The Sunday Tribune, December 5, 1971
What was significant in the steady build-up of IAF capability was the fact that its chief, Air Chief Marshal Lal, had a ringside view of all the mistakes made during the 1965 war — he was the Vice Chief during the period. In his quiet and unassuming way, Lal went about addressing the major deficiencies using a systems approach. His strategy vis-à-vis Pakistan prior to the 1971 war was simple: build asymmetry by widening both the qualitative and quantitative gap between the two air forces.
While the Gnats continued to dominate the Sabres, the enhanced ground-attack punch provided by the upgraded Hunters and the relatively new Sukhoi-7s gave the IAF a decisive qualitative and quantitative advantage. Most importantly, the coercive impact of the MiG-21s in the air defence role meant that the PAF was not going to have a free run as it attacked IAF airfields and other ground targets. While in 1965, the IAF was somewhat surprised by PAF tactics, it was better prepared in 1971. An example of this was the ‘defensive split’ air combat tactics of the PAF in which the Sabres when ‘bounced’ would split to give themselves a chance of engaging the two attacking Gnats in two separate 1vs1s, thereby neutralising the initial advantage of the attackers. If the Gnats did not split, the free Sabre would then manoeuvre offensively to get behind the trail Gnat. In 1971, none of this happened as the Gnats were always game to take on the Sabres in a 1vs1. The enhanced range of the Hunters meant that all PAF airfields were within their radius of action. The IAF had also trained for low-level bombing by night in moonlight conditions with a motley bunch of MiG-21 and Sukhoi-7 pilots from the recently formed Tactics and Combat Development Establishment putting together Standard Operating Procedures for ‘blind bombing’ in limited moonlight conditions — this was to pay rich dividends during the initial days of the air campaign in the western sector.