Gulf War WI

Hashasheen

Banned
When the attacks began on Iraq by Coalition forces, the Iraqi airforce suffered the most, with nearly a hundred aircraft heading to Iran, then an enemy of Iraq. A recent discovery of 17 jets in Serbia has just occured by the Defense Ministry and it triggered this in my head:

What if when the attacks began, the aircraft did not defect to Iran, but instead Jordan or Syria? What would have been their post-war fate, and would they have been put to use by either goverment?
 
Syria: not likely as they were in the Coalition, and had an armored division and a Commando Brigade in Saudi. Jordan is where the Coalition expected the IrAF to fly to, and the CAPs were oriented in that direction. The bug-out to Iran was a big surprise to CENTCOM, and the CAPs had to be reoirented in that direction. If they do try to head for Jordan, well....some AF and Navy fighter drivers rack up some kills in an air-to-air ShootEx over Western Iraq. Unless some lucky MiG or Mirage driver gets in under a CAP, not too many will make it.
 
I read the title as Gulf War VI and wondered what horrible distopia would give us 4 more Gulf Wars...

Didn't this question come up before, in the last month or two?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
CENTCOM was right to be surprised, as this event has always struck me as downright bizarre? Why would Saddam expect Iran to give the planes back after the war?
 

MacCaulay

Banned
When the attacks began on Iraq by Coalition forces, the Iraqi airforce suffered the most, with nearly a hundred aircraft heading to Iran, then an enemy of Iraq. A recent discovery of 17 jets in Serbia has just occured by the Defense Ministry and it triggered this in my head:

What if when the attacks began, the aircraft did not defect to Iran, but instead Jordan or Syria? What would have been their post-war fate, and would they have been put to use by either goverment?

If they do try to head for Jordan, well....some AF and Navy fighter drivers rack up some kills in an air-to-air ShootEx over Western Iraq. Unless some lucky MiG or Mirage driver gets in under a CAP, not too many will make it.

I've got to agree. Though if there's a dozen or so Floggers making the sprint out of H3 at once, then they might end up scoring another air-to-air kill or two against the Coalition just through sheer weight of numbers.

He flew half a dozen MiG-29s out of the country, and lord knows if those things were caught in the air in one group, then pity the poor CAP that allowed them to get inside on them. That'd be a hell of a furball.

Didn't this question come up before, in the last month or two?

I put of the proposition that Saddam could've just kept the fighters and used them against the Coalition air offensive.
 
Check the book The Mother of All Battles, from Naval Institute Press. They use captured Iraqi documents to put together the Iraqi side of the war, and have some of the IrAF's air strike plans for Saudi and the Gulf. Strikes were planned for Dhahran, the tanker terminal at Ras Tamurah, Riyadh, as well as CAS for Iraqi Army units in contact on the ground. Not to mention a plan to try going after one of the carriers in the Northern Gulf. Most of these plans expected to have heavy losses if they were executed, and the IrAF's command was under no illusions that they would lose a lot of pilots and planes if they did so. But if Saddam told them to execute those plans, then execute they would. Or else....
 

The Sandman

Banned
Check the book The Mother of All Battles, from Naval Institute Press. They use captured Iraqi documents to put together the Iraqi side of the war, and have some of the IrAF's air strike plans for Saudi and the Gulf. Strikes were planned for Dhahran, the tanker terminal at Ras Tamurah, Riyadh, as well as CAS for Iraqi Army units in contact on the ground. Not to mention a plan to try going after one of the carriers in the Northern Gulf. Most of these plans expected to have heavy losses if they were executed, and the IrAF's command was under no illusions that they would lose a lot of pilots and planes if they did so. But if Saddam told them to execute those plans, then execute they would. Or else....

Well, given that in OTL they lost practically their entire airforce on the ground instead, they might as well have given it a shot. The IrAF is going to die either way, but at least this way they die with some degree of honor.
 
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