Quote:
Originally Posted by NickM
Well the war was nearly a decade long & both sides used Airpower extensively--Iraq probably MORE so given they had a steady source of planes & spare parts--which Iran probably didn't have QUITE as much; I guess you could say the Good Major had a 'target rich environment'
NM
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If you have your own opinion, just write it, but do not say, what should I write.
After the Iraqi-Iranian war, many fellows said (without much available details), that the 'less-qualified' (or in even rude terms: stupid/dumb etc) Iranians were not able to maintain the power of their air force, especially the US types, so they scored nothing. When some more info become available, this opinon turned to be somehing different: scoring air victories with an F-14? Big deal...
Well, during the earlier conflicts and world wars, there were many easy pickings as well, as some of the Iranian F-14 air victories. The Iranian F-14's had some easy kills, of course (the powerful radar and weapon system of the F-14 caused a row of simply 'brutal' air victories, when the Iraqi pilots even didn't know, what happened with them, since the F-14's attacked them from very long distance, from over 50 km)
But the air war was not one-sided, Iraq got much more help from abroad (not just materials, but some help for better training and tactic for their pilots) The air fights were intensive just in periods of the war, so claiming a row of victories were not as easy (and after the first bad experiences, the Iraqi pilots many times tried to avoid the clashes with the F-14's)
I don't think, that 9 jet air victory is only to me a notable performance.
BTW the Iranians had even a pilot, who scored 5 confirmed kills with an F-5, which is very far from the F-14's performance (that particular pilot shot down the most succesful Iraqi pilot, who flew a MiG-25...)