In the ring and on its feet Pakistan air force in the 1971 indo Pak war

This is another Book I brought for my Husband. He is into any factually correct book, which is about, Aircraft in battle at war!It isn’t a “Coffee Table” book, they are the books with lots of photographs, and not much text.

Superb and non partisan acoun t of the air war in 1971, very informative!

Its difficult to be balanced when writing about history specially a history with so much strife as between Pakistan and India. While the author tries to be balanced in his writing, its obviously difficult to do so when one is so involved closely with one side. However, stats don't take sides and if the stats are indeed correct, and there is no reason to doubt them, this is quite an amazing book in laying out in detail each aircraft shot down in air to air combat, including the pilot flying on both sides of the battle, their designation, their squadron, the aircraft they were flying, whether the aircraft was shot down by missiles or guns etc. There are other charts detailing the loss of aircraft on both sides. On the Pakistan side, the tail numbers of almost all aircraft destroyed during the war is provided. In this respect, the charts in the Appendix is worth the price of the book. Only some of the battles are detailed and not with a lot of detail either perhaps because some of the antagonists are no longer alive and its hard for an ex Pakistan Air Force pilot to interview Indian pilots. Still the few battles provided make for compelling reading. The writing style, as would be expected, is terse and very military style but not difficult to read or follow specially if you are an air war buff. It would have been nice to have footnotes regarding some of the statements in the book, like the stats that in 1965 the ratio of kills for Pakistan was 2.1 against the 1.8 in 1971. What is the source and what are the numbers for the 1965 stats? With 2 kills, Flt Lt Salim Baig is among 4 PAF pilots with multiple kills from other Indo-Pak and Arab/Israel wars. Would have been nice to know who are the other 3. A few such teasers exist in the book which leaves one craving for more. In general, the book is not a lengthy treatise but is a welcome addition from Pakistan's perspective on the air war in 1971. Highly recommended

Frankly, I bought this book only for the paintings. Since I only got two: the front & the back covers, I decided to read it.Fully expecting it to be unbalanced, filled with “never-at-fault“ attitude, and never ending self-praises, I was truly shocked to be 100% wrong!The book is well balanced and very critical when it needs be. It explains root causes in a very straight forward manner.For a country & a society to grow, writings like this book are a must.