sheytanelkebirIraqi Minister of Defence visiting Balad Air Base where the final preparations for the induction of the F16 are taking place.
as we can see the “$1Bn for infrastructure and the lifecycle support for US contractors” actually translated to….
-reusing Iraqi HAS that the Yugoslavs built in the 1980s and just painting them and adding some cheap metal gates (as opposed to the heavy blast proof steel doors that the shelters had originally…
-Reusing the old ATC tower…. (maybe fit a few computers and terminals and some backup power).
-reusing the existing runways and taxiways… (oh a spot of low cost resurfacing, but the base concrete remains the same).
Sure they probably added a few bits of maintenance tools and diagnostic tools, fueling and arming bits…
Yours for a cool $1Bn. Most of the money naturally went on making sure that the americans are kept in with imported Texas Burgers, burritos, security guards at $10,000 per day, monthly first class R&R to Dubai etc… actual “stuff” the Iraqis got is probably about $70M worth.
sheytanelkebirHi Sanem, I miss reading your posts on UAVs and UCAVs. You have a view very similar to mine.
ISIS is not a conventional army but have developed a new form of warfare. Imagine a combination of German maneuvre warfare and the best guerilla tactics the Muslim world has to offer. A good number of German converts to Islam formerly from the German military, even special forces joined them. These and other such men combined a synthesis of western and eastern tactics.
This isnt anything like Saddam’s army. It is nothing like what the world has seen before. They get well dug in, systematically distributed and have everything from jammers to manpads. They booby trap everything.
How many predator / reaper drones can the US spare? What kind of persistence can they have? How do you differentiate civilians? If you don’t, ISIS gets a field day in recruiting. How do you differentiate friend from foe? ISIS often use enemy uniforms, flags, etc. How do you deal with signal jamming?
…
that’s actually a very accurate assessment. ISIS is using “manouver warfare” and “swarming” against weakpoints very effectively. In fact these are classic “beduin” style of attack, but using toyotas and long range sniper rifles.
they use heavily armoured VBIEDs with a brainwashed pakistani as a glorified “fire and forget” guidance kit. it has worked very well for them in the past. But for example last week they desperately tried taking over the Tharthar Lake regulator… and used no less than 8 VBIEDs in that attack… which were all repulsed by a single KORNET launcher and a team of 3 guys. An EC-635 helicopter had enough time to fly in from Samarra and strafe the remaining hapless daesh rats.
Of course another “strength” of daesh is their modern media savvy PR… something like the above operation by the Iraqi defenders would be “common news” had it been carried out by ISIS… but because it was by Iraqi forces, almost no one knows about it… and of course that’s good news for ISIS recruiters since it keeps the pool of low cost trash “humans” to man their VBIEDs coming in…
sheytanelkebirthat is a legitimate tactic
but it would be difficult to move tanks, artillery or APCs quickly, especially outside of a city. even with dust storm cover you can only get so far before the storm stops and you’re exposed
if a storm helps at all, it didn’t help Saddam’s tanks
In Iraq daesh use APCs / HUMVEES as VBIEDs only. For transport they use Toyotas.
but it doesn’t explain how ISIS can execute full scale attacks or defences, when you have to move out and shoot your vehicles and massed infantry, so you can’t hide from air support, and it’s pretty obvious who’s who
In cities Daesh ARE the locals. They don’t have to drive in a convoy from outside. In other places they move in 2-3 vehicle convoys and “rendezvous” at their target location (usually picked as a weakspot in iraqi defences). They attack then quickly withdraw (when fighting in open positions). so they use sound tactical manouvers. defensively they mostly setup IEDs and leave a few snipers behind… then withdraw).
a Reaper with Hellfires would have a field day, sitting on a battlefield for many hours and with plenty of missiles and bombs, against an enemy with little or no air power. the intel alone would be worth gold. and if they had micro-amunitions, their effectiveness would grow exponentially, as they’d have way more shots that are effective against soft-medium targets, at the same cost in money and payload
The “problem” is that the “shia militias” are the most powerful “side” in this war.
this compared to the probably inexperienced Iraqi Su-25 crews, who have to get low and slow to identify who’s who using their eyes as they fly by at relatively high speed (very ineffective) and risk getting shot down
the problem with SU-25 is that their ordnance is unguided and they are day only. also they have only 5!
Iraq uses the King Air (6 planes) + Cessna (6 planes) +Mi35M (15 planes) / Mi28Ne (5 planes) for most attacks.
but still over a “front” covering 150,000km2 having barely 30-40 airframes is not going to do much in most engagements. though they are helpful when available.
helicopters have the fire power and mobility, but they’re expensive to use and low altitude compared to a Reaper
Iraqis are using CH-4B UCAVs … but there’s no clarity on what results they’ve achieved. They only have a few airframes anyway (12 airframes).
if Iraq has plenty of tanks and artillery, they should be able to roll over ISIS in any fight, as any ISIS heavy vehicles and artillery will be killed on sight
They do not. There’s always this misconception that the Iraqis are “well armed” … actually they had VERY FEW heavy weapons. They had LOADS of HUMVEES and M113s all armed with a 12.7mm… but in terms of “armed” stuff…
146 Abrams tanks (of which 17 destroyed and 100 “in depot” … leaving about 28 tanks active at any one time).
200 or so T72 and Type 69 tanks
300 or so BMP-1s
200 artillery pieces
and that spread over a front several thousands of km of “contact” lines. for all intents and purposes most engagements happen between Iraqi units which have 12.7mm armed slow unreliable humvees vs 23mm armed reliable and fast toyota land cruisers. This is slowly improving as Iraqis begin replacing the humvee turrets with some “franken turrets” including some fitted with ukrainian dual 23mm unmanned turret!
sheytanelkebirdon;t take shelbyville too seriously.
according to her, Iraq is trying to decide between f-35 and pak-fa.
like the US or Russia is willing to give them away to ISIS lol…
does anybody here take you seriously? Where have I mentioned PAK-FA or F35 in the immediate future? Giving what away to ISIS?
A couple of years ago would you have believed that iraqis would be the first to fly Mi28N radar equipped helos and CH-4B UCAVs in combat? suppliers were not afraid to give it away to ISIS either… USA has shipped thousands upon thousands of Hellfire missiles to the Iraqis… how many have been “given away to ISIS”? Hell those three Cessna Caravans the Iraqi fly have killed THOUSANDS of ISIS terrorists…
look at this one… from last week. a terrorist car bomb factory… going up as a result of a coordinated strike by Iraqi King Air 350 recon and Mi28Ne Attack helicopters (with the 30mm cannon!!)
The “secondary explosion” was so huge it knocked out one of the cameras on the King Air!
sheytanelkebirMaybe you are not well informed by your own government. The airspace over the Iraq is controlled by the USAF on the behalf of the Iraq. Aircraft from the south spotted on Iraqi radar are not Saudi Ones at first.
Iraqis have Visual observation posts as well as radar coverage. There are dozens of US and French and British aircraft that fly in and out of Iraqi airspace daily conducting strike and recon missions. They are all correctly identified.
For a country still unable to secure its own land-borders right now something like a capable AD can wait for a time.
Its a necessity since ISIS in Iraq is a GCC “project”. And since the GCC started its campaign in Yemen Iraqis have looked rather nervously at the “potential” for the GCC to “try it on” against us in support of the “tribal revolutionaries” and “iraqi spring” (fig leafs for wahabi degenerates).
To do air-policing or intercept foreign recce-planes the F-16C/D at hand will do for that purpose.
Not against the GCC it won’t. And not a single one is actually “at hand”…
At the moment none has an idea, if the three main populations of the Iraq have the same intrests. Who fights whom and will control the present weaponary?!
How will effect a power change in Syria the Iraq?
We are now fighting a war of separation. This war is deciding the “borders” of the three future states. I hope that clarifies the issue (I agree that western media is woeful in its coverage of what’s actually going on in Iraq, so I’m not blaming you for your misunderstanding).
Thing is, that whilst the locals want to “separate” into a Sumerian state and Kurdistan and “islamic state” in the remaining area… there are several actors and variables involved.
INTERNAL:
1- There are “unionist” shias who want to maintain the current state of Iraq.
2- There are “separatist” shias who want to break away the Central and Southern areas into a “sumerian state”
3- There are “baathist / nationalist” Sunni Arabs who want to overthrow the Shia dominated state and impose their control over all of Iraq
4- There are “islamists” Sunni Arabs who want to create an “islamic state” and commit genocide against all Shias and take over Iraq, Syria (and then the world).
5- There are Kurds who are aligned with Barzani KDP who want to create a Kurdish state under that family’s personal tutelage, in alliance with GCC/Turkey/USA
6- There are Kurds who want to create a Kurdish state with elected heads (PUK etc…) and have closer relations with Iraq and Iran.
EXTERNAL:
1- USA wants to maintain the “old borders” of Iraq and seem to jump from point to point being influenced and pulled more by Washington DC based “lobbying” than by reason and logic
2- Turkey wants Iraq to remain as a single state to keep the Kurds under check, but wish to replace the Shia majority government with a Sunni arab minority regime allied to turkish interest
3- Iran wants to Iraq to remain as a single state to keep the kurds under check and maintain their supply lines to syria and lebanon as well as keep sunni arab regimes away from its border.
4- GCC want to throw money at anyone who kills apostates “kuffar” etc that they can enjoy watching on their TVs. They also don’t want a Shia state on their doorstep… nor do they want the same wahabi degenerates to return and make trouble in their own countries.
sheytanelkebirali khedery was unceremoniously sacked by the US embassy in Iraq when they “discovered” he’s a salafi terrorist affiliate.
and you worked in syria as an “aid worker”…. hmmmm.
sheytanelkebirTo achive what? The car-bombing in Iraq is a much higher daily risc. Without a secure internal situation all spending for air assets supportung that is just a waste of money.
I was Demonstrating The iraq has no air defence capability.
On that particular topic… Last week Saudi fighter jets entered iraqi airspace and recon flew over iraqi units which hold the anti isis defensive lines near al nukhayb in the western desert… Within hours the units there had incoming mortar attacks from ISIS…
On the topic of fighter jets. Iraq was a customer for mi28 helo in 1990. But they only collected in 2014 due to “circumstances”…
Iraq ordered an32 in 1990 to replace it’s an24 and collected recently.
Iraq ordered 2a65 guns in 1990… And will collect soon.
They ordered a large batch of mig29s in 1990… Haven’t collected yet.
Iraq was also a customer for export version of the mig31 in 1990… Let us see if they will collect now?
Generally there is a pattern of Iraqis after 2012 picking up where they left off in 1990 with arms deals.
Russia built helo overhaul plant and a plant for assembling mrap in Iraq… They are building munitions plants (renovation of up to 30 state plants for munitions and weapons). But Iraqis have faced problems transferring money to Russia since money that is deposited in the US cannot be used to pay rosoboronexport….
sheytanelkebirIf true, that’s completely insane. Every unit should have anti-tank weapons. Not just every division, but every company. RPGs or the like (which would be perfectly good enough) should be standard issue to every platoon. It’s not difficult. For the cost of one fighter jet, enough could be bought for an initial issue. Supply is no problem: there are more countries than I can be bothered to count that make them. You don’t need huge numbers of weapons which can defeat M1s, just basic RPGs or similar all round, plus a relatively small number of guided weapons with more effective warheads.
Where are they? Why hasn’t Iran passed on a few tens of thousands? It has plenty to spare, & can replace them from its own factories.
They have recently bought some more rpg29 and 32 from Russia and At4 from USA… But they will be deployed in the next few weeks. On iraqi military forum they do track the action of the kornet missiles.
sheytanelkebirMore to the point, where was the Iraqi army? It should be able to overwhelm IS with ease. It has vastly greater numbers of troops, overwhelming firepower, & even without outside assistance, complete control of the air. Why is it losing?
1- The “inclusiveness” that was imposed on the Iraqi military resulted in a force riddled with 5th columnists (from the top to the bottom) who sell out their own troops to ISIS.
2- Iraq’s military has only 30 Abrams tanks operational (100 in depot, about 16 destroyed)… that is spread over a spaghetti front several thousand kilometers in length and tens of thousands of kilometers square. They have another 200 MBTs from older generations too… but once again, far too few to matter.
3- Iraqi HUMVEES and M113s are LESS RELIABLE and LESS WELL ARMED than the ISIS technicals.
4- They have 3 Cessna Caravans and 5 SU-25s as an “air force” … they do have a few dozen hellos spread over 2000km front… Meaning that the airpower element is pretty irrelevant in 99% of engagements since its simply unavailable.
Explosive-filled bulldozers should be easy meat for anti-tank weapons, or artillery in direct fire. A bulldozer blade is very thin & easily penetrated compared to the armour of a tank, & being packed with explosives, suicide bulldozers should be very easy indeed to destroy, causing massive damage to the forces deploying them if hit early. Why didn’t this happen? Why were they not blown up as soon as they appeared?
Only one Iraqi unit actually has anti tank weapons. The 5th mechanised division in Diyala. Its been fighting against ISIS attacks from Baiji, Hawija etc… with them.
Units of the PMU have destroyed dozens of “incoming” VBIEDs and the videos are on liveleak or youtube should you wish to see some…
A few men on the front line with the right weapons & the will to use them should have smashed this attack. Where were the weapons to do this with? The Iraqi army has enough of them. Why were they not used?
What happened is that the US and Sunni Tribes asked the Iraqis to withdraw the “popular mobilisation” from Ramadi, promising that local sunni tribes and US airpower will effectively replace them. Once the PMU withdrew, Ramadi fell within a week.
Where were Iraq’s Mi-35s, Mi-28s & Su-25s?
I do believe on those particular days there were sandstorms… so they were on the ground or fighting only in the hamrin hills and Baiji areas.
These question, & others, could be repeated over & over again.
Only because the quality of reporting and understanding of the conflict is horrendously weak .
How has this situation arisen?
The “international community” attempting to maintain a single Iraqi state against the wishes of the people who live there?
IS is weak, in terms of men & weapons.
They have “popular support” in the areas they control. When you think of Iraq, think of three “zones” Shia, Sunni, Kurd. See where ISIS can “easily take over” and where they can’t seem to take over for love or money. Still the “same” Iraqis defending each area… why the different outcomes?
So ISIS is certainly not weak. It has money, popular support and more importantly it has effectively infiltrated the Iraqi military through the “inclusiveness” policies of bringing in and “reintegrating” unrepentant terrorists and baathists in Iraq’s military.
It is fighting a conventional war for control of territory.
and it has only succeeded where it has popular support.
Why has it not been crushed?
Because the “international community” doesn’t accept “sectarian shia militias and indiscriminate and unrepresentative” Iraqi armed forces to do that.
The balance of forces is entirely against it.
It has the popular support of Pan-Arab TV stations and populations at the least. It has open access to trade via Turkey and Kurdistan Region. It has both local soldiers as well as tens of thousands of foreign volunteers, it has access to weapons it buys, captures from syria and Iraq, weapoins it “captures” from “moderate” rebels etc… and it operates a high temp battle using reliable civilian vehicles to make rapid attacks.
What is wrong with the Iraqi army?
I’ve gone over this. read above.
Fix that,
“international community” won’t allow the Iraqi army to kick out its illiterate “chief of staff” because he’s a kurd. They won’t allow Iraq to replace its “air force commander” who hasn’t bought any fighters or trained any pilots and crews in the last 10 years because he’s a kurd, It won’t allow the Iraqis to summarily execute all the treacherous commanders because it would be “sectarian”… for example the US has forced the Iraqis to replace the Salahuddin Force Commander (who maintained Baiji refinery and organised the rout of daesh in Tikrit and the rest of Salahudin) because he was a southern “shia” … and replaced him with a Local man from Tikrit… all fine, right. The BROTHER of the new commander is the “finance minister” of ISIS! And there are many many such “howlers”
& IS would quickly be reduced to a few guerrillas & terrorists.
nonsense. you could kill abu bakr al baghdadi tomorrow and it wouldn’t change one thing.
Make commanders stay with their units – & severely punish (shooting might be appropriate) those who abandon their men.
I already mentioned this. You can’t do that. Its sectarian.
Govern in a way that shows the state is for all Iraqis, not only Shias.
You seem to think that the state was governed in such a way. Quite simply Kurds don’t consider themselves Iraqis despite having about double the average Iraqi income now funded by the “shias” .. and Sunni arabs made up a dispropotionate percentage of ministers, military commanders and judges even under Maliki… The real issue is that the Sunni Arab community in Iraq simply REJECTS any Iraq that is different to the “glorious past”. And no number of positions of power or economic opportunities will change that. Its ALL or NOTHING.
Find all the officers who had ‘ghost’ soldiers under their command, & give them the choice of punishment for treason, or fighting at the front. And so on . . .
No. Once again, you’re making the mistake here. Can’t do that. It would seem to be a sectarian move to purge Sunnis.
sheytanelkebirIraq and Syria were enemies after 1981 and the Syrians sentenced Saddam to Death in absentia. That should give you a clue as to the accuracy of the talk by some people.
Also with regards to your insistence on arguing simple semantics For example. Su 22 losses. Iraqi official record splits them by subtype. But at the same time pilots discussions it will lump them subtypes together. Simple and logical difference which is clear to anyone who is simply interested in the truth and not simply attempting to undermine the others perspective which don’t account for the peddled fabrications from the iranian side.
As for “leaning towards” 200 iraqi aircraft shot down in air to air combat. You need to back that up with iraqi air force inventory numbers which simply do not agree with your assessment at all. So alongside the losses to Sam and aaa and accidents… Iraqis lost what 350 jets? According to you and tom cooper. Sadly.the Iraqis didn’t get the message and seem to only miss 150 or.so jets…. Got serials or wreckage for the claims? Surely most would be in iranian territory and easy to verify. 😉
Also you need to show a positive proof of a claim.
So Iraqis claim to lose so.many airframes. They show evidence from.internal records and audits..
Iranians make claims for what they destroyed. The claim does not match actual iraqi losses. So here the argument is between hard iraqi records and iranian claims (unofficial at that)…
sheytanelkebirACIG also stated MiG-25 kills. Seems to me like a lot of places did and it seems probable. The SR-71 was almost hit, only an inept proximity fuse on an SA-2 prevented it, not the aircraft’s speed. Missile passed it head-on, if the fuse had gone off on time, the SR-71 would have been downed.
Acig is tom.cooper.
All references go back to tom cooper.
Etc…
sheytanelkebirIsn’t that what I’ve been saying? Iraqi pilots were awarded for shooting down F-14s! I never said they awarded the Merc for ONLY shooting down F-14s! :eagerness:
no. that is not what you claimed. You claimed that the F14 was a “special” target aside from any other and there was an award for shooting one down. That is patently false as we have amply demonstrated. And that aids the argument we’re making that the F14 was not thought of as anything “special” by the Iraqi military. shooting one down was NO DIFFERENT than shooting down an iranian T33. You got the same award.
Well this is where I disagree. Even if most of “. . . the hundreds of thousands of sorties . . .” of Iraqi planes where within the 50KM depth if Iranian territory as you said bringing in the PC-7 into the picture for most of it, I will still say this proves that air force had a major role in Iraqi forces; although, I do not agree the effectiveness was in this area!! I will also stick to the number of aircraft Iraq had acquired by the end of the war which showed its effectiveness during the war.
no. air forces had budgets (huge ones at that) and they tried making impressions. however ultimately all battles of the war were won and lost with artillery, tanks and infantry. I would say (at least on the Iraqi side) that engineering works made a decisive role in the war, and Iraqis used man made water and earth works to negate their major disadvantage in strategic depth and defensive topology that the Iranians did not have. All far more important than MiG25s or F4 phantoms or anything of that sort…
Air power played a marginal secondary role, and even when iran didn’t have air defences iraqis never used their airpower effectively. and even when Iran had 300 BVR planes versus 0 Iraqi BVR planes… the iranians never protected their interior air space effectively let alone managed to impose air supremacy over the battlefield… all in all it shows very ineffective use of air power by both sides. yet they both continued putting effort and funding in keeping their air forces active. similarly Iraq spent over $3Bn for its navy in 1982 despite the Iraqi navy having no current or any potential future effective role in warfare due to its geography.
Isn’t this like saying Iran did not lose any F-4s during the Iran-Iraq war, just F-4Ds & F-4Es?!! Needless to say that the export version of SU-17s were dubbed as SU-20 & SU-22 with the post letters showing exact type of the SU-22 model; i.e., SU-22M/M3/M4 . . . but at end they are SU-22s. I do not understand what you mean by “Don’t CONFLAGATE!” If its conflagrate, I still don’t understand by what you mean, “Don’t set fire?”.
I apologise I meant “conflate”.
During the first two years; although, Iranians had sea and air superiority, they didn’t have the ground advantage at all. After Iraq’s initial attack in September, they managed to capture the city of Khorramshahr and eventually surround the city of Abadan. Iran air force’s major air to air kills were in the first two years of the war (almost decimating Iraq air force as you phrased!) and eventually, as they realized the war will prolong, the F-14 hunting missions turned to deterrent missions. The prolonged war in the battlefield was to Iraq’s advantage as they could replenish their armed forces easily; although, with debt. Iran had the funds, but didn’t have the support of the western countries to supply their mainly western armed forces.
It is correct that Iran had 300+ BVR fighters, but that was on paper. And on paper Iran had 77 F-14s, but as said, the F-4 rate of kills was very low which can be confirmed by the kills it had during Vietnam war, about 13% on Sparrow (BVR) missiles. However, it was the F-14s that held the Iraqi air force back forcing them to focus on ground achievements. In 1981 however, Iraq received its previously ordered Mirage F-1s which considerably increased its air performance, yet even when encountering the F-14s, they would cancel their mission; unless, it was an F-14 hunting mission which they would use 5-6 fighters trying to trap the F-14s. They were successful a few times in this task.
but they didn’t decimate the iraqi air force. I mean even Tu-16, Il-28, Hawker Hunter and SU-7s were flying into Iranian air space in 1980-81, bombing Iran and flying back unscathed… HUNDREDS OF TIMES! not once or twice. surely If Iran could keep just 4-5 F14s in the air they would have decimated those squadrons flying 1950s antiques.
Iraq did not regularly bomb Tehran in the first two years and even towards the end, it wasn’t regularly. The job was left to the low accurate Scud missiles on both sides, which later came to be known as the City Wars.
even MiG23BN were bombing Tehran in the early 80s, let alone TU-22 and anything else that had the range. Iraq had no missile capable of reaching Tehran until 1987. Every single raid on Tehran until then was by aircraft.
sheytanelkebirAgain, if the F-14s weren’t effective and the Iranian air defense were weak (which compare to Iraq was true), why didn’t Iraq use its air power? During the war, Iraq kept purchasing fighters replenishing its air force and by the end of the Iran Iraq war, its number of planes were at least twice as many as when the war broke out with Iran. So why purchase these air crafts? Air supremacy in every war plays the major role. Your comments are full of contradictions.
they did use their aircraft. but not particularly effectively. as to why. it was always down to saddam wanting to minimise potential losses of aircraft, because it was a long drawn out war of attrition.
Also MOST Iraqi sorties were within a short strip along the border. Iranian sorties were far lower even and their deep penetration into Iraqi airspace even rarer.
as for number of missions. like I told you, due to range, and the russian types that predominated in Iraq. number of missions was large. ordnance per mission was always LOW. Iraqi artillery would drop as much ordnance onto Iran in a couple of months, than Iraq’s entire war time air ordnance drop onto Iran. I am repeating myself here.
F14 simply was irrelevant in the overall war. The MiG25 was also irrelevant in the overall war. Easy to understand?
as for not listening to “tom cooper” and looking at “other sources” (most others simply base their stories on the Tom Cooper / Farzad Bishop fantasies). It is simply that we know the number of airframes Iraq lost. Other sources simply cannot go HIGHER than that total… and it has to be “divvied up” with other assets that Iran used to bring them down. How come Iraqis seem to be cautious about Hawk SAMs far more than F14? They certainly feared the HAWKs multi-target ability and wished to have an equivelant system throughout the war.
They spent a lot of time and effort acquiring ARMAT, KH28 and other ARM capability and developing medium altitude attack tactics with SEAD / DEAD in order to protect themselves from MiM23 missile batteries. But they did not pay much attention or resources against the F14 “threat”.
In reply to your “mercedes thing” … The Mercedes cars were given to pilots generally. there was NEVER EVER a specific link of car awards to F14s. That is the key difference. The F14 fantasists “claim” that Iraqis wanted to hunt these planes so badly they made an award for shooting one down… not true. You got the award whether you shot down an F14, an F4 or an EC130… or got an Iranian tanker / disabled Khark jetty or a multitude of other things. F14s were “nothing special” from Iraqi perspective. That is the POINT I was bringing across.
with regards to some other things.
Again, this is according to Iraqi claims. I do not reply on Wiki 100%, but it also mentions Iraqi records didn’t show any loss of SU-22 during the war with Iran, while we know Iraq had lost SU-22s as well. It is possible do to the fear of the Iraqi commanders from Saddam, they have doctored the documents.
This is completely TRUE. Iraq did NOT lose a single SU-22. They DID however lose many SU-22M / M3 /M4… Don’t CONFLAGATE!
finally as to why Iraq didn’t win the war in 6 months if hte F14 was ineffective… Because neither air force had much bearing on the outcome of the war! similarly their ballistic missiles were irrelevant.
Iraqi Army was all along the front line (1600km) against an enemy that had 1M km2 strategic depth and 3-4x the population. Iran’s capital was 650km away and protected by mountain ranges… Iraq’s capital Baghdad was 100km from the border and through an open field with no obstructions…
But you knew that already? The war was a simple grinding land war between entrenched Iraqi lines and periodic Iranian assaults at different points. front lines never moved much and were so long that neither side could marshal enough forces for a decisive break through… however advantage certainly laid with Iran when it came to the following:
1- Geographical (depth of border)
2- Topographic (more defensive land)
3- Population (4x the size of Iraq’s)
4- Technology (their air force and army had better technology than Iraq from day 1) – air force had 300x BVR fighters vs Iraq having 0 in 1980-1982, as one poignant example.
5- Economic (Iran could fight the war without resorting to debt) – All of Iraq’s ports were blockaded and closed from Day 1 of the war.
6- Centre of power (Tehran was 650km away with mountains in between, protecting it from air and land assaults naturally. Whilst Baghdad being a 100km from the border and with an open field to the border was extremely vulnerable… it was literally 2 hours tank drive away – Baghdad was also far more vulnerable to surprise air attacks… yet despite that it suffered far less).
so despite all advantage being on Iran’s side. It never managed to “win”. Despite having 300 BVR planes at the beginning of the war, they could not stop Iraqi planes (which were mostly obsolete at that time … SU-7, Hawker Hunter, MiG21, MiG23BN, Tu16, Tu22) from bombing Iran as deep as tehran regularly. Those Iraqi planes had NOTHING to protect themselves, no ECM, no BVR capable fighters, no AWACS, no SEAD nothing… Just 5-6 Iranian F14s patrolling along the border areas should have decimated the Iraqi Air Force completely had the F14 actually worked, and the Iraqis had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that could stop it. That was 1980-82.
On the ground the Iranians had Chieftains, M60s, M110s etc… versus Iraqi T55 and T62 tanks. They lost every single armoured encounter. But still, the Iraqis never managed to capitalise on their gain… why? because tanks would be regularly sent without infantry on the ground opening them up for guerilla style tactics by baseejis inside Iran (this from my uncle who was on the front line on the 22nd september and drove to Dezful in a T62). Neither side made effective use of their equipment at hand. Both were very cautious and defensive trying to minimise potential for catastrophic losses, and thereby never made the kind of bold manouvers and force concentrations in the air or on land that would have been decisive.
also please try to use quotes correctly.
sheytanelkebirWell first time I heard was in the above story and second time from F-1XFP. Perhaps the Mercedes were offered on several occasions and not necessarily ONLY for the F-14 alone?:confused:
unlike iranians and Tom Cooper, Iraqis weren’t particularly obsessed by F14s. in fact from the iraqi perspective the main things they speak mostly of are:
F4 phantoms
baseej
Hawk missiles
iranian tanks, F14s etc… never made a “positive” impression on Iraqis.
in fact those old Mercedes (180 I think) are even called “pilots edition” in Iraq. They were indeed very numerous, and completely disconnected from any overt association in particular with F14s… with which there were very few incidents anyway, considering the war lasted for 8 years.
with regards to air supremacy, neither side had air supremacy nor made particularly effective use of airpower. In theory Iraq could have used Iran’s weakness to make strategic assaults to weaken Iran’s infrastructure by the mid to late 80s… but they never did. a few attacks here and there in a piecemeal fashion. Iran rarely penetrated Iraqi air space and had little effect on the ground war on the front.
for both countries, helicopters played the most useful role in the war in supporting their respective ground forces. and from the Iraqi side, the MiG21, SU-25 and PC7s.
the more “strategic” assets of both sides were a bit of a side-show really, including the iraqi mirages, mig25s etc…
Iran’s air defences were so weak that by Spring 1988 Iraq was using Il-76 freighters to bomb inside Iran with pallet bombs. that would have been easy meat if Iraqis had “feared” the F14 surely… but then again, the Iraqis never had the courage to go “deeper” and more intensive in their assaults in the fear of racking up losses. it was very much a war where each side calculated to minimise asset losses, and thus aircraft played a secondary role for both sides.
sheytanelkebirthis is not true.
hundreds of mercedes cars were given to air force pilots including loads of SU22 and SU25 pilots. the reward was in no way linked to shooting down F14s.
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