Desert Storm (1991): Why this success?

When in 17 januar 1991 the hostilities  started, I was amazed how the iraqi air defence collapsed in nearly few hours. How iraqi' soviet orgin sam, -the most modern in middle east in that time, furthermore multi billions of dollars, as Iraq was a rich country -  that were so successfull during the Vietnam war, and october 1973 were useless, and completly disable.
We had several understandings.
The first prism of understanding is to follow the western view, uncommonly, US Dod's view, ie, the US minister of propaganda.
Noone among us, could doubt about the serious of Carlo Kopp, who expose its analysis here.
This is a very good work of a fair specialist who understand very well the situation, nevertheless, I have many objections.
His studies leads him to the following remarqs :

The Iraqis violated a fundamental principle of electronic combat by lighting up radars outside of actual engagements,....

Hummm, surprising! You have professional soldiers, that were formed into soviet doctrin air defence, and knew very well all tactics. Furthermore, these professional iraqi soldiers were seasonned by 8 years war against Iran, and many of them participated in October 1973, and were well aware what a mobil system is. What does Carlo Kopp mean exactly ?

How much blame for Iraq's defeat must be attributed to Iraqi stupidity at a senior and operational command level, incompetence at the cutting edge, and how much is due to fundamental flaws in Soviet air battle doctrine, may be difficult to determine.

As usual, -I don't mean that Carlo Kopp is rascist- in western view, the arabs are an under race, unfitt to fight, unfitt to discipline, in fact a group of animals. This is untill now, the western view, uncommly some elits that thougt like that.

With a model for the Iraqi IADS/C3, the USAF's analysts then approached the Checkmate high level operational planning group,...

Oviously, the US tactics, and their unbeatable, wonderfull technology triumph, with cleaver way.


This leads Carlo Kopp to this conclusion:

What this suggests is that the NATO-Warpac central European air battle would have probably followed a similar course, leading to the defeat of the Communists' IADS within a week or so, in turn leading to air superiority in the following week, as the Communist air forces would have withered under the fire of the Allied counter-air campaign...

This  from the academic views made by US DOD, and US departement of propaganda.
Oviously, soviet technology, as soviet doctrim are old fashionned, hence could not match with western assets, and evidently, soviets will be easily defeated in case of wars.

The second prism is to ignore the propaganda, and to analyse only the facts.
Now let's examine what iraqi's air defence, and what's assets. No use to list all the long Carlo Kopp article, I invite you to read. Thus, some elements atracted me.
The main is this:
The heart of iraqi air defense is the frencheese Integrated air defence's technology called Kari.

With Kari gave the Iraq's air defence looks like this :

strategic air defence nodes :


The huge disadvantage with this kind of technology is related by this article :

The disadvantages are that if the centralized command and control centers or communications are disrupted (or destroyed) the system becomes paralyzed, because each individual group is dependent on the command center above it. Data and commands no longer flow from one end of the air defense network to the other. This was proven during the first Gulf War, when Coalition forces specifically targeted command nodes of the Iraqi KARI air defense system. Billions of dollars of good air defense equipment (mostly French C3I nodes and export-Soviet radars & SAMs) became far less effective, and in some cases paralyzed, allowing Coalition air power superiority already several hours into the war and throughout the conflict.

http://www.wiki.computerharpoon.com/index.php?title=Centralized_Integrated_Air_Defense_Systems_and_How_to_Construct_Them_in_Harpoon_3
Well, in french context during the 80's, the parti socialiste won the election, and was in power, Kari system was sold by the right gouvernement. When he became president, François Mitterand, claimed itself as the "friend of Israel". Noone among us could doubt about the sincerity of Mr Mitterand towards Israel, neither the fact that the war against Iraq was in Israel's interests.
François Mitterand decided to engage french troops among nato, against Iraq, however the great threat is iraqi air defence, uncommonly....Kari. The Sams were under the control of Kari.
You could notice that this french help for Nato was disaprouved by Mr Chevenement, the frencheese defence minister. He was angered by the fact that France helped USA, hence he decided to resign .

Hey guys did you understand ? Do you think french adminstration could risk its pilots killed because of air defence, knowing that  the masterpiece of this defence is ...Kari, then the french technology ?


I am not a specialist, however, I knew that Iraq was weak state, i could not say you that most of Shia or kurds turned against Saddam's regime, Iam not iraqi, moreover, I don't know enough Iraq to assert that Shias were all against Saddam, Kurds were all against Saddam. Nevertheless some facts could help us to understand the situation.

The bastards of Talabani, and Barzani are two bullshits who are well known helped by israelis, and well known for betrayed their country, and many puk, and kdp rats were ready to help nato in order to destroy Iraq.
Secundly after the cease fire in 1991 there were many riots in south of iraq, from mostly Shias. To say you most shias, I could not assert it, if iraqi friends are here, and could help us many thx.

Well let's summarize, the all iraqi air defence is under the rules of Kari, that is in fact a nato technology. If you neutralize Kari, you neutralize all the air defence, hence Sa-2, Sa-3, Sa-6, Sa-8 etc...are useless, because completly blinded, as their radars were all destroyed. France turned against Iraq, it triggered Mr Chevenement 's resign.
Moreover a certain part of iraq's population was against Iraqi regime.

My conclusion:
- Kari was disabled and turned against Iraq by the foreign help, betraying all iraqi radars that were  easy targets for nato's aircrafts.
- The radars that could escape, were immediatly identified from the earth -because you could hide a smartphone, a laptop, however, how could you hide a sam battery, or a radar, if the neighborhood was full of personnes working for US -, and nato pilots could easily located and destroy all iraqi assets. Obviously, all this will be in the incredible credit of US technlogy.

The soviets or russian hardwares are still relevant nowadays, and a sam 2 or sam 3 could easily downed any US aircrafts, or fighters bombers -whatever it is as F-15, F-18, F-22, B2b, B1b etc...- if they used correctly. The US air campaign against Serbia prove that american figthers bombers are far to be effective.
Each time when looked US air war in scrutiny, we discover that if we remove the propaganda the results are far to be shinning. Desert Storm represents the epic the top of US air war, this was their last chance, after Desert Storm, it is the decline, and air war in Serbia, proved that in military area if a small country is decided to resist, the US could do nothing.


If some of you have more knowledges please feel free to correct me, and bring us what you know. Thx for all.

My vote for putting up the effort within this extremely interesting subject   

So here is my quick (more detail will follow) few corrections and thoughts.

Facts:

1. All IADS ever constructed where/are centralized and will all be but thats not the problem. Problem are:
 
   - mobility (Kari was static command post) - meaning if you know the coordinates you can destroy it very easily (and those where the first targets for Tomahawk)
   - redundancy (problem with Kari was that in case of destruction of its main command post whole damn thing breaks appart)
   - Kari system had one centerline command post tasked for all country and four smaller ones for each of four air-defense zones Iraq was devided on. In case of destruction of any
     smaller (zonal) command post the whole thing breaks apart and SAM can not shoot.
   - Kari could control only very limited number of radar sets - the most important thing.


2. Kari IADS was from the very begging very or more correctly poor IADS because it could guide missiles on only 40 targets which was insuficient by even Vietnam standards

3. Soviet IADS of Vietnam era called ASURK-1ME was more capable system than French Kari and during the 80ies even Soviet mobile regimental command post where much more
   capable than French Kari which had a task to protect whole country

4.  Even the Soviet, Vietnam era Army IADS called Krab was up to 1/2 of Kari capabilities which says enough about how really bad that Kari was.

5. Because of Iran-Iraq war most of the Iraq air defense at the time of attack on Iraq were transfered to the borders with Iran (meaning just the opposite direction vs the one from which
   US/EU attacked. Because of that only 10-12 big/immobile EW radars where monitoring Saudi/Gulf air space and those where the first victims of Gulf war.

6. Iraq PVO troopers where extremely poorly educated to operate IADS. In order to extract the maximum from what they had few months of Belarus assistance in panic did not
   help either. Like Syrians of the time, Iraq PVO troops tend to use mobile SAMs in a static way leading to their certain destruction and much more.

7. Iraq air defense of the time was numerous but obsolete with crucial stuff controling it as its most weakest point with low number of radar systems, bad tactics and
   very old SAM systems.



Now for some corrections:

nemrod wrote:

The Iraqis violated a fundamental principle of electronic combat by lighting up radars outside of actual engagements,....

Hummm, surprising! You have professional soldiers, that were formed into soviet doctrin air defence, and knew very well all tactics. Furthermore, these professional iraqi soldiers were seasonned by 8 years war against Iran, and many of them participated in October 1973, and were well aware what a mobil system is. What does Carlo Kopp mean exactly ?

- Iraq PVO troops where poor in tactics, knowledge despite all their training and experience. Carlo probably refers (without him even knowing it   )to a small number of inadequate radar  
 sets for the job.

nemrod wrote:

How much blame for Iraq's defeat must be attributed to Iraqi stupidity at a senior and operational command level, incompetence at the cutting edge, and how much is due to fundamental flaws in Soviet air battle doctrine, may be difficult to determine.

As usual, -I don't mean that Carlo Kopp is rascist- in western view, the arabs are an under race, unfitt to fight, unfitt to discipline, in fact a group of animals. This is untill now, the western view, uncommly some elits that thougt like that

If Carlo doubts efficiency of the Soviet air battle doctrine he may refer to Vietnam war but I doubt that despite really impressive data base he collected, he took a moment to analize

their work within IADS otherwise he would have not said such a foolish thing.



Conclusion:

- Kari IADS was not design to take on the whole world. It was not designed to fight with thousands of cruise missiles/fighters/AWACS/tankers/ELINT/decoys/PGM/bombs etc

- Kari IADS was designed to fight regional powers of the time meaning to provide protection from Iran for example or Saudi etc one at the time

- To have capable IADS you need to have capable fighters too and Iraq fighters (which where guided by Kari too) where in no better condition than Iraq SAMs/radar(no decoy or ECM etc)



Now imagine what would happen if Iraq had a capability to strike on US aircraft carriers and airfields and bases in the region to besides having good amount of decent fighters and IADS

In 1980s NATO had a much greater number of 4th generation fighters. The US alone had 4000 F-16 alone if I remember correctly.

Iraqi air defense in 1991 was stronger than the air defences of most Warsaw Pact countries in the 1980s. The fact that it's bad performance surprised even the US analysts is another story.

Thx for your answers, you know all very well the problem.

I want to add some details.

- I am not an expert too, and far to be in this complex subject.
- My english level is very poor, and I do my possible to improve it, as this langue is not my mother's tongue.
- I 've never pretended that Iraqi army could win, this war for Iraq is in anyway lost before beginning.
- Noone in this forum, or anywhere are really aware about the true scale of US losses during desert storm. They claimed only few dozens of aircrafts lost, however, the recent history witnesses that US lies always. It was said -just rumours- that during several days, US lost each days 6 to 10 aircrafts. Furthermore, do not forget after Desert storm a study conducted by US, concluded that iraqis radars spotted several times the F-117. As Vladimir Iilyin a F-117 was downed but crashed in Saudi Arabia.
- Just to bring you some details that I think must be know:
           -During the Vietnam war, near all North vietnamese army was 100% soviet's origin. It results several tousands aircrafts          downed, at least 2.000 acknowledged by US Dod -notice that during the past I had many difficults to see any figures about US losses, in spite of the fact that I read book after book, newspaper after newspaper about this subject-, if not 4.000. The losses was so huge that America's economy was at knee in early 70's, forcing them to hit the road of Vietnam.
           -Idem during october 1973 arabs's weaponneries were 100% soviet's origin, it results a huge losses for Israelis and americans as they participated directly in the fightings. The israelis and US losses reached a such point -several hundreds about 400- that US, and israelis were ready to use nuclear weapons, however deterred by soviet threat to use nuclear too.  A deal was concluded between US and USSR that the war stopped. Soviet Union decided to freeze the deliveries of some strategic weapons to Egypt-because soviet intelligence detected something going wrong inside egyptians politics staff, they became not reliable ally-. However, the soviet commitments with Syria was total. It was said that US and israelis captured some soviet soldiers in the Golan -there are only rumors, nothing could be proved- beating with syrian army.
It means one thing the soviet hardware, if it is well used, is very very lethal and highly effective.

Well, let's back to Iraq's case, Soviet Union could not deliver any IADS to Saddam, he was not reliable ally, because, since the beginning he played East, and West card, and most of his money was invested in western. Then, Iraqi gouvernement decided to turn to Western, in order to be provided some strategic hardwares especially regarding Iads.
France provided him this precious hardware, in that time Mr Chirac -as prime minister- was a true french sovereignist, he is the Charles De Gaulle's legacy. Its line was no east, neither west.
Unfortunetly , the "friend of Israel" ie, François Mitterand won the 1988's election, and during the gulf war he turned against Iraq, as the first gulf war, was not only to steal oil, but this was made for Israel's interrest.
François Mitterand engaged french air force, mirage and jaguars in order to bomb  strategic site in Iraq, and Koweit.
As the parti Socialist was totally commited with US, as they provided this strategic hardware Kari, don't you think that, somewhere, french high responsables would be deterred to provide at least some precious informations to Nato?
It is obvious that, if the Iraqi air defense worked correctly it could inflict a sever blows to nato -even though, we know nothing- then knowing this fact, what would be the logical french decisiion, as they decided to stand with Nato ?

When you have 100% soviet hardware, and you are a reliable ally, you will gain against US, or against american' coaltion. However, when you are not a reliable ally, as Saddam, Milosevic, Ghadaffi what would be the fate ?

I don't know much about Kari, but it is a fact that, Saddam used against Nato, .....a nato's hardware. As France turned with Nato's allaince.


Moreover, it is well known about the extrem Sam 6/8/9/14' efficiency, however, if a part-even a small- of your population is strongly against you, uncommly Barzani, and Talabani's rogues's milicias, if you try to hide a radar, or sam battery, you move it, but, unfortuneltly, some US spy are seeing and inform immedialtly in real time Nato. Immedialtly US sent F-18, F-16, F-4 bombed the area, before this air defence brigate reached its goal.

Thx for your help.

As Sa'iqa wrote:In 1980s NATO had a much greater number of 4th generation fighters. The US alone had 4000 F-16 alone if I remember correctly.

  

Oh not, obviously you do not remember correctly by a very wide margin.

By end of 1980 USAF had less than 130 early "F-16s "   ,  more than a decade after - end of 1991 - the number of USAF operative F-16 was around 1440 F-16s of any model (including training ones and those exclusively optimized for SEAD and air to ground missions), the number of MiG-29s -naturally exclusively air superiority models - operative in VVS in the same year was about 860, therefore we talk of figures representing anything except a "much greater number of 4th generation fighters", above all taking into account that Air Force was the real centerpiece of USA's force composition and philosophy while URSS could rely on a simply crushing superiority in all sectors of Ground and Airborne Forces and ,even more in Air Defense systems.   

Mindstorm wrote:
By end of 1980 USAF had less than 130 early "F-16s "  

From Vladimir ilyin :
http://paralay.net/f16.html

....during the war with Iraq by multinational forces in the Persian Gulf have been deployed to 249 F-16 aircraft, which carried out nearly 13,500 sorties (the largest number of sorties of aircraft of the same type in the conflict) with a coefficient of readiness 92,5% (up 5% higher rate in times of peace). Despite such intensive use, F-16 was not shot down any Iraqi aircraft (even though the A-10 attack aircraft were able to shoot down two Iraqi helicopters) and performance in a dogfight can not go to any comparison with American F-15C, having lost 35 Iraqi aircraft.

According to official sources in the Gulf War, the U.S. has lost only five aircraft F-16C, and one of the F-16, according to some reports, was hit by a MiG-23 missile R-23. According to other sources total loss of F-16 U.S. Air Force in 1991 were unusually high: 32 aircrafts (for comparison, in 1983-1989. Had lost 78 aircraft F-16 at odds of 4.74 accidents per 100 thousand flight hours, while the twin-engine F/A-18, for example, accident rates during this period was 4.52) and suggests that some of them - it is still disguised combat losses. It is not surprising that one of the representatives of the U.S. administration called the F-16 the most inefficient aircraft during the war in the Persian Gulf. At the same time the administration of U.S.

Few words about the so called BVR effiency.
During Desert Storm F-15 fired at least 8 aam against a Mig 25, all of them missed the mig, and in another incident, a pair of F-15 launched 10 aam missiles against 2 Mig 25, none reached their goals.
What does it mean? Once the myth of BVR is confronts the reality, the virtual in front of the real, as Pierre Spray said, "BVR, is perfect, but it does not work."

The net has not indulged all its secrets yet, when it will be the case, many great surprises wait for us, especially regarding american's case. None lie is eternal...

As Sa'iqa wrote:In 1980s NATO had a much greater number of 4th generation fighters. The US alone had 4000 F-16 alone if I remember correctly.

Iraqi air defense in 1991 was stronger than the air defences of most Warsaw Pact countries in the 1980s. The fact that it's bad performance surprised even the US analysts is another story.

The US in total had a bit over 2000 F-16s delivered, so no, they most certainly did not.

Less than 1500 were delivered before the Cold War ended.

Yes, NATO went over to "4th gens" sooner than the USSR did.
However you may question what that means, given that non 4th gen MiG-23s actually had a BVR capability, something the F-16 did not until 1989.

 Looks likw I was indeed mistaken.  
By 1990 USSR had 600 Su-27s, 700 MiG-29s and 400 MiG-31s

Less Su-27s, and more MiG-29s IIRC.

TR1 wrote:
Yes, NATO went over to "4th gens" sooner than the USSR did.
However you may question what that means, given that non 4th gen MiG-23s actually had a BVR capability, something the F-16 did not until 1989.

It seems that these designations of 4, 5 generation fighters are only marketing' goal.
In the case of effectiveness, the Mig 23 ML, and the last version of Mig 25 could be fairly considered as 4th generation fighters.
Mig 23 ML downed several F-16, and F-15 -obviously disguisided as crashes or accidents, in this know-how' manipalutions, Israelis are not the last- as it was written above.

delete, 10characters

nemrod wrote:
Few words about the so called BVR effiency.
During Desert Storm F-15 fired at least 8 aam against a Mig 25, all of them missed the mig, and in another incident, a pair of F-15 launched 10 aam missiles against 2 Mig 25, none reached their goals.
What does it mean? Once the myth of BVR is confronts the reality, the virtual in front of the real, as Pierre Spray said, "BVR, is perfect, but it does not work."

So you have little faith in the BVR capabilities of the MiG-31, aircraft carrying the R-27 missile, or the MiG-23 and Su-15 for that matter either?

By 1990 USSR had 600 Su-27s, 700 MiG-29s and 400 MiG-31s wrote: TR1

But how many of those MiG-29 and Su-27 were on the Warsaw Pact border facing NATO? If I recall maybe 300 Soviet MiG-29 and maybe 100 MiG-29 from other countries such as Poland East Germany? There were a few Flankers in Poland - but they were to cover USSR air space.

And how much of the USAF was not in Europe?

Same thing. The USSR at least would have had an easier time transferring all its assets West.

TR1 wrote:And how much of the USAF was not in Europe?

But all of European NATO's air forces were located in Europe - and they were not small air forces - quiet a lot of adifferent types of aircraft of different capabilities I should say.

The USSR at least would have had an easier time transferring all its assets West. wrote:TR1

But why would the Soviets transfer aircraft to their western front - the air defence of the Soviet Union was the first priority, was it not?

Any data supporting this?

To BlackArrow and Garry

BlackArrow wrote:So you have little faith in the BVR capabilities of the MiG-31, aircraft carrying the R-27 missile, or the MiG-23 and Su-15 for that matter either?

Didn't I put some figures above about the BVR' kill propabilty in Desert Storm ?
When you launch 18 aam supposed to be the most sophisticated missiles in the world, and all missed their goal. Without going further, what do you deduct ?
US pretented untill now that they downed the 35 iraqi aircrafts, it could be. At first could we see in what conditions ? Recent studies prove that, many -if not most- iraqi fighters were downed because they tried to flee in Iran, not in real combat situation-no use to tell more about the US losses during war golf I, it could be more suprising, more higher, more shamefull for US than we could imagine-. Well, if you downed 35 aircrafts, and you downed them thanks to 1.000 aam-reaching all 1 million $/unit-, you could realize how effective is this technlogy, how expensive are these missiles  .
Furthermore, the figure provide by Israelis concerning combats occuring in Bekaa -Lebanon- in 1982 where the 80  syrians migs were downed against 0 for israelis is idiot, chieftly regarding the facts.

GarryB wrote:
BVR missiles were rarely used and had PK or kill probabilities of less than 10% in real combat... actually more like 3-4% for most missile types.

Sincerely, I did not know what BVR mean untill recently, when Garry explained me -about a year ago- how the BVR is relevant, how the Amraan is really fundamental in our days.
I spent many times to try to understand what the BVR-and Amraan-'s technology, how it is relevant through for example stealth technology. What I understood, not only from Pierre Sprey's view but from many specialists, the effectiveness of BVR and Amraan is dubious. It is hard to demonstrate, how rare are the independant studies about this issue, most of studies were conducted below the strict control of Raytheon, Lockheed, Lagardere, etc....
However, I did not say the BVR is useless, what I mean the BVR could be a usefull asset, a good complement if it is reliable-some suties prove that this technology is far to be - and if the pilot is competent.

I still consider, and the facts are proving for me more and more, the masterpiece of aircrafts battles untill now stay the pilots. The most decisive moment is the dogfights -Desert Storm prove that-, more your pilots are trained, more they are effective. The rest about the hype concerning amraan or BVR is only marketing. The only area where west is still the strongest.

GarryB wrote:
BVR missiles were rarely used and had PK or kill probabilities of less than 10% in real combat... actually more like 3-4% for most missile types.

The S-75 Dvina missile used in Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s is also a BVR weapon, I believe its overall kill ratio in that conflict against American aircraft was around 2 percent. Do you expect today's S-400 missile to have the same level of success in any future conflict?

Didn't I put some figures above about the BVR' kill propabilty in Desert Storm ? When you launch 18 aam supposed to be the most sophisticated missiles in the world, and all missed their goal. Without going further, what do you deduct ? wrote:Nemrod

No AIM-120 were used in desert Storm the main BVR missile used was AIM-7. I thought its performance in that conflict was considered pretty good in that conflict too.

BlackArrow wrote:

GarryB wrote:
BVR missiles were rarely used and had PK or kill probabilities of less than 10% in real combat... actually more like 3-4% for most missile types.

The S-75 Dvina missile used in Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s is also a BVR weapon, I believe its overall kill ratio in that conflict against American aircraft was around 2 percent. Do you expect today's S-400 missile to have the same level of success in any future conflict?

And in what way is S-75 kill ratio assesed?

BlackArrow wrote:
The S-75 Dvina missile used in Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s is also a BVR weapon, I believe its overall kill ratio in that conflict against American aircraft was around 2 percent. Do you expect today's S-400 missile to have the same level of success in any future conflict?

If I understood well, the Sam-2 Guideline was designed-early 50's- at first against US bombers such as B-29, B-47, B-52, B-58. It was not designed firstly against fighters, even though it was vastly used against fighters-bombers.
If you talked about the effectiveness against heavies, flat bombers such as -mostly B-52 - that could not outmanoeuver, indeed Sam-2 Guideline was a very efficient tool. During Linebaker, -as US propaganda- about 50 B-52 were used against North Viernam, it results of 15 B-52 downed directly du to the Sam-2.
But longtime after, US surreptitiously announced they lost 15 others du to mysterious crashes-this is the usual propaganda's claim-, and several badly damaged. As you can realize, more than 60% of Bombers fleet was destroyed, and many of them were completly damaged, at least unable to be active. Sam-2' effectiveness against fighters is not evident.

Let's take the Sa-6's case.
During october 1973 this hardware was considered by far the most efficient anti aircraft hardware, as it was said SA-6 was responsible of at least 40 israelis fighters downed -of course as israelis, who used to lie about everything, and mainly concerning every details, we will see next why-. Moreover, Israel claimed that 140 fighters were downed -I wish to say that how hard for me  to find how much israelis aircrafts were downed- figures completly ridiculous, mainly, if we recall that US air force rushed to help israel's desesperate situation, moreover, Israel, and US threatened to use nuclear weapons.

The real figures are unknown, but du to the desperate situation of Israel, the scale of israelis could be at least 400 aircrafts downed.
If they acknowledged that the SA-6 is responsible of 40 fighters downed, and if add figure about the effectiveness the other hardware, -included zsu 23-4- could be reach at 40, the total Sa-6+other sam hardware is 80. If you rely on Israeli propaganda.
It stays the others 75%. In fact, most of them were downed by the very efficient Mig-21, and ....soviet Su-15 -it was said this aircraft participated during the october 1973 war, to be confirmed...-, moreover soviet Mig-25, and Mig-23 were present in Egypt-did they participate ?- during this period. As you can see the fighters stay the best asset against other fighters. Notice for evident propaganda's purposes, Israelis, as UK and USA minimize as much as possible the losses du to air to air combats by ennemies fighters.

About your question concerning the S-400, I don't know, ask to Garry, Viktor, Vladimir.
Nevertheless It would be doubtfull if the S-400 could do better than the Mig-35 -the best fighters in the world- with its thrust vectoring, powerfull AESA radars, supercruise mode ability, and inside this figher a very competent pilot.

BlackArrow wrote:

"Didn't I put some figures above about the BVR' kill propabilty in Desert Storm ? When you launch 18 aam supposed to be the most sophisticated missiles in the world, and all missed their goal. Without going further, what do you deduct ?"]Nemrod

No AIM-120 were used in desert Storm the main BVR missile used was AIM-7. I thought its performance in that conflict was considered pretty good in that conflict too.

And do you think the AIM-120 could do better ?
In this filthy period, where we ask a man to be a fag and behaves like a woman with its hand bag and to wiggle as a tranny it is not surprising that they want reduct the conflict, in a press button war, where even women could be pilots. But they could not change the nature. A women could not do war in the front, and a war is men's affairs, it was like that for 10.000 years, and il will be the case -at least- in the next 10 millions years .

The only claims about the so-called success of Aim 120 came from US. Let's take an example. US claimed in 1993,  that an amraam from a F-16 would downed a Mig-25. Well, let's examine what, how and why.
After Desert storm Iraq was at knees, for the reasons we saw above. It is obvious that Iraq was in crueltly lack of spare parts, as USSR disapeared, and the dark Yeltsine period started in Russia.
Moreover when US send fighter in hostile area, they never send one, you can be sure that they sent at least 10, with awacs, jammers, F-15 etc...
If the ten F-16 launched at least 4 amraam, sure one of them reached its goal, it would be quite ridiculous, if all 40 amraam missed their targets. How much times it was the case ? We will never know.
The dogfights stays, and will stay for the next 10 millions year the key moment of the war. Just to add a last detail. For evident biological reasons and contrary the these filthy feminist movements claim, a women could not be pilot, if she wants to be, du to the number of G, she could not have children.
The war was, is, and will be an exclusive man's affair.

my 2 cents on this important and often overlooked topic.

In 1991 Iraq's air defence system was "modernised" only for low altitude point defences where they had about 200 "modern" Short Range SAM systems (ROLAND II, OSA, IGLA, Strela-3) for defending point-targets at short range (a task at which they worked "perfectly fine" against the coalition and caused most of the coalition losses in fact - which is why the US / NATO learned to simply avoid low altitude flying from very early on in the game... a tactic that worked well for them in Serbia, Libya later on).

Iraq had attempted to acquire S300 from the Soviet Union already in 1989 but was rejected. For medium to high altitude air defence Iraq thus relied on only S75 and S125 systems (each battery could engage only ONE target! making them just less than useless), these were wholly obsolete by that period, even against "regional" rivals and when the war "kicked off" the Iraqis were desperately trying to replace them. The army had a number of SA6 KUB systems for divisional AD which were used in a "mobile" fashion, but once again each "unit" could only engage one target at a time... which is fine against a single F4 phantom flying in from Iran... but not much help when 16 F16s are coming to bomb your division and supported by wild weasels!

In fact, with the exception of some "static" areas defended by fixed S75 and S125 SAMs most of Iraq was not covered by anything other than fighter interceptors.

It is also not true that the Iraqis did not move their radar stations and air defence sites. They moved them around  knowing the attacks were about to come and MOST were not destroyed in the beginning of the war... in fact only a small % of Iraqi radar stations were "lost". The biggest losses were the SOC centres and "air defence operations centre"... none of which were actually "automated" and simply relied on individual GCI operators to guide interceptors and SAMs.

The "KARI" did in fact continue functioning till the last day of the war, but in a "reduced state" since it operated out of anonymous houses in Baghdad which were the "backup" command centres. These were never destroyed since they emmitted nothing (used fiber optic cables) and were installed by IRAQIS not foreign staff during the 1980s.

All Iraq's fighter interceptors were guided by voice command from Ground Control Intercept stations. Iraqi electronic warfare capabilities were "limited" to planning against the likes of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia... not USA and her entire partners. Iraq's fighter interceptors were "not bad" by regional standards:
MiG23ML with R24 (about 40 aircraft)
MiG29 with R27R (about 35 aircraft)
MiG25 with R40 (about 20 aircraft)
Mirage F1 with Super530F (about 60 aircraft)

That gave the Iraqis a quite formidable self-defence capability against the likes of Iran, Turkey or Syria... but it was nothing against the USA of course.

Like the posters previously said. Any small/medium country which is first isolated and then targetted by the concentrated might of the superpower and her allies would be destroyed quite swiftly in conventional military terms. In fact if 1991 war showed anything, is that its a "false economy" to invest too much in conventional warfare if you are at any point in time potentially in war against a superpower. Its simply not worth it.

sheytanelkebir wrote:my 2 cents on this important and often overlooked topic.

....Iraq's fighter interceptors were "not bad" by regional standards:
MiG23ML with R24 (about 40 aircraft)
MiG29 with R27R (about 35 aircraft)
MiG25 with R40 (about 20 aircraft)
Mirage F1 with Super530F (about 60 aircraft)

That gave the Iraqis a quite formidable self-defence capability against the likes of Iran, Turkey or Syria... but it was nothing against the USA of course.

Thx for you contribution.
Could you please tell us more about Iraqis fighters performances ?
Regards.