The 100-hour War: India Versus Pakistan

China’s PL-15E long range air-to-air missile, integrated with Chinese tactical data links, gave the Pakistan Air Force a key advantage on the first day of the strikes (Picture: Chinese fighter J-10C)

By Ajai Shukla

The Diplomat, 9th June 25

After 40 days of tension in South Asia, during which Indian and Pakistani officials exchanged claims and counter-claims, India’s top-ranking military official, General Anil Chauhan, injected a note of clarity.

In interviews to Reuters and Bloomberg news agencies on May 31, on the sidelines of the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore, Chauhan, who is the Chief of Defense Staff (CDS) of the Indian armed forces, admitted that India’s military had been forced to modify its tactics after an unspecified number of Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter aircraft were shot down by Pakistan Air Force (PAF) fighters and missiles.

India has provided scant evidence to rebut expansive PAF claims of IAF losses. Talking to the media in Singapore on May 31, Chauhan admitted that the IAF had suffered an unknown number of casualties, but again offered no details.

IAF versus PAF

The confrontation between the two South Asian neighbors began on April 22, when a group of heavily armed terrorists from Pakistan shot down and killed 26 unarmed tourists in Pahalgam, a scenic high-altitude meadow in the territory of Kashmir, which remains contested between India and Pakistan.

Then, on the night of May 6-7, India launched Operation Sindoor, missile strikes that initially targeted terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Pakistan. Strikes and counter-strikes followed over the next few days.

The four-day armed confrontation between the IAF and PAF, which some aerospace analysts refer to as the 100-hour war, has been carefully studied by air power experts worldwide. For others, this has been an invaluable opportunity to compare, in a live air combat environment, the surveillance architecture, command and control structure and flying skills of Eastern Bloc and Western Bloc pilots and aircraft.

Admittedly, such a comparison is complicated by the fact that both IAF and PAF have fielded a hodgepodge of equipment from multiple sources. The IAF fielded Russian-origin Sukhoi-30MKI and MiG-29UPG fighters, Franco-British Jaguar bombers, French Rafale and Mirage 2000 multi-role fighters, and Tejas indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA). 

Meanwhile, the PAF fielded at least three different fighter types, including the U.S. F-16 multi-role fighters and Sino-Pakistani J-10 and JF-17 fighters.

Tactical Data Link Superiority

The IAF’s comparative analysis of Operation Sindoor includes a detailed study of the IAF’s and PAF’s data links. This is especially so, given that superior tactical data links proved to be one of the key differences between the two sides.

China's People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) employs a variety of tactical data links (TDLs) to enable real-time communication between fighter jets, AWACS aircraft, and other supporting units. These data links enhance combat effectiveness by enabling coordinated air operations and target data sharing and missile guidance.

In the context of air-to-air combat, a data link is a communications backbone on which ride various elements in a mission package – such as voice and data messages from one’s fighter aircraft, ground and airborne radars, messages between the navies’ long-range surveillance aircraft, which inform the tactical picture as it is built up.

The more interoperable and networked these data links are, the faster and more flexible the detection, surveillance, target assignment, missile guidance and strike outcomes of the engagements.

During the preceding decade, China has completed the architecture of the "XS-3" tactical broadband, high-speed data link. This system is configured for fighter jets, bombers, and drones, and supports high-capacity information transmission.

The data link is a critical element of the efficacy of a force package, allowing communications within the package through voice and data channels. There are standard data links, such as Link 16, with which the U.S. equips close allies and defense partners to promote interoperability. Until recently, Pakistan’s designation as a “Major Non-NATO Ally” (MNNF) and its fleet of F-16 fighter aircraft might have obtained for it Link 16 networking.

Now, with Pakistan having moved out of the U.S. ambit and into a close defense partnership with China, the PAF is likely to have switched to Chinese data links such as the XS-3, which are interoperable with those used by the PLAAF. 

Closely integrated with the Chinese XS-3 tactical data link, would be the Chinese PL-15E long-range, beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM), with an estimated range of more than 300 kilometers. In 2021, Pakistan acquired the PL-15E missile from China as part of a $1.5 billion defense deal. The PL-15E has been integrated into various Chinese fighter jets, including the J-10C, J-16, and J-20.

In a reconstruction of Operation Sindoor, the PAF is understood to have retaliated to the IAF’s strikes into Pakistan by staging an “air ambush,” facilitated by common XS-3 data links and the PL-15E BVRAAM. In this visualization, PAF J-10C fighters would be patrolling Pakistani airspace on their own side of the Line of Control (LoC), with EWCS aircraft directing the air battle from deep inside Pakistani airspace. Upon detecting the approach of IAF fighters, the EWCS aircraft would have directed the launch of BVRAAMs from a stand-off distance, engaging IAF fighters with missiles fired from well inside Indian territory, guided to their respective targets from EWCS aircraft in order to remain undetected.

However, these tactics stop working when surprise is lost. Chauhan told the Singapore media that, over the next three days, the IAF established a decisive air superiority over the PAF. By May 10, the attrition suffered by Pakistani ground stations, bases and radar facilities caused Pakistan’s director general of military operations (DGMO) to offer a ceasefire.

“We rectified tactics and then went back [into combat] on the 7th, 8th and 10th in large numbers to hit air bases deep inside Pakistan, penetrated all their air defenses with impunity [and] carried out precision strikes,” said Chauhan. 

Pakistan’s military claims the IAF kept its fighter jets grounded after the losses of May 7. That raises the question: If the PAF had obtained such command of the air, why did Pakistan’s DGMO request his Indian counterpart for a cease-fire on May 10?

Intriguingly, neither side has presented debris from shot-down enemy aircraft. That would suggest that all the fighters that were shot down were in their own airspace, presumably by air-to-air missiles fired from across the border.

Earlier, the IAF’s chief of operations, Air Marshal A K Bharti, had told the press in New Delhi that “losses are a part of combat,” and that Indian pilots had downed some Pakistani jets.

Islamabad has denied losing any aircraft, but acknowledges strikes on its air bases. In earlier press briefings in New Delhi, the IAF had presented dramatic video evidence of missiles striking ground targets at the PAF base of Rahim Yar Khan.

No Nuclear Nightmares

Interestingly, both Chauhan and his Pakistani counterpart, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, have both publicly stated that at no stage of the crisis was the use of nuclear weapons considered.

New Delhi has traditionally sought to downplay the deterrent value of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. According to standard practice, Chauhan stated: "There's a lot of space for conventional operations which has been created, and this will be the new norm.”

He added that while hostilities had ceased, the Indian government had made it clear it would "respond precisely and decisively should there be any further terror attacks emanating from Pakistan."