While the PAF stood guard during this period, its planners finalized and issued its war plan on 29 June 65 to all concerned. The operations of the PAF during the initial stages of a war with India were embodied in this plan which was to guide all actions during the events of the coming few months. The plan had resulted from the basic thoughts crystailised in July 62 on the employment of the PAF in the air defence battle for Pakistan. It was kept up-to-date and modified as circumstances demanded. The aim of the PAF was to neutralize selected vital elements of the IAF by strikes in strength against them in order to reduce the margin of superiority of the IAF, thereby preventing it from gaining air superiority and interfering effectively in the land battle. The plan envisaged a situation in which the PAF would so react that it had the initiative to strike at 1AF airfields and radar installations, to redress the unfavourable balance between the two air forces and, in so doing also to ensure PAF's availability for any subsequent land-air operations. The plan also assumed that the main battle for Pakistan would be fought in the area of Punjab and Kashmir. Formerly no close support for the Pak Army had at all been intended to be set aside during the preliminary rounds of an engagement with the IAF. Over the just-past 12 months the PAF had, however, come to appreciate a possible requirement by the army for direct support from the very outset of hostilities. Accordingly a fresh feature of the plan was that a portion of the F-86 force was earmarked for immediate support of the army.The PAF's original strike plan therefore covered the entire string of airfields from Srinagar in the north to Jamnagar in the south, along West Pakistan's frontier with India. The depth of the strikes, dependent mainly on the radius of action at low level to avoid detection, extended to Ambala in the case of aircraft operating from West Pakistan, and to Kalaikunda in West Bengal for aircraft based at Dacca in East Pakistan. Much debate had centered around the timing of the initial strikes. A large air force pitted against a much smaller one, eg Britain's RAF at Suez (1957) would undoubtedly select the early morning for its start in order to keep up its pressure throughout the hours of daylight and inflict the maximum damage possible. A smaller air force, such as the PAF, versus a large one like the IAF, would not have the ability to deliver a crippling blow in a single assault and could well provoke large scale enemy retaliation by resorting to one. By a dusk strike, on the other hand, the PAF would be safe from an immediate counterattack; it could sustain pressure during the night relatively safely, and would be reasonably well prepared by the next morning to meet reprisals, as also to deliver further strikes.

Lahore, abandoned as an active base in peace time owing to its vulnerability, was to be reactivated for occasional use during war. Eight F-86s each from Mauripur and Peshawar were to move in there at six hours notice for the initial strikes. To sustain the pressure of the attack " PAF's B-57 light bombers from Mauripur were to bomb aircraft on the ground and airfield installations at Jamnagar, Adampur and Halwara throughout the first night of the operations, beginning at 2030 and ending an hour before sunrise the next morning. The bombers recovering at Sargodha after their first strikes at Adampur and Halwara, were to turnaround and go for Agra and Palam. Those recovering at Peshawar were to make a se-cond run to Adampur and Halwara, or hit aircraft on the ground at Ambala and Chandigarh as alternatives. The T-6G (Harvard) trainers from Risalpur were to harass the enemy on the first night in the areas Amritsar-Ju11under and Ferozepur-Ludhiana.

The F-86 squadron in Dhaka was to strike Kalaikuncla by dawn only on the second day of the war. The air defence watch during the hostilities was to be ordered by the Air Officer Commanding (AOC) Air Defence, as required by the situation, from the force placed at his disposal. This comprised the one squadron of F-104s and the F-86 squadrons at Sargodha, plus 4 GAR-8 fitted F-86s at Peshawar. A portion of the F-86 force at Manipur and Dhaka was also assigned to airdefence duties.