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The Israeli Air Force achieved an unparalleled victory in aerial combat in the 1982 Lebanon War.
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The battle, known as Operation Mole Cricket 19, saw more than 60 enemy aircraft eliminated without a single Israeli loss.
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Israel’s aircraft, weapons, training and strategic adaptations led to the historic victory.
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) accomplished an unparalleled feat in modern military aviation in June 1982, shooting down more than 60 Syrian fighter planes in the largest air battle of the jet age and destroying 29 of 30 surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries. . without losing any of its fighters.
Operation Mole Cricket 19, as the famous combat was called, aimed to destroy Syrian SAMs positioned in the Beqaa Valley, in Lebanon. The operation took place during the first week of the 1982 Lebanon War, which saw Israel and its Lebanese allies face off against Syria, the Palestine Liberation Organization and its allies in Lebanon.
The battle, which marked the first time that a Soviet SAM battery was destroyed by a Western aircraft, had such an effect that the Soviet Union, whose aircraft Syria primarily used, sent military officers to investigate how the Soviet aircraft and SAM were defeated.
Many different factors came together to produce the stunning aerial combat victory.
Best aircraft, weapons and training
At the time, the Syrian Air Force mainly flew the outdated MiG-21, which had been introduced in 1959, and some export models Su-20 and MiG-23. The MiG-21 did well during the Vietnam War against American F-4s, but in 1982 it was significantly outclassed by the IAF’s fourth-generation fighters.
The IAF primarily flew the recently introduced F-15 and F-16 air superiority fighters, which would form the strike arm of the operation. It also had a smaller contingent of Israeli-made F-4s and Kfir jets that took on auxiliary roles.
The F-15 and F-16 were more maneuverable and could accelerate faster than the Syrian jets. They had better radars that allowed them to fire missiles outside the detection range of Syrian radars. Israeli fourth-generation jets also became much more lethal thanks to the AIM-9L Sidewinder missile, which could be fired from any angle. The Sidewinder was responsible for the majority of deaths.
In contrast, the Syrian jets used older K-13 missiles that had a much shorter operational range than Israel’s AIM-9L. And the MiG-21’s warning systems could only detect missiles approaching from the nose and tail, leaving them “blind.”
Furthermore, Israeli pilots and ground crews had significant combat experience. They had been practicing attacks against Israeli SAMs and pilots was flying over the Beqaa Valley a few years ago familiarize yourself with the area.
In contrast, Syrian SAM crews performed horribly. They had not moved their SAM batteries for months, allowing the IAF to identify their locations before the battle, and placed them in vulnerable locations. On the day of the fighting, the Syrians used smoke to hide their batteries rather than camouflage them, which instead made their location more visible to Israeli jets. They also deployed mobile SAM systems in a fixed configuration.
But Israel’s technological advantage and the training its personnel received were not the only decisive factors, and the IAF had to learn from past mistakes to achieve victory.
Adapting to win
During the Yom Kippur War nine years earlier, Egyptian SAM batteries shot down 42 Israeli aircraft, 14% of the IAF fleet, in the first two days of the conflict. The loss led the IAF to recognize the importance of suppressing and destroying enemy air defenses.
For Operation Mole Cricket 19, it used UAVs to identify the radar signatures of Syrian batteries months before the battle. The next day, Israel used UAVs to imitate the radio signature of the Israeli jets, thereby tricking the Syrian batteries into activating their radars to shoot them down. This allowed Israeli jets, with the help of UAVs, to destroy the SAMs using anti-radiation missiles.
Furthermore, Israel had superior Command, Control and Communications (C3) capabilities.
Israel has augmented its own C3 capabilities with Grumman E-2C Hawkeye Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft. Operation Mole Cricket 19 was the first time modern AWACS were used in combat, assisting Israeli fighters with targeting and control of the battlefield.
And it has actively degraded Syrian C3 capabilities by employing aircraft with jammers to disrupt Syrian radar and communications. This further reduced the effectiveness of the SAF’s older aircraft, preventing them from receiving targeting assistance and battlefield updates from the ground.
Highlighting the effectiveness of Israel’s tactics, a Western observer cited in a RAND Corporation report on the battle, he said“I watched a group of Syrian fighter planes flying in a figure eight. They just flew and obviously had no idea what to do next.”
Lastly, Israel protected its own communications by equipping its fighters with electronic countermeasure capsules and developed a variable frequency radio system to prevent Syrian forces from identifying and jamming it.
The outcome of the battle was a total Israeli victory, and due to its unilateral outcome, Operation Mole Cricket 19 became known as the “Turkey Shoot in the Beqaa Valley”.
The IAF would destroy approximately 20 more Syrian jets in the days following the operation, bringing the total to over 80. Although it did not lose any jets during the operation, it suffered losses afterwards, but these amounted to just one F-4, an old A-4. Skyhawk and two helicopters throughout the conflict.
Read the original article at Business Insider
