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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Recommend with some reservation, March 11, 2005
This is a book that provided additional information on Iranian F-14s, a topic that is rarely covered. Cooper and Bishop provided perspectives from Iranian pilots, views that are essentially ignored because these neither fit general military analysis, Iraq POV, nor the official Iranian government positions. Anyone who studied or read air combat accounts knows that, there are always uncertainties on air combat records, whether it's due to propaganda or fog of war. You usually have to look at stories from different sides to get a more complete picture. Therefore, Cooper and Bishop's efforts are greatly appreciated, even if they are not verifiable or totally correct (and with obvious Iranian pilot bias - not necessarily a bad thing if you know that upfront).
Having said that, I'd like to provide some additional info in response to Mr. Forczyk's review (even though I'm not military intelligence officer like him). The attitude from Cooper stems from the fact that he and Bishop's works are often belittled and ridiculed by others, including US military aviators. This bounds to make a person unhappy, especially when there are declassified US government documents to support some of his claims. Although Mr. Forczyk raised some reasonable doubts, such as no independent verification of these accounts and no details explaination about sources, I think he forgets that this is supposed to be an original work with first-hand sources. It's hardly surprising that this account is different from the Iranian government's account, since there is politic involved (FYI, Bishop and Cooper's work appears to be banned or at least unwelcomed by Iranian government). Saying "These are the same guys who lie to the world every day about their nuclear program, isn't it?" doesn't make much sense. What does Iranian government's nuclear program and propaganda has anything to do with the words of pilots their government dislike? Having contacts with former Iranian air force pilots (some no longer in Iran) is not the same as "pretty cozy with the Iranian Government", I don't think that's a right assumption.
Furthermore, I think it is a big jump to say that F-14's superior performance in Iraq-Iran war is impossible because otherwise Iran would have won by aerial bombing. The way Iraq and Iran used air power is very different from US traditional thinking (especially the post Desert Storm type). Air power simply isn't a decisive factor in Iraqi and Iranian minds, Saddam didn't say "Air Force has never been a decisive factor in the history of wars" without reason. During the Iraq-Iran war, Iraq perfected the underground and passive defense. Able to shoot down enemy aircraft in some air combats doesn't guarantee that you have impressive SEAD capability, and Iran certainly did not have US technology advantages displayed during Desert Storm. Mr. Forczyk forgets that Iran and Iraq both used Ballistic missiles to bomb each other's cities, that didn't have any cease fire effects. So why should F-14s, F-4, and F-5 with limited load and no PGM able to achieve greater results, given the air defense threats? Given these questionable assumptions, I think Mr. Forczyk's two stars is a bit unfair to the authors.
In sum, I'd say this book is certainly worth a look for anyone interested in F-14 or Iraq/Iran war, even though you may not accept all of its views. I give this book 3.5 stars - One for stuffing a lot of interesting info in a small book, one for interesting/rare photos, one for originality and going into a relatively untouched subject, and another half star for its potential value (if most content prove to be true...)
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Recently Republished? , July 9, 2009
(Updated 8/2/2009) When I looked at this item in July 2009 it was unavailable, but copies were going used for over $70.00. I pleaded for Osprey to republish the book. Now, in August 2009, new copies are available again. Thanks, Osprey & Amazon!
The information in this book simply isn't available elsewhere. If you are looking for narrative descriptions of the Tomcat in action, then you will find more examples in this book than anywhere else. I can remember that even in the 1980s the U.S. Department of Defense took the position that it was doubtful that Iran could field any airworthy F-14 Tomcats due to the unavailability of replacement parts. This book completely refutes that statement. According to this book, Iran fielded combat-ready Tomcats for at least 20 years after the United States cut off suport following the 1978 revolution. The Tomcat performed a crucial role in the air defense of Iran throughout the various Iran/Iraq conflicts, serving not just as a fighter but also as an ad-hoc AWACS platform.
During a trip last year to the Davis-Monthan aircraft boneyard outside of Tucson, Arizona, I saw that all of the non-museum Tomcats are being sliced up to make sure that Iran can't get parts. This is a shame, and it's like closing the barndoor after the horse has escaped. Iran developed a domestic avionics industry in large part to produce domestically the spare parts needed to keep its Western-bloc aircraft flying. For all its anti-Israel rhetoric, throughout the conflicts with Iraq, Iran kept a backchannel trade with Israel for parts and expertise that were withheld by the United States, but as time went on support through Israel became less and less necessary. (As I was writing this update 8/2009, I did a quick web search. Apparently there have been recent confirmed sitings of Iranian F-14s in the air, seeming to confirm to a degree that Iran is able to produce or procure the parts they need despite the US ban.)
I want to add one final thing. The author uses pseudonyms to refer to the various aviators who contribute their stories. Presumably, everchanging political winds in Iran make it impossible to get the participants to talk with attribution under their real names. Unfortunately, that makes it difficult to verify any of the combat narratives in the book. The reader can choose to believe them or not.
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26 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Is it Fact, Fantasy or Disinformation?, February 27, 2005
Writing about a secretive institution like the Islamic Republic of Iran's Air Force (IRIAF) and the performance of its American-built F-14 fighters in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War would probably be considered a futile exercise by most authors without access to classified information. Certainly analyzing the contradictory and often ridiculous military press releases by the Iranian and Iraqi Governments or ill-informed media accounts at that time would provide little useful material. However, aviation enthusiasts Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop, armed with "excellent contacts in Iran" and with former Iranian fighter pilots abroad, feel that they have the necessary information to write an accurate history of the Iranian F-14s in the 1980-88 War. At first glance, this volume in Osprey's Combat Aircraft series seems pretty exciting, given the paucity of information upon this still-relevant aircraft. However, readers who reflect upon the lack of bona fide sources provided and the difficulty in extracting military information from a repressive society like Iran may walk away with the conclusion that something is pretty fishy here.
For some reason, the authors leave the most telling statement until the last few pages: "It remains unclear exactly how many air-to-air kills were scored by IRIAF [Iran Air Force] F-14s between 7 September 1980 and 7 July 1988, as Air Force records were repeatedly tampered with during and after the war, mainly for political, religious or personal reasons. This has led to considerable confusion." The authors of this volume claim that Iranian F-14s had 159 "confirmed kills" during the Iran-Iraq War, but admits that a post-war conference in Tehran said that the F-14s only scored 24 "confirmed kills" with 6 other "probables." The authors also admit that other sources suggest numbers somewhere in between 30 and 150, which is a pretty huge range of discrepancy. The authors provide an appendix with a breakdown of all "confirmed" Iranian F-14 kills; according to this table, Iranian F-14s shot down 50 of Iraq's 285 fighters (17.5%) in the first three months of the war, for no loss of their own. The authors also claim that one Iranian F-14 shot down four Iraqi fighters with a single Phoenix missile! Sorry, if you want to try and make claims like that, you had better have more than "Major Ali's word on it." These are the same guys who lie to the world every day about their nuclear program, isn't it?
Throughout the volume, the authors make the repeated claim that the US military was in a state of denial about the true performance of Iranian F-14 fighters, but that they have the unvarnished truth from some unnamed, former Iranian pilots, somewhere, sometime. I kept wondering - as I'm sure many readers will - who are these authors and how did they get this information? Farzad Bishop's bio states that he is an Iranian-born aviation analyst with "unique personal experiences and encounters" and that Austrian-born Tom Cooper has established "excellent contacts with many informed sources in Iran." This means that these guys must be pretty cozy with the Iranian Government. Given the difficulty of Westerners acquiring reliable military-related information from within the Islamic Republic of Iran, these authors owe the reading public more of an explanation of how this data was acquired. Researchers will find this work virtually useless since it lacks any kind of references, other than a "wink, wink...we got this information on the sly from sources that cannot be revealed" or "Major Ali told us..." At best, this volume is more like military gossip, than military history. At worst, this volume might be a conduit for Iranian Government-sponsored disinformation.
If one accepts any of the number of kills provided, one wonders why the Iranians let the war drag on for eight grueling years if they had such an awesome weapon. If a handful of F-14s could shoot down nearly one-fifth of the Iraqi Air Force in the first few months of the war while on the defensive, what might they have accomplished on the offensive? Why didn't the IRIAF use its F-14 fighters to escort F-4 and F-5 fighter-bombers and bomb the heck out of Baghdad every day until Saddam asked for a ceasefire? While the IRIAF lacked heavy bombers, even their aircraft could carry sufficient bombs to cause considerable havoc in downtown Baghdad. Simple answer: they didn't because they couldn't.
This volume also has a subtle but considerable anti-US bias. While the authors never mention the cause of US animosity toward Iran - the 1979-1980 Hostage crisis brought about by Iran - they suggest that difficulties in acquiring spare parts for the F-14s was caused by US pique or neglect. The authors make a number of silly claims about US Navy ships assisting Iraqi air strikes that seem to come straight from the Iranian Propaganda Ministry. Furthermore, despite that fact that hundreds of American technicians were in Iran to support the F-14 program in 1976-1979, the authors seem to have made no effort to interview Americans about the performance of Iranian F-14s. The authors constantly suggest that the US military under-rated the performance and ability of Iranian F-14s, but ignore the fact that US Air Force AWACS were probably tracking most air combat over the Persian Gulf during the war and probably had as good a picture of air combat results - if not better - than the Iranians themselves. The disinformation content in this volume surfaces when readers are supposed to trust unnamed Iranian sources more than radar plots and intercepts of "cockpit chatter." When all is said and done with this volume, the actual contribution of the Iranian F-14s in the Iran-Iraq War is unclear.
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