Mi-25 vs. F-4
Iraq’s overlaims for the numbers of Iranian aircraft shot down in air combats and by air defences was characteristic for this war; many Iranian reports were not much better. But, the most controversial of all the Iraqi claims ever was published on 27 October by the Iraqi magazine “Baghdad Observer,” a publication controlled by the Iraqi regime and targeting Western reporters. In the report with the title “The Day of the Helicopter Gunship” an air battle was briefly described that supposedly developed several days earlier, and in which one Mi-24 Hind attack helicopter had shot down an Iranian F-4 Phantom. According to the “Baghdad Observer,” the engagement happened “north of the Eyn-e Khosh area” and the Phantom was destroyed by a “next generation, long-range, AT-6 Sprial ATGM,” fired by a Mi-24 helicopter specially prepared and brought to Iraq by the Soviets in order to test the AT-6 missile in the air-to-air mode.
Ever since, this claim has been making rounds in various Western, Ukrainian, and Russian publications. In general, this claim has widely been accepted as “authentic,” and was considered as “confirmed” even by observers with considerable knowledge about helicopters and anti-armour warfare, or former dignitaries of the Soviet Air Force and airspace industry. Most Russian and Ukrainian observers use it to “confirm” the capabilities and firepower of the Mi-24 attack helicopter and the AT-6 missile, even if very few people know anything about the background of the claim, or its initial source, while others are obviously ignoring these, while maintaining that the claim was confirmed by “US intelligence.”
Significantly, even Western armoured warfare experts who are usually sceptical to accept any kind of “Arab” claims – especially for destroying such an advanced product of Western technology like an F-4 Phantom II fighter-bomber – have shown more than ready to accept that this incident really happened. Considering the number of sources and their authoritativeness, it seems therefore not easy to dispute anything in this context. Under closer scrutiny, the reality turned out to be completely different and this case illustrates once more how poorly the air war between Iraq and Iran has been researched so far.
The more one looks into this case, the more evidence there appears to be that there was no engagement between Iraqi Mi-25s and Iranian Phantoms – at least with the claimed result – in the time and place stated. On the contrary – it appears that the actual source for all the publications which so far mentioned this claim – regardless of being Western or East European sources – is the same: the report of the Washington based “Foreign Broadcast Information Service” (FBIS), which repeated the claim of the Baghdad Observer on the page E 2 of its Communiqué No. 885, FBIS-MEA-82-209, from 28 October 1982.
Even if originally established by the CIA, FBIS is no “US intelligence,” but rather a service compiling reports from all possible foreign media sources and broadcasts, and reporting these to different US services, government agencies, and branches of military. FBIS neither confirms nor denies reports it is forwarding: it simply reports what was reported by somebody else. This is frequently ignored, especially by an increasing number of research works published in recent years, many of which meanwhile explain that this air battle actually happened on 27 October 1982 - that means, on the same date which the claim had actually been published for the first time in Baghdad Observer, which in turn obviously described that the engagement had happened several days earlier!
Actually, ever since that report was published for the first time in the Baghdad Observer, no new details about this engagement appeared: no gun-camera footage (all Iraqi Mi-25s, and all Soviet Mi-24s were equipped with gun-cameras), no narratives by the (unknown) pilots who supposedly managed that feat (especially surprising, given the fact that the crew of the scoring Mi-24 should have been Russian), not even a closer description of how this engagement developed; nothing, except some rumours from Russia, that this battle “must have happened,” if for no other reason, then because the Soviets and Iraqis had supposedly organised a party to celebrate this success several days before the report in Baghdad Observer was published.
Research about theoretical possibility that the Soviets might have deployed some AT-6-equipped Mi-25s to Iraq brought no positive results whatsoever. As revealed earlier, the Iraqis never got any AT-6s. Furthermore, while both the Iranians, and later the US forces during the Second Persian Gulf War, in 1991, have captured hundreds of Iraqi ATGMs, including such Western products as Milan, HOT, AS.11, and AS.12, or Soviet-produced AT-2s, AT-3s, and AT-4s – no AT-6s, nor any traces of them in the Iraqi military, were ever captured or found. In addition, during the early 1980s, the Soviet Air Force was so short of Mi-24s due to the war in Afghanistan, and under such pressure to field as many Mi-24s as possible with units facing the NATO, that deliveries of Mi-25s to Iraq slipped badly behind the schedule. At one point the Soviets were forced to even take several East German Mi-24s, which were in the USSR for refurbishment, and press them to service in Afghanistan! When these helicopters were returned to their owners, a number of them had been found having patched-up bullet holes in the fuselage.
It should be remembered that in 1982 relations between Moscow and Baghdad were not close enough for the Soviets to consider sending one of their most important weapons to Iraq. Particualarly as they were already working on using the R-60 (ASCC-Code: AA-8 Aphid) short-range air-to-air missile as the main air-to-air weapon for the Mi-24, because they were well aware that the AT-6 could not be used in that role: the version available at the time – the 9M114 (AT-6A) – was so poorly manufactured that it constantly failed even when tested under ideal conditions.
This fact was confirmed by a series of tests conducted by the US Army on the Aberdeen Proving Grounds during the 1980s and 1990s under the code-name Passive Nova 1, 2, and 3, respectively, and using a total of 120 AT-6s clandestinely purchased from different East European sources. Conducted by top US Army personnel, expertly trained in the use of Soviet-produced weapons systems, these tests showed that only four out of 100 AT-6s fired against targets moving at speeds of up to 15km/h would score a hit and destroy the target. The testing against stationary targets ended with only slightly better results, as only eleven out of 100 AT-6s would hit and destroy the target – and that while being fired from a fixed tower, not from a helicopter diving at high speed and flown by a crew under stress and in hurry! US Army personnel concluded from the tests that the most reliable part of the AT-6 was the warhead (despite its small diameter) and that the weapon was highly efficient – if it managed to score a hit, which, however, would did not happen very often. In short, not only that these facts completely contradict Russian sources which claim a hit probability of 70-80% for the AT-6, but - statistically - there is also no possibility that the AT-6A could hit a target moving at 350-500 knots while fired from a helicopter which is also moving. As a matter of fact, the claimed hit probability of 70-80% for the AT-6 is probably valid only for the AT-6B and AT-6C versions, and only for rounds fired during the trials in the later 1990s. In 1994, the Russians have completely rebuilt and upgraded their whole remaining stock of AT-6-missiles. Obviously, they have had good reasons to do so!
Some East European sources seem to have known this, and therefore they claimed that the Mi-24 scored this kill using unguided rockets and machine-guns, instead of AT-6s. Albeit, the same sources stated that this happened on 27 October 1982, which is actually the date on which the initial claim was published by the Baghdad Observer. Therefore, and as the same sources have not offered any additional details about this engagement, but have also added quite a few other mistakes, there is a credible doubt about the quality of research these sources have completed about the air war between Iraq and Iran at all. In another case, there is a claim that the kill was actually scored by the AT-4 “Fagot” ATGM, a weapon indeed delivered to the Iraqi Army by the Soviets. The fact is, however, that the IrAAC had given up all efforts to mount the AT-4 on its Mi-8 or Mi-24 helicopters, for reasons mentioned above.
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