The somalis did defeat the ethiopians in the ogaden war, and captured 90% of the ogaden before the cubans and soviets arrived.
In 1978 the ethiopian army faced complete collapse, it lost all its armour and most of its artillery, only the airforce was a potent force but this was removed conveinetly for the somalis becuase of ethiopian infighting.
The airforce officers where on the losing side of the power struggle and were decimated, and the entire airforce grounded.
prior to being grounded the ethiopian airforce having more experienced pilots were winning in the dogfights with thier F-5s against somali mig-17s and 21s.
not surprising since the ethiopian airforce was founded in 1947 while the somali airforce was founded in 1961 with the first pilots flying in 1964.
The somalis are unlucky to have been the victims of 2 firsts in millitary history, The first aerial bombardment against a colonial people in revolt.
(the british against the forts of the mad mullah in 1920).
and the first air mobile mechanized attach, when the cubans light tanks were airlifted behind somali lines and the somalis were aerially enveloped.
The defeat was inflicted by the cubans there were 20,000 cubans and some east germans , soviets and south yemeni communists against the 24,000 somali army..
the ethiopians were not a functioning army at that point,
the dergue hastilly conscripted peasants and reformed a 50,000 army and deployed it to harar.
if the soviets remained nuetral, do you think
a recovering ethiopian army with no airforce, that lost nearly all its armour
but has hundreds of thousands of conscrited and half trained peasants armed with rifles against a mechanized force of 24,000 is much of a threat?
before the cubans arrived the 50,000 ethiopian conscripts were under siege in harar, they would have been bombarded and starved out, and dire Dawa would have been the next target.
The vital gara marda pass was in somali hands as well, meaning the ethiopians would have had to fight thier way through to resupply thier forces.(the reason for the aerial envelopment in the first place as the somali comanded an excellent position).
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