Why would the Soviets send inexperienced pilots to Egypt in 1970, it was actually a very important mission set for them? I think the last thing people attribute the Israelis’ success to are the aircrafts’ performance and capabilities.

The issue we’re dealing with here is the claim that when actual Russian/Soviet hardware is used by Russians/Soviets it suddenly improves several orders of magnitude in deadliness. Sadly though, combat statistics say otherwise.

By all credible accounts, the Bekaa Valley battle was a walkover. According to the RAND analysis, Syrian aircraft were monitored by RPVs on take off and were constantly tracked by AWACS from the moment they were off the ground. The Mig-23 variants used by Syria differed very little from those used by the Soviets at the time and had the vulnerability of no RWR coverage from their sides.

Israeli AWACS and F-15s operating as mini-AWACS were directing the Israeli fighters so intercepts would approach from the Syrians’ beam aspect. They often didn’t know they were under attack until they were dead. Their aircraft and weapons were outperformed, their GCI communications were jammed leaving their pilots in a state of disarray and chaos and their enemy was operating AWACS and ELINT assets. Articles and studies on the battle (including those published by the soviets later) concluded that the disparity in situational awareness was by far the major contributing factor in Syria’s (and the Soviet’s) humiliating defeat.

A better demonstration of Soviet aircraft performance was the Rimon 20 air battle. 12 Israeli Mirage IIIC and 4 F-4, outnumbered by almost 2 to 1 scored a 5-0 kill ratio against the latest Soviet Mig-21MFs flown by Soviet pilots. The Mirage IIIC scored the majority of the kills and that variant was more than 6 years older than the Soviet MFs they were beating.

Indeed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rimon_20

Rimon 20 (Hebrew: רימון 20‎‎, Pomegranate 20) was the code name of an aerial battle which pitted the Israeli Air Force directly against Soviet fighter pilots stationed in Egypt during the War of Attrition. Israel selectively chose its most skilled fighter pilots to participate in the planned dogfight in order to send a message to the Soviet Union. During the three-minute engagement, which took place on July 30, 1970, the Soviets were dominated by their veteran Israeli counterparts, resulting in the downing of five Soviet-flown MiG-21s by Israeli F-4 Phantoms and Mirage IIIs. Egyptian military leaders were satisfied to hear the outcome of the battle because the Soviets had long been criticizing Egypt’s aerial losses to Israel and attributing them to the lack of skill of its fighter pilots.

That sounds familiar.

One or three, that does not change much.. Still, wreckage alone means little, it could have been a technical failure.. On-camera kill footage is much better.. Have you got all 82 of them? :eagerness:

If you ask a man about how many women has he slept with, divide his claim by two and you get close to the real number.. The same way, all pilots claim similar BS.. It has started in WWI and has not changed since..

Well I refer you to the comments of Ozair Mr. Revisionist. Those aren’t the only two videos and there are different kills on each. Between those, the wreckage and the multiple sources that comment the matter, I think the weight of evidence is firmly on my side in this. However, you are free to believe Comical Ali’s Syrian cousin if you wish.

So what happens when their video footage is analysed and oops, nothing there? Your conspiracy theories have more holes than a sieve.

So, one wreckage provides proof for 82 kills? Interesting logic..

The Arab claims are nonsense, no doubts.. But they are still quite useful, at least we know what BS claims the pilots are generally capable of..

The wreckage footage was in several different places, just as the on-camera kills were. Now again, where is there evidence of the hilarious 42 Eagle kills that the Syrian government claimed/BSed?:eagerness:

It’s probably not the pilots claiming it you’ll find.

They did score 82-0 in their claims only.. I think it’s time to let these claims undergo the same critical judgement as claims from Syrians or Iraqis, where people are demanding proofs, videos, wreckage pics, loss confirmation from Israeli MoD, birth certificate of the pilot andwhatnot.. How many wreckage pics of Syrian MiGs can we find, BTW?

Well there’s a video about two posts above yours and many more.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bekaa+valley+air+war