for this reason that some of the air force generals believed that the main forces should be retreated to the south first. Avoid China's round strikes.

Even their own people do not support it, and the war plan proposed by the Air Force will naturally not get more

Compared to the Air Force, the Army has gone to the other extreme.

In the seventh scale of the war, the view of the army and the navy is relatively close, and it is considered a full-scale war. In order to support this viewpoint, the army has come up with a lot of evidence, such as the Chinese army mobilized more than 10,000 combat personnel of the old main army, the Chinese air force mobilized nearly eighty percent of the combat strength, and the Chinese navy mobilized all of them. If it is not an all-out war, what reason does China have to mobilize so many military forces?

It's just that the Army does not agree with the Navy's combat punishment, because the Army does not consider the sea to be the main battlefield.

As a continental country, coupled with long-standing discord with neighboring countries, India's land borders are not stable. Even without taking into account the war with China. In order to deal with its old rival Pakistan, India had to maintain a large army. According to Jane's Defence's "Global Military Power Report" published at the end of the year, the total strength of the Indian army is 10,000. Ranked first in the world, the total strength of the Republican ** team is skillful. Nai, who accounts for the total strength of India; India's old enemy, Pakistan, has a total strength of Biwan, ranking first in the world!! In addition to India, China and the United States, there are Russia, Iran, Nigeria, France, the United Kingdom, Turkey and South Africa, of which the army is 10,000, accounting for the majority of Pakistan's total strength. It can be seen that India's total strength is 30,000 times that of Pakistan, and the strength of its army is more than three times that of Pakistan.

The superiority in military strength has not brought substantial security to India.

Considering the threat posed by China to India, India's military power does not guarantee national security at all.

According to the Indian Army, the war will be dominated by frontal battles, and if India loses the ground battle, it will lose the war even if it wins in other directions.

For this reason, the Army firmly believes that it should adopt a strategy of attacking from the east and defending the west after the outbreak of war. As long as they can defeat the invading squadron on the Eastern Front and Sikkim, Pakistan can honestly stay behind the Line of Actual Control in Kashmir. If it loses the battle with Sikkim on the Eastern Front, Pakistan will inevitably take advantage of the fire and launch an offensive in Kashmir, leaving India in a difficult situation of fighting on two fronts. In order to achieve victory on the Eastern Front and in Sikkim, the Air Force must fully support the Army and even take the initiative to attack in some areas, while the Navy must defend instead of attack, and try to delay the Chinese Navy's entry into the Indian Ocean through blockade, delay, and other tactics. As long as the army wins on land. The Chinese Navy will retreat and will not fight the Indian Navy in a decisive battle when there is no hope of winning the war.

After the proposal was first rejected, the Air Force switched to supporting the Army's battle plan thugs.

Although Fernandez is the chief of the general staff of India's three armed services, he cannot force concessions between the air force and the army when both the air force and the army oppose the use of the sea as the main battlefield.

For days on end, Fernandez was trying to figure it out.

Comparatively speaking, it is more likely to co-opt the Air Force.

It's a pity that the Air Force doesn't appreciate it. The reason is simple, if Fernandez is on his heels. Then the next Chief of the General Staff will be the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Although there are differences between the Air Force and the Army, for example, the Air Force does not see this as an all-out war between India and China, but the Air Force is more willing to cause trouble for the Navy than to surrender to the Navy.

When the war broke out, Fernández's "good offices" did not yield much results.

A few hours before the outbreak of the war, Fernandez received the latest and most important warning from Colonel Stark.

U.S. intelligence agencies have evidence that Toyokoku is likely to go to war before August Day.

Although the evidence is not very strong, especially the activities of the Chinese naval fleet, the US intelligence agencies are not vegetarians. It's much more sophisticated than India's intelligence authority. According to the fact that Xiang Linghui, chief of the Chinese General Staff, secretly left the General Staff Headquarters for Japan, went to the Navy Command, and then went to the forward command headquarters in Wazirabad, the independent intelligence unit of the US Defense Intelligence Agency under the Department of Defense made a bold prediction of war, believing that China was ready for war and that it was very likely that no one expected it.

Unfortunately, Fernandez didn't heed Stark's warning.

As it turned out, it was likely that Fernandez deliberately ignored Stark's warning.

It is common sense to assume that after receiving Stark's alert, Fernandez first had to ask the Information Intelligence Department and the intelligence agencies under the Indian General Staff to verify the correctness of the "American warning". In fact, Fernandez did. And it was answered. According to Indian government documents obtained after the war, neither the Ministry of Information and Intelligence nor India's military intelligence gave a clear answer on the question of whether the war would explode sooner. At this point, Fernandes had to do two things, one was to report to Prime Minister Rurajapani and the other was to do a good job of the war to explode in advance.

The reason is simple, after the outbreak of the war, Fernandez was able to give combat orders to the air force and navy with the dignity of the chief of the general staff.

Fernandez was not prepared for the war to explode in advance, but wanted to obtain a wartime authorization as soon as possible.

According to his vision, the war would definitely begin from the air, with the Chinese air force first bombing various strategic targets in northern India to seize air supremacy, and then sending troops to Sikkim. Only after Sikkim has gained a foothold will the Chinese Navy engage in a decisive battle with the Indian Navy in the eastern Indian Ocean. Even if the Chinese Navy enters the Indian Ocean ahead of schedule and encounters the Indian Navy, the Indian Navy will be invincible by relying on the strategic defensive barrier formed by the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. When the time comes, it will be the Air Force and some overseas military bases that will be lost, not the Indian Navy.

Of course, Fernández did not forget the most important thing, which was to adjust the deployment of the fleet.

In the evening, Fernandez told Molovan to stay in the southern waters of the Bay of Bengal and not to go out easily, and at the same time ordered Wildert to speed up the southern waters of the Sunda Strait to block the main passage of the Chinese fleet into the Indian Ocean.

How effective this preparation was, no one can say.

On Fernandez's orders, Molovan stayed, while Wydt raised the fleet to a higher level.

Judging by the battles that came later, Fernandez's cleverness was self-defeating.

When he received the news of the war, Fernandez first asked if military targets in the north had been bombed.

He was shocked by the reply given by the staff officer. Only military bases on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were bombed.

Could it be that China only wants to fight a war at sea?

There is no doubt that Fernandez will not believe in this possibility. As long as the war at sea starts, even if China is willing to stop, the war will not end immediately.

For the next half hour, Fernandez personally inquired about the Air Force Command and the Army Command.

The reply is still the same, not only did the Chinese air force not bomb military targets in India itself. Not even planes were sent to invade Indian airspace. The Chinese Army also remained behind the Line of Actual Control and did not invade India.

How can it be!?

Fernandez was shocked. In his opinion. As long as war breaks out, the Chinese Air Force will completely crush the Indian army with a storm of bombing.

With this question, Fernandez's mind was completely confused.

This is not a common tactic used by squadrons. Nor is it a reasonable tactic.

Something must have gone wrong.

Although Fernandez quickly calmed down. But the war progressed far beyond his estimates.

Before he could give another order to Molovan and Wydt, the news of the total destruction of the Western Fleet arrived.

To be exact, not only were all surface warships sunk and destroyed, but it was also very likely that the Smash-4 conventional submarines that arrived in the sea area where the fleet was located in advance were sunk. In the entire Western Fleet, only the early warning planes took off ahead of schedule to carry out the fleet's air defense alert mission and flew 100 kilometers west before the outbreak of the war, so they were lucky enough to avoid Chinese fighters and fly back to Great Nicobar Island with the remaining fuel.

Although no casualties have been reported, it is likely that Wydt was martyred along with the aircraft carrier Virat.

The eye is a thunderbolt, an absolute guess of the sky.

According to the report, a number of fighter planes attacked the Western Fleet. There were also at least thug submarines that ambushed the Western Fleet.

The report makes it clear that it was a fighter, not a bomber.

The area of battle is far from the Chinese mainland. And even far from China's overseas military bases.

From this it can be concluded that it was the carrier-based aviation of the Chinese Navy that attacked the Western Fleet.

The question is, where exactly is the Chinese fleet?

Molovan was not wrong in his inference, the Chinese fleet was quite likely to be in the Strait of Malacca, and the attack aircraft group flew directly over Sumatra. Flights to the Western Fleet on the shortest straight route. Although this will cause diplomatic problems for China, because Indonesia has not promised to open its airspace to Chinese military aircraft, Indonesia's air defense system is very bad, Sumatra is a remote area, and China's carrier-based fighters have good stealth performance, as long as China does not announce the attack, Indonesia may not even know that Chinese fighter jets have entered its airspace.

None of this matters anymore, what matters. How to keep the Eastern Fleet.

When the Chinese fleet enters the Strait of Malacca, it will be able to deal with the Eastern Fleet. What is lacking is only one condition. That was to find the Eastern Fleet hidden west of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Fernandez was very quick to react.

As soon as the time flew in New Delhi, Fernandez issued an order to Molovan to keep the Eastern Fleet as far away from the Strait of Malacca as possible and not to act rashly until the Chinese fleet was found.

In other words, preserving strength is the first priority, and defeating the opponent is secondary.

Molovan is a close confidant of Fernández and will certainly not take orders from his superiors as wind on deaf ears.

The question is, if Molovan does not seize the opportunity to attack, will the Eastern Fleet still have a chance to counterattack?

Receiving Fernández's orders, Molovan was caught in a two-south situation.

To preserve the strength of the fleet, it will have to retreat to the northwest, and the opportunity to attack the Chinese fleet will be lost.

Retreat, or attack!?