In June 1982, the largest air battle since World War II took place in the skies over Lebanon, in which hundreds of combat aircraft participated on both sides. During the battle, the Israeli Air Force literally wiped out Soviet-made air defense systems and shot down more than eighty enemy MiGs, without losing any of their aircraft, and seized air superiority.
Syrian air defense system "Kvadrat", near the Beirut-Damascus highway. Bekaa Valley (1982)
The tactical and technical methods of air warfare, developed and successfully tested by the Israeli command during this large-scale operation, largely predetermined the development paths of military aviation, air defense systems, electronic warfare (EW), and unmanned aircraft in the 21st century.
In the late 1970s, northern Israel became the target of continuous terrorist attacks by the Palestinians. Palestinian terrorists who penetrated from Lebanese territory carried out large-scale terrorist attacks in Israel - the hostage-taking and murder of 21 schoolchildren in Ma'alot, an attack on bus passengers on the Tel Aviv-Haifa highway, which led to the killing of 38 Israelis. From the territory of Lebanon, the Palestinians from the rocket launchers received from the USSR were constantly shelling the northern regions of Israel.
On the territory of Lebanon, adjacent to the Israeli border, an independent terrorist "republic" emerged, named after the main Palestinian terrorist organization Fatah, "Fatahland". The terrorist leader Yasser Arafat took advantage of the Lebanese civil war and effectively seized power in the border areas. Tens of thousands of terrorists were concentrated in the territory of Lebanon under Arafat's control, bandit formations were being prepared in numerous camps and training centers for subsequent delivery to Israel, and huge arsenals of weapons were created.
The USSR took over the armament, personnel training and political cover for Arafat's terrorists. The Kremlin hoped with the help of Arafat to expand its influence in the Arab world, which was greatly shaken after the total defeat of the satellites of the USSR - Syria and Egypt in the wars of 1967 and 1973, and therefore did not skimp: a stream of Russian weapons came to the Palestinians: tanks, artillery, portable missiles, weapon. According to the German magazine Der Spiegel, the Soviet weapons received by the Palestinians would have been enough to arm a 500,000-strong army.
The training of Palestinian militants took place in the USSR: at the 165th Training Center for the Training of Foreign Servicemen (UTs-165) of the General Staff in Crimea, at the Higher Officer Courses "Shot" in Solnechnogorsk near Moscow, sabotage schools of the KGB and GRU near Moscow (in Balashikha), Nikolaev (the village of Privolnoye), Orenburg (Totsk camps), in the Turkmen city of Mary. Thousands of Palestinian terrorists have been trained there. Behind the Palestinians stood the Syrian army, fully equipped with Soviet weapons and controlled by thousands of Russian military advisers, led by the Chief Military Adviser - Adviser to the Syrian Defense Minister Colonel General G. Yashkin, who arrived in Syria from the post of Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. Subordinate to him were the Air Force deputies - Lieutenant General V. Sokolov, Air Defense - Lieutenant General K. Babenko, Electronic Warfare - Major General Yu. Ulchenko. Thousands of Soviet officers were at all levels of command and control of the Syrian troops - from batteries and companies to the Syrian Ministry of Defense. Among them, it is worth noting the head of the Main Directorate, First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, General V. Varennikov, in the near future - a member of the State Emergency Committee and a permanent deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the State Duma of Russia.
Syrian troops under the command of Russian military advisers have occupied strategically important areas of Lebanon
The USSR handed over hundreds of tanks and aircraft to the Syrians in accordance with the 1980 agreement between the USSR and Syria on friendship and cooperation. In total, the USSR presented the Syrians with weapons worth 28 billion dollars.
In 1981, a new aggravation of the situation began in Lebanon, associated with an attack by Syrian troops on the Christian city of Zahle in the Bekaa Valley. Syrian forces pushed north into the mountainous areas north of the Damascus-Beirut highway and northeast of Beirut. In July 1981, PLO militants fired on 33 Israeli cities (Kiryat Shmona, Nahariya, Metula, ...) and agricultural settlements along Israel's northern border with 130-mm long-range Soviet guns and Grad multiple launch rocket systems. In total, from July 10 to 20, 1981, the PLO fired 1970 Katyushas into northern Israel, as a result 6 Israelis were killed and 111 were wounded. Life in a number of northern cities was paralyzed, many residents were forced to leave their homes. On April 5, 1982, Israeli diplomat Yaakov Bar-Simantov was killed in Paris. Three days earlier, masked men fired automatic weapons at an Israeli trade mission located near the embassy. The terrorists managed to escape. On June 3, 1982, the Israeli ambassador to Great Britain, Shlomo Argov, left the Dorchester Hotel in London. A Palestinian terrorist who was waiting for him fired a shot and severely wounded Argov in the head. Israel decided that in this situation it could no longer remain indifferent.
"Shlom ha-Galil" (Peace to Galilee) - this is how the IDF General Staff called the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which began on June 6, 1982.
On the Lebanese border, Israel has concentrated 11 divisions, united in three army corps. Each corps was assigned its own area of responsibility or direction: the Western direction was commanded by Lieutenant General Yekutiel Adam, the Central direction - by Lieutenant General Uri Simkhoni, the Eastern direction - by Lieutenant General Janusz Ben-Gal. In addition, two divisions were deployed in the Golan Heights, in the immediate vicinity of Damascus, under the command of Lieutenant General Moshe Bar Kokhba. The armored divisions included 1,200 tanks. The general command of the operation was entrusted to the Chief of the General Staff, Colonel-General R. Eytan and the Commander of the Northern Military District, Lieutenant-General A. Drori.
According to the combat plans, Israeli troops were to completely eliminate Palestinian terrorist groups in southern Lebanon, and then, advancing on the Lebanese capital, Beirut, cut the strategically important Beirut-Damascus road, encircle parts of the Syrian army in the Bekaa Valley and northern Lebanon, after which all these the encircled Syrian and Palestinian terrorist groups were to be destroyed one by one.
During Operation Peace for Galilee, the Israeli Air Force was tasked with seizing absolute air supremacy. Israeli air offensive was named
Operation Medvedka 19.
The preparation of the operation was carried out by the IDF General Staff for many years, taking into account the combat experience gained during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
The Syrian forces in Lebanon included four air defense brigades equipped with Soviet Kvadrat anti-aircraft missile systems, S-75M Volga and S-125M Pechora. On the night of June 9-10, 1982, the 82nd mixed anti-aircraft missile brigade and three anti-aircraft artillery regiments were additionally introduced into Lebanon.
Now there were 24 Syrian anti-aircraft missile battalions in Lebanon, deployed in a dense battle formation 30 km long along the front and 28 km deep. According to the testimony of Soviet military experts, such a dense concentration of missile and artillery air defense forces was not found anywhere else in the world. The main purpose of these forces was to cover the Syrian forces in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley, where at least 600 tanks were concentrated.
The decision to destroy the Syrian forces in Lebanon was made at a meeting of the IDF command, held with the participation of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and Chief of General Staff Rafael Eitan on June 9, 1982. The permission of the Israeli government was obtained to conduct such a large-scale military operation. The operation began at 4 a.m. on June 9th.
Lebanon. 1982 year
In accordance with the operational plans of the IDF General Staff, reconnaissance and demonstration flights of large groups of Israeli aircraft began in the immediate vicinity of the combat formations of the Syrian air defense systems. 4 hours before the first strike, Israeli aviation intensified the conduct of all types of reconnaissance (radio, radar, television) with specially equipped aircraft. They tracked the operating frequencies of radar stations (radars) and guidance equipment of Syrian missile systems. Reconnaissance aircraft, calling upon themselves the fire of the Syrian air defense systems, thereby diverting it from the combat aircraft.
For the first time in the world, the Israelis widely used unmanned reconnaissance aircraft AQM-34, Mastiff and Scout. Flying over enemy positions, they broadcast live television images to command posts. Receiving such visual information, the Israeli command made unmistakable decisions to launch missile strikes.
UAVs were used for battlefield reconnaissance and observation. To accomplish this task, some modifications of the drones were equipped with a TV camera and a communication system capable of transmitting a continuous stream of images to the dispatcher on the ground.
Other modifications were equipped with RF reflectors, which reflected radar radiation as intense as if it were attack aircraft.
The drones also intercepted and analyzed radiation from enemy radars and relayed them to ground stations or aircraft in the air.
And finally, some of the UAVs were equipped with laser designators to illuminate targets designed to attack with laser-guided missiles.
One of the first Israeli UAVs, the Scout drone, used in an aerial battle in Lebanon in 1982.
The operation to suppress the air defense system began with a series of reconnaissance flights of UAVs equipped with TV cameras. As soon as one of them detected the air defense missile system battery and transmitted its image to the ground command, two more UAVs rose into the air, one - as a decoy target simulating an attacking aircraft to force the air defense missile system battery to turn on radiation, the second - equipped with equipment for intercepting the radiation from the air defense system radar , its analysis and relaying aboard E-2C Hawkeye aircraft equipped with early warning radar and electronic warfare equipment.
The received information about the radiation parameters was processed by the on-board computers of the aircraft in order to give out in real time the guidance data of anti-radar missiles. After that, an anti-radar missile was launched at the identified object.
When the enemy turned off their radars, depriving the Israeli missiles of an electromagnetic homing beam, the Israelis raised drones with laser designators and attack aircraft armed with missiles with an AGM-65 Maverick laser seeker into the air. Immediately after the defeat of the radar, the blinded battery of the air defense missile system was attacked by cluster bombs, which destroyed both the missiles and their means of transportation.
The radar support team consisted of E-2C Hawkeye early warning aircraft equipped with huge early warning radars that patrolled the Lebanese coast. They performed the detection and control of the activity of the actions of Syrian aircraft. Boeing 707 aircraft, CH-53 helicopters, IAI-202 Arava aircraft, equipped for electronic warfare (EW), listened to the radio networks of the Syrian Air Force and Air Defense and jammed them. Bearing the operating Syrian radar stations, they clarified their coordinates and transmitted them to the command posts, which contributed to the delivery of accurate strikes.
Israel used Tactical Air-Launched Decoy (Tactical Air-Launched Decoy) decoys at the start of the operation. On June 9, dozens of these decoys were dropped, and on the radar screen they create a mark of a full-size aircraft.
An hour before the strike, the Israelis began setting up passive radio-electronic jamming at a front of 150-200 km; in 12 minutes - intense interference with communication systems and control of air defense means; in 5-7 minutes - high-power active interference that suppressed the enemy's radar reconnaissance means.
Then began the total destruction of the Syrian air defense systems. The strikes on the Syrian positions were carried out by surface-to-surface missiles, long-range and rocket artillery, while using ammunition with the ability to aim at a target using infrared and laser beams.
10-12 minutes after the missile strike on the Syrian positions, the attack was struck by forces of about 100 aircraft. Israeli aviation operated in groups of 2-6 fighter-bombers. Skyhawks, Kfirs, Phantoms and F-16s carried out strikes using conventional and cumulative bombs, as well as guided and homing missiles AGM-78 Standard-ARM (Egrof Sagol), Shrike, Maverick ", specially modified for the operating frequencies of the Syrian radars.
Israeli aircraft destroyed the remaining Syrian radars and launchers, moreover, from ranges exceeding the range of Syrian medium-range anti-aircraft missiles (from the 60-80km line). These were aircraft designed to suppress air defense systems. They were equipped with engines that did not leave behind a trail of condensation, which made it difficult to visually detect the aircraft.
Thus, during the day of the operation, the Israelis destroyed the vast majority of the Syrian anti-aircraft missile brigades.
G.P. Yashkin, chief military adviser in the Syrian armed forces, commander of a group of Soviet military specialists in Syria testifies:
"All the receivers of the Syrian complexes were suppressed by very high density interference in the entire frequency range. And in order to deal with them, it was necessary to weaken their power no less than 20-30 times. Unfortunately, the Syrians did not have such opportunities. We did not have them either. The means of electronic reconnaissance and jamming of the SAR Armed Forces at that time could not provide either a violation of the control of enemy troops and weapons, or even minimal protection of their aircraft, air defense systems and their other forces and air defense assets only for one reason - a limited frequency range of suppression.
In this war, the Israelis created a well-functioning electronic warfare system equipped with modern technology. Electronic warfare equipment was installed even on tanks, ships, not to mention combat aircraft, and even more special ones, such as Boeing-707, C-97 Hawkeye, Phantom (AF-4ji).
The complex and massive use of electronic warfare systems, missiles and guided bombs with optoelectronic and radar homing heads was a decisive condition for Israel's success in suppressing the Syrian air defense grouping in Lebanon and gaining air supremacy. Experience has shown that it is impossible to control modern aviation and air defense systems without a modern automated control system, stable noise immunity of radar and communication facilities, and the creation of the necessary radar field for aircraft. "
On the same days, the Israeli Air Force destroyed the Syrian aircraft.
Israeli Air Force
At the same time, the largest air battle was unfolding in the skies of Lebanon. About 350 aircraft took part in it on both sides, and at the same time 120-200 aircraft fought in air battles. The battle turned into a real carnage. As the military historian O. Granovsky writes, on June 9, Israeli fighter pilots shot down 29 Syrian aircraft, on June 10, the Israeli air victories increased by another 30 enemy aircraft, and on June 11, the enemy lost another 19 of its aircraft. In total, the Syrians lost 82 of their MiG-21, MiG-23 and Su-22 aircraft in air battles on June 7-11. It was an absolute victory for the Israelis in the air. "Stunned" and "blinded" Syrian pilots came under surprise attacks from Israeli air-to-air missiles such as Sidewinder, Python-3, capable of hitting targets from long ranges and from various angles ...
Throughout the battle, the Israelis made extensive use of confusion transmitters to deflect RF-guided missiles and IR traps to deflect missiles from the IR seeker. As soon as an Israeli pilot spotted a Syrian MiG on his HUD, all he had to do was place the HUD targeting symbol on the enemy aircraft, press the weapon button to activate the most appropriate computer-selected weapon system. All other work was done with the Sidewinder's IR sensor.
Abu Jihad (Dayab Abu Jahya), a native of Lebanon and former Hamas activist, is the head of the Arab European League (AEL) testifies:
“Everyone was looking into the air. I looked up too - and saw one of the most breathtaking spectacles I have ever witnessed. Hundreds of fighters were fighting right over our heads. Israeli air attacks never did much damage to us, but this since it was not about bombing: the fight was between Israeli and Syrian fighters. Israel bombed Syrian missiles stationed in the Beka Valley, and now Syrian fighters were trying to prevent the destruction of the remnants of the Syrian air defense by the Israelis. A very tragic picture unfolded before our eyes. Israeli fighters shot down Syrian planes. one after the other like flies and the support of the Joint Armed Forces from the ground was useless.The Zionists had modern F-14s, F-15s and F-16s at their disposal, while the Syrians had mostly old Russian MIGs. was like a car race between a new Ferrari and an old Toyota: no matter how good a driver you were, you don't have the slightest chance of winning. "
Israeli pilots had a special account with the Syrians during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973. several downed Israeli pilots ended up in Syrian captivity, where they were subjected to monstrous torture and torture. Russian officers - "mentors" of the Syrians took part in the interrogation and torture of Israeli prisoners of war. Therefore, there was no mercy for the Syrians. The Israelis suffered no losses in these battles.
The Israeli army achieved such an impressive victory in the air and on the ground due to a whole range of factors: the skill of combat aviation pilots, the integrated conduct of all types of reconnaissance (radio, radar, television) and electronic warfare, the coordinated actions of ground and air commands, the skillful use of high-tech weapons.
The Israeli victory marked and technically lagged behind Soviet weapons, which were significantly inferior to Israeli and American weapons and military technologies, and also showed the viciousness of Soviet tactics of air war and the construction of air defense systems.
The disaster in the Bekaa valley made a shock impression on the leadership of the USSR. Already in September 1982. In Moscow, a meeting was held in the Central Committee of the CPSU, dedicated to the analysis of the battles that took place in Lebanon, where the command of the Soviet Army and the leaders of the military-industrial complex were summoned to the "carpet". They had to answer for the failed unpreparedness of Russian weapons for modern warfare. At the same time, following the results of this "debriefing", a resolution was adopted by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR. However, apparently, no proper conclusions were drawn from the disaster in Lebanon ...
And finally, a quote:
"Until now, few people in our country know that one of the main reasons for perestroika was the defeat that the Israeli aviation inflicted on the Syrian air defense system in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley on June 9-10, 1982. The system was, of course, one hundred percent Soviet, and the newest The disaster could not be attributed to the ordinary incapacity of the Arabs: even the Israelis admitted that the Syrians fought well this time, in addition, in the cabins of the destroyed air defense missile systems, Soviet instructors were also sitting next to the Syrians. - still the old way. "
(Alexander Khramchikhin. Military construction in Russia. "Banner" 2005, No. 12)
In June 1982, the largest air battle since World War II was fought in the skies over Lebanon, in which hundreds of combat aircraft participated on both sides. During the battle, the Israeli Air Force literally wiped out Soviet-made air defense systems and shot down more than eighty Syrian MiGs, without losing any of their aircraft, and seized air superiority.
The tactical and technical methods of air warfare, developed and successfully tested by the Israeli command during this large-scale operation, largely predetermined the development paths of military aviation, air defense systems, electronic warfare (EW), and unmanned aircraft in the 21st century.
The Kremlin hoped with the help of Arafat to expand its influence in the Arab world, which was greatly shaken after the total defeat of the satellites of the USSR - Syria and Egypt in the wars of 1967 and 1973, and therefore did not skimp: a stream of Russian weapons came to the Palestinians: tanks, artillery, portable missiles, weapon. According to the German magazine Der Spiegel, the Soviet weapons received by the Palestinians would have been enough to arm a 500,000-strong army.
The training of Palestinian militants took place in the USSR: at the 165th Training Center for the Training of Foreign Servicemen (UTs-165) of the General Staff in Crimea, at the Higher Officer Courses "Shot" in Solnechnogorsk near Moscow, sabotage schools of the KGB and GRU near Moscow (in Balashikha), Nikolaev (the village of Privolnoye), Orenburg (Totsk camps), in the Turkmen city of Mary. Thousands of Palestinian terrorists have been trained there. Behind the Palestinians stood the Syrian army, fully equipped with Soviet weapons and controlled by thousands of Russian military advisers, led by the Chief Military Adviser - Adviser to the Syrian Defense Minister Colonel General G. Yashkin, who arrived in Syria from the post of Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. Subordinate to him were the Air Force deputies - Lieutenant General V. Sokolov, Air Defense - Lieutenant General K. Babenko, Electronic Warfare - Major General Yu. Ulchenko. Thousands of Soviet officers were at all levels of command and control of the Syrian troops - from batteries and companies to the Syrian Ministry of Defense. Among them, it is worth noting the head of the Main Directorate, First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, General V. Varennikov, in the near future - a member of the State Emergency Committee and a permanent deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the State Duma of Russia.
Syrian troops under the command of Russian military advisers have occupied strategically important areas of Lebanon
The USSR handed over hundreds of tanks and aircraft to the Syrians in accordance with the 1980 agreement between the USSR and Syria on friendship and cooperation. In total, the USSR presented the Syrians with weapons worth 28 billion dollars.
In 1981, a new aggravation of the situation began in Lebanon, associated with an attack by Syrian troops on the Christian city of Zahle in the Bekaa Valley. Syrian forces pushed north into the mountainous areas north of the Damascus-Beirut highway and northeast of Beirut. In July 1981, PLO fighters fired on 33 Israeli cities (Kiryat Shmona, Nahariya, Metula, ...) and agricultural settlements along Israel's northern border with 130mm long-range guns and Grad multiple launch rocket systems. In total, from July 10 to 20, 1981, the PLO fired 1970 Katyushas into northern Israel, as a result 6 Israelis were killed and 111 were wounded. Life in a number of northern cities was paralyzed, many residents were forced to leave their homes. On April 5, 1982, Israeli diplomat Yaakov Bar-Simantov was killed in Paris. Three days earlier, masked men fired automatic weapons at an Israeli trade mission located near the embassy. The terrorists managed to escape. On June 3, 1982, the Israeli ambassador to Great Britain, Shlomo Argov, left the Dorchester Hotel in London. A Palestinian terrorist who was waiting for him fired a shot and severely wounded Argov in the head. Israel decided that in this situation it could no longer remain indifferent.
"Shlom ha-Galil" (Peace to Galilee) - this is how the IDF General Staff called the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which began on June 6, 1982.
On the Lebanese border, Israel has concentrated 11 divisions, united in three army corps. Each corps was assigned its own area of responsibility or direction: the Western direction was commanded by Lieutenant General Yekutiel Adam, the Central direction - by Lieutenant General Uri Simkhoni, the Eastern direction - by Lieutenant General Janusz Ben-Gal. In addition, two divisions were deployed in the Golan Heights, in the immediate vicinity of Damascus, under the command of Lieutenant General Moshe Bar Kokhba. The armored divisions included 1,200 tanks. The general command of the operation was entrusted to the Chief of the General Staff, Colonel-General R. Eytan and the Commander of the Northern Military District, Lieutenant-General A. Drori.
According to the combat plans, Israeli troops were to completely eliminate Palestinian terrorist groups in southern Lebanon, and then, advancing on the Lebanese capital, Beirut, cut the strategically important Beirut-Damascus road, encircle parts of the Syrian army in the Bekaa Valley and northern Lebanon, after which all these the encircled Syrian and Palestinian terrorist groups were to be destroyed one by one.
During Operation Peace for Galilee, the Israeli Air Force was tasked with seizing absolute air supremacy. Israeli air offensive was named
Operation Medvedka 19.
The preparation of the operation was carried out by the IDF General Staff for many years, taking into account the combat experience gained during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
The Syrian forces in Lebanon included four air defense brigades equipped with Soviet Kvadrat anti-aircraft missile systems, S-75M Volga and S-125M Pechora. On the night of June 9-10, 1982, the 82nd mixed anti-aircraft missile brigade and three anti-aircraft artillery regiments were additionally introduced into Lebanon.
Now there were 24 Syrian anti-aircraft missile battalions in Lebanon, deployed in a dense battle formation 30 km long along the front and 28 km deep. According to the testimony of Soviet military experts, such a dense concentration of missile and artillery air defense forces was not found anywhere else in the world. The main purpose of these forces was to cover the Syrian forces in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley, where at least 600 tanks were concentrated.
The decision to destroy the Syrian forces in Lebanon was made at a meeting of the IDF command, held with the participation of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and Chief of General Staff Rafael Eitan on June 9, 1982. The permission of the Israeli government was obtained to conduct such a large-scale military operation. The operation began at 4 a.m. on June 9th.
Lebanon. 1982 year
In accordance with the operational plans of the IDF General Staff, reconnaissance and demonstration flights of large groups of Israeli aircraft began in the immediate vicinity of the combat formations of the Syrian air defense systems. 4 hours before the first strike, Israeli aviation intensified the conduct of all types of reconnaissance (radio, radar, television) with specially equipped aircraft. They tracked the operating frequencies of radar stations (radars) and guidance equipment of Syrian missile systems. Reconnaissance aircraft, calling upon themselves the fire of the Syrian air defense systems, thereby diverting it from the combat aircraft.
For the first time in the world, the Israelis widely used unmanned reconnaissance aircraft AQM-34, Mastiff and Scout. Flying over enemy positions, they broadcast live television images to command posts. Receiving such visual information, the Israeli command made unmistakable decisions to launch missile strikes.
UAVs were used for battlefield reconnaissance and observation. To accomplish this task, some modifications of the drones were equipped with a TV camera and a communication system capable of transmitting a continuous stream of images to the dispatcher on the ground.
Other modifications were equipped with RF reflectors, which reflected radar radiation as intense as if it were attack aircraft.
The drones also intercepted and analyzed radiation from enemy radars and relayed them to ground stations or aircraft in the air.
And finally, some of the UAVs were equipped with laser designators to illuminate targets designed to attack with laser-guided missiles.
The operation to suppress the air defense system began with a series of reconnaissance flights of UAVs equipped with TV cameras. As soon as one of them detected the air defense missile system battery and transmitted its image to the ground command, two more UAVs rose into the air, one - as a decoy target simulating an attacking aircraft to force the air defense missile system battery to turn on radiation, the second - equipped with equipment for intercepting the radiation from the air defense system radar , its analysis and relaying aboard E-2C Hawkeye aircraft equipped with early warning radar and electronic warfare equipment.
The received information about the radiation parameters was processed by the on-board computers of the aircraft in order to give out in real time the guidance data of anti-radar missiles. After that, an anti-radar missile was launched at the identified object.
When the enemy turned off their radars, depriving the Israeli missiles of an electromagnetic homing beam, the Israelis raised drones with laser designators and attack aircraft armed with missiles with an AGM-65 Maverick laser seeker into the air. Immediately after the defeat of the radar, the blinded battery of the air defense missile system was attacked by cluster bombs, which destroyed both the missiles and their means of transportation.
The radar support team consisted of E-2C Hawkeye early warning aircraft equipped with huge early warning radars that patrolled the Lebanese coast. They performed the detection and control of the activity of the actions of Syrian aircraft. Boeing 707 aircraft, CH-53 helicopters, IAI-202 Arava aircraft, equipped for electronic warfare (EW), listened to the radio networks of the Syrian Air Force and Air Defense and jammed them. Bearing the operating Syrian radar stations, they clarified their coordinates and transmitted them to the command posts, which contributed to the delivery of accurate strikes.
Israel used Tactical Air-Launched Decoy (Tactical Air-Launched Decoy) decoys at the start of the operation. On June 9, dozens of these decoys were dropped, and on the radar screen they create a mark of a full-size aircraft.
An hour before the strike, the Israelis began setting up passive radio-electronic jamming at a front of 150-200 km; in 12 minutes - intense interference with communication systems and control of air defense means; in 5-7 minutes - high-power active interference that suppressed the enemy's radar reconnaissance means.
Then began the total destruction of the Syrian air defense systems. The strikes on the Syrian positions were carried out by surface-to-surface missiles, long-range and rocket artillery, while using ammunition with the ability to aim at a target using infrared and laser beams.
10-12 minutes after the missile strike on the Syrian positions, the attack was struck by forces of about 100 aircraft. Israeli aviation operated in groups of 2-6 fighter-bombers. Skyhawks, Kfirs, Phantoms and F-16s carried out strikes using conventional and cumulative bombs, as well as guided and homing missiles AGM-78 Standard-ARM (Egrof Sagol), Shrike, Maverick ", specially modified for the operating frequencies of the Syrian radars.
Israeli aircraft destroyed the remaining Syrian radars and launchers, moreover, from ranges exceeding the range of Syrian medium-range anti-aircraft missiles (from the 60-80km line). These were aircraft designed to suppress air defense systems. They were equipped with engines that did not leave behind a trail of condensation, which made it difficult to visually detect the aircraft.
Thus, during the day of the operation, the Israelis destroyed the vast majority of the Syrian anti-aircraft missile brigades.
G.P. Yashkin, chief military adviser in the Syrian armed forces, commander of a group of Soviet military specialists in Syria testifies:
"All the receivers of the Syrian complexes were suppressed by very high density interference in the entire frequency range. And in order to deal with them, it was necessary to weaken their power no less than 20-30 times. Unfortunately, the Syrians did not have such opportunities. We did not have them either. The means of electronic reconnaissance and jamming of the SAR Armed Forces at that time could not provide either a violation of the control of enemy troops and weapons, or even minimal protection of their aircraft, air defense systems and their other forces and air defense assets only for one reason - a limited frequency range of suppression.
In this war, the Israelis created a well-functioning electronic warfare system equipped with modern technology. Electronic warfare equipment was installed even on tanks, ships, not to mention combat aircraft, and even more special ones, such as Boeing-707, C-97 Hawkeye, Phantom (AF-4ji).
The complex and massive use of electronic warfare systems, missiles and guided bombs with optoelectronic and radar homing heads was a decisive condition for Israel's success in suppressing the Syrian air defense grouping in Lebanon and gaining air supremacy. Experience has shown that it is impossible to control modern aviation and air defense systems without a modern automated control system, stable noise immunity of radar and communication facilities, and the creation of the necessary radar field for aircraft. "
On the same days, the Israeli Air Force destroyed the Syrian aircraft.
At the same time, the largest air battle was unfolding in the skies of Lebanon. About 350 aircraft took part in it on both sides, and at the same time 120-200 aircraft fought in air battles. The battle turned into a real carnage. As the military historian O. Granovsky writes, on June 9, Israeli fighter pilots shot down 29 Syrian aircraft, on June 10, the Israeli air victories increased by another 30 enemy aircraft, and on June 11, the enemy lost another 19 of its aircraft. In total, the Syrians lost 82 of their MiG-21, MiG-23 and Su-22 aircraft in air battles on June 7-11. It was an absolute victory for the Israelis in the air. "Stunned" and "blinded" Syrian pilots came under surprise attacks from Israeli air-to-air missiles such as Sidewinder, Python-3, capable of hitting targets from long ranges and from various angles ...
Throughout the battle, the Israelis made extensive use of confusion transmitters to deflect RF-guided missiles and IR traps to deflect missiles from the IR seeker. As soon as an Israeli pilot spotted a Syrian MiG on his HUD, all he had to do was place the HUD targeting symbol on the enemy aircraft, press the weapon button to activate the most appropriate computer-selected weapon system. All other work was done with the Sidewinder's IR sensor.
Abu Jihad (Dayab Abu Jahya), a native of Lebanon and former Hamas activist, is the head of the Arab European League (AEL) testifies:
“Everyone was looking into the air. I looked up too - and saw one of the most breathtaking spectacles I have ever witnessed. Hundreds of fighters were fighting right over our heads. Israeli air attacks never did much damage to us, but this since it was not about bombing: the fight was between Israeli and Syrian fighters. Israel bombed Syrian missiles stationed in the Beka Valley, and now Syrian fighters were trying to prevent the destruction of the remnants of the Syrian air defense by the Israelis. A very tragic picture unfolded before our eyes. Israeli fighters shot down Syrian planes. one after the other like flies and the support of the Joint Armed Forces from the ground was useless.The Zionists had modern F-14s, F-15s and F-16s at their disposal, while the Syrians had mostly old Russian MIGs. was like a car race between a new Ferrari and an old Toyota: no matter how good a driver you were, you don't have the slightest chance of winning. "
Israeli pilots had a special account with the Syrians during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973. several downed Israeli pilots ended up in Syrian captivity, where they were subjected to monstrous torture and torture. Therefore, there was no mercy for the Syrians. The Israelis suffered no losses in these battles.
The Israeli army achieved such an impressive victory in the air and on the ground due to a whole range of factors: the skill of combat aviation pilots, the integrated conduct of all types of reconnaissance (radio, radar, television) and electronic warfare, the coordinated actions of ground and air commands, the skillful use of high-tech weapons.
The Israeli victory marked and technically lagged behind Soviet weapons, which were significantly inferior to Israeli and American weapons and military technologies, and also showed the viciousness of Soviet tactics of air war and the construction of air defense systems.
The disaster in the Bekaa valley made a shock impression on the leadership of the USSR. Already in September 1982. In Moscow, a meeting was held in the Central Committee of the CPSU, dedicated to the analysis of the battles that took place in Lebanon, where the command of the Soviet Army and the leaders of the military-industrial complex were summoned to the "carpet". They had to answer for the failed unpreparedness of Russian weapons for modern warfare. At the same time, following the results of this "debriefing", a resolution was adopted by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR. However, apparently, no proper conclusions were drawn from the disaster in Lebanon ..
Where did I get this article? And the fact that we have a technical lag in the field of electronics is simply monstrous. We boast of electronic warfare, but everyone has them, and during the operation of electronic warfare, our equipment will not work either, then the Jews will simply have air superiority, they will stupidly bomb everything visually (our base in Syria), we have nothing to answer, except for nuclear weapons, and this is World War. That is why the Jews in Syria stupidly troll us: when they want, they bomb the Syrians. We still do not have drones and our prototype of AWACS is a pathetic piece of Zhiguli versus Mercedes.
Events in the Bekaa Valley. 1982 year
Leonid Brezhnev and Hafez Assad, USSR, 1980
When, in June 1982, the Israeli air force completely destroyed the powerful Syrian group of forces and means of air defense "Feda" in the Bekaa Valley, almost greater than the Syrians themselves, the shock was experienced in Moscow. Indeed, according to the testimony of Soviet military specialists who were directly involved in the formation of this grouping, there was no such dense concentration of missile and artillery air defense forces anywhere in the world, even in the USSR. Moreover, with good reason it could be called Soviet, since everything was Soviet there: anti-aircraft missile systems (SAM) S-75M "Volga", S-125M "Pechora", "Cube" ("Kvadrat") and included with them a set of self-propelled reconnaissance and guidance systems (SURN), stationary radar stations (radar), several military air defense systems "Osa", self-propelled anti-aircraft guns (ZSU) "Shilka", electronic warfare (EW).
Moreover, together with the Syrian personnel, this equipment was serviced by Soviet officers. At that time, about a thousand Soviet military specialists and instructors worked in the Syrian army, a significant part of whom also served in the Syrian group that occupied Lebanon. However, already in the first two hours of the operation, 15 of the 19 anti-aircraft missile divisions, equipped with Soviet air defense systems, were destroyed by the Syrians, another three or four divisions were disabled. The next day, four more anti-aircraft missile divisions were destroyed. In less than two days of operation, the Israelis completely destroyed 19 Syrian anti-aircraft missile divisions and knocked out four more. Moreover, not a single Israeli aircraft was lost during this massive strike.
No less shock was caused by the results of the air battle that unfolded over the Bekaa Valley: without losing a single aircraft, Israeli pilots shot down dozens of Syrian aircraft.
"The Syrian Air Force is defeated, surface-to-air missiles are useless, the army cannot fight without air cover," Syrian Defense Minister General Mustafa Tlas stated in his report to Hafez Assad. As on June 12, 1982, the chief Soviet military adviser in Syria, Colonel-General Grigory Yashkin, told the USSR Minister of Defense Dmitry Ustinov in his encrypted message, “The Air Force and Air Defense, electronic warfare units, radio and radio engineering units equipped with our equipment, have done and are doing everything possible, But we must admit: our technology is inferior to the technology of the United States and Israel. There are many vulnerabilities in these types of the Armed Forces, branches of the armed forces and special forces of the SAR Armed Forces ... "[Grigory Yashkin," Under the Hot Sun of Syria "," Military Historical Journal ", 1998, No. 4].
As follows from the same encryption, the operational and strategic leadership was also "carried out and continues with the help of our advisers at the central apparatus of the Syrian Ministry of Defense. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief - President H. Assad and Defense Minister of the Syrian Arab Republic M. Tlas work in close contact with us. Military decisions are worked out jointly. " It turns out that the apparatus of Soviet military advisers bore its share of responsibility for what happened, and not insignificant, because it was their advice, directives, and staff developments that the Syrians were guided by. However, the Syrian generals and officer corps can also be considered a "Soviet product": the Syrians either studied at Soviet military schools and academies, or were trained by Soviet instructors on the spot, in Syria. It turns out that the Soviet military school suffered a defeat - with all its doctrinal principles, methods of organizing and conducting hostilities.
But here's the most important thing: the defeat in the Bekaa valley completely overturned almost all the well-established ideas of the Soviet generals about modern war. He clearly showed that the armed forces of the USSR are flagrantly lagging behind in terms of the most advanced military technologies. Much later, it was even suggested that it was this defeat that became "one of the main reasons for perestroika." Bekaa June 9-10, 1982 ". Alexander Khramchikhin, "Military Construction in Russia", "Banner", 2005, No. 12].
In my opinion, a more restrained judgment expressed by the American expert in the field of modern military technologies Rebecca Grant is closer to reality: "The defeat in the Bekaa Valley was part of the cascade of events that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union."
With a "dry" account
Syrian troops occupied most of Lebanon back in 1976, and by 1982 there were over 25,000 Syrian soldiers and about 600 tanks in Lebanon. Covering them from air strikes was provided by the Feda air defense grouping, which the Syrians had deployed in the Bekaa Valley since April 1981. By the beginning of the 1982 war, there were four Syrian anti-aircraft missile brigades - 19 divisions, 47 branches of Strela-2 MANPADS, 51 Shilka self-propelled anti-aircraft guns and 17 anti-aircraft artillery batteries provided direct cover to the group. After the outbreak of hostilities, the grouping in Bekaa was reinforced by another anti-aircraft missile brigade and three anti-aircraft artillery regiments, the total number of anti-aircraft missile divisions of the Feda group was brought to 24, they were deployed in a 30 by 28 km sector. All "these formations and units occupied a tight battle formation," wrote Lieutenant General Alexander Maslov, chief of staff of the military air defense in 2007, "which provided 3-4 times mutual cover."
Operation Peace for Galilee, August 2, 1982. Consequences of Israeli air strikes on Beirut
When Israeli forces entered southern Lebanon on June 6, 1982 to destroy Palestinian terrorist bases, launching Operation Peace for Galilee, this task was hampered by the presence of a powerful Syrian group near Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley. Since a clash with the Syrians was inevitable, the Israelis needed to provide air cover for their troops, making it impossible for the enemy to repel an air strike. To this end, the Israeli command on June 9, 1982 launched Operation Artsav 19 (Medvedka 19), completely defeating the Syrian air defense grouping in an overwhelmingly short time.
Moreover, an air battle unfolded at the same time, during the first day of which Israeli pilots shot down 29 Syrian fighters, also without losing a single of their aircraft. On June 10, in air battles over Lebanon, the Israeli Air Force shot down another 30-35 Syrian MiGs, and on June 11 - another 19. Data on the total number of Syrian air losses differ, although not too significantly: if some sources claim that by the end of July 1982 Years Syria lost 82 aircraft, others increase the number of Syrian losses to 85, still others believe that the Israelis have increased the number of Syrian combat aircraft destroyed by them to 87, and destroyed anti-aircraft missile battalions - to 29 [See: Matthew M. Hurley, The Bekaa Valley Air Battle, June 1982: Lessons Mislearned? // Airpower Journal, Winter 1989.]. The Syrians themselves were forced to admit the loss of 60 aircraft and the death of 19 of their pilots.
At the same time, Israeli Air Force losses from ground fire amounted to two downed helicopters, one A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft was shot down - not by the Syrians, but by the Palestinians, and one F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber was also lost. But all this was at a different time and in other places, and had nothing to do with Operation Artsav 19.
War Live
The biggest surprise for the Syrians and the Soviet military was the massive use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It was their use that became one of the main factors in the successful and reliable suppression of Syrian air defense systems. The Israeli military actively used the Tadiran Mastiff drones (two modifications), the IAI Scout and even the archaic American-made UAV AQM-34 Firebee. What could be a surprise for Soviet generals if the same Firebee, flying since 1951, was actively and very effectively used by the Americans during the Vietnam War? And "Mastiff" with "Scout" could not be a special secret for the Soviet military - these UAVs were demonstrated back in 1979 at the international air show in Le Bourget. But to understand their value and vital necessity for the army, it took Soviet military thought almost thirty years.
As one of the developers of the Kub air defense system, who was sent together with a group of specialists to the combat zone to establish the reasons for the defeat, recalled, “the information about flights over their positions by some small aircraft was decisive in establishing the true reasons for the significant losses of Syrian air defense systems. no importance was attached to them [italics mine. - Author.]. "The operator, located in the Golan Heights, on his TV monitor saw the entire situation in the UAV's area of operation," the rocket specialist was amazed. drones of TV-guided missiles: when an anti-aircraft weapon was detected, the operator gave the command to launch a remote-controlled missile, "these missiles had a low flight speed, which allowed the operator to accurately aim them at the target."
Ruins of the Syrian city of El Quneitra, located in the Golan Heights and the Bekaa Valley, 1984
However, drones were also used in the interests of ground forces. The recognized image was immediately transmitted to command posts, and army commanders were able to monitor the battlefield almost online, analyze the situation and immediately make the necessary adjustments, coordinate joint actions, and issue data for delivering aviation and artillery strikes. During the most intense periods of hostilities, the drones were constantly hovering over the battlefield, and the data received from their sides was so accurate and operational that, without additional clarification, they were immediately used to control artillery fire. Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon personally watched on the screen of his TV monitor the course of hostilities, with their details up to strikes on the positions of individual Syrian anti-aircraft missile systems.
As General Yashkin recalled, "flying over the positions of SAM-6 air defense missile systems, they [Israeli UAVs. - Author] broadcast live television images to the command post. Having received such visual information, the Israeli command made unmistakable decisions to launch missile strikes. In addition, the same unmanned aircraft jammed. They detected the operating frequencies of the radar and guidance equipment of the Syrian missile systems. Moreover, playing the role of "decoy", causing the fire of the Syrian air defense systems, reconnaissance aircraft diverted it from combat aircraft. "
In general, UAVs did almost everything: they carried out reconnaissance, search and opening of positions, aiming at a target, jamming, evaluating the results of a raid, used as decoys, causing the air defense system to fire on themselves. In that "Israeli kit" there was a lot more interesting and unknown for the Soviet military. In addition to the drones, they were impressed by how exemplary they were crushed by active and passive jamming of the radar, and the work of the airborne radar support group, which included E-2C Hawkeye early warning aircraft, was generally considered almost a miracle - nothing like the Hokai in the Soviet army was not even close. And after all, all this did not work separately, but in a single complex, which generally looked to the Soviet military experts as a complete fantasy. The hostilities in Lebanon clearly showed that the outcome of future wars no longer depends on the number of tanks, but on completely new technologies, which Soviet military thought did not really know anything about. But the most advanced and educated of the Soviet marshals and generals quickly realized how catastrophic for the USSR this superiority of Western technologies, because in the European theater of military operations, the Soviet army was waiting for almost the same thing as the Syrians in the Bekaa valley. True, literally only a few realized this, and the first thing they began to look not for a way out of the impasse, but to blame.
Psychic attack "Jewish mafia"
As Anatoly Chernyaev, at that time an employee of the international department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, wrote about the events in Lebanon in his diary, “We, of course, ran into there ... apart from threatening words, they did nothing ... "
Information about Moscow's reaction to the defeat in the Bekaa is very contradictory. It is alleged that in September 1982, a special meeting was held in the Central Committee of the CPSU, where the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, the General Staff and the Military-Industrial Complex was summoned, and as a result of the meeting, a special resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR was even adopted.
Due to the closed nature of the corresponding archival funds, it is not yet possible to verify this. Not even a trace of the aforementioned Central Committee resolution has been found. Nevertheless, the reaction of the Kremlin, of course, followed: according to Doctor of Technical Sciences Yuri Erofeev, who worked in a closed military research institute ("108th Institute"), immediately after the Israeli operation "to assess the political resonance of this event, an emergency meeting of the Military-Industrial Commissions (VPK) - the so-called Commission on military-industrial issues under the presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR There were dull threats in the air about expulsion from the party for "discrediting Soviet military equipment."
Most of all, the military then shocked that even the complexes that were in a marching, inoperative state were destroyed - they were covered and did not emit anything. So a group of development specialists was ordered to urgently fly to Syria, "and travel to combat positions, solving this mystery on the spot." The specialists were included in the commission, which arrived in Damascus on the evening of June 13, 1982. The delegation was headed by the First Deputy Commander of the Air Defense Forces of the country, Colonel-General of Artillery Yevgeny Yurasov. Of course, this was not the only commission. As General Yashkin irritatedly noted in his memoirs, “It was especially annoying that in Moscow not everyone understood the situation. They were interested, in particular, in the reasons for the destruction of anti-aircraft missile systems.
Moreover, the culprits, oddly enough, were looked for primarily among their own "[Voenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal, 1998, No. 4]. Since, according to General Yashkin," it was no longer possible to put up with such a situation, "he" decided to contact the minister by phone. Defense of the USSR Marshal of the Soviet Union D.F. far from the actual events, conclusions are drawn about some kind of defeat and even complete defeat of the Syrian armed forces in Lebanon while repelling the Israeli aggression. Such conclusions are fully aligned with the desire of the United States and the entire world Jewish mafia: to discredit Soviet weapons, our operational art and tactics ... "[Voenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal, 1998, No. 4].
Marshal of the Soviet Union Dmitry Ustinov, 1980
Yashkin even reported that "a psychic attack was also repelled by the Syrian troops in Lebanon." What is the psychic attack in 1982? Either they watched the film "Chapaev" too often in the office of the chief military adviser, or they abused strong drinks, or, most likely, both ...
Nevertheless, Ustinov accepted Yashkin's code about the "Jewish mafia" and its "psychic attacks" ...
The lesson is not for the future
The defeat in the Bekaa Valley nevertheless alarmed Moscow: an incessant series of conferences and meetings began at the highest level. The Syrian leadership urgently demanded the supply of the most modern air defense systems and aircraft, and, according to the Syrians, the Soviet military was also supposed to fight on this equipment! Andropov proposed to make up for the losses of Syria with the latest weapons, but with the deployment of Soviet military bases there, we should not rush and avoid answering the requests of the Syrians to send Soviet military personnel. On behalf of Brezhnev, as diplomat Oleg Grinevsky writes, they decided to send a reply to Assad, "that the Arabs themselves should do more."
However, in the highest echelon of power, no one was in a hurry to draw conclusions about the destroyed weapons - their quality and compliance with the real requirements of modern warfare. Nobody even thought (at least, they did not speak out on this topic aloud) that we are talking not just about heavy and offensive losses for the prestige of the USSR due to someone's oversight, inability or cowardice, but about a catastrophe that overturns previous ideas about military power and modern warfare. The battle in the Bekaa Valley clearly showed how great the gap between the West in the field of military technology is, and this catastrophic lag cannot be corrected by increasing the number of tanks, missiles, aircraft and manpower.
On June 28, 1982, at an expanded meeting of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, Minister of Defense Ustinov, I quote Oleg Grinevsky, "lamented for a long time and angrily that with the submission of the perfidious Assad, false fictions about the ineffectiveness of Soviet weapons were spreading throughout the Arab world:" The weapon is excellent, " them shitty - cowards! "
But it was not possible to "blur" the issue of the quality of Soviet weapons. The Libyans were the first to raise it publicly. Jellud, Gaddafi's closest ally, summoning the Soviet ambassador at night, almost shouted at him: "Syrian aircraft and air defense have been virtually destroyed. Soviet weapons have proved ineffective against the most modern American weapons." Then Gaddafi himself, having gathered the ambassadors of the socialist countries, said: "The weapons we are buying from you are children's toys. Tanks and rocket launchers burn like cardboard boxes."
On June 28, 1982, the First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the country's Air Defense Forces, General Yurasov, made a report to the Minister of Defense on the situation in Syria and Lebanon. As Colonel-General of Aviation Voltaire Kraskovsky clarified in his memoirs [then - First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces. - Approx. Auth.], Yurasov reported to Ustinov that "in our ACS [automated control systems. - Ed.], supplied abroad, nothing has been completed, we have to in a hurry to equip, complete the complexes, which takes a lot of time and Labor. Military conflicts abroad, as it were, tested us. " And by the end of August 1982, the High Command of the Air Defense Forces, having already taken into account the "lessons of Bekaa," presented Ustinov with a report on the state of affairs in the entire air defense system of the country. “It was said,” General Kraskovsky recalled, “about the emergence of new means of attack, in particular, high-precision weapons capable of penetrating any depth of our territory and from any direction (MRBM [medium-range ballistic missiles. - Ed. Author], cruise missiles), about the difficulty of dealing with them. "
Air defense equipment of the Ground Forces on Red Square, 1976
But the matter did not go beyond words. As General Kraskovsky writes bitterly, "Air Defense Forces as a service of the Armed Forces were underestimated by the General Staff. It is difficult to explain the General Staff's desire to inflate the Ground Forces to the detriment of the Air Defense Forces. air defense ". Nevertheless, "the military leadership weakened the air defense system, but continued to build up the Ground Forces," the experience of modern wars, "where air attack weapons acted as the main strike force capable of solving strategic goals in a war" All major exercises continued to practice the actions of troops mainly in offensive operations ... The shortcomings of our weapons used in local conflicts were hushed up. "
The air defense continued to be reformed, but in a very strange way: according to General Kraskovsky, entire air defense regiments were re-equipped with fighter-bombers! It turns out that everything returned to normal and the Soviet marshals continued to prepare for the war of yesterday and even the day before yesterday: on the ground - you give tanks for the offensive and breakthrough to the English Channel, and in the air - their analogue, fighter-bombers, for applying missile-bomb - assault strikes against enemy tanks, and not to gain air supremacy and air cover for their troops ...
The lesson taught did not go well. Despite the fact that this lesson has been taught more than once. On September 1, 1983, a South Korean passenger Boeing 747 was shot down over Sakhalin, which the vaunted Soviet air defense system could not identify as a civilian aircraft. And in March and April 1986, when American aircraft launched retaliation strikes on Libya, Soviet-made Libyan air defense systems, serviced by Soviet specialists, could neither repel the blow nor inflict significant damage on American aircraft. Then there was Rust's flight in May 1987, which also clearly demonstrated the inferiority of the Soviet air defense model. When in January 1991, as part of Operation Desert Storm, the multinational forces launched an air offensive against Iraq, the Iraqi air defense system, built by Soviet specialists on the Soviet model and equipped with Soviet air defense systems, Soviet aircraft and Soviet radars, was also rendered incapacitated.
Until the collapse of the USSR, its economy continued to be depleted by the release of hundreds and even thousands of new tanks, aircraft, and missiles. This is not to say that they did not try to overcome the technological gap at all - in an attempt to catch up with the West in terms of military electronics, considerable funds also went into the furnace. But they did not succeed in creating and putting on stream their analogs of Avax and Hokai. After all, the military industry continued to work mainly on the production of tanks, of which the USSR had more by the mid-1980s than in all other countries of the world combined.
And about the drones, thanks to which the Syrian-Soviet group in the Bekaa Valley was outright defeated in June 1982, they were simply forgotten until the 2008 war against Georgia.
Exactly 35 years ago, on June 6, 1982, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon began. This caused an open military confrontation with Syria, which was actively supported by the Soviet Union. And behind Israel, as you know, stood the United States, supplying it with money, weapons and advanced technologies. Thus, the Lebanese campaign became the last "proxy" regular war in history between the USSR and the United States.
One of the main military-strategic results of this campaign was the crushing and lightning-fast defeat of the Syrian Air Force and Air Defense, fully equipped with Soviet equipment and personnel trained by Soviet military specialists.
On June 9, Israel launched an operation to gain air supremacy over the theater of operations, code-named Artsav-19 (Artsav in Hebrew - Medvedka). A day later, Syrian Defense Minister General Mustafa Tlas sullenly reported to President Hafez Assad: "The Syrian Air Force and Air Defense Forces have been defeated, Soviet surface-to-air missiles turned out to be useless, in such conditions our army can no longer fight." And on the same day, a ceasefire agreement was signed between Syria and Israel. The Syrians withdrew from the fight, effectively giving the Israelis a free hand in Lebanon.
What happened seemed incredible, because in East Lebanon the highest concentration of air defense weapons in the world was created. On a relatively small area of about 25x30 kilometers, 15 divisions of the Kvadrat air defense missile system were located, two divisions of the C-75M air defense missile system and two C-125M air defense missile systems divisions, that is, a total of 19 air defense missile systems (hence, by the way, the number "19" in the name of the Israeli operation ). As the chief of staff of the army air defense, Lieutenant-General Alexander Maslov, wrote, the divisions provided three-fold mutual cover.
In addition, there were 17 anti-aircraft artillery batteries, 51 ZSU "Shilka" and 47 sections of MANPADS "Strela-2". Such an operational density of anti-aircraft weapons was not even on the front lines of confrontation with NATO in Europe and around the most important strategic facilities of the Soviet Union. In the Lebanese Bekaa Valley, many years of efforts by the Syrians and Soviet military experts created an "exemplary" air defense group, which in Moscow and Damascus was considered invulnerable to any means of air attack, except nuclear ones.
And the Israelis destroyed this entire group in just a couple of hours. Moreover, they destroyed without loss, and most of the air defense systems did not manage to make a single missile launch. On the night of June 9-10, five more air defense missile launchers were deployed to the combat zone from the rear areas of Syria to partially compensate for the damage, but in the afternoon they suffered the same fate.
The air situation was just as disastrous for the Syrians. In air battles from 7 to 11 June, according to their own data, they lost 60 MiG-21, MiG-23 and Su-22 aircraft. Killed 19 pilots, the rest managed to eject. The Syrian pilots, despite their claims of 23 or 24 aerial victories, failed to shoot down a single enemy aircraft. All battles were held with a dry score. Another 10 or 12 vehicles were shot down by the Israeli and its own air defense, which showed much higher efficiency in these episodes than against the enemy.
This made a stunning impression on the entire "socialist" world. The first assistant of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Abdel Salam Jelloud, upon learning about what had happened in Lebanon, immediately - at night - summoned the Soviet ambassador and literally yelled at him in hysterics: cardboard toys !!! " The Kremlin elders from the Politburo were no less shocked. The heads of defense enterprises, research institutes and design bureaus were summoned to the carpet, and they were brutally harassed with threats of dismissal and expulsion from the party "for discrediting Soviet military equipment."
However, the matter did not go further than threats. Moreover, Defense Minister Ustinov stood up for the production workers. According to Oleg Grinevsky, head of the Middle East department at the Foreign Ministry, who was present at the "execution", he said: "Our weapons are excellent, and the Arabs are cowards and shitty soldiers!" And in general, nothing special has happened in Lebanon, and the "treacherous Assad" is spreading false inventions about the ineffectiveness of Soviet weapons. On this they calmed down, although the main military adviser in Syria, Colonel-General Yashkin, in a coded message addressed to the same Ustinov, frankly wrote: the technique is inferior to the technique of the USA and Israel ".
Of course, the Soviet media did not report anything about what happened in the Bekaa Valley. However, after some time I learned the details of these events from acquaintances who worked in the Department of Scientific and Technical Information of TsAGI, which subscribed to the Western military-technical and aviation literature (and where it was immediately marked with a DSP stamp). For me, they became one more confirmation that the Soviet system lost its competition with the West in all areas, including the military, which was always given priority in the USSR. And even then I realized that this system in its current form would not last long.
Schemes of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the actions of the Israeli Air Force on June 9-11, 1982. 
Syrian fighters MiG-21 and MiG-23.
American-made Israeli fighters F-15 and F-16 - participants in the battles over the Bekaa Valley. The F-15 bears five marks of aerial victories over Syrian aircraft, and the lower F-16 - 7.5 (7 individual and one in a group), as well as a badge of a participant in a raid on a nuclear center in Iraq.
Israeli reconnaissance and correction UAV "Mastiff". Such cars played an important role in ensuring the defeat of the Syrian air defense.
A fragment of the tail of the Syrian "moment" shot down in Lebanon.
After the Syrian air force and air defense were removed from the game, the Israelis were able to freely "work" in Lebanon. The photo shows the consequences of the Israeli air strike on Beirut.
The operation to defeat the stationed on
Lebanese territory of the Syrian air defense forces and assets.
Held by the Israel Defense Forces in
the beginning of the Lebanese War from 9 to 11 June 1982.
Number 19 underlines the ultimate goal of destroying nineteen anti-aircraft missile battalions.
When Israeli forces entered southern Lebanon on June 6, 1982 to destroy Palestinian terrorist bases, launching Operation Peace for Galilee, this task was hampered by the presence of a powerful Syrian group near Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley. Since a clash with the Syrians was inevitable, the Israelis needed to provide air cover for their troops, making it impossible for the enemy to repel an air strike. To this end, the Israeli command on June 9, 1982 launched Operation Artsav 19 (Medvedka 19), completely defeating the Syrian air defense grouping in an overwhelmingly short time.
Number 19 underlines the ultimate goal of destroying nineteen anti-aircraft missile battalions.
War map.
The Feda grouping in Syria included 19 anti-aircraft missile brigades, including 11 of them of mixed composition, each of which included the S-75M, SA-75MK Dvina and S-125M Pechora air defense systems, as well as 8 brigades, equipped with SAM 2K12 Kvadrat ". The total number of divisions was: S-75M - 41, S-125M - 42, CA-75MK - 4, SAM "Kvadrat" - 40 divisions.
The command posts of the brigades and the starting positions of the divisions were covered by means of direct cover of the MZA, self-propelled anti-aircraft guns ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" and MANPADS. In total, the group consisted of 47 branches of Strela-2M MANPADS, 51 ZSU-23-4 Shilka units and 47 MZA batteries (37-mm and 57-mm anti-aircraft guns).
In the Bekaa valley, two Syrian tank brigades (600 tanks) were deployed, covered by an air defense "umbrella", which was a Feda air defense group deployed 30 km along the front and 28 km deep in the Bekaa valley (Lebanon).
At that time, about a thousand Soviet military specialists and instructors worked in the Syrian army, a significant part of whom also served in the Syrian group that occupied Lebanon.
The main military adviser - adviser to the Minister of Defense of Syria was Colonel General G. Yashkin, who arrived in Syria from the post of Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. Subordinate to him were the Air Force deputies - Lieutenant General V. Sokolov, Senior Air Defense Adviser Lieutenant General K.S. Babenko, who was transferred to Syria from the post of deputy commander of the Baku Air Defense District, EW - Major General Yu. Ulchenko. Several hundred Soviet officers were in practically all levels of command and control of the Syrian troops.
SAM S-125M means: SNR-125, PU 5P73 and TZM PR-14AM
SAM "Kvadrat"
Operation Artsav 19 began at 4:00 am on June 9th.
In the first two hours of the operation, 15 of the 19 Syrian anti-aircraft missile divisions equipped with Soviet air defense systems were destroyed, another three or four divisions were disabled. The next day, four more anti-aircraft missile battalions were destroyed. In less than two days of operation, the Israelis completely destroyed 19 Syrian anti-aircraft missile battalions and knocked out four more. The RTV units also suffered heavy losses. In addition, not a single Israeli aircraft was lost in this massive strike.
Israeli UAV "Scout"
Israeli "F-4 Phantom"
Then the confrontation unfolded in the air. One of the largest air battles in the history of the Arab-Israeli wars took place over the Bekaa Valley. According to some reports, about 100 Israeli aircraft and the same number of Syrian aircraft converged in the skies of Lebanon. During the first day in air battles, 29 Syrian aircraft were shot down. The Israeli Air Force did not lose a single car. During the first week of fighting, according to various sources, from 60 to 87 Syrian aircraft of the MiG-21, MiG-23, Su-22 types were shot down. The Israelis lost only 2 helicopters and a Skyhawk shot down by an PLO missile.
In September 1982, a meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU was held in Moscow, dedicated to the analysis of the battles that took place in Lebanon. At this meeting, the commanders of the Soviet Army and the military-industrial complex were harshly criticized.
source https://war.dirty.ru/operatsiia-medvedka-19-1197078/
