Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

THE ISRAELI EXPERIENCE
oil embargo against them, had shifted to a neutralist position and placed
an embargo on the export of war materials to Israel. Unable (at that time)
to build the most sophisticated weapons systems such as aircraft for
themselves, the Israelis had to solicit help from the only practical alternative
source, the United States. Backed by a powerful American Jewish
lobby, their entreaties were rewarded and the Americans, at long last, were
prepared to help. In April 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson had authorized
deliveries of the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk. Before the end of that
year, agreement had also been reached for the sale of 40 McDonnell
F-4 Phantoms over the next two years, the first of them arriving in September
1969.
Designated by the Americans as an "attack bomber," the little A-4 was
well suited to the Israeli acquisition philosophy of multi-mission capability
at two levels. A relatively cheap, subsonic single-seater, with two 30-mm
cannon replacing the 20-mm ones that the Americans favored (and soon to
be equipped with a Shafir air-to-air missile as well),74 it was a maneuverable
and extremely robust airplane. Used as an air superiority weapon, it
could-and did-down the best Egyptian fighters on occasion, and it soon
became the workhorse of the IAE The F-4 was at the other end of the
multi-mission spectrum in many respects. A big, ugly brute of a plane with
all-weather capability, the twin-engine, two-seater Phantom could out-pace
and out-range all Egyptian fighters and deliver some 12,000 pounds of
external ordnance, which might include a variety of air-to-air and airto-
ground missiles.75 Since the Russians appeared reluctant to reequip
their Arab friends with the newest Soviet machines, the Israeli advantage
was widening.
As the War of Attrition heated up-the kind of prolonged nibbling
scuffle that the Israelis could not aff~rd~~-the IAF began to strike deeper
into Egypt in a desperate effort to force the Egyptians to relinquish their
strategy. That approach simply enabled President Nasser to pressure the
Russians into becoming more involved. In April 1970, three squadrons of
MiG-21Js, with Russian pilots and ground crews, arrived in Egypt. The
-215 had improved on-board radar, a better stabilized gyro gunsight, and
wingtip drop tanks, which gave it the range to reach Tel Aviv from airfields
west of the canal.
The IAF promptly relinquished its deep strikes into the delta, but continued
to attack military installations in the Canal Zone. The inevitable
confrontation occurred on June 30, 1970, when eight Phantoms and eight
Mirages tangled in a four-minute dogfight with sixteen MiG-21s piloted by
Soviet airmen.77 One of the Phantom pilots has given us the usual spartan
account of what happened when the Soviets went into combat. "They came
at us in pairs, and we let them pass in order not to be sandwiched between
the pairs as they had anticipated we would. They passed as couples in a
procession. We waited and got in behind."78
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