When surprise attack from Okha sank Pak navy ships

[SwatCat]

First go and enlighten your self to differentiate between Eastern and Western sectors and perhaps let me know where i claimed a tremendous victory....or may be you are also incompetent to comprehend between a certain mission and an overall war.
I believe, what's being discussed here transpired in the Western sector. !!!

In western sector PAF hesitated to take off, Know that first. There was no air support for most of the PA operations like Battle of Longewala, which was a fantastic disaster for PA.

 

[kurup]

The PAF campaign in 71 was very successfull .

It was so much successfull that they even attacked a PN ship .

The civilian pilots from PIA volunteered to serve in the surveillance missions with the PAF after the PAF launched the seaborne operation after the Indian naval attack but due to miscommunication and panic attack, the civilians abroad on Fokker Friendship raised a false alarmed which reported a Pakistan Navy frigate, PNS Zulfikar as a missile boat by Indian Navy.[15] The PAF accidentally attacked the PNS Zulfikar, the only naval destroyer, before the PAF recognized that it had laid attack on its own ship.[15] The friendly attack resulted the further loss of navy personnel as well as the loss of the destroyer that was damage severely, after this attack, the Pakistan Navy's operational capabilities were extinct and demoralized.[15] The Indian Navy observes furthered noted that the "PAF pilots failed to recognize the difference between a large PNS Zulfikar frigate and small Osa missile boat.".[15] After the friendly attack, all naval operations, except the submarines efforts, came to halt under the effect orders of chief of naval staff.[15]

 

[ares]

PAF Creates Spectacular Fireworks At Okha

I am not sure how anyone can call attack on Okha a tremendous success??It would have been a tremendous success had Pakistan w have been able to hit the missile boat base along with missile boats, before they were able to obliterate Karachi.

Where as here we see after decimation of Karachi harbor, India Navy anticipating an attack , had moved all its units. Most damage you were able to do was to a unprotected fuel dump. In 3 day of continuous attack, PAF was not even able to cause a single casualty on ground, speaks volume about it.

And it is not like Karachi was not attacked by missile boats again, not a week after the previous attack, Karachi was again lit up by Indian Missile boats.

So in entirety PAF attack on Okha had no effect Indian Navy's plan to blockade Karachi.It was Operation Dwarka all over again for Pakistan, except this time they did manage to hit some thing.

 

[SQ8]

The Osa missile boats did wreak havoc at karachi.. more so since the PN was tied down close to port in hopes of forming a AAA shield against air attacks. Not only was the PN not prepared to take on a missile threat(nor the PAF). it unrealistically expected the PAF to be some magic bullet against these small ships in the vast sea.

I have personally heard recordings made by a PN sigint group of the raids and a mix of english and russian is in them.
so either there were Soviet representatives on board or the IN officers had learnt some excellent Russian.

In western sector PAF hesitated to take off, Know that first. There was no air support for most of the PA operations like Battle of Longewala, which was a fantastic disaster for PA.

please read up on the reasons why in many threads before making senseless comments.

The PAF campaign in 71 was very successfull .

It was so much successfull that they even attacked a PN ship .

The civilian pilots from PIA volunteered to serve in the surveillance missions with the PAF after the PAF launched the seaborne operation after the Indian naval attack but due to miscommunication and panic attack, the civilians abroad on Fokker Friendship raised a false alarmed which reported a Pakistan Navy frigate, PNS Zulfikar as a missile boat by Indian Navy.[15] The PAF accidentally attacked the PNS Zulfikar, the only naval destroyer, before the PAF recognized that it had laid attack on its own ship.[15] The friendly attack resulted the further loss of navy personnel as well as the loss of the destroyer that was damage severely, after this attack, the Pakistan Navy's operational capabilities were extinct and demoralized.[15] The Indian Navy observes furthered noted that the "PAF pilots failed to recognize the difference between a large PNS Zulfikar frigate and small Osa missile boat.".[15] After the friendly attack, all naval operations, except the submarines efforts, came to halt under the effect orders of chief of naval staff.[15]

not completely accurate..
there was a friendly fire incident in which F-86's flying in the late evening looking for OSA's found the PN ship.. radioed the PN liason asking him if there were any PN ships in the area. and after being told that there were no PN ships in the area and they are ordered to attack .went in and strafed a steel hulk with .50 machine gun rounds whose only effects were some poor petty officers out on the sides and a few bullet dents within the ships superstructure.

The culprit here were not the PAF pilots alone who were never trained to recognize the difference between ships but rather the PN liason who gave out incorrect information.

 

[Abingdonboy]

PAF Creates Spectacular Fireworks At Okha

On the night of 4 December 1971, Indian Osa missile boats attacked the Pakistan Navy, hitting a destroyer and a minesweeper southeast of Karachi. The menace of Indian missile boats was a very serious threat not only to the Navy but also to other Pakistani ships in the Arabian Sea and in the Karachi harbour. Pakistan retaliated by causing extensive damage through a single B-57 attack on Okha naval base in India. The bombs scored direct hit on fuel dumps, ammunition dump and the missile boats jetty. The missile boat attacks on Pakistani naval installations ceased thereafter.

In the wake of the missile attack, Pak Navy felt – almost as an after-thought – that the home base of the missile boats at Okha needed to be taken out. In all likelihood, the tit-for-tat raid serving as a retribution of sorts would have been uppermost in the minds of the Naval Staff. In any case, the necessity of tackling the threat of missile boats also sank in at PAF’s COC and it was agreed to attack Okha harbour. Of course, it was not expected that the missile boats would still be berthed at the quay-side in Okha. As a matter of fact, these had already been dispersed to smaller locations along the Saurashtra Coast, even before the war had started. Nonetheless, it was the considered opinion of Pak Navy that a hit on the infrastructure could hamper missile boat operations to some extent.

On the evening of 5 December, Flt Lt Shabbir A Khan was standing out on the B-57 tarmac watching preparations for the night missions, when he was informed about being detailed for a strike on Okha harbour. He, along with his navigator, Sqn Ldr Ansar Ahmad, rushed off to the operations room to start planning the mission. Two hours after moonrise seemed like a good selection of the TOT, as the glimmering sea would clearly outline the edges of the darkened harbour.

Taking off at 2210 hrs, the B-57 got a fiery send-off as the AAA opened up in the nearby Karachi harbour, signalling an air raid. Continuing the take-off, Shabbir and Ansar settled down to watch – with unnerving anticipation – the moonbeams dazzling the creeks and estuaries of the Kutch Coast to their port side. Finally, turning to the attack heading, they picked up a sizeable flotilla on their radar, about 20-nm to their starboard. There was a temptation to go for the ships, but discipline prevailed and they continued for the designated target. Reaching the pull-up point, Shabbir pushed the throttles to 100% power, while Ansar started to guide him into the attack. Just when Shabbir pressed the bomb release button and there was no release, Ansar realised that he had forgotten to arm the release switch. In a fraction of a second he flipped the switch on and Shabbir pipped the button again, pulling out of the dive narrowly. After some 10-odd seconds, there was a tremendous flash of light and the aircraft shook up with the blast. A direct hit had been achieved as nine 500-lb bombs slammed into fuel tanks and other stores at the harbour. In the meantime AAA had started to fire and the sky seemed ablaze. Shabbir and Ansar saw the shells continuously exploding along the aircraft’s flight path but luckily, the bomber escaped unscathed.

The attack had been a tremendous success and, news that the home base of the missile boats was in flames turned out to be thoroughly cathartic for all and sundry in the Pak Navy and PAF. A pair of F-104s which visited Okha for another attack four days later, reported that the harbour was still smouldering and the smoke could be seen from as far as 60-nm. The Indian Official History of 1971 Indo-Pak War notes that, “two air attacks were also carried out on Okha and some fuel tanks were set ablaze, thereby denying the missile boats any further use of this port as a forward base.”[6]

Taking out a fuel dump and magazine is hady comparable to striking the financial capitial of the enemy and taking out numerous naval ships, is it?

But oh well. Different sides different perspectives.

 

[SQ8]

STICK TO THE TOPIC NOW FOLKS.. there is high potential of derailment if more incidents from a different date are brought up.. this leads to the actual trolls coming up with worse ideas.

 

[The A-5]

The Osa missile boats did wreak havoc at karachi.. more so since the PN was tied down close to port in hopes of forming a AAA shield against air attacks. Not only was the PN not prepared to take on a missile threat(nor the PAF). it unrealistically expected the PAF to be some magic bullet against these small ships in the vast sea.

I have personally heard recordings made by a PN sigint group of the raids and a mix of english and russian is in them.
so either there were Soviet representatives on board or the IN officers had learnt some excellent Russian.



please read up on the reasons why in many threads before making senseless comments.



not completely accurate..
there was a friendly fire incident in which F-86's flying in the late evening looking for OSA's found the PN ship.. radioed the PN liason asking him if there were any PN ships in the area. and after being told that there were no PN ships in the area and they are ordered to attack .went in and strafed a steel hulk with .50 machine gun rounds whose only effects were some poor petty officers out on the sides and a few bullet dents within the ships superstructure.

The culprit here were not the PAF pilots alone who were never trained to recognize the difference between ships but rather the PN liason who gave out incorrect information.

whats the country of origin of this zulfiqar ffg? what is its original class-name?

for example, the present-day pns zulfiqar is a chinese f-22p

 

[Windjammer]

Taking out a fuel dump and magazine is hady comparable to striking the financial capitial of the enemy and taking out numerous naval ships, is it?

But oh well. Different sides different perspectives.

If that was the case then one wonders why did these missile boat attacks more or less seized thereafter.
But i guess how the same Indian MOD which frivolously claimed six PAF Mirages would come clean about it's own losses.

 

[SQ8]

whats the country of origin of this zulfiqar ffg? what is its original class-name?

for example, the present-day pns zulfiqar is a chinese f-22p

There is some confusion in which public editing in wikis has the HMS Apollo designated as the PNS Zulfiqar even though the HMS Apollo entered RN service in 72 and the two leanders sold to Pakistan came in during 1988.
There are further inaccuracies in the wiki page.. glaring ones that show that it contains a lot of crap.
The PNS Nazim mentioned there is shown as a gearing DDG when there were infact not acquired till the late 70's.


So the destroyer reported to be the PNS Zulfiqar is definitely a River class frigate that was transferred to the pre-independance Indian navy in 1945 and then came to join the PN.

 

[perplexed]

If that was the case then one wonders why did these missile boat attacks more or less seized thereafter.
But i guess how the same Indian MOD which frivolously claimed six PAF Mirages would come clean about it's own losses.

Fool me once shame on you . fool me twice shame on me..

 

[SQ8]

If that was the case then one wonders why did these missile boat attacks more or less seized thereafter.
But i guess how the same Indian MOD which frivolously claimed six PAF Mirages would come clean about it's own losses.

Its the fog of war.. and claims will be made that exaggerate reality.
At this point, the topic focuses on the value of the OSA boat.
A good account of this effectiveness is given by the IN officially on its own site and how there really wasnt anything to stop the OSA menace and hence they were going to be effective regardless.

 

[Windjammer]

Fool me once shame on you . fool me twice shame on me..

I hope you are capable of ranting a little more than single liners. !!!

 

[ares]

If that was the case then one wonders why did these missile boat attacks more or less seized thereafter.
But i guess how the same Indian MOD which frivolously claimed six PAF Mirages would come clean about it's own losses.

No they did not ..Operation Trident was followed by Operation Python..there were plans for another attack on Karachi but were cancelled, because Hangor got khukri and Naval resources were diverted into hunting down Hangor.(Sinking of INS Khukri was the only incident in 71 war, which affected the Indian Naval plans in western sector)

 

[Windjammer]

Its the fog of war.. and claims will be made that exaggerate reality.
At this point, the topic focuses on the value of the OSA boat.
A good account of this effectiveness is given by the IN officially on its own site and how there really wasnt anything to stop the OSA menace and hence they were going to be effective regardless.

The Indian Official History of 1971 Indo-Pak War notes that, “two air attacks were also carried out on Okha and some fuel tanks were set ablaze, thereby denying the missile boats any further use of this port as a forward base.”[6]

Sir, the same source is quoted above, surely we are not to believe it was a merely a filling station for these boats, without any assets berthed at the time of attack.....which incidentally was around mid-night or something.

 

[SQ8]

The Indian Official History of 1971 Indo-Pak War notes that, “two air attacks were also carried out on Okha and some fuel tanks were set ablaze, thereby denying the missile boats any further use of this port as a forward base.”[6]

Sir, the same source is quoted above, surely we are not to believe it was a merely a filling station for these boats, without any assets berthed at the time of attack.....which incidentally was around mid-night or something.

Even if there werent any assets, it would have put a dent in the operational tactics by taking out filling station.
The OSA's did not have long legs, so they needed various ports to fill up and base themselves for the attacks.
In this case they probably were given a setback.
However, you and I both know that for quite a few of the members this will be denied vehemently because somehow it was a Pakistani attack and hence must be ineffective as it did not change the outcome of the war.. But any Indian attack even the shooting of a bullet accidentally was a glorious feat that contributed to the defeat of the Muslims in the two nation theory.