For the period of the war, the IAF also logged no less than 3937 combat sorties (fighters and bombers), not including the combat sorties flown by helicopters or other elements of aviation. INAS 300 of the Indian Navy also flew 106 sorties and INAS 310 also flew a number of Electronic Intelligence missions. The PAF flew 2279 combat sorties in total. As expected, claims by each side varied greatly and while the PAF admitted only 19 losses, the Indian Armed Forces claimed as many as 73 aircraft kills, although the latter would include kills from post war incidents and from Army Aviation as well. While the latter figure has been scaled down over the years, disparities still remained. For example, the PAF could boast of 120 F-86F (6 squadrons) during the 1965 war but had no more than 2 squadrons (Sqn Nos 15 and 16) of F-86F during the 1971 war. While India claimed a larger number of B-57Bs, the PAF admitted no more than 4 losses to all causes, including accidents. Yet, the PAF which started out with 26 B-57B , and 2 RB-57D/F before the 1965 war (not including another two ex-USAF RB-57F on loan ), had only 18 B-57B and a single RB-57D/F in inventory by 1971, although 2 flying accidents between the years were known. Pakistan had also claimed to have lined up its fleet of five C-130s in order to prove that none were lost but once again, the actual number of C-130s acquired was six, according to a veteran PAF author. The credibility of Pakistani versions has always taken a beating with incidents such as the MM Alam fairytale and other strange claims including ones that the IAF was operating MiG-19s and MiG-23s . A retired Pakistani
General admits "It appears that 1965 war was not rationally analyzed in Pakistan at all. In this regard the Pakistani military decision -makers were swept away in the emotional stream of their own propaganda !". As Air Commodore Jasjit Singh AVSM VrC VM (Retd), Director, Center for Air Power Studies, also points out, demands for emergency supplies of additional aircraft from Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Turkey and China, within 10 days of the war, was hardly supportive of the claim that the PAF had lost less than a squadrons worth of aircraft in the conflict. The "Official History of the 1965 war" puts Pakistan's combat losses at 43 aircraft, although a lot of the former's information is derived from Pakistani accounts.
Strangely, even though the IAF flew a larger offensive air campaign by devoting 40% of its air effort to offensive air support alone, the majority of its losses came from aircraft destroyed on the ground through PAF air strikes. Night bombing by B-57Bs equipped with terrain mapping radar and George Peach bombing systems, was particularly effective. The PAF without doubt, had achieved far more in terms of enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground but the IAF had achieved much more in the close support role, even if the IAF's performance and mission response was viewed as far less than optimal by the Indian Army during the 1965 war, as Air Commodore Jasjit Singh and Lt. Gen Harbaksh Singh VrC point out . The Air Force's claims for Tanks, Guns and Vehicles destroyed due to air action conflict
with the figures for the same, confirmed by the Indian Army, although the latter did confirm that its own equipment losses to enemy air action was relatively negligible. Interestingly, the Indian Army itself claims 471 Pakistani Tanks as destroyed and 38 captured.
