Posted on 08/11/2005 9:26:35 PM PDT by Khashayar
10 minutes.....
read later
Iraqi Mi-24 (1991 photo)
The Mi-24 Hind saw considerable use by the Iraqi Army during the long war with their neighbour, it's heavy armament causing much death and destruction amongst Iranian ground forces. The Iraqi Hinds also participated in air combat with Iranian AH-1J SeaCobras on several seperate occassions, ending favorably for the Iraqis with ten AH-1Js downed by Hinds compared to six Hinds downed by AH-1Js. One Hind even shot down an Iranian F-4 Phantom on 26 October, 1986.
There is no proof of this
F4G's in the Wild Weasel role were used in Desert Storm and weren't retired until the mid 90's.
Interesting... the Demo team F5 are marked up very similarly to the USAF Thunderbirds... also I was not aware the IIAF had any F16... and also they still have US missiles and stores... I would have expected them to be all expended in the Iran-Iraq war
I think some people on this thread are a little confused. All of these pictures are of models. Very well done models, but they aren't real. And Iran does not have any F-16's.
an Ex IPMS / "rivet counter" in another life
Not neceaasrily China, maybe Taiwan :), in the strange nether world of behind the scene world political connections, Taiwan and iran forged a relationship out of iran-Contra during the Reagan Presidency and has lasted to this day ...
Remember that Iran Contra Affair started with the premise that by selling weapons to Iran, U.S. can "influence" Iranian authority to in turn "influence" the Shiite muslim extremists in Lebanon to free U.S. hostages (remember the hostage taking in Leanon during the 80's? Seems there was one every otehr week). The proceeds from selling weapons to Iran is then rolled back to buy weapons and supplies to arm the Contras rebels fighting against communist Sandinistas government, kind of an additional benefit.
But since U.S. has had (and still do) have a total embargo against Iran, and Congress had specifically forbid U.S. from giving aid to Contras rebels. To make "Iran-Contra" work, the U.S. needed several foreign surrogates, one of them was Israel, the other was Taiwan.
On top of missiles, Iran also requested aircraft parts to help keep their fighters in the air during the Iran Iraq War. Israel supplied parts for Iran's F-4 fleet, while Taiwan supplied parts and technicians for Iran's F-5 fleet.
The money made from selling weapons to Iran is then used to purchase small arms and ammunitions made in Israel and Taiwan to arm the Contras rebels. Israel supplied Galil assault rifles, Taiwan supplied M-60 machineguns, U.S. supplied M-16A1 assault rifles diverted from over-ordering of Taiwan and Israel's orders.
For Taiwan, they continued to foster the tides established by Iran Contra Affair with Iran and Nicaragua (noting that Nicaragua is one of the few countries in the world that "recognizes" Taiwan). The Iran Contra Affair taught Taiwan the ropes in the shady international arms black/gray market. Taiwan as a producer of F-5 parts and their expertise in maintaining F-5 became famous around the world. Taiwanese technicians were seen in countries as diverst as Jordan, Yemen, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Honduras. Taiwan's AIDC together with some former Northrup employees formed Tiger Century Aircraft Co. which upgrades F-5s around the world.
Although Iran bought some weapons from China, they were very dismayed by its quality. After used to flying U.S. made fighters, the J-7 was a great disappointment indeed. Iran's experience with Russian fighters weren't that great either, Iran really want to fly U.S. fighters again. Think about it ... Iran has the oil revenue to buy Russian and Chinese fighters, but they don't ... Instead the IRIAF continues to devote the vast amount of its money on reverse engineering F-5s and Cobras, making new designs based on the F-5 (seen the new Iranian LIFT trainer based on the F-5 design?), and maintaining the F-14 and F-4 fleet rather than simply buying Chinese and Russian equipment? Ta-ta, they perfer U.S. weapons and parts :)
But the embargo placed by the U.S. made U.S. made parts very hard to come by, Iran highly value pipelines like Taiwan and Israel. Iran also started a huge reverse engineering effort to keep the U.S. made fighters in the air and keep these same fighters armed.
Israel always sees Iraq as a greater threat, helped Iran reluctantly. But Taiwan has no quarrels in the Middle East helped Iran greatly with tacit approval from the U.S. Taiwan supplied technical know how for manufacturing of F-5s and UH-1 helicopters (which was then applied to the AH-1s), plus some parts for maintenance of missile systems like HAWK.
Even though Iran officially recognized China, Iran still keep a very warm "unofficial tide" with Taiwan. Come to think of it, there's a large Iranian population in Taiwan as strange as that may sound.
No doubt Iran has received supplies and assistance from Taiwan, but most of the reverse-engineering and parts from that have come from Mainland China. I'm certain Taiwan wouldn't pass up a buck, though.
Good Analysis!
Greece, Turkey, Belgium, Libya and Syria also provided Iran with various weapons!
I do not know if true or not. It is said the Iraqi Mi-24 shot down the Iranian F-4 with a AT-6 `Spiral' anti-tank missile. The AT-6 missile is radio guided and has a range of 3.1 miles and it travels at 1000 mph. It takes the missile 11 seconds to reach max range. The targeting is manually done like a TOW missile. The Mi-24 can fly 168 mph and high as 14,000 feet. It sounds possible but I doubt it will ever be confirmed.
I was fooled at first :) I didnt pay a lot of attention till I had scrolled down some and started wondering why everything was so clean :) I took a harder look and realized they were models haha. Pretty well done ones though.
I got your point!
But let me tell you those were Saddam propaganda!
Curious to know about spare parts.
IRIAF F4 in mid air re-fueling
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.