At the outbreak of the war, PAF's maritime support capability of any consequence was limited to night bombing of a couple of Indian Navy's coastal installations on the Saurashtra coast and, daytime strafing and rocketing of not-too-distant surface vessels. Measures to locate these vessels were largely of passive nature and rested on Pak Navy's shore and sea-based signals intelligence gathering network. Unhappily, at the outbreak of hostilities, much of the communication and radar transmissions had gone discrete and signals intelligence had all but dried up. Active measures included surface surveillance by a SUPARCO1-loaned radar located at Manora which had been picking contacts as far as 100-nm on occasions,rnwhen the somewhat irregular phenomenon of 'anomalous propaga-tion'2 was experienced. Ships at sea were good only for more localised flotilla surveillance and at great risk of giving away their position while their radars transmitted.
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