Sword of David

It was in this background, after several days of tormenting top cover escort flying, watching our Phantom and Skyhawk compatriots being torn apart by the ground-based air defence systems, that our big break came for pure air combat.

By 1973 our Mirages were being rapidly outclassed as allround combat aircraft by the American-built F-4E Phantoms that had commenced entering the IAF inventory in 1970. The Phantom had done pretty well in the latter days of the War of Attrition and with its longer legs and heavy bomb load could penetrate hostile airspace to strike at targets well beyond the range of our smaller, less sophisticated Mirages. This was certainly important but the general feeling amongst most Mirage pilots was that they preferred their simple and reliable mounts to the ‘flying computer’ that the Phantom had become. Mirages had saved the day in ’67 ·and we felt that in this new war they were still more than a match for the best the Arabs and their Soviet suppliers could offer.

At this stage Egyptian morale was very high, their forces had successfully breached the canal in several places and had entered Sinai, again their SAMs gave them a high level of support while deep in Sinai our own armour was being hit hard by hundreds of Egyptian anti-tank Sagger teams. It was only early days though, and we were chafing at the bit for some ‘real’ air combat following the worrying setbacks of recent days.

Our chance came when radar commenced tracking a large formation of fighter aircraft from bases deep within Southern Egypt. Their destination was obviously our facilities at Sharm el Sheikh, right at the southern tip of Sinai and vital to our hold on the safe passage of the Red Sea, Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Akaba with its trade passage to Eilat. As the fighter force approached the Gulf of Suez we scrambled our Mirages to intercept in the region of El Tur and hopefully east of the Gulf to ensure the attacking force a more difficult exit in case they should abort the mission and run once intercepted. Our force consisted of six Mirage IIIC each armed with DEFA 30 mm cannons and two Shafrir IR missiles and we carried the usual complement of two supersonic drop tanks which we tried to retain if possible.

As we climbed out and headed south our radar vectors had the bogey force about fifty miles to our right, radar having now confirmed three formations. One group was at 30,000, obviously flying top cover and probably MiG-21s while two other formations, each of around a dozen aircraft, were at 10,000 feet and about ten miles apart. It appeared that their top cover would do just that while allowing the two attacking groups a free hand at hitting Sharm. Their plan however was not to be.

Control had hived off the attacking groups to another flight of Mirages and we were given the green light for the top-over; they were now about two minutes from us as we positioned ourselves for maximum altitude and up-sun advantage. At moments like these, I always get fleeting thoughts of the numerous friendly arguments we Mirage pilots have always had with the Phantom crews that this was ‘real’ air combat rather than yelling to our backseater who was always busy twiddling knobs and trying to get up information that wasn’t really necessary anyway. Which attitude was right, I don’t know, but for sure when the battle commenced it invariably became a plane versus plane, pilot versus pilot battle to the end with the cannon being our best weapon.

We felt that the Egyptians were the best of the pilots but we still felt that from our point of view, they and their Russian advisers did things the wrong way, with an over-dependence on ground-controlled intercept procedures.

Reaching 38,000 feet we positioned ourselves broadly. In mutual support to try and spread the predicted battle and so avoid the risk of collision, not only with aircraft but with jettisoned fuel tanks. This could be a real problem in a large-force battle and had accounted for damaged aircraft in the past on both sides. Our Cryano’s now had them right where we wanted them, fifteen miles to the southeast and several thousand feet below us, a secondary glance indicated the attack formations had not altered heading and were now of no concern to us. At ten miles we verified nine to ten MiG-21 aircraft, probably Fishbed J types. Why their GCI hadn’t alerted them to our presence I don’t know, perhaps they wanted to continue their deep support for the ground attack aircraft below rather than split and fight still fifty or so miles from Sharm.

We rolled in in a classic attacking manoeuvre as the MiGs cruised on, seemingly oblivious to the danger. About a mile astern as we swept across the elements I fired a Shafrir, as my wingman. My missile guided and in what seemed like a split second it tore one of the tail-end MiGs apart, my wingman’s missile did the same and within fifteen seconds at least half the EAF top cover force had ceased to exist. The remaining MiGs had now broken and were turning into us; we had expected this and our Mirages, now freed of their drop tanks, would be able to engage them as we had been wanting to for the past couple of days. It was all over so quickly, though, as the latter elements in our own force took the breaking MIGs one by one. It appeared only two escaped by diving on the afterburner and heading west at the best speed. Without top cover, much of the attacking force below suffered a similar fate at the hands of other IAF Mirages tasked with their demise.

June, 1982 General Dynamics F-16A Mikoyan MiG-23 Flogger E Mikoyan MiG-23 Flogger E

The push into southern Lebanon is now a well-known history.

What is interesting and what has been fairly well reported in the world’s technical press is the manner in which the Syrian SAM belt was nullified in preparation for the ground forces being able to reach Beirut. (Editor’s Note: refer to page 48, September 1982 issue, and our own feature on AEW in this edition for further background. )

With the almost total destruction of their all-important SAM belts the Syrians, realising they had lost control of the skies above the Bekaa Valley and for that matter all of southern Lebanon, decided to bring in their air force to stop the numerous ground attack missions against their targets in this region.

Syria at this point possessed a highly competent air force, at least on paper. Large numbers of late model MiG-23 Floggers, MiG-21 Fishbed Js, Sukhoi Su-20Cs, a multitude of older but effective MiG-17s and 19s and even the MiG-25 Foxbat, all rounded off a force that was armed to the hilt for a future conflict. The age-old problems persisted though; lack of proper training (at least by our standards), poor communication between ranks, distrust of the elite and a pampered officer corps, political and religious distrust between various groups, lack of an in-house and independent maintenance and support infrastructure and the fact that they were trained in the Soviet style. Lack of originality in planning and total inflexibility in the execution of a tactical plan would yet again be their downfall. This is certainly not secret material but an internationally known m1l1tary fact, we simply feel our system works better for obvious reasons.

As our ground forces sped north to Beirut the Syrians Launched a virtual air armada to stop them. What occurred, through our use of Elint and various recce drones etc. , “. ” as firstly a total jamming of their voice channels of communications. It was reported in the English Flight magazine that voice transmissions were even broken between taxiing aircraft and the tower· that would not surprise me. Let us just say that the GCI system was fairly ineffective when we wanted it to be.

The other point is that by using AEW aircraft off the Lebanese coast we were able to vector our own top cover aircraft into suitable ambush positions to take advantage of the number of aircraft the Syrians appeared willing to commit to this operation.

Therefore when our various radars indicated the presence of a large MiG force heading into southern Lebanon we were ideally suited to use our F-15 and F-16 aircraft to maximum advantage. The larger F-15 was the front runner, just in case the respected Foxbats were in the lead, while our smaller but more agile, and certainly less visible, F-16s would provide support and hit any second-wave aircraft.

As we were vectored in, using our own capable radar in association with the Hawkeye off the coast we realised that practically everything in the Syrian Air Force was coming at us. Obviously, they thought that by launching more than a hundred aircraft en masse they would swamp our own fighters and win the battle. What transpired was the opposite. Why the Syrians used the tactics they did we cannot begin to wonder; all I can say is that we would not, if we were in their place, operate in such a seemingly non-caring manner.

The Eagles went in firing at the large MiG force approaching and breaking to the left and right; within a minute the air was full of turning aircraft, fireballs and falling drop tanks. The latter caused moments of dread for all pilots as the chance of collision was very high indeed in some circumstances if you had an engagement above you. Our own force of four ’16s rolled into what must have been a dozen MiGs which were diving lower to avoid the melee above, obviously hoping to slip to the coast where they could ‘engage’ our A-4 and Kfir aircraft which were in the process of mopping up the SAM batteries. Our F-16s carried two IR Shafrir short-range air-to-air missiles in addition to the very effective M-61 Vulcan galling cannon. I fired off both my Shafrirs as the tone was perfect though at this angle we all could have achieved gun kills if necessary. This would have taken a little longer though, and with so many MiGs about it wasn’t worth taking unnecessary chances positioning just in case you got their local ‘ace’ on your tail. A split second in this game can kill you! Both my Shafrirs guided and each hit one of the Floggers right on the tail. Our flight had taken out the entire Flogger force within half a minute. There was more action occurring above; the air was literally cross-threaded with missile vapour trails and fireballs; I had never seen anything like it before, not even in the biggest dogfights of the Yorn Kippur war. With more than half our fuel exhausted and sans missiles we headed back to refuel and re-arm.

Post-conflict analysis indicates that the IAF destroyed more than eighty Syrian aircraft a loss of three to ground fire during that 36 hour period

Editor’s Note: As the region of operation of the Israeli Defence Force is still considered a militarily hostile environment certain sensitive facts relating to specific dates and equipment operation modes have been slightly altered to preserve security. Similarly, crew names and ranks are not given nor are individual aircraft call signs tor the appropriate mission.