(…continued from Part 1)

***

The List

With the PAF IADS (largely) out of way, the PAF was also forced to withdraw deeper into its own airspace; to withdraw its fighter jets from the international border. This is what, through the night from 9 to 10 May, and then early on 10 May, enabled the IAF to deliver its blows on selected major air bases.

Mind: a typical Indian or Pakistani air base is stretching over some 5 by 2-3 kilometres (of course, there are much bigger air bases too, but this is something like ‘average’). It’s a heavily fortified facility, with underground command posts, underground fuel depots, fortified ammunition depots, and dozens of hardened aircraft shelters, often concealed by vegetation. To really ‘destroy’ one, depending on the size of the facility in question, it would take 30, 50, even 100 precise hits. The IAF was not after doing that. It was after targeting carefully selected points at selected, major PAF air bases. As far as can be assessed from available satellite photos and videos, that list looked something like this:

- Skardu (Baltistan): forward operating base, runway and POL-dump hit;

- Murid AB: UAV-base, command facilities hit;

- Nur Khan AB (Chaklala): NG-MMCC command centre destroyed, hangar destroyed, one C-130 set afire;

- Mushaf AB (Sarghoda); radars, runway, and hardened aircraft shelters hit;

- Rafiqui AB (Shorkot): fighter-base, several aircraft shelters and support buildings hit;

- Sukkur AB: hangar hit;

- Pasrur AB: forward operating base; radar and munition depot hit;

- Shahbaz AB (Jacobabad): hangar and runway hit, 1 Saab 2000 damaged or destroyed;

- Bholari AB: command centre, hangar, radar hit, 1 F-16 damaged or destroyed (meanwhile it is known that this was attacked by two Brahmos, one of which was claimed as shot down by the Pakistanis).

Vishnu Som and Shiv Aroor from the Indian TV channel NDTV (one of leading instances when it comes to defence-related topics in India), have enhanced a photo showing results of the hit on the hangar at the Bholari AB (the newest/most modern PAF air base, and a home-base of several F-16-squadrons), and, see here:

Yup, that is looking like an F-16, damaged by the blast and wreckage, possibly missing its right wing.

It seems that most of Indian analysits are assessing these strikes as flown by Rafales, deploying SCALP missiles and Hammer PGMs. However, at least one, possibly two strikes by IAF Jaguars armed with Rampage missiles are known, and meanwhile it’s ‘officially confirmed, the IAF did deploy (at least) 15 Brahmos missiles, too (the two that hit the underground facility in the Kirna Hills were Brahmos). As far as is known, the Pakistani air defences have shot down one SCALP, and – perhaps – one Brahmos.

As mentioned above, the latter should have been shot down while approaching Bholari AB, early on 10 May.

***

Now for your other questions.

Q: I saw the interview with Times TV. Not a single mention of the Rafale downing. Why not? Is this major incident not important in the context of the war. Or was it edited out by Indians terrible media channels?

I’ve explained this in regards of the ‘public narrative’ at the start of this feature. Let me add an even more important aspect.

I find it is impossible to emphasise strongly enough – especially for those still insistent on ‘but Pakistan shot down 5, 15, 50 Indian jets: Pakistan won’ – that in the case of this war, no matter how short and intensive or not, one must keep in mind: one nuclear power (named India) disabled the nuclear deterrent of another nuclear power (named Pakistan). If you like, name them San Marino and Brunei, or switch names, if it’s going to make you feel better. But, this is a matter of fact.

Another of matters of fact that’s of ultimate importance is, is that the former did this to the later by using conventional weapons only.

I know, this is something entirely new: a concept that never happened before. And, perhaps my formulation is not good enough or whatever, but: I’m finding no words to put this to paper in any clearer, more comprehensive fashion.

Nuclear warfare – with or without deployment of nuclear warheads – is the ultimate method of warfare. Presently, the humanity has no other, more powerful weapons. Thus, if a nuclear power is prevented from deploying nuclear warheads, it is de-facto disarmed. This is what has happened to Pakistan.

Sure, the country has retained its nukes, but it can’t use them, it can’t deploy them, and even if it would try, it knows (and India knows, too) it can’t do so effectively: it can’t expect its nukes to survive being assembled and installed on a jet or a ballistic missile, and it can’t expect that jet or the ballistic missile carrying such a warhead to actually reach its target.

There is no way to overemphasise this fact.

Compared to achieving this, the IAF could’ve lost 50, or even 500 Rafales – and that would ‘not matter’ (except for families and friends of their pilots/crews): it would still be ‘worth the result’. This is what everybody interested in this war, but especially those insistent on one or another versions of its outcome, and then those insistent on ‘impossible’ (even offended with my conclusions), needs to comprehend.

***

Related to the importance of the above-mentioned issue, is the following (indeed, it’s explaining why is this affair with ‘striking Kirna Hills’ so important):

Q: Did India have the capability after first hits on airbases to finish PAF on ground just like Israel did in the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War (the ‘Six Days War’)?

Of course it did. Once India has suppressed or disabled at least a better part of the Pakistani IADS, and once it has forced the PAF further away from the border, and then hit its air bases, India was – theoretically – free to strike at Pakistan Army positions along the LoC and the border. It could pound and pummel them almost at will. New Delhi decided not to do so: obviously, it concluded it for ‘unnecessary’.

***

Q: You being a credible war historian surprised me by declaring India as victorious in the recent Indian and Pakistani conflict. How can someone be victorious if there was a ceasefire with no accomplished objectives for either side?

Well, call me a RAW-agent and Islamophobic (you wouldn’t be the first; similarly, there are enough Indians calling me names), and continue ignoring what I wrote, but, when one country (call that country whatever you want), is targeting other country’s nuclear weapons storage site (here you have it: from a Pakistani source), then that is a clear-cut victory. Because it means that the former does not fear a retaliation from the latter. This is a precedent so I can’t say/write ‘usually’, but henceforth it is going to be so that ‘usually this is happening’ because the former has disabled the ability of the latter to exercise retaliation.

If that’s making it any easier, think of a game of chess in which one of players manages to defeat the other in a matter of 10-12 moves: the majority of figures are still going to be on the board, perhaps the losing player even still has the queen and other important figures. But, his king is checkmated. Game over.

Pakistan’s own generals have defined a number of ‘red lines’. For example, India abrogating the Indus Water Treaty; India targeting Pakistan’s nuclear weapons storage facilities (or other nuclear facilities); Indian Army driving deep into Pakistan etc. If India is – obviously - crossing successive of Pakistan’s ‘red lines’, and then blasts carefully selected spots at carefully selected number of military facilities in Pakistan, plus (at least) one of nuclear weapons storage facilities, and Pakistan can’t do anything even distantly similar to India, nor stop such strikes, then India won, and Pakistan lost.

That is a simple deduction based on visually confirmed matters of fact, and I would make myself ‘incredible’ if ignoring it, no matter for what reason.

***

Q: How did India know what is there in the Kirana Hills?

Nominally, every country is obliged to declare its nuclear facilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Moreover, India and Pakistan have an additional agreement to report such facilities to each other. It so happened that Pakistan has constructed a large radar site (operated by No. 4091 Squadron, PAF), and a massive weapons complex and ammunition storage facility at the Kirana Hills - and then did not declare any kind of a nuclear facility there.

However, satellite photographs are confirming the presence of so-called ‘TELs’ in this facility, making the Kirana Hills also a ‘missile garrison’ (no idea what Pakistani unit is operating these or based there):

TEL stands for transporter-erector-launcher: that’s a truck used to haul, erect and fire ballistic missile (or similar weapon).

Must be an ‘accident’, but, ‘Kirana-I’ was also the designation for 24 subcritical experiments on nuclear weapons designs run by Pakistan in period 1983-1995. What a surprise then, at least since around 2017, the site is assessed as including a (undeclared) nuclear weapons storage facility, too.

Now, rather unexpectedly, the Indians have hit both entrances to the underground part in the north-western corner of this facility. Read: they didn’t strike directly this underground part of the facility, but entrances to it, blocking the entry and exit from them (this strike was flown after the Pakistanis deployed a ballistic missile that was shot down over Sirsa, at around 02.00hrs of 10 May).

Of course, one is free to believe that the PAF – which is in control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, and the Kirana Hills base, too – is growing vegetables in such a place. Here in Austria, just for example, we have lots of underground facilities left over from the Second World War, and several are used exactly for such a purpose: to grow delicious button mushrooms…

***

Q: Are ‘4^th Generation fighters’ completely obsolete in a high density IADS environment? We've seen tactical airpower marginalised in Russia-Ukraine and that first Indian raid but also Azerbaijan-Armenia a few years ago. Are these jets now only useful as long range stand off missile launchers?

Me thinks: not. Or at least: it depends on their weaponry and electronic warfare support. For example: a Su-25 or F-16 armed with free fall/iron/dumb bombs, and lacking EW-support are ‘toast’. It doesn’t matter if US- or Vanuatu-made, they’re not going to survive flying into a dense IADS. But, if armed with long-range land-attack weapons – weapons they can release from outside, or from the fringes of the IADS’ reach – then they remain very much useful. Between others, the IAF flew some of air strikes on PAF bases with (35-40-years-old) Jaguars deploying Israel-made Rampage air-launched ballistic missiles. MiG-29s of the Indian Navy were armed with these and ready to launch from the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant for another strike, too: this operation was cancelled for unknown reasons.

An (Israeli-made) Rampage missile, as seen under the wing of a MiG-29K of the Indian Navy (weapon to the left).

***

Q: Has aerial warfare now purely developed into attrition warfare, i.e. into forcing the enemy to expend SAM-magazines, by deploying hundreds of drones, rockets, missiles, and decoys?

SAM stands for surface-to-air missile.

Yes. Though, I would say: this kind of warfare was originally developed already in the 1960s-1970s (see the ‘theoretical match’ between US Navy’s carrier battle groups, and Soviet ‘carrier-killers’, like Tupolev Tu-22s and submarines equipped with heavy anti-ship missiles; back then, the question was that of how many Kh-22 anti-ship missiles could the Tu-22s deploy, and how many surface-to-air missiles could the ships protecting an aircraft carrier deploy). It’s just so that no such war was fought back then and thus this did not become obvious.

Nowadays, it is a ‘pure’ battle of attrition. Who can deploy more UAVs, rockets, and missiles so to overpower the enemy IADS, or the other way around. This is why it would be so damn important for the Europeans to – finally – start manufacturing their SAMs in HUGE numbers, and start delivering these to Ukraine in necessary numbers, too.

***

Q: Obviously SEAD/EW plays a role, but my impression is that in none of recent big wars has the SEAD/EW gained any great advantage.

SEAD stands for ‘suppression of enemy air defences; DEAD stands for ‘destruction of enemy air defences’.

Ever since it is played (since around 1966 over North Vietnam; since 1969 in the Middle East), SEAD/DEAD is a ‘game’ that’s never having ‘permanent’ effects, never offering some sort of definite- or infinite advantage, and is also a battle of attrition. One knocks out one enemy radar today, it’s repaired in the afternoon, or the next morning. One bombs a SAM-site: knocks out three launchers, damages the other three, but the fire-control radar and these three other launchers are still operational. One finds out and knocks out one or another SAM launcher, but the rest of the unit remains operational… etc., etc., etc., Nowadays, one is trying to target both the fire-control vehicle and launchers… and is sometimes successful, other times not, and sometimes partially successful… And then, even if one is super-effective, the next morning the SAM-site is ‘back online’, because the enemy had enough replacement equipment and has managed to bring this into position.

However, it kind of ‘doesn’t matter’ if the SEAD/DEAD game has no lasting consequences. What does matter is for the SEAD/DEAD to have consequences lasting long enough for own air power to complete its mission. If this is 20 minutes, and the mission in question was completed: fine. Other times, the results might last 12-24 hours - enabling own air power to complete its mission even better. And, sometimes, SEAD/DEAD is not effective at all…

That is the nature of the game, and – as perfectly obvious from both Ukraine and India – a lot is depending on whether both the IADS and the SEAD/DEAD efforts are supported by native arms industry or not. For example: Ukraine is depending on supplies of Western arms, these are not available in sufficient numbers, and thus its air defences are meanwhile ‘nothing but trouble’. India has a strong (and growing) own defence sector, and has no problem with replenishing its IADS from own production. It’s the same with aircraft involved in SEAD/DEAD: the party manufacturing own modern fighter jets (especially those with ‘stealth’ characteristics) and associated weapons is certain to remain in position of advantage.

***

Q: Is it better to invest heavily in surface-to-surface missiles (including quasi tactical ballistic missiles, like Iskander or LORA) and an IADS, instead into fighter jets like Rafales, F-15s, or Su-30s?

Depends on threat perceptions of the country in question; on what kind of wars it expects to fight – and against whom.

For example: for the last few decades, threat perceptions of the majority of smaller NATO air forces were ‘expeditionary operations outside Europe’, ‘usually in cooperation with the US Air Force, US Navy, US Marines’. Thus, they were custom-tailored for this kind of operations, and rarely could do anything else. Other countries need entirely different air forces – and nothing is wrong with either approach.

Smaller nations, or nations like India, Pakistan, which are facing ‘peer’ enemies, are well-advised to have ‘all of this’ (air power, IADS, TBM etc.), because, for example (and as ‘perfectly demonstrated’ by the Russian Air-Space Force over Ukraine), lacking air power that can survive operating deep within the enemy airspace is greatly limiting offensive capabilities. As long as well-supported by reconnaissance systems – i.e. if integrated into a ‘reconnaissance-strike complex’ like, theoretically, there should be one in the Russian armed forces – tactical ballistic missiles can do a lot, but never replace air power. Similar in regards of an IADS: because aviation is always going to move faster than ground-based armed forces, an IADS is, if nothing else, ‘easy to outmanoeuvre’, to literally ‘outflank’.

***

Q: How do you think the Americans would operate air power in any of these environments given their large fleets of 5^th generation stealth aircraft, robust SEAD, extensive networking, large number of stands off weapons and ISTAR? Would say the Americans still be able to punch through IADS in say Ukraine circa 2022 scenario or even say Russia as easily as they did in Iraq 1991 or Serbia 1999 (I understand Serb IADS were competent but they did not play a role in stopping allied dominance in the air).

For the start, there’s something like a running gag that the USA are (at least since 1945) never fighting countries with a population larger than 20 million. Thus, at least the last 30-40 years, the likelihood of such a conflict was minimal – even if, yes, the Pentagon was always preparing the US armed forces for a conflict with peer opponents.

As for ability of, for example, the US armed forces to punch through the Ukrainian or Russian IADS… this is a ‘what if’, and I do not like what ifs, because I don’t have lots of imagination. But, I’ll give it a try. I would say: the USA and NATO have learned a lot from fighting Serbia in 1999. They would not come just with air power, but combine lots of different assets (see: ‘thousands’ of ballistic- and cruise missiles, followed by decoys, followed by stealth bombers, stealth fighters, immense volumes of electronic warfare, etc.). I would say: they would be largely successful, early on, alone because of their capabilities in regards of the reconnaissance-strike combination. However, they would then experience lots of frustrations – simply because both the Ukrainians and the Russians would continue fighting, no matter what, and regardless how much their IADS would be damaged or even disabled. They’re stubborn, and good at improvisations and innovations. Just like the Houthis. And, well, the US politics, its ‘modelling of the outcome’, and the ‘USA and fighting wars longer than few weeks’…

***

Q: Would like to hear your take on the Indo-Pakistani conflict of 2019:

I’m writing and publishing a lot, but can’t do ‘everything’. There are other excellent researchers, with even better insights, better contacts, better connections. Few years ago, have commissioned Dr. Sanjay Badri-Maharaj (co-author of India’s Nuclear Strategy) and Everton Pedroza (researcher from Brazil), to write the book Terror and Response. Currently, this is the sole military history book in English to this topic:

The same book is providing as detailed account of events in February 2019, as one can get through OSINT – but also the full backgrounds, context, and scope of the Indo-Pakistani conflict from 2008 until today.

***

Q: Pakistan can be used (by the USA) as intelligence outpost against Iran, or even the ISI (Inter-Service Intelligence of Pakistan) can provide some intel to CIA in return for something?

Yesno. As absurd as it might sound, there is close (even if no ‘cordial’) cooperation between US and Pakistani intelligence services. They are meeting, they are talking, they often have diametrically different opinions, but are exchanging information – as far as either side is ready to do so (which, usually, depends on very different interests of the involved people). Shouldn’t mean the USA might ever get any permanent bases in Pakistan (beyond what they used to have: whether Peshawar as an airfield from which to launch overflights of the USSR by Lockheed U-2s, back in the late 1950s and early 1960s; or few other, minor facilities, for all sorts of operations in Afghanistan, 2001-2021). Besides, the USA have numerous other bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, etc., on the other – western (and ‘more interesting’) – side of Iran (eastern Iran is largely consisting of mountains and deserts, with sparse population: urban centres are in the north/north-west and along the Persian Gulf).

***

Q: There were some articles about an aborted Indo-Israeli attack on Kahuta (note: centre of Pakistan’s nuclear research) in the 1980s…

Yes, can recall such features from the 1990s. Probably have one or two still stored somewhere in my home-library (thinking of it, I’m actually in touch with one of authors, too). That said, I do not recall that any has ever mentioned any other specifics – like date, place etc – beyond that an Israeli F-15 Eagle was modified for reconnaissance purposes, deployed to India, and sent to fly a reconnaissance mission over Pakistan. Not sure what to think of such rumours. Can only add that the IAF was operating its own MiG-25RB reconnaissance jets at the time (and these could fly faster and higher than F-15s).

***

Q: You mention General Zia-ul-Haq, military dictator of Pakistan from 1977 to 1988. Who do you think killed Zia? (there are lots of conspiracy theories.)

AFAIK, Zia was killed in a crash of a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft of the Pakistan Air Force, and it was an accident: quite a few of Pakistan’s C-130s have crashed over the years.

***

Q: Do you think the Meteor missiles had any effect and did they achieve any kills in the conflict?

I do expect that yes, they have been deployed in combat and have scored kills. Exactly which and what many: sorry, currently… no confirmation (even if I do have two-three ‘clues’).

***

Q: Should India have used her Navy for a two-pronged attack or as a diversion?

India did so. AFAIK, an air strike from the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant (by MiG-29s equipped with Israeli-made Rampage missiles) was cancelled. No idea why. That said, operations of the carrier battle group centred on INS Vikrant have certainly kept at least a part of the PAF on its toes: as V. Ganesh has posted in reaction to the Part 2 of my summary of events from 7 to 10 October:

‘Based on what I read on the web yesterday, the Indian Navy wanted to participate in Operation Sindoor and accordingly presented plans for the same, but in the Director-General of Military Operations [DGMO] press conference of Monday, May 12, 2025, Vice-Admiral A. N. Pramod, the Director-General of Naval Operations [DGNO] of the Indian Navy [IN] said the Indian Navy maintained a deterrent posture.’

Additionally, I’ve heard theories that the Pakistani air defences in Karachi were hit so badly precisely because they were expecting an attack from the south (i.e. form the carrier), not from the east.

***

Q: How would you have conducted the terror strikes and prepared for Pakistani retaliation if you were the Indians?

As mentioned above, I would do what India did from 8 to 10 May, but right away: no ‘limited retaliation strike on terror camps’, but ‘(nuclear) disarmament of Pakistan’.

***

Q: Do you think that the Indian Navy [IN]'s Boeing P-8I Neptune Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft [MRPA] was used?

I not only think so: I’m 100% sure.

The P-8 Poseidon is an extremely advanced platform: not only a ‘maritime patrol aircraft’ (MPA), but packed full of communications-/signals- and electronic intelligence-gathering equipment. AFAIK, the Pakistanis have reported their operations along their coast for days before 7 May, and I’m sure the IN’s P-8s have collected plentiful of intelligence about both the Pakistani Navy and the PAF IADS.

They also certainly flew anti-submarine patrols in between of the Vikrant carrier battle group, and the Pakistani coast, just for example.

***

I know, there are still more questions, but sorry: I’m simply ‘finished’. I’ll try to come back in this regards in a few days again.

‍The text is published with the permission of the author. First published here.

‍