Are you really admitting that India bombed a Pakistani nuclear facility?
How does this fit with India's official statement that they did not attack Pakistani military facilities, but "9 terrorist facilities"?
Here's the timeline to the best of my recollection (I'm doing this off memory so anyone can correct me if I made a mistake):
- The hitting of 9 terror facilities run by various designated groups was the initial round of attacks on the night of May 6-7. There is verifiable evidence of large-scale damage to buildings in both Pakistan-controlled Kashmir as well as in Pakistani Punjab. Videos of BDA conducted by drones/loitering munitions following the strikes was shared by IAF. No Pakistani military facilities (nuclear or otherwise) were targeted on that day. Pakistan officially claimed to have shot down 5 Indian fighters that took part in this operation. There is verifiable evidence of at least one IAF Rafale wreckage (the other wreckage is now confirmed to be a Heron drone). And at least 1-2 unexploded PL-15Es shot by PAF were also recovered from the ground in India.
- The next day (night of May 7-8) Pakistan launched aircraft, drone & artillery attacks along the border as a response, targeting both military & civilian locations in India. These were met with a coordinated Air Defence effort by the Indian side (including aircraft on CAP & SAMs/AA guns). The vast majority of attacks & munitions were intercepted by Indian AD & EW. The only verifiable damage from these attacks is at Udhampur air base in Indian Kashmir, where a munition seems to have fallen in the open field between the runway & civilian buildings outside the fence. No damage to actual military infrastructure is seen by satellite imagery from neutral parties (Maxar & even China's Mizarvision).
- During that AD action, India claimed to have shot down several PAF aircraft, though the officials did not specify exact number or type at that time. There is verifiable evidence of at least one PAF Mirage-III/V wreckage in Indian Kashmir (aircraft ID not just by OSINT, imagery of wreckage was labelled & shared by the military itself subsequently, after they could positively confirm what it was), but no pilot was recovered so he most likely did not survive the crash. There's also imagery of wreckage that seems to point toward either a PAF JF-17 or a IAF Mirage-2000, but the IAF did not claim this as a JF-17 so take that view with a pinch of salt. Unless the imagery was faked, it's likely to have been an IAF Mirage-2000 downed the day before. On that night (as the AD operation was still underway), mainstream media quoted Indian Govt sources saying there was an offensive A2/AD action by S-400, targeting PAF aircraft flying within Pakistan, including F-16s and an Erieye AEW aircraft. There were also reports of Indian drone attacks inside Pakistan on May 8, though I haven't been able to verify where this was & what was the damage caused, besides some ground-level photos of a destroyed C&C vehicle at a military station in Lahore, Pakistan.
- The next day (May 9), usage of S-400 was confirmed as the exploded debris fragments of a 40N6 round were recovered in Dinga, Pakistan. There is video of a fiery crash site from that location taken the night before, but no up close pictures/videos so we cannot verify what kind of aircraft was hit. Indian sources claim this was the Erieye they shot down, but it seems Pakistani sources claim this was a drone. Personally, I'd say it had to be something large & high-flying as this location is nearly 400 kms from the S-400 launch site in India. A smallish drone is unlikely to have been detected by the S-400's fire control radars from that range (not to mention it's unlikely they would waste a 40N6 round - a potential BMD asset - at near its Rmax unless it was a high-value target of opportunity).
- Later that same day (May 9) also saw attacks from Pakistan - including usage of long-range MBRLs like Fatah-I/II and air-launched CM-400AKG. The Fatah rockets were intercepted by an Akash SAM over Sirsa, India. Pakistan claimed to have destroyed the S-400 battery at Adampur in Indian Punjab (probably targeted in response to its usage the night before) with the aforementioned CM-400AKG launched from JF-17s. However, satellite imagery revealed no damage to the S-400 base, or anywhere nearby. So the AKGs were likely intercepted by either Akash or Barak-8.
- On the night of May 9-10 India began the first real operations against Pakistani military bases. Air Defence assets were the first to be hit as part of a SEAD/DEAD campaign. Mostly drones like Harop were used though some air-launched munitions were also likely used. AD command posts & radar sites were targeted across several air bases in Pakistan. There is verifiable evidence of damage to surveillance radars in at least 2 Pakistani air bases, and somewhat sketchy evidence of a 3rd. There are also some videos of a destroyed AA gun in an urban area, though I don't know if this was from the day before.
- The SEAD/DEAD phase was immediately followed by the missile strikes on Pakistani military facilities, which seem to have continued into the early morning hours of May 10. There is evidence of BrahMos (launched by Su-30MKI), SCALP (from Rafale) & Rampage (from Jaguar) being used, though the nature of the damage done indicates that SPICE-2000 & SAAW may have also been used. The Pakistani side claimed to have shot down several incoming missiles & spoofed several others through EW. There is evidence of some SCALPs being intercepted by Pakistani AD (unexploded warhead of SCALP was recovered). But no evidence of any BrahMos/Rampage being intercepted or recovered intact.
- There is verifiable evidence (both satellite imagery as well as some ground-level photos & videos) of large-scale damage to at least 8 Pakistani air bases in these strikes, some as deep as nearly ~200 km inside Pakistan. The Indian side claims 11 air bases were targeted but given that we seem to be discovering new damage sites every day through OSINT, the jury is still out on how many locations were actually hit. The verifiable damage includes destruction of runways & aprons, aircraft hangars, radar sites, ATC infrastructure, and what look like UAV command-&-control trailers. It is unknown what aircraft were damaged/destroyed when the hangars were attacked at 3-4 bases. But the hangar at Bholari AFB is known to host Erieye AEWs + fighters, while the one at Jacobabad is known to host F-16s. But what planes were actually in them when they were attacked cannot be ascertained through satellite imagery. The only ground-level video/photo of damage to aircraft seems to be a PAF C-130 on fire at one of these bases.
- There is both satellite imagery & ground-level videos confirming that bases in the Kirana Hills & near Murid were hit by Indian attacks during that same time (May 9-10). These bases are known to host nuclear weapons. However, the Indian military has officially denied that any such base was targeted. If pressed to answer, it seems to me that the official line will be that the missiles struck those locations by mistake. Obviously, that seems to be a deflection rather than the truth.
Anyway, these missile strikes on Pakistani bases were the last major action before the ceasefire on evening of May 10. There was some minor drone activity (quadcopters) afterwards near the border which were shot down, but no real escalation since.
Before laughing at Pakistan, it would be great if our Indian forum members answered a few questions.
We remember that immediately after the Indian airstrike, Islamabad claimed that it had shot down Indian fighters. After that, New Delhi announced the crash of 3 Indian fighters. Agree, no one will believe such a coincidence, especially meticulous experts.
Till now, there is no confirmation of the loss of fighter aircraft from the Indian side, at least officially. What they did say was that all pilots were accounted for (which doesn't say anything about the aircraft they were flying). The report of 3 aircraft crashing was retracted by the media house that published it after it turned out that the imagery they posted was of an ejected drop tank.
It is very likely that at least 1-2 Indian fighters was downed, the evidence clearly points at one of the losses being a Rafale. Though IAF is yet to say anything official about it.
The Pakistani Prime Minister is now in Karabakh, which we recently liberated. We are friends with Pakistan. But this does not prevent me from being objective about the Indian air operation and Pakistan's response.
I can agree that the Indian operation to destroy targets in Pakistan was successful. But this does not mean that Pakistan's counterattack was less successful.
I have to hand it to PAF for making the right equipment choices (J-10C+PL-15E+Erieye) and tailoring their tactics to give themselves the best chance of a BVR kill. It'll be food for thought for the Indian side (not just IAF but also MoD) because the nature of the ROEs they are setting up (attacking terror targets with airpower without first addressing PAF's ability to respond) mean that they are asking the IAF to fight with a handicap.
What the Indian side did on May 9-10 (disabling runways & taking out aircraft like Erieye on the ground) was what they should have done first. But of course there are political realities that cannot be ignored. It was also important to show the world that India did not choose to target Pakistan's military facilities first.
But would the world have cared even if they did? Who knows.
What we know now is that following the ceasefire, India made a statement that going forward, they will not differentiate between terrorist targets & Pakistani military targets, because they say the Pakistani military had escalated on behalf of the terrorists. So the next time this happens, the ROEs could be very different.
I'm not sure how to quantify the damage overall (a cost assessment would require us to know exactly what all was lost), but if you go by satellite imagery analysis, there is no real damage to Indian facilities on the ground as a result of the Pakistani counterattack on May 8. Whereas the damage to Pakistani bases caused by Indian attacks on May 9-10 is extensive, and is verifiable.
I am Indian, but being as neutral as I can be, I have to say the damage to Pakistan was far more extensive. I have to attribute this to the fact that India dedicated quite some time to extensive & successful SEAD/DEAD action before launching the missile strikes, which resulted in a lot of missiles getting through as Pakistani AD was degraded. But the Pakistani attacks were not preceded by SEAD/DEAD on Indian targets (or at least, the SEAD/DEAD that they attempted through drones was unsuccessful), which meant that nearly all of the attack vectors were intercepted, minimizing the damage to Indian facilities to negligible levels/nil.
@Nilgiri
Yet to see one evidence of hitting/damaging airbase and S400
