Could arabs have won a modern war without air superiority?

The problem with Arabic armies aren’t equipment or bravery, the problem is low morale, lack of discipline, incompetent officers and lack of initiative. This is not caused by Arabic culture, but is a result of their political systems, which create these problem with a focus on loyalty over competence and the lack of political legitimacy (resulting in the low morale). We have seen example of Arabic armed forces who do well, these are usual militias loyal to religious-political movements, with Hezbollah and the Houthis as the best known examples. I don’t use ISIS as example as their way of fighting couldn’t really be transferred to conventional forces.

The lack of air superiority of Israel doesn’t make these problems go away. Yes Israel could very well have lost without air superiority if they fought like they usual do, but if they lacked air superiority the Israeli would have fought differently.
 
The problem with Arabic armies aren’t equipment or bravery, the problem is low morale, lack of discipline, incompetent officers and lack of initiative.

Arab forces have occasionally been hampered by poor equipment notably combat jets which were markedly inferior to those of Israel, especially in 1982 but also in '73. Discipline, however, is less likely to be an issue. For example, while Sharon excoriated Egyptian officers, he said the troops "are strong and they are disciplined."

This is not caused by Arabic culture, but is a result of their political systems, which create these problem with a focus on loyalty over competence

The second has been a problem but so has the first, as Pollack noted.

and the lack of political legitimacy (resulting in the low morale).

Egyptians held Nasser in high esteem but that was of no help on the battlefields of Yemen and Sinai.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
@starman Pollack also quotes an Israeli airforce general that inferior aircraft was not the main reason of their failure [ believe hes referring to 82]
Granted they had essentially the same aircrafts and missiles as in 73 markedly inferior to 4th US aircraft and even F4

I'm not sure if any mig23MF were lost to F4
And Syria had no ML MLD in 1982
Did syrians have the mig21bis back then?
Most f15/16 kills were mig23MS and mig21
Lastly numerically were the Syrians not inferior in 1982?
 
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@starman Pollack also quotes an Israeli airforce general that inferior aircraft was not the main reason of their failure [ believe hes referring to 82]

Right he quoted an Israeli as saying "They could've been flying the best aircraft in the world and we would've shot them down in exactly the same way." It's misleading, though, to blame SAF pilots. If you read Cooper's much newer work on the MIG-23, you see just how great the Israeli advantage was, not just in jets but support aircraft, which provided the Israelis with a perfect picture of what was going on. Perhaps most importantly, they jammed Syrian communications, making it impossible for SAF pilots to get information or directions from ground controllers, which they were dependent on as part of their IADS.

Granted they had essentially the same aircrafts and missiles as in 73 markedly inferior to 4th US aircraft and even F4

And even F-15....

Did syrians have the mig21bis back then?

Yes I think they did.
 
Assuming you're referring to the failed attack of October 14, Israeli air superiority had little to do with it. With the possible exception of 3rd brigade most losses were due to IDF tanks. The same was true of most other failed Egyptian attacks.

The Egyptians had no choice but to rely on SAMs because the MIG-21 had so many drawbacks--poor cockpit visibility, limited endurance, ineffective weapons....

The Egyptians' worst mistake was to squander too much in futile attacks from October 10-17.

Even if most losses are down to the direct action of tanks, it's presence or absence of air superiority that allows them to be effective or not.

Yes, they had inferior planes, and probably an inferior corps of pilots, but they knew that and so they did rely on SAMs, and it was working fine for the purposes of that war.

They did make a number of mistakes here. The overarching reason they were fighting was to regain Sinai and liberate Palestine, so ending a war having gained some of the Sinai but without even touching Palestinian territory was a hard political move. Pausing for a half decade and bolstering their air defense network would have been the military option, but this would also mean doubling down on the liberating Palestine and anti-Israel rhetoric, and they'd have been less likely to get Sinai back by other means.

The problem with Arabic armies aren’t equipment or bravery, the problem is low morale, lack of discipline, incompetent officers and lack of initiative. This is not caused by Arabic culture, but is a result of their political systems, which create these problem with a focus on loyalty over competence and the lack of political legitimacy (resulting in the low morale). We have seen example of Arabic armed forces who do well, these are usual militias loyal to religious-political movements, with Hezbollah and the Houthis as the best known examples. I don’t use ISIS as example as their way of fighting couldn’t really be transferred to conventional forces.

The lack of air superiority of Israel doesn’t make these problems go away. Yes Israel could very well have lost without air superiority if they fought like they usual do, but if they lacked air superiority the Israeli would have fought differently.

We should expect low moral, lack of discipline, and even incompetence on the part of officers, when they're trying to invade territory outside their core territory, having previously been focused on maintaining their existing non-core territories. At the end of the day, it's hard to get even volunteers to put in a full effort to capture territory for some foreigners and their own elites, and even harder to get conscripts or tribal levies to do this.

There is no example of an independent Palestine with international recognition working on a military that could defend it's core territory and also attempt to capture other territories it considers to be core or vital to security, but that military would have the same mission as, and so would look like, the early IDF, and not like the standard Arab military's.

The military of Iraq was defeated decisively in Desert Storm, sure, but it was fighting against the best military in the world, and four or five that were in the top ten, so I think it gets underestimated. But if they were fighting any of their neighbors, without the involvement of the coalition, they WOULD have had air superiority, so it doesn't fit neatly into this thread's scenario.
 
Egyptians held Nasser in high esteem but that was of no help on the battlefields of Yemen and Sinai.

Not all Arab armies are equally (in)competent. It's likely no coincidence that the performance of armies of Egypt and Jordan in modern times have tended to do rather better then those of Iraq or Saudi Arabia. It's likely no coincidence that those Arab states which have performed better in modern warfare tend to also have political systems which rest more on popularity and legitimacy rather then force and bribery.

The military of Iraq was defeated decisively in Desert Storm, sure, but it was fighting against the best military in the world, and four or five that were in the top ten, so I think it gets underestimated.

Even taking that into account, the Iraqis did far more poorly then the quantity and quality of their equipment suggests they should have. Just recently, they also were strategically stalemated for nine-years against an enemy they outnumbered and outgunned immensely (the Iran-Iraq War), during which they suffered numerous tactical and operational defeats in battles where they held all the advantages in terms of equipment quantity and quality. Perhaps most tellingly is how despite the imposition of an entirely different military system by the United States in the interim, the exact same problems caused the Iraqis to suffer horrendous defeats to ISIS in 2014 despite the imposition of an entirely different military system. Western-style training and equipment have tended to fail in Arab armies just as regularly as Soviet-style ones.
 
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Even taking that into account, the Iraqis did far more poorly then the quantity and quality of their equipment suggests they should have. Just recently, they also were strategically stalemated for nine-years against an enemy they outnumbered and outgunned immensely (the Iran-Iraq War), during which they suffered numerous tactical and operational defeats in battles where they held all the advantages in terms of equipment quantity and quality. Perhaps most tellingly is how despite the imposition of an entirely different military system by the United States in the interim, the exact same problems caused the Iraqis to suffer horrendous defeats to ISIS in 2014 despite the imposition of an entirely different military system. Western-style training and equipment have tended to fail in Arab armies just as regularly as Soviet-style ones.

I actually think Iran is underestimated as well. They're both working out a style for training and equipment that would work for their specific circumstances, while their advisors from the west and the east were giving them western- or eastern-style training and equipment. The protracted Iran-Iraq conflict was, for these military traditions, their equivalent of the World Wars. If there was a repeat ten years down the line, we'd see the kind of improvements implemented by all sides in WW2, based on the experiences of WW1, but specific to their circumstances.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Not all Arab armies are equally (in)competent. It's likely no coincidence that the performance of armies of Egypt and Jordan in modern times have tended to do rather better then those of Iraq or Saudi Arabia. It's likely no coincidence that those Arab states which have performed better in modern warfare tend to also have political systems which rest more on popularity and legitimacy rather then force and bribery.



Even taking that into account, the Iraqis did far more poorly then the quantity and quality of their equipment suggests they should have. Just recently, they also were strategically stalemated for nine-years against an enemy they outnumbered and outgunned immensely (the Iran-Iraq War), during which they suffered numerous tactical and operational defeats in battles where they held all the advantages in terms of equipment quantity and quality. Perhaps most tellingly is how despite the imposition of an entirely different military system by the United States in the interim, the exact same problems caused the Iraqis to suffer horrendous defeats to ISIS in 2014 despite the imposition of an entirely different military system. Western-style training and equipment have tended to fail in Arab armies just as regularly as Soviet-style ones.
In the early stages of war Iraq was qualitatively outclassed significantly by Iran
Its not until mid 80s did Iraqis held the upper hand in superior quality armor artillery and aircraft

But I agree with you that both soviet and western systems have failed at times with arab armies
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Right he quoted an Israeli as saying "They could've been flying the best aircraft in the world and we would've shot them down in exactly the same way." It's misleading, though, to blame SAF pilots. If you read Cooper's much newer work on the MIG-23, you see just how great the Israeli advantage was, not just in jets but support aircraft, which provided the Israelis with a perfect picture of what was going on. Perhaps most importantly, they jammed Syrian communications, making it impossible for SAF pilots to get information or directions from ground controllers, which they were dependent on as part of their IADS.



And even F-15....



Yes I think they did.
That's important point in 1982 Israel had the following advantages
Superior numbers
Superior jets missiles from generation later , syrians had few mig23mf and unknown R60 and R13M
C3
Jamming and support aircraft
Superior intelligence
Superior pilots probably most experienced in the world at the time
Superior tactics

So all the syrian failures cannot be attributed to soviet equipment alone although what syrians had was decidedly inferior and not the standard equipment of VVS/PVO in 1982
While the IDAF was arguably superior to all NATO airforces except USA
 
In the early stages of war Iraq was qualitatively outclassed significantly by Iran
Its not until mid 80s did Iraqis held the upper hand in superior quality armor artillery and aircraft

But I agree with you that both soviet and western systems have failed at times with arab armies

Iran was also in the middle of a massive purge of its military and had just been cut off from it source of technical aid, spares, and material on top of dealing with a massive amount of political chaos’s and a western embargo. By all accounts the Iraqis should’ve rolled over them. They didn’t
 
In the early stages of war Iraq was qualitatively outclassed significantly by Iran

Quite the opposite. The Iranian equipment park after the revolution was in tatters, with maintenance standards having crashed, and the situation only got worse as the war progressed. The Iraqis were very much the ones rolling around with superior quality equipment as a result... an advantage their awful troop quality completely squandered. Great equipment is worthless if your troops don't know how to leverage it.
 
Not all Arab armies are equally (in)competent. It's likely no coincidence that the performance of armies of Egypt and Jordan in modern times have tended to do rather better then those of Iraq or Saudi Arabia. It's likely no coincidence that those Arab states which have performed better in modern warfare tend to also have political systems which rest more on popularity and legitimacy rather then force and bribery.

I don't think the Jordanian monarchy was particularly popular. Jordan's Arab Legion was formed of bedouin recruits ( from a minority group) and owed its high rating to British training.
 
The overarching reason they were fighting was to regain Sinai and liberate Palestine, so ending a war having gained some of the Sinai but without even touching Palestinian territory was a hard political move.

The Egyptians knew they had no hope of recapturing all of Sinai, or even half of it. Their plan was to get back just a little of Sinai in order to start a political dynamic leading to return of all of it. They didn't expect to get back Palestine, which would've required eliminating Israel--an impossibility.
 
The Egyptians knew they had no hope of recapturing all of Sinai, or even half of it. Their plan was to get back just a little of Sinai in order to start a political dynamic leading to return of all of it. They didn't expect to get back Palestine, which would've required eliminating Israel--an impossibility.

They wouldn't need to eliminate Israel to get them to consider negotiating over Palestine, they didn't need to actually take the Sinai to get Israel to negotiate over that, but they did have to invade it. The rhetoric required to rally support for the war couldn't have said that they wanted to take a little to get a place to start negotiating from. Israel was actively colonizing the Sinai just like Gaza and the West Bank, if Egypt hadn't started the war around that time, Israel would have quickly considered the settlements of the Sinai as vital as the settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. Today it might seem obvious that Israel would trade that land for recognition, or that they'd have focused mainly on the West Bank to settle, but at the time it wasn't.

I don't think they were even trying to get close to the 1967 borders, that would carry too much risk of Israel using one of their rumored nuclear weapons. This isn't the kind of thing that can be used in speeches to rally the troops.
 
They wouldn't need to eliminate Israel to get them to consider negotiating over Palestine,

The only parts of Palestine Israel might consider negotiating over were Gaza and some of the West Bank.

.... if Egypt hadn't started the war around that time, Israel would have quickly considered the settlements of the Sinai as vital as the settlements in Gaza and the West Bank.

At the time, Dayan said settlements didn't necessarily preclude eventual return of land to the arabs, and it didn't.

Today it might seem obvious that Israel would trade that land for recognition, or that they'd have focused mainly on the West Bank to settle, but at the time it wasn't.

There was a difference in how the Israelis viewed the Sinai and West Bank. The latter was considered part of Israel's historic territory. Sinai wasn't and, apart from Abu Rudeis, was practically worthless from an economic point of view.
 
To elaborate, a ground based air defense a order of magnitude larger than the Egyptians had in. 1973 is needed. What they had was good, but it's sucess in 1973 was due as much to Israeli intelligence failure and overconfidence. It did not take long to figure out the problem & start remediation.

SA-2 really pissed-off USAF in Vietnam and SA-6 did the same to IDF/AF in '73.

What others SAMs did the soviets had back then ? SA-5 ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-200_(missile)
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Quite the opposite. The Iranian equipment park after the revolution was in tatters, with maintenance standards having crashed, and the situation only got worse as the war progressed. The Iraqis were very much the ones rolling around with superior quality equipment as a result... an advantage their awful troop quality completely squandered. Great equipment is worthless if your troops don't know how to leverage it.
To give an example in early stages of war in the air
Iraq had hunters su7 mig21
Even in small numbers IIRAF had dozens of F4 and F14s and atleast according to Mr coopers research numbers were much greater than previously thought

T72 supplies were limited
And Moscow was upset at iraq did not relax supplies until yrs later
 
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SA-2 really pissed-off USAF in Vietnam and SA-6 did the same to IDF/AF in '73.
Guidelines were allowed to live at McNamara's insistence.
He didn't want Russians hurt, so were off the target list.
Not that didn't stop LBJ from micromanaging F-105s from flying right over them, mission after mission
 
Guidelines were allowed to live at McNamara's insistence.
He didn't want Russians hurt, so were off the target list.
Not that didn't stop LBJ from micromanaging F-105s from flying right over them, mission after mission

ROTFL McNamara you idiot bureaucrat...
 
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