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Originally Posted by VRM
Chopper,
So if your ground-based air defenses go down, what would you do? Clean your M16? Enquiring minds want to know...
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When your ground based air defenses go down as theirs did, that's about all you can do. You see, you lose not only the ability to see what's coming at you, but also the ability to deploy and control your own forces because you have no radar coverage or ground-to-air communications. I don't know this for an absolute fact, but I would bet heavily that in taking down the air defense net, the Israelis also took down the secure communications links between the central authority and the air bases used to launch the aircraft. Without the communications and radar links, they couldn't communicate the launch orders, and even if they could have done that, they had no way to vector the interceptors into the Israeli threats. The Israelis would not have gone in a crow's line to the target, they would have had ingress routes planned which would include turn points specifically selected to break up the line of flight so that the enemy couldn't anticipate their target based on dead reckoning, so launching interceptors based on unreliable reports of aircraft passing overhead of camel drivers is worth than useless. That's why (at least as I understand) NO defensive aircraft were even launched, let alone were able to engage the Israelis. Also, with the radars jammed, the ground-based anti-aircraft sites are rendered pretty much useless because they cannot detect or lock on to the inbound aircraft.
FWIW, we did pretty much the same thing when we attacked Saddam in 1991. The first aircraft across the line weren't the fighters; they were a flight of Army Apache helicopters equipped with Hellfire laser-guided missiles, led by an Air Force Pave Low special ops H-53. Their targets were the radar command and control centers, and by wiping them out, we very effectively blinded all of Saddam's gee-whiz Russian anti-aircraft systems.
And, for the record, having been in pilot training courses over the years with members of numerous Middle Eastern pilot candidates, I would hazard a guess that the least capable Israeli pilot is probably a match for any 10 of them. Again, this is a guess on my part, but experience says that the Israelis probably had CAP escort to protect the attack aircraft enroute to and from the target area and attack aircraft armed with anti-radar missiles to take out any radar sites which popped up. With the radars out, the ground and air defenses were non-existent and the targets would have been wide open to the attack aircraft. The command and control structure of the Arab forces essentially eliminates any chance of individual commanders launching their defensive fleets without specific instructions from the central command structure. Under our command structure, individual commanders have the authority to conduct autonomous operations if events warrant. This authority does not exist in the Arab military forces because the command structures do not trust their subordinates, and the Israelis are well aware of this fact.
Maybe another night at the Holiday Inn Express will help, General. Perhaps you should stick to reading your GI Joe comic books.