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

AIR SUPERIORITY
. . . . They sent over pods and they sent over their operational experts to show us
how these magical instruments could protect you from the wrath of the missiles-if
only you flew the correct formation. You have a pod, it radiates, it spoofs. it jams,
and if you’re in the right relative positions to the missiles you’re immune, like
Superman. That’s why we lost those five. It is the one thing we shouldn’t have
done-take recipes from another world, another situation where the USAF never
had to face anything more complicated than SA-2As and Bs. We were faced with a
mix of SA-2As and SA-3s and SA-2s improved. A cocktail.8’
If Peled is to be believed, the IAF would soon have overcome “that
foolish taking of advice” and taken its revenge, but it was frustrated by
politicaljiut. The fighting concluded on August 7, 1970, with the Israelis
claiming that, since the end of the Six Day War, the Egyptians (and Russians)
had lost 110 aircraft while admitting that they themselves had lost
16.82 Most of them, as we have seen, fell to missiles in the last 2 or 3 weeks
of the conflict, a mishap illustrating a very important aspect of the electronic
contest that was now an irrevocable part of the air war: a tendency
for the advantage to swing very quickly from one protagonist to the other
as an electronic advance was met with a countermeasure, to be matched in
turn with a counter- countermeasure or another new electronic step, ad
injinit~rn.~~
The Russians, for reasons best known to themselves, were apparently
reluctant to supply the Arab states with, more modern aircraft when they
began reequipping them after the Six-Day War and during the War of Attrition.
But they were willing to bolster the ground-based Arab air defense
with the latest missile systems and antiaircraft guns. The improved SA-2
and the SA-3 were retained, supplemented by the SA-6 and SA-7 and the
four-barreled, radar-controlled and power-operated ZSU-23/4 antiaircraft
cannon. These weapons, used in combination, provided a comprehensive
air defense “umbrella” up to a height of some 72,000 feet and out to a slant
range of about 31 miles.s4 The limitations of one-and they did all have
limitations-were compensated for by the strengths of the others.
The radars and guidance systems of the Russian-built missiles worked
on a wide spectrum of radio frequencies, and some of them could switch
frequencies with bewildering rapidity, complicating the question of ECM
and providing, in toto, an air defense far more sophisticated than that faced
by the IAF in the War of Attrition. The weaknesses of the air defense system
were its immobility and the interdependence of its component parts.
Even with the key SA-6, which had all its missiles and radars mounted on
tracked vehicles, setting up and recalibrating its instruments after a move
took several hours.SS
Even though the War of Attrition had been officially concluded in 1970,
sporadic skirmishing continued at a rather lower level of intensity. However,
it flared up to old heights on September 13, 1973, in a spectacular air
battle apparently initiated by four Israeli fighters deliberately intruding into
Syrian territory. The Syrians scrambled a force of MiGs to intercept them,
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