MiG-23M (ed. “23-11M”), produced from 1973 to 1976
According to book Polish authors, was issued 750 MiG-23ML(23-12),of which-third went on exports.In turn,the plant Banner of Labor officially indicates that it produced 1100 aircraft modification MLA(23-12A) in 1977-1983 years, and separates them from ML.

wonderful
you helped me with the mig-29 thread as well i remember
very grateful
you are a great resource for this forum

but the Mirages and F-16s can do both interdiction and provide aircover for the german army
why be solely dependent of RAF and USAF for air supeority fighters ?

I’m going to say that KSA would still have won the air war due to having US supplied AWACS and F-15Cs. I know one KSA pilot got 2 kills. The ground war would have been more interesting though. Iraq had the world’s 4th largest military and army at the time, they also had longer range howitzers than the allies believe it or not. Would KSA have had enough air power to overwhelm the Iraqi armoured units fast enough? Difficult to say, because the A-10s, F-111s and F-15Es did nearly all the work in that department dubbed ‘tank plinking’, and KSA did not have those. Another question would be KSA SEAD/DEAD capability, which would have lacked many US assets, although I think they had ALARM-equipped Tornados. Would the Iraqis have stormed the Saudi on the ground and taken their airbases were in not for allied help? Who knows?

Thanks for your perspective

I think the iraqis vs KSA /arab states would have been a little less lopsided had iraqis also used better tactis and not committed their aircraft piece-meal

regarding saudi pilots , yes I know they got a few kills but that is when iraqi air defences have already been gutted by coalition and incessant airstrikes.

In a purely defensive role i.e protecting saudi airspace i think they would have been successful esp given the fact that the iraqi mig-29 was 9.12B with very limited avionics

but they would not have destroyed iraqi airpower on the ground like coalition did , nor could they probably entirely IAF eliminate them from supporting iraqi ground forces.But attrition would be high probably much higher than what iraqis faced against IIAF

although in strike /CAS role would they press their F-15 into service ? as they had only 25 tornado IDS in 1990

In Desert Storm the AIM-7M Pk was 34%. The Iraqis had some MiG-29s and MiG-25s. The Iraqi ground control assets were neutralised very early on by a combination of cruise missiles, F-117s and SEAD/DEAD, along with the use of BQM-74s and TALD decoys. There were more targets hit during the first 24 hours than the allied air offensive hit in Europe during the whole of 1942 and 1943.

incredible
I wonder what the gulf war would have been like if US/NATO did not intervene
lets say it was Iraq vs KSA/egypt/UAE and gulf arab states
do you think the air war would still have been so one-sided
the saudis and egyptians did have a lot of great aircarft ( 42 f-15c , 90 f-16a/c , 16 mirage 2000 , 50 F-4E , 20 tornado ADV , UAE had further 20+ mirage 2000)

Yep, the longest kill in Desert Storm was 28km, with 16 kills beyond 10nm (18.5km) and only 5 requiring dogfighting for F-15s. But ROEs were very strict in Desert Storm, that’s why the Phoenix wasn’t used, and the F-15 was the only aircraft with NCTR, so it got the longest kills. That said, Iraqi EW was not cutting edge.

Yes just reading Tom coopers book on mig23 seems like Soviets deliberately gave their Arab allies not just inferior planes but also not integrated radar GC systems or EW platforms ground or air based

I think aim7m pk was like 25 % atleast the ones fired from f-15

One study reckoned that Soviet jamming could reduce radar effective range down to 9-11km, which was why IRST was introduced for the Typhoon.

I read in gulf war effective range of AIM7M was 20-30 km at medium range thats where most kills were scored

so the likelihood of BVR kills in 1980s at > 50 km range are very unlikely ?

The early N001 set only had MTBF of 5 hours. Only then it managed to get fixed and reliability improved to 200 hr.

ok so it malfunctioned every 5 hours , but I’m assuming that is when radar is turned on /emitting till it malfunctions ?
it is not every 5 hr of flying time of su-27 right ? as a lot of time fighters fly with their radars not turned on /emitting

But just because you read it on a forum doesn’t mean you have to believe it, does it?

It’s said that the Yak-28 never received state certification at all – all those hundreds of aircraft flying in full military service during the Cold war were essentially illegal…

no ofcourse not but i wanted to confirm it as official date su-27 got accepted as standard fighter for vvs and pvo is august 1990