FloggerDon’t put words in my mouth…I didn’t say nor 64 nor 64:0. Read what I said…I saud about 57-60…where did you get 64?? and I didn’t say they didn’t CLAIM they shot down Israeli aircraft.
As far as I know Syria’s CLAIMs for air-air are actually about 17 Israeli aircraft…after they finally dropped a lot of their claims. This would include about 12 MiG-23 kills and about 5 MiG-21 kills. Of these I’d say about 4-5 MAY be true or resulting in damaged aircract…say one F-15 damaged by MiG-21s (or it may have been two)…2 drones shot down by MiG-23s and maybe one more aircraft damaged by MiG-23s possibly.
I wouldn’t be the right person to ask “what press releases” bla bla bla…I don’t think any serious researcher is going to base these things on Syrian press releases…but there are OTHER sources for this matter even within Syria…as a number of books obviously have been written by Syrian officers on the events…where such things come out.
I think those numbers are not included in the number I gave above. And I’m not sure if it truly is 15-20…I think it was much lower than that. I know 3 Su-17s were destroyed by cluster bombs dropped from a fourth one flying above them…in a bad case of fracticide…and probably some others but to be frank I think you’r confusing with 1973…in 1980 I’m certain it wasn’t anywhere near that high. As was said…the AD was rendered virtually inefective even before Syrian fighters started flying there in any numbers.
Right…these things can’t be hidden very easily even in Syria…and from what I can see their admittance to losses seems to be FAIRLY accurate…as in I think they admitted pretty much to all their real losses. Israeli claims of 80+ in the air…are probably exagerated a bit…I think everyone probably agrees to this…and I’m not saying they did it on purpose as Flogger will claim…but simply becasue many such engagements the Israeli pilots thought ended in a kill…may not have but may have been damaged aircraft…or BVR engagaements where the plane may not really have been shot down…or just wrong pilot accounts. It was very hgih…but probably not 80…probably in the 50s and 60s.
KAPEDANI
I do not agree with your statement, the Syrian claims are as importat as the Israeli claims , my personal opinion is without official Syrian claims is hard to prove even the Israeli claims.
If you have 80 pictures of the Syrian aircraft shot down well you prove your case even without the Syrian claims, nevertheless we have not all the 80 pictures, any logic is consider the proven and really confirmed evidence, personally i can quote easily DeAgostini`s World aircraft video collection chapter 13 titled “Israeli Air Power in Action” as hard evidence to at least 5 air to air kills from the Bekka Valley Air battle to prove the Israeli claims for at least 5 Syrian aircraft shot down by Israeli F-15 and F-16s, here in this Forum i have seen 2 pictures of wreckages from the Bekka Valley to prove the Israeli claims, from that time i have only seen a picture of a Kfir C2 kill shot down over Lebanon.
To tell you the truth i would like to see more pictures by either side to prove that over inflated scores both claim, the Syrian claimed at least 30 Israeli aircraft as shot down, the Israelies claimed at least 80 Syrian aircraft as shot down, at to what i have read Syria only acknowledged around 24 fighter aircraft as lost, Israel claims very few only 2 israeli aircraft shot down, if you know math you know that is equal to a minimun of 2 Israeli aircraft lost and a max of 30 Israeli aircraft shot down and the Syrian losses would be a minimun of 24 Syrian aircraft lost and a max of 80 Syrian aircraft shot down that is what shoul be taken as a more less reliable score, Krasnaya Zveda said the Syrians claimed 65 Israeli aircraft shot down though.
FloggerWhich 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.
I wonder who confirmed those scores, i doubt Syria acknowledged a terrible defeat as all of you claim, specially when no Syrian General or news outlet are quoted and no Syrian official version is mentioned, besides i doubt the Syrians will acknowledge a defeat that does not have a nationalistic overtone and does not give a good image to the Syrian Army and Government. š
FloggerThe problem is that many times this man does not report any sources at all in his main text or that his sources are plain rubbish (i.e. Ministries of Information, Government Press Agencies etc.) but nonetheless suit the story he would like to tell. I personally prefer writers to critically analyse the reliability and authenticity of their sources, instead of merely using whatever fits the picture they want to paint.
VAIR
Yefim Gordon like any author uses sources that have counterclaims, if you ask pictures for each and every aircraft shot down claimed by any nation you will see that almost no one offers all the pictures and everybody will give more credibility to who ever they think has better sources.
FloggerFlogger I donāt understand any part of your rant?? Do you have a point to make?? And if you doā¦how exactly are you achieving this??
You keep repeatingā¦Syria said thisā¦Russians said this. Periodā¦therefore you have showed to us that Israel or US MUST have lost more since these other guys are CLAIMING more.
And then youār sayingā¦west is lying because they donāt have pictures for all the aircraft they claim shot down.
Your argument is kind of ridiculous if youār saying the west is lying because of lack of pictures..and to prove it youār giginv us CLAIMS by Russian or Syrian sourcesā¦something with FAR LESS to back it up.
Floggerā¦.to make things clear to youā¦Syria ADMITTS to about 80% of those losses Israel claims to have shot down. They ADMITT to them. From what Iāv readā¦they admit to about 57-60 or so fixed-wing aircraft losse sand several helicopters. Soā¦if the Syrians ADMITT to most of these lossesā¦.and they correspond pretty well with Israeli claimsā¦then HOW can you say thereās āNO EVIDENCEā because thereās no pictures of all these wrecks?? Because YOU havenāt seen the pictures of the wrecks??
No sideās claims are ever 100% correct. Israei aircraft may have damaged other Syrian aircraft with missile shots…thought they shot down the aircrafts but in fact some of them may have only been damaged and made it back to baseā¦for example.
The same can be said of the Syrians. For example it is known one F-15 took an R-60 missile up one of its engines from a MiG-21. The Syrian pilot might have reported that as a killā¦even though the Israeli plane was only damaged and made it back.
BUTā¦.when 80% of your losses are confirmed by the other side as wellā¦.then youār pretty trustworthy. If 1% of your losses are confirmed by the other sideā¦and you have ZERO evidence to back any of your claims upā¦then youār in deep shi*t.
Syria can provide evidence of 1-2 F-4s, one Kfir, one A-4 and a couple of helicopters. Most of these losses were already either directly confirmed or indirectly confirmed by Israel years ago as well. So no secretā¦
The same with Iraq or Serbia. YOu keep sayingā¦but Iraq and Serbia claim so and soā¦.or the better oneā¦āI have evidence from Iraqi and Serbian TVāā¦What evidence??? Some guy on Iraqi or Serbian TV going ātoday we shot down 135 of Satanās aircraft!āā¦.and thatās evidence?? Some idiot on TV showing a fuel tank and saying āThis is a Tornado!ā Thatās your evidence??
Iraq on the first day of the 91 Gulf War claimed about 130 kills on that first night. 90% of them were decoys thrown by the US to do just thatā¦make the Iraqi AD respond. The Iraqis realized pretty quickly what they had done was shoot down a bunch of decoys and thus make themselves good targetsā¦.and they didnāt do it again.
But are you going to come now and tell usā¦.āI heard on Iraqi TV they shot down 130 planes on the first night alone!ā??? I think you willā¦now that I told you.
As for Serbiaā¦.well weār not even going to get into thatā¦lolā¦that was a comedy show with no parallels.
There are some things that CAN be arguedā¦.for example WHAT shot down the aircraft. Yes its POSSIBLE that SOME Coaltion aircraft may have been shot down by Iraqi fighters. Thereās NOTHING to back that upā¦no Iraqi pilot has come forward to say so since 2003. But it makes no difference. The Coalition didnāt lie about its lossesā¦.regardless if it knows for sure what shot down what type. Some are still unknownā¦and some may have been attributed to the wrong weapon. But thatās an entirely different argument from sayingā¦.ātheyār lying!ā. Theyār not lyingā¦.sometimes they donāt know and canāt know.
There are SOME things that can be arguedā¦like a lot of that stuff from ACIG I would say. Tom gets the idea to attribute 2 MiG-29 losses to Israeli F-15 in 2001ā¦writes an article with all the possible minute details you could want to knowā¦.and what is this all based on?? I have no ideaā¦and neither does heā¦since neither side claims anything of the sort happenedā¦none of the other parties which should have noticed such an event claim it happened (like NATO radars for example)ā¦all the details about it happening are wrongā¦so I think its an invented event and Tom got too easily carried away by some cheesy Babka article or something. I donāt knowā¦but such a thing could be arguedā¦MAY not be true (or certainly isnāt). Or the same can be said for say 80% of the Iranian claims Tom has in his booksā¦.which are based on nothing more than Iranian claims and many can be disproven by Iraqi claims ( no offense to Tomā¦he does a great job overallā¦but he gets too easily carried away by simple claims by Iranians without really hearing out the other side). Or for example when the ACIG people jumped on board and IMMEDIATELY claimed the F-15E shot down in 2003 was done by an abandoned Stinger. HOW they came up with thatā¦.no one has any ideaā¦they just did. Turns out it was probably an Iraqi AAAā¦
ā¦but these are not claims of governmentsā¦and certainly by no stretch of the imagination FINAL claims. Theyār claims of individualsā¦and individuals or ānews agenciesā claimsā¦.arenāt claims at all. Yes all sides have propagandaā¦but its one thing to have CNN say one day this and this happenedā¦and then a few hours later a different more accurate story comes onā¦thatās something generally caused by lack of information and poor jounnalismā¦but evenrtually the story gets straightened out. Its another thing to have a government controlled news agency say with certainty this and this happenedā¦and show some ridiculous fuel tank or unexploded bomb or some other such ridiculous thing on TV to back up their claims and so forth. Thatās a DELIBERATE misinformation campaignā¦generally aimed at their own people who canāt know better because they donāt have access to anything better.
I donāt know if you can understand the differenceā¦.from what youāv written in the past it seems you canāt.
So if 80% of my claims are backed up by the otherās sides claims as wellā¦thatās damn good. If 1% of my claims are backed upā¦then youār probably lying. You understand??
Kapedani
Can you tell me in what press release? when? and where? who reported the fact the Syrians addmitted that close to 64 Syrian aircraft were lost?
what was the score that they addmitted 64:0? :rolleyes:,
FloggerInteresting political rant, but I was not referring to whose country’s spokesman are ‘on average’ the more reliable sources. I was specially interested in the events of the 1982 Lebanon invasion and the aerial combat that took place. As for the sources we have to rely on to sketch a picture of what happened, I highly value the judgment of Tom Cooper and his ACIG-palls; they do not seem to be biased versus one side of a conflict and are primarily interested in extracting history instead of honoring a specific aircraft or country. If they judge an event as having taken place based on both online and offline sources, I feel I can rely on that judgment. Yefim Gordon, despite his nice (plagiarized) aircraft descriptions, seems more interested in flag waving and promoting Soviet aircraft using whatever doubtful sources available that support the thesis he intends to write.
VAIR
From my opinion any opinion is bias, pictures are unrefutable evidence, Yefim Gordon has only written what is reported in Russian online and offline media sources.
The MiG-29`s kill of a F-117 Yefim Gordon did not made it up, i in fact watched a Russian TV program where they said the same, check http://www.brazd.ru and you will see they also claim similar scores.
Check other popular russian language webpages such as http://www.strizhi.ru or http://www.airforce.ru and you will see there is lots of information that has been popularized by Yefim Gordon in the west.
Flogger“The Syrian news agency SANA claimed that 19 Israeli and 14 Syrian planes had been downed on 9 June.”
From your single link above given, when you still ask for pics to confirm such 14 losses from that single day!
It speaks volumes that you do not give the other links you are mention!!!!
Sens
Please SANA is not the Israeli Minstry of Defence, they never said 80:0, you want me to believe because Sana says 19:14 it proves the Israeli claim š® please Sens at no moment SANA is proving the Israeli claim unless you say also proves Krasnaya Zveda`s claim of 67 Israeli shot down aircraft š
FloggerThat comes from an article from a Russian (not Russian, but Soviet in fact) military newspaper from prior to 1984 not providing any evidence according the link you just gave (as judged by the word ‘extolled’). Hence, we may well regard such claims as completely unreliable and likely produced for propaganda purposes (just as the Israeli claim they did not lose any aircraft during the 1982 invasion). Further Russian sources even claim that 12 American F-14s and A-6s were shot down by SA-5s in 1982 over Lebanon, but again not a snippet of evidence to back that up.
Furthermore, some time ago on the ACIG-board I inquired about some claims by Yefim Gordon and he really has a terribly poor reputation when it comes to claims of AA-kills by Russian manufactured aircraft. You can read the discussion here:
Vair
The question is what do you call good reputation? i will be honest many would think i am pro-Russian and anti-western when i talk about aircraft but i am not simply it is, when we talk or any Historian talks about kills, unless you have a picture to prove the kill either of the wreckage or of the HUD or gunsight where you can confim the kill we can not call it a confirmed kill, if we have not such unrefutable proof we need to believe and trust the offical versions of each warring party.
Regarding kills to tell you the truth, i have only seen few MiG kills and other kills by Western aircraft, regarding wreckages i have seen several MiG-23 wreckages but never a MiG-25 wreckage, some MiG-29 and some F-4, some Mirage III, some MiG-15s, a Kfir C2, an F-117 and Mirage F1 wreckages.
We usually have to rely on official postures and depending on political inclinations many decide.
Of the 160 kills atributed to the F-16s or F-15s, i have only seen 3 Serbian MiG-29s, and 6 kills from the cockpit of F-15s and F-16s no more.
Undoutedly many claim NATO or the West is more reliable i do not think that is the case, i do not care who claims what but what real evidence they give, i have seen some evidence provided by Russian and Cuban sources as well some evidence provided by Serbian and Iraqi TV, the West also proves kills that is true, but rely only in the West is quit not totally reliable the West also has Bias, Russian the same so if i want to see the reality i have to believe both.
The West acknowledges some Panavia Tornadoes lost in 1991, but they claim SAM shot them down but some Iraqi statements claimed two were at least shot down by a MiG-23 and a MiG-29 respectively.
FloggerSo how reliable is that figure and do they have anything to back up such a large number? If we would have to rely on the hairsplitting by theACIG team there are at least no confirmed AA-kills of F-16s and F-15s in 1982 Lebanon. The discussion on their forum is a good read. š
Krasnaya Zveda (Red Star) reported in the 1982 that the Syrians achieved 60+ aircraft kills, that was reported by the “Aerospace Power Journal” here is the link The Bekka Valley Air Battle
FloggerA lot of empty words and no real source or links about that. I still suspect that most of that knowledge is from the internet, but 1982 happened around a decade before the last one came into general use.
Uh! Now you won`t addmit the Syrians denied the Israeli claims and now ask for links . Sens do not play the game of links you can search a little and you will find the answers, second that is an illogical statement, Syria as the Soviets in 1982 would have never addmitted a defeat
Read some books about the MiG-25 or the MiG-23. Yefim Gordom has some of them, read some Russian webpages relating to the MiG-23 or MiG-25 such as http://WWW.BRAZD.RU to hear some claims.
If you show me the 160 pictures that prove the F-15 and F-16 kills i end up the debate, up to now i have only seen 2 pictures of MiG-23 shot down over Lebanon and 5 air to air kill from the cockpit of Israeli F-15 and F-16s, two pictures of two Israeli F-4 wreckages and a picture of a Kfir C2 lost over Lebanon
If you read the article about the MiG-29`s combat application from http://www.brazd.ru, you will find that that they claim a British Tornado was shot down by a MiG-29 according to then Iraqi sources
See that the Iraqi also claimed this was not the only MiG-29`s victim, we know the british lost Several Tornadoes that is already acknowledged.
FloggerWhy not take your glasses first. I am not intrested if you are naive, but at least your idle, when it comes to you to look into sources, which do not bolster you opinions!
You better read such Syrian newspapers from those days. Claiming such is an cheap excuse to hide this gap from your own person!
Sens
Yeah yeah Sens, the Syrans never acknowledged 80:0 in favour of Israel, do not try to deviate from what you really want to affirm, the Syrians in fact climed a 30:24 kill ratio in their favour, some Russian Historians claimed up to 40+ Syrian losses but give to Syria at least 15 israeli aircraft destroyed very recently but in 1982 they gave a tally of 60+ Israeli aircraft lost.
They claim several F-15s, some shot down by MiG-25s others by MiG-23s, and some F-16 anf F-4 shot down by MiG-23s.
Some Russian books acknowledge the MiG-23 for example lacked maneouvrability and endurance and that limited their efectiviness in the middle east, that the MiG-25 was indeed shot down by Israeli F-15s but only 1 or 2, that is quit probable because the Iraqi MiG-25 were very elusive and very few also were shot down in 1991.
When any mentions Bekka Valley forgets that Israel has fought some air skirmishes and lost some fighters too.
it is not that the MiG-25 was a bad aircraft or the MiG-23 uncapable of shooting any thing or all the Syrian SAM batteries destroyed.
Syria undoutedly lost that air battle tactically but strategically was a draw, the MiG-25 and MiG-23 were just slightly inferior to the F-15 and F-16s but as a battle the Syrians never addmited defeat in 1982
FloggerNow where did I say that the aircraft didn’t go down at night? All I said was that the only footage I’d seen was of the wreckage at night.
And you’re best off not bringing that idiot’s website into all of this.
SOC
Why you need to insult the guy, i do not think his website is as bad as you claim, he has the pictures of the Serbian MiG-29 shot down and of the F-117 shot down, the guy informs about the Serbian claims better than anyone here, from a 1999 Serbian perspective.
Definitively his webpage is not bad, true the guy might have some mistakes or a perpective that is not pro western but not to the degree to say it is totally a waste view it or quote it.
FloggerBecause one consists of primarily democratic nations who have some degree of openess while the other one was a nationalistic dictatorship that supported the deaths of tens of thousands and is responsible for about a quarter of a million dead in 4 conflicts.
NATO and the USA are not saints but they are a helluva lot more open than Serbia was at the time.
Hehehehe
No nation on earth is free of Propaganda and lies all practice or have practiced it, see that democracy is just an excuse, Imperialism whether it is comunist imperialism, facist imperialism, nationalistic imperialism or capitalist imperialism, all have relied on Propaganda.
Serbia as NATO both are as unreliable as accurate sources simply because they relied on War and not on peace.
Historians should rely on both if they want to know more less what really happened, to say a Historian should rely only in one source is frankly propaganda and not History
FloggerThey gave that losses and claims in June 1982. When you are intrested in that really, you can look into the newspapers of those days or ask dpa/Reuters for infos about that. I fear you do not read Arab newspapers not even the ones written in English, maybe ‘kvadrat’ can help you out about that.
You still like it to cheat people.
In 1991 the western forces lost ~38 aircraft in Desert storm to all causes.
The Iraqi AF lost more than *** aircraft to all causes. Of those ~44 were credited to air to air combat.
Much more important, the Iraqis were defeated and its military showed impotence to prevent the western forces to achive that.
Hehehehehe Sens
You think i am so naive, Syria never addmited a score of 80:0 that is an Israeli claim supported by the West, and much much less in 1982 the Syrians would addmit it.
The same is with Iraq i said very clearly in air to air combat the Iraqi lost 44 aircraft while in combat the West lost 38 aircraft in operational Combat but remember that is a Western acknolwledged number yes of course Iraq lost some aircraft on the ground but that is very difficult to calculate because first many flew to Iran, many were hidden and basicly i am calculating any aircraft that was in the air in real combat operations.
If you check the Iraqi claims of 1991 they did not say the West lost 38 aircraft but much more combat aircraft.
If you used Western acknolwdged numbers always you will find smaller numbers of Western aircraft lost.
Same is with Reuters, you need to look for Pravda or Syrian news papers and you will see that History is not the same š
Western Media is always very different to non western Media in war reports because both use propaganda.
I did ask you if there is so much evidence of F-16s and F-15 air to air kills of almost 160 air to air kills WHY we can not see that evidence in videos so easily? i always have watched mostly Mock combat and only like six real air to air kills by F-16s and F-15
Remember many were achieved in dogfight by the famous AIM-9, the F-16 at least has claimed like 50 air to air kills and the F-15 like 100+ kills
like the following picture from an F-15 head up display (the picture is fromhttp://www.heritageflight.org)
FloggerOf cause it proves that the Syrian official admitted the loss of 16 of their aircraft on that very day alone. The events forced the Syrians to admit 16 at least, when the Israelis at the same day admitted nil, despite the Syrian claims. Both parties were aware that several Lebanese and other people were watching the events of that very day. Pilots bailed out and were picked-up at the ground and wreckages were scattered around with national markings.
What is left for speculation is, if the number was even higher?! That daily accounts from Syria resulted in a total losses not far from around 80 aircraft. So that number is no longer disputed really.
More intresting is the view about the Syrian claims, where the IDF-AF may have lost 25% of its total inventory, when true! I remember of the single Kfir wreckage pic in Lebanon!
When the USA achived similar ratios in the Iraq-Wars the Israeli claims looked no longer as an exaggeration.
The Syrian themselves do not invest much of their limited budget into their AF till today, when a lot of cheap MiG-23s and MiG-29s are around to buy!!!!
Sens
You are not proving what you claim, officially the Syrians never addmited they lost 80 aircraft and kill no Israeli fighter aircraft.
In fact they interviewed Syrian MiGs pilots who shot down Israeli fighter aircraft on Syrian TV and later those intervies were published in the former USSR.
You base your score on conjuctures, not in 80 pictures of Syrian aircraft wreckages or an Official Syrian statement
As video proof, there has been very few footage of actual F-15 or F-16 kills, that is the reality, pictures of american or Israeli aircraft with kills roundels painted on their noses you can find it is true but see that the Syrians never said that they did not loose any aircraft.
Usually in F-15 or F-16 videos you will find little evidence of any F-15 or F-16 victory and kill of any MiG, at the most you can watch F-15s or F-16 fighting mock up combats.
It is easier to watch WWII aerial combat than any F-15 or F-15 real combat from the cockpit.
The question is why if there is so much evidence of confirmed kills?
Israel and Syria even if Israel did win the air war have different accounts and it is unlikely that both Air Forces did not suffer losses.
In 1982 even with some degree of better equipment and training the F-16 was not utterly superior since it lacked BVR missiles and the AIM-7 even in 1991 did not shot down flocks of MiG-25s or MiG-23s remember that according to the Western official account the West lost 38 aircraft in combat and the Iraqi 44 aircraft in air to air combat.
FloggerI never wrote that the Syrian press released those number of 80:0!!!!!
They admitted the loss of ~80 aircraft, but balanced this be claims of a similar number of Israeli aircraft downed.
F.e. June 9th 1982, Israel claims 22 shot down plus seven damaged for no loss.
Syria admitted 16, but claimed 26.For that very day alone, Syria confirmed 16 of 22 kills claimed by Israel,
when Israel did not confirm a single kill of 26 kills claimed by Syria.
Maybe you have a very good explanation, why Syria admitted 16 at all that very day and ask your own sources about that single day alone. !!!!
That proves nothing only two different accounts, here is a video where you can see some F-15 Agressor and actual fight tell me why the have only one real kill while the rest are agressor aircraft versus F-15s see how easy the F-15 holds the F-14.
I have seen actual Israeli video footage but i never saw 80 kills with this i do not say there were no kills but definitively at least for aviation fans confirm kills is quit hard and at the most few can be proven
Sign In
