The Yom Kippur War began suddenly for the Israelis, although the Syrians' readiness to attack was no secret to them. Shortly before the attack, on October 2, 1973, Syrian tanks and infantry once again entered the demilitarized zone, which the Israeli military did not attach much importance to. They believed that Egypt was not ready for war, and Syria alone would not dare to go to war. The war began on the afternoon of October 6, 1973, on the holy Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur (Judgment Day). At 13:45 artillery shelling began, which lasted 50 minutes. Aircraft also attacked Israeli positions. Almost simultaneously, Syrian tanks went on the attack.
In the second half of the 20th century, the tension of the political situation in the Middle East was constantly growing. The six-day Arab-Israeli war, launched by Israel and allowed it to – On July 10, 1967, to seize the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, East Jerusalem and the West Bank of the Jordan River from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria, brought the intensity of political confrontation in the region to the limit.
the day before
The Arabs were humiliated by the swift and devastating defeat inflicted on several large countries of the Islamic world at once. Almost immediately after the end of the Six-Day War, the so-called War of Attrition began - military operations without declaring war, mainly consisting in mutual shelling of the territory and air raids, as well as the economic and political blockade of Israel by the Islamic world, in parallel with which the Arabs were intensively preparing for a new war - revenge.
Political map of Israel before the 1967 Six Day War (lemon), before (pink)
and after (red, brown) the 1973 Yom Kippur War
Source - turkcebilgi.com
Israeli politicians and the command of the Israel Defense Forces (hereinafter - IDF) soberly assessed the current situation, and therefore, as best they could, strengthened the new borders and prepared the country for operational mobilization in case of danger.
Syria by the beginning of 1973 was, perhaps, the most dangerous and most consistent adversary of Israel. Together with Egypt, this country formed the backbone of the military anti-Israeli alliance, which was joined by Jordan and Iraq. Many other countries, such as Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Tunisia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, the USSR and Cuba, provided all possible military and financial assistance to the alliance in its preparation for a new war.
The Golan Heights, taken by Israel from Syria, is a hilly plateau with highlands scattered on it, while strategically important highlands are located in their northern and southern parts. The southern part, located near the freshwater lake Kinneret, dominates the northern part of Galilee. From its peaks, you can successfully shell a significant part of Israel. The possession of the northern part (that is, the southern slope of Mount Hermon) allows Israel to ensure that the waters of the Jordan River, the main source of water in the region, will not be diverted by the Syrians (such plans existed in Syria in 1950 – 60s).
Kibbutz Merom Golan, located in the Golan Heights. At the top of the hill is a former stronghold.
The abandoned city of El Quneitra is visible in the distance.
Source - forum.guns.ru (photo LOS")
In preparing the Golan for defense, Israeli engineering services dug an anti-tank ditch 4 meters deep and 6 meters wide for the entire length of the Syrian-Israeli border (75 km). Minefields were also prepared along the border, in addition to the mining that was carried out by the Syrians until 1967. The basis of the defense of the Golan Heights was 11 strongholds (hereinafter - OP), located on the hills along the border, consisting of pillboxes, trenches, dugouts, concreted NPs and three to four prepared firing positions for tanks. These positions were the so-called "ramps" - the hull of a tank that drove onto such a ramp was covered by an earthen rampart two meters thick, behind which the tank was practically invulnerable to enemy artillery. On one such "ramp" at the same time could call 3-4 tanks. Approaches to the OP were covered by minefields, barbed wire and anti-tank engineering structures. The movements of the enemy were monitored by 5 observation posts located between the OP.
Stronghold on Mount Bental (Golan Heights)
Source: deafpress.livejournal.com
The armament of the Israeli tank forces in the 70s was quite colorful. The basis of the tank fleet, the total number of which barely exceeded 2000 units, was the Shot and Shot Kal tanks (translated from Hebrew - “light whip”) - modifications of the British A41 Centurion tank, armed with 105-mm British Royal Ordnance guns L7. Their number was 1009 cars.
The rest of the Israeli tanks were of the following models:
- 345 (according to other sources - 390) tanks "Magah-3" - modernized American M-48 "Patton-III", also armed with 105-mm tank guns;
- 341 M-51HV "Super Sherman" or "Isherman" - an Israeli modification of the American M-50 "Sherman" tanks, armed with 105-mm CN-105-F1 guns;
- 150 "Magah-6" and "Magah-6 Aleph" - modifications of more modern American tanks M60 and M60A1 (unofficially called "Patton-IV"), with a standard 105-mm M68 gun;
- 146 "Tiran 4/5" - modified captured Soviet tanks T-54 and T-55, inherited by Israel during the Six Day War.
"Shot Kal" - the most massive tank of the IDF. Golan Heights, October 1973
Source - gallery.military.ir
However, the Golan Heights were covered only by 180 tanks of the 188th and 7th armored brigades of the 36th Gaash division (commander Major General Rafael Eitan), most of which were Shot Kal tanks. The main part of the IDF armored forces was concentrated in the south, in the Sinai Peninsula, where the main attack of the Egyptian army was expected and where the terrain was less hilly. In addition to tanks, the heights were defended by 600 infantrymen and about 60 guns.
In addition to the brigades of constant readiness, in the event of a war, the IDF could mobilize reservist armored brigades. Since the preparation of the Syrian army for an attack on Israel was not a big secret for the Israeli command, the warehouses of equipment and weapons of the Northern Military District (hereinafter referred to as NMD) were moved closer to the border, to the region of northwestern Galilee, a few months before the start of the war.
NVO command meeting. In the center - Yitzhak Hofi
Source - waronline.org
The Syrian Army General Staff began preparations for the attack 9 months before the attack. The Syrians expected that the mobilization of reservists and the advancement of reserve units to the border would take the Israelis at least a day. During this time, they planned to break through with three armored columns to the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee, defeating the IDF regulars defending the Golan, and capturing strategically important crossings on the river.
The exact date of the attack was not known to the Israelis, although the readiness of the Syrians to attack was not a secret to them. However, the Syrian army managed to lull the vigilance of its opponents - it regularly carried out military provocations on the border, as well as shelling (including with the participation of armored vehicles). Shortly before the attack, on October 2, 1973, Syrian tanks and infantry once again entered the demilitarized zone, which the Israeli military did not attach much importance to. They believed that Egypt was not ready for war (which turned out to be a big mistake), and Syria alone would not dare to go to war.
Map of hostilities 6–10 October 1973 in the Golan Heights
Source: eleven.co.il
The October Liberation War began on Saturday, October 6, 1973, according to the most unfortunate version of the “Combat Action Plan”. In addition, the Saman, who came from the desert, forced them to postpone the offensive for several hours. At 1400, artillery and aviation from the Arab countries attacked Israeli positions. At 15.00 the ground troops went forward.
In the first hour of the war, Syrian Air Force aircraft attacked: the Hebron aviation control center (12 Su-20s and 8 MiG-21s); three RLP and PN (20 Su-7B, 16 MiG-17 and 6 MiG-21); three strongholds on the Golan Heights - (three groups of 8-10 MiG-17s under the cover of MiG-21s). Troopers landed from ten Mi-8s and seized the jamming complex on Mount Jebel Sheikh. During the day, due to difficult weather conditions, Syrian aviation carried out only 270 sorties. 1 enemy aircraft was shot down with the loss of one of his own.
On October 6 and 7, groups of 6-12 Su-20s, Su-7Bs, MiG-17s, accompanied by 4-6 MiG-21s, were involved in operations against ground targets. Sometimes fighters covered the IBA planes already on the way back. So, on October 7, two flights of the MiG-21 took off from the Nasrie airfield to meet those returning from the Su-7B mission. This group did not have a general leadership. The flight was carried out at an altitude of 2000-3000 m. The battle formation was a “column of links”. At the command of the command post, the MiGs left the loitering zone for the meeting area with the Sukhoi group. Soon the leader of the first link Art. Lieutenant Sukes discovered a pair of "Mirages" (in fact there were four of them), marching in a column at the same height with him on a collision course. Without notifying the link, the commander energetically performed a turn towards the enemy with a large overload. At the same time, the link broke up into separate pairs, which subsequently did not interact with each other. Sukes went into the tail of the Israeli fighter and from a distance of 1000-1500 m at a speed of about 1000 km / h launched a rocket that hit the Mirage nozzle. The plane exploded. Continuing the search and not finding either the enemy or his own, Sukes returned to base with his wingman.
Leading the second pair of the first link Art. Lieutenant Dauvara, after losing contact with the commander, found a second pair of Mirages to the left at an angle of 30 °, also flying on counter-intersecting courses with him. The Syrian pilots performed a turn towards the enemy with a large overload, which led to a short-term loss of consciousness. Having finished the maneuver, a pair of MiGs entered the rear hemisphere of the Israelis at a distance of 600 - 800 m. The host pressed the "Start" button, but could not stand the time of pressing, and the rocket did not leave the guide. Wing Lt. Dibs attacked the second Mirage and shot it down with a rocket salvo. The leader of the pair of Mirages, having turned on the afterburner, with a sharp maneuver with a decrease and acceleration, left the battle. Due to the small remaining fuel, the Syrians did not pursue him and returned to the airfield.
The second link of the MiGs met another link of the Mirages, which was flying at an altitude of 3000 m, and engaged in a maneuverable battle with it, mainly on horizontal lines. During the battle, the link broke up into pairs that acted independently. In none of the attacks, the Syrians managed to achieve favorable conditions for launching missiles or firing cannons. Having not achieved success, without the permission of the commander, without warning him, the pilots of the second pair of MiGs left the battle and went to their airfield. The commander and his wingman continued the battle. When there were 500 liters of fuel left in the tanks, they went to low altitude and began to land at the nearest Blei airfield. Due to poor coordination between command posts and the untimely change of codes, the “friend or foe” air defense of the airfield mistook these vehicles for enemy ones. As a result, one MiG was shot down by a missile, and the second by anti-aircraft guns. The pilots managed to eject safely.
After October 7, reduced groups of IBA aircraft (2-4 Su-20, 4-8 MiG-17) began to be allocated for attacks on ground targets. Overcoming the air defense system was provided by:
following the route at extremely low altitude,
anti-aircraft maneuvers in height, direction and speed,
jamming of radars and missile defense systems "Hawk" by special An-12PP aircraft and a ground-based complex of the "Smalta" type,
applying BSHU at control points and radar posts.
To destroy troops and military equipment, high-explosive fragmentation bombs OFAB-250, -250sh and unguided missiles S-24 and S-5k were used. The strikes were delivered from level flight or a gentle dive with an angle of 10-12 ° from a height of 100-200 m. To destroy tanks, PTAB-2.5 bombs in RBC-250 were used, dropped from a pitch-up with an angle of 10-20 °, and NURS S- 5k and S-Zk, which were launched in level flight at an altitude of 25-50 m. FAB-500, -250, -100 bombs were used for operations against strongholds. They were dropped from a gentle dive with an angle of 10-20 ° from a height of 300 m after performing a slide or a combat turn, as well as from a low-altitude horizontal flight with a climb of 250-300 m for 8-10 seconds, followed by a sharp descent and performing an anti-aircraft maneuver. When attacking an oil refinery near the city of Haifa, ZAB-250 incendiary bombs and OFAB-250 high-explosive fragmentation bombs were used. The reset was carried out from level flight after a preliminary "jump" to 200 m.
The strike groups left the target in different directions, maneuvering and moving to extremely low altitudes. IBA aircraft suffered losses from the fire of ZUR, ZUR and fighters after dropping ammunition, while avoiding the target, during a repeated attack, when the pilot climbed over 200 m and did not perform or performed a very sluggish anti-aircraft maneuver. Escort fighters were not allocated to each strike group. MiG-21s carried out cover from the barrage zone in the most dangerous directions. For the first days of the war (until October 11), it was characteristic that fighter aircraft were involved mainly to cover their airfields and facilities in the depths of the country, and were not sent to support the ground forces. With this, the command of the Air Force and Air Defense provided its ZRV and FOR "work without restrictions." As a result, the probability of an erroneous hit by air defense systems of their aircraft was minimized, and the Israelis suffered significant losses.
On October 10, the MiG-21 link of Captain Maurice, which had risen from the Nasrie airfield, loitered at an altitude of 4000-6000 m. went on the attack. At this time, the leader of the second pair of art. Lieutenant Khadra discovered four more Mirages (strike group), which flew behind the first pair and below it by about 1000 m in the battle formation "bearing pair". Without warning the flight commander, he and his wingman turned on them and attacked the enemy from behind and from above. From a distance of 800-1000 m Art. Lieutenant Khadra and his wingman simultaneously launched missiles and destroyed the guided pair of Mirages, and then, approaching the leading pair and firing two more missiles, destroyed it as well. It should be noted that the Syrian pilots attacked very competently: first the wingman, and then the leading pair. Subsequently, Art. Lt Khadra was awarded the title of Hero of the Syrian Arab Republic.
Meanwhile, the first pair of Mirages, attacked by a pair of MiG flight commanders, began to maneuver vigorously, mainly horizontally. As a result, the Syrian pilots were unable to launch missiles and open fire from cannons. With a remaining fuel of 800 liters, they left the battle at maximum speed and extremely low altitude and returned safely to the airfield.
From October 11, fighters began to boldly engage in battle with the enemy, moving away from their airfields. This day was the most productive in the war - the Syrians shot down 56 aircraft, of which 10 were MiG-21 pilots. There were no losses. However, a number of air battles, especially from 7 to 17 October, were unsuccessful for the Syrians. An analysis of about 60% of the battles showed that the main reason for the failures was shortcomings in tactical training.
Air battles were often fought in groups of 30-60 aircraft at altitudes from 50 m to 5000-6000 m and speeds from 200 to 1500 km / h with overloads up to 9d. As a rule, they were maneuverable and fierce in nature and were fired outside the zone of fire of the ZRV. Most often, the outset of the battle took place on a head-on or head-to-head course with a "bait" group, followed by maneuvering, usually on horizontal lines, often without taking into account the possible presence of strike groups in the enemy. With the "bait" the Israelis sought to break the battle order of the Syrians and, when it was possible, to drag them along. This created favorable conditions for the actions of the strike group, which was often located below the "bait" outside the radar visibility of the Arab command posts. Approaching secretly from below-behind, she suddenly attacked the Syrians, carried away by the fight. If this type of battle could not be imposed, the enemy left it or generally tried to avoid a meeting. Unfortunately, the Syrians, in their desire to make the most of the MiG-21's flight characteristics, often forgot about tactics and therefore suffered unjustified losses.
For example, on October 16, a pair of MiG-21s took off from the Hama airfield and at an altitude of 4000 m entered the loitering area near the city of Tartus. Because of the thick haze, visibility in the air did not exceed 5-6 km. While patrolling, the presenter discovered a single "Phantom" ("bait"), performing a left turn at a distance of 2-3 km. Its pilot clearly provoked the Arab pilots to attack, which he achieved. The Syrian couple, dropping outboard tanks and not assessing the air situation, rushed forward at full afterburner. The first rocket fired by the leader from a long distance did not hit the target. Continuing the rapprochement, the commander of the Syrian couple saw in his immediate vicinity the second F-4 coming out of the attack (which shot down his wingman, the Syrian pilot ejected). He fired a missile at the Phantom, but again unsuccessfully, this time due to the small distance to the target. At this time, the MiG's engine stalled. About further events, the presenter in the report told a real fairy tale: “Despite the idle engine, having a large excess of speed, I continued to approach the Phantom ... I managed to fire four bursts of cannons from a range of 300-400 m. I observed shell explosions in at the junction of the fuselage and the plane, then a fire broke out on the Phantom, the ion fell into the sea with a right turn. I started the engine at an altitude of 1500 m and returned to the airfield. In fact, the downing of the Phantom has not been confirmed, and one MiG-21 has been lost. The reasons are obvious: the leader did not follow the follower and the air situation; the same applies to the slave; they did not know the tactics of the enemy. Taking advantage of the lack of objective control, the leader invented his story about the battle in order to justify the loss of the follower.
The next day, the same commander conducted an air battle with a group of "Phantoms" tactically extremely illiterate. The wingman of the second pair of his link was lost, and no one followed him and did not see how he was shot down. Again there was no interaction both between pairs and between pilots in pairs. Radio discipline was not respected and objective control was not carried out.
The Israelis tried to impose air battles in areas favorable to them, where they were provided with control from land, sea or air. Such zones were: South Lebanon (Lebanese Valley), Tartus, Tripoli and the sea coast near them. Conversely, the Syrians in these areas were not provided with command and guidance. The Israelis carried out air battles according to a variant worked out in advance on the ground and in the air, which contributed to success in battle even with the loss of control and communication with the land or sea. The Syrian pilots did not have their own option. Pairs and units flying out on a mission were not flown off, had different levels of training, the followers could not always keep their place in the ranks, especially with energetic maneuvers of the leaders. Group commanders and leaders, as a rule, did not control the battle. They maneuvered without taking into account the capabilities of the followers, trying to complete their combat mission at any cost. Pairs and links crumbled, control was lost, as a result of which the wingmen were often shot down. Squadron commanders did not go into battle, and flight commanders became the leaders of the groups. Battles involving large forces were fought in mixed groups, which included links from different squadrons and even different brigades, which further worsened control. The battle formations of the group were frontal, not echeloned in height. The exit from the battle was carried out in an unorganized manner, without the command of the leader, and often the followers in pairs, as well as the followers in pairs, abandoned the leaders. In battle, the rules of radio exchange were not observed, and everyone who considered it necessary worked on the transmission, which led to a loss of control both on the part of the group commanders and the command post. The calculations of the Syrian CP and PN did not know the plan of the air battle of the controlled group and did not take into account the tactics of the enemy, which did not allow them to bring their fighters into a position advantageous for starting the battle. The air brigade commanders weakly controlled the course of the battle, shifting their duties to the guidance navigators. The lack of visual observation points also reduced the ability of combat control. All this led to predominantly defensive rather than offensive actions, which the enemy used.
As another example, the battle on October 21 can be cited. The main PN led the MiG-21MF link of captain Merze to the eight Mirages in the area of Jebel Sheikh mountain. MiGs flew at an altitude of 2000 m at a speed of 1000 km/h. The enemy marched at an altitude of 4000 m in the battle formation "column of links" with a distance between links of 3-4 km. Instead of attacking the last link, the Syrian commander attacked the enemy's first link on the move. Having detected the attack, this link opened (the left pair performed a left combat turn, and the right pair performed a right one) and continued to fly as a "bait". The second link, as a strike group, remained behind-higher and, observing the events, did not take part in the outset of the battle. Arab pilots attacked the "bait": Captain Merze with the wingman - the left pair of "Mirages", and the second pair of his link - the right one. As a result, the MiGs lost speed, and the wingmen fell behind. They proved to be a good target and were shot down by an Israeli strike group. The pilots ejected. The leaders managed to escape to their base. Upon arrival, each of them stated that they had destroyed a Mirage, but objective control did not confirm this.
A helicopter brigade took part in the hostilities throughout the war. Its crews carried out tactical landings, reconnaissance of the movement of their troops, evacuation of pilots from landing sites after ejection, delivery of the wounded to hospitals and combat orders to the troops. The flights were carried out from pre-prepared hidden sites.
When landing, tasks were assigned to Mi-8 squadrons 30-40 minutes before departure, and the paratroopers arrived for landing 20-30 minutes before and were placed 15-17 people in a helicopter. Following the route was carried out at an altitude of 10-15 m at a maximum speed (up to 250 km / h) in the battle formation "column of links", each link in the "wedge of helicopters" formation. The landing was carried out on mountain peaks with a height of 1200-1300 m in the areas where the Israeli strongholds were located. At the time of landing, the helicopters were fired upon from all types of weapons and suffered heavy losses. So, on October 9, eight Mi-8s landed troops in the Zl-Kuneinra region, while the enemy motorized infantry battalion fired at the vehicles from small arms. As a result, three crews did not return from the mission, and four more made emergency landings before reaching the base. To perform special tasks, 2-3 crews were constantly on duty. The takeoff was carried out on command from the TsKP no more than 10 minutes after receiving the order.
In the October War, ground-based air defense systems proved themselves well. Not a single object covered by them was completely destroyed or put out of action for a long time. Syrian anti-aircraft missiles operated in a difficult ground and air situation: on some days, crews and command posts of brigades were 1-1.5 km from the enemy, under fire from his artillery and small arms, but at the same time they successfully completed combat missions. Over the entire period of the war, the Israelis inflicted more than 100 BSHU on the positions of the air defense system and FORA. During the fighting, according to the Syrian command, Syrian anti-aircraft gunners destroyed 197 enemy aircraft (110 Phantoms, 25 Mirages, 60 Skyhawks and 2 Ryan unmanned reconnaissance aircraft). Their losses amounted to 13 divisions (1 "Volga", 2 "Dvina", 5 "Pechora", 5 "Cube"), of which one is irretrievable, six were disabled for a period of 2 to 5 months, and six by October 31, 1973 were put into operation.
Radio-technical troops, working in conditions of strong radio interference by the enemy, detected and notified about 9300 Israeli sorties, provided more than 6500 sorties of their aviation (including non-combat ones) and conducted 282 air battles.
During the 19 days of the war, Syrian aircraft made 4,658 sorties to cover the troops and facilities of the country, to gain air supremacy; 1044 - to support the ground forces and 12 - for reconnaissance. Helicopters made about 120 sorties.
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sorties |
air battles |
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| Su-20 | 98 | 282 | 173 | 105 |
Encyclopedia of Aircraft and Helicopters. 2004-2007
Russian servicemen have been present in Syria for quite a long time. This fact was confirmed by the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Valery Gerasimov, at the recent V Moscow Conference on International Security: “Russian military advisers assist the command of the Syrian army in planning combat operations against bandit formations, participate in the training and preparation for combat operations of reserve formations and military units ". A group of Soviet military specialists, as a consolidated military formation of the USSR Armed Forces, was sent to Syria back in 1956. Later, in 1973 and 1983, the size of the contingent was increased by regular units of the Soviet army, which was seen as a confrontation in the Cold War between the USSR and the USA and a struggle for influence in the strategically important region of the Middle East. For many decades, Syria has been traditionally strong and a staffed apparatus of Soviet military advisers and specialists who were part of all the administrative units of the Syrian army. The range of their duties sometimes went beyond the powers of advisers. Soviet military advisers and specialists - pilots, sailors, anti-aircraft gunners, tankers - took a direct part in the hostilities on the Syrian-Israeli front. Of the most famous - "Six Day War" (1967), "War of Attrition" (1970), "War in the Air" (1972), "Doomsday War" (1973), "Lebanese War" (1982) ), “The occupation and naval blockade of Lebanon by NATO forces” (1983). In subsequent years, Soviet specialists transferred combat experience to the Arabs and taught the Syrians how to use military equipment and weapons that were supplied to Syria from the Soviet Union, and later from Russia. “Already since the late 70s of the last century, our military advisers have not taken part in active hostilities in Syria,” says Colonel Anatoly Matveychuk, former adviser to the head of the Syrian military academy in Aleppo. - For the most part, the work of the office of the chief military adviser at that time was reduced precisely to advisory functions, teaching work, training the Syrians in the use of military equipment that was supplied from our country. The emphasis was on training local instructors, who were supposed to subsequently train local specialists for the Syrian army. Much attention was paid to the political training of the Syrians - the socialist ideology of those times affected. But the technical skills in training were the main ones: Syrian soldiers, being brave warriors, did not master complex military equipment as successfully as the standards required. The current contingent of Russian military advisers in Syria is increasing, taking into account the development of the situation in this country. Just do not confuse it with ensuring the security of the Russian contingent, which guards the air base at the Khmeimim airfield and a number of Russian facilities on the territory of this country. There, in addition to the flight and technical personnel of the Russian Aerospace Forces, who are the main participants in the operation to destroy the terrorist organization "Islamic State" (banned in the Russian Federation), there are other security forces. It is clear that they do not line up along the runway in Khmeimim and perform their tasks, including those related to the possible evacuation of Russian aircraft crews outside the base. But this contingent is not Russian advisers, but precisely forces designed to ensure security. “Coordination of the actions of the Syrian army by Russian advisers is a strategic task,” says Colonel Anatoly Matveychuk. - The current military operations that were carried out in the province of Aleppo and during the liberation of Palmyra are strategic. The experience of our officers and generals, who are now in Syria, is extremely necessary in such a situation. They have behind them the experience of Afghanistan and the Chechen campaigns. Here's an example: now Syrian drivers are trained by our advisers in one month, instead of the previous three. The effectiveness of the command and staff actions of the Syrian military leaders has increased in exactly the same proportion.” Syrian army. Russian advisers in the junior rank train their colleagues at the brigade to battalion level. Technical specialists are retraining the Syrians for modern types of weapons that Russia regularly supplies under agreements with this Arab republic. There is also a whole staff of Russian military Arabic translators, among whom there are even linguist cadets of the last courses of the Military University. “The advisory apparatus in Syria reached three thousand people, they were specialists of various levels,” says military expert Vladislav Shurygin. - He was severely hacked at one time by the ex-Minister of Defense Anatoly Serdyukov, multiplying, figuratively speaking, by zero. The number of advisers has decreased by five times. Now a full-fledged structure of advisers is being deployed that can help the Syrian government army to effectively conduct military operations against jihadists, which was demonstrated during the latest offensive operations of the Syrian government army. And their role here is no less than air strikes by the Russian aviation of the Aerospace Forces.” The expert believes that it makes no sense for Russia to send full-fledged combat units to Syria for a ground operation in which heavy casualties are inevitable. The most effective is the use of military advisers, who will train the Syrians at the level of battalion-tactical groups, and, if necessary, coordinate their actions during hostilities. “The role of advisers is a key one,” says Vladislav Shurygin. - To win, you need to learn how to fight. This is what our advisers, who have vast combat experience, are capable of teaching to Syrian colleagues. And the effect is already obvious: if a year ago Syrian tanks were rolling back and forth, firing randomly, now well-thought-out tactics are visible in organizing their offensive. And it was our advisers who trained the Syrians.”
Soviet military advisers and specialists - pilots, sailors, anti-aircraft gunners and representatives of other branches of the armed forces and specialties - took a direct part in the hostilities on the Syrian-Israeli front: June 5-13, 1967 (Six-Day War), in March-July 1970 (War of Attrition), September-November 1972 (War in the air), October 6-24, 1973 (Doomsday War), and, in addition, 1982 (Lebanese War) and 1983 (Occupation and naval blockade of Lebanon by NATO forces). In the interwar period, for many years, Soviet specialists passed on their knowledge and combat experience to the Arabs, trained Syrian and Egyptian soldiers and officers in the use of military equipment and weapons supplied from the USSR.
From the moment the first group of Soviet military specialists arrived in Syria, their presence, the size and composition of the Soviet military-technical and military-advisory contingent depended on the military-political situation in the region. First of all, their number and composition have always been calculated in proportion to the combat capabilities of the Israeli Armed Forces and depended on the composition of their grouping on the Syrian-Israeli border and, to no lesser extent, on the presence of operational formations of the US Armed Forces sent to the Syrian and Lebanese borders, and included one or another configuration of the four main components: the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force and the Ground Forces. In some years (1958, 1959, 1967, 1970, 1973), all four of these types of armed forces were at the Syrian borders, in readiness for a full-scale invasion and the transfer of hostilities from the coastal region inland. Various countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), primarily Britain, France and Italy; Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) Turkey and Iraq; and members of the League of Arab States (LAS) pursuing a course of pro-American policy, such as Jordan, also put their troops on high alert, which significantly complicated the military-strategic disposition in the Middle East region for the USSR. In addition, another opposing side was also quickly helped by foreign states. Thus, numerous American instructors and military advisers worked in the Israel Defense Forces, Israeli intelligence agencies acted in close contact with the US political and military intelligence agencies, but the greatest source of tension for Soviet military specialists working in Syria was created by the US Air Force reconnaissance and fighter-assault aircraft and carrier-based aircraft of the US Navy in the Mediterranean Sea, - according to the testimony of a participant in the events, Lieutenant Colonel S. I. Kachko, they created real tension in the situation.
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According to the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, from 1956 to 1991, 16,282 people were seconded to Syria through the USSR Ministry of Defense, including 294 generals, 11,169 officers, 624 ensigns, 2,179 soldiers and sergeants, and 2,016 workers and employees of the SA and Navy. Forty-four people perished and died from wounds and diseases.
Of course, the data of the General Staff on the number of military personnel sent to Syria is not complete, since they do not take into account the military personnel who were in Syria on short-term business trips. In addition, these statistics absolutely do not reflect the significant number of seconded from related departments who performed defense functions, who performed their work on a par with the military, and were equally at risk of being bombarded by Israeli aircraft, or ambushed by foreign intelligence agents. The number of Soviet military personnel in Syria varied based on specific current or upcoming tasks: The quantitative increase in the volume of supplied weapons naturally led to an increase in the number of military advisers and specialists for its maintenance and operation, and training of national personnel. Due to the fact that many data on the presence of Soviet military specialists in the Middle East are still classified, there is no consensus on the number among foreign intelligence services and information and analytical organizations and independent researchers.
The leadership of Syria has repeatedly emphasized that Soviet military advisers make an important contribution to strengthening the country's defense capability and their continued presence is not only desirable, but vital: "The interests of the Syrian people require the continuation of the mission of Soviet military specialists in our country," said SAR President H. Assad shortly after a sharp reduction in the Soviet military contingent in Egypt in 1972, in connection with the reorientation of the President of the ARE A. Sadat of foreign policy towards rapprochement with the United States.
Departure of the first group of military specialists (1956)
Already by the mid-1950s, the prerequisites for the start of a global military conflict were developing around Syria (the United States tried to isolate and destabilize Syria from the inside, simultaneously transferring a contingent of marines to the Syrian border in readiness for a military invasion following the destabilization). In June 1956, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR D.T. Shepilov visited Syria, who, in addition to political and economic assistance, also offered military assistance from the Soviet Union to the Syrian state. During the visit of President Shukri al-Kuatli to Moscow in October 1956, direct bilateral negotiations were held with Moscow on the purchase of Soviet weapons. According to the US Central Intelligence Agency, Marshal G.K. Zhukov personally conducted negotiations with the Syrians. Due to the fact that the supplied military equipment required highly qualified specialists that Syria did not have, a group of Soviet military advisers and specialists left for the country following the equipment, the number of which, according to the CIA, was about one hundred and sixty people.
A group of Russian researchers from the Institute of Military History of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation confirms that the first groups of military specialists were sent to Syria, starting in 1956 in accordance with the decisions of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1929 of April 9, 1956, No. 6628 of November 7, 1956 and No. 157- 84 of February 12, 1957. At the same time, according to IVIMO, in 1956, sixty people were seconded to Syria through the Ministry of Defense, including five translators. IVIMO does not indicate who led the first group of Soviet military specialists who arrived in Syria. According to the director of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) of Tel Aviv University O. Eran, the first group was headed by Colonel T. Kozlovsky.
By the second half of the 1950s. include the first successes of Soviet advisers in transforming the structure of the Syrian troops and creating new forces and branches of service. So, the first Syrian special-purpose unit was the parachute company formed in 1958. Soviet military advisers took an active part in its creation.
Six Day War (1967)
According to the certificate provided by the head of the 15th Directorate - Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, Colonel General E. I. Smirnov, Soviet military advisers, specialists and translators were in Syria during the hostilities of June 5-13, 1967. Soviet military advisers were sent to the military units of Egypt and Syria. Publicist E. Finkel wrote about "Soviet instructors" in the warring Syrian units in his article "6 days that shook the world." And, if the direct participation of Soviet military specialists in the hostilities of the Six-Day War from the Syrian side is a polemical issue, and it would be more appropriate to talk about the Soviet military presence in the Middle East theater as a deterrent, but, at the same time as containing the escalation of the conflict, there was an unprecedented activity Soviet foreign intelligence in Lebanon and Syria, which is confirmed by official sources, including the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.
War of attrition (1967-1970)
The hilly, valley-cut mountain ranges of the Golan Heights provided Israeli aviation with a covert approach at extremely low altitudes to the advanced positions of the Syrian troops - as a result of which Soviet military specialists in the front-line units did not learn about the next Israeli air raid in advance, but along with the first explosions of air bombs and shells - this was a very significant difference between the Middle East theater of operations and many other regions of the world in which the Soviet military performed their international duty
The lightning war of Israel with Syria and the ARE in June 1967 ended with the victory of the Israelis, but at the same time, thanks to the support provided to the Arab states of the USSR and other countries, the Israel Defense Forces did not achieve their intended goals to the end, and the military potential of the Arabs was not crushed. In connection with the intensified political disagreements between the leadership of Syria and the USSR, in particular, the refusal of the Syrians to attempt a political settlement of the conflict with Israel, the volume of deliveries was significantly reduced compared to the period before the Six-Day War. The CIA analytical report dated March 16, 1970, in particular, noted that despite the fact that the Soviet leadership preferred to support the moderate course of Egypt to a greater extent than the super-aggressive policy of the Syrians, the continuation of military assistance strengthened in them excessive self-confidence in their own forces, and belligerent intentions towards Israel.
Therefore, despite the ceasefire agreements, air battles unfolded more and more often in the skies of Egypt and Syria. The air war unfolded in 1968-1969. Israeli aircraft systematically attacked air defense systems and other targets. Air Force specialists and advisers were forced to deal with units and subunits located in different countries of the Middle East. Air Force specialists sent to the UAR were repeatedly sent to the SAR, and vice versa. So, I. P. Goley, who served as a senior adviser to the head of the operational directorate of the UAR Air Force, was sent to Syria six times. Realizing the inevitability of war in the air, Soviet military pilots had to prepare for air combat with experienced Israeli pilots who had experience gained in battles with Egyptian and Syrian pilots. First of all, they were required to study this experience. The command and control of combat operations of the air defense air defense forces of the ARE and SAR was improved with the participation of Soviet military specialists on the basis of the combat experience gained by the Group of Soviet Specialists in Vietnam during the American-Vietnamese War. In the conditions of Egypt and Syria, work was carried out to ensure the survivability of the technical divisions of the ZRV SAR. The replenishment of anti-aircraft missile divisions with missiles was carried out only at night, in compliance with all necessary camouflage and security measures. The technical divisions themselves were deployed in stationary positions. The main direction in ensuring the survivability of anti-aircraft missile divisions was taken to the construction of positions capitally equipped in engineering terms. Much attention was paid to the construction of protected shelters for personnel and shelters for equipment. At the beginning of 1969, trenches with partial penetration into the ground were equipped for equipment, but at the same time, during the hostilities, it turned out that such shelters could not completely solve the issue of protecting the material part - they could not withstand even small bombs, because at the end of that the same year, the equipment of starting positions with engineering structures made of monolithic reinforced concrete began. Following the results of the post-war restoration of the Armed Forces of Syria and Egypt, the Soviet military-advisory team was thanked by L. I. Brezhnev for: “Our officers did significant work to restore the armed forces of the UAR [Egypt] and Syria as advisers and specialists.” According to Brezhnev, the Soviet officers well understood the responsibility entrusted to them, adequately represented the Motherland, and selflessly, with knowledge of the matter, performed their tasks, and therefore rightfully earned high prestige and won genuine respect among the Arabs.
According to CIA analysts, the presence in Syria of Soviet military advisers and specialists in large numbers, whose main goal was to keep the situation in the Middle East under control, significantly increased the chances of direct involvement of the Soviet contingent in a possible military conflict, despite the fact that In the same report, the likelihood of this was assessed as extremely low, and, in addition, it was noted that in any case the fact of direct participation would never have been officially recognized.
War in the air (1972-1973)
In September 1972 - January 1973, the range of involvement of Soviet military-technical specialists included:
- The work of aircraft technicians for the repair of aircraft;
- Work behind radar installations;
- Transfer of armored vehicles that arrived by sea to the garrisons;
- Repair and restoration work on machinery.
Doomsday War (1973)
Six months before the October events of 1973, in the spring and summer, the Israelis began a regular overflight of the positions of the Syrian troops. As autumn approached, more and more specialists heard the roar of air raid alerts. Moreover, in order not to give the Syrian anti-aircraft troops the opportunity to prepare, the overflights of the Syrian positions were carried out in a ragged rhythm, each time at a completely different time. The flight time of Israeli aircraft from the airfields of the jump to the advanced Syrian units was only a few minutes, due to the untimely detection and delay of the alarm, the anti-aircraft regiment after the first alarm actually had one to two minutes to alert, and in some cases time to there was no alert at all. In the absence of hostilities, Israeli aircraft often bombed Syrian troops at the front, military facilities in the rear, and bombed Palestinian refugee camps in the suburbs of Damascus. Then the creation of the country's air defense system was not yet completed. Therefore, the problem of covering the territory from an attack by an air enemy was very acute.
"El Quneitra"
I'll come home, take the guitar
And under a quiet chime
I will remember the streets of Quneitra
And his infantry battalion ...
Russian-speaking poem
participants of the October war
September 13, 1973, after a massive Israeli air raid on the coastal zone of Latakia, in which more than sixty aircraft participated from the Israeli side alone, and during which, according to the Soviet military data, Israeli aviation suffered significant losses (At a meeting of the UN General Assembly was the official Syrian estimate was named - 5 out of 64 aircraft participating in the raid, with 8 Syrian ones shot down from among those sent to intercept; various sources estimate the loss of the Syrians from 9 to 12 MiG-21 fighters, while the Israeli side did not confirm any of its losses, like the fact of the raid itself - according to their statements, it was not them, but the Syrians who attacked an Israeli reconnaissance aircraft flying peacefully over the Mediterranean Sea, and the incident itself was called a "terrorist act"), the leadership of the military-advisory apparatus expected development in the very near future events.
In early October, an urgent evacuation of the families of all Soviet military and civilian specialists to their homeland began. At the end of September-beginning of October, the chief Soviet military adviser in Syria was notified of the start of hostilities that was being prepared for October 6 by the Syrian side. In the last days of calm, the evacuation became so rapid that some specialists, leaving in the morning, were escorted to work by their wife, returning from work to empty apartments with their wives' notes about an urgent departure. The last families from the capital's garrison managed to be transported by air on the morning of October 6, on the day the war began, and some, brought from the far eastern regions of Syria, were loaded in an emergency mode onto all adapted and unsuitable ships in seaports on the same day, after the start of hostilities actions. Colonel M. V. Razinkov recalls that this Sabbath day began in their usual worries, the weather was sunny and warm, and the situation did not portend any fears. Specialists, as a rule, completed their work and prepared to leave for Damascus on vacation ... They did not have to rest, large-scale hostilities began. Initially, Soviet military experts were told that Israel had violated the truce and started hostilities, but after some time, information began to leak out that the Syrians and Egyptians started this war. Soviet officers took part in the fighting on the side of Syria, being with the commanders of divisions, brigades, individual regiments, chiefs of staff and military branches, as well as with senior officers of the support and supply services.
In addition to the USSR Armed Forces, the armed forces of other Arab countries took part on the side of Syria: on the Syrian front, units and formations from neighboring Jordan, not far from Kuwait and very far away Morocco entered the war along with the Syrian troops (the transfer of the Moroccan corps was also carried out on Soviet transport ships) . In the midst of events, even the Iraqi government, despite longstanding disagreements with Syria, sent several motorized infantry brigades and aviation squadrons to help her. The socialist countries also did not stand aside, so, on the eve of hostilities in October 1973, 20-30 pilots of the DPRK Air Force, a tank brigade of the SV RVS of Cuba with up to 500 personnel, and even VNA officers arrived on the Syrian front.
On October 6-24, 1973, the entire arsenal of weapons and tactics that were previously used by the American command in the DRV and the Israeli command in the ARE and SAR were used in the Middle East theater of operations. As in previous military campaigns, Soviet air defense systems were used, in particular anti-radar missiles (PRS) AGM-45 Shrike and AGM-78 Standard ARM - the Israeli Air Force carried out approximately 210 launches of Shrike missiles at positions SA-75M, C-75, S-75M, S-125, while the Soviet anti-aircraft gunners already had Vietnamese experience in combating the PRS, so serious losses from this deadly weapon were avoided - with such a significant number of launches, only one SA-75M anti-aircraft missile division was disabled "Dvina" .. In total, the Israelis carried out 97 bombing and shelling attacks on the ZRV grouping on the Syrian front, of which about half fell on the positions of the active divisions. The other half of the blows were in fact applied to false, spare, and positions left the day before.
In the battles in 1973, on the Syrian front, an electronic warfare squadron from the Baltic Siauliai took part. The An-12PP group defense jamming aircraft, which had Syrian identification marks on board, ensured the combat activities of the Arab attack aircraft.
Parts of the Soviet military transport aviation involved in air transportation had to operate in conditions of intense Israeli air raids on the air routes of transport workers, on airfields where they were to land and ship military equipment and military equipment. In total, during the war, the crews of the VTA of the USSR performed 78 flights to the Middle East on An-22 aircraft, 725 on An-12 aircraft, transporting 1,700 people and 8,157 tons of military equipment and ammunition.
The role of the Syrian air defense system in repelling Israeli air raids
| The results of firing ZRV according to the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces of the USSR | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type SAM |
Conducted shooting |
downed aircraft |
Missile consumption | Efficiency shooting |
|
| Total | For one plane | ||||
| SA-75M "Dvina" | 50 | 26 | 116 | 4,5 | 0,52 |
| S-75M "Volga" | 60 | 32 | 139 | 4,3 | 0,53 |
| S-125 "Pechora" | 72 | 33 | 131 | 4,1 | 0,46 |
| "Square" | N/A | 64 | 96 | 1,5 | N/A |
| "Arrow-2" | N/A | 18 | 159 | 8,8 | N/A |
| Total | 173 | 641 | 4,6 | ||
| The results of anti-aircraft artillery firing | |||||
| Memory type | Aircraft shot down | Shell consumption | For one plane | ||
| ZSU-23-4 | 5 | 16500 | 3300 | ||
| BEHIND | 18 | 540000 | 30000 | ||
| Total | 23 | 556500 | 16650 | ||
Despite the heavy losses suffered by the ground forces of Egypt and Syria, and the poor interaction of the air defense forces with their aircraft, in general, the air defense units of both Arab countries acted successfully. Historiographers on both sides agree that this war was the most difficult test for the Israeli Air Force in history, and that to a large extent the success of the air defense of Egypt and Syria is due to Soviet technology and the work of Soviet military specialists. Quantitative estimates of Israeli aviation losses, however, differ significantly. According to Syrian and Russian data, 250 aircraft were destroyed in 18 days of fighting, which is 43% of the combat strength of the Israeli Air Force. Israeli sources and Western historians give about half the figure: 102-110 aircraft, similar data were announced by the Israeli military-political leadership in secret negotiations with the US Secretary of State shortly before the end of hostilities.
During the hostilities, the anti-aircraft missile forces showed themselves most fully and effectively. Anti-aircraft missile systems of various types, which are part of the mixed groupings of the ZRV SAR, took part in the hostilities. Along with the well-mastered SA-75MK Dvina air defense systems, the S-75M Volga and S-125 Pechora were newly received from the USSR. In total, the anti-aircraft missile forces of Egypt and Syria, equipped with the SA-75, S-125 and Kvadrat air defense systems, accounted for 78% of all Israeli aircraft shot down. In the days of the October War of 1973, the latest at that time, the Kvadrat air defense system delivered from the USSR, proved itself well. This tracked air defense system, having made several launches against an air enemy from one position, quickly folded and moved to a spare position. There, in a matter of minutes, she put herself on alert and again conducted combat launches. About a third of all Israeli aircraft shot down on the Syrian front were shot down by this particular complex. Syrian military personnel from the air defense forces highly appreciated the combat qualities of this complex.
Firing anti-aircraft guided missiles
At the exhibition of captured weapons in Cairo, the wreckage of aircraft shot down over the territory of the ARE and SAR was exhibited (in the photo: the wreckage of the A-4 Skyhawk). Assessing the effectiveness of the combat use of anti-aircraft missiles in the Middle East in October 1973, French magazine Paris Match wrote that “someday the Syrians will erect a monument in honor of the inventor of these modern missiles ... The inhabitants of Damascus and its environs witnessed how dozens of “phantoms”, “skyhawks” and “mirages”, shot down by anti-aircraft missiles, crashed into the ground, and their pilots ejected
In six days of fighting, from October 6 to October 12, 1973, 23 out of 38 anti-aircraft missile divisions of the ZRV SAR shot down, according to Soviet sources, more than 80 Israeli aircraft (that is, one in six of all 479 combat aircraft available to the Israeli Air Force), with this used up one and a half ammunition of the available missiles. The most intense combat operations of the ZRV were carried out in the first week of hostilities, reaching its peak during the most intense period of Israeli air raids on October 11-12, on the sixth-seventh day of hostilities, when anti-aircraft missiles were shot down: on Thursday - 26, and on Friday - 18 Israeli aircraft (with 620 sorties on Thursday and 580 on Friday), while the consumption of missiles reached up to an ammunition load per day. All types of anti-aircraft missile systems showed high firing efficiency. The firing efficiency for the entire period of hostilities in October 1973 was about 50% with an average consumption of five missiles per downed aircraft. At the same time, one should take into account the fact that the firing was carried out in the conditions of the use of active and passive interference by Israeli aircraft, decoys and radar traps, at suddenly appearing aircraft flying at sonic and supersonic speeds, at low and ultra-low altitude, using sharp anti-missile maneuvers and altitude (under these conditions, anti-aircraft artillery, due to the inability to conduct aimed fire, switched to barrage, which often opened outside the affected area, after the parameter). The creation of dense groupings of mixed anti-aircraft missiles, equipped positional areas, strengthening anti-aircraft cover, not only ensured the survivability of anti-aircraft missiles, but also their successful conduct of active operations against Israeli aircraft in October 1973. Losses of anti-aircraft missiles from air strikes decreased, the efforts of Israeli aircraft were not enough to suppress the system Air defense of ARE and SAR. The human factor was also important - the effectiveness of firing in difficult conditions largely depended on the level of training of combat crews of anti-aircraft missile divisions and command posts of anti-aircraft missile brigades and regiments.
As Colonel General A. A. Nogovitsyn noted, the course of hostilities showed that the skillful use of the latest Soviet means of combating enemy aircraft did not allow him to seize air supremacy. If in 1967, using the surprise factor, Israeli aviation was able to solve the problem of gaining air supremacy from the very beginning of the Israeli invasion, when on the very first day, with a sudden first and two subsequent massive strikes on the airfields of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, it destroyed up to 60% of them aviation, then in 1973 the factor of surprise was on the side of the Egyptian-Syrian troops. The Israeli Air Force failed to seize air supremacy and defeat the Syrian Air Force and Air Defense.
The S-75 and S-125 anti-aircraft missile systems and their modifications successfully proved themselves in combat operations. In the 1980s, despite the relatively infrequent use, the S-200 air defense system proved to be excellent. Analysis of hostilities in 1982-1983. showed that in those cases where there were no differences in the professional training of the personnel of the warring parties and reliable air defense of the troops was ensured, as well as the proper use of weapons, Soviet-made military equipment surpassed similar equipment from the USA, England and other countries. Foreign experts also highly appreciated the high efficiency of Soviet anti-aircraft missile weapons, which predetermined in the West the need for further improvement of means and methods of confrontation with air defense systems.
The former head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, General of the Army M. A. Moiseev, noted in his report at the scientific and practical conference “Experience and Lessons of the October War in the Middle East” that the presence of Soviet specialists at the control panels of the Syrian air defense system led to quite significant losses of the Israeli aviation and the cessation of raids on Damascus. A direct eyewitness to the events, a Russian Arabist, at that time a staff correspondent of Pravda, A. M. Vasiliev, wrote about this in his memoirs.
War trophies
In mid-December 1973, the military attaché office at the USSR Embassy in Syria, together with officers from the Group of Military Specialists, organized the shipment to the USSR of the wreckage of Israeli aircraft shot down by Soviet missiles during the hostilities. The remains in the form of crumpled beams, shapeless pieces of the fuselage and wings, broken mechanisms and assemblies temporarily rested in the economic block at the old club of the State Committee for Economic Relations of the USSR (GKES), located next to the El-Fardus mosque on At-Tahrir Square, and then were sent by air to the Soviet Union.
General results of combat work
In terms of scale, the war in October 1973 was local in nature, however, all types of armed forces participated in the hostilities, both sides used modern weapons and equipment in large numbers, and some new tactics were used on the battlefield. When organizing air defense facilities in the ARE and SAR, all the experience accumulated by the ZRV during the years of the Vietnam War and during the conduct of hostilities in the Middle East in 1969-1970 was taken into account. To cover the most important administrative, political and economic centers, aviation and transport infrastructure facilities, and military facilities in the depths of the country, a group of ground forces concentrated in the Golan Heights region, a group of mixed anti-aircraft missile forces was created. The course of events confirmed the high efficiency, noise immunity and survivability of the created groups of anti-aircraft missile forces. Unlike the Air Defense Forces of the USSR, where there was a regimental structure (zrp), the air defense forces of Syria and Egypt organizationally consisted of anti-aircraft missile brigades (zrb), which included 4-8 fire and 1-2 technical divisions and were armed with Soviet anti-aircraft missile systems of various types and modifications - this was not at all dictated by the lack of new equipment, and by no means the desire to supply obsolete equipment - this was due to the different tactical and technical characteristics of the air defense systems themselves, since the variety ensured the all-altitude firing system and increased their noise immunity. The firing divisions were deployed in close combat formations at reduced intervals (8-15 km from each other), providing multiple layers of fire and mutual cover from enemy air strikes. With the outbreak of hostilities, Israeli aviation tried to suppress the air defense of Syria by delivering massive strikes on fighter airfields and anti-aircraft missile forces. She failed to do this, during the hostilities, the ZRV successfully completed the task of covering the ground forces, airfields, political and administrative centers and other important facilities, and it is the ZRV that accounts for most of the downed Israeli aircraft. In general, as Army General M.A. Gareev, President of the Academy of Military Sciences of Russia, notes, the 1973 war showed the increased combat power of the Arab countries, which convincingly testified to the effectiveness of Soviet assistance in general and the work of Soviet advisers and specialists. Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas, summing up the interim results of the work of Soviet specialists in 1976 , said during an official meeting with Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR A.N. Kosygin that he highly appreciates their work, and thanks them from the bottom of his heart for the efforts they made to increase the combat readiness of the troops and for the huge contribution to strengthening friendship between the Soviet and the Syrian peoples, and asked the Minister of Defense of the USSR D.F. Ustinov to continue to send military advisers and specialists to work in the Syrian troops.
War of attrition (1973-1974)
Both Syria and Egypt and Israel, after the Yom Kippur War, were busy preparing for the inevitable resumption of hostilities. During 1973, organizational measures were carried out in the troops and air defense forces of Syria, which made it possible to increase the fire capabilities of units and subunits. Thus, the air defense of the division was significantly increased, which was facilitated by the inclusion of the Strela-2 and Strela-2M MANPADS in the infantry and tank brigades, and the ZSU-23-4 Shilka in the tank brigades of the tank division. However, much of what was planned remained unfinished. Thus, only the first stage of the training of the Shilka and Strela-2 personnel was completed. Nevertheless, the level of training of the Syrian air defense forces was generally assessed as satisfactory. As a result of the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, shortcomings in the preparation of the SAR Air Force were revealed: There was an excessive centralization of control and, as a result, insufficient trust in the commanders of air brigade. The flight crew often moved from unit to unit, as a result of which there were no permanent combat crews in the squadrons, especially in the flight and in pairs. The commanders, flight personnel and crews of command posts had little knowledge of the characteristics of the enemy. Possessing good piloting skills, the Syrian pilots had unsatisfactory tactical, and many firearms training - all this had to be corrected in the very near future by the forces of Soviet military aviation advisers.
Further events were not long in coming. CIA director W. Colby had been predicting a Syrian-Israeli war as early as 1975. According to the CIA, at the disposal of the Soviet command in Syria were specialists and an anti-aircraft missile regiment equipped with the Kvadrat air defense system, stationed near Damascus and including five anti-aircraft missile batteries, and five hundred personnel. American intelligence was not mistaken - it was the 716th anti-aircraft missile regiment of the 24th rifle division, deployed in the suburbs of Damascus with the task of covering it (the regiment commander was Lieutenant Colonel V. A. Starun). The regiment arrived in Syria by sea and was still unloading at the start of the war. He did not take part in the hostilities, since the sea route from the USSR to Syria, unloading at the port of Latakia, and transfer to Damascus took a long time. By the time the regiment turned around and coordinated the interaction of divisions, the intensity of Israeli air raids dropped sharply due to large losses in the fleet at the front. But the regiment is significant in that it was the first combat formation of the USSR Armed Forces with full-time Soviet equipment and Soviet personnel sent to participate in hostilities in Syria (besides it, in the period 1973-1974, there was also a ground-based electronic warfare group 100 in Syria th separate reconnaissance squadron, which was periodically located at the Blay military airfield). The regiment stood in positions near Damascus until the end of 1974. And then the equipment was handed over to the local side, and the Soviet officers and soldiers, who were awarded the orders "For Courage" or "Sixth of October" by the Syrians, departed for their homeland. In general, CIA analysts did not consider the Syrian Army a serious military force, and assumed its imminent defeat, in connection with which they needed to predict the potential reaction of the USSR. The USSR, according to their information, had no pre-prepared plans for the equipment supplied to Syria, however, it was possible that the Soviet military would also sit behind the levers of the equipment already delivered.
War of Attrition 1973-1974 deployed along the entire Syrian-Israeli front, but the most dangerous direction, for the protection of which most of the SAR Armed Forces were involved, was on the Golan Heights and in the Jebel Sheikh region. Syrian pilots showed a high degree of training in the war of attrition and successfully fought against Israeli aircraft - a great merit in this belonged to the senior adviser to the commander of the Air Force and Air Defense of the SAR, Major General K. A. Ryabov, who, together with other military advisers and instructors, prepared the Syrian squadrons taught them the art of air combat. Under his leadership, a technology was developed and implemented for the accelerated execution of routine maintenance on new types of aircraft and launchers of anti-aircraft missile systems, as a result of which the time for routine maintenance was reduced by one and a half times, the coefficient of technical readiness of aircraft and air defense systems reached 0.95. As Lieutenant General M. N. Tereshchenko notes, for the most part, it was thanks to the disinterested assistance of the Soviet Union and the impeccable work of military advisers and specialists in Syria that the losses of the ATS Armed Forces were quickly replenished after the war of 1973-1974, not only the quantitative, but also the qualitative level of combat capabilities of the ATS Armed Forces.
In the period after the end of the active phase of hostilities, the enemy used flights of high-altitude unmanned reconnaissance aircraft of the BQM-34A and BQM-147F types, as well as small-sized unmanned aircraft MQM-74A, launched from ground-based launchers located in the immediate vicinity of the ceasefire line, which greatly hampered their timely detection and destruction.
Portable anti-aircraft missile systems "Strela-2", the use of which began in 1969, received a positive assessment as a means of covering troops
A positive assessment as a means of covering anti-aircraft missile divisions was received by the Strela-2 man-portable anti-aircraft missile systems. The experience of their combat use has shown that they are an effective weapon in the fight against air targets at altitudes below 1 thousand meters. Timely fire on aircraft by arrows sharply reduced the accuracy of bombing and forced enemy aircraft to increase their flight altitude. The battle formations of the squads armed with this complex were built with the location of several anti-aircraft gunners in one position for salvo fire. At the same time, better results were achieved when using them as part of units from a platoon to a battalion, the use of complexes in a single order led only to rare shelling of individual targets. The positions of MANPADS were located at a distance of 4-6 km from the starting positions of the anti-aircraft missile battalion and up to 12 km during separation. During the fighting, it was revealed that enemy aircraft, as a rule, were shot down by two or more direct hits, in order to ensure the shelling of air targets simultaneously from two directions, the intervals between squads were set at 1.5-2 km. Reconnaissance of an air enemy in the combat formations of a platoon was organized by a system of visual observation by specially designated shooters. The use of Strela-2 MANPADS in combination with anti-aircraft artillery significantly increased the effectiveness of anti-aircraft cover at low altitudes. Enemy aviation was forced to master new methods of protection against MANPADS, during the fighting in Syria in April - May 1974, the use of heat traps by Israeli aircraft in order to protect against MANPADS was noted. Anti-aircraft artillery, anti-aircraft machine guns and portable anti-aircraft missile systems designed to cover anti-aircraft missile divisions were not included in their staff, but were temporarily attached to anti-aircraft missile brigades and divisions. The combat crews usually had two or three shifts of personnel, which ensured the continuity of combat duty with a high constant degree of readiness.
On June 5, 1974, the fierce artillery duels that lasted seven months, to the roar of which everyone had long been accustomed, suddenly, as if on cue, subsided along the entire front at exactly 13:55. The silence that hung over the front, according to M.V. Razinkov, unusually pressed on the ears. But everyone understood that this silence, which would officially come into its own in five minutes, would be the silence of the achieved truce. Israel liberated part of the occupied territory of Syria (more than 600 sq. km) and left the destroyed city of El Quneitra. Together with the Syrian command, Soviet military advisers analyzed the course of the confrontation. The experience of military operations led to the conclusion that it was necessary to revise the organizational and staffing structure of the SAR and the Navy of the SAR in order to make the formations more compact and increase their firepower. The system of mobilization readiness needed a radical improvement - it was necessary to organize a reserve prepared in advance and quickly collect it in the event that tension escalated into a new military conflict; the same applied to reserves of military equipment and ammunition. The implementation of these important tasks was entrusted to the advisers, and their colossal contribution to strengthening the defense capability of Syria was noted.
Military Observer Mission (1974-1975)
On June 1, 1974, the UN Security Council approved a draft resolution proposed by the Soviet Union and the United States, which called for the immediate creation of a UN Force to observe the separation of the Syrian Armed Forces and the Israel Defense Forces (UNDOF). It was noted that the force would operate under the direction of the Security Council for six months; their term of office may be extended by decision of the Council. Force strength was set at about 1,250 men, drawn from UN contingents already in the Middle East and provided by countries that were not permanent members of the Security Council. On November 30, 1973, a second group of 80 selected officers arrived in Cairo to participate in a peacekeeping operation (PMO) under the command of the former deputy commander of the 4th Guards Tank Division, Colonel N. F. Belik. The operation has already been carried out by decision of the UN Security Council. The quota of the Soviet mission was reduced to 36 observers (300 observers from 18 countries of the world under the command of Lieutenant General of the Armed Forces of Finland E. Silasvio were already allocated as part of the UN troops), since the Emergency Armed Forces (UNEF) already had 36 people from Swedes and Americans. 36 Soviet officers were divided into two groups, one of which, where Major V. Marenko was appointed senior, was seconded to Syria, to the Golan Heights region. Thus began the participation of the USSR in UN peacekeeping operations. Soviet military observers (UN SVN) received the task of checking the situation on the contact lines of the Egyptian, Syrian and Israeli troops. As one of the veteran peacekeepers A. Isaenko said, the first Soviet observers included those who spoke English, French, had previously participated in hostilities and had awards. They had to acquire new skills and abilities on the spot. It is characteristic that for many years the cooperation of Soviet military observers with representatives of other countries was deliberately limited for ideological and political reasons. So, for example, upon returning from a business trip in November 1975, Colonel Belik was severely reprimanded at the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces for not forbidding his subordinates to accept medals "In the Service of Peace" (Eng. UNDOF Medal) from UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim for conscientious service under the peacekeeping flag. Barriers of restrictions were removed in Russian time.
Interwar tensions (1978-1982)
In 1976, after Syria intervened in the Lebanese crisis, there was some cooling of interstate relations between the Soviet Union and Syria. As the Chief Military Adviser - Adviser to the Minister of National Defense of Syria, Lieutenant-General M.I. Tereshchenko, recalled, when Syrian troops as part of the Inter-Arab Security Forces (MASB) entered Lebanon, the Soviet Union, which did not approve of this intervention, temporarily suspended the supply of weapons. The USSR Ministry of Defense decided to reduce the number of military specialists and increase the reimbursement rates for the costs of their assignment. This affected the mood of the Syrian army and their attitude towards the Soviet Union not in the best way, but nevertheless, the USSR made it clear that it would not provide assistance in the military operations of the Syrian side, unless they were a response to the Israeli invasion.
In January 1979, the Muslim Brotherhood party, which repeatedly tried to overthrow the regime of Hafez al-Assad through terrorist attacks and armed demonstrations and had been waging a fierce struggle against the Syrian government, the Armed Forces of the SAR and government military intelligence (mukhabarat) for three years, began to fight with representatives of the Soviet Union. In December 1979, after the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, with the filing and with the active support of the US State Department, a reaction began in the Arab world, which reached the Soviet civilian and military specialists located in the Middle East, and others joined in terrorist activities against Soviet citizens. radical Islamist organizations - in the late 1970s - 1980s. A wave of terrorist attacks swept across Syria, during which several dozen Soviet military specialists who were on a business trip were injured. In the aggravated situation, the Syrian authorities were forced to organize round-the-clock protection of the apartments of citizens of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, each specialist was given a personal weapon. A month later, the situation escalated to the limit. An active struggle against Soviet specialists unfolded first in Aleppo, then in Homs, and by autumn, cases of armed attacks and murders were also recorded in Damascus.
situation in Damascus. Terrorist acts against Soviet citizens
According to Lieutenant Colonel V. A. Dudchenko, the situation in Damascus was very alarming, in early 1980, when he arrived in Damascus, Soviet specialists were regularly fired upon, prohibitions on entering the city were categorical, due to the fact that Islamic extremist organizations sharply intensified their activity. There were explosions in the Al-Hamediyya market. Here and there, terrorists killed Soviet military specialists. Not a week passed without the Soviet embassy and the office of the Chief Military Adviser not being puzzled by sending dead specialists or their wives to the Union. The Syrian secret services, together with the employees of the Soviet military counterintelligence, worked hand in hand to, if not find, then at least prevent Islamic terrorists from carrying out regular bloody actions. All Soviet military specialists and members of their families were strictly forbidden by the Chief Military Adviser, Lieutenant-General V. Budakov, to appear on the streets of Damascus alone. Only groups accompanied by guards were allowed to go to the market and shops. By that time, the weapons had been handed over to the arsenals, and Soviet officers armed themselves unofficially, borrowing small arms (Kalashnikovs) from their Syrian colleagues for the duration of their trips. Front and rear, the cars of the Soviet military were to be accompanied by guards on off-road vehicles (Land Rover). The regular change of routes to the place of service and the need to maneuver along different streets in order to throw off possible surveillance became routine operational measures to ensure the security of the military-advisory contingent, dictated by everyday necessity - G. P. Yashkin in his memoirs reports that from the beginning . 1980s the solution by him and his subordinates of far from simple tasks took place in the conditions of armed clashes with opponents of the H. Assad regime. Losses were borne both by civilian specialists from the USSR and socialist countries who were involved in the creation of the Syrian industrial infrastructure and agriculture, and by the Group of Soviet military specialists. In the city of Hama, on the way of military specialists to the airfield, an ambush was organized, during which four Soviet officers were shot. Some time later, the headquarters of the Air Force and Air Defense was blown up in Damascus, about a hundred Syrians were killed, many were wounded, including six advisers, in particular, Major General N. Glagolev, adviser to the chief of staff of the Air Force and Air Defense. And further, the successful activities of Soviet military advisers in Syria attracted the close attention of the enemies of President Assad. In the summer-autumn of 1981, in Damascus, terrorists blew up the residence of the Council of Ministers of Syria and the TASS office. By the fall of 1981, they began to openly hunt for the Soviet military. General Yashkin was assassinated twice in a year on the routes of his car in Damascus, which was fired upon by snipers, and Yashkin himself later wrote that he was simply lucky to survive. On October 4, 1981, Western agents attempted to protect the building where the Headquarters of the Chief Military Adviser was located and the families of other advisers lived, the so-called "Blue House". During the attack, a sentry was seriously wounded. On October 5, terrorists belonging to one of the Islamist groups shot the Syrian guards from a machine gun and rushed to the official territory of the town. When the Suzuki, filled with 250 kilograms of explosives, approached his post, he managed to shout to two little girls who were playing nearby to run faster into the house, meanwhile he himself took the fight. With aimed fire, Alexei destroyed the driver and the suicide bomber, but at the same time he himself was injured. It turned out that there was a sniper on the roof of a neighboring house covering the terrorists' operation. He mortally wounded Alexei. As a result, the building was blown up. Thanks to the selfless actions of Terichev, it was possible to significantly reduce the damaging effect of the blast wave for the families of Soviet specialists who were in the building. As a result of the explosion, five more people were killed and about two hundred were injured, twenty-three of them were seriously injured, General Yashkin was shell-shocked. Under those conditions, the general decided to remove Soviet advisers and specialists from the Syrian divisions and brigades participating in the hostilities, and concentrated them in Damascus.
Working in a complex political environment in Lebanon
A road sign installed by members of the "Party of Allah" movement at the entrance to their territory, warning all non-believers of the danger that threatens them when crossing this conditional border
The tense situation in Lebanon forced Soviet specialists to work in life-threatening conditions. Soviet specialists in Lebanon had to operate in a difficult socio-political situation, since, in addition to the friendly national liberation movements and the Syrian Armed Forces that helped them, as well as the Army of South Lebanon created and financed by Israel, which opposed them, there was also a third side - Islamic fundamentalists, who saw the enemy in any foreigner who was on Lebanese soil, and were ready to immediately execute anyone who fell into their hands. Often, during the visits of Soviet specialists to units scattered throughout the country, incidents occurred. So, once two Soviet advisers on the technical side, after their Syrian adviser half-awake refused to go to an urgent emergency call and repair equipment, were forced to travel by passing transport. They were picked up by a car in which, as it turned out later, there were militants from one of the Islamist groups. The officers were taken away to an unknown destination, and three days later they were exchanged for eleven terrorists who had been arrested earlier. In another case, the terrorists, inopportunely found themselves nearby, wanted to shoot two Soviet specialists. They were saved by a mullah who let the officers into the mosque and locked the doors. No one dared to desecrate the holy place with weapons. Senior Lieutenant S. O. Akopov and two of his colleagues were captured by the militants of the pro-Iranian movement "Party of Allah", who captured them right on the road and were about to shoot them, and only the timely arrival of their spiritual leader, Imam Usmat, and the ingenuity of Akopov himself, to perfection who spoke Arabic, which allowed him to explain to the dignitary and his entourage that they, Soviet specialists who had come to fight Zionism and American imperialism, were able to save them from thoughtless reprisals. The imam chastised his unreasonable subordinates, ordering the release of the Soviet military, motivating this, in particular, by the fact that: “The Syrian army will comb the entire Bekaa valley for these guys.”
After such incidents, the decision to reduce the number of Soviet specialists looked quite reasonable. All specialists were gathered at divisional directorates and from there they were sent to units and subunits as needed.
Meanwhile, preparations for an invasion of Lebanon were already in full swing in Israel. The attack on Lebanon was motivated by the Israeli leadership by the fact that, in their opinion, the legitimate government of Lebanon was not able to independently control the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Inter-Arab security forces, and the territory of Lebanon became a springboard for actions against Israel. Already in April 1981, Israeli aircraft began to strike at the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and the positions of the Syrian troops, in connection with which the question arose of their cover.
Lebanese War (1982)
There were no regular Soviet units on the territory of Lebanon, however, the Syrian units stationed here had a significant number of Soviet military advisers and specialists who were directly involved in the hostilities.
In the second half of April 1981, a mixed anti-aircraft missile brigade, two anti-aircraft artillery regiments, two radio-technical battalions and two electronic warfare battalions were introduced into the territory of Lebanon and secretly dispersed. According to G.P. Yashkin, the result was achieved in the very near future - 4 Israeli aircraft were shot down: three F-16s and one F-15, and the task assigned to the Soviet anti-aircraft gunners was achieved: raids on the positions of the Syrian troops ceased.
Syrian-protected Lebanese territory (highlighted in scarlet); Proposed deployment of Soviet air defense systems in the Bekaa Valley (highlighted in bright red). Submitted by USAF Major D. I. Clary
In the current situation (rather complicated and unpredictable), Moscow took an unprecedented step - it signed an agreement with Damascus in October 1980, one of the clauses of which read: "If a third party invades the territory of Syria, then the Soviet Union will be involved in events." The third side was not named, but it meant Israel, the United States and NATO countries. Nevertheless, Damascus was firmly promised that in the near future, Syria would be able to independently, "without the support of the Arab countries", resist any enemy in the region and conduct military operations. This, of course, required colossal deliveries of Soviet military equipment to the country, and on preferential terms. This agreement, according to the candidate of historical sciences V. A. Yaremenko, largely cooled the ardor of Israeli generals, who during the Lebanese war of 1982 repeatedly proposed to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to “punish” Syria for the support provided to the Palestinians by a demonstrative invasion of its territory surrounded by Damascus
On April 8, 1982, when the troops of the 40th Army in Afghanistan were already involved in hostilities against the Mujahideen, in Syria, the following cipher telegram arrived from Moscow informing the USSR Ambassador to Syria V. V. Yukhin and the Chief Military Adviser G. P. Yashkin about adoption of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU of Resolution No. 723 of April 8, 1982, signed by L. I. Brezhnev, which stated that in order to support the regime of H. Assad in the fight against anti-government protests within the country and the Arab reaction, it was considered expedient not to link an agreement on the deployment of Soviet military personnel with an agreement on the supply of special equipment, which literally meant that a large combined arms contingent would not be sent to Syria. According to G.P. Yashkin, after reading this message, he breathed a sigh of relief, since by joint efforts he and V. Yukhin managed to prevent a larger-scale involvement of the USSR in the Middle East conflict: “There will be no second Afghanistan now ...”, he concluded then.
Officers of the 231st anti-aircraft missile regiment behind the ZU-23-2 levers are watching an air enemy in the sky over Syria
As expected, on June 5, 1982, the Israelis launched Operation Peace for Galilee. The fifth Arab-Israeli war broke out. The operational-strategic leadership of the Syrian troops was carried out with the direct participation of Soviet military advisers in the central apparatus of the SAR Ministry of Defense and in close contact with the Syrian leadership. G. P. Yashkin, characterizing his subordinates, especially noted that, together with their sub-Soviet, many of them demonstrated examples of courage, heroism and courage during the fighting. On one of the first days of the war, an adviser to the commander of the troops in Lebanon, Major General M.P. Nosenko, proposed the creation of mobile anti-tank units armed with Soviet Fagot ATGMs in mechanized brigades, the proposal was approved by Marshal S. L. Sokolov, First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR. On the second day, 120 ATGMs and 6 sets of ammunition for them were delivered by special flights to Syria. Anti-tank platoons on all-terrain vehicles were created in the mechanized brigades of the 1st and 3rd tank divisions and in the newly created 10th mechanized division. In several days of fighting, they burned more than 150 Israeli tanks. Only one 21st mechanized brigade of the 3rd Panzer Division in the battles on the outskirts of the Damascus Plateau destroyed 59 enemy combat vehicles. And on July 20, in the battles for holding the Beirut-Damascus highway, on the outskirts of the command post of General Birogdar, the enemy landed a tactical assault force. Part of it leaked in the direction of General Nosenko's control cell. A control cell consisting of five Soviet and three Syrian officers, two crews of radio stations entered the fray. For about an hour, the group repulsed the onslaught of the Israelis until a tank company approached. Together, the Israelites were destroyed. In this battle, sergeants N. Yumatov, V. Viktorov and two Syrian officers were killed. MP Nosenko was also wounded. When leaving the encirclement near Bhamdun, the adviser to the commander of the 21st mechanized brigade of the 1st tank division, Lieutenant Colonel L. Prokopiev, was seriously wounded. He was in danger and could be captured. Syrian soldiers Ibrahim Sayad and Mustafa Saleh, under Israeli fire, dragged him to their positions for about a kilometer, despite their own injuries. Exhausted, they were picked up by a car of the national-patriotic forces of Lebanon and taken to a field hospital. Arab surgeons fought for the life of the Soviet officer during the night, and they managed to save him.
General characteristics of the combat use of armored forces
During the Fifth Arab-Israeli War of 1982, in the first two days of fighting, the Israelis were opposed only by the Palestinian brigades "Ain Jalut", "Khatyn" and "El Qadissia", armed with T-34 and T-54 tanks. The main forces of the Syrian group in Lebanon - three divisions in the first echelon and two in the second - were in spare areas by the beginning of the Israeli offensive. Only covering forces remained in the defense zone, as well as decoys - inflatable tanks, camouflaged to match the color of the terrain, guns and anti-aircraft missile launchers, covered with metallic paint and equipped with thermal emitters that simulate the operation of engines. Therefore, the first Israeli air and artillery strike before forcing the Zahrani River fell, practically, from scratch (the role of Israeli aviation in this matter was decisive - almost 75% of the losses of Syrian tanks happened as a result of strikes with high-precision aviation ammunition). The main tank battle unfolded on the morning of June 9: during the night, Syrian troops advanced from the reserve areas and occupied pre-equipped defensive zones. At dawn, four Israeli divisions on a front more than 100 km wide - from the Mediterranean coast to the mountainous regions of Harmon - moved on the enemy. About 3,000 tanks and infantry fighting vehicles participated in the battle on both sides. The battle lasted all day and did not bring clear success to any of the opponents. On the night of June 9-10, the Syrians carried out a powerful artillery counterattack on the advanced positions of the enemy, and at dawn the Syrian barrage of fire hit the second echelon of the Israelis. On June 10, their offensive was suspended, however, by June 13, the Israeli army reached Beirut and completely completed its encirclement.
The tank battles of the Fifth Arab-Israeli War of 1982 began, as a rule, at ranges of 1500-2000 m and ended at the line of rapprochement up to 1000 m. According to Colonel General G.P. Yashkin, who personally took part in directing the fighting in Lebanon, T-72 tanks showed their complete superiority over enemy armored vehicles. Greater mobility, better security and high firepower of these vehicles affected. So, after the battle, in the frontal sheets of some T-72s, there were up to ten dents from shells, nevertheless, the tanks remained combat-ready and did not leave the battlefield. At the same time, 125-mm shells from Soviet tank guns confidently hit enemy vehicles head-on at ranges up to 1,500 meters. So, according to one of the eyewitnesses - a Soviet officer who is in the combat formations of the Syrian troops - after a D-81TM cannon projectile hit a Merkava tank from a distance of approximately 1200 m, the latter's turret was torn off its shoulder strap.
"Split tracks gnashed in pain. We burned like in a furnace - the crew of the Merkava"- wrote the Israeli poet, Member of the Writers' Union of Israel Boris Eskin. The first combat use of the Merkava took place in Lebanon. 7 vehicles of this type were destroyed in the battles
During the fighting in Lebanon in 1982, almost 75% of Syrian tanks were hit by high-precision aircraft munitions. The experience of combat operations showed that the transported anti-aircraft missile systems and radar stations, due to their low mobility, were a desirable target for the enemy. In particular, during the operation "Artsav-19" on June 7-11, 1982, sudden rocket and artillery strikes, ground-to-ground missiles, as well as long-range and rocket artillery fire, which used ball and cluster munitions with infrared and laser guidance. To detect anti-aircraft missile divisions, Israeli aviation used decoy simulators and UAVs with television cameras on board. As a rule, the aircraft did not enter the zone of destruction of the air defense system, but delivered strikes from a long range using high-precision guided or homing missiles. Soon, however, thanks to the specialists of the Soviet defense industry, control interceptions of Israeli missiles with a television guidance system and UAVs began to be carried out. One unmanned aerial vehicle was even landed in the yard near the Headquarters of the Chief Military Adviser.
Countermeasures against enemy air attack and reconnaissance means
The Israelis actively used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) IAI Scout, Ryan Firebee, Tadiran Mastiff (pictured) for reconnaissance, target designation and further destruction of the starting positions of Soviet air defense systems
After the main hostilities on the ground ended and the negotiation process began, Israeli military aircraft continued to strike at the positions of the Syrian troops. They were rebuffed by the SAR air defense forces controlled by Soviet military specialists.
Israel widely used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), both to open the Syrian air defense system and as decoys: Along with electronic countermeasures, against the Osa-AK air defense system deployed in southern Lebanon, Israel used a variety to reduce the combat capability of the complex, in particular, the mass launch of UAVs simulating a raid by combat aircraft, followed by an attack by strike aircraft on positions that have used up the ammunition load of the air defense system. Destroyed military equipment was promptly replaced by new arriving parties. At the same time, as Prof. R. E. Kanet, the Soviet Union did not just replace the destroyed and out of order equipment, it sent the necessary number of specialists in order to have someone to sit down at the levers of this latest technology.
The use of repeaters on balloons in the interests of fighter aircraft
Syrian pilots from the Doumeira airbase often flew to the Bekaa Valley area. However, as soon as they went behind the mountain range, communication with them was lost, which actually put air operations in jeopardy. In the early 1980s the Soviet military leadership already knew quite well about the capabilities of aeronautical equipment. Repeaters "Vyp-P" on tethered balloons, used on the border with Afghanistan to communicate with air squadrons going abroad, have successfully proven themselves in the course of hostilities. The head of the Aeronautical Service of the USSR Air Force, Major General V. Zhevagin, proposed using the already tested method of raising the repeater on a balloon to eliminate "dead zones" in providing communications in Syria as well. In one of the abandoned caponiers, an artificial pond was built to produce hydrogen for the AZ-55 balloons (the Syrians called it "khabir balloon"). Every morning, such a balloon rose into the sky along with the Vyn-P repeater, and as a result, a stable connection with aircraft appeared. Losses from the fire of the Israelis were reduced to almost zero. Due to unusual climatic conditions, it was not without incident. One day, unexpectedly for everyone, the balloon exploded in the air at an altitude of more than two kilometers. The opened shell played the role of a parachute, and the repeater smoothly sank to the ground - only one antenna was bent. The investigation of this incident showed that the cause of the explosion was high temperature and solar radiation, which affected the strength of the cylinder seams.
The 1982 Lebanon War showed that Syrian fighter pilots were "dazzled" and disoriented by Israeli electronic countermeasures. Without communication with ground control points, the Syrian pilots were completely unaware of the air and ground situation.
As in most such cases, estimates of the results and losses of aircraft vary significantly. Israel announced 30 destroyed anti-aircraft missile systems and more than 80 enemy aircraft shot down, with the loss of only one attack aircraft (and shot down not by the Syrian army, but by Palestinian militants). The estimates given by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) were somewhat different, for example, on June 9, 1982, on the day of the culmination of the confrontation between the Syrian air defense and the Israeli Air Force, SANA reported that Syrian aircraft lost 14 aircraft, with 19 shot down Israeli. American sources, including an analytical report prepared by the Rand Corporation for the US Air Force command, support the Israeli data, and accuse the Syrian and Soviet media of systematic falsification of reports. Despite the huge number of reports of downed aircraft, and the fact that most of the clashes took place over the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley, the Syrian side did not provide any material evidence of even one aerial victory.
The work of specialists in electronic intelligence
The head of the EW Department of the Armed Forces of the SAR, Division General S. A. el Ashram highly appreciated the results of the work of the TsNII-108 group of specialists, set it as an example to others and signed a farewell letter of thanks, in which, naming everyone by name, noted the fulfillment of the assigned special task
After analyzing the experience of hostilities in 1982, the USSR came to the conclusion that it was necessary to intensify work on the front of electronic warfare, in particular, the suppression of Israeli radar equipment and the equipping of Syrian aviation with infrared countermeasures. A group of Soviet military specialists in electronic intelligence (RTR) led by researcher TsNII-108 E.K. Kireev and engineers B.V. Khlopov and N.I. Mirovoy, later an employee of the Voronezh military TsNIIII-5 lieutenant colonel joined the work of the group V. I. Saltaganov, was sent to Syria in the second half of August 1982 to study the radar equipment of the American E-2C Hawkeye aircraft. With the help of this system, the Israeli Air Force destroyed about ten Shilka self-propelled anti-aircraft guns in just one air attack. All of them were destroyed during a combat operation carried out according to a typical scenario, using electronic warfare. From the side of Israel, chaffs were thrown, and the clouds they created imitated the appearance of a massive Israeli air raid. The Syrian command gave the order to include in the combat mode the radars of all air defense systems. The raid did not follow. But an Israeli aircraft with E-2C Hawkeye radar reconnaissance equipment, flying at a long distance from Syrian air defense systems, established the position of objects, including the Shilok, which also worked on radiation. After that, fighter-bombers with AGM-45 Shrike homing missiles and AGM-62 Walleye guided bombs on board took off and carried out a missile and bomb attack on them. The destruction of the Shilok dealt a tangible blow to the prestige of Soviet air defense systems. It was urgently necessary to understand the principle of operation of this radar system and find ways to neutralize it or counter it. The group's studies were conducted from August 26 to October 20, 1982. As a result, the operating frequency range of Hawkeye, the parameters of the emitted signals, and more were identified, which made it possible to develop new methods and ways to increase the survivability of air defense systems and the efficiency of their use.
Operation Kavkaz-2 (1982-1983)
In the current situation, Syria expected from the USSR an increase in assistance in proportion to the threat that had arisen. At first, the USSR limited itself to only increasing technical assistance, but intensive preparatory measures were underway in the USSR itself. On the basis of Decree of the Government of the USSR No. 897-246 of September 28, 1982 and Directive of the USSR Ministry of Defense No. 312/4/00836 of November 25, 1982, on the basis of units of the Moscow Air Defense District, the formation of two long-range anti-aircraft missile regiments of the S- 200. At the end of October 1982, the USSR Ambassador V. V. Yukhin and the chief military adviser G. Yashkin were summoned to Moscow. After reports on the current situation, the Syrian leadership was invited to Moscow, and a new stage began in Soviet-Syrian military cooperation. At the same time, in October, during the Moscow talks between Syrian President H. Assad and Politburo member Yu. V. Andropov, a decision was made on the direct military participation of the USSR in the conflict. The decision on the transfer of air defense forces to the SAR was entrusted to General V. M. Kraskovsky, and on the part of the Ministry of the Navy of the USSR - to Deputy Minister V. S. Zborashchenko. In early January 1983, under the legend of conducting military exercises "Kavkaz-2", an eight thousandth contingent of Soviet troops was sent to Syria - the Soviet Union actually took over the protection of Syrian airspace. The contingent included two anti-aircraft missile regiments armed with S-200VE ultra-long-range systems (this was the first delivery of the S-200 missile system outside the Soviet Union), a missile base, as well as helicopter and ground electronic warfare units. Sending occurred from the port of the city of Nikolaev. Having repainted the equipment in the color of the desert, it was loaded onto ships. On January 10, 1983, in the strictest secrecy, the 220th regiment arrived at the port of Tartus. Under the cover of Syrian troops, a convoy with Soviet troops arrived at the place of deployment near the city of Dumeir, 40 km west of Damascus. When entering Soviet air defense units into Syria, Soviet servicemen were ordered to forget about military ranks and military uniforms. The entire contingent arrived in the country secretly under the guise of tourists. A month later, in February, a second caravan of ships arrived in Syria, carrying the 231st anti-aircraft missile regiment. The 220th regiment provided cover and protection for the 231st regiment during unloading at the port, moving to the city of Homs and deploying on combat duty 5 km east of the city. Other military units soon arrived: a technical regiment, an EW helicopter squadron, and ground-based EW units. The closed military camps, in which the anti-aircraft missile regiments were located, were very well guarded, it was practically impossible to get there without permission. The units were directly subordinate to the commander of the Air Force and Air Defense Forces of the SAR. Only he could give the command to use the S-200, which the Syrians called "the weapon of the president."
Electronic warfare units were deployed on the Golan Plateau and in the Bekaa Valley and further proved themselves well in terms of successful combat use. The main task of the anti-aircraft missile regiments was to stop violations of the SAR air borders. This fettered the hands of the Israelis, making the outbreak of mass hostilities less and less likely. Regular Soviet units were not introduced into Lebanese territory, but there were numerous advisers in the Syrian units and subunits who took an active part in the hostilities. Israel immediately became aware of the appearance of Soviet anti-aircraft missile regiments, which banned the flights of its aircraft in a 250-kilometer radius of effective destruction. The appearance of these air defense systems in Syria immediately forced the Americans to relocate their aircraft carriers and other warships to a considerable distance from the Syrian coast, and led to a reduction in violations of Syrian air borders by Israeli aircraft, and early warning and control aircraft (AWACS) generally began to fly only over the Mediterranean by sea. “Now, we are protected by the paw of the Soviet bear,” the Vice-President of the SAR, A. Kh. Khaddam, later commented with satisfaction on the arrival of Soviet anti-aircraft missile regiments.
Having a range of over 180 km and capable of destroying Israeli aircraft even on approach to Syrian airspace in Israel and on the coast of Lebanon, the S-200 complex had not been exported outside the USSR before, and posed a serious problem for Israeli and American E-2 AWACS aircraft Hawkeye and E-767, at the same time, the fact that the S-200 systems were serviced by the Soviet, and not the Syrian military, was a very powerful deterrent for Israel. in the newspaper New York Times a number of publications were published, in particular by Judith Miller and R. W. Apple Jr., that the Soviet units armed with the S-200 were not accountable to the Syrian leadership and were directly subordinate to Moscow.
Colonel General V. M. Kraskovsky reports that in order to coordinate issues related to the participation of Soviet forces and means, two operational groups were created in Syria. The task force in the Main Command was headed by the Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Colonel General of Aviation B.V. Bochkov, in Damascus - by Lieutenant General K.S. Babenko. General V. M. Kraskovsky himself was appointed Deputy General B.V. Bochkov. His functions included constant communication with General Babenko and direct leadership of a group to develop recommendations for the Soviet air defense forces in Syria to repel a possible air strike. As Doctor of Military Sciences, Professor, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation Major General V.D. Ryabchuk and Candidate of Military Sciences Colonel V.I. Nichipor note, even the most powerful American weapons did not help Israel avoid defeat in Lebanon.
Colonel I. I. Teterev, who commanded the 220th anti-aircraft missile regiment in Syria, noted that while performing the combat mission of providing international assistance to the ATS, Soviet anti-aircraft gunners were regularly on combat duty. According to him, the personnel of the regiments served in the field, incredibly difficult conditions, in an atmosphere of high nervous tension, away from their homeland, without families, without vacations, with a minimum time for readiness to open fire.
Actions against multinational forces in Lebanon (1983-1984)
In 1982, an international peacekeeping group, consisting of US, French and other military personnel, landed in the city to monitor the withdrawal of Palestinian militias from Beirut. After the conclusion of the Israeli-Lebanese treaty and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Shuf region south of Beirut, a new round of Mountain War unfolded (Eng. mountain war) between the Lebanese army and the Syrian-backed Shia-Druze militias. In December 1983, in order to support the Lebanese army, the combined forces of the naval grouping of the United States, England, France, and Italy began a naval blockade of the coast of Lebanon.
Naval artillery, in cooperation with bomber aircraft, began to deliver massive strikes against Shiite and Druze militias and Syrian troops occupying defenses in the mountainous areas of Sanina, covering the Damascus-Beirut highway; even earlier, in November, air strikes were carried out on Syrian troops and the forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, who were in the Bekaa Valley. The Syrians launched a series of retaliatory strikes against the US naval group and their air defenses acted against carrier-based aircraft. On December 4, 1983, during an air raid on the positions of Syrian troops in Lebanon by the forces of the 3rd and 6th air wings, A-7 Corsair II and A-6 Intruder attack aircraft were destroyed by Soviet air defense fire - these were the first in ten years (since January 1973) US Navy carrier-based fighter-bomber losses since the Vietnam War.
According to G. Yashkin, in six days of active hostilities, the missilemen shot down nine American aircraft, including five A-6 Intruder, three F-14 Tomcat, one F-4 Phantom II, in addition, four Israeli and two French carrier-based Super tendard fighter. In air battles on the MiG-23MLD, Syrian pilots trained by the Soviet military shot down four Israeli aircraft - three F-15 Eagles and one F-14 Tomcat, without losing a single one of their own. Before the blockade, the Americans massively used AQM-34 unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, which patrolled over the positions of Syrian troops in Lebanon, as well as over Soviet air defense systems in Syria. Divisions of direct cover "Wasp" were shot down by eleven unmanned aircraft. The 202nd Srp reported the launch of an E-2 Hawkeye early warning aircraft at a range of 190 km, but neither the United States nor Israel confirmed the loss of aircraft of this type. At this, the flights of US and Israeli aircraft ceased - the task assigned to the anti-aircraft gunners was achieved.
After the landing of the multinational forces in Beirut, the Syrian Air Force provided direct assistance to the Palestinians, in parts of which there were Soviet advisers and specialists. Everything changed in January 1983, when the USSR sent three regiments of S-200 air defense systems to Syria: After the first activation of the S-200 locators, flights of early warning aircraft over Lebanon and along the Syrian border, and violations by unmanned aircraft by reconnaissance aircraft of the Syrian border ceased.
In February 1984, the Shiite and Druze detachments resumed hostilities in the Beirut region, and the Lebanese army began to fall apart, as a result, the multinational forces, having not achieved stabilization of the situation, were withdrawn from Beirut. After their departure, the presence of Soviet troops on Syrian territory lost relevance, and by July 1984 they were also returned to their homeland. At the same time, Soviet military specialists and advisers continued to work in the country. So, for example, in 1985-1986, at the request of President Assad, a group of specialists was in Syria, whose tasks included the search, neutralization and dismantling of electronic listening systems installed by Western intelligence. All of these listening devices were disguised as local objects and mined for non-removability. Attempts by the Syrians to remove some of them on their own ended tragically: several people died and were injured. As a result of the work of the Soviet group, under the leadership of an employee of the State Technical Commission, Captain 1st Rank A.F. Tokar, the main government and military communication lines were examined, more than ten listening devices of various modifications and markings were found and neutralized. For this work, all members of the group who participated in the operation were awarded Syrian awards.
In the fall of 1983, the Israelis withdrew their troops from their previously occupied positions, settling in southern Lebanon (where they were until 2000), the strategic initiative passed to Syria. The leadership of Syria, encouraged by the support of the Soviet Union, took advantage of the successes achieved in a peculiar way, moving from a dead defense to an “offensive” on the diplomatic front, and began to openly threaten Israel, and to reinforce their threats, in particular, by the fact that the Syrian press openly stated that behind Syria stands the entire Soviet nuclear missile potential. The leadership of the Soviet Union, which sent a contingent in order to stabilize the situation in the region, in order to balance the forces of the opposing sides, and did not set out to escalate the Arab-Israeli conflict with unpredictable consequences for the whole world, decided to withdraw regular Soviet troops, leaving only a group of advisers and specialists, significantly limited in number, sufficient to organize the defense of the country when Israeli aggression, but too small to ensure independent (offensive) actions of the Syrian troops. The decision of the Soviet leadership came as a complete surprise to the Syrian leadership and even caused some confusion. However, Moscow hastened to reassure Damascus, saying that the troops would remain until the summer of 1984. During this time, it was supposed to transfer all the materiel to the Syrian military personnel, and conduct the necessary retraining courses with them so that they mastered the Soviet equipment transferred to them. In July 1984, the entire personnel of regular Soviet military units left the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic. According to Colonel I. I. Teterev, who at that time commanded the 220th srp, his subordinates and colleagues completed their combat mission with honor. About 80% of officers, ensigns, soldiers and sergeants were awarded orders and medals of the SAR, many were awarded orders and medals of the USSR.
Peaceful Five Years in the Middle East (1985-1990)
Since 1985, the 30th Separate Naval Reconnaissance Aviation Regiment of the USSR Navy was relocated to Syria, at the Tifor airfield, after which regular sorties of Soviet Tu-16R air reconnaissance aircraft began to perform combat service in the Mediterranean Sea with the task of aerial reconnaissance and identifying areas of operation of aircraft carriers. formations and ship groups of the NATO Navy.
Gulf War (1990-1991)
In November 1990, a Soviet delegation headed by the Minister of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union D.T. Yazov came to Syria. The delegation included Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR - Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Air Defense Forces General of the Army I.M. Tretyak, Commander of the USSR Anti-Aircraft Missile Forces of the USSR Air Defense Colonel-General RS Akchurin and other high-ranking military officials. At that time, active preparations were underway in the region for Operation Desert Storm, in which Syria participated on the side of the US-led Multinational Force. The installation of the Soviet military advisers was given the following: to have the most information and not interfere in anything. Israeli UAVs continued to appear in Syrian airspace, which successfully shot down the air defense of the SAR with the help of the Soviet military.
Russian plane evacuated Ukrainians from Syria
The Il-76 aircraft of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations delivered 8 Ukrainians from Syria to Moscow along with...
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