Operation Drugstore: The 1982 Air Battles Over the Bekaa Valley

In 1976, the Lebanese Civil War had been raging for a year when the Syrian military poured across the border into the region to ostensibly stabilize the situation. Securing the Bekaa Valley and the main Beirut-Damascus highway that crossed the central part of the country with massive numbers of troops and armor, soon the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and its Muslim allies in Lebanon were receiving support from the Syrians. To cover the Syrian left flank facing Israel, the Syrian 10th Armored Divsion was arrayed across the Bekaa Valley with three brigades of surface-to-air missile units to protect them from an Israeli attack. A total of 19 batteries covered the valley consisting of two SA-2 batteries, two SA-3 batteries, and fifteen new SA-6 batteries. During the next several years the Israelis provided support to the Christian factions in the civil war while maintaining a close eye on the strengthening Syrian integrated air defense system (IADS) that stretched across the Bekaa Valley. Overflights to pinpoint the SAM sites required use of Firebee recon drones due to the dense air defense network that the Syrians had established. In the late May to early June of 1982, the PLO conducted a 12-day artillery and rocket attack on northern Israel that resulted in 60 civilian casualties. The last straw for the Israelis came on 3 June when the PLO attempted to assassinate in London the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom.

On 6 June, seven Israeli mechanized divisions with 60,000 troops and 500 tanks crossed into southern Lebanon in three prongs- one up the coastal plain, one through the central mountains, and a third push into the Bekaa Valley to keep the Syrian 10th Armored Division from intervening against the Israeli right flank. On the first three days of the ground invasion, seven Syrian MiG fighters were shot down. By 8 June Israeli forward elements were at the entrance to the Bekaa Valley but weren't able to push any further north as the Syrian forces held steady under the protective umbrella of their IADS, denying close air support to the Israeli ground forces. For several weeks prior to the invasion, though, the IDF/AF had been planning to deal with the Syrian IADS umbrella over the Bekaa Valley. Years of meticulous reconnaissance and eavesdropping gave the IDF/AF the locations, operating frequencies and modes of the SAM batteries in the valley. Operation Drugstore was their plan for not just the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) but what was being called "DEAD"- destruction of enemy air defenses. This is what made Operation Drugstore a landmark operation in air combat- prior to 1982, suppression was the name of the game as it had been practiced in Vietnam by the United States- keep the enemy's heads down while strike packages went in and hit targets. For Israel, nothing less than the complete elimination of the Syrian IADS was acceptable- air superiority against the Syrian fighters was meaningless if the IADS prevented close air support from assisting the ground forces' objectives. 

The opening phase of Operation Drugstore saw large numbers of Delilah ground-launched drones being launched towards the Bekaa Valley, giving the impression of a large Israeli strike force. As the SAM batteries went active to engage what they thought were Israeli aircraft, battlefield surface-to-surface missiles were fired at each SAM battery. One of the missiles used was the Keres, which was an Israeli modification of the AGM-78 Standard anti-radiation missile used by Wild Weasel aircraft. The mobile launcher fired three Keres missiles and even a local modification of the smaller AGM-45 Shrike was used that added a second stage booster to allow a ground launch. In the first ten minutes of the operation, ten of the 19 batteries had been knocked out either due to missile hits or because they had run out of missiles engaging the Delilah drones. Four minutes later, the first wave of ground attack aircraft swept into the Bekaa Valley- 26 McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantoms and a similar number of IAI Kfir C2s, with the Phantoms using AGM-65 Maverick missiles as well as Shrike and Standard ARMs to hit the remaining SAM sites while the Kfirs targeted the control vans and storage areas of the missile sites. With no losses, a second wave of over forty A-4 Skyhawks and IAI Kfir C2s swept in attacking the SAM sites with cluster bombs while the F-4Es returned using laser-guided bombs against any surviving control vans. In just two hours, 17 of the 19 Syrian SAM sites had been destroyed. 

The next phase of Operation Drugstore saw Israeli strike aircraft next hit the Syrian mobile GCI (ground-controlled intercept) sites that provided directions to the Syrian MiG force. With the destruction of the GCI sites and their radars, the Syrian IADS was now blinded as F-15 Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcons established combat air patrols over the Bekaa Valley. The timing was perfect- as the Syrian commanders realized that their IADS umbrella was being systematically demolished, three squadrons of MiG-21s and MiG-23s were scrambled from their Syrian bases- it's estimated that up to sixty Syrian fighters raced to the Bekaa Valley where the F-15s and F-16s were waiting. They were tasked to hit the Israeli strike forces that were attacking the components of their IADS, but instead found that Israeli Grumman E-2 Hawkeyes orbiting over southern Lebanon had given the combat air patrols ample warning of the inbound MiGs. Because the Syrians relied on GCI controllers to provide them with vectors and targeting information, the loss of the GCI sites meant they were flying into the Bekaa Valley blind while the F-15s and F-16s' longer ranged radars already had them targeted. With communcations and radars being jammed, most of the Syrian MiGs never saw what hit them- ten MiG-21s fell within minutes. At the end of the day, only one F-15 had been hit, and the pilot managed to recover his Eagle safely to Ramat David AB in northern Israel. 

The following morning the last two Syrian SAM batteries were destroyed while the Syrians scrambled more MiG-21s and MiG-23s to make up for the previous day's losses. Since the MiG-23 Floggers were the most capable of the Syrian fighters, the F-15s were tasked with eliminating them and six were shot down in short order. As Israeli armored units engaged Syrian armor in the valley, two waves of Syrian Sukhoi Su-22 fighter bombers were sent into to attack the Israeli units, escorted by a squadron of MiG-21s. It was a turkey shoot as over 20 Syrian aircraft were shot down by the Israeli fighters patrolling the skies of the Bekaa Valley. The Syrians then tried to send in anti-tank Gazelle helicopters to go after the Israeli armor and those were shot down as well. 

11 June was the last day of continuous fighting as a cease fire was to go into effect later than day. Hoping to stave off defeat and entering the ceasefire at a disadvantage, the Syrians poured their MiG-23 Floggers into the battle against the F-15s and F-16s, leaving the MiG-21s to escort the strike version of the Flogger, the MiG-23BN. Several Syrian MiG-25 Foxbats made high altitude runs over the Bekaa Valley, hoping to distract the Israeli fighters into looking "upward", distracted from the inbound MiG-23s. At lower altitudes, two waves of Syrian MiG-23BNs would attempt to hit the Israeli armored units once again where the Sukhois had failed the previous day. The Syrian fighter sweep failed as their presence was once again known thanks to the E-2 Hawkeyes. Six Floggers were shot down in their first pass over the valley. Another six MiG-21s were shot down as well and the MiG-23BN attacks had little effect on the Israeli positions. 

By the time of the ceasefire took effect, the Syrians lost 30% of their air force in just one week of fighting for a total of 88 aircraft shot down. Of those 88 kills, 44 belonged to F-15 Eagles and 33 belonged to F-16s. Israeli losses have never been fully admitted, but it's believed to include one F-16, one F-4E, one Kfir C2, two A-4s and several helicopters. Following the battle in the skies over the Bekaa Valley, the Israeli Defense Forces Air Force (IDF/AF) was secretly debriefed by US military experts from the US Air Force and other branches of the military. The lessons gleaned from Operation Drugstore would strongly influence Coalition tactics on the opening night of Operation Desert Storm. In what was called "Poobah's Party" (from the callsign of Brigadier General Larry Henry, a leading USAF tactician and expert on air defenses), approximately one-hundred drones were fired from ground sites in Saudi Arabia to trigger the Iraqi IADS into action to they could be targeted for destruction by Coalition air assets. With the stealthy Lockheed F-117A Nighthawks going "downtown" to Baghdad to take out the command and control centers of the IADS, individual radar and SAM sites then were left on their own to find their own targets in the midst of some intense jamming. Iraqi radar sites could burn through the jamming, and when they did, they detected the drones of Poobah's Party. Sites that hadn't expended their missiles on the drones found themselves targeted by F-4G Wild Weasels. 

Source: F-15 Eagle Engaged: The World's Most Successful Fighter by Steve Davies and Doug Dildy. Osprey, 2007, p146-147. Photos: Wikipedia, USAF Featured Art Gallery

Operation Teaball: Network-Centric Real-Time Intelligence During Vietnam

In 1972, US fighters had an added resource in the fight against MiGs

In past blog posts I've discussed some of the measures taken by the military to reverse the decline in air combat proficiency in the skies over Vietnam. This past November I had blogged about the origins of Red Flag as well as the top secret USAF program to obtain and fly MiGs. Back in March I wrote about the US Navy's own efforts that began with the Ault Report. While these were all steps that would benefit fighter pilots in the skies over Vietnam, there was another effort that took place that has received scant attention in the history books and presaged today's military buzzword of "network-centric" warfare. Between the bombing halt of 1968 and the start of the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive in 1972, air combat over North Vietnam was nearly non-existent. With the start of the NVA offensive in 1972, though, President Nixon reversed the gradual drawdown of US forces in Southeast Asia with a massive buildup and bombing offensive under Operation Linebacker I and Linebacker II. With the ramp up of offensive air strikes on North Vietnam, US aircrews found themselves embroiled in multiplane dogfights that were resulting in growing US losses. In the three months following the start of Linebacker in May 1972, the US lost 48 aircraft, 21 to VNAF MiGs and 27 to improved ground defenses. In the same period, only 31 MiGs were shot down by US aircraft and things worsened in the summer with 13 US aircraft lost to MiGs and only 11 MiGs shot down. 

At the same time, the policy of rotation of air crews meant that experienced personnel were rotated out of combat and replaced with novice air crews on their first combat tour. In the days before Red Flag and dissimilar air combat training, the loss rate of first tour air crews was staggering enough the General John Vogt, commander of the Seventh Air Force which oversaw combat air operations in Southeast Asia, ordered the minutes of mission critique conferences to be disseminated to all units in theater, not just the units involved. But it wasn't enough for General Vogt. He reported to the USAF Chief of Staff, General John Ryan, that the US was losing the air war over Vietnam in 1972. As a result, General Ryan ordered his staff to create a plan to assist US pilots in the skies over Vietnam- no studies, no plans, but what General Ryan wanted was something in place that could offset the fact that the VNAF MiG pilots were battle-experienced and had excellent GCI controllers who could relay the MiG air crews detailed descriptions of the tactical situation. 

General John Vogt, commander USAF Seventh Air Force

Ryan tasked a three-man "action group" with setting something up- USAF officers Lt. Col. William Kirk and Maj. Ernie Short teamed up with Delmar Lang, an intelligence specialist with the National Security Agency. Lang was brought in as he had several times in the years prior repeated offered to set up an eavesdropping facility that could listen in on the communications between the VNAF MiG pilots and their GCI controllers to provide real time information to US pilots. Lang's idea had historical precedence- during the Korean War, the USAF had a listening post on the island of Cho-do off the coast of Korea that was staffed with linguists and air control specialists that would listen in on North Korean, Chinese, and Russian communications to give US pilots a real-time picture of what was going on in "MiG Alley". Since the Korean War, the pace of technological progress in electronic and signals intelligence (ELINT and SIGINT) improved by leaps and bounds, but national security and a variety of compartmentalized secret programs kept many of these new methods out of sight to those on the front line. Delmar Lang's NSA position, however, coupled with the access given Lt. Col. Kirk and Maj. Short, intended to cut through the institutional resistance to using those technological resources to win the war in the skies of over Vietnam. 

On 26 July 1972, literally in just one month, General Ryan's "action group" set up the Operation Teaball Weapons Control Center at the Thai air base of Nakhon Phanom (nicknamed "Naked Fanny" by US pilots). Working with the intelligence specialists of the USAF's 6908th Security Squadron, the Teaball control room had map displays where data from a variety of intelligence sources already in place was collected and synthesized to form a single tactical picture that could be disseminated to US pilots in real time by specialist ground controllers. Orbiting high over the Gulf of Tonkin and Laos, specialist ELINT/SIGINT RC-135s listened in on communications between MiG pilots and their GCI controllers- this data was then relayed to a Lockheed U-2 orbiting high overhead that then relayed the information direct to the Teaball control center at Nakhon Phanom. Ground and ship-based (like "Red Crown" in the Gulf of Tonkin) radar pictures were added to refine the tactical picture. Finally, radar and SIGINT data from specialist EC-121s- such as the famous radar early warning EC-121 that used the call sign "Disco"- was also relayed to the Teaball specialists as well. Also little known was a US capability to trigger the IFF systems of the MiGs so they could be easily tracked. The stream of data from all these sources made use of a top-secret NSA computer system called "Ironhorse" that was designed to analyze and synthesize all the data to create a cohesive tactical picture that was then displayed on the map screens for the Teaball controllers to relay via another radio relay RC-135 to US pilots over North Vietnam. Once the system was up and running, the delay was as little as 45 to 60 seconds before the Teaball controllers were issuing advisories to US pilots!

"Combat Lightning" was one many specialist KC-135 variants used

Each combat air crew, regardless of service branch, were notified of a discrete UHF channel to monitor that advisories from the Teaball control center were broadcast. Teaball controllers also knew the call signs of each and every combat mission for that day going into North Vietnam. Positions of VNAF MiGs were given in relation to a notional point called the "Bull's Eye" which was Hanoi. Distance and bearing from the Bull's Eye was given and air crews often programmed the Bull's Eye into their aircraft's own navigational equipment. "Blue Bandits" were MiG-21s, "White Bandits" were MiG-19s, and "Red Bandits" were MiG-17s. The code word "Green Bandit" indicated an exceptionally experienced VNAF MiG pilot was airborne. "Heads up" meant MiGs were nearby. Teaball controllers and analysts noted that certain combat flights were targeted especially heavily by the MiGs at times, and these US air crews were designated "Queen for a Day". A Teaball controller might inform a flight of F-4s about "Red Bandits, 25 miles SE of Bull's Eye, heading NE 300 knots" over a designated UHF channel. In effect, the Teaball controller acted as a GCI controller for the US pilots, constantly feeding them information on the position and action of any MiGs nearby to allow the US pilots to exploit the situation.

Lt. Col. Kirk briefed every unit that was flying combat missions over Vietnam and warned them explicitly "Pay attention when I call you on that channel!" Within the first month of Operation Teaball's operation, American fighters had moved from a 1:1 kill ratio to a 3:1 ratio and by the end of the Linebacker operations, the ratio had risen to 4:1 in favor of US air crews. The system saved many an air crew's life in the skies over North Vietnam, to the point that inbound flights often checked in with the Teaball control center once they had taken off to be sure they had their call signs!

Operation Teaball was one of the earliest and most successful uses of data fusion and what today we would call "network-centric" warfare- to use diverse data collection sources fused together to give situational awareness to our men and women in combat. It was the first time that such diverse sources of intelligence that were once the sole realm of distant analysts in the United States were used to deliver real-time actionable information to win battles. 

Sources: The Linebacker Raids: The Bombing of North Vietnam, 1972 by John T. Smith. Arms and Armour, 1998, p95-97. Air Force Magazine, July 2008, Volume 91, Number 7. "The Teaball Tactic" by Walter Boyne.

How A Top Secret Program Restored American Air Superiority

At the height of the Vietnam War, the skies were filled with technologically-advanced American aircraft from both the US Navy and the USAF, yet the air battles were a thread-bare echo of past glories in the 1950s skies over Korea's MiG Alley. By 1967 the Navy had a kill ratio of only 3.7 to 1 (3.7 MiG kills for every Navy fighter lost to a MiG) and the USAF was even worse, with a kill ratio of only 2.2 to 1. By comparison, at the end of the Korean War, the USAF pilots of the North American F-86 Sabre alone had a kill ratio of 10 to 1. While various studies and reports like the Navy's Ault Report offered many suggestions, the basic fact of the matter was that the art of dogfighting as a skill had been lost. In the USAF, for instance, the solution in the 1960s to an increasing accident rate in the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II was to simply ban air combat maneuvering training (ACM)- the accident rate fell, but legions of Air Force Phantom drivers entered the skies of Vietnam with little experience in knowing that their aircraft could and couldn't do in a dogfight with North Vietnamese MiGs. While a the solutions that eventually restored American supremacy in the skies are complex and beyond the scope of today's blog post, the foundations were being laid down in the black world in the latter half of the 1960s. 

The story begins on 16 August 1966 in the Middle East. Operation Rolling Thunder, the sustained air bombardment of North Vietnam, had begun the year prior and would continue until 1968. Monir Radfa, an Iraqi Air Force captain, took off in his Mikoyan MiG-21F from Rashid AB outside of the Iraqi capital for what was supposed to be a local navigation exercise. Instead, he made a dash to the southwest at low level, intending to defect to Israel. The Jordanians failed to intercept him as he streaked low across their country, the RJAF's Hawker Hunters too slow at low level. Once over Israel, he lowered his landing gear and wagged his wings to two intercepting Israeli Mirage III fighters, signaling his intentions and was escorted to Hatzor AB and given asylum. With the MiG-21 being one of the most potent fighters in the Arab air forces that threatened Israel, they immediately set about flight testing the MiG-21 for over 100 hours over the next 12 months, learning its strengths and weaknesses and teaching the Mirage III pilots (the French delta was the main fighter of the IDF in those days) how to defeat the MiG in a dogfight. Initially hesitant to share its prize with the United States, Israel eventually concluded an agreement brokered by the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to loan the MiG-21 to the US for study in exchange for being allowed to buy the F-4 Phantom II, the American front-line fighter of the day. At the time the Israelis had made several overtures to the Johnson Administration to purchase the Phantom, only to be rebuffed out of a fear by President Johnson of escalating matters in the Middle East. Now that the Israelis had leverage, the Phantoms would be on their way and the US would finally get to study its vaunted adversary in the skies of Vietnam up close. 

The MiG was disassembled and transported by a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy to the USAF's secret testing base at Groom Lake, Nevada (Area 51). Responsibility for evaluation of the MiG-21 was given to the USAF's Foreign Technology Division (FTD) that was part of the Air Force Systems Command based at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. AFSC assigned all of its programs with the code word prefix "HAVE". For example, the original stealth demonstrator aircraft that gave rise to the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk was code named "HAVE BLUE". In the case of the MiG-21 on loan from Israel, it was code named "HAVE DOUGHNUT". Two categories of flight testing were performed on the MiG- the first type concerned technical analysis- performance, flight envelope, engineering, structures, and so on. The second part of the tests were operational- the MiG would be flown in mock dogfights against US fighter aircraft. Because AFSC/FTD's emphasis was technical in nature, most of the HAVE DOUGHNUT flying concerned technical analysis. 

The first flight out of Groom Lake took place in January 1968 and continued until April of that year before the MiG was returned to Israel. For three intensive months, the MiG was flown in various profiles to determine how it could be detected by both radar and infrared systems, it flew against the bombers of the Strategic Air Command to see how well the bombers' systems could detect and counter it, and infrared signature tests were carried out using a specially-fitted T-39 Sabreliner that could mount the seeker heads of various missiles in the US inventory. Out of a total of 102 sorties flown as part of HAVE DOUGHNUT, 33 sorties were devoted to operational testing in mock dogfights with the USAF and 25 sorties were devoted to mock dogfights with the Navy. 

Not four months after the end of HAVE DOUGHNUT, two Syrian MiG-17Fs on a navigation exercise got lost and inadvertently landed at an Israeli air base. Acquisition of the MiG-17s was of high importance to the United States as the MiG-17, though slow and dated, was nimble and the main adversary type encountered in the skies of Vietnam. Though limited to subsonic performance, VNAF MiG-17s were flying circles around American fighter pilots leading to the dismal kill ratios I mentioned above. After testing by the Israelis, the two MiG-17s were then turned over to the United States for analysis. The first MiG-17 made its first US flight at Groom Lake in January 1969 with the code name HAVE DRILL. The second MiG-17 then flew in March of that year with the code name HAVE FERRY. Both programs wound down by June 1969 and the findings were shared with the Navy's new TOPGUN school that was established to reintroduce dogfighting skills to Navy pilots. In addition, the findings of HAVE DOUGHNUT, HAVE DRILL, and HAVE FERRY were shared with the instructors at the USAF's Fighter Weapons School at Nellis AFB, Nevada, where they would go on to establish the Red Flag exercises. 

On 25 November 1969 a Cambodian Khmer Air Force pilot defected to South Vietnam in the Chinese copy of the MiG-17F, the Shenyang J-5. The USAF pilot who flew the MiG-17 in HAVE FERRY and HAVE DRILL, Col. Wendell Shawler, was tapped by the AFSC/FTD to go to South Vietnam and make several evaluation flights of the J-5 to establish that it had the same flight characteristics as the MiG-17. This short program of just five flights from Phu Cat AB in South Vietnam was code named HAVE PRIVILEGE. 

As a result of these four top secret exploitation programs, both USAF and Navy fighter tactics were changed and pilots were once again trained to exact as much capability and performance out of the aircraft as possible to win the dogfight. It wasn't until 1989 that a Pentagon official confirmed that in the 1981 combat of two US Navy F-14 Tomcats versus two Libyan Sukhoi Su-17 fighters over the Gulf of Sidra that the tactics used had been developed out of mock combat testing with US-operating Soviet fighters. Not long afterwards, HAVE DOUGHNUT, HAVE DRILL, HAVE FERRY, and HAVE PRIVILEGE were declassified. What didn't get mentioned was that a much bigger program succeeded those programs and would remain top secret for 20 years! But more on that program in a future blog post! 

Source: Red Eagles: America's Secret MiGs by Steve Davies. Osprey Publishing, 2008, p16-20.

In 1962, the 204th IAP (fighter regiment) of the Yugoslav Air Force and Air Defense at Batajnica AB near Belgrade had the unique distinction of being the only European unit during the Cold War to operate both Soviet and US aircraft. The unit had been operating F-86 Sabres obtained as part of Marshall Tito's break from the Soviet Union but in 1962 took delivery of its first MiG-21s as they started converting to the Russian fighter.

Source: Air Forces Monthly, January 2009. "MiG-21s Over Europe, Part Two" by Holger Mueller, p80.