What if Syria had Mig 29 in 1982 Lebanon War

Jason222

Banned
Let say USSR did lose two pro-types where working build the Mig-29. Which might allow Mig-29 enter a year early. USSR sold dozen or so Syria . I think Israeli pilot still carry out operation successful for a simple reason come down more pilot I hear at least come Israeli-Arab dog fights then planes themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiG_29
 
Big problem with that: The Soviets didn't release the aircraft for export until 1985 (India was the initial export customer, followed by Iraq and Syria.). Even if the Syrians had MiG-29s (best bird they had in an air superiority role was the MiG-23-while the MiG-25 was more used as an interceptor; the plane can't dogfight very well-short range and a very big turn radius), it's very likely that since their pilots are still learning the aircraft, they're just going to be that many more clay pigeons for the Israelis. It's not just having the aircraft: it's having trained pilots-and Syrians in those days were just not that good. They flew similar to Soviet Voyska PVO interceptor pilots: listen to the ground controllers and do exactly as they say. It took the Bekaa Turkey Shoot to give the Syrians-and a lot of other Soviet-trained air forces-a lesson in that, and consequently, they loosened up their command-and-control while in the air.
 
The Israelis had the F15 aand Hawkeye combo, they'd drill any handful of earliest Mig 29s they met in 1982.
 

NothingNow

Banned
The Israelis had the F15 aand Hawkeye combo, they'd drill any handful of earliest Mig 29s they met in 1982.

Pretty much. Not to mention the later MiG-23s are more agile under most circumstances than pretty much any mark of MiG-29 (the OVT and MiG-35 being the obvious exceptions.)

Really, this wouldn't do the Syrians any good at all, unless they maybe got state of the art 9.12, ahead of the Red Air Force (and did not the Monkey Model 9.12B,) and had decent pilots for them.

But even then, IAF F-15s would thoroughly destroy them, if they managed to get off the ground. Maybe there'd be a Syrian or two with a kill, but I doubt that they would be a particularly numerous group.

Western analysts would probably be disappointed in it's performance, and write the Fulcrum off as being a pile of junk.
 
After the 1982 debacle, Soviet military advisers in Syria claimed that Syrian pilots were bailing out of their aircraft as soon as they detected a missile lock on by Israeli fighters.
 
This is like those "WI French had X equipment in 1940" threads. If you have shoddy doctrine and enemy manages to unhinge that you are screwed no matter what weapons you have.
 
After the 1982 debacle, Soviet military advisers in Syria claimed that Syrian pilots were bailing out of their aircraft as soon as they detected a missile lock on by Israeli fighters.

The soviet advisors in Egypt during the war of attrition said the same thing. I remember reading about Operation Rimon 20 from an Egyptian pilot's POV, how Russian pilots were making fun of the Egyptian pilots in the messhall for losing to the Israelis. The day after the air battle all the Russian pilots sat quietly and all the Egyptian ones were smiling.

The level of training of the Syrian pilots didn't play as big a role in 1982 as the EW that was used there. I doubt that the results would have changed had the Syrian pilots were replaced with Soviet ones.
 
It's kinda like saying "WI the Iraqis had Su-27s in 1991?" Same thing: the level of EW directed at them, plus tactics and training, would've only resulted in Flankers joining the MiG-29, Mirage, MiG-25, and MiG-23 wrecks on the desert floor.
 
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