I think the fact that Iranians used US-made hardware plays a big role here. Western sources show clear tendences to put exaggerated emphasis on successes achieved by US-made aircraft. I get to hear about the VF-41 kills in Lybia, Isreali kills over Lebanon and Syria and USAF kills over Vietnam, Iraq and Yugoslavia in every book I open but if there wasn’t the acig website, I would hardly ever learn about the kills achieved by MiG-23s, Mirage F1s or MiG-21s, some of them pretty remarkable.

The American professional attitude towards marketing is of advantage. Of course some (or better all, me too) authors pick results according to their desired message (Flogger, do you read this?). Anybody who writes about the TOMCAT will write about the Iranian achievements, which are all of course due to the TOMCAT (and all fighters are INFERIOR!!!!) 😀 .

MiG-21s proved to be very lethal and affordable machines in the hands of the Vietnamese and Arabians, however, the campaigns they fought in were strategically lost due to other shortcomings.

On the other hand is the MiG-21 “Mr Manouverable” sinc Vietnam, a claim highly exagerrated if you see the typical kind of encounter (and the real advantage of a MiG-21 over an unslated F-4D/E). They were also not able to secure their airspace. Like with the Iranians a mixed success.

It’s fair to say Iran didn’t rule the skies, but they did win a larger number of air combats, and that was largely due to the fact that they were much better trained. Iraq was able to change things a bit when the all-aspect R.550 Magic and new Super 530 missiles were introduced to the Mirage F-1EQ fleet (the R.550 was also used on the MiG-21 I believe), whereas Iranian fighters were limited to the older AIM-7E and the rear-aspect AIM-9J.

Despite these technical advantages, the IRIAF was able to deal with the IrAF right up until the cease fire, and at no time did the Iraqi’s get close to having air superiority.

Some good reading on the subject comes in the form of Iranian F-14 Units in Combat and Iranian F-4 Phantom II Units in Combat. Some great detail on the air combat exploits of those two types (as well as the F-4’s air-to-ground and recce operations).

I don’t know where you are taking this. It is honestly not true, although one might get the impression if you read too much ACIG reports.

Here are some quote from Anthony Cordesman, senior adviser of the pentagon. The post is from me from another thread.

————————————————————————
From the very interesting publically available report “Lessons learned Iraq-Iran War” by Anthony Cordesman I quote some statements on air-to-air combat.

Air combat in the Iran-Iraq War was dominated largely by problems in command and policy, parts shortages, and personnel problems, rather than by aircraft numbers, technology, and tactics. Both Iraq and Iran generally sought to conserve their aircraft, and refused battle whenever possible. Iraq emerged with air superiority largely because of Iranian maintenance and re-supply problems and not because of combat performance.

And further on:

Fighter-against-fighter combat was only common during the first phase of the war. Iran’s air force was the more successful force during this phase, but this was as much due to Iraqi incompetence and the lower performance of the sensors, avionics, and missiles on Iraqi fighters as to Iranian ability. In retrospect, there is little doubt that the Iraqis misjudged Iran’s ability to fly air combat missions in spite of the revolution, and overestimated their own effectiveness. Iraqi planners also overestimated their own level of air combat training, the performance capabilities of their aircraft, the operational readiness of Iraq’s best squadrons, their reconnaissance assets, and their command and control capabilities.

We see that neither side had a real advantage. Cordesman also adds:

Iran lost most of its few air-to-air encounters after 1983, unless it used carefully planned ambush tactics against Iraqi attackers flying predictable paths of attack. Iran not only lost its technical edge over Iraq, the entire Iranian Air Force probably could not generate more than 30 to 60 sorties per day under surge conditions after 1983. Iran also lost one F-4 or F-5 on January 17-18 1985, under conditions suggesting the Iranian aircraft had serious missile or radar problems. This indicates Iran has be committed fighters to air combat with at least some inoperable avionics. Iran has reported growing reliability and survivability problems with all of its U.S.-made missiles and smart ordnance since 1984. Iraq, in contrast, was able to generate fairly high sortie rates from 1983 onwards, increasing from a maximum of 65 sorties per day, early in the war, to levels of 150 per day in 1984, and over 250 in 1986-1988, with claims of peaks as high as 600.

The Iranians were hence not able to conduct comparable amount of missions, so that the claim of good Iranian air force reasoned with the kills made in Iran-Iraq war is not truly valid, although it seems to be one of the few really agreed facts that this war was the big success for Iran and the F-14. Like many agreed “facts” in popular fighter knowledge this seems highly questionable.

You forgote one thing though. Syria admitede that at least 15-20 where shot down by their own Airdefence.

Which would be strange as Syria admitted that its air defence in the battle space (Bekaa Valley) was effectively muted by previous Israeli attacks, finally causing the disaster.

According to “Le Fana de l’aviation” from october 1997, the crew of the Tupolev was badly affected by the radiations. They all died of cancers…

Which I doubt because the test campaign was surely limited. Most of the time they carried the reactor around. It is not even sure if the reactor went critical at all. Right is that the Russians cared a bit less about shielding, but never forget important factors like exposition time. Cancer is normally only caused by inhalation of radiactive particles. If one is subject of pure external radiation, he will get radiation sickness, no cancer.

If you get cancer from this kind of exposure, you get it right away, not years later, when there is no exposure any more.

let me revisit this pre-emptive strike idea. I was only an idea but unlike Iran, bases used by the US and others are fairly well known, as are what is based there and what defences. Using ones airforce in a “Hail Mary” operation would cost the Iranians dearly but then again their airforce will only have a limited life any way in any future conflict with the US and its allies. Actual material impact would not be great but imagine what the media would do with film of an air attack on a US Base. Remember the impact the attack on the Embassy in Saigon had on the US public and how they viewed Vietnam. Yes I am stretching things a bit but surely a Forum is where one can air ones thoughts.

This thread is purely theoretical and the right place for your ideas.
To the topic: It may well have the opposite effect. If Iran makes a preemptive strike it will justify an all-out air strike against air force and CCC-installations, of course AD-systems will be included. Once again: there is not much Iran can lose, the political gain for Iran in case of an unilateral American attack is big and actually I think they are opting for that.

As for my coments on Gunboat deplomacy, I stand by this. I am a strong supporter of the Military and the use of force where neccessary, but force should always be used as a last resort. When the decision is taken to use it, the maximum force should always be brought to bear and clear objectives defined. Since Gulf War 1 governments have sought to used technology to fight wars almost as a PR exercise. Fighting wars on the cheap (relatively), aiming for zero friendly casualties or collateral damage, War by Windows XP. Technology should be used to allow a force to carry out is task more effectively not allow politicians to reduce the size of the force to be used.

Lockheed Martin sells it this way and surely there are some congress members who need “awesome” advertisement to pass 450 bn USD defence spending. But the decision takers are in my eyes very aware of the limitations of their equipment (while they show obvious misunderstanding of issues not including “lasers” like peace-keeping and political issues).

If Iran shows itself to be a real threat through its Nuclear programme then military action maybe the only option, but what I was trying to say is that we shouldn’t underestimate the resources needed and for all the west hi tech equipment, we have little good intel on Irans’ true capabilities. A force greater than that used in Gulf War 1 would be needed to avoid the mess that happened in Gulf War 2. again this is my opinion.

As long they have no long range systems to deliver the bomb, they are no threat for us (“the western world”: Europe, USA, Australia). Even Israel is nearly untouchable (and can strike back). They can bomb Basra, but what for? In the end with their limited second strike capability it would be more useful to destroy their delivery systems than their enrichement facilities.
An attack against Iran nuclear facilities is no one afternoon hit & run game, it would mean to persistently strike a wide variety of targets and while doing this it would necessitate to take out AF and AD-systems.

I disagree . If it operated in a night mission in a zig-zag flight path packed with HE ( high explosives ) et. al and in a suicide “martyrdom” mission it could sink an Arleigh Burke class ( for example ) quite easily which is not armoured satisfactorily; and especially in a saturation attack where anti-ship missiles are being fired and that new rocket-torpedo provided by the Russians . Even though the Arleigh Bourke class have a special gun now for terrorist boats ( a gun which hasn’t been tested so far ) . Don’t know how powerful that prop engine is though … :confused:

Perhaps this is its real mission ?

Any thoughts ?

Range problem: Arleigh Burke is not 10km off your shore but 100km

Detection problem: You don’t really know where it is because it is behind the horizont and USN will deny any aircraft to fly within 200km of its fleet.

Defence problem: They have 2 CIWS 20mm canons per ship. They put this thing in pieces. To saturate them at least half a dozen are needed.

actually no, GPS reciever are that just recieved only and don’t transmitter any back signal.how GPS works when sending locating data is by you have enter your present location into the reciever itself and the GPS will always spool data from that that sats locating you have enter over and over again it’s called spooling and the reciever will filter the correct info automaticly for you as long you enter the location your going correctly..also if you did send out a GPS signal back the US reserve the right to BOMB you.they consider any interfernce with any USA commucation sat ” AS A ACT OF WAR”

:diablo: :diablo: :diablo:

I guess he meant that any antenna can physically be identified. The question is the magnitude. GPS-signals are very weak and its change by a passing aircraft might be very small. The van has to drive through the street. If you detect the aircraft the second its bombs you the information is of limited value.