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

AIR SUPERIORITY
MiG-19s would play the major part in any struggle for air superiority.88 The
Jordanians were staying strictly neutral this time, but the Arab forces were
bolstered by 2 Mirage squadrons from Libya, 3 MiG-21 squadrons from
Iraq and 1 from Algeria, and an Iraqi squadron of Hunters, as well as several
squadrons of MiG-17s and 1 of SU-~S.~~
However, none of them except
the Libyan Mirage were a technological match for Israel’s 140 Phantoms
and 50 Mirages, even without taking pilot quality into account.
The debacles of 1956 and 1967 “had cost us few pilots but a near-total
destruction of morale,” in the opinion of General Saad el Shazli, the Egyptian
Chief of Staff, “and in their many encounters since 1967 our men had
frankly not matched the enemy’s.’’w They might outnumber the Israelis by
a margin of nearly three to one in aircraft but the Egyptians, at least, had
no intention of fighting a conventional air-to-air battle for air superiority.
“Throughout my planning, I was anxious not to bring our air force into
direct conflict with the enemy’s,’’ wrote the Egyptian Chief of Staff. “From
the start I adopted two main principles. First, to avoid chance air encounters.
Second, to use our air force for sudden ground-attack strikes where
enemy air cover was least likely. Primarily, I wanted the enemy’s ground
forces and ground targets to taste the psychological impact of our air force,
while at the same time I wanted to preserve it from air combat.”” The
Syrians, on the other hand, “displayed a much greater commitment to battle
from the start,” in the opinion of an Indian commentator, Maj. Gen. D.
K. Palit. “Syrian (and later Iraqi) MiGs were thrown into the fray with what
seemed reckless abandon. . .. Furthermore, probably because of a lesser
degree of SAM cover than in the Canal Zone, Syrian-based fighters
remained in the air more often.”92
The IAF appreciated the threat that the new missile technology posed,
even if it overestimated its ability to deal with it. Had the Israeli government
chosen to follow the precedents of 1956 and 1967 when it concluded
that the Arabs were determined on war, then the missile screens would
have been the first targets of a preemptive strike according to General
Peled:
We had well-made, sophisticated, complicated, well orchestrated operation plans to
knock out the total missile force along the canal-I06 batteries.. ..You could equate
it to a huge Cecil DeMille type of spectacle, or a huge backdrop, it had lighting, it
had many other conditions to it. Had all the conditions existed to run the show it
would have been a great success. Within half a day, there would have been no more
missiles at all.93
However, for political reasons there could be no first strike this time.
The Arabs must be seen as the aggressors for the sake of world public
opinion, especially American opinion, since the United States was currently
the Israelis’ only external source of sophisticated weaponry. Even a
precautionary mobilization on any scale would have to be delayed until the
very last minute in order to avoid accusations of provoking an attack.
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