Tom
*Editor* ACIG Journal


Joined: 30 Jun 2003
Posts: 13069
Location: Vienna, Austria
Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 2:12 pm Post subject:

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The IrAF Kari system lost a lot of its integrity already during the first night of the war. The major early warning station covering southern Iraq - i.e. the corridor from Riyad towards Baghdad - was knocked out and so were all the local GCI centres. Nevertheless, the IrAF re-organized a part of that system with help of mobile systems and then launched the first of its only two "counter-offensives" - exactly on the 19th January. According to Iraqis, this offensive resulted in downing of several US and allied aircraft: strangely enough, however, while the official US and allied sources "confirmed" most of these, they admitted them as occurring on entirely different dates... Thus, most of the Iraqi claims from this day remain "unconfirmed" - at least in the public...

Anyway, the two MiG-29s encountered by Pitts and Tollini were not there to fight, but to act as decoys. And that's exactly what they did: they drew the attention of US pilots away from a pair of MiG-25s, so the latter could approach undisturbed before initiating their own attack.

The latter two also did not confront the F-15s "frontally", but flew a highly successful "beam" manoeuvre, which resulted in both USAF Eagles losing a lock-on and thus the Sparrow firing solution for them. That's why Pitts and Tollini could not engage the Foxbats with Sparrows (nor Sidewinders) from head on.

The problem was the distance from the Iraqi radar station that monitored that operation, and the US jamming of Iraqi radars and comms. This resulted in the GCI advising the two MiG-25 pilots to turn back into their targets too early: because of this, they re-appeared in front, and not in the flank of the two USAF fighter, lost the situational awarness and were subsequently both shot down.

This example became a "classic" in the IrAF and was subsequently taught to all fighter-interceptor pilots by the Flying Leaders School IrAF.

Learning their lessons, the Iraqis launched another such operation something like two weeks later. They used MiG-29s again as baits, and vectored two MiG-25s on the F-15s, their pilots claiming one of Eagles as hit by an R-40RD. Both MiG-25s came away unscatched. One of remaining Iraqi EW-stations then tracked that F-15 in flight back towards the Saudi border, during which it was constantly losing speed and height. The Iraqis calculated that the plane must've crashed some 40km south of the border. Their intel later found the crash site but only few small bits of wreckage were left there. Nevertheless, the MiG-25 pilot in question was credited with a confirmed kill.

This operation, named "Samarrah", also became a "classic" within the IrAF...The USAF never found it worth even mentioning this Iraqi claim in any of its published statements...
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Tom Cooper

Это с форума Тома Купера.Подтверждения,боюсь,придется ждать долго