AHC/WI: Iraqi Air Force Fights to the End in 2003

In OTL, the Iraqi Air Force notoriously failed to engage in the conventional portion of the 2003 Iraq War, to the point where Saddam literally buried many of the planes. The reasoning appeared to be the "maintain its size as a regional deterrent" effect that limited it previously, mixed with an understanding that it, especially after a decade of pounding, could do little against the USAF.

Now the outcome of it engaging is obvious-wiped out with little real effect. The question is: What's the best-case scenario in terms of how much disruption it could do?
 
Against USAF/USN/USMC air the short answer is not much. Sure a few US aircraft could be shot down, you'd have to be a little careful about unescorted helicopters early on. You could see a few attacks against ground forces. On the whole, a few more American casualties, many more dead Iraqi AF pilots and ground personnel. Between pilot skill levels, equipment quality, training/doctrine, and a limited air defense/control system (which would rapidly go away) the Iraqi AF would be a speed bump.
 

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Probably have some notable success against Helicopters, a regiment of Apache's was badly damaged by the Medina Division in OTL. Now if they go in with a "damn the casualties, hit them" attitude against ground forces, then I foresee them causing at least some damage against the invaders, increasing the casualty bill. I doubt it would have much effect on the outcome of the war.

What it would have an immediate impact would be on US Army and USAF procurement for the next decade. Probably the US Army invests more heavily in organic air defences for its ground units; and the military as a whole is more invested in oversight of the JSF project, they decide "good now is preferable to better later". F35's is service by 2016.
 
Might i point out the iraqi AF still has still got mig 29s which would still be a threat even to most aircraft to the US and UK aircraft.
 
What was the IAR like by 2003? IIRC they had ~800 planes in 1991 but lost a bunch through defection to Iran, concrete piercing bombing in HASs and in air combat against almost 2000 allied planes. Did they acquire any new planes and spares for planes in the 12 years after that? Did they do much training with 12 years of no-fly zones in the north and south? Or did they just waste into insignificance during that time and would not have been able to even fly much if at all, let alone with any tactical effect?

I get the feeling that the IAF did what it could, which was literally nothing.
 
Re the situation of IqAF in 2003: according to Tom Cooper's book Iraqi Fighters 1953-2003, no MiG-29s were operational in 2003 due to lack of spares. But there were one or more squadrons of each MiG-21/F-7, MiG-23, Mirage F1, MiG-25, Su-22, Su-25 still operational, the totals were of course very low. Btw, there were no defections if IqAF aircraft in 1991, they were ORDERED by saddam to go to Iran.

Since this is an AHC, i would start with a POD in 1991, namley Saddam i guess has a change of heart and decides not to send 120 of his aircraft to Iran, but try to preserve them inside the country. Some will be destroyed or damaged on the ground, but judging by the ratios of losses versus totals, a good part will survive. They could try a few more hits and run mission against the american strikes with the interceptors and shoot down a few more american aircraft, thus boosting morale and image of the AF, AND boosting the image of soviet/russian aircraft in the process. Same into the 1990s, with more aircraft remaining they might get a couple of kills against american aircraft enforcing the NFZ. Saddam might make a determined effort to get a handful of new interceptors and spares for the remaining ones, maybe he will manage to bribe some ex-soviet republic officials for some MiG-29s, Su-27s, S-300 etc. and smuggled through Iran (at a hefty price of course, like the iranians keeping half of those fighters and SAMs or something - since the IqAF aircraft were not evacuated and the iranians refusing to hand them back relations might be slightly better).

So when the americans finally get on with their plan to "liberate and bring democracy" to Iraq in 2003, Saddam might order an AF in a bit better condition, with a squadron or so of modern MiG-29 and Su-27 each, plus the remaining MiG-25, MiG-23, Mirages etc. to put up resistance against the americans. Sure, they can't possibly do any significant damage, but they might cause embarassment for the americans by shooting down some of their aircraft/helos, some ground attacks sorties against the american troops, maybe even some daring attacks against airfields within range (iirc in OTL in 2003 they planned to have some Mirage F1s to attack an objective, can't recall what it was, but it was abandoned at the last minute because of an accident).
 
Given the massive air superiority the Coalition had, not only numbers of planes, but pilot training and command and control (fighters directed by AWACS vs unsupported fighters), I doubt the Iraqis AF would accomplish much at all.

Mig-21s!?!?!? Really?
OK, the Mig-29s are good, but the playing field was SO unlevel.
 
Not if you go by western claims however iraqi MiG-29 pilots claimed at least one Tornado in 1991 and iirc damage to a B-52 and F-111.
 
Well, to be fair there simply aren't that many people who fly the MiG-29 and who have ever had to use them against the west. I'm trying to think of them... Did India ever field the MiG-29 against Pakistan? I don't think they ever tangled with the F16s.

There were some incidents during the Kosovo campaign but, again, they were incredibly pilot-outclassed and numerically disadvantaged.

Syria lost a couple of pairs to Israeli F15s, but that's a small N.

So I don't think it has ever really been tested against western fighters of similar generation on a scale from which we can draw conclusions. I understand that it does suffer from poor pilot situational awareness, though, because so many of the controls require head-down in the cockpit.
 
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CalBear

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Well, the Patriot PAC-2 would finally get to perform its actual function as a SAM.

The Iraqis would be fighting blind since they had no capability for airborne command and control. That puts them into the gunsight as soon as they take off, against aircraft that can keep their radars on stand-by until they are engagement range. Getting killed before you even know the other guy is around would be the story in most cases, especially since the U.S. had done a lot of work on LPI radars, and the Iraqis were using, in the main, mid-late 1980s avionics.
 
I remember a discovery wings documentary saying they had about 70 combat planes left in 2003. Not sure how true it was but thats the only number i've ever heard. If they fought to the end I guess more dog fighting experience for the USAF/USN maybe even an ace or two.
 
The Iraqi's were both poorly trained and had execrable serviceability levels in 2003. They could only operate and train in the center portion of the country (no fly zones) and their C3I system never really recovered from the kicking it got in '91. They were barely able to maintain operational ability in day ops, they would have been completely outclassed during night/bad weather ops.

As for them getting something as capable as S300's from the Russians, not going to happen. It's one thing for the Russians to turn a blind eye to the odd shipment of Sov era radar spares or aircraft parts but no one would accept the Russians had not noticed the shipment of a state of the art SAM system or Mig fighters.

The likely result of some sort of active air resistance would be to get just about every IAF fighter shot down, lots of F15 and F16 pilots would have become aces over night and every remaining Iraqi airbase would have disappeared under a barrage of LGB's and Tomahawks. If I was being brutally frank, I doubt there would have been significant Coalition losses.
 
Regarding the S-300, it's not Russia i was thinking of, but any of the ex-soviet republics who had them. 1990s were chaotic, and like i said if the iraqis tried hard enough (same for Iran imo), i'm sure they could have gotten some from Ukraine, Belarus etc, and same with MiG-29s and Su-27s. North Korea got some late model MiG-29 9.13 in late 1990s.

There is of course not the question of IqAF defeating the american air offensive, but if they were in slightly better condition and ordered to put up resistance, they potentially could have caused some embarrassing situations for the americans, like killing another F-117, or even a B-2, or some attacks against saudi airfields and so on.

Oh and i agree about serviceability and the drastic errosion of their C3I, but i wouldn't blanket all IqAF pilots as "poorly trained". Some were veterans of the Iran-Iraq war, not to mention Desert Storm. They did their best for their country with the resources available and under the political contraints of those years.
 
In OTL, the Iraqi Air Force notoriously failed to engage in the conventional portion of the 2003 Iraq War, to the point where Saddam literally buried many of the planes. The reasoning appeared to be the "maintain its size as a regional deterrent" effect that limited it previously, mixed with an understanding that it, especially after a decade of pounding, could do little against the USAF.

Now the outcome of it engaging is obvious-wiped out with little real effect. The question is: What's the best-case scenario in terms of how much disruption it could do?

The bragging of multiple F15 Pilots would be really disruptive to the other Coalition pilots!
 
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