Vinod2070
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One of the last enduring debates on the 1971 War is the outcome of the air war. Both sides continue to claim that it won the air war. This debate continues because victory in the air is more difficult to quantify than victory on land or sea. In the land and sea wars, India emerged as the clear victor both in terms of objectives attained and losses/gains versus the enemy. In the air war, even estimates of losses on both sides are widely divergent. Immediately after the war, the official Indian Government figures given out were 86 Pakistan Air Force (PAF) aircraft destroyed as against 42 Indian Air Force (IAF) lost. The Pakistanis later claimed that they had actually won the air war by destroying over a 100 Indian aircraft while losing only 36 of their own. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between.
Unlike in 1965, the Indian Air Force in 1971 handled claims of aerial victories by its pilots with great maturity. No "kills" were awarded until all claims could be verified, preferably by photo reconnaissance missions. Almost immediately after the War was over, the Air Chief asked the Halwara station commander, Air Marshal C.V.Gole, to visit every IAF station in the West to ascertain the performance of various squadrons. "Later, we had access to other information as well and we worked out a pretty accurate picture of losses on both sides", he explains. But discrepancies could well remain. For instance, Gole recalls that one SAM battery had fired missiles at a couple of attacking Pakistani B-57 bombers. One was hit and streaming smoke. A few hours later, some villagers called to say that they had found the debris of the Pakistani aircraft. On investigation it was found that what remained was not the debris of an aircraft but that of a missile. The hit was not taken into account. It was only much after the war that some Pakistani report spoke about a B-57 pilot who had become "Shaheed" after he tried to bail out his burning aircraft but could not make it.
Pakistani claims of their own losses are less than reliable. The main cause of this confusion has to do with various "Official" histories of the PAF quoting different figures. It has been estimated by some observers, based on signal intercepts from the PAF, that the PAF lost at least seventy-two aircraft (including at least fifty-five combat types). Pakistan itself admits to the loss of twenty-nine combat aircraft on the ground. Only 16 were claimed to have been shot down over India. Add to this the 13 Sabres destroyed by the PAF itself at Dhaka. Even then the figure comes to 58. However, a lot of this is inaccurate.
After almost a year's of research, we at SAPRA INDIA believe that the losses of combat aircraft on both sides were as follows:
The PAF lost many more aircraft on the ground not only because the Indians launched many more counter air operations than the Pakistanis but also because the PAF itself destroyed 13 of its Sabres in Dhaka within a few days of the war. PAF's No. 14 squadron with about 18 aircraft felt it had been abandoned by its higher command and left to face the onslaught of ten full Indian squadrons. After a couple of gallant actions by Pakistani pilots, the PAF commanders in East Pakistan appear to have decided that the game was not worth the effort. The last aerial engagement in East Pakistan took place on 4 December.
Even if the Pakistani claim that the Indians lost more aircraft is accepted, does it suggest that the Pakistanis won the air war? The answer is a clear no. Because war, in the ultimate analysis, is not a numbers game. Winning a war has to do with achieving clear objectives. For the IAF, the aim was twofold: first, to prevent the PAF from messing with the Indian Army's advances, logistics and launching points; and second, to seriously impair Pakistan's capacity to wage war. The PAF's job was to do the opposite. The pre-emptive air strikes on 3rd December were aimed at knocking out a good part of the IAF while it was on the ground. This failed for the simple reason that the Indians had learnt their lessons of the 1965 war and had constructed fortified pens and bunkers to store their aircraft. More important, young IAF fliers proved they had the grit to go out and fight, even if it meant losing one's life.
By the end of the first week of the war, PAF fighters in the West appeared to have lost their will to fight. By this time, the IAF was repeatedly hitting secondary targets including railway yards, cantonments, bridges and other installations as well as providing close air support to the Army wherever it was required. The most dangerous were the close air support missions which involved flying low and exposing aircraft to intense ground fire. The IAF lost the most aircraft on these missions as is proved by the high losses suffered by IAF Sukhoi-7 and Hunter squadrons. But their pilots flew sortie after sortie keeping up with the Army and disrupting enemy troop and tank concentrations.
Once it was known that the Indian Army was knocking at the gates of Dhaka, the PAF in the West virtually gave up flying. During the last few days of the war, the IAF brass ordered attacks on PAF airfields with the sole purpose of drawing out their aircraft. But that rarely succeeded as the PAF aircraft for the most part remained secured inside their pens, refusing to come out and fight. The strongest indictment of the Pakistani Air Force was made not by an Indian but by the Pakistani leader, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who took over from General Yahya Yahya Khan after the 1971 defeat. On taking over, he made a speech in which he castigated the PAF chief Air Marshal Rahim Khan and several other officers by name.
A better analysis of effectiveness of the two air forces is provided by the losses per sortie figure. The IAF flew at least double the number of combat sorties per day than the PAF, thereby exposing itself to ground fire and enemy interdiction. Despite this, the IAF's attrition rate of 0.86 per 100 sorties during the 1971 War compares favourably with the Israeli rate of 1.1 in the Yom Kippur War. The PAF's overall attrition rate works out to 2.47 (including transporters and recce aircraft lost on the ground). If aircraft destroyed on the ground are not taken into account, the rate works out to 1.12, which is still very high given that PAF aircraft never really stood back to fight.
The question of loss is important but, in the ultimate analysis, secondary. Achieving air superiority cost the IAF dearly in 1971 but in the end it managed to achieve complete dominance over the skies in both East and West Pakistan.
By Indranil Banerjie, Rupak Chattopadhyay and Air Marshal (Retired) C.V.Gole
This article is the result of over 8 months of often frustrating research. Both the Indian and Pakistani air forces have tended to fudge figures and accounts. It took time and much effort to sift through the claims, counter-claims and various accounts of the 1971 air war to arrive at some basic conclusions.
1971 India-Pakistan War: The Air War - Case West
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