Israeil Air Force Tactical Development in the 1982 Bekaa Valley Campaign

"I know what you have, and without an air force you cannot possibly survive." Anonymous British Royal Air Force officer spoken in 1942 to David Remez, founder of the Israeli Air Force.

On 9 June 1982 the Israeli Air Force (IAF) destroyed the Syrian interrogated air defense network in the Bekaa valley of Lebanon. This battle has settled for the time being the question of which is more effective, the airplane or the surface-to-air missile (SAM). Since the dawn of airpower, airpower advocates have been making astounding claims about the capabilities of airpower. With the advent of the guided missile in the 1950's it appeared for a time that airpower was rendered ineffective. It appeared that the technology of SAMs had rendered the airplane impotent. The first time this theory was put to the test was in the Vietnam conflict. During the Vietnam conflict SAMs did not sweep the skies clear of aircraft. However, SAMs did complicate the aerial battlefield making the job of aircraft much more difficult. The next test of the SAM came in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. SAMs almost defeated Israeli airpower. This was the high water mark for the SAM for in their next contest the aircraft soundly defeated the SAM. This paper will look at the 1982 Bekaa Valley campaign of the IAF in relation to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In order to fully appreciate the historical significance of the 1982 Bekaa Valley campaign it is necessary to understand a little of the history of the development of the Israeli Air Force. By understanding a little of the IAFs history a greater appreciation of the impact of 1982 can be gained.

It is interesting to note that on the eve of the birth of Israel as a nation in 1947 the Israeli military command and political leadership did not want an air force. It is almost inconceivable that any person after seeing the capabilities of airpower during the second world war would not appreciate the importance of airpower. However, this is the position airpower advocates in Israel found themselves in 1947. This lack of comprehension of modern warfare was not limited to a lack of understanding of the role of airpower. Israel did not want tanks, artillery, or any of the other instruments of modern warfare. The cause of this and its impact on the 1982 Bekaa Valley campaign can be found in the roots of the Zionist movement.

Zionism, the Jewish movement for a national homeland, was founded in the late 1890s by Theodor Herzel, a secular Viennese Jew. Herzel was content to accept any piece of land for a Jewish homeland. However, those that were attracted to his movement were more religious and radical than he was. For them only a return to Palestine was acceptable. This more fervent wing of Zionism was eventually inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution. They called themselves Labor Zionists, and envisioned a socialist state. There were other groups within the Zionist movement, even some that followed the Nazi model, however they were in the minority.

By the 1930s Labor Zionism was flourishing in Palestine. The Labor movement had formed a provisional government and an underground army, the Haganah. The Haganah was not a professional army. In the Labor vision of the Jewish state the military would be comprised of farmer-soldiers who worked their fields by day and patrolled them by night. A full time army was an abomination to their ideology.

With the Second World War and the Nazi threat to world Jewry many young Zionists volunteered for service in the British military. Many of these volunteers became officers and noncommissioned officers. After the war when they returned to Palestine they found themselves and their invaluable military experience ostracized by the Haganah. They were seen as an ideological aberration, and as militarily irrelevant. This was because the Haganah clung to its vision of the farmer-soldier. They could not envision any situation where they would need a professional standing army. They saw their only conflict as small unit guerrilla warfare with Palestine's Arabs. This began to change in November of 1947 as the United Nations began the debate over a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

David Ben-Gurion, the leader of Labor Zionism, was able to see past the prejudices of the Haganah command and recognized the need for a modern military and in particular a modern air force. Therefore in 1946 Ben-Gurion tasked David Remez with the job of building an air force. Just as the United States Air Force went through birthing pains, so did the IAF. From the moment of its conception there has been an ongoing battle as to whether the IAF would be a separate branch of the Israeli armed forces or if it would be under the control of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), the Israeli army. Until after the 1973 war the IAF has been placed under the control of the IDF and officers that do not understand the full scope of the uses of airpower.

True to its socialist/communist roots the Haganah, and then the IDF, had a highly centralized command structure. In this regard the IAF was no different. Up to the 1973 war for the most part a senior officer, if not the IAF Chief of Staff himself, would control most air battles from the central IAF command bunker. The officer controlling the battle would even go so far as to issue commands to individual pilots during the fight. This centralized control would have a major impact on the 1973 war.

Another factor to consider when attempting to understand the IAF is the fact that the IAF was built from scratch by men with no concept of how to create an air force. David Remez had been an enlisted fighter pilot in the British Royal Air Force. As skilled of a pilot as he may have been he did not have the command and organizational experience of a senior officer. A problem that would plague the IAF for the next 30 years was a lack of a clear and efficient staff, and organizational concept. The entire process was trial and error. The way errors were discovered was by the test of combat.

When war came to the infant Israel in 1948 the combat units of the IAF were staffed by foreign volunteers. After the armistice was signed in 1948 all the volunteers left. This left the IAF with only four young pilots that had any combat experience, and six more pilots in training. From this small cadre the modern IAF was created. The biggest problem that they faced was a complete lack of training materials, guides, and checklists. There was no wealth of combat proven experience to draw from to create training programs. Even if the infant IAF were to copy British or American training programs the new pilots spoke only Hebrew. Lessons, training plans, and tactics were created from scratch. It was a trial and error process with death and national survival the factors that kept the young men motivated.

With their limited resources and experience the IAF was able to create an extremely effective air force. This is not just in comparison to their Arab opponents but also in comparison to western air forces. Officers were sent to the military schools of France, Great Britain, and the United States. This effectiveness can also be attributed to the level of motivation of the personal of the IAF. With Israel facing annihilation on a daily basis their military personnel are highly motivated to become proficient at their jobs.

This motivation was clearly evident in both the 1956 and 1967 wars. However, in the 1956 war the Israeli pilots showed no more skill than their British and French allies, or their Arab foes. By the time of the 1967 war the skill of the IAF was much greater than their Arab opponents. The strategic planning ability of the IAF was also superior to that of the Arabs. It is also key to note that the striking success in the 1967 Six Day War was due also to the ineptitude of the Arabs. Despite the amount of time and material the Soviet Union had lavished on the Arab states they were not capable of modern combined arms operations.

The Israeli plan for the air part of the Six Day War was quite simple. They were to launch a surprise attack against the Arab air forces while they were still on the ground. Within the first six hours of the war over 200 Egyptian Air Force aircraft were laying destroyed on the ground. By the time the war was over 452 Arab aircraft had been destroyed for the loss of just 46 IAF aircraft (all but four of these were lost to ground fire). In just six days the IAF defeated combined Arab forces that outnumbered then 748 combat aircraft to 297; a ratio of over 2.5 to 1. On the ground the IDF more than doubled the territory controlled by Israel.

In the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War the IAF was filled with euphoria. They had accomplished the impossible. This euphoria masked serious problems with the structure of the IAF. There were significant problems in the IAFs ability to provide close air support (CAS) over the battlefield. As long as the IAF had time to plan an air strike the attack worked with Swiss-watch precision. However, attacking a target with no notice was beyond the capability of the IAF.

In the years between the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War this feeling of invulnerability was only intensified. In the skirmishes along the Suez Canal (dubbed the War of Attrition) the Egyptians lost 113 aircraft to just 35 for the IAF (all lost to ground fire). Also lost to IAF fighters were five Soviet piloted MiG-21s in one day to no IAF losses. In IAF attacks on the ground the IAF was only somewhat sucessful in attacking the Egyptian SAM defences.

September 1973 found the ranks of the IAF filled with confidence. Few were alarmed by the growing Syrian and Egyptian SAM defenses. The SAMs had been defeated before and they would be defeated again. In their confidence the IAF had seriously underestimated the Arab SAMs and ability to fight. In the years since 1967 the Arabs had learned their lessons and were preparing armies, and had developed tactics that they feltcould beat Israel. Those that did have an inkling of the danger posed by the new generation of SAMs facing the IAF were convinced that they had found technical and tactical solutions to the new problem. This serene confidence lasted until the afternoon of 6 October 1973.

The leadership of the IAF had a feeling that something was about to happen the morning of 6 October 1973. At 0500hrs. the IDF Chief of Staff ordered the IAF to prepare a preemptive air strike on the Syrians. The government of Golda Meir canceled the attack. At 1400hrs. war began with an Arab impersonation of the 1967 Israeli sneak air attack. Fortunately the Arabs were not able to duplicate the Israeli success of six years earlier. About thirty-seven Egypt and five Syrian planes were shot down and no targets inside Israel were seriously damaged. Israel quickly gained air superiority over the combined Egypt and Syrian air forces. In other circumstances this would have meant that the Arab would be quickly cut to pieces by combined IAF/IDF firepower. As per IAF doctrine once air superiority was achieved the IAF went on the offensive. Here the IAF ran into a solid curtain of Arab SAMs.

"Any hope Israel may have had of rendering Arab antiaircraft missile defenses ineffective simply by relying on the excellence of her pilots had to be given up. The new weapons, particularly the relatively small SA-6 and SA-7, have been proven highly successful against the fighter-bomber." Major General (Ret.) Mattityahu Peled, former IAF Chief of Staff

The Yom Kippur war was a crushing blow for the IAF. The majority of attack missions were interrupted, if not prevented by SAMs and anti-aircraft gun (AAA) fire. The intensity of the SAM environment was more than the IAF pilots were able to deal with. The IAF discovered that the tactics it had developed to contend with the SAM threat were grossly inadequate. It also found that its electronic countermeasures (ECM) could not fool the new generation of Soviet supplied SAMs. One hundred and three IAF fighters were destroyed and two hundred and thirty six were damaged out of a force of three hundred forty two at the beginning of hostilities. (The United States provided a massive influx of weapons, particularly aircraft to Israel during the war.) After an initial attempt at CAS the IAF switched to mainly attacking the Arab SAMs. The attacks against the SAM defenses met with limited success. This left the ground forces without desperately needed support. When the IAF attempted interdiction (attacks against enemy targets behind the battlefield) the SAMs limited success. The IAF also found its strike planning capability was seriously incapable of dealing with the fast pace of operations and the number of missions assigned to it.

Eventually the ground forces were able to punch holes in the Arab SAM umbrella. Once this was accomplished the IAF was able to perform up to its own expectations. Now with the war on the ground and in the air going in favor of the Israelis the Arabs sued for peace. As the country of Israel celebrated their hard fought victory the IAF attempted to keep a low profile. In their opinion they had failed in their task of protecting their homeland. Their aura of invulnerability was shattered. Even though the war was won the IAF attacked its self as if they had lost the war, which in their opinion they had. (And in the reality they recognized they almost had.) The IAF began a top to bottom review of doctrine, tactics, planning, and strategy. Once their review was complete they implemented their changes.

First was a necessity of developing new tactics and ECM to deal with the new Soviet SAMs, and even the next generation of Soviet SAMs. There was already an excellent command, control , and communications (C3) network established for air-to-air combat. One had been improvised during the fighting. Now it was solidified and expanded. However, these changes did nothing to improve the mood within the IAF. The Vietnam conflict and the Yom Kippur war had proved that the SAM was capable of almost halting air operations. With their new tactics and equipment the IAF felt that they were capable of dealing with an integrated SAM network. The problem was that it was all theory that had yet to be tested. Until it could be tested moral would suffer. The IAF would have to wait almost nine years for a chance to prove its self.

"The human factor will decide the fate of war, of all wars. Not the Mirage, nor any other plane, and not the screwdriver or the wrench or radar or missiles or all the newest technology and electronic innovations." General (Ret.) Ezer Weizmann, former IAF Chief of Staff

On 6 June 1982 the IDF began Operation Peace For Galilee, the invasion of Lebanon to clear it of PLO forces. On 8 June the IDF came into serious contact with the Syrian Army. This did not slow down the IDFs advance. However, the IAF was called in to hit Syrian Army targets. The Syrian Army was covered by SAMs situated in the Bekaa valley. In order for the IAF to have freedom of movement over the battlefield they needed to take the SAMs out. Instead of the overconfident caviler style, or the piecemeal attack that characterized the Yom Kippur War the IAF set out in a careful methodical manner to plot the destruction of the SAMs in the Bekaa Valley.

Details of the attack remain classified. What follows has been constructed from several different sources. At about 1400hrs. on 9 June 1982 the attack began. First over the valley were remotely piloted drones (RPVs). They were tasked with pinpointing the location of the SAMs. Some RPVs flew so they appeared on radar like attacking fighters. It is rumored that a RPV even destroyed a Syrian target. The attacking force was protected by standoff jamers, and E-2C radar planes. Now up to 92 IAF fighters descended on the Bekaa valley trailing flares and chaff behind them to confuse the SAM guidance systems. In less than ten minuets ten of nineteen SAM sights were destroyed along with the Syrian radar network. Not a single IAF aircraft was lost.

With the SAM threat removed the Syrian Army was mauled on the ground. With no radar to guide them the Syrian Air Force was decimated losing 85 MiGs to no Israeli loses.

Where nine years earlier it had been a close fought battle for survival in 1982 it was a devastating victory for the IAF. This was the result of extensive training, meticulous planning, and highly developed ECM as well as a high degree of motivation among the pilots of the IAF. The airplane and the pilot had proven superior to the computer and steel of the SAM. 1982 had also shown that the Soviet integrated air defense concept could not stand up to western ability and technology. In 1991 again in the Middle East, the Soviet SAM faced off against the western pilot/airplane. This time it was the United States led coalition facing the Iraqi war machine. When planning to destroy the Iraqi air defenses the United States Air Force drew upon the 1982 Israeli Bekaa Valley campaign. The successes of the western pilot/airplane were even more dramatic this time.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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