MiG-21 combat record?
Raymond Chuang
this question: what was the combat record of the MiG-21?
From what I've read, the MiG-21's combat record wasn't that exceptional. I
do know that North Vietnamese AF pilots much preferred the MiG-17, and
Pakistani pilots had an outstanding record with the MiG-19 licensed copies
from China in the 1971 war with India. The MiG-21 had a better record during
the Yom Kippur War, but in the end they still suffered heavy losses.
--
Raymond Chuang
Mountain View, CA USA
H.Le
-21. IIRC, the overall kill/loss ratio for the -21 in Vietnam war was
somewhere between 1:1 and 1:2, while for the -17 the ratio was about
1:6.
"Raymond Chuang" <rch...@mindspring.com> wrote in message news:<aph1lu$44n$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>...
Tom Cooper
Well, the first two kills scored by MiG-21s, AFAIK, were two Israeli
SMB.2s on 5 June 1967; both shot down while exiting the target area in
Egypt. In 1965, the Indian MiG-21s clashed several times with PAF
fighters, but couldn't hit anything (two or three K-13s were fired).
During the Six Day War also an Iraqi MiG-21F-13 damaged an Israeli
Mirage IIICJ with K-13.
Otherwise, over 120 MiG-21s were destroyed on the ground and in the
air during that war (almost 100 of these were Egyptian examples).
In 1971, the PAF downed only one MiG-21 using Chinese-supplied J-6s,
and another was shot down by a PAF F-86. On the other side, the IAF
MiG-21s downed three F-104s, one J-6, and claimed probable against two
more planes (including one F-104). The total PK for the K-13 in IAF
service for 1965 and 1971 was 13%.
For the Vietnam War, the US sources usually quote some 90 kills scored
by all MiGs against US fighters. The number, however, might be around
120. The Vietnamese, on the contrary, claim a total of some 123 kills
scored by their MiG-21s (and, of course, at least as many for their
MiG-17s). Of these, only 47 can be considered as "definitely
confirmed".
The exSoviet sources (Babich), on the contrary, claim a total of 358
kills against US fighters over Vietnam; however, they do not state how
many by MiG-21s.
During the Attrition War, 1967-1973, between the Israelis and Arabs,
Syrian MiG-21s claimed 13 kills, and Egyptian 17 kills against Israeli
fighters. With exception of two or three almost all were verified (the
Egyptian press also claimed seven more Israelis as shot down during a
single battle in July 1967, but there are no serious facts which would
confirm this). However, something like 100 Arab - and five Soviet -
MiG-21s were shot down by the Israelis.
For the MiG-21's performance in the October War, in 1973, there are
highly exaggerated claims, mainly coming from Soviet sources (not even
Arab). According to Babich, Egyptian MiG-21s fought 120 air combats
with the Israelis, downing 76 fighters, and losing 54. The Syrians
supposedly fought 150 air combats, downing 103 Israelis, and losing
52.
As well known, the Israelis said only five or six their planes were
lost in air combat.
The truth seems to be in between: possibly up to 50 Israeli planes
were actually shot down in air combats (this figure includes few
fighters previously damaged by the SAMs or AAA, which the Israelis
were obviously more than glad to credit to "SAMs/AAA/other"), all
except two or three by Arab MiG-21s. Serious (in comparission to what
the contemporary Soviet reports and the Arab press said) Arab claims
show 28 Egyptian and 34 Syrian claims for Israeli fighters being shot
down by MiG-21s. My preliminary estimate is that approx 70% of these
claims are OK.
In exchange, well over 150 Arab (Egyptian, Iraqi, and Syrian) MiG-21s
were shot down by the Israelis (BTW, the official Israeli claim for a
total of 277 Arab planes shot down during this war is probably too
low: as it seems the figure should actually be over 310).
During the short war between Libya and Egypt, in 1977, at least one
Egyptian MiG-21 was confirmed shot down by LARAF Mirage 5s. In 1979
also an Egyptian miG-21 downed a Libyan MiG-23MS.
During the Border War, in Angola, SAAF Mirage F.1CZs downed one MiG-21
each in October 1981 and 1982, without suffering any losses. There are
claims for a third Angolan MiG-21 being shot down by SAAF Mirages in
1985, but no confirmation.
In different Israeli-Syrian clashes, between 1979 and 1981, at least a
dozen of MiG-21s were shot down, for no gains in exchange. Also, in
1982, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, a Syrian MiG-21SMT put a
single R-60 into an IDF/AF F-15D Eagle, but the Israeli managed to
land his badly damaged plane safely back in Israel. On the other side,
the Israelis claimed between 20 and 25 MiG-21s shot down.
Finally, over 50 Iraqi MiG-21s (mainly MFs and RFs) were shot down by
Iranian fighters during the IPGW (especially in the period 1980-1984),
and two J-7Bs (Chinese copy of the MiG-21F-13s) by USN F/A-18s in
1991.
During the war in Croatia, in January 1992 a pair of Yug MiG-21s
intercepted two EU helicopters, shot one down, and damaged the second,
forcing it to land (supposedly, the leader of the pair - now to be
prosecuted in Croatia - needed three R-60s to score a single hit).
Two or three years back, also a pair of Indian MiG-21s have shot down
a Pakistani Navy Atlantique.
Hope that helps a bit (but I surely forgot two or three conflicts
more).
Regards,
Tom
Ivan Bajlo
news:1e83c36d.02102...@posting.google.com...
> During the war in Croatia, in January 1992 a pair of Yug MiG-21s
> intercepted two EU helicopters, shot one down, and damaged the second,
> forcing it to land (supposedly, the leader of the pair - now to be
> prosecuted in Croatia - needed three R-60s to score a single hit).
Nope, Croatia already sentenced former JRV lieutenant Emir Sisic in absence
to 20 years together with his superior Dobrivoj Opancic, co of Bihac
airbase, but Hungary extradited Emir Sisic to Italy because 4 out of 5
killed where Italians, and he will now stand trial there.
--
Ivan Bajlo
ICQ #31946242
Crazy Ivan's strategy, wargaming and military history website
http://www.inet.hr/steelpanthers/
David Lednicer
Uri Noy
news:<aph1lu$44n$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>...
> > this question: what was the combat record of the MiG-21?
> > From what I've read, the MiG-21's combat record wasn't that exceptional.
I
> > do know that North Vietnamese AF pilots much preferred the MiG-17
Israeli fighter pilots also considered the Mig-17 a dangerous opponent while
the
Mig-21 was a 'no problem' frequent kill.
> During the Attrition War, 1967-1973, between the Israelis and Arabs,
1967-1970
> Syrian MiG-21s claimed 13 kills, and Egyptian 17 kills against Israeli
> fighters.
Total bull....
> something like 100 Arab - and five Soviet -
> MiG-21s were shot down by the Israelis.
That's correct.
> For the MiG-21's performance in the October War, in 1973, there are
> highly exaggerated claims,
Indeed.
> mainly coming from Soviet sources (not even
> Arab). According to Babich, Egyptian MiG-21s fought 120 air combats
> with the Israelis, downing 76 fighters, and losing 54. The Syrians
> supposedly fought 150 air combats, downing 103 Israelis, and losing
> 52.
Claiming that the israeli air force lost 179 aircraft to arab Mig-21s in
1973
is BIG total bull.... , and Israel couldn't win the war with such losses,
to
which you should add its losses to ground fire.
In this war the IAF lost a total of about 100 aircraft.
5 of them downed by arab fighters (of all types). All the others were
downed by arab AAA and SAM ground fire.
In that war IAF fighters downed 277 arab aircraft, many of them Mig-21s,
and 78 other arab fighters were downed by israeli AAA and SAMs.
As for the question of the correctness of arab and israeli claims:
1. It took over 25 years before the israeli air force finally declassified
its exact
1973 kills and losses statistics. There is no reason to doubt these numbers,
as the israelis could keep those numbers classified further.
They were declassified for open historical study when the IAF decided
they were no longer a secret.
2. While the IAF is known for its highly detailed debriefing of each
mission,
and the gun camera films of many of its air kills can be purchased at
amazon.com and seen, you just CAN'T see arab fighters' gun camera kills.
Not even one was ever released.... and for a good reason.
3. It's very likely that downed arab fighter pilots (and there were so many
of them) claimed they downed an israeli fighter before being shot down
by the other israeli fighters. Nice, understandable, but false.
> (BTW, the official Israeli claim for a
> total of 277 Arab planes shot down during this war is probably too
> low: as it seems the figure should actually be over 310).
Perhaps, but it's common to forget the many kills by israeli air defence
units, which are a less famous branch of the israeli air force.
Living in the shadow of their fellow fighters, these ground units of the
israeli
air force, armed with 20mm and 40mm guns and Hawk missiles, were very
often instructed to hold their fire in favor of israeli fighters. But when
the
fighters were not present, the israeli air defence units achieved a very
high
kill rate too and proved very effective.
Uri Noy
Tom Cooper
> Judge for yourself:
Well, actually for a the best possible records about the kills scored
by MiG-21s - not against them - http://www.acig.org is much better,
then it includes nice overviews of all the stuff I mentioned above,
including dates, pilot names, and weapons used.
Regards,
Tom
Guy Alcala
Well, let's say that the IAF has credited them to AAA/SAMs. There's always some
that are misattributed, although the number can be large or small depending on
the circumstances. I'd expect the actual total to be somewhat higher than 5.
There are certainly disputed kill claims between the U.S. and VPAF (on both
sides), as to just what caused the loss. 100% accuracy in cause of loss isn't
to be expected.
> In that war IAF fighters downed 277 arab aircraft, many of them Mig-21s,
> and 78 other arab fighters were downed by israeli AAA and SAMs.
>
> As for the question of the correctness of arab and israeli claims:
>
> 1. It took over 25 years before the israeli air force finally declassified
> its exact
> 1973 kills and losses statistics. There is no reason to doubt these numbers,
> as the israelis could keep those numbers classified further.
> They were declassified for open historical study when the IAF decided
> they were no longer a secret.
>
> 2. While the IAF is known for its highly detailed debriefing of each
> mission,
> and the gun camera films of many of its air kills can be purchased at
> amazon.com and seen, you just CAN'T see arab fighters' gun camera kills.
> Not even one was ever released.... and for a good reason.
Indeed. Personally, I've only seen a single Arab gun camera shot that is
unquestionably a kill (of a Mirage or Nesher during the '73 War; the copy I saw
was in Salvador Mafe-Huertas Osprey Air Combat book on the Mirage
III/V.Mafe-Huertas surmises that it was the one lost on 8 Oct. over the Canal).
There was another frame showing a Mirage in the frame of a MiG-21's gun camera,
although the pipper is about one wingspan left of the Mirage's left wingtip, and
no hits can be seen. The Mirage is chasing another MiG-21, which can just be
seen at the edge of the frame, but the MiG behind him is well and truly saddled
up, judging by the frame, and Mirage is likely to be in big trouble if he
continues pursuing his MiG, unless his wingman is on the second MiG.
I'd been waiting for some years to read Nordeen and Nicholle's "Phoenix over the
Nile," as if ever there was a chance for the Egyptian Air Force to strut their
stuff, this was it. I finally read it a couple of years ago. IIRC, not only did
the Egyptian pilots admit that the Israeli kill claims were quite accurate, but
I don't remember any gun camera photos showing Egyptian kills either. There
were also some gun camera shots of F-4s taken from MiG-21s during the '73 war
published in AvLeak back then, and which were subsequently reprinted in Walter
Boyne's "Phantom in Combat," if not other places There are definitely IAF
F-4s in the (4) frames, but there's not a single frame where any obvious strikes
can be seen, and only one or maybe two where the pipper is close enough to the
F-4 for hits to be likely. Why they'd even supply these shots as "proof" of
kills either during or shortly after the war (assuming that they claimed them as
such), I have no idea.
Some of the problem with the lack of Arab footage is probably due to several
factors:
1. The typically poor quality of MiG gun camera installations, cameras and
film. In a word, it's generally awful compared to contemporary western setups.
2. In the case of the MiG-17, the camera is in the nose rather than shooting
through the gunsight, so you have no idea where the pipper is, you only see a
fixed cross etched on the lens plus a clock at the 11 o'clock position of the
frame. Some decent footage is still possible, as the increasing availability of
VPAF gun camera stills shows. They do have some that show definite hits and
kills, although they still overclaim considerably.
3. Many of the Arab MiG-21s were only armed with a pair of ATOLLs and no gun,
and even if the gun camera was designed to handle missile shots (i.e.,
sufficient run time to allow the missile to get to the target following launch;
I believe lack of sufficient film was a problem with the gun cameras in Israeli
Mirage/Neshers also), I suspect the pilots would be unlikely to continue
tracking long enough to record a hit, if any. And then, the early ATOLL's a
pretty poor weapon anyway.
> 3. It's very likely that downed arab fighter pilots (and there were so many
> of them) claimed they downed an israeli fighter before being shot down
> by the other israeli fighters. Nice, understandable, but false.
The Syrians certainly did just that in the case of their 1982 claims in Lebanon.
> > (BTW, the official Israeli claim for a
> > total of 277 Arab planes shot down during this war is probably too
> > low: as it seems the figure should actually be over 310).
>
> Perhaps, but it's common to forget the many kills by israeli air defence
> units, which are a less famous branch of the israeli air force.
> Living in the shadow of their fellow fighters, these ground units of the
> israeli
> air force, armed with 20mm and 40mm guns and Hawk missiles, were very
> often instructed to hold their fire in favor of israeli fighters. But when
> the
> fighters were not present, the israeli air defence units achieved a very
> high
> kill rate too and proved very effective.
I had some correspondence a few years ago with an IAF pilot and serving officer
who told me that the IAF had been able to cross-check their claims with both the
Egyptian and Jordanian air forces (after the peace treaties, obviously), and
vice-versa. He said that despite the strict claim criteria that the IAF used,
the claims against those two air forces were still about 20% too high. That
presumably caused a large part of the reduction in claims for '73 from numbers
in the 330 range (IIRR, initially 400-odd during the war, prior to IAF post-war
analysis), down to the current 277. Presumably the overclaim percentage against
Syrian a/c would be in the same ballpark, if it's ever possible to check them
against accurate Syrian records.
Guy
Tom Cooper
> "Tom Cooper" <muf...@direkt.at> wrote in message
> news:1e83c36d.02102...@posting.google.com...
> > "Raymond Chuang" <rch...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> news:<aph1lu$44n$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>...
>
> > > this question: what was the combat record of the MiG-21?
>
> > > From what I've read, the MiG-21's combat record wasn't that exceptional.
> I
> > > do know that North Vietnamese AF pilots much preferred the MiG-17
>
> Israeli fighter pilots also considered the Mig-17 a dangerous opponent while
> the
> Mig-21 was a 'no problem' frequent kill.
>
> > During the Attrition War, 1967-1973, between the Israelis and Arabs,
>
> 1967-1970
>
> > Syrian MiG-21s claimed 13 kills, and Egyptian 17 kills against Israeli
> > fighters.
>
> Total bull....
Well, talking about the "bull": these losses were confirmed even by
the IDF/AF, and names of downed Israeli crews are available.
> > something like 100 Arab - and five Soviet -
> > MiG-21s were shot down by the Israelis.
>
> That's correct.
>
> > For the MiG-21's performance in the October War, in 1973, there are
> > highly exaggerated claims,
>
> Indeed.
>
> > mainly coming from Soviet sources (not even
> > Arab). According to Babich, Egyptian MiG-21s fought 120 air combats
> > with the Israelis, downing 76 fighters, and losing 54. The Syrians
> > supposedly fought 150 air combats, downing 103 Israelis, and losing
> > 52.
>
> Claiming that the israeli air force lost 179 aircraft to arab Mig-21s in
> 1973
> is BIG total bull.... , and Israel couldn't win the war with such losses,
> to
> which you should add its losses to ground fire.
Sigh... I said "exaggerated": Babich's book, "Istrebitely Menayut
Taktiku", was published in Moscow, in 1982, at the times of the Cold
War, and was very poorely researched in regards to the "local
conflicts", like that in the Middle East and Vietnam (BTW, you should
see his figures for US planes claimed shot down by the Vietnamese:
over 400 claims). I mentioned it as an example for Soviet/Russian
overclaiming. The Arabs do NOT claim as many Israeli planes shot down
in air combat.
> In this war the IAF lost a total of about 100 aircraft.
> 5 of them downed by arab fighters (of all types). All the others were
> downed by arab AAA and SAM ground fire.
Well, this is a bull of sort too, Uri.
The IDF/AF admits a loss of some 114-116 aircraft (different from
source to source - at least those available outside Israel), plus
approx 240 damaged, of which up to 20 were written off. The 20 w/os
are actually a matter of the typical Israeli semantic: a Phantom which
burned out on the runway after being hit by two K-13s from a Syrian
MiG-21 is described as "operational" loss...
That with "only five Israeli fighters shot down in air combats of the
Yom Kippour War" is probably the largest piece of BSPR on the part of
the IDF/AF ever. Even the Israeli records show that only 50% of the
aircraft admitted to have been lost could have been hit by the SAMs
and AAA in the first place at all.
> In that war IAF fighters downed 277 arab aircraft, many of them Mig-21s,
> and 78 other arab fighters were downed by israeli AAA and SAMs.
This is pretty much wrong too. The number of of kills against Arab
aircraft is certainly over 300 (perhaps 320).
> As for the question of the correctness of arab and israeli claims:
>
> 1. It took over 25 years before the israeli air force finally declassified
> its exact
> 1973 kills and losses statistics. There is no reason to doubt these numbers,
> as the israelis could keep those numbers classified further.
> They were declassified for open historical study when the IAF decided
> they were no longer a secret.
Aha? Until today, the IDF/AF published only the names of killed crews,
and most of the POW names, together with the type of the aircraft they
flew at the time of being shot down. The IDF/AF _never_ published the
full reasons for _each and every_ single loss from 1973, and even in
the few cases where this was done (in different books published in
Israel, for example), at least 50% of the credits are wrong, or - at
best - "educated guessing", based on the thesis that "it can only
happen by accident that an Arab pilot downs an Israeli in air
combat"...
> 2. While the IAF is known for its highly detailed debriefing of each
> mission,
> and the gun camera films of many of its air kills can be purchased at
> amazon.com and seen, you just CAN'T see arab fighters' gun camera kills.
> Not even one was ever released.... and for a good reason.
This is a bull too. The EAF released gun-camera pictures as well, and
these are even available somewhere on the internet (I think the
aviation.ru should have a page showing some, taken from an AW&ST issue
published in 1974). Certainly, the Arabs haven't released as many as
the Israelis have.
> 3. It's very likely that downed arab fighter pilots (and there were so many
> of them) claimed they downed an israeli fighter before being shot down
> by the other israeli fighters. Nice, understandable, but false.
More bull. The narratives supplied from Arab pilots - _when_ these are
_indeed_ supplied by Arab pilots, and not by some Russian and
Ukrainian day-dreamers - are not less trustworty than those of the
Israelis. Actually, for all the Arab kills scored by the Israelis I
mentioned above there are narratives which are largerly far more
precise than any Israeli stories.
A good example for how the Israelis handle their air-to-air losses is
the case of all the Phantoms slaughtered during the Op Dugman 5:
different books and the official website of the IDF/AF explain how
many were lost, and which crews were killed or captured, but state
_not_ the EXACT cause for the loss in each case. Instead, all the
Israeli sources try to imply that all were shot down by SA-6s - which
is COMPLETELY wrong. Only two were lost to SAMs; two were lost to
ZSU-23-4s, and one damaged. But, two - including the one damaged by
the ZSU-23-4s - were actually shot down by Syrian MiG-21s.
This is confirmed even by US intel sources (try a FOIA inquiry with
the USAF if you don't believe this), which gathered their infos from
both sides.
> > (BTW, the official Israeli claim for a
> > total of 277 Arab planes shot down during this war is probably too
> > low: as it seems the figure should actually be over 310).
>
> Perhaps, but it's common to forget the many kills by israeli air defence
> units, which are a less famous branch of the israeli air force.
Wrong. I'm not mixing SAM and AAA kills with air-to-air kills, and you
shouldn't be doing that either. The figure of 277 air-to-air kills
usually claimed to have been scored by IDF/AF fighters in 1973 simply
excludes kills scored against the Iraqi aircraft, and also few other -
less well-known - kills, like those against Egyptian L-29s.
<snip>
Regards,
Tom
Tom Cooper
<snip>
> Some of the problem with the lack of Arab footage is probably due to several
> factors:
I've discussed the matter with several Syrian pilots, Guy, and the
reasoning is far simplier: "security". There should be enough films,
but the higher echelons and authorities would not let them be
published, "and period".
Unbelieveable but truth, the security is - even in Egypt - so tight,
that even researching about the war in 1948 (not to speak about taking
pictures of SyAAF MiG-17 or MiG-21 displayed in open at the "Teshreen
Memorial" - a memorial for the war in 1973, or research about later
conflicts) is ultimately problematic, and there are only three or four
people who trust themselves to speak out. Everything military-related
is secret. For any proper kind of interviews, one needs the permission
from the authorities, and an "official" must be with you all the time
during the interview.
Oh, and BTW: it is almost impossible to get such official permissions
(at least in Syria): without being "somebody" one can consider himself
lucky to get a response from the local embassy at all. So, sometimes
it's easier to work via the FOIA-inquiries to the adress of the US
DoD: I bet most of the people here have not the slightest idea what
can be found in some documents there...
Regards,
Tom
PS Of course, one can also have some luck, and meet people by accident
(which, with some additional luck and two or three FOIA inquiries
more, then results with articles like the one about the MiG-23s
published in the AirEnthusiast, volume 100).
Uri Noy
"Guy Alcala" <g_al...@junkpostoffice.pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:3DC46C43...@junkpostoffice.pacbell.net...
> > In this war the IAF lost a total of about 100 aircraft.
> > 5 of them downed by arab fighters (of all types). All the others were
> > downed by arab AAA and SAM ground fire.
>
> Well, let's say that the IAF has credited them to AAA/SAMs. There's
always some
> that are misattributed
I'm not arguing with that, but in most cases the IAF knew (for example
thanks to its
excellent radar cover of the relatively small theather of operations) if
there were arab
fighters around or not. Most IAF losses happened when there were no arab
fighters around.
> > 2. While the IAF is known for its highly detailed debriefing of each
> > mission,
> > and the gun camera films of many of its air kills can be purchased at
> > amazon.com and seen, you just CAN'T see arab fighters' gun camera kills.
> > Not even one was ever released.... and for a good reason.
>
> Indeed. Personally, I've only seen a single Arab gun camera shot that is
> unquestionably a kill (of a Mirage or Nesher during the '73 War
Does it show israeli markings ? I ask because in the 1973 war there were
libyan Mirage 5 (Nesher) fighters which were produced and paid for by Israel
and then re-sold to Libya by the f...... french. some of them were shot down
by
israeli fighters in 1973.
By the way, the israeli southern Nesher squadron that fought mainly against
the egyptians finished the war with a score of 42:0 , no losses.
> > Perhaps, but it's common to forget the many kills by israeli air defence
> > units, which are a less famous branch of the israeli air force.
[snip]
I'd like to add that unlike Israeli fighter kills which were mostly over
Arab territory,
most, or perhaps all, of the kills by the IAF's air defense units were over
Israeli
territory, with no Israeli fighters around, with multiple witnesses, and
with crash
sites that could be located and checked. So at least their kill count seems
to be
very accurate, IMO.
Uri Noy
Guy Alcala
> Guy Alcala <g_al...@junkpostoffice.pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<3DC46C43...@junkpostoffice.pacbell.net>...
>
> <snip>
>
> > Some of the problem with the lack of Arab footage is probably due to several
> > factors:
>
> I've discussed the matter with several Syrian pilots, Guy, and the
> reasoning is far simplier: "security". There should be enough films,
> but the higher echelons and authorities would not let them be
> published, "and period".
>
> Unbelieveable but truth, the security is - even in Egypt - so tight,
> that even researching about the war in 1948 (not to speak about taking
> pictures of SyAAF MiG-17 or MiG-21 displayed in open at the "Teshreen
> Memorial" - a memorial for the war in 1973, or research about later
> conflicts) is ultimately problematic, and there are only three or four
> people who trust themselves to speak out. Everything military-related
> is secret. For any proper kind of interviews, one needs the permission
> from the authorities, and an "official" must be with you all the time
> during the interview.
>
> Oh, and BTW: it is almost impossible to get such official permissions
> (at least in Syria): without being "somebody" one can consider himself
> lucky to get a response from the local embassy at all. So, sometimes
> it's easier to work via the FOIA-inquiries to the adress of the US
> DoD: I bet most of the people here have not the slightest idea what
> can be found in some documents there...
Nordeen and Nicholle had official permission and official help with "Phoenix Over the Nile,", and if the EAF can publish gun
camera photos in AvLeak in 1974, none of which show IAF a/c actually being hit, it's not credible to claim that "security"
prevents them from showing footage of successful gunshots, if they had them. I'm not speaking of the Syrians here, just the
Eyptians (who the Israelis found very reluctant to supply loss and kill data, unlike the case with the Jordanians).
Guy
P.S. BTW, I see in your account of the War of Attrition, you claim that the Israelis actually got the 50 Mirage 5Js from
France clandestinely. May I ask what your evidence is for this claim? I'm aware that Pierre Clostermann claimed that
DeGaulle had sent 20 or so Mirages to israel prior to the Six-Day War (and was incensed when the IAF used them for offensive
missions), but I've never seen it claimed in any reputable source that they actually got the 5Js, although they certainly
received under the table help from Dassault and others as far as parts went. It may be that I'm behind the curve here, and
this has been revealed within the last few years, but I'd want a pretty reliable (French or Israeli) source before I'd
accept its accuracy.
Guy Alcala
> "Guy Alcala" <g_al...@junkpostoffice.pacbell.net> wrote in message
> news:3DC46C43...@junkpostoffice.pacbell.net...
> > Uri Noy wrote:
<snip>
> > > 2. While the IAF is known for its highly detailed debriefing of each
> > > mission,
> > > and the gun camera films of many of its air kills can be purchased at
> > > amazon.com and seen, you just CAN'T see arab fighters' gun camera kills.
> > > Not even one was ever released.... and for a good reason.
> >
> > Indeed. Personally, I've only seen a single Arab gun camera shot that is
> > unquestionably a kill (of a Mirage or Nesher during the '73 War
>
> Does it show israeli markings ? I ask because in the 1973 war there were
> libyan Mirage 5 (Nesher) fighters which were produced and paid for by Israel
> and then re-sold to Libya by the f...... french. some of them were shot down
> by
> israeli fighters in 1973.
Impossible to say on the markings, as the quality's much to poor to make any
out. It's clearly a Mirage/Nesher, may be camouflaged (although even that's not
certain, as it's backlit), is almost planform on and trailing a huge fire plume
extending across the whole wing and a bit to the sides, starting a couple of
feet forward of the trailing edge, and the gun camera appears to be in a MiG-21,
judging by other gun camera frames I've seen from them. The book credit says
the photo was supplied by the EAF. BTW, I'm not aware of any source which
claims the Libyans got Mirage 5Js; all the sources I have (in addition to
Mafe'-Huertas, Paul Jackson is the most detailed on Mirage production) claim
they ordered their own 5Ds (53) and 5DDs (15) in addition to 32 5DEs (actually
IIIE equivalents) from France. Not that it couldn't happen given the political
situation of the time and the nature of the arms trade, but see my comments to
Tom re his claim about Israel actually receiving the 5Js clandestinely.
> By the way, the israeli southern Nesher squadron that fought mainly against
> the egyptians finished the war with a score of 42:0 , no losses.
That agrees with the number Mafe-Huertas gives:
No. 117, 55 kills.
'E' Squadron, 42 with no losses. Mafe-Huertas either wasn't aware of or
couldn't give the squadron number; other sources ID it as No. 144 "Phoenix" (aka
"Defenders of the Arava," IIRR), CO Menahim Sharon, based at Etzion.
No. 101, "about 48."
'H' Squadron, 25 claims. Mafe-Huertas knew it was the ex-Ouragan squadron at
Hatzor, but as with 'E' squadron either didn't know or couldn't give the number;
No. 113 "Hornet" (that's what the IAF website calls them, although most western
sources translate it as "Wasp"; not being up on bugs, I couldn't say which the
squadron badge resembles more). For those who want to decide for themselves, go
here:
http://www.iaf.org.il/iaf/doa_iis.dll/Serve/level/English/1.3.2.5.3.2.html
Guy
Andrew P Pavacic
Guy Alcala <g_al...@junkpacbell.net> wrote:
> Nordeen and Nicholle had official permission and official help with
> "Phoenix Over the Nile,", and if the EAF can publish gun camera photos
> in AvLeak in 1974, none of which show IAF a/c actually being hit,
http://airbase.ru/wars/arab-israel/1973/EgyptianAirForce/img/04.htm
http://airbase.ru/wars/arab-israel/1973/EgyptianAirForce/img/05.htm
http://airbase.ru/wars/arab-israel/1973/EgyptianAirForce/img/foto2.htm
David Lednicer
I have been working for the last couple of years on a project to
document all the IDF/AF's losses. By "all", I mean all including
training, operations, combat, etc. The results is at:
http://home.sprynet.com/~anneled/IAFinventory.html
We list dates, names, reasons and whether the crew survived. In many
cases, we have matched up Arab claims with combat losses. As I said in
another post in this thread - judge for yourselves.
-David Lednicer
Tom Cooper
As said: there is a difference between different levels of authority
about how the affair should be handled. The lower ranks would like to
talk, and sometimes try to help clandestinely, mainly because they
know something more happened, and are also interested to let the
people know.
The higher ranks seems not to care, however, and so are similar
permissions extremely problematic to get.
> I'm not speaking of the Syrians here, just the
> Eyptians (who the Israelis found very reluctant to supply loss and kill data, unlike the case with the Jordanians).
I mixed a little about the both sides, but the Syrians are definitely
the more "security-concerned" ones...
> Guy
>
> P.S. BTW, I see in your account of the War of Attrition, you claim that the Israelis actually got the 50 Mirage 5Js from
> France clandestinely. May I ask what your evidence is for this claim?
If you're looking for "evidence", try to find one of the last-year
issues of the Wings or Airpower mag. The issue in question brings an
interview with Gene Salvay (between others the designer of the B-1 and
the Lockheeds ATB-contender), which was - while working for Rockwell,
in 1970 - sent to Israel. In the interview - (I don't have the mag in
question - I've heard the story from a completely different source) he
says that as he arrived in Israel, so did the Mirages, in crates,
clanestinely flown in aboard the USAF C-5 transports. Salvay and a
group of Rockwell engineers (Rockwell because at the time this
corporation has built an automotive-works in Israel) first helped put
the Mirages together, and then he constructed - with some help from
Dassault himself - the Kfir.
> It may be that I'm behind the curve here, and
> this has been revealed within the last few years, but I'd want a pretty reliable (French or Israeli) source before I'd
> accept its accuracy.
Errr, Guy, you don't seriously expect any Israeli to ever confirm you
that it was the US technicians which helped them put the Mirage 5s
together, or the designers which have designed the Kfir, and
re-designed the Arava, so that these two became usefull and
productable aircraft?
Regards,
Tom
Guy Alcala
As I pointed out, Nordeen and Nicolle had OFFICIAL permission and help, from the top. Many of the pilots (from '73 and earlier)
interviewed are now Generals or above.
> > I'm not speaking of the Syrians here, just the
> > Eyptians (who the Israelis found very reluctant to supply loss and kill data, unlike the case with the Jordanians).
>
> I mixed a little about the both sides, but the Syrians are definitely
> the more "security-concerned" ones...
And the Syrians are also the ones who seem to have a superabundance of claims where the claiming pilot was shot down immediately
following his kill, thus preventing any gun camera footage from being available.
> > P.S. BTW, I see in your account of the War of Attrition, you claim that the Israelis actually got the 50 Mirage 5Js from
> > France clandestinely. May I ask what your evidence is for this claim?
>
> If you're looking for "evidence", try to find one of the last-year
> issues of the Wings or Airpower mag. The issue in question brings an
> interview with Gene Salvay (between others the designer of the B-1 and
> the Lockheeds ATB-contender), which was - while working for Rockwell,
> in 1970 - sent to Israel. In the interview - (I don't have the mag in
> question - I've heard the story from a completely different source) he
> says that as he arrived in Israel, so did the Mirages, in crates,
> clanestinely flown in aboard the USAF C-5 transports. Salvay and a
> group of Rockwell engineers (Rockwell because at the time this
> corporation has built an automotive-works in Israel) first helped put
> the Mirages together, and then he constructed - with some help from
> Dassault himself - the Kfir.
That's likely to prove difficult (I stopped reading Wings and Airpower many years ago, and moved on to less 'gee-whiz' sources),
but I'll try and find it.
> > It may be that I'm behind the curve here, and
> > this has been revealed within the last few years, but I'd want a pretty reliable (French or Israeli) source before I'd
> > accept its accuracy.
>
> Errr, Guy, you don't seriously expect any Israeli to ever confirm you
> that it was the US technicians which helped them put the Mirage 5s
> together, or the designers which have designed the Kfir, and
> re-designed the Arava, so that these two became usefull and
> productable aircraft?
I seriously expect some of the Israelis _I_ know to confirm that, if they know it to be a fact. They've done so in other cases.
As it happens, I've conversed at some length with a former Kfir pilot, who has told me many things (good and bad) about the a/c.
Guy
Andrew P Pavacic
Guy Alcala <g_al...@junkpacbell.net> wrote:
>> > Nordeen and Nicholle had official permission and official help
>> > with "Phoenix Over the Nile,", and if the EAF can publish gun
>> > camera photos in AvLeak in 1974, none of which show IAF a/c actually
>> > being hit, it's not credible to claim that "security"
>> > prevents them from showing footage of successful gunshots, if they
>> > had them.
>>
>> permissions extremely problematic to get.
>
>As I pointed out, Nordeen and Nicolle had OFFICIAL permission and help,
>from the top. Many of the pilots (from '73 and earlier) interviewed
>are now Generals or above.
http://airbase.ru/wars/arab-israel/1973/EgyptianAirForce/img/04.htm
>And the Syrians are also the ones who seem to have a superabundance
>of claims where the claiming pilot was shot down immediately following
>his kill, thus preventing any gun camera footage from being available.
http://airbase.ru/wars/arab-israel/1973/EgyptianAirForce/img/05.htm
>That's likely to prove difficult (I stopped reading Wings and Airpower
>many years ago, and moved on to less 'gee-whiz' sources), but I'll try
>and find it.
http://airbase.ru/wars/arab-israel/1973/EgyptianAirForce/img/foto2.htm
David Lednicer
I know Gene Salvay, and while he's a nice, talented guy, he did not
design the Kfir. Furthermore, I doubt that he had anything to do with
assembling any Mirages. I know a lot of engineers at IAI and can assure
you that they are responsible for the Kfir.
On the other hand I am pretty certain how that the Neshers were largely
assembled from parts imported from France. There is no way to get an
assembly line up and going in two years, with no help from the original
designers, especially for a company with little experience in designing
and assembling fighters. I've examined the remains of the Dagger/Nesher
in the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton and it contains a lot of French
components.
-David Lednicer
Larry Doering
>
>> > P.S. BTW, I see in your account of the War of Attrition, you claim
>> > that the Israelis actually got the 50 Mirage 5Js from France
>> > clandestinely. May I ask what your evidence is for this claim?
>>
>> If you're looking for "evidence", try to find one of the last-year
>> issues of the Wings or Airpower mag. The issue in question brings an
>> interview with Gene Salvay (between others the designer of the B-1 and
>> the Lockheeds ATB-contender), which was - while working for Rockwell,
>> in 1970 - sent to Israel. In the interview - (I don't have the mag in
>> question - I've heard the story from a completely different source) he
>> says that as he arrived in Israel, so did the Mirages, in crates,
>> clanestinely flown in aboard the USAF C-5 transports. Salvay and a
>> group of Rockwell engineers (Rockwell because at the time this
>> corporation has built an automotive-works in Israel) first helped put
>> the Mirages together, and then he constructed - with some help from
>> Dassault himself - the Kfir.
>
>That's likely to prove difficult (I stopped reading Wings and Airpower
>many years ago, and moved on to less 'gee-whiz' sources), but I'll try
>and find it.
Wouldn't 1970 have been a little early for the USAF to have been
flying stuff to Israel in C-5s? According to Joe Baugher's history
of the C-5 at
<http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_other/c-5.html>
the first operational aircraft was delivered to the 437th Military
Airlift Wing at Charleston AFB in June 1970. Initial operational
capability was attained when the 75th MAW flew the first C-5 mission
from Travis AFB to Vietnam in April, 1971.
C-5s flew 145 missions from Dover AFB to Tel Aviv between October
14 and November 14, 1973, to supply the Israel Defense Forces with
10,800 tons of supplies during and immediately after the Yom Kippur
War, but I'm not sure I buy C-5s flying regularly to Israel in 1970.
ljd
Guy Alcala
An excellent point. Of course, theoretically they could have been C-141s,
but every little discrepancy like that is useful for establishing the basic
credibility of an account.
Guy
Guy Alcala
David, I certainly agree that there were a lot of French components in the
Nesher, as Dassault seems to have provided spare parts (and maybe blueprint)
help sub-rosa to Israel after the embargo was in place, and then there was
the supposed blueprint contribution from Frauenknecht (think that was his
name). Whether this was done with official connivance or completely
unofficially I couldn't say, but I imagine it was much like the SA'AR
missile boats at Cherbourg.
OTOH, ISTR that IAI had been overhauling various French a/c and engines for
years, and would almost certainly have had technicians and design people in
France during the Mirage 5F's production, so I don't think they necessarily
were beginning from scratch. Certainly, the Israelis could get a head start
by assembling the a/c from parts, but I wonder if they did so throughout, or
increased the home grown content at a fairly rapid rate. If India could go
from assembly to complete construction in four years or so with the MiG-21
(admittedly with lots of help from the Soviets), I expect Israel, with far
more technical infrastructure and experience of the a/c, should have been
able to do so faster. But it is an interesting point, and I'd like to
investigate it further. Any source recommendations you care to make (email
me if you'd prefer, by throwing out the junk)?
Guy
Tom Cooper
<snip>
> > > I'm not speaking of the Syrians here, just the
> > > Eyptians (who the Israelis found very reluctant to supply loss and kill data, unlike the case with the Jordanians).
> >
> > I mixed a little about the both sides, but the Syrians are definitely
> > the more "security-concerned" ones...
>
> And the Syrians are also the ones who seem to have a superabundance of claims where the claiming pilot was shot down immediately
> following his kill, thus preventing any gun camera footage from being available.
That's actually not truth. There is a huge, HUGE difference between
what different Russian and the Ukrainian day-dreamers explain (the
same people, btw, say that the Iraqis haven't lost a single MiG-23s
during the war with Iran between 1980 and 1983, while over 40 were
shot down alone between early September 1980 and late January 1981),
and what the Syrians "claim" (i.e. what stands in some Syrian
post-combat reports).
What some Russian/Ukrainian authors - which explain the lack of the
gun-camera photage in their articles by talking about "moments later
the Syrian pilot was also shot down" - cannot actually talk on behalf
of the SyAAF. They do not only give over 50% of wrong or non-existing
(Syrian) names in their articles, but also describe either things that
haven't happened, or report wrongly. Simultaneously, they do not
report far more and more important things that have happened (for
example: ever heard about the two top Syrian aces, which claims
against the IDF/AF are confirmed even by the USAF-documents, being
mentioned in any Russian/Ukrainian articles? I bet you haven't). So, I
do not consider their as a Syrian position.
Contrary to the Russians and the Ukrainians, the Syrians say there is
gun camera photage, plenty of it, and it was NOT lost in downed
aircraft, but is instead used for training of the pilots (just like
everywhere else). They say, that it is just not for release to the
public.
IMHO, that's a considerable difference.
Regards,
Tom
David Lednicer
You might be interested in reading "The Boats of Cherbourg" by Abraham
Rabinovich. The book is mostly about the Sa'ar boats, but at the end of
one chapter, he claims that the Neshers were assembled in Israel from
French subassemblies, imported secretly, despite the embargo.
Rabinovich is an Israeli, which adds credibility to this account in my
eyes.
Additionally, years ago, Air International published an article on the
Mirage III/V and gave production totals. Next to the Israeli entry
there was an asterisk that referred to a footnote saying that the
two-seat Nesher fuselages all came from France. This makes sense, as
having IAIA set up to produce just 10 two-seaters would have been very
expensive.
Frauenknecht's drawings were only for the ATAR engine. IAI probably had
a drawing set for the Mirage IIICJ, so that they could do heavy
maintenance on them, but it would be unusual for them to get a drawing
set for the VJ before they were delivered. Having drawings is not all
one needs to build an aircraft. There are problems with building jigs,
materials processing and treating, etc. The Indians were probably spoon
fed this by the Soviets when they set up the MiG-21 production. Come to
think of it, the first Indian MiG-21s were assembled from knocked-down
kits. Production from scratch took a lot longer.
Remember - in 1968, IAI's sum total of aircraft manufacturing experience
was producing Magisters. I've heard varying accounts of this, claiming
that they just assembled them from parts or that they actually produced
them from scratch. The Arava didn't fly until November 1969 and
Westwind production didn't start until 1969. These two programs alone
would have distracted IAI sufficiently to make it difficult to start
Nesher production in such a fast manner.
-David Lednicer
...
...
> one chapter, he claims that the Neshers were assembled in Israel from
> French subassemblies, imported secretly, despite the embargo.
> Rabinovich is an Israeli, which adds credibility to this account in my
> eyes.
>
> Additionally, years ago, Air International published an article on the
> Mirage III/V and gave production totals. Next to the Israeli entry
> there was an asterisk that referred to a footnote saying that the
> two-seat Nesher fuselages all came from France. This makes sense, as
> having IAIA set up to produce just 10 two-seaters would have been very
> expensive.
as much as the French got historically pinged for the embargo against
Israel, I also read convincing info that suggests they said one thing (eg.
OK, no more arms to Israel) and did another (still provided Aircraft &or
parts to Israel), which directly led to the development of newer aircraft
based on the Mirage III.
Alan Minyard
>as much as the French got historically pinged for the embargo against
>Israel, I also read convincing info that suggests they said one thing (eg.
>OK, no more arms to Israel) and did another (still provided Aircraft &or
>parts to Israel), which directly led to the development of newer aircraft
>based on the Mirage III.
>
>
:-))))))))
Al minyard
Diego Fernando Zampini
Nice to see you again.
"Raymond Chuang" <rch...@mindspring.com> wrote in message news:<aph1lu$44n$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>...
> Now that I've gotten everyone's attention with the MiG-15 :-), I have to ask
> this question: what was the combat record of the MiG-21?
>
> From what I've read, the MiG-21's combat record wasn't that exceptional. I
> do know that North Vietnamese AF pilots much preferred the MiG-17, and
> Pakistani pilots had an outstanding record with the MiG-19 licensed copies
> from China in the 1971 war with India. The MiG-21 had a better record during
> the Yom Kippur War, but in the end they still suffered heavy losses.
Tom, Uri and David had already extensively debated about the combat
performance of the Egyptian and Syrian MiG-21s. I am unable to say
anything new about the topic, but yes about the VPAF MiG-21s.
As preliminar basis, the Vietnamese MiG-21s fared very well: A minimum
of 80 out of 130 kills claimed by the MiG-21 pilots are actually
confirmed by the US records of loss, despite some of them are not
credited to MiGs, but in most cases it seems a missattribution in good
faith.
Certainly an indication of its lethality was the fact that the top Ace
of the war was a MiG-21PFM pilot, Sr.Lt. Nguyen Van Coc with 7
confirmed kills, one probable and 2 drones. 6 out of those 7
"confirmed" kills are admitted by USAF and USN, the "probable" is also
admitted by US sources (the F-102 of Wallace Wiggins in Feb. 3 1968)
and one of the drones could actually be an OV-10 downed over the ZDM
in December 1969.
The kill ratio was something between 1:1 or 1.5:1 kill ratio, at least
in 1972. According to Toperczer's book "MiG-21 Units of Vietnam War",
in 1972 VPAF lost 34 MiG-21s, and in the same period the admitted
losses by MiG-21s were about 35 USAF F-4D/Es, 2 USN F-4B/J, 1 USMC
F-4J, 1 F-105G and 1 RA-5C, and that did not includes the two B-52D
suspected of being actually downed by MiG-21MF instead of SAMs, as
says the US official version. Anyway, it shows more than a 1:1 kill to
losses ratio.
Diego Zampini.
Guy Alcala
> You might be interested in reading "The Boats of Cherbourg" by Abraham
> Rabinovich. The book is mostly about the Sa'ar boats, but at the end of
> one chapter, he claims that the Neshers were assembled in Israel from
> French subassemblies, imported secretly, despite the embargo.
> Rabinovich is an Israeli, which adds credibility to this account in my
> eyes.
Thanks, I ordered a copy from the library via ILL. Should be here in a few
days.
> Additionally, years ago, Air International published an article on the
> Mirage III/V and gave production totals. Next to the Israeli entry
> there was an asterisk that referred to a footnote saying that the
> two-seat Nesher fuselages all came from France. This makes sense, as
> having IAIA set up to produce just 10 two-seaters would have been very
> expensive.
Was that the article by Paul Jackson? I've got that issue and your
description rings a bell, but I'm loathe to dig through all my back issues
to find it, as we agree on the reasons why they'd do that with the two
seaters.
>Frauenknecht's drawings were only for the ATAR engine.
I read a fairly detailed account of the Frauenknecht case some years back,
which stated that he also had blueprints for the IIIS(?) airframe (IIRC, he
was supposed to be burning them, but copies were made first). Been quite a
few years, and unfortunately I don't remember what the name of the book was,
or the author.
> IAI probably had
> a drawing set for the Mirage IIICJ, so that they could do heavy
> maintenance on them, but it would be unusual for them to get a drawing
> set for the VJ before they were delivered. Having drawings is not all
> one needs to build an aircraft. There are problems with building jigs,
> materials processing and treating, etc. The Indians were probably spoon
> fed this by the Soviets when they set up the MiG-21 production. Come to
> think of it, the first Indian MiG-21s were assembled from knocked-down
> kits. Production from scratch took a lot longer.
Certainly, it took the Indians some years to get up and running. Reading
Gunston's account in his book on the MiG-21, site selection apparently
occurred in 1963, with production (actually, assembly of CKD kits) starting
by late 1965; first handover of a MiG-21FL, with a Soviet-supplied engine,
was in November 1966 (elsewhere in the book he says it was early 1967).
First locally manufactured engine was delivered 2 January 1969. First a/c
to be built from the definitive total (ca. 60%) of locally manufactured
parts was handed over 19 October 1970. Considering the considerably greater
difficulties of the Indian program as far as social issues and existing
infrastructure went, it doesn't seem all that impossible to me that the
Israelis had done considerably better than the 7 years it took the Indians,
given their much greater experience with French combat a/c and industrial
infrastructure.
> Remember - in 1968, IAI's sum total of aircraft manufacturing experience
> was producing Magisters. I've heard varying accounts of this, claiming
> that they just assembled them from parts or that they actually produced
> them from scratch. The Arava didn't fly until November 1969 and
> Westwind production didn't start until 1969. These two programs alone
> would have distracted IAI sufficiently to make it difficult to start
> Nesher production in such a fast manner.
According to Yalo Shavit, IAI had been overhauling Super Mysteres at least
(theirs and French a/c) by no later than 1967. In Nordeen''s "Fighters over
Israel," in reference to his command of his squadron (not identified in the
book, but 105), he says:
"It was like two squadrons as we had almost forty aircaft. French aircraft
were at Bedek IAI for depot overhaul and we used them during the war. . . .
They didn't like it but it was war."
Of course, this last might just be official cover for France loaning SMB.2s
off the record. Israel had also done quite a lot of mod and design work on
their own on previous French a/c, so it's not clear to me that they were
anywhere near having to start from scratch as the Indians did. Jigs and the
like would certainly take more time, although I wouldn't be a bit surprised
if the Israelis had some help at Dassault (front or back door) getting
tooling drawings. As to materials, I couldn't say what the state of Israeli
capability was at the time. In any case, my curiousity has been whetted, so
I'm going to try and research this as well as I can. Of course, barring an
Israeli government official coming out and saying "yes, we did it," trying
to prove it will be difficult, but maybe we can narrow it down some.
Hopefully I can manage to find the account that Tom refers to, and others
which appear credible, by people who purportedly worked on the a/c.
Guy
Guy Alcala
Actually, Tom, I was thinking more about claims made during the various conflicts by the various Arab governments, especially '73 and
'82. At least in '73, from what I recall the Arabs started off being conservative in their claims, but as things began to go badly
the typical hysterical tone and wishful thinking of Arab claims made for propaganda reasons came back to the fore. But, if you can
point me to any Syrian sources (translated into English) that you put faith in, I'll be happy to read them.
BTW, I just retrieved "Phoenix over the Nile" from the library, and the only Egyptian gun camera footage in it is of the same Mirage
kill that appears in Mafe' Huertas book on the Mirage. There's a sequence of three frames, only the last of which is the same as one
of the photos in Mafe Huertas, but it clearly shows the kill. Source was the Egyptian Air Force. Skimming it so far, it's clear how
handicapping the armament of only two Atolls was in the '67-'73 period. The Egyptian pilot's accounts are usually quite
straightforward, and Nordeen and Nicolle have cross-checked them with Israeli claims and losses. As is usual for pilots of any
country, they appear to exaggerate the number of opposing a/c. Some of the claims, though, seem a bit lax. For instance, here's
Brig. Gen.(ret.) Samir Aziz Mikha'il, describing a combat on 14 April 1969:
"[Skipping mcuh of the intro, which describes how they were escorting an Su-7 recon in force] The two of us fought eight Mirages, and
I turned towards the Suez Canal. My wingman got separated and radioed that he was going west and would land at Bir Arada.
"So I am alone against eight Mirages. More Israeli jets were waiting near the Suez Canal to cut us off. I looked out and saw a
circle -- Mirage - Mirage - MiG-21. I was all alone. I thought, I survived until now, try and hit one of their aircraft. I crossed
the circle and picked out a Mirage. He thought that I had a cannon, which i didn't have because I was flying a MiG-21FL, so the
Israeli broke to avoid my attack. Then the circle of jets broke up, and everyone split.
"One of the Mirages turned away, and I put my gunsight on him and fired an Atoll. It hit him in the tail and made a big flash. I
couldn't believe it. Then I fired my second missile at him. They taught us when you start to shoot, look behind and when I did, I
saw a Mirage coming for me, and he was within cannon range. I made a hard turn and dove straight down to escape. As i turned I saw
heavy smoke coming from the Mirage I shot. He was flying east into the Sinai. I returned to my home base and told my friends that I
had shot down a Mirage."
Now, maybe this is filtered through a translation and some of the nuance got lost, and neither he nor the authors mention an official
kill claim or confirmation on this occasion, but it does seem a bit much for him to claim a kill to his firends when the a/c was last
seen flying, apparently under control, in the direction of an Israeli base. Damage, sure, a probable, maybe, but a kill?
Now here's a more professional sounding account, from a mission on 26 June 1969, recounted by Brig. Gen. (ret.) Tamim Fahmi 'Abd
Allah, again in a MiG-21FL:
"[again skipping much of the intro] . . . The controller said no, and we flew about 35 miles to the east, about 15 miles from the Gulf
of Suez. Then I saw a Mirage all by himself going back toward the Sinai. I dove and tried to catch him. At about one mile away he
turned hard into me. He turned left, and I came to within a half mile of him but I didn't have a gun, so I maneuvered with him to try
and get a missile shot. He was turning hard, and I did a high-speed 'yo-yo' to keep with him, and we did this about three times.
Then he reversed and dove toward the deck. I went below him to get a missile tone, and then I heard the buzz of the Atoll [indicating
that the missile seeker was locked onto a heat source], and I thought it was good. I was about one kilometer back, and I pulled the
trigger. The missile went out and hit near him,and the Mirage started to trail light smoke when my wingman said 'turn left and I will
shoot him now as I only have some 600 litres of fuel left.' I made a combat turn to the left. But the Mirage pulled away. We
climbed to 20,000 feet to save fuel and glided to Hulwan and landed on fumes."
Guy
Guy Alcala
I don't have his MiG-21 book yet, just the MiG-17/19 one, but the two B-52 claims are convincingly disposed
of in Marshall Michel's book "The Eleven Days of Christmas." Pham Tuan's was the only possibly credible
claim, as the other (Vu Xuan Thieu's) occurred on a night when the U.S. lost no B-52s (and IIRR, had none
damaged either), and the pilot is claimed to have died through colliding with debris from his destroyed
target, which reeks of propaganda. BTW, did Toperczer remove the definitely erroneous F-4J overclaim by Dang
Ngoc Ngu on the morning of 10 May at Kep? He included it in his earlier book "Air War over North Vietnam,"
but he doesn't appear to have had access to U.S. sources at the time, so he couldn't cross check the way he
did for the MiG-17/19 (and presumably MiG-21) books. That's probably the best documented combat (from both
sides) of the war, and there's no doubt whatever that the claim is wrong.
Guy
David Lednicer
We did a lot of work reconciling claims. Take a look at:
http://home.sprynet.com/~anneled/usloss.html
http://home.sprynet.com/~anneled/usvictor.html
-David Lednicer
Guy Alcala
> Guy Alcala wrote:
>
> >> Does it show israeli markings ? I ask because in the 1973 war there were
> >> libyan Mirage 5 (Nesher) fighters which were produced and paid for by Israel
> >> and then re-sold to Libya by the f...... french. some of them were shot down
> >> by israeli fighters in 1973.
>
> >BTW, I'm not aware of any source which
> >claims the Libyans got Mirage 5Js; all the sources I have (in addition to
> >Mafe'-Huertas, Paul Jackson is the most detailed on Mirage production) claim
> >they ordered their own 5Ds (53) and 5DDs (15) in addition to 32 5DEs (actually
> >IIIE equivalents) from France.
>
> Libya received part of the batch of 5Js that had been designed and built for
> Israel. The French Air Force received most of the rest. And those were renamed
> "5F", even though they serial tags, to this day, are marked 5J.
The problem with this is that there were 50 5Js in the Israeli order. France
operated two squadrons at the same time with 5Fs (3/13 and 3/3. The latter unit
transferred its a/c to 2/13 upon re-equipment with Jaguars in 1977. Eight 5Fs were
modified to 50FC standard for Chile in 1979, replaced in AdlA service by eight
new-build replacements, apparently from 1983), and Libya got 53 5Ds, so unless the
French were able to perform a miracle akin to the one with the loaves and fishes,
it's pretty hard to understand how 50 a/c built for Israel become 103 for France
and Libya.
> So it can well be that the planes delivered to Libya were renamed to whatever.
> It is even rather to be expected, if only to make less obvious the size of the
> betrayal: those 5Js had been designed by incorporating Israel's combat
> experience against the Arab air forces....
> And of course, Gaddafi made those mirage available to Egypt. By the Arabs' own
> claims, they contributed 400+ sorties to the Yom Kippur war.
Yes, it's well known that Libyan Mirages were used in the '73 war, flown by
Egyptian and other pilots.
> >Not that it couldn't happen given the political
> >situation of the time and the nature of the arms trade, but see my comments to
> >Tom re his claim about Israel actually receiving the 5Js clandestinely.
>
> Yeah, Tom has a problem with Israel, and all his comments in this thread have
> been comically full of bull. Nobody but you even bothers to answer such crap.
> Maybe he and jtdmorris should start a club.
Seeing as how Tom has stated that Israeli claims for '73 are probably too low, and
that the Russian ones for Syrian/Arab performance are absurd, I don't know how you
reach that conclusion. I've discussed the reliability of various countries' kill
claims over the past couple of years with Tom, and have found him to maintain a
healthy scepticism when evaluating them, unlike many of the partisans who infest
the NGs and who swallow any claim that reflects well on their side's performance,
no matter how ludicrous or easily disproved, like the various Serb partisans during
Allied Force. While I can and do ignore the latter types, if Tom makes a claim
which he believes there is reasonable evidence for, I won't dismiss it out of hand
but will have a look at the evidence on which he bases his claim. Tom has provided
access to many good sources which we wouldn't otherwise have, especially relating
to middle eastern air forces. We may still disagree, but our disagreement will be
based on interpretation of facts rather than one of us uncritically swallowing
propagandist flights of fancy.
Guy
Tom Cooper
<snip>
> I don't have his MiG-21 book yet, just the MiG-17/19 one, but the two B-52 claims are convincingly disposed
> of in Marshall Michel's book "The Eleven Days of Christmas." Pham Tuan's was the only possibly credible
> claim, as the other (Vu Xuan Thieu's) occurred on a night when the U.S. lost no B-52s (and IIRR, had none
> damaged either), and the pilot is claimed to have died through colliding with debris from his destroyed
> target, which reeks of propaganda. BTW, did Toperczer remove the definitely erroneous F-4J overclaim by Dang
> Ngoc Ngu on the morning of 10 May at Kep?
No, he haven't. Although there is a clear explanation that this F-4J
came away (after all, it was flown by either Hawkins or Dosé, which
splashed Ngu's wingman just seconds before) to be found in "One Day in
the Long War" (Ethell/Price), Toperczer repeated that claim.
His MiG-21-book published by Osprey, however, includes quite a few
more other similar mistakes, which lead me to the same conclusion like
you, Guy. I'm sure he never saw quite a few books, and this is the
reasons for so many wrong conclusions of his. I tried to contact him
via e-mail and ask him about this in detail, but he would not respond.
I don't know if there is a language problem or what.
On the contrary, in few other cases - especially in those of F-105s
being killed by MiGs - he's adding quite a few new and very plausible
revisions.
Regards,
Tom
Guy Alcala
> Guy Alcala <g_al...@junkpostoffice.pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<3DCB72FA...@junkpostoffice.pacbell.net>...
>
> <snip>
<snip>
> > BTW, did Toperczer remove the definitely erroneous F-4J overclaim by Dang
> > Ngoc Ngu on the morning of 10 May at Kep?
>
> No, he haven't. Although there is a clear explanation that this F-4J
> came away (after all, it was flown by either Hawkins or Dosé, which
> splashed Ngu's wingman just seconds before) to be found in "One Day in
> the Long War" (Ethell/Price), Toperczer repeated that claim.
>
> His MiG-21-book published by Osprey, however, includes quite a few
> more other similar mistakes, which lead me to the same conclusion like
> you, Guy. I'm sure he never saw quite a few books, and this is the
> reasons for so many wrong conclusions of his.
Odd, as he definitely cross-checked claims and losses using both U.S. and Vietnamese sources in the MiG-17/-19 book, showing
where they agreed and disagreed, and the MiG-21 book was published after the MiG-17/19 book was. My local hobby store
should have a gotten a copy of the MiG-21 book for me by now, so hopefully I can pick it up in the morning.
Guy
P.S. BTW, Tom, in your account of the War of Attrition on the website, you captioned a photo of an Egyptian MiG-21 as a
PFV. AFAIK that variant was specific to Vietnam, and the Egyptians and everyone else got PFs or FLs. But that's beside the
point, as it appears to have the side-hinged canopy and separate windscreen that identify it as a PFM (can't tell whether
it's got the blown flaps).
Guy Alcala
> Tom Cooper wrote:
>
> > Guy Alcala <g_al...@junkpostoffice.pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<3DCB72FA...@junkpostoffice.pacbell.net>...
> >
> > <snip>
>
> <snip>
>
> > > BTW, did Toperczer remove the definitely erroneous F-4J overclaim by Dang
> > > Ngoc Ngu on the morning of 10 May at Kep?
> >
> > No, he haven't. Although there is a clear explanation that this F-4J
> > came away (after all, it was flown by either Hawkins or Dosé, which
> > splashed Ngu's wingman just seconds before) to be found in "One Day in
> > the Long War" (Ethell/Price), Toperczer repeated that claim.
> >
> > His MiG-21-book published by Osprey, however, includes quite a few
> > more other similar mistakes, which lead me to the same conclusion like
> > you, Guy. I'm sure he never saw quite a few books, and this is the
> > reasons for so many wrong conclusions of his.
>
> Odd, as he definitely cross-checked claims and losses using both U.S. and Vietnamese sources in the MiG-17/-19 book, showing
> where they agreed and disagreed, and the MiG-21 book was published after the MiG-17/19 book was. My local hobby store
> should have a gotten a copy of the MiG-21 book for me by now, so hopefully I can pick it up in the morning.
Picked up a copy today, and he's gone way off the tracks on this one, as he now credits Dang Ngoc Ngu with shooting down the
F-4E LGB-escort from the 58th TFS/432nd TFW, and that's clearly wrong as to time, location, unit and service. I'm at a loss how
he could get this combat mixed up with the one involving the VF-92 a/c over Kep an hour earlier. Maybe this is a revised North
Vietnamese claim that he's just passing on verbatim; clearly, they can't maintain the claim that Dang shot down either of the
navy F-4s, given the evidence. Either way, this is really grasping at straws.
Guy
Tom Cooper
OK, I have finally obtainted the copy of the magazine with the article
in question. It's "Wings", volume 30/No.4, from August 2000. The
article is titled "The Designer of the B-1 Bomber's Airframe". On the
page 48 it says:
"It was then that a new and completely unexpected challenge arose, one
that he could never have goreseen. Five thousand miles away, in
Israel, a delivery of Mirage jets, purchased by the Israelis, had been
embargoed by their french manufacturer, Dassault, on the orders of
French president, Charles deGaulle, or so everyone was led to believe.
The Six Days War of 1967, in which Israel had triumphed over a strong
coalition of five Arab states, was over, but the country desperately
needed the promised aircraft. Without them, it was claimed, the
tentative balance in the Middle East could not be maintained.
The chairman of North American Rockwell's board had long since
established a manufacturing presence in Israel, given over to building
transmissions and other auto products, an industry in which Rockwell
was already a leader. He was also promoting plans for building an
indigenous manufacturing base for aircraft, and when its government
approached him to allow several of his picked engineers to travel to
Israel to set up that capability, he agreed. Among those invited to
participate was Gene Salvay.
Several years before, Moshe Ahrens, then a US citizen and a graduate
aeronautical engineer, had met Gene at Wright Field in Ohio. He
remembered the North American designed and as Israeli Aircraft
Industries Engineering vice president, specifically asked for him.
Since Rockwell wanted to expand its overseas business, and America's
aviation industry was in a temporary downturn, Gene, with the
blessings of the US government and his employer, took a one-year leave
of absence and traveled to Israel. What he discovered was not what was
being portrayed in the newspapers.
Instead of an embargo - which was only proclaimed to ease the fears of
their Arab oil suppliers - the French were shipping brand-new Mirage
IIIC jets, complete in knockdown assembly kits, direct to Israel
aboard USAF C-5 cargoplanes. There was no embargo and the Israelis
were not building 50 examples of their own version of the Mirage,
called Nesher, from plans purportedly smuggled out of Switzerland - a
licence builder - but were merely putting them together on a modern
production line as fast as the C-5s could make delivery. Still, the
Israelis did need Gene Salvay's talents. The Mirage, in its original
form, with an Atar 0B engine generating 9,350lbs. of static thrust
(13,250 with afterburning), was not suitable for sustained, heavy
ground attack, a mission the IAF wanted to upgrade. It had neither the
power nor the structural strength. In the completely new version,
Gene, as the chief designer, would create the Kfir. In a near total
makeover, what was once a lightweight dogfighter would be equipped
with 10,000lb thrust GE J79 engine (15,000lbs with afterburning), the
same as that in the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. It would also feature
improved munitions capability.
In order to accomplish the transformation, the entire airframe aft of
the cockpit had to be redesigned, since the J79 was not only more
powerful, but had a larger diameter. In order to better mesh the new
engine with his fuselage, Gene consulted with Lockheed designer and
old friend, Ben Rich, who worked out the thermodynamic problems and
communicated the results to Salvay by phone. With the full help of
Marcel Dassault, himself, who was extremely cooperative, plus the
imput of twelve US engineering specialists - eventually the number was
increased to 150 - Gene set up shop for preliminary design. Among his
most dedicated and valuable contributors was Ray Kann, who had worked
on the Doublas DC-9 project.
Within twelve months, engind in June, 1971, Gene and his team had
transformed the Mirage into the Kfir, beefing up its overall
structure, revamping its inlets and exhaust, turning it from an agile
22,000lb interceptor (loaded) into a 28,000lb interceptor/ground
attack machine, capable of carrying twice the offensive load.
While he was at it, Gene also looked over the Arava 101 transport, a
failed, homegrown, high-winged, twin-engined, twin-boomed STOL affair,
which had literally fallen out of the sky during the initial
trials...."
etc., etc. etc.
David, I guess you might want to talk Mr. Salvay again (according to
that article he's living in retirement, in Encino, Ca.): even if I'm
far from buying every issue of Wings/Airpower etc. magazines, rather
monitoring them, I have never heard of him denying anything of the
above mentioned, or explaining that the author, Mr. Joe Mizrahi,
eventually misunderstood something he said.
I also would not know the reason for somebody of Salvay's caliber
needing to explain that he designed the Kfir and turned Arava into a
useful design, or saw the USAF transports delivering embargoed Mirages
to Israel - if he haven't done that indeed.
Finally, I would also say that Salvay should know what a C-5 looks
like...
Regards,
Tom
Tom Cooper
> Tom Cooper wrote:
>
> > Guy Alcala <g_al...@junkpostoffice.pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<3DCB72FA...@junkpostoffice.pacbell.net>...
> >
> > <snip>
>
> <snip>
>
> > > BTW, did Toperczer remove the definitely erroneous F-4J overclaim by Dang
> > > Ngoc Ngu on the morning of 10 May at Kep?
> >
> > No, he haven't. Although there is a clear explanation that this F-4J
> > came away (after all, it was flown by either Hawkins or Dosé, which
> > splashed Ngu's wingman just seconds before) to be found in "One Day in
> > the Long War" (Ethell/Price), Toperczer repeated that claim.
> >
> > His MiG-21-book published by Osprey, however, includes quite a few
> > more other similar mistakes, which lead me to the same conclusion like
> > you, Guy. I'm sure he never saw quite a few books, and this is the
> > reasons for so many wrong conclusions of his.
>
> Odd, as he definitely cross-checked claims and losses using both U.S. and Vietnamese sources in the MiG-17/-19 book, showing
> where they agreed and disagreed, and the MiG-21 book was published after the MiG-17/19 book was. My local hobby store
> should have a gotten a copy of the MiG-21 book for me by now, so hopefully I can pick it up in the morning.
The question is how well he did that, and with the help of which
sources, Guy?
It is definitely so, that on the page 51 he starts to explain how Dang
Ngoc Ngu and Nguyen Van Ngai just departed the Kep when (Toperczer)
"...they were surprised by a flight of F-4s from the 432nd TRW. Nguyen
Van Ngai was immediately shot down, but Dang Ngoc Ngu somehow managed
to avoid the missile meant for him and climbed to 1.000m."
Unbelieveable. But, that's only the start. Few lines bellow, Toperczer
goes on to explain:
"He (Ngu) then saw two Phantom IIs in front of him and jettisoned his
fuel tank, which damaged his control surfaces when it came away. Dang
Ngoc Ngu applied full power, increasing his speed from 900 to 1100km/h
just as the two F-4s split up - one went into a climb and the other
made a horizontal turn. The MiG-21 went after the later jet.
At a distance of 1200m, the seeker head of the AAM locked on to the
Phantom II and Dan Ngoc Ngu fired the weapon, shooting down F-4E
67-0386 of the 58th TFS/432nd TRW - both crewmen were killed."
This is actually a complete nonsence, and I can never understand how
could he come to such a conclusion? This especially because in his own
books and articles Toperczer gives times according to which the USAF
"Paul Doumer Bridge" strike package could not even be over North
Vietnam at the time this happened. I don't know about the others, but
I'd expect much more care about such details from somebody writing
books for which there is such a massive interest in the USA. Indeed,
on the pages 43-47 of "One Day in a Long War" Ethell/Price describe
the engagement in detail with the help of Dosé's and Hawkins'
narratives, which clearly stated that the "MiG-21 came up from behind,
overtaking fast....as we began turning the MiG fired an Atoll missile
at Hawkins. Initially it guided, but it couldn't handle the Gs and it
wasn't ever a real threat."
Even more estranging is, that on the page 62 of his MiG-17/19 Osprey
book, Toperczer claims the same F-4E 67-0386 as shot down by Pham Hung
Son, flying an J-6.... So, it would be interesting if he could now
make-up his mind...
Furthermore, on the morning of 10 May, Dosé/Hawkins saw four more
MiG-21s while battling the two which were just scrambled from Kep, but
Toperczer says nothing about them. In this light of the whole affair,
I'd say that he not only lacks the complete info about the DRNVAF ops
and is probably not mentioning more than 40% of all the Vietnamese
MiG-21-sorties flown that day (for whichever reasons), but also that
his research with the help of US sources and his reconstruction of the
events from 10 May 1972 in total is very poor.
Significantly, in all of his books Toperczer also completely fails to
mention the North Korean pilots flying MiG-21s in 1966 and scoring few
kills against the US planes (meanwhile admitted by the North
Vietnamese, and confirmed by the US/Vietnamese PoW/MiA comission):
actually, he completely fails to explain how it comes the supposed
North Vietnamese records - on which his books should be based - fail
to mention so many other own (North Vietnamese) pilots, and he instead
lack names for almost 50% of the Vietnamese "kill"-listings.
> P.S. BTW, Tom, in your account of the War of Attrition on the website, you captioned a photo of an Egyptian MiG-21 as a
> PFV. AFAIK that variant was specific to Vietnam, and the Egyptians and everyone else got PFs or FLs. But that's beside the
> point, as it appears to have the side-hinged canopy and separate windscreen that identify it as a PFM (can't tell whether
> it's got the blown flaps).
I think somebody said so to me already, and both of you are right: it
should be a PFM. The Arabs often say they have flown "FLs", but I have
not yet found any serious sources claiming they have indeed got that
version.
Regards,
Tom
Guy Alcala
Tom, thanks for posting that, as my search of the local hobby shop turned up no back issues of
Wings. Re your comments about the accuracy of the article or more petinently, the author, I'm
sure you noted the factual errors re "Mirage IIIC" vs. 5Js, as well as the inaccurate thrust
values for the J79 used in the Kfir.
In the first case, the Mirage 5 has the stretched fuselage of the IIIE, with the intakes
lining up with the aft edge of the canopy rather than a foot or two forward, a dead visual
giveaway betwen a Mirage IIIC and a IIIE/5/50. If accurate, why would France be sending
Mirage IIICs to Israel instead of Mirage 5s, when it was the 5s that Israel had spec'd,
ordered and paid for? The Neshers are clearly Mirage 5s, whether built in France or Israel.
In the case of the Kfir's J79, maybe they used a -7 or -11 in the prototype, but the
production a/c had what was effectively a -19, with much higher ratings.
Without having the article in front of me, I can't say if Mr. Mizrahi is directly quoting Mr.
Salvay, interviewed him by phone or just wrote a story about him; whichever is the case, Mr.
Salvay (or Mr. Mizrahi) may know what a C-5 looks like, but it appears one or both of them
can't say the same about the Mirage variants, and their knowledge of the Kfir seems at least
open to question.
Guy
Guy Alcala
Seems like our messages must have crossed. See my previous post with comments about the 'new' version. Considering our near
identical reactions, we could just as easily have written each other's messages;-)
Yeah, that little problem was bugging me too.
> Furthermore, on the morning of 10 May, Dosé/Hawkins saw four more
> MiG-21s while battling the two which were just scrambled from Kep, but
> Toperczer says nothing about them. In this light of the whole affair,
> I'd say that he not only lacks the complete info about the DRNVAF ops
> and is probably not mentioning more than 40% of all the Vietnamese
> MiG-21-sorties flown that day (for whichever reasons),
That's my opinion as well.
> but also that
> his research with the help of US sources and his reconstruction of the
> events from 10 May 1972 in total is very poor.
With the exception of the VF-92/927th morning combat at Kep and maybe the shootdown of Blackburn/Rudloff, I've essentially
conceded defeat on trying to straighten out who did what to who on 10th May - most of the accounts are so at variance as to
times, places, a/c types and what have you that the two sides might as well be talking about different days. I see he (or maybe
the VPAF) now credits Le Thanh Dao (or maybe Vu Duc Hop; the claim tabulation credits the latter, but the text implies the former)
with nailing Cunningham/Driscoll (the other claiming Blackburn/Rudloff), which while not completely impossible, does seem to have
time/location problems.
There's another one that bothers me, although it may well not be referenced in the works available to him. In the MiG-17/19 book,
when the VPAF admits having two MiG-17s shot down on 4 April 1965 after shooting down Zinc 1 and 2, he opines that the MiGs were
probably hit by their own AAA as no U.S. claims were registered. He appears to be unaware of the combat with and shots taken by
the F-100 MiGCAP and RESCAP flights. Since no kill claims were submitted, only probable/damage, this might not show up in the
U.S. sources he had available. There are accounts of these combats, possibly from a study like Red Baron, reprinted (oddly
enough) in Walter Boyne's "Phantom in Combat", which I have.
> Significantly, in all of his books Toperczer also completely fails to
> mention the North Korean pilots flying MiG-21s in 1966 and scoring few
> kills against the US planes (meanwhile admitted by the North
> Vietnamese, and confirmed by the US/Vietnamese PoW/MiA comission):
He does mention the North Koreans flying in 1964-65 on pg. 77 of the MiG-21 book, but says that they had returned home before the
war broke out. I hadn't heard that the DRVN had admitted the North Korean kills.
> actually, he completely fails to explain how it comes the supposed
> North Vietnamese records - on which his books should be based - fail
> to mention so many other own (North Vietnamese) pilots, and he instead
> lack names for almost 50% of the Vietnamese "kill"-listings.
The following is a customer review of "Air War over North Vietnam," on the amazon.com site:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating: 1 (out of 5)
Summary: Truth is the first casualty
Comment: This book is, to put it bluntly, a fraud. The "author" says in the forward that the information in the book comes
from research and personal interviews conducted in Vietnam and from internal Vietnamese Air Force documents. In fact,
the book is nothing more than a considerably abridged, very slightly edited and annotated TRANSLATION of the official
"History of the People's Air Force of Vietnam" (LICH SU KHONG QUAN NHAN DAN VIET NAM) published in Vietnam in 1993
and freely available to the public there. I have checked Toperczer's book against the "History of the People's Air Force" and
found that virtually every paragraph, every sentence, every word of Toperczer's book is lifted directly from the "History of
the People's Air Force." He did not even bother to change the order of the book, so I could do my checking directly page by
page from one book to the other. I have been able to identify only one very short paragraph in Toperczer's entire book
which is original. Otherwise, the only thing that Toperczer has added to the Vietnamese history are the photographs and, in
one or two places, the names of pilots (most of the pilots names are given in the Vietnamese book). Neither the "author" nor
the publisher cite the Vietnamese History as a reference. They claim copyright for the book, which in my admittedly
non-professional legal opinion is a blatant violation of the copyright agreement reached between the U.S. and Vietnam in
1997 and which took force in 1998. Not that I feel any particular sympathy for the Vietnamese Air Force, which apparently
holds the copyright rights, in this matter - I just don't like people claiming credit for work that is not theirs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not having access to the book and not speaking or reading Vietnamese in any case, I can't comment on the accuracy of the above
charges, but it would explain a lot.
Guy
Tom Cooper
> > Unbelieveable. But, that's only the start. Few lines bellow, Toperczer
> > goes on to explain:
>
> Seems like our messages must have crossed. See my previous post with comments about the 'new' version. Considering our near
> identical reactions, we could just as easily have written each other's messages;-)
Indeed! :lol:
<snip>
> With the exception of the VF-92/927th morning combat at Kep and maybe the shootdown of Blackburn/Rudloff, I've essentially
> conceded defeat on trying to straighten out who did what to who on 10th May - most of the accounts are so at variance as to
> times, places, a/c types and what have you that the two sides might as well be talking about different days. I see he (or maybe
> the VPAF) now credits Le Thanh Dao (or maybe Vu Duc Hop; the claim tabulation credits the latter, but the text implies the former)
> with nailing Cunningham/Driscoll (the other claiming Blackburn/Rudloff), which while not completely impossible, does seem to have
> time/location problems.
To me, the picture is pretty clear - and this foremost with the help
of comparing times and places at which what should have happened. The
chronology should have been as follows:
1.) First strike, from USS Constellation, including six A-6 Intruders,
12 A-7 Corsairs, 13 F-4 Phantoms and one RA-5C (support planes that
remained "feet wet" not included) reached the target area aroun 0830,
when Red Crown warned the Phantoms of the MiG-21s (MiG-21MFs) being
scrambled from Kep. Dosé took lead and charged low over Kep to catch
Dang Ngoc Ngu and Nguyen Van Ngai; fired two Sidewinders the second of
which nailed Ngai.
2.) Hawkins and Dosé retreat towards the coast, when attacked by Le
Thanh Dao and Vu Duc Hop (again on MiG-21MFs); Hawkings noticed the
MiGs, turned into a barell-roll behind the first MiG and ordered a
fast break to the right. During the turn, both Phantom-crews noticed
that they were in more danger than they had thought: the sky around
them was dark with AAA bursts and one SAM was launched against them,
but it passed by. At that moment Dang Ngoc Ngu came back to play, with
Hawkins ("One Day in A Long War") being initially pursued by him, and
commenting: „At that time we had strong intelligence that the MiG-21
could not do more than Mach 1.05 below five thousand feet. We were
doing Mach 1.15 in combat spread, feeling cocksure as we headed
towards the coast." Dosé continued: „Then a MiG-21 came up behind,
overtaking fast. He made it look effortless. When I saw the MiG it was
about three-quarters of a mile behind Hawkins. I called for an
in-place turn." When Phantoms began turning Ngu fired a missile from
the range of 1.200 meters at Hawkins (this via Toperczer's first
book). However, Hawkins was in a high-G horizontal turn and the Atoll,
which initially guided, flew straight ahead. After attacking, Ngu
turned hard to right and flew back to his base, claiming one Phantom
as shot down.
3.) One hour later 84 Phantoms and five F-105Gs of the USAF, supported
by 20 KC-135 tankers and a SAR group of three helicopters, four A-1s
and four Phantoms, closed on North Vietnam crossing northern Thailand
and Laos. The lead were six F-4Ds of the Oyster and Balter flights.
Around 0942, the NV GCI orders MiG-21s to scramble (time confirmed by
both sides). Two minutes later, (at least) two MiG-21s of 921 FR took
off from Noi Bai, turning toward Tuyen Quang to decoy the Americans.
At the same time four J-6s of the 1st Flight (#1 Nguyen Ngoc Tiep, #2
Nguyen Hong Son, #3 Pham Hung Son and #4 Nguyen Duc Tiem) of the 925
FR were scrambled as well. Unknown to either Red Crown or to crews of
US fighters, two MiG-21s turned straight toward the Oyster flight,
covered by four low flying J-6s.
Now, it is possible there were only two MiG-21s but the
Vietnamese/Toperczer do not mention them. On the other hand, it is
possible there were indeed two MiG-21s in the front, trailed by two
J-6s, and with only two J-6s in trail at low level. If the first was
the case, the Oysters then really nailed three MiG-21s. If not then:
- Lodge/Locher MiG-21
- Markle J-6 flown by Nguyen Hong Son
- Ritchie (which, at least from written accounts, never visually
identified his target, but "only" held it as a radar lock-on) J-6
flown by Nguyen Duc Tiem
Meanwhile, Pham Hung Son - leading the low-level trailing J-6 element
- turned around for the second attack and blasted Lodge/Locher out of
the skies.
4.) at 1254hrs USS Constellation's second strike arrives in the Hai
Doung area. A minute or two later the first four MiG-17s of the 923rd
FR appeared. Only at that moment did Red Crown give the first
broadcast warning of MiGs airborne, and it did not refer to those now
sweeping in to engage: so there were also more than four MiG-17s about
which the Vietnamese/Toperczer are speaking. The first four MiG-17s,
flown by Nguyen Van Tho (#1), Ta Dong Trung (#2), Nguyen Hang (#3) and
one other pilot, parted in two pairs. The #3 and #4 attacked as first,
and caught Cunningham off guard, but he reversed port and both
Vietnamese slashed beside him. Cunningham fired one AIM-9 and it
smashed into the MiG flown by Nguyen Hang, which exploded in a ball of
fire (according to Vietnamese records, Hang ejected, but was killed by
20mm cannon fire from two Phantoms; as is known, USN Phantoms weren't
armed with any guns or gun pods during this raid).
Seconds later another MiG pulled behind Cunningham, which turned
around, trying to invite his wingman, Lt. Brian Grant to shoot down
the Vietnamese. Grant was then warned of another MiG behind him and
accelerated away. Cunningham followed and both Phantoms disengaged.
Meanwhile, Cdr. Dwight Timm, VF-96's XO, was northeast of that area,
when one MiG-21 - closely followed by another MiG-17 - swept in
beneath his Phantom (so, there must've been more MiG-21s in the air
that day, but Toperczer is not mentioning them - again). Timm curved
around, trying a Sparrow shot, but with so many planes flying around,
he was momentarily rather trying not to collide with anybody, then to
fight.
While the Phantoms tried to hold off the MiGs, Cdr. Gus Eggert ordered
the attack planes to exit to the south, but the first pair of MiG-17s
- Nguyen Van Tho and Ta Dong Trung - succeeded in getting to the
Intruders and Corsairs. Lt. Matt Connelly found an A-7 pursued by a
MiG-17 of Dong Trung. Connelly tried a Sparrow shot, but his radar was
unusable, and he had to switch to Sidewinders, firing one at the MiG
behind the Corsair. Van Tho pulled sharply into the attack and
successfully evaded the missile, but this forced him off the A-7's
tail. Don Trung first attacked the A-7 of Lt. George Goryanec, and
then the Corsair of Lt. Al Junker. Cdr. Fred Baldwin, Junker's element
leader, saw his wingman in trouble and barrel-rolled into a firing
position behind one MiG-17. he had no Sidewinders (after the morning
strikes there were not enough Sidewinders to arm all Corsairs, thus,
most of them flew without any) and his 20mm cannons were
unserviceable. Dong Trung couldn't know this, but he continued to
pursuit Junker, which started evading according to instructions from
Baldwin. Goryanec heard Baldwin's calls and turned into the MiG,
attacking it from above and scoring several hits near the wing root.
The MiG leveled out and turned back towards the coast, landing safely
at Kep, several minutes later.
Meanwhile, Van Tho joined the melee of additional MiG-17s of the 923rd
FR and F-4Js of VF-96, but during his attack at one of the Phantoms,
he appeared in front of Lt. Matt Connelly. Tho was in a tight turn and
there was little chance of a successful shot, but then he rolled out -
probably because he was out of ammunition Connelly's Sidewinder blew
it up. Tho ejected safely.
Cunningham then dispatched the MiG-17 behind Lt.Cdr. Timm, while
Shoemaker made two high-speed passes throught the furball, albeit
without success, and Timm downed his second MiG-17.
At that moment, Le Thanh Dao and Vu Duc Hop were - underway at
10.000ft - vectored towards a pair of Phantoms flying 35km from Hai
Duong at an altitude of 3.500 meters (Blackburn/Rudloff and Dilworth
were in exactly that area, but at "14.000ft", which is approx 4.000m).
Dao saw the targets first and ordered Hop to jettison his fuel tanks
as he moved his throttle forward. Circling Hai Duong at 14.000 feet,
Cdr. Harry Blackburn and his wingman remained in the target area long
after the last attack aircraft had disappeared to the south. Their
Phantoms were - supposedly - in position to intercept MiGs attempting
to enter or leave the fight, but they were too eager: the Vietnamese
started firing at them with flak, and then - IMHO there is no doubt
about this if the data about the place and time are compared - Le
Thanh Dao and Vu Duc Hop attacked. Hop fired the first K-13 from a
range of 1.500m, flying slightly bellow the Phantoms. The missile blew
the stabilizer of the Rudloff's aircraft away. Hop's second K-13 - or
a burst from flak caliber 85mm - then dazzled Rudloff and then he and
Blackburn ejected.
Cunningham saw Blackburn/Rudloff's Phantom going down, while at the
same time Shoemaker finally found one MiG-17 and shot it down.
Lt. Rod Dilworth, Blackburn's wingman, tried to evade the flak: both
he and Blackburn never saw any of MiGs, even when Dilworth passed
closely under the MiG-21 of Le Thanh Dao (again confirmed by both,
Toperczer and Ethell/Price). Dilworth's plane was damaged by 85-mm
shell. Lt. Goryanec was still in the area with his A-7, and saw the
crippled Phantom ("One Day in A Long War"): „The F-4 was about one
thousand feet above and four miles in front of me, streaming fuel.
Before I could join him a section of MiG-21s (obviously Le Thanh Dao
and Vu Duc Hop on their return to Kep) flew between us about two
thousand feet above, heading towards Hai Duong. I guess they didn't
see us because they sure didn't react. They could have had us both."
As said, in no way could Dao and Hop have hit Cunningham: according to
available data, they were not in the area any more when Cunningham's
plane was hit. Namely, in the following minutes Cunningham was to
engage in that epic dogfight with a single MiG-17, and - after
shooting it down - had also another engagement with few MiG-17s (one
of which was shot down by Cannon from USS Coral Sea) and MiG-19s.
Also, he flew alone: Blackburn and Dilworth were flying as a pair, and
for Dao and Hop it is said they attacked a pair of Phantoms. Finally,
by the time Cunningham's plane was indeed damaged by a SAM, Dao and
Hop were back on the ground.
So, enough of this for today. I'll try to come back with few things
more tomorrow (especially about the 4 April 1965); I'm also sure
you'll have few comments about the stuff above.
Regards,
Tom
Guy Alcala
> Guy Alcala wrote:
>
> >> Libya received part of the batch of 5Js that had been designed and built for
> >> Israel. The French Air Force received most of the rest. And those were renamed
> >> "5F", even though they serial tags, to this day, are marked 5J.
>
> >The problem with this is that there were 50 5Js in the Israeli order.
>
> This is not what I remember from then:
> The initial Israeli order was for 110.
> After de Gaulle's betrayal, French AF got 50. Gaddafi got 48.
> I have no idea about the other 12.
>
> Could it be that the 50 is a case of re-writing an official history after the
> fact?
Certainly a possibility. I have a vague memory of reading somewhere that there were
fifty a/c in the initial Israeli order (which was paid for), with another 50 or so on
option, but haven't been able to find anything that confirms my memory. The Paul
jackson book says that the Israeli contract was placed in 1966 with the first
single-seat prototype making its first flight 19 May 1967; completion of the 5Js ran
from 12 September 1967 to 19 June 1969. Libya placed their contract for 110 Mirage
5s in November 1969, two months after the revolution (this may be where you get the
110 from). However, the first delivery, of a two-seater, only occurred on 22
December 1970, followd by the first radar-equipped (i.e., equivalent to a IIIE rather
than 5) 5DE on 3 March 1971, with the first of 53 5Ds (a straight Mirage 5) delivered
on 5 November 1971. Since the Mirage 5 was clearly going to be a standard production
type (Belgium announced their order on 16 Feb. 1968, Peru received their first 5P on
7 May 1968 etc.), any airframes beyond the 50 paid for by Israel and already under
construction for them really don't count, as options can always be changed.
> I'd be interested to check docs *of that time* about the size of the order. My
> books have been destroyed long since in floodings. I realize that memory alone
> isn't enough, but I don't know how to cross-check with documents not liable to
> have been "arranged" since.
Always a problem, and unfortunately I don't have any contemporary documents on that,
all my sources being after the fact. Back issues of AvLeak or even the New York
Times will probably have to do.
Guy
Guy Alcala
> David Lednicer <da...@amiwest.com> wrote in message news:<3DC8D99F...@amiwest.com>...
> > I know Gene Salvay, and while he's a nice, talented guy, he did not
> > design the Kfir. Furthermore, I doubt that he had anything to do with
> > assembling any Mirages. I know a lot of engineers at IAI and can assure
> > you that they are responsible for the Kfir.
> >
> > On the other hand I am pretty certain how that the Neshers were largely
> > assembled from parts imported from France. There is no way to get an
> > assembly line up and going in two years, with no help from the original
> > designers, especially for a company with little experience in designing
> > and assembling fighters. I've examined the remains of the Dagger/Nesher
> > in the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton and it contains a lot of French
> > components.
> >
> > -David Lednicer
>
> OK, I have finally obtainted the copy of the magazine with the article
> in question. It's "Wings", volume 30/No.4, from August 2000. The
> article is titled "The Designer of the B-1 Bomber's Airframe". On the
> page 48 it says:
<snip rest>
FWIW, here's Mafe Huertas version of the Nesher's gestation, which is more or less the
'official' version (doesn't mean it's accurate). I've edited out some of the less important
bits:
"After Israel's crushing defeat of the Arabs in the Six Day War, France imposed its arms
embargo -- initially on the delivery of the 50 Mirage 5Js, but later on military equipment of
any description. This even had the effect, from december 1968, of denying acess to all spares
and systems improvements for the existing Mirage III fleet[. . . .]
"The multi-role Nesher was perhaps the most remarkable outcome of the French sanctions. It
was virtually a direct copy of the embargoed Mirage 5J, but manufactured entirely in israel by
[IAI]. When De Gaulle stopped delivery of the original Mirages, all the Israeli engineers
that were working on the project in France returned home and began to set up an 'alternative'
production line at IAI. The whole programme was shrouded in total secrecy at the time, but it
is now known that Tel Aviv received a good deal of unofficial help from Arme'e de l' Air and
Dassault engineers, who between them managed to provide exact manufacturing drawings and the
necessary tools and jigs. At the same time, Mossad [. . .] was making contact with Alfred
Fraunknecht, an engineer working for the Sulzer organization in Switzerland. Sulzer was
building the Atar 09C under license, and Frauenknecht supplied the Israelis with many
blueprints of both the engine and the aircraft [. . . ]
"Since the mid-1960s, in addition to its typical military overhaul work, IAI had been
legitimately producing some spare parts and components for the IDFAF's Mirage IIIC fleet.
Beit Shemesh, the company's engine division, had also started building some Atar 09C3
components as part of an offset arrangement for the Mirage 5J contract. When the aircraft was
embargoed, the 'official' engine component agreement lapsed, but clandestine work continued in
Israel. The first complete engines were produced in 1968, initially with most of the
components openly imported from France, but as the restrictions on military supplies began to
tighten, more and more sections were copied and manufactured in "Israel.
"The prototype Nesher made its maiden flight in September 1969 [. . .] This was a fairly
basic vehicle, which did little more than prove the aerodynamic limits and bring together some
of the systems that had been tested separately in a modified Mirage IIIBJ. The definitive
Nesher was first flown on 8 January 1971[. . .] All subsequent production aircraft were
powered by the copied Atar 09C3, which was, by 1971, wholly manufactured by Beit Shemesh [. .
. .] Deliveries started in May 1971."
Guy
Tom Cooper
> <snip rest>
>
> FWIW, here's Mafe Huertas version of the Nesher's gestation, which is more or less the
> 'official' version (doesn't mean it's accurate). I've edited out some of the less important
> bits:
<snip rest>
Yep, I have both of his books about the Mirages.
The more I read that article in the Wings, the more I agree with you:
unbelieveable mistakes for an article in a magazine that claims such
precision of information. Even if they are as US-oriented as they
usually appear, they should know the difference between different
J-79s - at least...
Still, I'm not convinced with the "official" Israeli version either:
as David previously mentioned, in now way would the IAI be able to
start a production of supersonic fighters on its own and solely on the
basis of some blueprints in such short period of time.
I guess I'll now start a FOIA inquiry with either the USAF or the USN:
this promises to offer some highly interesting answers, even if it
might take some time unless the answers are available...
Regards,
Tom
John 14 15-21
>A fact unfortunately overlooked in this sub-thread is that Marcel Dassault
>(who
>used to be called Marcel Bloch before the nazi invasion) was a Jew.
>So, no matter what the official French government policy was towards Israel,
>Mr Dassault, who owned his company, had his own sympathies.
Interesting. Could you provide a good Bio on Mr. Dassault?
I always wondered about the relationship between Israel and and his company in
the early years. It always appeared to me to be just more then just business.
-------------------
Remember: Jesus is Lord!
Romans 10:9-10, John 14:15-21, Acts 2:38, Eph 2:7-10, Matthew 5:3-16, 1Cor 15,
John Chapter Three, Romans Chapter Eight, The Book of First John. :)
http://www.unshackled.org/ Old Time Radio Drama / Lives Changed by Christ
___________________________________
"Most High, glorious God, enlighten the darkness of my heart, and give me a
right faith, a sure hope, a perfect charity." ---St Francis of Assisi
-
"Reasons last step is the recognition that there is an infinite number of
things that go beyond it"---Blaise Pascal.
David Lednicer
You missed some details:
During WWII, Marcel Bloch refused to cooperate with the Nazis and was
sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. He survived and returned after
the war to reestablish his company. He also converted to Christianity
at the time and changed his name to Dassault. Considering that he sold
a lot of fighters to Libya, Egypt, Pakistan, etc., its debatable about
how much sympathy he had for the Jews in Israel.
EADS is the largest shareholder in Dassault Aviation, but Dassault has
not been merged into EADS and resists all such moves.
-David Lednicer
David Lednicer
Interesting - I just called up Gene and he confirmed the Wings account.
He claims that he was the Chief Designer on the Kfir. He also retold
the C-5-delivering-Mirage story. I guess my next step is to check with
the IAI engineers I know to double check all this.
-David Lednicer
John 14 15-21
Thanks Dan,
He clearly is a very interesting person. When I get the time I will make the
effort to learn more about him
>John 14 15-21 wrote:
>
>
>>Interesting. Could you provide a good Bio on Mr. Dassault?
>
>Not sure what you call a good bio. I believe he has published books about his
>life and career.
>
>Basically, he was Marcel Bloch born 1892, and he had started building war
>planes
>during WW1, the Caudron G3. He founded his own company after the war, which
>became was one of the prominent airplane mfrs of France before WW2. The
>MB-xxx
>series.
>
>Of course during the nazi occupation of France his company was confiscated,
>and
>he went into the underground French Resistance guerrillas where he became a
>leader and a hero. (So did his brother. They both got arrested by the Gestapo
>in
>1944 and sent to Buchenwald). He took the guerrilla nym "Charre d'Assault",
>which is a pun in French between Tank and Huge Bluff.
>
>
>After the war he kept that name. And re-created an airplane company, AMD,
>which
>became world famous with the Ouragan, Mystere, Falcon and Mirage series.
>
>His company was forcibly nationalized by the Socialists after 1981. His main
>company Avions Marcel Dassault is now merged into EADS, afaik.
>
>He also founded other defense-related companies (like ESD) and owned some
>press
>magazines. He was also a member of parliament for thirty-plus years.
>He died in 1986.
>
>
>That's about all I know off the top of my head. I'm sure you could google up
>more details if you are interested.
>
>DAN
John 14 15-21
Emmanuel Gustin
news:2bv4tukh536arh0jg...@4ax.com...
> Basically, he was Marcel Bloch born 1892, and he had started building
> war planes during WW1, the Caudron G3.
His connection with the G3 was that he refined the design
for mass production, at that time he was serving in the
military. He founded his own compamy in 1930.
> he went into the underground French Resistance guerrillas where he became
a
> leader and a hero. (So did his brother. They both got arrested by the
Gestapo
> in 1944 and sent to Buchenwald). He took the guerrilla nym "Charre
> d'Assault", which is a pun in French between Tank and Huge Bluff.
This is slightly confused. Marcel Bloch himself was imprisoned for
most of the war. He was handed over to the nazis in 1944, but Vichy
had kept him jailed as a "dangerous individual" from late 1940
because he refused to collaborate, i.e. build aircraft for Germany.
So he did not have a major role in the resistance; Dassault was the
"nom de guerre" of his brother Paul. I am not sure about it, but IIRC
Paul Bloch was never captured.
> His company was forcibly nationalized by the Socialists after 1981.
That is a bit exaggerated. The French state took a majority
share (46%, but with a majority vote), but Dassault remained
in charge (and part owner). He was later succeeded by his
son Serge.
This was not the first time. When Pierre Cot nationalised
and reorganised the smaller of the French aviation firms
in 1936-37, Avions Marcel Bloch became part of the
SNCASO, and Marcel Bloch its director. (Pierre Cot has
been villified for the decision ever since, but the decision
itself was justifiable -- the industry was in a very poor
shape and something needed to be done urgently. The plan
was, however, badly executed.)
--
Emmanuel Gustin <Emmanuel.gustin -@- skynet.be>
Military Aircraft Database, Fighter Guns Page on
http://users.skynet.be/Emmanuel.Gustin/
Thom
<rch...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Now that I've gotten everyone's attention with the MiG-15 :-), I have to ask
>this question: what was the combat record of the MiG-21?
>
>From what I've read, the MiG-21's combat record wasn't that exceptional. I
>do know that North Vietnamese AF pilots much preferred the MiG-17, and
>Pakistani pilots had an outstanding record with the MiG-19 licensed copies
>from China in the 1971 war with India. The MiG-21 had a better record during
>the Yom Kippur War, but in the end they still suffered heavy losses.
Theres a book on the MIG-21 in Viet Nam for sale on eBay. Just put
MIG-21 in the search engine and it comes up.
THOM
>
>--
>Raymond Chuang
>Mountain View, CA USA
>
>
Tom Cooper
Thanks David,
that makes the matter definitely interesting...
Regards,
Tom
Tom Cooper
> "DAN" <d...@no.spam.thanks> wrote in message
> news:2bv4tukh536arh0jg...@4ax.com...
<snip>
> > His company was forcibly nationalized by the Socialists after 1981.
>
> That is a bit exaggerated. The French state took a majority
> share (46%, but with a majority vote), but Dassault remained
> in charge (and part owner). He was later succeeded by his
> son Serge.
Regardless what happened, in no way was Dassault suffering by any
means due to the French state taking over a majority share of his
company. On the contrary: from that moment on, the sales of Mirage
III/5s soared, and for most of the 1970s and 1980s the French
government did everything possible to sell even more planes - then
especially the Mirage F.1s - even when this stood directly opposite to
own interests (see the deliveries of Mirage F.1ADs and F.1EDs to Libya
in the middle of the crisis in Chad, 1981 thru 1983).
By the mid-1980s, the Dassault and the French government actually
became the same - at least in the arena of production and sales of
Mirages: very frequently the French gov would behave like an agent of
Dassault. This close relationship can be tracked in almost any sale of
Mirage 2000s to the French - but also to quite a few other air forces.
One should also not ignore all the affairs about taxes not paid by the
company and the Dassault family, which was especially close to
Mitterand: these came not out of nothing...
Regards,
Tom
Diego Fernando Zampini
Guy Alcala <g_al...@junkpostoffice.pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<3DCE28AE...@junkpostoffice.pacbell.net>...
> The following is a customer review of "Air War over North Vietnam," on the amazon.com site:
>-------
> Rating: 1 (out of 5)
> Summary: Truth is the first casualty
> Comment: This book is, to put it bluntly, a fraud. The "author" says in the forward that the information in the book comes
> from research and personal interviews conducted in Vietnam and from internal Vietnamese Air Force documents. In fact,
> the book is nothing more than a considerably abridged, very slightly edited and annotated TRANSLATION of the official
> "History of the People's Air Force of Vietnam" (LICH SU KHONG QUAN NHAN DAN VIET NAM) published in Vietnam in 1993
> and freely available to the public there. I have checked Toperczer's book against the "History of the People's Air Force" and
> found that virtually every paragraph, every sentence, every word of Toperczer's book is lifted directly from the "History of
> the People's Air Force." He did not even bother to change the order of the book, so I could do my checking directly page by
> page from one book to the other. I have been able to identify only one very short paragraph in Toperczer's entire book
> which is original. Otherwise, the only thing that Toperczer has added to the Vietnamese history are the photographs and, in
> one or two places, the names of pilots (most of the pilots names are given in the Vietnamese book). Neither the "author" nor
> the publisher cite the Vietnamese History as a reference. They claim copyright for the book, which in my admittedly
> non-professional legal opinion is a blatant violation of the copyright agreement reached between the U.S. and Vietnam in
> 1997 and which took force in 1998. Not that I feel any particular sympathy for the Vietnamese Air Force, which apparently
> holds the copyright rights, in this matter - I just don't like people claiming credit for work that is not theirs.
>-----------
> Not having access to the book and not speaking or reading Vietnamese in any case, I can't comment on the accuracy of the above
> charges, but it would explain a lot.
> Guy
I've heard similar coments before. Even when such charges could be
truth, certainly the next two books of Toerczer, ´MiG-21 units´ and
´MiG-17/19 units´ are fully of his own.
Addittionaly Guy, you say that the second B-52 claimed by a MiG-21
pilot (Vu Xuan Thieu) on Dec. 28 1972 are not admitted by USAF (and
according to the article Linebacker II written by Walter Boyne in AFM
a couple of years ago, that is correct). However, David Ledciner in
his list of US losses in Vietnam mentioned a ´Lewis + 6´ in such
entry, supposedly a officer of surname Lewis was the pilot and there
was other 6 crewmembers. Could you give more details, David?
Regards,
Diego.
Larry Doering
DAN <he...@this.group> wrote:
>David Lednicer wrote:
>
>>Interesting - I just called up Gene and he confirmed the Wings account.
>>He claims that he was the Chief Designer on the Kfir. He also retold
>idea who it was.
>
>>the C-5-delivering-Mirage story. I guess my next step is to check with
>>the IAI engineers I know to double check all this.
>
>I remember hearing about B707s 'chock-full of "spare parts" flying out of
>Bordeaux-Merignac'. But it's only personal memories about gossips, so not much
>reference value.
>Anyway, my personal memories notwithstanding, I just find the use of USAF
>military airplanes for that purpose so incredibly unlikely
Not to mention my personal nit to pick with this story, which is that
it seems kind of unlikely that C-5s would have been regularly flying
from the US to France to Israel in 1970.
The first production C-5 wasn't even delivered until mid-1970, and
the C-5 didn't reach IOC until 1971, when the first C-5 flight was
made from Travis AFB to Vietnam.
ljd
Tom Cooper
I guess you might like to check David's message no 33: Mr. Salvay
seems to remember the C-5s being used for this transport very much.
Perhaps C-5 was used especially because they were as new: at the time
not many knew what they look like...
Regards,
Tom
Peter Stickney
I'd find that very hard to believe for a number of reasons -
The C-5 (aka Big Bellied Overrunner) had been a controvertial item in
The U.S.A.F. procurement process since the contract was first let, and
had been the subject of much publicity, fair or foul, since the mid
'60s. Not at all unlike the C-17. If they were showing up outside
the U.S., there's have been crowds showing up at wherever they were
appearing. (Toulouse or Dinant, at a guess) They were more than
distictive looking. You young guys have no idea how different the
sound was, as well. The C-5 was the first application of high bypass
turbofans, and distintive as all get out. Even if every planespotter
in Europe had never seen a picture of a C-5, they were pretty
distinctive looking, and would be noticed.
If you're trying to make moving aircraft parts on the secret side,
Why would you use a distintinctive airplane in the markings of an
uninvolved country's military? That doesn't make sense. There were
other aircraft around that would have done the same job without
attracting undue attention. Israel's C-97s, for example, or the
chartered C-74s (C-124 precursors) that Isreal had already used to
clandestinely transport Fougas to customers. (The C-97 was a good
choice. The Biafran War was going full swing at the time, and the
Red Cross and various relief agencies were using "rented" C-97s and
crews to fly relief supplies to the refugees. With the dirtiness of
that little war, the whole relief effort was rather undercover and
spooky as all get out. (The crews, for the most part were U.S. Air
National Guard people) Unmarked C-97s sneaking out of European
airfields and heading across the Med wasn't unheard of.
When the C-5 forst came out, the reliability was such that it made the
early days of the C-17 and the V-22 look good. The U.S.A.F. wasn't
about to risk having an airplane that isn't supposed to be in service
stuck on the ramp at someplace it's not supposed to be for a week or
so.
--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster
Larry Doering
Tom Cooper <muf...@direkt.at> wrote:
>doe...@xrayspex.nlm.nih.gov (Larry Doering) wrote in message news:<ar0ort$lo$1...@lhc.nlm.nih.gov>...
>>
>> the C-5 didn't reach IOC until 1971, when the first C-5 flight was
>> made from Travis AFB to Vietnam.
>
>seems to remember the C-5s being used for this transport very much.
Well, yes, and that seems to me to be a serious problem with
Salvay's story.
>Perhaps C-5 was used especially because they were as new: at the time
>not many knew what they look like...
I can tell you that in 1970, as a ten-year-old who was rabidly
interested in airplanes, I had a very good idea of what the C-5
looked like and would have done just about anything for a
chance to actually see one for real.
Remember, at the time the C-5 was by most measurements the
largest airplane ever built and the subject of a good deal of
interest (and controversy, since the C-5 program did not exactly
go smoothly.)
Pardon me for saying so, but the idea that you could enhance
the secrecy of a clandestine operation in 1970 by flying stuff
around in the few C-5s that had been built by then is just
silly.
ljd
Tom Cooper
> In article <1e83c36d.02111...@posting.google.com>,
> Tom Cooper <muf...@direkt.at> wrote:
> >doe...@xrayspex.nlm.nih.gov (Larry Doering) wrote in message news:<ar0ort$lo$1...@lhc.nlm.nih.gov>...
> >>
> >> The first production C-5 wasn't even delivered until mid-1970, and
> >> the C-5 didn't reach IOC until 1971, when the first C-5 flight was
> >> made from Travis AFB to Vietnam.
> >
> >I guess you might like to check David's message no 33: Mr. Salvay
> >seems to remember the C-5s being used for this transport very much.
>
> Well, yes, and that seems to me to be a serious problem with
> Salvay's story.
>
> >Perhaps C-5 was used especially because they were as new: at the time
> >not many knew what they look like...
>
> I can tell you that in 1970, as a ten-year-old who was rabidly
> interested in airplanes, I had a very good idea of what the C-5
> looked like and would have done just about anything for a
> chance to actually see one for real.
>
> Remember, at the time the C-5 was by most measurements the
> largest airplane ever built and the subject of a good deal of
> interest (and controversy, since the C-5 program did not exactly
> go smoothly.)
Without any dispute, we two might not have a problem identifying a C-5
from a C-141 even from a distance of five kilometers at an age of six.
But, in general, the aircraft identification is still one of the most
mistake-prone matters in general public. I hope I don't have to
mention all the cases when a Su-25 became "Su-27" (Macedonia), or the
SF.260 either a "MiG" (Chad, Congo) or a Tu-22 (Sudan) etc...
> Pardon me for saying so, but the idea that you could enhance
> the secrecy of a clandestine operation in 1970 by flying stuff
> around in the few C-5s that had been built by then is just
> silly.
Look, I have no problem with the fact that only few C-5s were
operational at the time. I have also no problem with their use perhaps
not being the best idea for keeping the operation clandestine: I think
that given what I just said above (i.e. specific but widespread
problems with aircraft recognition) it might not have been the poorest
idea.
My problem is, however, why would Salvay then say it was the C-5s?
And, what else is left? C-141s?
What would that mean? That the story is not truth even after the man
in quesetion confirmed it two times? Or, is it rather so, that - if
C-5s were not used - instead of three or four Mirage 5Js, only two
were carried per plane?
As if that would make much of a difference...
Regards,
Tom
David Lednicer
One thing I have found in historical research is that people's memories
are very unreliable. They might remember the overall picture of what
happened, but the details can often be incorrect. This gets worse as
people get older - Gene is 83.
Over the weekend, I was reading an article that mentions that the first
C-5 operational mission was flown in June(? - my memory!) 1970. As the
first Nesher flew in 1971, it was possible that C-5s were used, but
unlikely. Flying supplies to Vietnam would have taken precedence to
some small-scale covert operation involving two other countries.
However, this isn't to say that Gene is totally wrong. The operation
might have used a C-130 or C-141 to fly the partly complete aircraft.
I'm still checking from the Israeli end...
-David Lednicer
David Lednicer
I'm trying to play the role of an impartial historian. This involves
accepting information from all sources and only throwing out information
when it is proven to be wrong by a more reputable source. The US DoD
claims that no B-52s were shot down over North Vietnam by MiGs. North
Vietnamese MiG pilots claim to have downed two B-52s. I have attempted
to figure out which B-52s they might have downed IF they did indeed down
them. This is the reason for the listings as they appear. Note
however, that I have added "Attributed to SAM" at the end of each
listing, as this is what the US DoD attributes each loss to.
-David Lednicer
David Lednicer
I'll have to dig out the date of Bloch's conversion - I have a bio of
him at home. I think his conversion to Christianity was real - Jews
take this kind of thing very seriously. It still baffles me how someone
could survive Buchenwald and then convert to Christianity, but stranger
things have happened...
I have heard a rumor, from a very reputable source, that MEA's fleet was
so heavily insured that they actually made profit off the Israeli attack
on the Beirut airport in 1968!
-David Lednicer
John 14 15-21
>
>I'll have to dig out the date of Bloch's conversion - I have a bio of
>him at home. I think his conversion to Christianity was real - Jews
>take this kind of thing very seriously. It still baffles me how someone
>could survive Buchenwald and then convert to Christianity, but stranger
>things have happened...
>
Whether his conversion to Christianity is was real or not, the fact is that
Christianity as taught by Jesus and the Apostles is a branch of Judaism. The
early Christian Church was completely Jewish in orgin.
Rom 11:25
25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery,
lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened
to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
(KJV)
Persecution against anybody is against the teachings of the New Testament, BUT
ESPECIALLY AGAINST ISRAEL.
Israel is the natural branch, the gentiles including myself are the wild olive
tree.
Rom 11:17-18
17 And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive
tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and
fatness of the olive tree;
18 Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the
root, but the root thee.
(KJV)
Moses himself declared the coming of Christianity.
Deut 32:20-21
20 And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end
shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.
21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have
provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with
those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish
nation.
(KJV)
This is in a section of the scriptures known as the Song of Moses. This was
literally recited for centuries in the worship services of the Jewish Temple in
Jerusalem.
Infact, this was so well known that the Apostle Paul alluded to it.
Rom 10:19-21
19 But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you
to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger
you.
20 But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me
not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me.
21 But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands
unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.
(KJV)
Many of the Jewish people have come to believe in the Jewish Messiah, Jesus
Christ.
>I have heard a rumor, from a very reputable source, that MEA's fleet was
>so heavily insured that they actually made profit off the Israeli attack
>on the Beirut airport in 1968!
>
> -David Lednicer
--------------