Quote:
Originally Posted by knusel
Good morning Goran,
I finished reading OSPREY's " Iranian F-14 Tomcat Units in Combat" which I liked quite much. The authors deal with this rather complicated topic in a very balanced and vivid manner. It seems as if the islamic regime undercredited the air kills of their pilots for some crooked political reasons.
On p79 Jalil Zandi is indicated as having scored 9 confirmed+3 probable kills (and having died from a heart failure). However, the kill list on p85-88 indicates 11 as does Wikipedia: - 15May81 MiG-21
- ?Jan82 MiG-21
- 10 Oct82 MiG-23
- 10 Oct82 MiG-23
- ?Sep83 Su-22
- ?Sep83 Su-22
- ?Apr86 MiG-23
- ?Apr86 MiG-23
- 29Aug87 Mirage
- ?Feb88 Mirage
- ?Feb88 Mirage
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I can comment only the Mirage losses - number of delivered aircraft is known and also most of the losses.
29/8/1987 might be a valid claim, IrAF Capt. Abdul Karim Muhammad Ahmed was killed on that day over Farsi island (attributed to SAM though)
But there is only one known Mirage loss in February 1988 -it was shot down on 7.2. by F-14 piloted by Capt. Khalili
Soviet aircraft are more difficult to asses, because there are no reliable delivery numbers and the Iraqi,s downplayed their losses.
For example Razoux estimates 82 Iraqi Mig-23 losses, while on the other hand Iraqis admit "only" 45 losses - 38 FB versions and 5 interceptors, although it is known that the latter were much more involved in combat and there were quite high losses among their pilots.
I hope that more would be known in this regard when 3rd part of Miloš Šipoš' "Wings of Iraq" will be published