IAF in 1973 Yom Kippur without US aircraft?...

[+dtmdragon 2,704]

Idea for some 'what if' aircraft/ skins: the Israeli Air Force in the 1973 Yom Kippur war without ever receiving US export aircraft. France continued to be the primary aircraft and arms supplier to Israel.

That being said the IAI Nesher would never have been invented/ produced as the Israeli Mirage 5J order was never embargoed by France.

I imagine an order for Mirage 50 in the early 70's might have been highly likely?

It's to early for any Mirage F1 to be in service.

So by 1973 the IAF would have still been a primary Mirage 3/5/10 fighter/ attack force.

How would these aircraft have performed against the SAM and sophisticated air defense network in place by the Arab nations?

Any other good educated guesses guys?

Edited April 5, 2021 by dtmdragon

[+Gepard 11,315]

Without american technic like planes and tanks and without the help of the american air bridge, which carried thousands tons of supply, Israel would have lost the war. It would run out of ammo, fuel, spare parts and it would not get fast replacement of shot down or damaged planes. Not to speak about the american pilots which had flown combat missions for the IDF.

To survive Israel would have be forced to use its nuclear weapons.

[tiopilotos 2,519]

IDF's half aircraft looses happened in the first 4 days of the conflict. Arabs had made a quite effective SAM umbrella protecting ground forces. The combination of SA-6/ZSU-23-4 proved very deadly as these systems shot down at least 50-55 IDF aircrafts mostly A-4s and F-4s. Keep in mind that these aircrafts were the main attacking force of IDF, so without the Skyhawk and Phantom replacements from US surplus, IDF's attacking force would have been dramatically decreased. Later on, IDF developed tactics to limit SAM effectiveness and they partially succeeded although SAMs kept posing a significant threat. But I agree with Gepard, without US help it would be just a matter of time to run out of ammunition, spare parts etc. 

[macelena 1,070]

I don't know if it could have been doable, but perhaps some sort of Mirage IVJ, or Jaguar J? Without the Phantoms, they would need something beefy to carry a lot of bombs and ECM gear. A Mirage 5 with the fuel tank/bomb rack convo could have helped, though. 

Edit: It would have been a very, very long shot, but imagine Viggens.

Edit2: Also, G91s

Edited April 5, 2021 by macelena
Forgot to add something

[UllyB 1,206]

I think that those Mirages would have been an easy pray for the new SAMs in that period. israeli lost 100 fighters in the first days, including F-4s. Americans, on spot sent them F-4 with new jammers for SAMs. The Israelian would have remain quckly without planes. Maybe they wouldn't lose the war but the sky would have been in Arab forces hands.F-4 in those time was more a drawback than an advantage if Arab forces would have had good pilots on MIG-21s. An F-4 pilot has no chances in front of a very skilled pilot with a MIG-21. F-4 had missiles, without them...who knows how many would have been lost.

Edited April 5, 2021 by UllyB

[UllyB 1,206]

5 hours ago, Gepard said:

 Not to speak about the american pilots which had flown combat missions for the IDF.

 

Where do you have this info ? Do you have any proof to back it up ? I know for sure that Russian pilots flew Egyptians MIGs but Americans flying Phantoms with Israeli insignia that is the first time, in almost 60 years, when I hear that.

[macelena 1,070]

22 minutes ago, UllyB said:

I think that those Mirages would have been an easy pray for the new SAMs in that period. israeli lost 100 fighters in the first days, including F-4s. Americans, on spot sent them F-4 with new jammers for SAMs. The Israelian would have remain quckly without planes. Maybe they wouldn't lose the war but the sky would have been in Arab forces hands.F-4 in those time was more a drawback than an advantage if Arab forces would have had good pilots on MIG-21s. An F-4 pilot has no chances in front of a very skilled pilot with a MIG-21. F-4 had missiles, without them...who knows how many would have been lost.

Not sure i understand. The F-4 could get updated ECM gear, while i doubt a Mirage could have been updated that way. Indeed, IIRC, the IDF used their Mirage and Neshers for air superiority, but that doesn't mean Phantoms wouldn't normally beat MiG-21s. On the other hand, Mirages can't carry as much explodey stuff for Air to Ground

[+Gepard 11,315]

1 hour ago, UllyB said:

Where do you have this info ? Do you have any proof to back it up ? I know for sure that Russian pilots flew Egyptians MIGs but Americans flying Phantoms with Israeli insignia that is the first time, in almost 60 years, when I hear that.

Some years ago was an article in Air Forces Monthly about that subject. To make it short: High skilled, war experienced pilots were fetched from Vietnam area to fight for Israel. The only condition was that at some point they had had a Jew in their lineage.

 

BTW. Its not true, that the Nesher was built in Israel. It were french made planes, which were shiped by USAF cargo planes to Israel. If someone has the chance to visite such a plane in a museum, you will find french made type signs on engines and the plane itself.

[+Gepard 11,315]

Quick and dirty mod of the stock Yom Kippur campaign. Replaced Phantoms by Shahak (Mirage III CJ), Skyhawks by Super Mystere Saar and american tanks by british.

Have fun.

[UllyB 1,206]

18 minutes ago, Gepard said:

Some years ago was an article in Air Forces Monthly about that subject. To make it short: High skilled, war experienced pilots were fetched from Vietnam area to fight for Israel. The only condition was that at some point they had had a Jew in their lineage.

 

BTW. Its not true, that the Nesher was built in Israel. It were french made planes, which were shiped by USAF cargo planes to Israel. If someone has the chance to visite such a plane in a museum, you will find french made type signs on engines and the plane itself.

Even so, that doesn't mean is true. if you see something in a magazine, an opinion even of a veteran pilot, it doesn't automatically mean that is true. He may fabricate parts of the story or alltogether just to sell a story, especially if no one else verifies what he is telling. It happened before, recent history is full of that. A greek proverb says that an intelligent person believes just half of a told story and a real intelligent one knows which part to believe it, too. The main  law in journalism about a news is to be sustained by at least three  DIFFERENT sources. Bottom line, personally I don't believe that, partially because Israeli themselves were very good pilots, even better than the Americans. But of course , that is just my opinion.

And also I checked, no official Americans admited that. Ever!

I never said anything, here, about Nesher. I don't know where is that coming from, really. :)

 

1 hour ago, macelena said:

Not sure i understand. The F-4 could get updated ECM gear, while i doubt a Mirage could have been updated that way. Indeed, IIRC, the IDF used their Mirage and Neshers for air superiority, but that doesn't mean Phantoms wouldn't normally beat MiG-21s. On the other hand, Mirages can't carry as much explodey stuff for Air to Ground

I saw many documentaries where Vietnam aces even, admitted that MIG-21 turns faster than a F-4. Secondly, they also said that the only escape for them was to use its superior engine/power to lift higher and the missiles. I saw an  American Vietnam veteran ace that admitted that he puked into the cockpit and piss his pants after a dogfight with a MIG-21 which almost took him on the brink of losing his life in that encounter. So long story short, in a gun only dogfight, at equal skill, a F-4 is inferior, it will lose the battle 100%.

Edited April 5, 2021 by UllyB

[UllyB 1,206]

What I know about Nesher is this, in fact everyone knows that story, but no one knows how much is true of it:

After the embargo, even if the Isralei paid for them, a specific numbers of Mirages were stopped from getting into Israeli hands. That is FACT which can be verified in official documents. What happened from here on is part story , part, MAYBE, the truth or some parts of it LOL

- version 1: the French secretely sent, anyway, the promised, paid planes, in boxes, where they stored pieces of the plane.

- version 2: Israelis enraged by the refuse of Paris to comply with their planes' paid order, decided to copy the plane themselves, partially true, because they created the Nesher sooner after

- version 3:the real truth of what happened, which no one, except a few high ranking Israeli officers and officials, knows it exactly.

Edited April 5, 2021 by UllyB

[+Gepard 11,315]

The story that Israel had copied the Mirage 5 is not trustworthy. At this time Israel had not had neither the know how, nor the capacities to build such a plane by themself. Some years later that had changed.

[macelena 1,070]

39 minutes ago, UllyB said:

I saw many documentaries where Vietnam aces even, admitted that MIG-21 turns faster than a F-4. Secondly, they also said that the only escape for them was to use its superior engine/power to lift higher and the missiles. I saw an  American Vietnam veteran ace that admitted that he puked into the cockpit and piss his pants after a dogfight with a MIG-21 which almost took him on the brink of losing his life in that encounter. So long story short, in a gun only dogfight, at equal skill, a F-4 is inferior, it will lose the battle 100%.

That's not exactly right. All the MiGs in Vietnam, of course, could out-turn Phantoms, but that was the point of energy management. While it became formal in Vietnam, US fighters had always needed to fight with their advantages, that's how they could beat Zeros with Wildcats, however, the Phantom was deliberatedly made this way. And they performed well, there were tons of factors that made it so it didn't perform even better, in that situation, i can't think of any other fighter that would have managed to.

[MigBuster 2,884]

The Nesher being a Mirage 5J put together in kit form comes from various sources but Arab MiGs Vol 4 puts it together convincingly (involved US Rockwell contractors) and there is more than a few things. There is too much detail to summarise it easily. Nice photo they took of a Nesher manufacturer plate that has Aerospatiale of all things stamped on it ............they were one of the subcontractors for the deal.

 

Arab MiGs Vol 6 at the time stated there was no firm evidence of US providing replacement crews but there were 3 known former US officers serving with Israel. The only F-4 pilot Yoel Arnoff joined the IDF in 1969 and was a former US Academy graduate and Vietnam vet.

 

 

 

 

[UllyB 1,206]

2 hours ago, Gepard said:

The story that Israel had copied the Mirage 5 is not trustworthy. At this time Israel had not had neither the know how, nor the capacities to build such a plane by themself. Some years later that had changed.

Well Nesher was copied from...somewhere, right ? It didn't suddenly appeared in 70s because Isreali were on spot geniuses. And I don't recall that they paid any copyright, too, even if the Nesher resembles 99% with...Mirage III. Also, do not underestimate the Israeli engineers, they can reverse any technology if you challenge them. And this was  valid in the 70s, too.

Edited April 5, 2021 by UllyB

[+streakeagle 871]

How the F-4 performed versus the MiG-21 varied greatly with which variant of F-4 and MiG-21 you are discussing. The early F-4B/C vs MiG-21F-13 was a very different fight from later F-4E vs MiG-21MF. The performance of the F-4B/C vs the MiG-21F-13 is well documented by the declassified USAF evaluation of a captured MiG-21F-13. In the early fighting, the F-4 generally had a power advantage and down low, the F-4 held all the cards because the MiG-21F-13 wasn't optimized for low altitude performance. But up at 30,000 feet, the MiG-21F-13 was at advantage. In the middle, the performance was close enough, initial setup, tactics, and pilot skill were far more important than performance differences.

As the MiG-21 evolved, it gained power and lost agility. By 1973, a MiG-21bis in the hands of a well trained pilot was a handful for an unslatted F-4. Power was comparable and the MiG-21 turned better.  The slatted F-4E traded specific excess power (acceleration, climb, top speed) for much better agility. In a MiG-21bis vs a slatted F-4E, the MiG becomes the energy fighter by a small margin and no longer penalized at low altitude and the F-4 becomes the turn fighter by a small margin. But the higher the altitude, the more favorable the numbers get for the MiG-21. Again, setup, tactics, and pilot quality were far more important. Israel, always being greatly outnumbered found the F-4 lacking in dogfights in 1973. They very much wanted something that held all the aces. They got the F-15 and not too long after the F-16, which the combat record reveals were the aircraft they needed.

 

Edited April 6, 2021 by streakeagle

[ragnarokryan 53]

18 hours ago, Gepard said:

Some years ago was an article in Air Forces Monthly about that subject. To make it short: High skilled, war experienced pilots were fetched from Vietnam area to fight for Israel. The only condition was that at some point they had had a Jew in their lineage.

 

BTW. Its not true, that the Nesher was built in Israel. It were french made planes, which were shiped by USAF cargo planes to Israel. If someone has the chance to visite such a plane in a museum, you will find french made type signs on engines and the plane itself.

Gepard, can you find that article?

I've actually been researching this and can find absolutely no evidence to support it.

There is one exception from that time (Joel Aranoff) but his story is unique in the fact that he was Jewish, flew three tours in Vietnam as a USAF Phantom pilot, volunteered for a fourth and was denied, resigned his commission, immigrated to Israel and became a citizen, applied to the IAF and was accepted - the very first and something of a gamble for the Israelis who figured it might be worth it to have his experience while they were standing up their Phantom squadrons - and then flew in the Yom Kippur War. Joel didn't remain in the IAF or Israel, his career wasn't completely successful (apparently due to not mastering Hebrew) and he ended up returning to the US after some years. There were also a handful of US veteran helicopter pilots who may have flown during that time but I'm having a very difficult time tracking anything about them.

Joel Aranoff's story might give the "Americans in the IAF" story its beginning, but Americans were not pulled from active squadrons and thrown into combat against Egypt or Syria. 

Here is an excerpt from something I've been working on:

 

In 1973 the IAF is accused by Egypt and Syria of having Americans in the cockpit due to the change in flying style they noticed. In reality it was the IAF recognizing that its tactics weren’t working, and the entire IAF was able to pivot on its heels and quickly adopt new tactics which enabled survival in the worlds densest Air Defense system. [cit. On Flexibility] During the war Americans did fly combat jets to Israel. Like the Soviet union supplying the Arab militaries, the US finally began to supply Israel with materiel, including aircraft. Desperately needed were A-4s and F-4s which had suffered terrible losses to modern Soviet-made SAMs and AAA, especially during the first few days of the war.

“Almost a hundred F-4s from Air Force units headed east to join the Israelis. More Navy Phantoms soon followed. A half dozen Israeli pilots arrived at Miramar three days after Mugs got orders to give up the shop’s A-4s. A serious, secretive bunch, the Israeli pilots expressed profound gratitude for the help. The Israelis flew the Topgun A-4s across the country and crossed the Atlantic, tanking en route before stopping in Portugal or Spain. For the American crews who delivered aircraft straight to Tel Nof, they discover not just an air force at war, but an entire people. The families of the flight crews lived in tents around the runways. Wives hung laundry out to dry next to missile batteries. Their country and lives were threatened. There could be no greater stakes for any patriot. The dynamics of the situation were so very different from the Vietnam War. More than a few of the U.S. pilots would have gladly stayed and flown into combat with the Israelis.” [Topgun: An American Story by Dan Pedersen]

Dan’s assertion that American pilots wanted to stay and fight is backed up by the memories of others:

“Chesterman said the Israelis welcomed the American pilots with a friendly meal on base, during which he and his fellow pilots “did our best to drink all their booze.” One of the Israeli pilots who had been drinking with them suddenly excused himself, saying he needed to return to the war. Only then did the Americans realize he had been drinking iced tea, not beer.

“Segars – the pilot who “fired at Muammar Gaddafi,” as Chesterman put it – earnestly tried to convince the Israelis to let him join the battle. But the several beers he had just downed “disabused him of opportunity to go fight in someone else’s war, Chesterman said.” [ https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-pilots-reunite-with-israeli-brothers-in-arms-from-yom-kippur-war/ ]

Segars - and any other American volunteer - would have certainly been declined even if they hadn’t been drinking. The Israeli’s had developed a unique and distinctive method of aerial warfare and throwing a pilot who isn’t used to such methods into such an environment would at best end with confusion. Israeli pilots in the heat of battle would be unlikely to be able to communicate with a non-Hebrew speaking American who was as unfamiliar with the battle space as he was the language. 

[+Gepard 11,315]

4 hours ago, ragnarokryan said:

Gepard, can you find that article?

 

The topic "Nesher" we had discussed in  already in 2009 here:

The basic was an article in the german air magazin Fliegerrevue 7/2009 page 64, written by Tom Cooper.

Here a picture of an Nesher in israeli museum https://www.airliners.net/photo/Israel---Air/Dassault-Mirage-5J/0798878?sid=f6b2d59ca5df280b61399c12c90ba151

interessting is the remark:

"501 (cn 1) Despite the official story that this is an IAI Nesher, a check of the aircraft ID plates in the wheel wells reveals that this is really the first production Dassault Mirage 5J. On display in the Israel Air Force Museum."

 

 

For the article about the american pilots in IAF i must search in my old Air Forces Monthly. It could be, that the article was from Tom Cooper too. It was written by using egyptian sources.

One point i remember was the different behavior of the israeli CSAR troops. The egyptians were astonished that in the case of some shot down israeli pilots no attempt to rescue was made by IDF, while other pilots, shot down in more dangerous areas, were rescued by using a lot of manpower and helicopters. Later ones, the egyptians believed, were american pilots. An other hint that it could be american pilots was, that the found wrecks in that areas had not had camo paint.

As far as i can remember. I will try to find that article. It will take a while to find it in the more than 100 AFM i have.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Gepard

[ragnarokryan 53]

4 hours ago, Gepard said:

As far as i can remember. I will try to find that article. It will take a while to find it in the more than 100 AFM i have.

I would appreciate that, thank you. 

[macelena 1,070]

Something i hadn't thought about before was...why western aircraft? By then the Sino-Soviet split was in full swing, how about some J-6s armed with Shafrirs? They would have had as bad a time as any other against SAMs, and range was reportedly an issue, but they were not bad at all if they needed something to replace Mysteres