The plan was always there to retaliate with counter strikes on ground on limited scale - that's something which even IAF chief also highlighted where he mentioned that India offered Pakistan to actually call off things on 7th. However per the IAF chief Pakistan refused and said "ab hum maren gy uskay bad dekhen gy". And that sent some serious panic into Indian side.
However, i think that actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise for India. They joined heads together. Quickly worked out on why their planes were shot out of sky. Decided to keep IAF away from PL-15s, fly lesser but better planned sorties, launch loitering munitions on PAF Air Defence assets and bring SSM BrahMos into plan to minimize the risk factor for IAF.
And it worked for India - atleast from the "optics" and public face saving point of view.
From Pakistan's point of view - not that Pakistan launched their strikes on any lesser scale. Atleast 26 locations in india were targeted. But unless they bring actual evidence for damage on ground - the optics favor the indian side.
What i think is - we shouldn't have waited for indian to begin assault on our bases. Like swift retort - the response should have come faster. The indians were already in the awe of what had just happened to their planes. They were shocked. Better to exploit it to your advantage right away than to wait for them to re-work their startegy.
Now what enforced ceasefire? It's because India, Pakistan and US all wanted it. Everybody could see things were heading to disaster. Pakistan because, we didn't have an immediate solution to the problem of "India has BrahMos in large numbers so even 50-60% interception rate was not helpful". India because, they knew what would happen if Pakistan decides to move to next tier of strike options and the kind of targets including economic hubs which Pakistani side threatened to hit - and ofcourse the trade threats by US also came into play.
