Some Sources added at the end and marked in the text with numers (sources not complete) : [number]
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Don't mistake it shah Army was strong , yes it was not independent and could not stand on its feet , but as long as west continued to support with part and equipment , there were not many who were willing to go against it.
Agree on that sentence. The point is that we have to figure out the Scenario conditions of a war with the soviet union vs Iran:
Would the Soviet Union attack Iran alone or in context of a bigger war theater in wich europe would be involved too?
What is with the China? Would they also be involved? (Pacific war too?
Only conventional war? If no => Tactical Nuclear weapons or Strategic also allowed?
There are also some other things unmentioned:
- Soviet OTH Radar Capacities, Soviet Radar Bases in Azerbaijan would be able to detect everything over whole Iran
- Soviet Spies and Communist parties in Iran wich would collaborate with the Soviet Union: Kurds were definitly left oriented and Communist Ideology was a problem in Iran at this time. There were lot of space for Communists in Iran to operate behind enemy lines. Specially some radical parties like Tudeh or still existing Monafeghine Khalgh and so on.
This brings us to some other questions:
Would Irans supply lines be kept open ? I think: Iran vs CSSR: Yes and Iran/Nato vs CSSR = temporary no (cause US had to concentrate mostly on Europe war theatre and Soviet submarines would maybe be able to cut US Supply lines in the Atlantic Ocean for a while. (talking about 70s era, in the 80s USA was absolute supreme in technology)
And that's the main point. Soviets would have flattened us and none of those shiny fighter jets could have made a little difference.
F14s couldn't stop Soviets missile rain on us.
Don't forget the importance of Caspian sea. Americans didn't even agree on transferring missiles with a range below 300 KM. BMs are strategic assets, but fighter jets can be easily defused by ground based ADs.
Missiles were at this time not precise enough. There was the doctrine that Strategic or MRBM missiles were made for ABC weapons mostly. This is the reason why these missiles were never exported by US because US never exports strategic weapons like B52 Bombers, Long Range Missiles or Medium Range missiles and so on.
I think at this time in the 1970s Destroying an Airbase was not so easy like today. The Soviets had to fight it out mostly.
Althought the soviets had much more equipment on the Iranian border. Personal stuff: My own grandfather was in Irans Army at Shah time as a Commander. And he was based on soviet border (Turkmenistan), he often told me: "When we raised our Artillery barrels in the air (wich sometimes done to show that we are here like muscle game)...the soviets rased theirs to and it were so many. We could raise maybe 20 barrels and the answear from them were several hundret of barrels.
By the way: AD Systems can not shot "easily" enemy aircraft down. There are many factors wich influence it: 1If Irans Airforce operates inside its own terretory than soviet AD would not be able to attack an Iranian aircraft. Done get blinded by pure range. The S-200 System at this time had a very good range up to 300 km. But that does not mean that it can destroy everything within 300km range or even 200km range. The greater the range of the target aircraft, the moreenergy the missile will loose.[1] Air defence missiles have a short burning time. The rest of the flight path they are gliding with high speed to the target. If an F-14 Tomcat inside Irans terretory is locked on by ground based radar in 200 km distance, the F-14 will start also its own maneuvers. It will force the S200 Missile always to change its direction again and again. This will make the missile loose lot of energy and speed its way to its target. The S-200 Missile will not be able to fly a maneuver against that F-14 Tomcat or F-4 or maybe even F-5.
Other factors are the flight height over ground. If a aircraft flies low, enemy radar will detect the aircraft later. And than we have electronic countermeasures and electronic warfare, anto radar warfare, Geography like mountains and so on. Because of this theason, there are many factors that restrict the Air defence systems in different ways. Even today Air defence systems deal with the same problems.
I often read here comments like: "Why was russias S400 not able defend against these israeli airstrikes or: why is the S300 of Syria not able to shoot them down over damascus...they are so poor..and so on and so on."
The answear is, they cant even if they are very sophisticated. Because Israel is operating between or behind the mountains of lebanon [2]or behind the golan heights. That means for Syrian Air defence that there is no radar coverage. Israeli jets just have to go up for a few seconds, fire their missiles and go down again. Thats simple.
The other point is that Systems like S300 work not alone, they are designed to work together with other assets. For example Pansir, BUK, OTH Radar Systems, Electronic Warfare Systems, Passive Radar Systems, Integrated Air defence network and nowadays a live all coverage and decentral working air defence system on wich a tracking radar wich is was earlier not related to another air defence missile / hundrets of km away can guide an air defence missile to its target. Some people really thing if somebody owns a single system that makes them string. But there are so many different factors that influence the sucsess of a mission.
To have a good airdefence you need at least:
- Very fast and good communication and commando structure wich makes fast decisions
- Discipline and motivated operators because looking at the radar is very boring (Human error factors must be reduced)
- Strong logistic for repair and spare parts. They always have to follow that system because a good air defence system planner will never let a system static in the same position. They have to change position several times a day and definitly after every radar activation. (Radar can not always be switched ON because that makes the hunter an hunted object) passive sensors, and other Systems have to feed the System with many informations.
- Intelligent commanders of the crew
- Functioning Air defence Network and free and fast flow of information (strong communication)
meeting all these conditions is a challenge in itself. In war, you are confronted with an enemy who tries to destroy these conditions with many means. How well do intelligence agencies work to protect necessary frequencies or other data such as locations, plans and doctrines? What risk is the enemy willing to take to disable your systems? What priority do these systems have for the adversary? There are so many factors that go into the successful deployment of an S-400 or S-300. It is not just the system itself. If any one of these conditions (and not all have been mentioned) fails, it can lead to complete failure of the entire system.
Legend has it that at the end of the Vietnam War, some F-5s were sent to the Soviet Union for eval. Then US intel intercepted a message where the Soviets told their allies that do not get the MIG-21 into a turning fight against the F-5. I read on this discussion that Iran dropped the F-5 in favor of missiles.
I play DCS combat simulator quite a long time wich is the most realistic combat flight simulator existing. Physics/ Aircraft/ Avionic is very very realistic. Even real fighter pilots are playing these game and there are alot of videos from fighter pilots reaction to this. According to these experience wich can get a non fighter pilot closest to reality as possible. It takes in some cases weeks to handle a new fighter aircraft because you have to get familiar with every physical detail and the machine itself. I can tell as follow:
The F-5 owns a better turn radius than the MiG-21. This was the only advantage. When I fought against MiG 21 in an F-5, the F-5 had big problems with its weight/thrust ratio. Engines are really weak. Also radar is very poor and only good in practice for dogfight. The MiG 21 , is good played can really suck the energy out of the F-5. But at the end of the day all depends to the pilot skills. It makes also a big difference how these aircraft meet each other and how the dogfight will go on. Are they going into a one or 2 circle fight? Who have the sun in its back? and and and. I would definitly consider the F-5 NOT as an absolute supreme fighter in the 70s era.
A F-5 can fight theoretically agains everything. Even a dogfight against an F-18 or F-15 is possible. The problem is just that the F-5 is loosing very very fast energy.[3][4] As an F-5 fighter pilot you have 2 or at maximum 3 circles you can do before loosing your energy wich means you will loose speed. Than you are definitly dead. An F-5 have its corner speed (Best turning rate) at 325 mph. Every mile below or over this will reduce the turning rate massively. (every aircraft owns a perfect corner speed). So is the F-5 looses energy after 2 circles, the speed will decline mostly between 200 to 250 mph when you turn into an 2 circle or one circle horizontal doghfight at thecornerspeed of 325 mph.The turn rate will decline very fast and the only way to get out of this is loosing height to gain speed again to keep your corner speed. But the enemy is potentially in advantage because he have higher altitude AND more energy. When the F-5 fires a missile from low to high altitude with low initial speed, or an MiG 21 fires its own missile from high altitude to low altitude with high initial speed, that makes a big difference. A fighter aircraft with low energy can not outmaneuver a high speed AA missile. The high altitude aircraft with migh energy can. AND it can use the Sun as protection because Infrared Sidewinder missiles mounted on F-5 cant find a target if the enemy aircraft flights with the Sun behind his neck.This is the reason why the Red Team Agressor fighter pilots (wich use F-5 E) in Nevada Nellis Airforce base use the F-5 and are called "Agressors". [5] Because they are the best fighter pilots the US owns and their task is to train these new F-22, F-15 or F-18 fighter pilots in dogfight. And they can really outmaneuver them in an F-5. But this is related to the very very high skills of the best fighter pilots the US owns against relatively new Pilots. But their tactis is the same: Even these guys outmaneuver them in the first one or 2 circles in a dogfight. Is you cant you are definitly dead.
what Soviet airforce could bring agains 160 f-14 and 300+ F-16 and 100+ f-4 and let not to forget we were partner in YF-17 that later resulted in F-18
Yeah but this would happen in the 80s. In the 80s the US were nearly supreme in all aspects. The US were so strong in the 80s. This was the last decade of the soviet union. In a war theatre in Europe, Western forces would definitly gain air supriority. There was the F-15. F-16, F-14, Nighthawk, precise laser guided artillery availiable, M1 Abrahams tank and the US had very sophisticated Anti submarine warfare capabilities. There was the GUIK gap. Only thing the soviets were strong were ground force numbers. The US were fully digitalized at this time and electronic warfare capabilities were revolutionary at this time. The soviets mostly used analog systems. Soviet union operated mostly T72 Tanks. Tanks like T-80 were very expensive and not in high numbers. T72 Tank was also designed for ultra high production rate. The best of soviets Interceptor Airforce was the MiG 29 wich was very capable in dogfight, but it relied still on old avionic and electronic systems.
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Radar Coverage Tool and Air defence options
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F5 Manual DCS
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5.
https://www.nellis.af.mil/About/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/284166/64th-aggressor-squadron/
