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At about 3 a.m. on January 17, 1991, the US-led multinational force sent a large number of fighters directly to Iraq and its occupied Kuwait, and the first large-scale local war after the Cold War - the Gulf War broke out!
Most people remember the Gulf War as a "one-sided" war, and for the first time the Americans showed the world how overwhelmingly superior their elite divisions forged during the Cold War were to a Third World force. For a long time, people talked about F-117 stealth planes shuttling over Baghdad without the other side noticing, "Patriot" vs. "Scud", or the US 7th Army fighting the Iraqi Republican Guard in the East 73 area.
The war, which lasted 42 days, ended in a complete victory for the multinational force, and Iraq as a loser has since become the laughing stock of various jokes, and even the few bright spots of the Iraqi army in the war have been completely forgotten and covered up. This article describes the only air victory of the Iraqi Air Force in this war, which is tantamount to pulling teeth from the teeth.
During the Gulf War, a formation of U.S. Air Force warplanes flew over Iraqi airspace
At 3 a.m. on 17 January 1991, Operation Desert Storm officially began when the Multinational Force launched a large number of military aircraft to launch large-scale air strikes against targets in Iraq and Kuwait. The U.S. Navy, an important part of U.S. air power, also sent carrier-based aircraft to join the air strikes.
Among them, the aircraft carriers "Saratoga" and "Kennedy" deployed in the Persian Gulf dispatched 18 carrier-based aircraft, including 10 F/A-18 "Hornet" fighter-attack aircraft and 8 A-6 "Intruder" attack aircraft, under the cover of four EA-6B "Prowler" electronic warfare aircraft and eight F-14A "Tomcat" fighters, directly to the Tamuz air base south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the mixed attack formation is codenamed "Alpha".
U.S. F/A-18 Hornet fighter-attack aircraft in Desert Storm
F-14 Tomcat fighter jet ejected from an aircraft carrier
A-6 attack aircraft flying in formation
Due to the different identification systems between the U.S. Navy and Air Force, although upgraded and improved before the war, in order to prevent accidental fire, the area attacked by the U.S. Naval Air Force will not be present with U.S. Air Force aircraft.
The "Alpha" formation is opened by E/A-6B and F / A-18 carrying "Ham" anti-radiation missiles, which will destroy the discovered Iraqi radars all the way, tearing the breakthrough for the subsequent echelon. With the help of advanced electronic countermeasures equipment, the US aircraft soon penetrated deep into Iraqi airspace, suppressed the radars of the Iraqi army along the way and launched missiles to destroy them.
E/A-6B Prowler electronic warfare aircraft carrying Hamm missiles
The Iraqi army, which has never experienced such a severe war situation, suffered heavy losses, and many radar stations were forced to shut down although they were not destroyed, and soon the radar signals in Iraq continued to disappear, which made the US pilots, who were initially a little worried, feel like no man's land.
But what the US aircraft did not know was that when they just flew over the Iraqi border, their whereabouts had been detected by Iraqi radar, and it was about 2:38 a.m. Baghdad time (3:38 Riyadh time), although it was jammed, the operator still found on the screen that a large number of targets were coming straight towards Iraq. At this time, only two MiG-29 fighters were on patrol duty, and they were immediately assigned to intercept B-52 strategic bombers flying towards Talha.
After confirming that a large number of US planes were rushing towards Al Assad's Qadisiyah Air Base to the north, the command center of Tamut Air Base immediately ordered the MiG-25PD interceptors of the 96th Squadron stationed at the Qadisiya base to intercept it.
Iraqi Air Force MiG-25 fighters
MiG-96PD interceptors of the 25 Squadron of the Iraqi Air Force
Lieutenant Zuhar Daoud, who was on duty in the duty room of the base that night, immediately went straight to the landline after receiving the call "take off immediately". He was one of only four MiG-25 pilots at the base. The ground crew had his MiG-25PD interceptor ready by this time, so Lieutenant Daoud quickly activated the plane, and within 3 minutes his MiG-25 interceptor was whizzing into the air, and he would act alone, without wingman cover.
Lieutenant Zuhar Daoud
The target intercepted by Daoud was the "Alpha" formation, and although it was early in the morning, the weather was fine and the visibility was very high. Daoud quickly turned south after takeoff, climbed to an altitude of 8,000 meters, and accelerated to Mach 1.4 to meet the incoming group.
Since the MiG-25PD's Smerch-A2 radar was still warming up, Daoud switched the radio to a safe frequency to contact the ground control center, and the ground commander told him that he was approaching a large group face-to-face and asked him to be vigilant. In the night, Daoud flew entirely by sense, pointing in the direction of Mitchell Anderson, commander of the 81st Squadron of the Hornet group that was open by the Alpha formation.
About 112 kilometres south of Kadisiyah, Captain Anderson saw a spot of light on the radar screen on his plane take off from an airfield ahead, climb sharply and approach his own formation. Anderson recalled that he immediately realized it was an enemy aircraft, and as soon as he looked up, he saw a plane with a long bright yellow tail flame spouting from its tail spouts in the clear night sky, and according to the pamphlets issued before the war, he judged that it was a MiG-25 interceptor.
So he immediately adjusted the radar to the "attack" frequency in an attempt to lock on to the opponent. When the two sides were about 90 kilometers apart, the alarm of Daoud's landline of the aggressive US aircraft group immediately sounded, and in order to avoid a head-on confrontation with the superior US aircraft, he immediately turned right and accelerated, trying to shake off the other party with a large maneuver. Daoud flew counterclockwise around the "alpha" formation while buying time for the landline radar to warm up. Anderson broke away from formation with his wingman and flew clockwise towards the lone MiG-25, intending to give the other side a dismount.
Although Anderson had visually confirmed that the other party was a MiG-25, he was too cautious and waited for the final confirmation of the AWACS aircraft. This cannot be blamed for the blindness of the E-2C "Hawkeye" AWACS aircraft, because the MiG-25 is too fast and maneuvers violently, which makes it difficult for AWACS aircraft deployed in a relatively backward position to identify in a short time, plus Daoud's MiG-25 radar is not turned on, and the AWACS aircraft does not receive Soviet radar signals, which also increases the difficulty of identification.
U.S. Navy E-2C Hawkeye AWACS aircraft
Both the MiG-25 and F-18, flying in opposite directions, turned on afterburner, and the 2 aircraft drew a complete circle in mutual maneuvers in the air. After the two sides rubbed each other, Daoud found that his MiG-25 interceptor had entered a combat state, the radar warmed up, and the engine was ready to accelerate to more than 2.5 times the speed of sound. He then accelerated the MiG-25 to more than twice the speed of sound and climbed sharply eastward, using the speed advantage to throw off Anderson's F-18, passing over Anderson's wingman, and before Anderson and his wingman could react, the MiG-25 had whistled and disappeared into the night.
Daoud took advantage of the fact that the US plane did not find itself for a while, and contacted the ground command center, which told him to continue the interception mission. So Daoud returned to the original course after making a large circle, and turned on the radar, found and began to track a target 38 kilometers away from him, in the case of the target distance shortened to 29 kilometers, Daoud has completed all the preparations before the attack, and locked the target, and then he pressed the launch button, and an R-40 air-to-air missile mounted on the right wing immediately dragged the tail flame towards the distant target.
MiG-40PD interceptor with R-25 air-to-air missiles
Daoud attacked an F/A-18 flanking the Alpha formation, the landline of Lieutenant Scott Specher, whose mission was to attack the spotted Iraqi radar using an al-Hamm anti-radiation missile. Focusing too much on finding a ground-based radar station to know nothing about the impending catastrophe, Specher originally flew at an altitude of 8,580 meters and a speed of 674 kilometers per hour, but after spotting a suspicious Iraqi radar station, he immediately turned on afterburner, accelerated to 1,000 km/h in 17 seconds, and descended to 8,495 meters, while preparing to launch the Hamm anti-radiation missile.
Lieutenant Specher posthumous photograph
At this time, Daoud in the distance continued to lock the target with his radar, and at 3:50, the R-40 missile exploded on the lower left side of the cockpit of Speccher's plane, and the warhead of about 70 kilograms was worthy of its name, and the huge shock wave generated by the explosion instantly deflected Specher's "Hornet" by fifty or sixty degrees, while generating a lateral gravitational acceleration of about 6 G, blowing up the auxiliary fuel tank under the wing and tearing the flap. Spécher's landline was completely out of control, and he had no choice but to parachute.
Satisfied to see his missile burst into flames in the night sky, the target split into several small dots from the radar screen, Daoud did not immediately drive away, but watched proudly as the F/A-18 he shot down fell all the way until it turned into a large flame on the ground.
Daoud wanted to go further and attack the A-6 attack aircraft in the Alpha formation and lock on another American aircraft, but when he asked the ground command center to allow him to attack, he refused. Daoud was puzzled, and when asked why, the command center told him that 10 minutes after he took off, another MiG-29 fighter took off from the base, and now that the command center has lost its radar signature, some people wonder if Daoud shot down his own MiG-29.
Iraqi Air Force MiG-29 fighter
Extremely disappointed, Daoud could only give up the attack, he had the intention to continue to look for the target, but at this time his landplane was running out of fuel, and as the US electronic warfare aircraft penetrated deep into the heart of Iraq, the electronic interference became stronger and stronger, and he lost contact with the command center and could only turn around. At this time, he could see smoke and fire everywhere in the heart of Iraq, and surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns were desperately firing. To avoid accidental injury, he chose to fly to the airport of the more remote Hadi Sai training center, and as he approached the airport, he made contact with the ground, and although the interference was strong, he heard the ground remind him not to land on the destroyed main runway. Daoud successfully landed on the auxiliary runway with excellent technology, taxiing the aircraft to a reinforced hangar door before stopping.
The Hornet shot down by Daoud crashed about 77.2 kilometers south of Kadisia, the first combat aircraft lost by the US military in Desert Storm, and Specher was listed as a "missing person" the next day. During the exchange of prisoners after the Gulf War, the Iraq side did not hand over Specher, claiming that he had died. So on May 22, 1991, the U.S. Army added Sze to the list of killed.
In 1993, Qatar discovered the wreckage of an airplane in the desert about 160 kilometers west of Baghdad, which was later confirmed to be Specher's "bumblebee", and the United States immediately visited the tribes around the desert, and a Bedouin took out a US military flight suit, which was believed to belong to Specher.
For a long time, the face-saving U.S. Air Force insisted that Speccher had been shot down by a ground-based anti-aircraft missile because of a plane malfunction. Under the media hegemony of Europe and the United States at that time (and still is), this statement became the mainstream. Even the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, in its "A Complete History of the Gulf War" published in 2000, completely accepted the US statement.
Until 2001, a CIA report by the CIA, which had not been stirring a spoon in a bucket with the U.S. Navy, revealed that Specher's plane was likely shot down by a missile fired by a MiG-25 interceptor, piloted by Lieutenant Zuhar Daoud, a pilot of the Iraqi Air Force's 96th Squadron. At the same time, one of the pilots who had been on the mission with Specher also confirmed that a MiG machine shot down the Hornet.
Impartially speaking, Lieutenant Daoud's victory and victory cannot be overstated, because it is a single-handedly entered and exited the opponent's large formation of aircraft when his own side was at an absolute disadvantage and successfully achieved the killing result. The difficulty is tantamount to pulling teeth, and Lieutenant Daoud did just that. And for the US naval aviation, which has absolute superiority, it is absolutely a humiliating defeat, an Iraqi fighter that has been visually recognized, actually achieved results under the noses of its own absolutely superior air power and retreated unscathed, shame! Absolute shame!
But what is suffocating is that after Lieutenant Daoud won the initial victory, the Iraqi Air Force was then suppressed by the US military in all directions, and no more achievements were achieved. In the 2003 Iraq War, the Iraqi Air Force, which lacked training and spare parts, was unable to confront the US military, and could only bury its aircraft in the desert to avoid the war, which also became the absolute sound of the Iraqi Air Force in Saddam's era.
MiG-25PD interceptors dug out of sand piles by the US military after the Iraq War