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Six-Day War
eafh.com
The Six-Day War
In the 1967 Six-Day War the EAF was destroyed on the ground in mere hours after
Israel launched a surprise attack. Subsequently, the Soviets again sent a large
number of aircraft and trainers to Egypt in order to help revitalize the EAF.
On the 14th of July 1967, using what planes were left, the (EAF) launched a
strike on Israeli targets, located east of the Suez Canal, forcing the Israelis
to withdraw temporarily from the front line.
War of Attrition
Following the 1967 defeat, Egypt carried out a prolonged campaign of attrition
against Israel. The Egyptian Air Force applied the lessons it learnt earlier
from the Israelis. A 32-year-old deputy MiG-21 regiment commander who has been
flying since he was 15 recalls: "During the war of attrition, the Israeli air
force had a favorite ambush tactic", he told Aviation Week and Space Technology.
"They would penetrate with two aircraft at medium altitude where they would be
quickly picked up by radar, We would scramble four or eight to attack them. But
they had another dozen fighters trailing at extremely low altitude below radar
coverage. As we climbed to the attack they would zoom up behind and surprise us.
My regiment lost MiGs to this ambush tactic three times. But we learned the
lesson and practiced the same tactics. In the final fights over Deversoir, we
ambushed some Mirages the same way, and my own 'finger four' formation shot down
four Mirages with the loss of one MiG."
The 6th of October War
On the 6th of October of 1973, the EAF led a surprise attack across the Suez
Canal carrying out precision strikes and engaging in dogfights with the Israeli
Air Force. The EAF was the key to the success of the Egyptian crossing in the
6th of October War (also known as the Yom Kippur War). During the initial attack
the Israeli Air Force was ordered not to engage the EAF or get within 15 miles
of the Suez Canal to avoid the Egyptian SAM sites which were responsible for the
majority of Israeli aircraft losses during that war. At last light of the same
day, a force of 100 Mi-8 armed helicopters loaded with 18-man commando teams was
launched deep into Sinai to attack the Israeli-occupied oil fields and to
disrupt the flow of Israeli reinforcements heading for the Canal front by
interdicting one of the main roads by which Israeli reserve armor had to travel
to reach the Bar Lev Line.
Later in the course of the war, the EAF fought a series of defensive battles to
parry the offensive thrusts of the Israeli Air Force. On October 7, the Israeli
Air Force mounted a major attack on the Egyptian air force bases in the Nile
delta, using F-4 Phantoms, Skyhawks and Dassault-Breguet Mirages coming in from
the North at extremely low altitudes over the Mediterranean Sea. The Israelis
attacked in seven waves and penetrated to bomb a number of Egyptian air fields
and surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites.
In the 6th of October War, the EAF was under the command of Hosni Mubarak.
Although it performed better than in previous conflicts, out of some 650 planes
about 220 planes were destroyed. Most critical was the loss of frontline planes
such as the MIG-21 Fighter and the Ilyushin Il-28 jet bomber used for bombing
raids.
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