I would not say that. Very few tanks were lost in the organized pull back from Chawinda.'
It is stupid to attack without an element of surprise. Midnight assault/unexpected assaults show PA's lack of recon and tactical intel. It was PA's fault that they were unprepared.
PA leadership was ridiculous. Otherwise the superior PAF would have removed both the backdated Centurions on the ground and the IAF from the skies. Even in the end, in sqkm terms India continued to hold roughly 3 times the land Pakistan did. In spite of the fact that PA initiated hostilities (had the initiative).
Unexpected does not mean PA was not prepared, why Indians pull backed? Because PA was well prepared and courageously encounter the enemy attack, unlike indian unorganized attacks which lacked proper planning, lack of intelligence and communication as you earlier agreed in your post.
as far as PAF concern its role was valorous and internationally recognized at world forum during 1965 war.
Details below is from Indian source, I can quote other international sources but this whole discussion is going to off topics . Try to understand the PAF abilities at that time, though I disagree with several statements against PAF in indian version.
Military & Aerospace
By Air Vice Marshal AK Tiwary
Issue Vol 22.1 Jan - Mar 2007 | Date : 24 Jul , 2015
PAF seemed to have better intelligence of our deployments, and redeployments. They also seemed to know, the time of our aircraft getting airborne from various bases. This enabled the numerically inferior PAF to utilise its resources far better. In our case, lack of accurate intelligence entailed flying that many more sorties for similar effect. There were instances of attack on airfields devoid of PAF deployment resulting in wastage of strike potential. PAF’s humane intelligence capability was ..
On the eve of 1965 war, IAF had 466 combat aircraft against 203 of the PAF.
2 PAF had 16 aircraft in East Pakistan and the rest in West. Against this IAF had deployed 176 aircraft in the East to take care of the Chinese and East Pakistani threat. Thus, IAF had 290 aircraft facing West Pakistan. Numerically this gave IAF a superiority of 1.4:1 against PAF in the West and 11:1 in the East.
On 6th Sept PAF launched pre-emptive attack against four IAF air bases and three radar stations, i.e. Pathankot, Adhampur, Halwara, Jamnagar airfields and radar stations at Amritsar, Firozpur and Jamnagar. PAF’s attack over Pathankot met with great success. PAF claimed to have destroyed 7 MiG-21s, 5 Mysteres, and 2 Packet transport aircraft. IAF admitted to losing 2 MiG-21s, 6 Mysteres, 1 Packet, 1 Gnat as destroyed and damage to 2 Gnats and 1 Mystere.
These aircraft were destroyed because they were not sufficiently dispersed and camouflaged. Some of them had just landed back after operational sorties and were being refuelled.
One may like to explain it away as an unkind hand of fate. In the East, PAF attacked Kalaikunda air base. PAF claimed destroying 14 Canberra, 1 x Packet and damage to 4 Canberra and 3 Hunters.
3 IAF admitted loss of 4 Canberra and 4 Vampires. This happened because Kalaikunda did
did not have any dispersal facilities.
On the morning of 7 Sept, having absorbed the PAF pre-emptive the previous day, IAF launched a total of 33 sorties spread over ten hours for this all important battle of air superiority! George K Tanham observed, “Given the importance of the target (Sargodha) the careful planning and practice, and approximately 300 aircraft available to the IAF, this attack was surprisingly small and lightly pressed.”
4 The 1.4:1 superiority of the IAF in the West in fact was
was surprisingly small and lightly pressed.”
4 The 1.4:1 superiority of the IAF in the West in fact was further diluted because the PAF aircraft had greater fighting capability.
This was true, especially because of its Sidewinder missile capability of Sabres and Star fighters. Though, it was known that only 25 percent Sabres were missile capable, but to every IAF pilot who would have seen a Sabre in air, it would have been prudent to consider it Sidewinder capable.
On the Indian side MiG-21s (T–74) had recently been inducted and were not yet night capable for interception. Night flying of Gnat aircraft was limited due to poor cockpit lighting. The night fighter Vampires were already obsolete. Therefore, for all practical purposes, both the air forces having gone at each other on 6th and 7th Sept, gave up any further fighter effort as they had suffered unsustainable attrition.
8
The exception being a four Mystere fighters strike over Pasroor on 12 Sept by the IAF.
9 During the limited air superiority battle IAF suffered an attrition rate of 20 percent whereas PAF suffered 12.5 percent attrition.
10
